Source: wikipedia
The four Brahmaviharas are a series of virtues and Buddhist meditation practices designed to cultivate those virtues. Brahmavihara is a term in Pali and Sanskrit meaning “Brahma abidings”, or "Sublime attitudes." They are also known as the Four Immeasurables.
According to the Metta Sutta, Shakyamuni Buddha held that cultivation of the Brahmavihāras has the power to cause the practitioner to be re-born into a Brahma realm (Pali: Brahmaloka). The meditator is instructed to radiate out to all beings in all directions the mental states of:
1) loving-kindness or benevolence,
2) compassion,
3) sympathetic joy, and,
4) equanimity.
These virtues are also highly regarded by Buddhists as powerful antidotes to those negative mental states (non-virtues) like avarice, anger, pride and so on.
Brahmavihara may be parsed into "Brahma" and vihara; which is often rendered into English as "sublime" or "divine abodes". They are also called the "Four Immeasurables," or "the four sublime attitudes (loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity)", and are Buddhist virtues that followers can cultivate endlessly, that are without limits, as good qualities for any Buddhist to possess in good measure. They form a sequence of Buddhist virtues recommended in the Brahmavihara Sutta.
When developed to a high degree in meditation, they are said to make the mind "immeasurable" and like the mind of the loving Brahma gods.
Metta/Maitri:
loving-kindness towards all; the hope that a person will be well; loving kindness is "the wish that all sentient beings, without any exception, be happy."
Karuna:
compassion; the hope that a person's sufferings will diminish; compassion is the "wish for all sentient beings to be free from suffering."
Mudita:
altruistic joy in the accomplishments of a person, oneself or other; sympathetic joy, "is the wholesome attitude of rejoicing in the happiness and virtues of all sentient beings."
Upekkha/Upeksha:
equanimity, or learning to accept both loss and gain, praise and blame, success and failure with detachment, equally, for oneself and for others; equanimity means "not to distinguish between friend, enemy or stranger, but regard every sentient being as equal. It is a clear-minded tranquil state of mind - not being overpowered by delusions, mental dullness or agitation."
Metta and Karuna are both hopes for the future (leading, where possible, to action aimed at realizing those hopes), while Mudita and Upekkha are attitudes to what has already happened, but also having consequences for future action. While these four might be delineated as attitudes of the future or past, they contain the seed of the "present" within their core (as a living embodied practice). This is the essence of the spiritual laws of karma, self-responsibility, and samma sankkalpa - right thoughts. A dedicated intention that all beings are in the "here and now" tranquil, happy, in touch with their gifted talents/accomplishments, and feel interconnected by that synergy to eschew suffering by abdication.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Brahmavihara – four divine abodes, four divine emotions, four immeasurables, four sublime attitudes
Saturday, May 2, 2009
The Noble Eight-fold Path
Sources from different websites and article being edited.
The Eightfold Path (Ariyo Attthangiko Maggo) is the means by which enlightenment may be realized. The historical Buddha first explained the Eightfold Path in his first sermon after his enlightenment, preserved in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta.
The Eightfold Path is:
1. Right View (Samma Ditthi)
2. Right Intention (Samma Sankappa)
3. Right Speech (Samma vaca)
4. Right Action (Samma Kammanta)
5. Right Livelihood (Samma Ajiva)
6. Right Effort (Samma vayama)
7. Right Mindfulness (Samma Sati)
8. Right Concentration (Samma Samadhi)
The Path is divided into three main sections: (1) wisdom (Panna), (2) ethical conduct (Sila) and (3) mental discipline (Samadhi).
1. Wisdom (Panna):
Right View and Right Intention are the wisdom path. Right View is not about believing in doctrine, but in perceiving the true nature of ourselves and the world around us. Right Intention refers to the energy and commitment one needs to be fully engaged in Buddhist practice.
2. Ethical Conduct (Sila):
Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood are the ethical conduct path. This calls us to take care in our speech, our actions, and our daily lives to do no harm to others and to cultivate wholesomeness in ourselves. This part of the path ties into the Precepts.
3. Mental Discipline (Samadhi):
Through Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration we develop the mental discipline to cut through delusion. Many schools of Buddhism encourage seekers to meditate to achieve clarity and focus of mind.
For More Detail
Eightfold Path
The Noble Eightfold Path describes the way to the end of suffering, as it was laid out by Siddhartha Gautama. It is a practical guideline to ethical and mental development with the goal of freeing the individual from attachments and delusions; and it finally leads to understanding the truth about all things. Together with the Four Noble Truths it constitutes the gist of Buddhism. Great emphasis is put on the practical aspect, because it is only through practice that one can attain a higher level of existence and finally reach Nirvana. The eight aspects of the path are not to be understood as a sequence of single steps, instead they are highly interdependent principles that have to be seen in relationship with each other.
1. Right View
Right view is the beginning and the end of the path, it simply means to see and to understand things as they really are and to realise the Four Noble Truth. As such, right view is the cognitive aspect of wisdom. It means to see things through, to grasp the impermanent and imperfect nature of worldly objects and ideas, and to understand the law of karma and karmic conditioning. Right view is not necessarily an intellectual capacity, just as wisdom is not just a matter of intelligence. Instead, right view is attained, sustained, and enhanced through all capacities of mind. It begins with the intuitive insight that all beings are subject to suffering and it ends with complete understanding of the true nature of all things. Since our view of the world forms our thoughts and our actions, right view yields right thoughts and right actions.
2. Right Intention
While right view refers to the cognitive aspect of wisdom, right intention refers to the volitional aspect, i.e. the kind of mental energy that controls our actions. Right intention can be described best as commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement. Buddha distinguishes three types of right intentions: 1. the intention of renunciation, which means resistance to the pull of desire, 2. the intention of good will, meaning resistance to feelings of anger and aversion, and 3. the intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop compassion.
3. Right Speech
Right speech is the first principle of ethical conduct in the eightfold path. Ethical conduct is viewed as a guideline to moral discipline, which supports the other principles of the path. This aspect is not self-sufficient, however, essential, because mental purification can only be achieved through the cultivation of ethical conduct. The importance of speech in the context of Buddhist ethics is obvious: words can break or save lives, make enemies or friends, start war or create peace. Buddha explained right speech as follows: 1. to abstain from false speech, especially not to tell deliberate lies and not to speak deceitfully, 2. to abstain from slanderous speech and not to use words maliciously against others, 3. to abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others, and 4. to abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth. Positively phrased, this means to tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when necessary.
4. Right Action
The second ethical principle, right action, involves the body as natural means of expression, as it refers to deeds that involve bodily actions. Unwholesome actions lead to unsound states of mind, while wholesome actions lead to sound states of mind. Again, the principle is explained in terms of abstinence: right action means 1. to abstain from harming sentient beings, especially to abstain from taking life (including suicide) and doing harm intentionally or delinquently, 2. to abstain from taking what is not given, which includes stealing, robbery, fraud, deceitfulness, and dishonesty, and 3. to abstain from sexual misconduct. Positively formulated, right action means to act kindly and compassionately, to be honest, to respect the belongings of others, and to keep sexual relationships harmless to others. Further details regarding the concrete meaning of right action can be found in the Precepts.
5. Right Livelihood
Right livelihood means that one should earn one's living in a righteous way and that wealth should be gained legally and peacefully. The Buddha mentions four specific activities that harm other beings and that one should avoid for this reason: 1. dealing in weapons, 2. dealing in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter as well as slave trade and prostitution), 3. working in meat production and butchery, and 4. selling intoxicants and poisons, such as alcohol and drugs. Furthermore any other occupation that would violate the principles of right speech and right action should be avoided.
6. Right Effort
Right effort can be seen as a prerequisite for the other principles of the path. Without effort, which is in itself an act of will, nothing can be achieved, whereas misguided effort distracts the mind from its task, and confusion will be the consequence. Mental energy is the force behind right effort; it can occur in either wholesome or unwholesome states. The same type of energy that fuels desire, envy, aggression, and violence can on the other side fuel self-discipline, honesty, benevolence, and kindness. Right effort is detailed in four types of endeavours that rank in ascending order of perfection: 1. to prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states, 2. to abandon unwholesome states that have already arisen, 3. to arouse wholesome states that have not yet arisen, and 4. to maintain and perfect wholesome states already arisen.
7. Right Mindfulness
Right mindfulness is the controlled and perfected faculty of cognition. It is the mental ability to see things as they are, with clear consciousness. Usually, the cognitive process begins with an impression induced by perception, or by a thought, but then it does not stay with the mere impression. Instead, we almost always conceptualise sense impressions and thoughts immediately. We interpret them and set them in relation to other thoughts and experiences, which naturally go beyond the facticity of the original impression. The mind then posits concepts, joins concepts into constructs, and weaves those constructs into complex interpretative schemes. All this happens only half consciously, and as a result we often see things obscured. Right mindfulness is anchored in clear perception and it penetrates impressions without getting carried away. Right mindfulness enables us to be aware of the process of conceptualisation in a way that we actively observe and control the way our thoughts go. Buddha accounted for this as the four foundations of mindfulness: 1. contemplation of the body, 2. contemplation of feeling (repulsive, attractive, or neutral), 3. contemplation of the state of mind, and 4. contemplation of the phenomena.
8. Right Concentration
The eighth principle of the path, right concentration, refers to the development of a mental force that occurs in natural consciousness, although at a relatively low level of intensity, namely concentration. Concentration in this context is described as one-pointedness of mind, meaning a state where all mental faculties are unified and directed onto one particular object. Right concentration for the purpose of the eightfold path means wholesome concentration, i.e. concentration on wholesome thoughts and actions. The Buddhist method of choice to develop right concentration is through the practice of meditation. The meditating mind focuses on a selected object. It first directs itself onto it, then sustains concentration, and finally intensifies concentration step by step. Through this practice it becomes natural to apply elevated levels concentration also in everyday situations.
Four Noble Truths
Sources from different websites and article being edited.
The Buddha's first sermon after his Enlightenment centered on the Four Noble Truths, which are the foundation of Buddhism. The truths are:
1. The truth of suffering (Dukkha)
2. The truth of the cause of suffering (Samudaya)
3. The truth of the end of suffering (Nirhodha)
4. The truth of the path that frees us from suffering (Magga)
1. The Truth of Suffering
The First Noble Truth often is translated as "Life is suffering." Many people new to Buddhism tune out as soon as they hear this. But the Pali word dukkha also refers to anything that is temporary, conditional, or compounded of other things. Even something precious and enjoyable is dukkha, because it will end.
Related to the nature of life is the nature of self. Are we not also temporary, conditional and compounded of many parts? We can understand that life is impermanent but are we, also, impermanent? The Buddha taught that before we can understand life and death we must understand the self.
2. The Truth of the Cause of Suffering
The Second Noble Truth teaches that the cause of suffering is craving or thirst (tanha). We continually search for something outside ourselves to make us happy. But no matter how successful we are, we never remain satisfied.
The Buddha taught that this thirst grows from ignorance of the self. We go through life grabbing one thing after another to get a sense of security about ourselves. We attach not only to physical things, but also to ideas and opinions about ourselves and the world around us. Then we grow frustrated when the world doesn't behave the way we think it should and our lives don't conform to our expectations.
The Buddha's teachings on karma and rebirth are closely related to the Second Noble Truth.
3. The Truth of the End of Suffering
The Buddha's teachings on the Four Noble Truths are sometimes compared to a physician diagnosing an illness and prescribing a treatment. The first truth tells us what the illness is, and the second truth tells us what causes the illness. The Third Noble Truth holds out hope for a cure.
The Buddha taught that through diligent practice, we can put an end to craving. Ending the hamster-wheel chase after satisfaction is enlightenment (bodhi, "awakened"). The enlightened being exists in a state called Nirvana.
4. The Truth of the Path That Frees Us From Suffering
Here the Buddha as physician prescribes the treatment for our illness: The Eightfold Path. Unlike in many other religions, in Buddhism there is no particular benefit to merely believing in a doctrine. Instead, the emphasis is on living the doctrine and walking the path.
For More Detail
The Four Noble Truths
1. Life means suffering.
2. The origin of suffering is attachment.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.
4. The path to the cessation of suffering.
1. Life means suffering.
To live means to suffer, because the human nature is not perfect and neither is the world we live in. During our lifetime, we inevitably have to endure physical suffering such as pain, sickness, injury, tiredness, old age, and eventually death; and we have to endure psychological suffering like sadness, fear, frustration, disappointment, and depression. Although there are different degrees of suffering and there are also positive experiences in life that we perceive as the opposite of suffering, such as ease, comfort and happiness, life in its totality is imperfect and incomplete, because our world is subject to impermanence. This means we are never able to keep permanently what we strive for, and just as happy moments pass by, we ourselves and our loved ones will pass away one day, too.
2. The origin of suffering is attachment.
The origin of suffering is attachment to transient things and the ignorance thereof. Transient things do not only include the physical objects that surround us, but also ideas, and -in a greater sense- all objects of our perception. Ignorance is the lack of understanding of how our mind is attached to impermanent things. The reasons for suffering are desire, passion, ardour, pursuit of wealth and prestige, striving for fame and popularity, or in short: craving and clinging. Because the objects of our attachment are transient, their loss is inevitable, thus suffering will necessarily follow. Objects of attachment also include the idea of a "self" which is a delusion, because there is no abiding self. What we call "self" is just an imagined entity, and we are merely a part of the ceaseless becoming of the universe.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.
The cessation of suffering can be attained through nirodha. Nirodha means the unmaking of sensual craving and conceptual attachment. The third noble truth expresses the idea that suffering can be ended by attaining dispassion. Nirodha extinguishes all forms of clinging and attachment. This means that suffering can be overcome through human activity, simply by removing the cause of suffering. Attaining and perfecting dispassion is a process of many levels that ultimately results in the state of Nirvana. Nirvana means freedom from all worries, troubles, complexes, fabrications and ideas. Nirvana is not comprehensible for those who have not attained it.
4. The path to the cessation of suffering.
There is a path to the end of suffering - a gradual path of self-improvement, which is described more detailed in the Eightfold Path. It is the middle way between the two extremes of excessive self-indulgence (hedonism) and excessive self-mortification (asceticism); and it leads to the end of the cycle of rebirth. The latter quality discerns it from other paths which are merely "wandering on the wheel of becoming", because these do not have a final object. The path to the end of suffering can extend over many lifetimes, throughout which every individual rebirth is subject to karmic conditioning. Craving, ignorance, delusions, and its effects will disappear gradually, as progress is made on the path.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Mangala Sutta - in Pali and English
Source: Youtube
This is the Pali and English version of Mangala Sutta.
Mangala is defined as the Good omen or Auspices.
In English,
Thus have I heard:
Once while the Blessed One was staying in the vicinity of Saavatthi, in the Jeta Grove, in Anaathapi.n.dika's monastery, a certain deity, whose surpassing brilliance and beauty illumined the entire Jeta Grove, late one night came to the presence of the Blessed One; having come to him and offered profound salutations he stood on one side and spoke to him reverently in the following verse:
Many deities and human beings
Have pondered what are blessings,
Which they hope will bring them safety:
Declare to them, Sir, the Highest Blessing.
(To this the Blessed One replied):
II
With fools no company keeping.
With the wise ever consorting,
To the worthy homage paying:
This, the Highest Blessing.
III
Congenial place to dwell,
In the past merits making,
One's self directed well:
This, the Highest Blessing.
IV
Ample learning, in crafts ability,
With a well-trained disciplining,
Well-spoken words, civility:
This, the Highest Blessing.
V
Mother, father well supporting,
Wife and children duly cherishing,
Types of work unconflicting:
This, the Highest Blessing.
VI
Acts of giving, righteous living,
Relatives and kin supporting,
Actions blameless then pursuing:
This, the Highest Blessing.
VII
Avoiding evil and abstaining,
From besotting drinks refraining,
Diligence in Dhamma doing:
This, the Highest Blessing.
VIII
Right reverence and humility
Contentment and a grateful bearing,
Hearing Dhamma when it's timely:
This, the Highest Blessing.
IX
Patience, meekness when corrected,
Seeing monks and then discussing
About the Dhamma when it's timely:
This, the Highest Blessing.
X
Self-restraint and holy life,
All the Noble Truths in-seeing,
Realization of Nibbaana:
This, the Highest Blessing.
XI
Though touched by worldly circumstances,
Never his mind is wavering,
Sorrowless, stainless and secure:
This, the Highest Blessing.
XII
Since by acting in this way,
They are everywhere unvanquished,
And everywhere they go in safety:
Theirs, the Highest Blessings.
Here ends the Discourse on Blessings.
In Pali, it is as follow:
I.
Bahuu devaa manussaa ca
ma"ngalaani acintayu.m /
aaka.mkhamaanaa sotthaana.m
bruuhi ma"ngalam-uttama.m /
II.
Asevanaa ca baalaana.m;
pa.n.ditaana~n ca sevanaa /
puujaa ca puujaniiyaana.m
etam ma"ngalam-uttama.m /
III.
Pa.tiruupadesavaaso ca,
pubbe ca kata-pu~n~nataa /
attasammaapa.nidhi ca
etam ma"ngalam-uttama.m /
IV.
Bahusacca~n ca sippa~n ca
vinayo ca susikkhito /
subhaasitaa ca yaa vaacaa
etam ma"ngalam-uttama.m /
V.
Maataa-pitu upa.t.thaana.m
putta-daarassa sa"ngaho /
anaakulaa ca kammantaa
etam ma"ngalam-uttama.m /
VI.
Daana~n ca dhammacariyaa ca
~naatakaana~n ca sa"ngaho /
anavajjaani kammaani
etam ma"ngalam-uttama.m /
VII.
AArati viratii paapaa
majjapaanaa ca sa~n~namo /
appamaado ca dhammesu
etam ma"ngalam-uttama.m /
VIII.
Gaaravo ca nivaato ca
santu.t.thii ca kata~n~nutaa /
kaalena dhammasavana.m
etam ma"ngalam-uttama.m /
IX.
Khantii ca sovacassataa
sama.naana~n ca dassana.m /
kaalena dhammasaakacchaa
etam ma"ngalam-uttama.m /
X.
Tapo ca brahmacariya~n ca,
ariyasaccaana dassana.m /
nibbaana-sacchikiriyaa ca
etam ma"ngalam-uttama.m /
XI.
Phu.t.thassa lokadhammehi
citta.m yassa na kampati /
asoka.m viraja.m khema.m
etam ma"ngalam-uttama.m /
XII.
Etaadisaani katvaana
sabbattham-aparaajitaa /
sabbattha sotthi.m gacchanti
ta.m tesa.m ma"ngalam-uttama.m /
(Mahaama"ngalasutta.m ni.t.thita.m)
Metta Sutta - Remix
Source: Youtube [The DJ is a Burmese and one of my friends said he is DJ Jay.]
This is the remix version of Metta Sutta for youngsters.
The image of the Pagoda in this video is the Shwedagon Pagoda, the most famous one in Yangon, Myanmar.
There are a lot of arguments for this song in its original page in youtube (click here). As it is a remix or club-mix version, some may not like it.
But for my opinion, we should not be too conservative because the world is rapidly changing. So, let the youngsters to listen it. I believe it is better for us to let them to listen the Buddha's songs than the others. So, they will get familiar with Dhamma Songs. And then, they will eager to learn what the meanings of those song are.
The above comment is just my opinion. Someone, who has different opinions, are invited to give comments here. All comments are welcomed.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
ကာလာမသုတ္ (ဗုဒၶ ၏ အယူအဆ လြတ္လပ္ပံုု)
ၿမတ္စြာဘုရားရွင္သည္ရြာၾကီးတစ္ရြာျဖစ္ေသာ ေကသမုတၱိရြာၾကီးသုိ ့ေရာက္ရွိခဲ့စဥ္ ၎ရြာၾကီးတြင္ ဘုရားရွင္ အေရွးဦးစြာ တတၳိပုဂၢဳိလ္(၆)ဦးမွ ငါေဟာတာယုံသူမ်ားေျပာတာမယုံနဲ ့ဆုိျပီး မွားယြင္းေသာအယူဝါဒမ်ားစြာကုိ ေဟာၾကားခဲ့ျပီးျဖစ္လုိ႕ ့ရြာသားမ်ားအားလုံး အယူဝါဒနဲ ့ပတ္သက္ျပီး ေတြေဝေနၾကေသာအခ်ိန္တြင္ ဘုရားရွင္မွေကသမုတၱိသုတ္ကုိ ေဟာေတာ္မူခဲ့ၿခင္းၿဖစ္ေပသည္။ထိုေဟာၾကားခ်က္အၿပည့္အစံုမွာ........
၁/ အယူဝါဒတစ္ခုကို တဆင့္ၾကား႐ံုမွ်ျဖင့္ သို႕တည္းမဟုတ္ သူတပါး ေဟာၾကားသည္ကို ၾကား႐ံုမွ်ျဖင့္
ထိုအယူဝါဒကို မွန္သည္ ဟူ၍ ၎၊ မွားသည္ ဟူ၍၎ မဆံုးျဖတ္သင့္ေပ။
၂/ အယူဝါဒတစ္ခု၏ က်မ္းဂန္စာေပသည္ မိမိတို႕၏ ဘိုးေဘးစဥ္ဆက္ ဆင္းသက္လာေသာ မိ႐ိုးဖလာ အယူဝါဒျဖစ္သည္ဟူ၍လည္း
ထိုအယူဝါဒကို မွန္သည္ ဟူ၍ ၎၊ မွားသည္ ဟူ၍၎ မဆံုးျဖတ္သင့္ေပ။
၃/ အယူဝါဒတစ္ခု၏ က်မ္းဂန္စာေပသည္ ဤအရာသည္ ဤသို႔ျဖစ္သည္ ဟူေသာ ေကာလဟလျဖင့္လည္း သို႕တည္းမဟုတ္ ထိုအယူ၀ါဒကို ယံုၾကည္ကိုးကြယ္သူမ်ားသည္ ဟူ၍လည္း
ထိုအယူဝါဒကို မွန္သည္ ဟူ၍ ၎၊ မွားသည္ ဟူ၍၎ မဆံုးျဖတ္သင့္ေပ။
၄/ အယူဝါဒတစ္ခု၏ မိမိတို႔သင္ထားေသာ စာမ်ားႏွင့္ ညီညြတ္႐ံုမွ်ျဖင့္လည္း
ထိုအယူဝါဒကို မွန္သည္ ဟူ၍ ၎၊ မွားသည္ ဟူ၍၎ မဆံုးျဖတ္သင့္ေပ။
၅/ အယူဝါဒတစ္ခု၏ မိမိၾကံစည္ထားေသာအၾကံအစည္ အေတြးအေခၚႏွင့္ ကိုက္ညီသည္ သိုတည္းမဟုတ္ မိမိ အယူဝါဒျခင္း တူသည္ ဟူ၍ လည္း
ထိုအယူဝါဒကို မွန္သည္ ဟူ၍ ၎၊ မွားသည္ ဟူ၍၎ မဆံုးျဖတ္သင့္ေပ။
၆/ အယူဝါဒတစ္ခု၏ က်မ္းဂန္စာေပ သည္ သူတစ္ပါးတို႔ လုပ္နည္းကိုင္နည္းကို သေဘာၾက၍ သို႕တည္းမဟုတ္ ထိုအယူ၀ါဒကို သူတပါးတို႕ ကိုးကြယ္ယံုၾကည္ သည္ ဟူ၍လည္း
ထိုအယူဝါဒကို မွန္သည္ ဟူ၍ ၎၊ မွားသည္ ဟူ၍၎ မဆံုးျဖတ္သင့္ေပ။
၇/ အယူဝါဒတစ္ခု၏ က်မ္းဂန္စာေပသည္ မိမိတို႔ ယံုၾကည္ထိုက္ေသာပုဂၢိဳလ္၏ စကားျဖစ္သည္ဟု ပုဂၢိဳလ္စြဲအားျဖင့္လည္း
ထိုအယူဝါဒကို မွန္သည္ ဟူ၍ ၎၊ မွားသည္ ဟူ၍၎ မဆံုးျဖတ္သင့္ေပ။
၈/ အယူဝါဒတစ္ခု၏ က်မ္းဂန္စာေပသည္ ငါတို႔၏ ဆရာစကား ျဖစ္႐ံုမွ်ျဖင့္လည္း ထိုအယူဝါဒကို မွန္သည္ ဟူ၍ ၎၊ မွားသည္ ဟူ၍၎ မဆံုးျဖတ္သင့္ေပ။
အယူဝါဒတစ္ခုမွ လာေသာ အဆံုးအမ၊ လမ္းစဥ္ေတြသည္ ေကာင္းလည္းမေကာင္း၊ အျပစ္လည္းမကင္း၊ ပညာရွိတို႔ ကဲ့ရဲ႕စရာလည္းျဖစ္၏။ ထိုလမ္းစဥ္အတိုင္း က်င့္ႀကံလွ်င္ (မိမိအားလည္းေကာင္း၊ သူတပါးအားလည္းေကာင္း၊ ေလာကအားလည္းေကာင္း) စီးပြားမဲ့ဒုကၡေရာက္ဖုိ႔ျဖစ္၏- ဟု ကိုယ္တိုင္ နားလည္လာေသာအခါမွသာ ထိုအယူဝါဒကို စြန္႔လႊတ္သင့္ပါသည္။
အယူဝါဒတစ္ခုမွ လာေသာ အဆံုအမ၊ လမ္းစဥ္ေတြသည္ ေကာင္းလည္းေကာင္း၊ အျပစ္တို႔ မွလည္းကင္း၊ ပညာရွိတို႔ ခ်ီးမႊမ္းစရာလည္းျဖစ္၏။ ထိုလမ္းစဥ္အတိုင္း က်င့္ႀကံလွ်င္ (မိမိအားလည္းေကာင္း၊ သူတပါးအားလည္းေကာင္း၊ ေလာကအားလည္းေကာင္း) ေကာင္းေသာအက်ိဳးစီးပြားျဖစ္ဖုိ႔သာရွိ၏- ဟု ကိုယ္တိုင္နားလည္လက္ခံ ႏိုင္ေသာအခါမွသာ ထိုအယူဝါဒကို စြဲၿမဲစြာလက္ခံသင့္ပါသည္။
source: The citations of this article are from various web pages and blogs written on Buddhism in Burmese. This article needs to be rearranged or re-written.
ဓမၼစၾကာ
မဟာသကၠရာဇ္ ၁၀၃ ခုႏွစ္၊ ဘီစီ ၅၈၈ ခုႏွစ္ ၀ါဆိုလျပည့္ေန႔ ညေနခ်မ္းတြင္ ဗာရာဏသီျပည္ မိဂဒါ၀ုန္ေတာအုပ္အတြင္းမွာ ေဂါတမဘုရားရွင္က ပဥၥ၀ဂၢီငါးဦးကို တရားဦး ေဟာေတာ္မူတဲ့ အထိမ္းအမွတ္ေန႔ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ အဲဒီေန႔မွာ ေဟာၾကားေတာ္မူခဲ့တဲ့ တရားေတာ္ကေတာ့ သတၱ၀ါတို႔၏ ဉာဏ္ပညာ မ်က္လံုးတြင္ ကိေလသာတိမ္သလႅာ ဖံုးလႊမ္းေနေသာေၾကာင့္ အဆက္မျပတ္ အၿမဲျဖစ္ေနေသာ္လည္း မသိၾကသည့္ အမွန္တရားအား စတင္ေဖာ္ထုတ္ သိျမင္ေစခဲ့တဲ့ ဓမၼစကၠပ၀တၱနသုတ္ေတာ္ပဲ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ အဲဒီ တရားေတာ္မွာ အႏွစ္သာရအားျဖင့္ အခ်က္ ၃ ခ်က္ ပါ၀င္ပါတယ္။ (၁) ေရွာင္ရန္ အစြန္းႏွစ္ပါး၊ (၂) က်င့္ႀကံရန္ အလယ္လမ္း၊ (၃) ထိုးထြင္းသိျမင္ရန္ သစၥာေလးပါးတို႔ပဲ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။
စိတ္ဓါတ္၊ အက်င့္ႏွင့္ အသိကို ပ်က္စီးေစေသာ ေရွာင္ရန္ အစြန္းႏွစ္ပါး - The Two Extremes to Avoid
* ကာမဂုဏ္မ်ားႏွင့္ေပ်ာ္ပါးျခင္းဟူေသာ အစြန္းေရာက္အက်င့္မ်ား (Sensual indulgence)
* မိမိကိုယ္ကို ႏွိပ္စက္ညႇည္းပန္းျခင္းဟူေသာ အစြန္းေရာက္အက်င့္မ်ား (Self-mortification)
လိုက္နာက်င့္သံုးရန္ မဇၩိမပဋိပဒါအလယ္လမ္း - Buddha’s Middle Way – The Path of Moderation
* ကိုယ္ႏႈတ္ႏွစ္ပါးအား လြန္က်ဴးမႈမရွိေအာင္ထိန္းေသာ ကိုယ္ႏႈတ္စည္းကမ္း - သီလ (Moral Conduct)
* စိတ္ေသာင္းက်န္းမႈ၊ လြန္က်ဴးမႈ၊ ျပစ္မွားမႈတို႔အား ထိန္းသည့္ စိတ္စည္းကမ္း - သမာဓိ (Concentration)
* စိတ္အတြင္းပိုင္းအထိ အျမစ္တြယ္ကပ္ေနေသာ ကိေလသာ အညစ္အေၾကးမ်ား ေဆးေၾကာသန္႔စင္သည့္နည္းလမ္း - ပညာ (Wisdom) ဟူေသာ အႏွစ္သာရ သံုးခုႏွင့္ နည္းလမ္း ရွစ္ခု ပါ၀င္ေပသည္။
ထိုးထြင္းသိျမင္ရန္ သစၥာအမွန္တရားေလးပါး - The Four Noble Truths
(၁) ခႏၶာငါးပါး၊ ႐ုပ္နာမ္ႏွစ္ပါးသည္ ဆင္းရဲျခင္းအမွန္ - ဒုကၡသစၥာ (Life Means Suffering)
ခႏၶာ၏ ျဖစ္ျခင္း၊ အိုမင္းရင့္ေရာ္ျခင္း၊ ေဖာက္ျပန္ျခင္း၊ ႏွိပ္စက္ျခင္း၊ အလိုမျပည့္ျခင္း၊ ခ်စ္ေသာသူႏွင့္ ကြဲကြာရျခင္း၊ မုန္းေသာသူႏွင့္ လက္တြဲရျခင္းစသည္တို႔သည္ ႐ုပ္နာမ္တို႔၏ ဆင္းရဲတတ္သည့္ သဘာ၀အမွန္ျဖစ္သည္။
Birth, aging, illness, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, despair, not to get what one wants, union with whatis dispeasing, separation from what is pleasing are the life’s true natures of suffering.
(၂) တဏွာသည္ ဆင္းရဲေၾကာင္းအမွန္ - သမုဒယသစၥာ (Origin of Suffering is Attachment)
ကာမ၊ ခႏၶာ၊ ဘ၀တို႔၌တပ္မက္ေသာ တဏွာႏွင့္ ဘ၀မရွိဟူေသာ ၀ါဒတို႔၌ စြဲလမ္းတက္မက္ေသာ တဏွာတို႔သည္ ဆင္းရဲျခင္းကို ျဖစ္ေစေသာ အေၾကာင္းသေဘာ အမွန္ျဖစ္သည္။
Craving for sensual pleasures, existence and for non-existence is the cause of renewed existence.
(၃) ထိုတဏွာခ်ဳပ္ျခင္းသည္ ဒုကၡခ်ဳပ္ၿငိမ္းေၾကာင္းအမွန္ - နိေျဂာဓသစၥာ (Suffering’s Cessation)
Cessation of suffering is the giving up, relinquishing of and nonreliance on the craving.
(၄) မဂၢင္ရွစ္ပါး အက်င့္တရားတို႔သည္ နိေရာဓသို႔ေရာက္ေၾကာင္းအမွန္ - မဂၢသစၥာ (Way to the Cessation of Suffering)
The Noble Eightfold Path is the way leading to the cessation of suffering.
မဂၢင္ရွစ္ပါး (The Noble Eightfold Path) ဆိုသည္မွာ…
(၁) သမၼာဒိ႒ိ - မွန္စြာသိျမင္မႈ (The Right Understanding)
အရွိကို အရွိအတိုင္းသိ၍ ငါစြဲေပ်ာက္သည့္အျမင္သည္ အျမင္မွန္အားလံုး၏ အေျခခံ ျဖစ္သည္။
(၂) သမၼာသကၤပၸ - မွန္စြာႀကံစည္မႈ (The Right Thinking)
ငါ့အတြက္ မႀကံ၊ ေကာင္းက်ဳိးသယ္ပိုးရန္၊ ဆင္းရဲသူတို႔အား ကူညီေစာင့္ေရွာက္ရန္ ႀကံစည္ျခင္းသည္ မွန္ေသာအႀကံ ျဖစ္ေပသည္။
(၃) သမၼာ၀ါစာ - မွန္စြာေျပာဆိုျခင္း (The Right Speech)
မွန္ကန္၊ ႐ိုးသား၊ ယဥ္ေက်း၍ ညီညြတ္မႈကိုအားေပးေသာ၊ အမ်ားလက္ခံႏိုင္ေသာစကားအား ေျပာျခင္းသည္ မွန္စြာေျပာျခင္း မည္ေပသည္။
(၄) သမၼာကမၼႏ ၱ- မွန္စြာလုပ္ေဆာင္ျခင္း (The Right Action)
သူတစ္ပါး၏ အသက္အိုးအိမ္အား ကာကြယ္ေစာင့္ေရွာက္ျခင္း၊ သူတစ္ပါးႀကီးပြားတိုးတက္ေရးအား ျပဳျခင္း၊ ကိေလသာ ကာမဂုဏ္တို႔အား လူမႈက်င့္၀တ္တို႔ျဖင့္ စနစ္တက် ထိန္းသိမ္းထားျခင္းတို႔သည္ မွန္ကန္ေသာ ကိုယ္အမူအရာ ျဖစ္ေပသည္။
(၅) သမၼာအာဇီ၀ - မွန္စြာအသက္ေမြးျခင္း (The Right Livelihood)
သူ႔အသက္အား သတ္ျဖတ္ညႇင္းပန္းျခင္း၊ အဆိပ္လက္နက္၊ အသားစားသတၱ၀ါ၊ မူးယစ္ေဆး၀ါး၊ လူ (ျပည့္တန္ဆာ၊ ကၽြန္) အေရာင္းအ၀ယ္ျပဳျခင္းဟူေသာ မမွန္ကန္သည့္ အသက္ေမြးျခင္းမ်ားအား ေရွာင္ၾကဥ္ျခင္းသည္ မွန္စြာအသက္ေမြးျခင္း မည္ပါသည္။
(၆) သမၼာ၀ါယာမ - မွန္စြာအားထုတ္ျခင္း (The Right Effort)
မျဖစ္ေသးသည့္ ကိေလသာမ်ားအား မျဖစ္လာေစရန္၊ ရွိေနေသာ ကိေလသာ အက်င့္ဆိုးမ်ားအား အႂကြင္းမဲ့ ပယ္ရွားႏိုင္ရန္ ႀကိဳးစား အားထုတ္ျခင္းသည္ မွန္ေသာအားထုတ္ျခင္း ျဖစ္သည္။
(၇) သမၼာသတိ - မွန္စြာမွတ္႐ႈျခင္း (The Right Mindfulness)
ကိေလသာရန္သူႏွင့္ ဒုစ႐ိုက္အက်င့္ဆိုးမ်ား ကိုယ္ႏႈတ္စိတ္အမႈအရာမ်ားသို႔ မ၀င္လာေစရန္ ကာကြယ္ေစာင့္ၾကည့္ထားျခင္းသည္ မွန္စြာ မွတ္႐ႈျခင္း ျဖစ္ေပသည္။
(၈) သမၼာသမာဓိ - မွန္စြာတည္ၾကည္ျခင္း (The Right Concentration)
ေတာေမ်ာက္ကဲ့သို႔ ပရမ္းပတာ ျပန္႔က်ဲေျပးလႊားေနသည့္စိတ္အား တည္ၿငိမ္ေစရန္ အာ႐ံုေကာင္းတစ္ခုအေပၚတြင္ စည္းကမ္းတက် ထိန္းထားႏိုင္ျခင္းသည္ မွန္ကန္စြာတည္ၾကည္ျခင္း ျဖစ္ပါသည္။
သီလ၊ သမာဓိႏွင့္ ပညာဟူေသာ မဇၩိမပဋိပဒါအလယ္လမ္း၏ အႏွစ္သာရသံုးပါးႏွင့္ မဂၢင္ရွစ္ပါးတို႔အၾကား ဆက္စပ္ပံုမွာ
သမၼာဒိ႒ိႏွင့္ သမၼာသကၤပၸတို႔သည္ ပညာမည္ေပသည္။ သမၼ၀ါစာ၊ သမၼာကမၼႏၱႏွင့္ သမၼာအာဇီ၀တို႔သည္ သီလပင္ျဖစ္ကာ သမၼာ၀ါယာမ၊ သမၼာသတိႏွင့္ သမၼာသမာဓိတို႔သည္ သမာဓိတရားမ်ား ျဖစ္ပါသည္။
မဂၢင္ရွစ္ပါး မဂၢသစၥာသည္ သီလ၊ သမာဓိ၊ ပညာပင္ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ထိုအလယ္လမ္း အက်င့္ျမတ္အား က်င့္ႀကံျခင္းျဖင့္ ဒုကၡသစၥာအား ထိုးထြင္းသိျမင္၊ သမုဒယသစၥာအား ပယ္ရွား၍ နိေျဂာဓသစၥာသို႔ စိုက္ေရာက္ မ်က္ေမွာက္ျပဳႏိုင္ၾကမည္ ျဖစ္ပါသည္။
Source: http://stanley.iblogger.org/?cat=94&paged=2
Acknowledgment
The original author, Stanley, claimed that he also referred to the booklet which was distributed free-of-charge on the full-moon day of Waso at Shwedagon pagoda, Yangon.
The distributors were U Chit Khin, Daw Aye Aye Sein and their family, the owner of Yinmar Music Recording and Putet Journal.
Kalama Sutta - Buddha's charter of free inquiry
The Kesamutti Sutta, or better known as Kalama Sutta, is a Buddhist Sutta in the Anguttara Nikaya of the Tipitaka. In this Sutta, it is clearly seen how generous, practical and flexible Buddhism is. Instead, he said, only when one personally knew that a certain teaching was skillful, blameless, praiseworthy and conducive to happness, and that it was praised by the wise, should one then accept it as true and practise it.
Once, Gautama Buddha passed through the village of Kesaputta and was greeted by the people who lived there: the Kalamas. The Kalamas greeted the Buddha and asked for advice. According to the Kalamas, many wandering holy men and ascetics had passed through their village, expounding their teachings and criticizing others'. The Kalamas asked the Buddha whose teachings they should follow. In response, he delivered a sutta that serves as an entry-point to Buddhist tenets for those unconvinced by revelatory experiences.
The Buddha instructed the Kalama People on which basis one should decide which religious teaching to accept as true. The Buddha told the Kalamas to not just believe religious teachings because they were claimed to be true by various sources or through the application of various methods and techniques. He urged that direct knowledge from one's own experience should be called upon. He counseled that the words of the wise should be heeded and taken into account when deciding upon the value of a teaching. This was not a dogmatic acceptance but rather a constantly questioning and testing acceptance of those teachings which could be proven to reduce suffering.
Buddha preached:
Buddha also instructed, the sources of wisdom to be avoided, as follow:
Source: www.en.wikipedia.org
Monday, April 27, 2009
The Chant of Metta (Loving Kindness)
Lyrics by Imee Ooi, Music by Woon Yoke Fun
Video Source: Youtube
Lyrics Source: http://www.buddhanet.net/chant-metta.htm
Acknowledgment:
I would like to show my gratitude for this post to my friend, Oakkyaw Za, who sent it to me.
Aham avero homi
May I be free from enmity and danger
abyapajjho homi
May I be free from mental suffering
anigha homi
May I be free from physical suffering
sukhi - attanam pariharami
May I take care of myself happily
Mama matapitu
May my parents
acariya ca natimitta ca
teacher relatives and friends
sabrahma - carino ca
fellow Dhamma farers
avera hontu
be free from enmity and danger
abyapajjha hontu
be free from mental suffering
anigha hontu
be free from physical suffering
sukhi - attanam pariharantu
may they take care of themselves happily
Imasmim arame sabbe yogino
May all meditators in this compound
avera hontu
be free from enmity and danger
abyapajjha hontu
be free from mental suffering
anigha hontu
be free from physical suffering
sukhi - attanam pariharantu
May they take care of themselves happily
Imasmim arame sabbe bhikkhu
May all monks in this compound
samanera ca
novice monks
upasaka - upasikaya ca
laymen and laywomen disciples
avera hontu
be free from enmity and danger
abyapajjha hontu
be free from mental suffering
anigha hontu
be free from physical suffering
sukhi - attanam pariharantu
May they take care of themselves happily
Amhakam catupaccaya - dayaka
May our donors of the four supports: clothing, food, medicine and lodging
avera hontu
be free from enmity and danger
abyapajjha hontu
be free from mental suffering
anigha hontu
be free from physical suffering
sukhi - attanam pariharantu
May they take care of themselves happily
Amhakam arakkha devata
May our guardian devas
Ismasmim vihare
in this monastery
Ismasmim avase
in this dwelling
Ismasmim arame
in this compound
arakkha devata
May the guardian devas
avera hontu
be free from enmity and danger
abyapajjha hontu
be free from mental suffering
anigha hontu
be free from physical suffering
sukhi - attanam pariharantu
may they take care of themselves happily
Sabbe satta
May all beings
sabbe pana
all breathing things
sabbe bhutta
all creatures
sabbe puggala
all individuals (all beings)
sabbe attabhava - pariyapanna
all personalities (all beings with mind and body)
sabbe itthoyo
may all females
sabbe purisa
all males
sabbe ariya
all noble ones (saints)
sabbe anariya
all worldlings (those yet to attain sainthood)
sabbe deva
all devas (deities)
sabbe manussa
all humans
sabbe vinipatika
all those in the four woeful planes
avera hontu
be free from enmity and dangers
abyapajjha hontu
be free from mental suffering
anigha hontu
be free from physical suffering
sukhi - attanam pariharantu
may they take care of themselves happily
Dukkha muccantu
May all being be free from suffering
Yattha-laddha-sampattito mavigacchantu
May whatever they have gained not be lost
Kammassaka
All beings are owners of their own Kamma
Purathimaya disaya
in the eastern direction
pacchimaya disaya
in the western direction
uttara disaya
in the northern direction
dakkhinaya disaya
in the southern direction
purathimaya anudisaya
in the southeast direction
pacchimaya anudisaya
in the northwest direction
uttara anudisaya
in the northeast direction
dakkhinaya anudisaya
in the southwest direction
hetthimaya disaya
in the direction below
uparimaya disaya
in the direction above
Sabbe satta
May all beings
sabbe pana
all breathing things
sabbe bhutta
all creatures
sabbe puggala
all individuals (all beings)
sabbe attabhava - pariyapanna
all personalities (all beings with mind and body)
sabbe itthoyo
may all females
sabbe purisa
all males
sabbe ariya
all noble ones (saints)
sabbe anariya
(those yet to attain sainthood)
sabbe deva
all devas (deities)
sabbe manussa
all humans
sabbe vinipatika
all those in the 4 woeful planes
avera hontu
be free from enmity and dangers
abyapajjha hontu
be free from mental suffering
anigha hontu
be free from physical suffering
sukhi - attanam pariharantu
may they take care of themselves happily
Dukkha muccantu
May all beings be free from suffering
Yattha-laddha-sampattito mavigacchantu
May whatever they have gained not be lost
Kammassaka
All beings are owners of their own kamma
Uddham yava bhavagga ca
As far as the highest plane of existence
adho yava aviccito
to as far down as the lowest plane
samanta cakkavalesu
in the entire universe
ye satta pathavicara
whatever beings that move on earth
abyapajjha nivera ca
may they are free of mental suffering and enmity
nidukkha ca nupaddava
and from physical suffering and danger
Uddham yava bhavagga ca
As far as the highest plane of existence
adho yava aviccito
to as far down as the lowest plane
samanta cakkavalesu
in the entire universe
ye satta udakecara
whatever beings that move on water
abyapajjha nivera ca
may they are free of mental suffering and enmity
nidukkha ca nupaddava
and from physical suffering and danger
Uddham yava bhavagga ca
As far as the highest plane of existence
adho yava aviccito
to as far down as the lowest plane
samanta cakkavalesu
in the entire universe
ye satta akasecara
whatever beings that move in air
abyapajjha nivera ca
may they are free of mental suffering and enmity
nidukkha ca nupaddava
and from physical suffering and danger.
