Friends

What is being in “really deep?”

It is nothing more than clinging and craving for things!

We run around looking for who we are, things to do, or believe. We force ourselves to take positions on views, plunge further into the quagmire (digidy) of life forgetting the important things life has to offer, sometimes ignoring the need for discipline, or being too disciplined, ignoring the need for restraint, or being too restrained.

Just because we want something, doesn’t mean that it is something we should pursue, and just because we don’t want something doesn’t mean it is something we should try avoid, sometimes some thing’s happen or are around because they are in existence, this doesn’t mean we have to either love things or hate things, but rather except things as they are, and move on! No point getting upset or anything else just because we like or dislike something, or think something is bad just because we don’t like it.

If you want freedom from suffering, running away from what we think is suffering wont help, nor will grasping onto what we see as not stressful, in the end nothing is unchanging, belonging to a self, or not dukkha.

At the end of the day I may be right, I may be wrong, but I share this hoping I am one, the other, both, or neither.

With Metta
Manāpa Bhojanadhikari

“Monks, one who hasn't abandoned nine things is incapable of realizing arahantship. Which nine? Passion, aversion, delusion, anger, resentment, arrogance, insolence, envy, & stinginess. One who hasn't abandoned these nine things is incapable of realizing arahantship.

"One who has abandoned nine things is capable of realizing arahantship. Which nine? Passion, aversion, delusion, anger, resentment, arrogance, insolence, envy, & stinginess. One who has abandoned these nine things is capable of realizing arahantship.”

Bhabba Sutta

Friends

The Buddhas teaching can be summarised very simply, cease to do evil, or don’t follow the kilesas, the ways of the world.

If you have a practice and drop it when things don’t go your way, or when things go easy pay less attention to the practice you are following the ways of the world, the Dhammapada verses 3 & 4 say

'He insulted me, hit me, beat me, robbed me' — for those who brood on this, hostility isn't stilled.

'He insulted me, hit me, beat me, robbed me' — for those who don't brood on this, hostility is stilled.

But it is forgotten that the opposite is just as true

‘He praised me, agreed with me, worshiped me’ – for those who brood on this, hostility isn’t stilled.

‘He praised me, agreed with me, worshiped me’ – for those who don’t brood on this, hostility is stilled.

This interpretation looks at the passage from the other side of the worldly conditions, instead of from despair, from greed. We often forget that it isn’t only when we are hurt that we need to practice hard, but also when we are in good spirits too, it is easy to see that the practice is important when things seam to be conspiring against us, and hard to see it is just as important when things are going our way, so it is more important to practice in the good times not just the bad.

Doing good and bad depends on what we surround ourselves with, if we are friends with those who indulge in the world we will weaken our practice by association, but if we associate with people dedicated to the path our practice will strengthen because we wont be directly tempted to engage in the world, by connecting with it, after all there is enough of the world already clung to without adding more.

At the end of the day I may be right, I may be wrong, but I share this hoping I am one, the other, both, or neither.

With Metta
Manāpa Bhojanadhikari

Get up! Sit up! Train firmly for the sake of peace, don’t let the king of death, — seeing you heedless — deceive you, bring you under his sway.

Utthana Sutta

Friends

The Practice is not to focus outside what we experience inside, if anger arises, we look towards the anger, we do not focus the anger where it wants to be focused, we turn inwards and focus on it we study it, dissect it, and watch as it tries to trick us into thinking it is right, we focus on, in and of itself, its arising its passing away, and how it changes,

If we follow the path we are told we want to take (what we want to do) and not the path that we should take (in accordance with Dhamma) we are at odds with how things are we cling to things which are what we like when they are no good for us, we run from things we do not like when they are good for us, playing peek-a-boo with the world. When someone says something which disagrees with what we think is the case we tell them they are wrong, we take a side for what we think is right, seldom heedful of what they are saying and reading what we want or think they are saying, paying no attention to what is actually said.

This is like when we get angry it doesn’t matter that it isn’t something worthy of anger, or something personal it only matters that it is something wrong.

Put aside what you want to do or think, look within and see, investigate, and overcome the self attachments then look outside, what is and what you thought may just be two different things.

At the end of the day I may be right, I may be wrong, but I share this hoping I am one, the other, both, or neither.

With Metta
Manāpa Bhojanadhikari

I go to the defilements as my refuge.

"The practice of Dhamma, the practice of continence, mastery of this is said to be best if a person has gone forth from home to the homeless life. But if he is garrulous and, like a brute, delights in hurting others, his life is evil and his impurity increases.

"A quarrelsome Bhikkhu shrouded by delusion, does not comprehend the Dhamma taught by the Awakened One when it is revealed. Annoying those practiced in meditation, being led by ignorance, he is not aware that his defiled path leads to Niraya-hell. Falling headlong, passing from womb to womb, from darkness to (greater) darkness, such a Bhikkhu undergoes suffering hereafter for certain.

"As a cesspool filled over a number of years is difficult to clean, similarly, whoever is full of impurity is difficult to make pure. Whoever you know to be such, Bhikkhus, bent on worldliness, having wrong desires, wrong thoughts, wrong behaviour and resort, being completely united avoid him, sweep him out like dirt, remove him like rubbish. Winnow like chaff the non-recluses. Having ejected those of wrong desires, of wrong behaviour and resort, be pure and mindful, dwelling with those who are pure. Being united and prudent you will make an end to suffering."

Sn 2.6 Dhammacariya Sutta

Friends

How many people say I go to the defilements as my refuge, and how many people actually go to the defilements for their refuge? The numbers you will find will be different.

We can say I practice Buddhism, Christianity, Philosophy, Morality or any other practice which is or has been used to become better people or to transcend, but if we follow the defilements, we take the defilements as the practice, we fool ourselves that we are following a path which leads to the salvation from suffering, we think we are on the right path when we are in fact running into the extremes of greed and distress.

Some people like things to be black and white, this is right and that is wrong, but life isn’t black and white, life has gray areas and we can think part of the gray is actually the right way just as we can think the black or white is the right way, when it is the way of the Defilements, it promotes the ideas to grow which are the cause of suffering, the clinging and craving for things, for self identity.

We have to turn our backs on the defilements and fight them, the middle way is not an easy path, it goes against the normal way we do things, it is counter cultural in the sense of the culture we promote as those who go to the defilements for refuge, the culture of the defilements which cause us to cling and crave for the world.

We may think the world is for us or against us, but this is the defilements of the world telling us we are someone, we deserve something, we should get something.

So stand away from the world, Practice the setting aside of Greed and Distress in relation to the world, and watch the defilements, they may win over and over again but eventually we will win once, twice, three times in a row, and then time and time again, this is when we are on the path to the extinction of the worldly concerns, and on the path to nibbana.

Just because something is right to do, does not mean it is right for us who try to walk the path who are in training for the fulfilment of the path, The Defilements are there in us, in our hearts, and minds guiding us away from the correct training, for the extinction of clinging, and craving in regard to the world.

At the end of the day I may be right, I may be wrong, but I share this hoping I am one, the other, both, or neither.
With Metta

Manāpa Bhojanadhikari