เสียงธรรม Complexities of Karma / Thanissaro Bhikkhu

201223 Tending the Flame \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

201225 Stay with the Knowing \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

201226 Practice All Day \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Dhamma Talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Jan 1, 2021

 

0304n3b1 When to Think \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

201228 A Well-thatched Roof \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

201229 Not-self in Context \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

201231 The Triple Training \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Dhamma Talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Jan 1, 2021

 

210101 A Radiant Practice \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210106 Compassion for People on Fire \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210108 To Be Worthy of the Dhamma \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210110 Stay Centered \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Dhamma Talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Jan 11, 2021

 

210105 Mindfulness + Discernment = Intelligence \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210107 Going Out of Your Way \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210108 To Be Worthy of the Dhamma \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Dhamma Talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Jan 11, 2021

 

:- https://www.dhammatalks.org/index.html
This site offers an extensive collection of English translations of suttas from the Pāli Canon, as well as a multitude of free downloads of Dhamma from the Kammaṭṭhāna (or Thai Forest) Tradition of Buddhism. Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu of Metta Forest Monastery is the speaker, author or translator unless otherwise noted.

 

210111 Don’t Just Do It \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210112 Dignity in the Face of Hardship \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210114 Energizing Your Meditation \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210116 Maintained by Fabrication \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Dhamma Talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Jan 15, 2021

 

210117 In Search of What Is Skillful \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210118 Goodwill for Free \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210119 Riding an Elephant to Catch Grasshoppers \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Dhamma Talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Jan 19, 2021

 

7 Things the Buddha Never Said

by Thanissaro Bhikkhu| September 12, 2017
The historical Buddha said many things in his long lifetime of teaching. But have you ever heard a supposed Buddha quote and wondered, Did he really say that? Monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu, a trained translator of the Buddha’s words, certainly has. Here he reveals seven of many he’s found. See if you’re not surprised.
1. “Life is suffering.”
This is one of the Big Lies of Buddhism—a claim assumed to be true simply because it is repeated so often—both in popular books and academic books. The phrase “Life is suffering” is supposed to be a summary of the Buddha’s first noble truth, but the first noble truth simply lists the things in life that constitute suffering: “Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stressful; association with the unbeloved is stressful, separation from the loved is stressful, not getting what is wanted is stressful. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are stressful.” (Quotation from Samyutta Nikaya, The Grouped Discourses of the Buddha, 56.11)
Life, you’ll notice, isn’t on the list.
The other noble truths go on to show that there’s more to life than just suffering: There’s the origination of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path of practice leading to the cessation of suffering as well.

2. “Past love is but a memory. Future love is but a dream. True love is in the here and now.”

I saw this on a card attached to the mirror in the bathroom of a home where I was teaching once. It’s so unrelated to anything the Buddha said that I have no idea of what the original inspiration might have been.

3. “There is no self.”

This is the other Big Lie. The one time the Buddha was asked point-blank if there is or isn’t a self, he refused to answer (Samyutta Nikaya 44.10). In Majjhima Nikaya (the “Middle-Length Discourses” of the Buddha) 2 he stated that the views “I have a self” and “I have no self” are both a thicket of views that leave you stuck in suffering. When the Buddha taught not-self (anatta) — as opposed to no self — he was recommending a strategy for overcoming attachment, a way of cutting through the mind’s tendency to cling to things by claiming them as “me” or “mine.”
The Buddha never said that “There is no separate self” either. He declined to get involved in the issue of whether any kind of self exists or doesn’t exist.

 

(cont).
4. “Everything is impermanent.”
5. “Suffering comes from resisting change.”

These two misquotes tend to go together. If everything changes, then the only way you could escape from suffering would be to accept that all happiness is impermanent and stop trying for anything more lasting than that. A pretty miserable message.
Fortunately, the Buddha said simply that all fabricated things are impermanent. Anything perceived through the six senses is fabricated, in the sense that it is shaped by conditions, both external and internal.

However, there is something unfabricated that you can experience, and that’s nirvana. (See the Majjhima Nikaya the “Middle-Length Discourses” of the Buddha, 49, and the Samyutta Nikaya, the “Grouped Discourses of the Buddha,”43, for more.)
As the Buddha said, nirvana is the ultimate happiness (Dhammapada 203)—free from change, free from death, free from all limitations. That’s why he taught the path: so that people can find an unconditioned happiness. If his message had been, “Hey, there’s no lasting happiness, so give up thinking about it,” it wouldn’t have lasted all these years.

As for the second misquote, the Buddha actually said that people suffer because they identify with things that change. When the mind is strong enough that it doesn’t need to identify with anything, that’s when there’s no more suffering. On this point, see Samyutta Nikaya 22:1.
6. “If you want to see a person’s past actions, look at his present condition. If you want to see a person’s future condition, look at his present actions.”

This idea turns karma into something very simplistic and deterministic. It’s what I call the “one karmic bank account” theory—the idea that your present condition shows the running balance in your karmic account: the sum total of all your good actions, minus the sum total of your bad actions, equals what you’re experiencing right now.

Instead of a single bank account, the Buddha compared your past karma to a field of seeds: Some seeds have already sprouted, some are not yet ready to sprout, and as for the ones that are ready to sprout, those that get the most water with the best chance of flourishing. This means that, even though you can’t go back and change the seeds you’ve already planted, you do have some control over which seeds you’re going to water. In other words, your present condition shows only a sliver of your past actions; your present actions influence the extent to which you’re going to suffer over that sliver or not.
7. “A thousand candles can be lit by a single candle and yet not diminish the first candle’s light. Happiness is never diminished by being shared.”

This quote is popular among people who write fund-raising brochures—even though they want your money, and don’t necessarily care about your happiness. It’s a nice sentiment, but there’s no record of it among the Buddha’s words. The closest he gets to a sentiment like this is in Anguttara Nikaya (“The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha”) 10:177, where he says that when you make merit and dedicate it to your dead relatives, then even if those particular relatives are not in a place — the realm of the hungry ghosts –- where they can receive that merit, the merit isn’t lost. Others among your dead relatives who are in that state will partake of it—and you can be assured that at least someone among your relatives is there.
Not a suitable quote for fund-raising brochures, but something worth keeping in mind.
:- https://www.lionsroar.com/what-the-buddha-never-said/

 

About Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Thanissaro Bhikkhu is a monk in the Thai Forest Tradition. After moving to Thailand and studying under the forest master Ajaan Fuang Jotiko for ten years, he returned to the US and cofounded the Metta Forest Monastery in San Diego County, California, where he serves as abbot. The translator of numerous suttas and classical texts, his most recent book is Good Heart, Good Mind. His books and many of his other teachings and translations can be found online at dhammatalks.org.

 

210126 The Brightness of Life \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210127 Skills Needed at Death \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210128 A Heart Wider than the World \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210129 The Dhamma Points Inside \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Dhamma Talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Feb 2, 2021

 

210130 A Good-natured Attitude \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210122 Not-self for the Sake of Happiness \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Dhamma Talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Feb 2, 2021

 

210123 Steering the Raft \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210201 Older than the Cosmos \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210202 In Accordance with the Dhamma \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210203 The Buddha Aimed High \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Dhamma Talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Feb 6, 2021

 

0105n3b1 Relationships \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210205 Three Weapons \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210206 Steps in Concentration \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Dhamma Talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Feb 8, 2021

 

210207 Immersed in the Body \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210209 The Six Properties \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210210 Brahmavihāras & Noble Truths \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210211 Solving Real Problems \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Dhamma Talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Feb 12, 2021

 

210212 How to Read Yourself \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210213 Training Your Inner Teacher \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210215 Heedful of Ruts in the Mind \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Dhamma Talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Feb 17, 2021

 

210216 No Who or Where \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210227 The Three Perceptions as Tools \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210217 Be Heedful & Think \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Dhamma Talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Feb 22, 2021

 

210219 Warm Your Heart \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210220 Determination \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210222 Work With It \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Dhamma Talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Feb 25, 2021

 

210224 How to Be Self-centered \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210225 One Person \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210226 The Lightened Mind \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Dhamma Talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Mar 1, 2021

 

210402 What to Forget \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210403 Do You Want to Escape Becoming? \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210406 Clinging \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

210405 Reading: Ajaan Suwat \ \ Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Dhamma Talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Apr 7, 2021