Abhayagiri Forums

Introductions

2008-11-06T15:50:48-08:00

Welcome to this Forum,

Come on in, pull up a chair, pour yourself some tea or coffee, make yourself comfy and do tell; what’s your story, what brought you to Buddhism, where do you reside and what challenges and supports does this practice bring?

My name is Sakula, Mary Reinard. I came to this lineage after having met Ajahn Amaro some dozen years ago and subsequently Ajahn Pasanno as well. Have been harrassing them ever since and benefitting well from it too.

I’m 54 years old. Am married with three grown children and three young, exceptionally adorable, brillant grandchldren. I’m a Lay Minister affiliated with the Abhayagiri Community and in this role and at this time, lead the community’s spiritual direction at Portland Friends of the Dhamma. I am also an artist and am currentlly working on illustrating and scripting Theravadin teachings based on Tibetian style Thangka paintings. It’s a rather ambitious undertaking and proving a good focus for the high level of energy that, without a wholesome anchor, can be quite an obstacle to my practice.

From time to time I post meanderings of my life and my practice on my blog site and would love to hear from any of you who keep a blog as well.

Thanks for joining this Forum, I look forward to reading your intros and your post.

Maintaining the Path

2008-10-10T03:20:52-08:00

It has been fortunate for me that Buddhism has always made itself known to throughout my life. For most of my 39 years of life, I have lived in a self made fog. Deprived of direction, I flew threw life by the seat of my pants. Not know which direction I was heading. With not a decent role model in site, I gravitated toward the darker aspects of life. We are all driven by understanding or wanting to understand our purpose here. Even when I was a small boy of 6 or 7 I had seen buddhist books or images and felt that this was the direction to go. But as life tends to go, I lost that focus, having no encouragement to improve myself. Parents do the best they know how to do. Sometimes that falls far short. So it is up to us to learn what needs to be learned. I am not here to whine about past offenses to me during my young life, but to compare life notes. Growing up, alcohol was my closest companion, it helped me open up to the world and learn how to talk to people. But, of course, there was a dark side. My respect for people was minimal. Hate dominated my persona. I blamed everyone and everything for my problems. I treated people like crap, especially those close to me. It has been 10 years or so since I have conquered my alcohol. But up until then, I had to put one divorce under my belt, see my child taken away, and mass loss of self worth and esteem. My Current wife was the catalist for my new growth. She had come from a less than excellent 20+ year rotten marriage. Her 3 children were in disarray. I realized I had to put myself second and improve myself so they could improve. They are now all grown with wives and kids of there own. One child said to me,“It wasn’t what you said that made a difference, it was how you lived.” They are much happier now. So now I came to see I had to fix the rest of the trainwreck I called my life. That is when I heard Ajahn Brahm, kinda by accident or was it. That set the stage for my taking the precepts and Trying to follow the right life. But alas, I am alone in my endeavor. I live far in the wilderness with my life and feel myself slipping. Not many buddhist where I live. No community to consult with questions or support. So that is why I am here. To help you and help myself. Community in a remote way. It is better than nothing. If you understand what I am saying. Continue this and maybe we can help each other Maintain the Path. Best wishes, Mike

Dana-giving

2007-01-25T14:33:27-08:00

Hi everybody,

Sakula encouraged me to start a thread on Dana after I posted the Sequence of Meritorious Actions

My favorite story about Dana is Visakha’s profound dana wisdom

Let’s discuss our practices and challenges regarding dana.

with metta / Antony.

Round Table

2007-01-28T16:29:32-08:00

I had a laugh a couple of weeks ago. I was preparing to start my 5pm
meditation when my Dad knocked on the door of my room. He wanted me to make
some bolognese sauce (my speciality). I joined him in the kitchen to check
the ingredients. He wanted to go to the grocery store to get some tomato
paste so I’d have to wait 20 minutes. I said “I want to do my meditation.”
He replied “How long will that take?”

Tech support, if you like

2007-01-24T13:12:23-08:00

Hello, All.

I’m introducing this topic so that we have a place for people to share questions and suggestions about the mechanics of posting to this forum. This topic is not about the content of messages. Please check the announcement titled “How to use this Forum” for guidelines about the content of our messages and about our intention to organize our messages into relevant topics.

The focus of this topic is the procedures for posting messages, attaching files, inserting links to web pages, subscribing to topics, creating new topics, searching for existing messages, and other such technical details. This is nerdsville.

For many, this topic will be of no interest at all. Most of us will just type our messages and post them without any questions arising. That’s just fine. But some might be interested in doing something more complicated. In spite of the fact that the forum is pretty self-evident, some questions might arise. This is the place to ask them. This is also the place for us to share bits of information about the mechanics of the forum that we’ve discovered along the way.

So . . . feel free to ask a question, offer a tip, or ignore this topic entirely.

With a smile,
Dorothea
Note: To keep the topic brief, I might delete some questions (just leaving the answers), or I might find a way to group related tips. The idea will be to make this a place where we can easily find the information we’re looking for.

Stroke of insight. Enlightenment by stroke?

2008-03-16T15:34:49-08:00

This woman, a neuroscientist, had a stroke one morning and was able to document in her mind what happened to her consciousness at each step. She claims that the experience allowed her to touch “nirvana”. She is well spoken and convincing. Follow the link below to see the video, or read the transcript I have included.

Two things strike me especially hard from a scriptural perspective and how her story related to the accounts of the Buddha given in the Pali Canon. Number one, that the Buddha says in many many suttas, that the final defilement to go before enlightenment is the conceit “I am”. You’ll see why this strikes me when you view the video and she is talking about the role of the left side of the brain.

The other thing that strikes me is when she is describing what sensory input was like after she recovered from her stroke and came back from this “Nirvana”. She described it as “burning”. The same way the Buddha describes sense impressions in many places. Some of the places that the Buddha describes sensation as burning:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit…075x.than.html (Magandiya Sutta, one of my favorites)
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit….028.than.html (The Fire Sermon)

Here is the link:

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

Here is the transcript:

http://blog.ted.com/2008/03/jill_bolte_tayl.php#more

My suspicion is that this woman did indeed get a very rare “glimpse” into nibbana by fast tracking to the last step of enlightenment without having to do all the many years of brain altering meditation. However, other things, desires, were still in place, so she failed to actually achieve full enlightenment.

Mindfulness Tricks and Sound of Silence

2007-05-31T12:02:07-08:00

I have heard of this meditation on the sound of silence for some time and tried it out a few times, but it is only recently that I suddenly took a great interest in it.

I don’t have any trouble hearing it in quiet settings or in sitting meditation, even when it is not so quiet.

But I have trouble hearing it in busy situations, noisy situations, etc. and so it’s greatest appeal is missing. I like it because as they say it is always there and you don’t have to do anything to create it, just simply turn your mind to it. Unfortunately that is not how it is when I try it under certain conditions. Sometimes I think I hear it but I am not sure if I am imagining or remembering it.

So, all I can do is recognize this as doubt, and resume a “listening attitude” or “listening mental posture,” and wait.

Does this sound familiar experience to anyone? Do you have any tricks or advice? I love tricks and advice.

The best trick I ever learned was about practicing mindfulness while eating. I found I could be mindful much of the day but when it came to the daily meal I would take two or three mindful bites and then the next thing I knew I would wake up out of the swirl and was looking at an empty bowl. Then someone, a monk at Bhavana society it was, told me to try, while chewing, to keep your hands still, not reaching for more, scooping food around, etc. Right away it worked! It was so much easier to stay with the experience.

That was a great trick.

metta,

Supakamo

Solitary practice or member of a community or group?

2007-09-13T05:56:52-08:00

Hello everyone,

I’m interested in learning how many of us here are practicing and learning alone and how many are active members of a group.

If your answer is YES, please share how it has helped to shape your practice.

If your answer is NO, please share how you sustain your practice without the support, encouragement and example of others.

Kris

First Precept

2007-04-23T07:45:26-08:00

All,

Struggling with what seems like the inevitability of pest control, i.e. removing bees from my house and yard. Anybody know how to deal skillfully with this topic?

Best,

Jessica Swanson
Upasika, PDX

Ever Consider Becoming a Monastic?

2007-05-14T12:20:30-08:00

I was just curious if anyone else on this forum has ever considered becoming a monastic. I know that even as a child I have been drawn to that lifestyle but never actually had the courage to go for it. My friends used to always wonder why anyone would even dream of becoming a monastic but has always appealed to me. Did anyone here ever regret getting deeper and deeper into lay life? I’ve been in a committed relationship for about 6 or 7 years now and love her but another part of me yearns to take the practice deeper. I wonder if I will regret getting married and doing the whole family thing. I fear getting in so deep I don’t know how to get out so that my time in life will have been wasted. Any input on others experiences would be greatly appreciated.