Mūlapariyāya Sutta – Majjhima Nikāya, All objects of the mind are called ‘dhammā’ – ‘things’. So you may note first of all that the problem concerns those things that come to the mind. About this …
The purpose of this book is threefold. Firstly it aims to critically examine Christianity and thereby highlight the logical, philosophical and ethical problems in Christian dogma. In doing this I hope to be able to …
I am humbly aware of the magnitude of the task I have before me of presenting a picture of the Buddhist outlook and the beliefs which have shaped it; yet this I must do to the best of my ability, because the doctrines of Buddhism are inextricably woven into the pattern of Buddhist thought; and if I am to explain to you the Buddhist attitude to life and to the problems that confront mankind today, I must begin by acquainting you, at least in outline, with thefundamental tenets of this religion known to the West as Buddhism, but which we Buddhists prefer to call the Buddha Dhamma.
The Supreme Buddha’s Teaching is for all times and all men. It is capable of bringing peace, happiness and prosperity to our troubled world. As the humble spokesman of millions of Buddhists I earnestly entreat that all men of understanding and good will here present will weigh in their hearts the things I have said and form their own judgement as to whether they are true, reasonable and good. The Buddha himself did not ask more than that. May all beings be happy !
Dependent arising (paticcasamuppada) is the central principle of the Buddha’s teaching, constituting both the objective content of its liberating insight and the germinative source for its vast network of doctrines and disciplines. As the frame behind the four noble truths, the key to the perspective of the middle way, and the conduit to the realization of selflessness, it is the unifying theme running through the teaching’s multifarious expressions, binding them together as diversified formulations of a single coherent vision. In the words of the Buddha: “He who sees dependent arising sees the Dhamma; he who sees the Dhamma sees dependent arising.”
For Buddhists, the new year should not be an occasion merely to celebrate and enjoy good food and the company of friends. It is an opportunity to take a new birth and start a new life, a time to renew our commitment to the Buddhist path. In following the Dhamma, it is always best for us to consider ourselves beginners. We should not think that because we may have been practicing Buddhism for ten, twenty, or thirty years, we are experts in the Dhamma.
You may have been born in a Buddhist family and thus have a deeply rooted sense of beinga Buddhist.But the Dhamma is not something that one inherits as a birthright. Birth in aBuddhist family can even be an obstacle if it serves primarily as the basis for a sense ofpride. One identifies oneself as a Buddhist and then feels one must prove to others thegreatness of Buddhism by arguing with those who follow other religions and paths of life.Others may be attracted to Buddhism because they are drawn to the exotic trappings of an Oriental religion.
Many come to the Dhamma because they want to learn meditation as a way to overcome worry andrestlessness, or to find some discipline in their lives. We might be attracted to the Dhamma because we are fascinated, or puzzled, by the strange concepts of Buddhist philosophy.
The practice of giving is universally recognized as one of the most basic human virtues, a quality that testifies to the depth of one’s humanity and one’s capacity for self-transcendence. In the teaching of the Buddha, too, the practice of giving claims “a place of special eminence, one which singles it out as being in a sense the foundation and seed of spiritual development. In the Pali suttas (discourses) we read time and again that “talk on giving” (danakatha) was invariably the first topic to be discussed by Buddha in his “graduated exposition” of the Dhamma.
Strictly speaking, giving does not appear in its own right among the factors of the Noble Eightfold Path, nor does it enter among the other requisites of enlightenment (bodhipakkhiya dhamma). Most probably it has been excluded from these groupings because the practice of giving does not by its own nature conduce directly and immediately to the arising of insight and the realization of the Four Noble Truths.
– Address to the Sixteenth IARF conference –
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