Monastici
An
Limbi
Editori
4 filtre
Șterge

Ajahn Amaro

Born in England in 1956, Ajahn Amaro received his BSc. in Psychology and Physiology from the University of London. Spiritual searching led him to Thailand, where he went to Wat Pah Nanachat,... Citește mai mult

Born in England in 1956, Ajahn Amaro received his BSc. in Psychology and Physiology from the University of London. Spiritual searching led him to Thailand, where he went to Wat Pah Nanachat, a Forest Tradition monastery established for Western disciples of Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah, who ordained him as a bhikkhu in April 1979. He returned to England in October 1979 and joined Ajahn Sumedho at the newly established Chithurst Monastery in West Sussex.

In 1983 he made an 830-mile trek from Chithurst to a new branch monastery, Harnham Vihāra, near the Scottish border. In July 1985, he moved to Amaravati Buddhist Monastery north of London and resided there for many years. In the early 1990s, he started making trips to California every year, eventually establishing Abhayagiri Monastery near Ukiah, Northern California, in June of 1996.

He lived at Abhayagiri until the summer of 2010, holding the position of co-abbot along with Ajahn Pasanno. At that time, he then moved back to Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in England to take up the position of abbot of this large monastic community.

Reflections on life goals and priorities. In this volume: - The good, the bad and the unconditioned - ‘We need to talk about Nibbāna’ - Suchness and the square root of minus one - Unshakeable well-being - ... Happily ever after
Reflections on life goals and priorities. In this volume: - Buddhism and the pursuit of wealth - ‘How to live a Dhamma life in the capitalist world of today?’ - A currency of well-being
Reflections on life goals and priorities. In this volume: - ‘Heroin or chocolate cake?’ - ‘I am a Buddhist, why am I so angry?’ - The importance of being bored, sad and lonely - ‘If you truly love me, don’t create me in your mind’
Reflections on life goals and priorities. In this volume: - ‘The Blue Pill or the Red Pill? Why Wake up When my Habits are so Pleasant?’ - ‘Of course it’s happening in your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?’ - Let the citta draw a picture
"I thought I would begin by offering a few reflections about equanimity or upekkhā. This is one of the most significant psychological, emotional qualities talked about in the Buddhist tradition. However, because we commonly translate the word upekkhā in English as ‘equanimity’, it can easily be overlooked or seen as something a bit insignificant, not so practical or even heartwarming, as the word ‘equanimity’ in... Citește mai mult

"I thought I would begin by offering a few reflections about equanimity or upekkhā. This is one of the most significant psychological, emotional qualities talked about in the Buddhist tradition. However, because we commonly translate the word upekkhā in English as ‘equanimity’, it can easily be overlooked or seen as something a bit insignificant, not so practical or even heartwarming, as the word ‘equanimity’ in English can easily mean ‘indifference’, not really caring – it can be taken to be a switched-off, disconnected and somewhat numb attitude towards things."

Based on a talk given at Amaravati – 26-4-2020

De asemenea disponibil în ไทย
此书集结了阿马拉瓦蒂寺院 (Amaravati Monastery) 在 2012 年夏天举办的 13 天密集禅修时的开示,也可以说是《找回失去的宁静》这本书的延续。《找回失去的宁静》发表于 2011 年,是关于禅修的入门指引。与之相比,《突破入流初果》的定位更像是专用的工具箱,尤其强调智慧和内省在发展觉悟和心灵解脱中扮演的角色。 入流初果是声闻四果中的第一果,所谓“入流”,就是走入八正道,引向最终的觉悟解脱。之所以称为“突破”,是因为它是心灵修行上的一个转折点,具有重要的意义,一旦实现入流初果,最终的方向必然将是自由和解脱。 此书引用了大量佛经故事、作者的亲身经历以及其他相关事例来阐述重要的佛理,比如对“佛、法、僧”更深一层的理解,以及“十二缘起”、“戏论”是如何运作的,“自我”又是如何被构建的。还详细介绍了不同的禅修方法,包括基本的坐禅、行禅、身念住、内观禅,以及对“苦”、“无常”、“非我”的省思,对寂静之音、时间、空间的观照等,并对禅修中可能遇到的困难给出了实用的建议。对佛理的进一步理解和禅修的持续精进,能够帮助我们减轻甚至消除“身见结”、“戒禁取结”、“疑结”,在心灵追求的道路上实现不可逆转的解脱智慧。
Această carte este o traducere a The Breakthrough
The theme for this Dhamma talk is ‘My way or the Middle Way?’ As people might recognize, the title was borrowed from the famous Frank Sinatra song, written by Paul Anka, ‘My Way’, which is the supreme anthem of self-confidence: Through it all, when there was doubt, I ate it up and spit it out. I faced it all and I stood tall, And did... Citește mai mult

The theme for this Dhamma talk is ‘My way or the Middle Way?’ As people might recognize, the title was borrowed from the famous Frank Sinatra song, written by Paul Anka, ‘My Way’, which is the supreme anthem of self-confidence:

Through it all, when there was doubt, I ate it up and spit it out. I faced it all and I stood tall, And did it my way!’

Confidence is definitely a part of the Buddhist path; having faith, having confidence and resolution, these are all aspects of it. But any of us who have spent much time in life trying to follow that voice of self-assurance, of, ‘Even though there is resistance and it is difficult, I’m just going to keep pushing. I will do it my way.’ Or when we are living in a community, or we are in a role of leadership, if we adopt the attitude of, ‘My way or the highway. Either you do it the way I want or you’re on your bike, you are kicked out’ – that leads to stress and difficulty and conflict. Reflecting on this theme, ‘My way or the Middle Way’, there are certainly beneficial aspects to the quality of self-confidence, self-assurance and resolution, but if that is out of balance, if that is wrapped up in self-view and selfcentred thinking, then necessarily the results are going to be painful. You might get what you want but then there might be a lot of wreckage as well, considerable damage created along the way. Probably most of us have had some situations in life where we have come to the conclusion, ‘Well, I got what I wanted, but was it really worth it?’ or ‘I didn’t realize it was going to be like this.’ Or ‘I thought this was going to make me happier. I got what I wanted but ugh!’

In terms of this theme and what would be useful for us to look at, I feel that it is good to consider the way that we work in life – how we relate to doing, to acting, to choosing, how intentions and actions work together. When we use the kind of confidence expressed by Frank Sinatra, ‘I am going to do it my way!’ if we take that approach in life and we act from a place of self-assertion and we just keep pushing – whether this is with our occupation, or working with our family, or working with the rest of the traffic on the road – if we have that kind of contentious attitude, ‘I am going to make this happen,’ since that is wrapped up with self-view, then any kind of work becomes exhausting. Even when we are working with our minds in the meditation hall, thinking, ‘I am going to get jhāna. I am going to make the Breakthrough, it’s Stream Entry or bust!’ This is a guaranteed way to create suffering. Even the work of training our mind to be peaceful can be stressful and exhausting if that work is based on self-view.

De asemenea disponibil în ไทย
Over the last few years I have led residential retreats specifically on the theme of dependent origination on at least five occasions – at Amaravati in the U.K., in Mae Rim, Thailand, and with Le Refuge, at Monastère de Ségriès, in the south of France. Various aspects of this rich, essential theme of Buddhist teaching have been focused upon in these different situations, according to... Citește mai mult

Over the last few years I have led residential retreats specifically on the theme of dependent origination on at least five occasions – at Amaravati in the U.K., in Mae Rim, Thailand, and with Le Refuge, at Monastère de Ségriès, in the south of France. Various aspects of this rich, essential theme of Buddhist teaching have been focused upon in these different situations, according to the interests and needs of the various communities. The booklet entitled ‘Just One More…’ – Appreciative Joy: Jealousy, Selfish Desire and the Buddha’s Teaching on the Cycles of Addiction was based on the material from one of these events, a ten-day retreat held at Amaravati in July 2013. Most of the material gathered in this present book was presented at a retreat in Provence, in April 2018; the remainder is from the Mae Rim retreats of 2016-18.

The subject of dependent origination is intrinsically rich and varied, subtle and multi-dimensional, as the Buddha expressed in this notable exchange with his disciple and attendant Ven. Ānanda:

Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living among the Kurus, near a town of theirs named Kammāsadhamma. There Ven. Ānanda approached the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to the Blessed One, sat to one side. As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One: ‘It’s wonderful, venerable sir, it’s marvellous, how profound this dependent origination is, and how profound its appearance, and yet to me it appears as clear as clear can be.’ ‘Do not say that, Ānanda! Do not say that! This dependent origination is profound and it appears profound. It is through not understanding and not penetrating this Dhamma that this generation has become like a tangled ball of string, matted like a bird’s nest, tangled like coarse grass and is unable to pass beyond the cycles of rebirth, beyond the planes of deprivation, woe and bad destinations.’ (D 15.1)

There have already been many erudite and wise explorations of the subject published in English, such as Dependent Origination – The Buddha’s Law of Conditionality by Ven. P.A. Payutto; the collection of five chapters on the theme in Ajahn Sumedho’s book The Way It Is; Ajahn Buddhadāsa’s book Under the Bodhi Tree: Buddha’s Original Vision of Dependent Co-arising, as well as many others. The intention of this present volume, whilst acknowledging the already great storehouse of perspectives available, is to focus upon practical means of understanding and applying the principles of dependent origination in order to support the freeing of the heart from addictive and destructive cycles of attitude and behaviour. In particular the emphasis will be on the exit points from this ‘Wheel of Becoming’ (bhavacakka) this cyclical process where the mind feels itself to be imprisoned in a habitual round of promise, gratification and disappointment.

De asemenea disponibil în Français
THE TITLE OF THIS BOOK, Mind Is What Matters, brings attention to attitude. It points to the enormous difference our attitude makes as the mind receives and processes experience, and it points to that aspect of Dhamma practice of making everything our teacher. In 2017 at our open retreat at Amaravati Monastery, there were over 400 people attending. Ajahn Sumedho gave teachings every evening, and... Citește mai mult

THE TITLE OF THIS BOOK, Mind Is What Matters, brings attention to attitude. It points to the enormous difference our attitude makes as the mind receives and processes experience, and it points to that aspect of Dhamma practice of making everything our teacher. In 2017 at our open retreat at Amaravati Monastery, there were over 400 people attending. Ajahn Sumedho gave teachings every evening, and other visiting ajahns offered instruction and led question-and-answer sessions daily. For some of us, it was a very inspiring time. There were a lot of illuminating and imaginative teachings; for me it was a truly encouraging and beautiful event. But what if someone else’s attitude had been different? Even though they were hearing inspiring teachings, they could have begun to think they were not enough. Or they could have compared one teacher to another, judging who was better. Even something as noble, beautiful, and wholesome as hearing Dhamma teachings could have become a cause of suffering, disappointment or discontent if the person had taken hold of the experience in an unskilful way. Our minds can easily get caught in judgment: ‘this’ is not as good as ‘that’, or ‘now’ is not quite as real or good as ‘that prospect off in the future’ or ‘that great time back in the past’. If this is what our mind is doing, we can look at it. This feeling of disappointment, this comparing mind, can become our teacher in this moment. If we are wise, everything will teach us: the weather, our memories, our physical condition, the environment, the people around us.

De asemenea disponibil în Deutsch
Sunday Talk on the 18th September 2016 Good afternoon to you all. The theme for the Sunday talk this week is ‘Forgiving and Compassion’ so I will offer some reflections around these significant areas of our lives. I will start with forgiving. This is a very important aspect of spiritual training and, as a way of life, it is a counterpoint to the attitude of... Citește mai mult

Sunday Talk on the 18th September 2016

Good afternoon to you all. The theme for the Sunday talk this week is ‘Forgiving and Compassion’ so I will offer some reflections around these significant areas of our lives. I will start with forgiving.

This is a very important aspect of spiritual training and, as a way of life, it is a counterpoint to the attitude of being unforgiving, the attitude of wanting revenge, carrying grudges around. It’s about working with those attitudes of mind where we are determined to hang onto our negativity and our hurts, and to wear those proudly upon our sleeves – all the wrongs that have been done to me, the things that were unforgivable – that we are habitually conditioned to carry around and make much of. Sometimes people find themselves building their entire lives around wanting revenge, or resenting something that’s happened to them in their life, there’s something in the heart that can’t forgive.

When I speak in this way, in case any of you are wondering, I’m not reading anybody’s mind. Oftentimes when one starts talking about these themes people think, ‘How did he know!’ Please be reassured that it’s just averages, the law of statistics and how life is for many of us. I cannot read people’s minds.

De asemenea disponibil în ไทย
The theme for this afternoon’s talk is ‘Less is More – Frugality, Renunciation and Generosity’. I will focus on the frugality and renunciation aspects first of all and then get to generosity later on. First of all, it struck me how, if we say that our usual philosophy in life is ‘more is better’, if ‘less is more’, then ‘less is better’ – if you... Citește mai mult

The theme for this afternoon’s talk is ‘Less is More – Frugality, Renunciation and Generosity’. I will focus on the frugality and renunciation aspects first of all and then get to generosity later on.

First of all, it struck me how, if we say that our usual philosophy in life is ‘more is better’, if ‘less is more’, then ‘less is better’ – if you follow the logic – which is a good way of summarizing this theme.

This is an important topic for our times. Probably the kind of people who gather together at a Buddhist monastery on a Sunday afternoon are not those overly committed to consumption (what we call the ‘consumer society’ as if we were just a mouth with legs on) but that doesn’t have to be the way we see ourselves, even though this is often the way that society and our value systems are conditioned to operate. In the very wonderful little book called Buddhist Economics by Venerable Payutto, a Thai philosopher monk, he succinctly describes classic economics as: ‘Maximum consumption leads to maximum happiness.’ It’s the basic ethic of the consumer society. The more you consume then the happier you are. Even though we might say, ‘I’m a Buddhist, I’m not like that!’ I think it’s helpful to reflect that, if we look around and we see our working life, our family life, the society we live in, a huge amount of our conditioning is like that. The more that you’ve got, the happier you should be, so there’s an enormous amount of drive to get more. Maybe it’s not physical possessions but at least more status or more Facebook followers or more Instagram followers, more likes, as well as the usual more property, more money and more approval and so forth. So that ‘more is better’ as an ethic for our society is very strong I would suggest; even if we’re not overtly materialistic, or we don’t see ourselves that way, that can still be a very powerful driving force. That said, this is also not solely a modern thing – the search for happiness through material possessions, through the sensory world – this has been part of our life in the human realm since distant ages past.

De asemenea disponibil în ไทย
比丘阿摩羅講於1991年7月萬佛城禪修期 王青楠博士 中譯 歷史上對於大乘,南傳佛法的功德有著不同的觀點。如果你多讀文獻,就會發現,雖然佛教修持的方式多采多姿,可彼此間的緣卻極為密切。 我剛到泰國國際森林寺時,不僅沒讀過任何佛書,甚至也沒有真要當和尚的意思。我是個自由自在地追求心靈生活的流浪者,碰巧到了蘇美度法師幾年前所建立的森林寺院。在我看來,這不過是個讓我免費吃住幾宿的地方,根本沒想到,十二、三年之後我會做現在所做的事。當我請一位和尚介紹一點佛教,讓我知道一點他們生活的感受時,其中一位很快就遞給我一本禪師的開示,接著說「不用去讀上座部的文獻了,非常枯燥。讀這本書罷,其內容和我們做的差不多,讀了就會知道一些我們的修行情形了。」我心想,這些人顯然並不太執著自己的傳統。那本書名是《禪心;初學者之心》。 所以從一開始我們就可以看出,雖然某一國家可能強調某一種佛教,可人不一定要受其約束。在那裡幾個月之後,我才聽到「上座部」和「大乘」的名詞,更不用說其觀念上的差異了。在現實生活中,兩者的差異不大。可當你做了許多思考,你寫歷史、寫書、涉獵許多宗教生活的政治層面時,兩者的差異就出現了。 我聽蘇美度法師回憶過好幾次,說在他出家的第一年,他用虛雲老和尚禪七開示的方法修行,做為他修禪的基本方法。到 Wat Pah Pong, 後,阿姜查尊者(Ajahn Chah)問他用過甚麼方法修禪。最初他想,「尊者一定會讓我放棄原有的,而按他的方式修行。」可當蘇美度法師講述了自己的修行,並且說效果相當好之後,尊者說,「很好,繼續修下去。」 因此我們可以從中看到修行目的強烈共同性。雖然在歷史上的傳統或許有所不同,但兩者之間卻是非常一致的。我們開始看到不同的佛教傳統都在講些甚麼,雖然被劃分成小乘、大乘和金剛乘的不同修行方式,但基本上都只是關於心態的不同標籤。如果有智慧地使用傳統,它們就會談到我們內心的一切方面,從最自私世俗的,到最高尚的,談到我們生活的一切層次,只是當被誤解時,當人以固定觀念看待問題時,衝突就發生了。
Această carte este o traducere a The Lesser, The Greater, The Diamond and the Way
HISTORICALLY THERE HAVE BEEN differences of opinion about the relative merits of Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism and, if you read much of the literature, they would seem to be quite divergent in their approaches toward Buddhist practice – yet there also seem to be some tremendous affinities. When I arrived at the International Forest Monastery in Thailand, I had never read any Buddhist books and... Citește mai mult

HISTORICALLY THERE HAVE BEEN differences of opinion about the relative merits of Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism and, if you read much of the literature, they would seem to be quite divergent in their approaches toward Buddhist practice – yet there also seem to be some tremendous affinities.

When I arrived at the International Forest Monastery in Thailand, I had never read any Buddhist books and I wasn’t actually in search of becoming a Buddhist monk. I was a wanderer, a free-lance spiritual seeker, and I just happened to turn up at this forest monastery that Ajahn Sumedho had established a couple of years before, basically as a place for a free meal and a roof over my head for a few nights. Little did I expect, some twelve or thirteen years later, that I would be doing what I am doing now. But when I went there and asked the monks about Buddhism, to explain things a little bit for me so that I could get a feel for what their life was about, the first thing one of them did was to give me a copy of a book of talks by a Zen Master, and he said, ‘Don’t bother trying to read the Theravada literature; it’s terribly boring, very dry. Read this, it is pretty much the same thing that we’re doing, and it will give you a sense of what our practice is about.’ And I thought, ‘Well, obviously these guys are not too hung up on their tradition.’ The book was Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.

So, one could see right from the beginning that, even though there is a strength to the particular form within any Buddhist country, one is not necessarily constricted or limited by that. I was there for months before I even heard of ‘Theravada’ and ‘Mahayana,’ let alone the differences of opinion between them. It seemed that when you actually lived the life there really wasn’t any great disparity, but if you thought about it a lot, and if you were the kind of person who wrote histories and books and had got into the political side of religious life, then that was where the divergences occurred.

I have heard Ajahn Sumedho recount a few times over the years that, for the first year of his monastic life, he had been practising using the instructions from a Ch’an meditation retreat given by the Ven. Master Hsü Yün, and that he had used the Dharma talks from that retreat given in China as his basic meditation instruction. When he went to Wat Pah Pong, Ajahn Chah asked him what kind of meditation he had been doing, at first he thought, ‘Oh no, he’s going to get me to give this up and do his method.’ But, when Ajahn Sumedho described what he had been doing and mentioned that it had had excellent results, Ajahn Chah said, ‘Oh, very good, just carry on doing that.’

So, one sees that there is a very strong unity of purpose; even though there might be historical differences between the two traditions, they are very much in accordance with each other. And one begins to see what the different Buddhist traditions are talking about. They get sectioned out into Hinayana or Mahayana or Vajrayana, as different types of Buddhist practice, but they are basically just different labels which are talking about attitudes of mind and, when the traditions are used wisely, then they will address all aspects of our mind, from the most selfish and mundane to the most exalted. They address all the different levels of our life, and it’s only when they are not understood, when people take them as fixed positions, that there is any conflict amongst them.

De asemenea disponibil în 中文(简体)