On Pilgrimage: A Journey through Tibet (part 1)
16/01/2015 15:21 (GMT+7)
Pilgrimage is a mysterious thing. It has a very simple outer level that is sheerly pragmatic. One makes a journey to a particular place in a particular timeframe, with all the logistics involved. And yet . . . there is something that makes a pilgrimage different than most journeys or ordinary travel. Somehow a transformation occurs, one similar to that which takes place in committed, long-term meditation practice. One’s outlook changes. The place one looks from is altered somehow; everything is seen differently. This involves a transformation not only in perspective, but in the very clarity with which one sees, with which one acts, and with which one experiences the world.
Secret Tibetan Book of the Dead | History Channel Documentary
26/08/2013 17:45 (GMT+7)
Bardo Thodol: The Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State, it is often referred to in the West by the more casual title, Tibetan Book of the Dead, a name which draws a parallel with the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, another funerary text.The Tibetan text describes, and is intended to guide one through, the experiences that the consciousness has after death, during the interval between death and the next rebirth. This interval is known in Tibetan as the bardo. The text also includes chapters on the signs of death, and rituals to undertake when death is closing in, or has taken place. It is the most internationally famous and widespread work of Tibetan Nyingma literature.According to Tibetan tradition, the Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State was composed in the 8th century by Padmasambhava, written down by his primary student, Yeshe Tsogyal, buried in the Gampo hills in central Tibet and subsequently discovered by a Tibetan terton, Karma Lingpa, in the 14th century.[7][8] There were variants of the book among different sects.[9] The Tibetan Book of the Dead was first published in 1927 by Oxford University Press. Dr. Walter Y. Evans-Wentz chose this title because of the parallels he found with the Egyptian Book of the Dead.[10]The Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State is recited by Tibetan Buddhist lamas over a dying or recently deceased person, or sometimes over an effigy of the deceased. The name means literally "liberation through hearing in the intermediate state".

Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra
06/08/2013 21:04 (GMT+7)
Translated from Taishō Tripiṭaka volume 8, number 235"All conditioned dharmasAre like dreams, illusions, bubbles, or shadows;Like drops of dew, or flashes of lightning;Thusly should they be contemplated."
The Sixth Patriarch's Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra
19/07/2013 16:40 (GMT+7)
The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch is a Buddhist scripture that was composed in China during the 8th to 13th century. The text centers around teachings and stories ascribed to the sixth Chan patriarch Huineng. It contains the well-known story of the contest for the succession of Hongren, and discourses and dialogues attributed to Huineng. The text attributes its recollection to Fa-hai, but was probably written within the so-called Oxhead School, which existed along with the East Mountain School and Shenhui's Southern School. The text attempts to reconcile the so-called Northern School with its alleged gradual enlightenment teachings, and the so-called Southern School with its alleged sudden enlightenment teachings. In effect, the text incorporates the "rhetorical purity" which originated with Shenhui's attack on Shenxiu, while effectively "writing him out of the story". The key topics of the discourse are the direct perception of one's true nature, and the unity in essence of śīla, dhyāna and prajñā.

A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma:
The Abhidhammattha Sangaha of Acariya Anuruddha
17/06/2012 05:35 (GMT+7)
The nucleus of the present book is a medieval compendium of Buddhist philosophy entitled the Abhidhammattha Sangaha. This work is ascribed to Acariya Anuruddha, a Buddhist savant about whom so little is known that even his country of origin and the exact century in which he lived remain in question. Nevertheless, despite the personal obscurity that surrounds the author, his little manual has become one of the most important and influential textbooks of Theravada Buddhism.
Arahants, Bodhisattvas, and Buddhas
17/06/2012 05:28 (GMT+7)
The arahant ideal and the bodhisattva ideal are often considered the respective guiding ideals of Theravāda Buddhism and Mahāyāna Buddhism. This assumption is not entirely correct, for the Theravāda tradition has absorbed the bodhisattva ideal into its framework and thus recognizes the validity of both arahantship and Buddhahood as objects of aspiration.

The Buddha and His Dhamma
17/06/2012 05:27 (GMT+7)
Buddhism originated with an Indian prince known as the Buddha, who taught in Northeast India in the fifth century BC. Two centuries later, with the support of the Emperor Asoka, Buddhism spread over the greater part of India and from there traveled the full breadth of the Asian continent. In several tidal waves of missionary zeal it rose up from its Indian homeland and inundated other regions, offering the peoples among whom it took root a solid foundation of faith and wisdom upon which to build their lives and a source of inspiration towards which to direct their hopes.
Buddhism in Thailand
17/06/2012 05:13 (GMT+7)
This work presents facts and figures about the current condition of Buddhism in Thailand, historical background sketches of the establishment and growth of the Buddhist community in Thailand and information on Buddhist education in Thailand. (9-10 December, 2002)

Buddhism in Myanmar
17/06/2012 05:12 (GMT+7)
Myanmar, or Burma as the nation has been known throughout history, is one of the major countries following Theravada Buddhism. In recent years Myanmar has attained special eminence as the host for the Sixth Buddhist Council, held in Yangon (Rangoon) between 1954 and 1956, and as the source from which two of the major systems of Vipassana meditation have emanated out into the greater world: the tradition springing from the Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw of Thathana Yeiktha and that springing from Sayagyi U Ba Khin of the International Meditation Centre.
The History of Buddhism in Vietnam
15/06/2012 05:28 (GMT+7)
This work on Vietnamese Buddhism from its beginnings through the 20th century provides much evidence requiring Western Buddhologists to radically revise their heretofore accepted time-table for the arrival and development of Buddhism in Vietnam. It provides previously unknown data, detailed in nomenclature, time, and place, scrupulously gathered from archeological finds and ancient archival records by Vietnamese research-teams. Providing much historical analysis and cultural interpretation along the way, this work carries its project forward through the various royal dynasties and the French colonial period.

The Four Noble Truths
25/07/2011 00:54 (GMT+7)
The Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, the Buddha’s teaching on the Four Noble Truths, has been the main reference that I have used for my practice over the years. It is the teaching we used in our monastery in Thailand. The Theravada school of Buddhism regards this sutta as the quintessence of the teaching of the Buddha. This one sutta contains all that is necessary for understanding Dhamma and for enlightenment. Though the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta is considered to be the first sermon the Buddha gave after his enlightenment, I sometimes like to think that he gave his first sermon when he met an ascetic on the way to Varanasi. After his enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, the Buddha thought: "This is such a subtle teaching. I cannot possibly convey in words what I have discovered so I will not teach. I will just sit under the Bodhi tree for the rest of my life."
Now is the Knowing — Ven. Ajahn Sumedho
25/07/2011 00:53 (GMT+7)
As we practise more and more and begin to realize the profundity of the Buddhist Teachings, it becomes a real joy to take these refuges, and even just their recitation inspires the mind. After twenty-two years as a monk, I still like to chant ‘Buddham saranam gacchami’ — in fact I like it more than I did twenty-one years ago — because then it didn’t really mean anything to me, I just chanted it because I had to, because it was part of the tradition. Merely taking refuge verbally in the Buddha doesn’t mean you take refuge in anything: a parrot could be trained to say ‘Buddham saranam gacchami’, and it would probably be as meaningful to a parrot as it is to many Buddhists. These words are for reflection, looking at them and actually investigating what they mean: what ‘refuge’ means, what ‘Buddha’ means. When we say, ‘I take refuge in the Buddha,’ what do we mean by that? How can we use that so it is not just a repetition of nonsense syllables, but something that really helps to remind us, gives us direction and increases our devotion, our dedication to the path of the Buddha?

Intuitive Awareness
25/07/2011 00:53 (GMT+7)
A book compiled from talks given mostly in 2001by Ajahn Sumedho. They convey an intuitiveunderstanding of the Buddha’s teaching which hasarisen from over thirty-five years of practice as a Buddhistmonk.
The Noble Eightfold Path - The Way to the End of Suffering
25/07/2011 00:53 (GMT+7)
The essence of the Buddha's teaching can be summed up in two principles: the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. The first covers the side of doctrine, and the primary response it elicits is understanding; the second covers the side of discipline, in the broadest sense of that word, and the primary response it calls for is practice. In the structure of the teaching these two principles lock together into an indivisible unity called the dhamma-vinaya, the doctrine-and-discipline, or, in brief, the Dhamma. The internal unity of the Dhamma is guaranteed by the fact that the last of the Four Noble Truths, the truth of the way, is the Noble Eightfold Path, while the first factor of the Noble Eightfold Path, right view, is the understanding of the Four Noble Truths. Thus the two principles penetrate and include one another, the formula of the Four Noble Truths containing the Eightfold Path and the Noble Eightfold Path containing the Four Truths.

The Eightfold Path for the Householder
25/07/2011 00:53 (GMT+7)
This meditation practice, as many of you have done with this day of sitting and walking, was actually quite a lot. Some people will start with a 20-minute sitting and do that for a number of months, or go to a class and have some instruction and sit for a little bit. There are people who also will come to a ten-day retreat. We've even had a few kind of unusual people sign up for a three-month retreat who had never meditated before, and say, "Well, I guess I'll just do it." But as you can discover, even in just one day of sitting, though some things are interesting and you learn some from it, it's also not so easy. There aren't a lot of distractions and diversions here. It's pretty simple. All that's really left for you in this place is your own body and mind, and there's not a lot to take one away from that.
A Taste of Freedom (PDF)
03/07/2011 12:37 (GMT+7)

Our real home
09/09/2010 10:49 (GMT+7)
Today I have brought nothing material of any substance to offer you, only Dhamma, the teachings of the Lord Buddha. Listen well. You should understand that even the Buddha himself, with his great store of accumulated virtue, could not avoid physical death.
Fundamental of Vipassana
09/09/2010 10:49 (GMT+7)
Mindfulness as to respiration is also concentration-developing. But one can develop insight from it. Visuddhi-Magga, however, includes it in the concentration subjects and so we will call it as such here.

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