Dhamma Talk/meditation With Abbots Of Abhayagiri Temple

[sabaijai]

Dhamma talk/meditation with Abbots of Abhayagiri Temple

Dhamma Talk

Thursday 21st January 2010

With Ajahn Pasanno and Ajahn Amaro

Joint abbots of Abhayagiri Temple, California

Please help forward details of this extra special event to anyone who might be interested to attend. If you are not free in the afternoon, it is fine to attend in the evening only – however, do try and make the whole day, as it is not often we can enjoy this kind of opportunity. The Schedule is as follows:

4:00 – 6 pm

The Way of Insight

Ajahn Amaro will outline the way Vipassana meditation affords insight, and how these insights become a vehicle for liberation. Focus is on practical meditation, and there will be plenty of time to raise your individual experiences and questions, to take advantage of Ajahn’s 30+ years experience meditating in Forest temples. If time allows we will do a group meditation too.

** Half hour for refreshments (no charge) **

6:45-8:30 pm

Taking the Practise a Step Further

Ajahn Pasanno talks on moving beyond the level of occasional meditator. Many people have done retreats or meditation workshops from time to time, but to transform that into a regular and stable practise that integrates with daily life is a step further. We have to keep one eye on spiritual progress though times of great and little inspiration, and both rely on, and support each other as a wider group of practitioners.

***********

Venerable Ajahn Pasanno

Ven. Pasanno Bhikkhu took ordination in Thailand in 1974 and during his first year as a monk he was taken by his teacher to meet Ajahn Chah, with whom he asked to be allowed to stay and train. One of the early residents of Wat Pah Nanachat (International Forest Monastery in NE Thailand), Ven. Pasanno became its abbot in his ninth year as a Bhikkhu. Under his leadership Wat Pah Nanachat developed considerably, both in physical size and in reputation. Ajahn Pasanno became a well-known and highly respected monk and Dhamma teacher in Thailand. On New Year’s Eve of 1997 Ajahn Pasanno moved to California to share the abbotship of the newly opening Abhayagiri Monastery, where he still resides.

Many of Ajahn Pasanno’s books or dhamma talks in both Thai and English are available on the internet. Some books from the Ajahn Chah lineage will be available for free distribution too.

Venerable Ajahn Amaro

Born in England in 1956, Ven. Amaro Bhikkhu received his BSc. in Psychology and Physiology from the University of London. Spiritual searching led him to Thailand, where he would up at Wat Pah Nanachat, a traditional forest monastery established for Western disciples of the great Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah. He ordained as a monk there in 1979. He later returned to England and joined Ajahn Sumedho in the newly established forest sangha. Following many teaching trips at the invite of the California Sanghapala Foundation during the 1990s, in 1996 he became abbot of the newly founded Abhayagiri temple there.

He authored the book Silent Rain, an account of his 830 mile walk across Britain, and a second book Small Boat, Great Mountain.

On June 16th, 2005 Ajahn Amaro returned to Abhayagiri after spending one year on sabbatical visiting Buddhist holy places in India, Nepal, and Bhutan.

Location:

The event is kindly hosted free of charge by the very beautiful Tawana Hotel Dhamma project, led by Tahn Chao Khun Bunma.

Tawana Hotel, 80 Suriwongse Road, Bangkok 10500.

Sala Daeng BTS station is a 7-8 min. walk, and Samyan MRT is 4-5 minutes walk away. There is plenty of free parking in the hotel, accessible from the front on Suriwongse Road.

Any further enquiries please us the comments box below, or in private via the CONTACT page.

See you there!

map

http://littlebang.wordpress.com/2009/12/31...ayagiri-temple/

[Sarathi]

it will be nice to get back to 'Forest Dhamma' and the real focus of monks/monasteries after all this Bhikkhuni stuff going on. When the two abbots ordained the NE area was remote jungle. It should be very interesting.

[sabaijai]

I'm looking forward to the talks,. I haven't seen Aj Pasanno since 1989, when he was still abbot of Wat Pa Nanachat Beung Wai. I imagine the topic of Aj Brahm and the bhikkhunis will come up on Thursday.

[Sarathi]

Ajahn Pasanno's talk was good - but oddly I can't recall any of it now.

Venue and everything else was nice. A good day in Bangkok for Dhamma.

Edited January 22, 2010 by Sarathi

[camerata]

Ajahn Pasanno's talk was good - but oddly I can't recall any of it now.

I can't remember much either except for the question and long answer about kamma at the end. I was feeling much fresher for Ajahn Amaro's talk and he spoke a lot louder.

[sabaijai]

Ajahn Pasanno's talk was good - but oddly I can't recall any of it now.

Venue and everything else was nice. A good day in Bangkok for Dhamma.

I liked the part where Aj Pasanno spoke about how happiness leads to concentration rather than vice versa. His answer on kamma inspired me to re-visit the five niyamas afterwards.

[camerata]

I liked the part where Aj Pasanno spoke about how happiness leads to concentration rather than vice versa. His answer on kamma inspired me to re-visit the five niyamas afterwards.

Me too. But AFAIK, the niyamas aren't mentioned anywhere in the Pali Canon. I've never heard them mentioned by a Western monk before, only by Ven Payutto.

[sabaijai]

They're explained in the Anguttara Nikaya.

Narada Thera on the kamma niyamas:

http://www.buddhanet.net/nutshell06.htm

and a lot more here:

http://www.google.co.th/search?rlz=1C1GGLS...;q=kamma+niyama

[camerata]

But I don't think the unified scheme of the 5 niyamas is defined anywhere but in the Commentaries. Narada Thera and the others always say either "Buddhism says..." or "The Commentarial tradition says...". For example, the Wiki entry says, "As karma is not the only causal law, the Theravadin commentarial tradition classifed causal mechanisms taught in the early texts in five categories, known as Niyama Dhammas." But they never provide the original teachings from the suttas.

The only clue I could find as to why the original teachings from the suttas aren't given was from Sangharakshita: "These five niyamas are a very useful formulation because… they draw together strands which are otherwise rather loose and disconnected as we find them in the original suttas."

While googling I did find a rather neat blog comment on kamma:

In fact, the Buddha specifically mentioned it is wrong to hold the view that "'Whatever a person experiences... is all caused by what was done in the past." (See Tittha Sutta, Anguttara Nikaya, Vol 1, pg 173), i.e. Kammic Determinism is considered a wrong view too.

Thus, we should bear in mind that Kamma is a conditioning factor, not a deterministic factor. We must not neglect that there are other forces and natural laws that conditions us too.

1) Kammic Determinism is not the Buddha's teaching. We should not hold on to the wrong view.

2) People are quick to draw conclusions of the opposite: your misfortunes are due to your previous bad Kamma, i.e. you deserve it. That, in some ways, explains why in traditional countries, people can turn a blind to the misfortunes and sufferings around them. To them, those who suffers are just living out the effects of their bad kamma. What is more important is to for them to accumulate their own merits.

3) People tends to see Kamma as determining physical outcomes, entirely failing to understand that Kamma is more in the mind and psychological. Thus people think that having a pretty face, striking lottery, etc, are the effects of kamma, when what's more important (from the perspective of the Doctrine of Kamma) should the person's attitude towards his physical looks, towards the money gained from lottery, etc. That is, given the physical circumstances, whether he is happy, contented, generous, kind, wise, or whether he becomes jealous, proud, greedy etc -- these mental states are the kammic forces that conditions his spiritual progress. The physical events or outcomes are really neutral in themselves -- it is our own perceptions which colours them as "good" or "bad". Sadly, most people fail to see that, and end up focusing on accumulating merits so as to attain better physical and material prospects for the future (or future life).

[Sarathi]

The Niyamas are purely commentarial - but that does not mean that it is not what the Buddha taught. The commentaries are often good at putting disparate teachings together. "All arises from karma" is listed as a wrong view. As is all aries due to God or chance. there are other causes (or as pointed out, should be called 'conditioning factors') than karma. So the Niyamas list the main groups of conditioning factors, but without real explanation of the terms. What is 'citta niyama' ? is it psychology, or a more basic way the citta interacts with the world? .... etc. The niyamas were the topic of a talk at Planet Yoga last year.

I asked Tahn Bhasakorn on this. He wrote the handbook on karma you see about town. He said the niyama other than karma are 'environmental karma' : if the world throws something good or bad at you it is not chance, but the environmental aspect of karma, as opposed to the internal (mental?) karma. it made sense when he said it, but not so much after reflection.

I saw Ajahn Amaro and Pasanno at the Intercontinental today, for a talk in Thai. They fly back tomorrow. It is good that the Tawana event could be put together for them in English, as A. Pasanno comes each year, but we never seem hear about it!

[sabaijai]

I thought the list appeared in the Book of Fives in the Anguttara Nikaya, part of Suttanta. It's always referenced to Ang. Nikaya at any rate. If it's in the Abhidhamma Pitaka that's good enough for me though.