Just recently I came across this fascinating story, which is especially valuable to those among you who read or chant Pali texts: Dhammaruwan Story: Dhammaruwan was born in a small village near Kandy, Sri Lanka in November 1968. From the…
A story from the Pali canon: “The wise teachers of old, however, used manual work to break strong obsessions. This is how the story goes: A young monk called “Tissa” lived together with his preceptor in the Tissamahavihara monastery. It…
One of the better-known parts of the famous 5th century Buddhist compendium “Path to Purity” by the scholar monk and commentator Ven. Buddhaghosa deals with concentration meditation and the steps necessary to get meditation instructions from an experienced teacher. The…
How are the five precepts, kamma from this and past lives, and vipassana all related to each other? Actually, it seems like they really are, in a very intriguing way, and in this post we will explain how. But first…
There is one major misconception in current mainstream understanding of Buddhism (if there is such a thing 🙂 ) IMHO, brought about by a rather misconceived interpretation of one very important and frequent term in the discourses of the Buddha,…
Normally, when we talk about the world, we think of mountains, oceans, rivers, valleys, towns, transportation, globalization, earth, planets, the universe. When the Buddha spoke about “the world” he had something else in mind: As he was sitting there, he…
If you are a monk, I guess you do not read (online). But if you do, this text was written exactly for you 🙂 In 100 BC Buddhist monks faced a tough question: “Should we preferably memorize and thus keep…
There are a couple of instances in the Pitaka where the Buddha compares our moment-to-moment experience (zoom out and you would call it “life”) with a swift river. In some similes he compares our journey from Samsara to Nibbana as…
Even at the Buddha’s time, insight meditators went through times of doubt regarding their meditation practice. In the following case, one monk thought he might simply ask his fellow monks how they practice and solve his own uncertainty. Unfortunately, they…
The story of the elder Mahāmitta: The elder Mahāmitta, as they say, dwelled in the “plougher cave”. Close to the cave was a little village where he went for alms. An old lady cared for him like her own son…