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Parents and Children: Transmitting the Buddhist Heritage across Generations by Ven. Medagama Vajirañāṇa Nayaka Thera
One essential requirement for a happy society is that the individuals constituting the society must have tranquillity of mind. This tranquillity of mind arises from purity of thought, word, and action, which means the observance of an ethical lifestyle based on the Five Precepts. As human beings we are unique in our ability to see the difference between good and bad. We have the capacity to make moral choices and thereby to influence the pattern of our own lives and that of others. This influence is exerted through our thoughts, speech, and actions. If we can develop inner purity and strength, then we have established the basis on which we can give what is needed by others in all our relationships. It is up to us to create a safe and harmonious society.
by Ven. Medagama Vajirañāṇa Nayaka Thera
Narrated by Ethan Christy
2024
29 minutes 121 seconds
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Introduction to Vipassana
This short introduction to Vipassana talk was given on June 29, 2024 at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia.
by Patrick Given-Wilson
2024
32 minutes 48 seconds
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The Jewel in Mumbai by Bikram Dandiya
"The Global Vipassana Pagoda in Mumbai was built to mark the birth centenary year of Sayagyi U Ba Khin, the Burmese Dhamma teacher of Shri Satya Narayan Goenkaji. The monument is built in the Myanmar style of the Shwedagon pagoda, as a token of gratitude to that country where the essence of the Buddha’s teachings was maintained in its pristine purity, and from where it is now spreading throughout India, and via India to the rest of the world. Our Dhamma teacher Shri S.N. Goenkaji became the vehicle to make this happen. He was also our inspiring guide for every important aspect of this building project. Tremendous volition and effort went into the building of this staggering monument and it is interesting and educative to explore the journey.
"Mr. Bikram Dandiya has beautifully chronicled some of these experiences in his booklet, “The Jewel in Mumbai”, the story of the making of the crystal bud atop the Global Vipassana Pagoda. Although his story concentrates on a specific part of this enormous structure, it typifies the challenges and solutions witnessed by those of us closely involved in its creation. For example, experts had opined that it was not possible to construct a 325 foot wide stone dome without supporting pillars; the dome went up thanks to indigenous technology, using thousands of huge interlocking stones weighing 700 to 800 kg each, and now seemingly floating in the air!"
—M.M. Khandhar, 14th January 2020
narrated by Bikram Dandiya
2024
23 minutes 35 seconds
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Available at Pariyatti at https://store.pariyatti.org/jewel-in-mumbai as a papaerback, free PDF download, and free audiobook. In Hindi as a PDF download.
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A Journey into Buddhism by Elizabeth J. A. Harris
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"The themes of the talks are rooted in my journey, as a Christian, into Buddhism. In the mid-1980s I felt the need to ’let go’ of my own religious conditioning to enter the world of another faith. It grew from a conviction that people with an interest in religion should not remain imprisoned within one framework but should explore others. The choice of Buddhism and Sri Lanka was a natural one for me. Buddhism’s emphasis on meditation and non-violence touched my own interests as a Christian, and a visit to Sri Lanka in 1984 had left me with the feeling that my link with the island was not finished.
I originally intended to be in Sri Lanka for one year. One year, however, became seven and a half, from 1986 until 1993. My aim throughout was not only to study Buddhism but to practise it. I did not consider myself involved in ’interfaith dialogue’ although I’m sure some perceived my actions in this way. I wanted to enter Buddhism on its own terms, as a human being rather than as a Christian."
narrated by Ethan Christy
2024
34 minutes 56 seconds
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Available at Pariyatti: https://store.pariyatti.org/journey-into-buddhism-audiobook.
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Deconstructing Constructions: The Role of Saṅkhārā in the Buddha’s Discourses by Bhikkhu Bodhi
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In this paper I intend to explore the Pāli term saṅkhārā, one of the pivotal concepts in the Buddha’s discourses. The Pāli word has such a rich gamut of meanings that merely to draw them out into the open sheds a flood of light on the Buddha’s understanding of reality. The word occurs in a variety of contexts that are subtly and intricately interwoven. To explore their contextual meanings and track down their interconnections will reveal the rigor of the Buddha’s philosophical vision and the coherence of his teaching in expressing that vision in language and concepts.
narrated by Jonathan Nelson
2024
50 minutes 48 seconds
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Investigating the Dhamma as a book and eBook can be found at https://store.pariyatti.org/investigating-the-dhamma.
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Your Best Friend: And Other Essays by M. B. Werapitiya.
"To understand ourselves, we must live with ourselves and know all about ourselves. The mind for that matter is flickering, fickle, difficult to guard and control and flutters like a fish taken out of its watery abode and thrown upon the land. Somebody causes you hurt and although the aggressor has disappeared from sight, the hurt grows within you and every so often keeps surfacing with an overpowering intensity to give you a warp. Then again, you see something that has captured your attention and your mind has instantly photographed it from every conceivable angle with a see-through lens, developed it in your mental dark-room, brought out the prints and enlargements with the skill of an expert cameraman and processor rolled into one. Similarly, all the sense faculties and the mind are of high sensitivity and respond to anything and everything exciting. If the degree of excitement is not sufficiently satisfying, you step it up with the use of drugs, intoxicants and poisons. This activity goes on unabated and makes of you a human derelict. A wise person living in his mind protects himself holding himself dear. Such a person whose senses are subdued, whose pride is destroyed and is free from corruptions, is calm of mind, speech and action and rightly knows, and is perfectly peaceful and equipoised."
narrated by Tejendra Patel
2024
38 minutes 45 seconds
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Part 6 - Expanding Into New Frontiers from 'What Does Mindfulness Really Mean' by Bhikkhu Bodhi.
Mindfulness has traveled a long way from its homeland in
northeast India. It has journeyed to the island of Sri Lanka, the
river basins of southeast Asia, the mountain monasteries of
China, Korea, and Japan, and the hermitages of the Himalayan
kingdoms. But the last lap of its journey is without parallel.
Today Buddhist meditation has been lifted from its traditional
setting in Buddhist doctrine and faith and transplanted in a
secularized culture bent on pragmatic results. Here it is finding
new accommodations in urban meditation centers and even in
busy hospitals, pain clinics, and treatment centers. Its teachers
and practitioners are more likely to wear street clothing or white
coats than ochre robes; they are more likely to hold degrees in
medicine and psychology than in Buddhist philosophy and
scripture. Meditation is being taught to help people obtain
release, not from the cycle of birth and death, but from the
strains of financial pressures, psychological disorders, and
stressful relationships.
narrated by Jonathan Nelson
2023
6 minutes 58 seconds
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'Investigating the Dhamma' as a book and eBook can be found at https://store.pariyatti.org/investigating-the-dhamma.
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Part 5 - Clear Comprehension from 'What Does Mindfulness Really Mean' by Bhikkhu Bodhi.
While I said just before that clear comprehension plays a more
prominent role in the contemplation of experiential phenomena,
the refrain on right mindfulness shows that clear comprehension
has been present to some degree all along. The formula describes
clear comprehension as a constant entering each exercise virtually
from the start. Whether contemplating the body, feelings, states of
mind, or experiential phenomena, the meditator dwells “ardent,
clearly comprehending, and mindful.”
narrated by Jonathan Nelson
2023
5 minutes 55 seconds
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'Investigating the Dhamma' as a book and eBook can be found at https://store.pariyatti.org/investigating-the-dhamma.
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Part 4 - What the Suttas Say from 'What Does Mindfulness Really Mean' by Bhikkhu Bodhi.
Nevertheless, despite my reservations about the use of “bare attention” as an alternative expression for sati, if we consider how mindfulness is to be practiced in the system laid down in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, we can find considerable support for the idea that the initial task of sati is to “keep to a bare registering of the facts observed” as free as possible from distorting conceptual elaborations. The problem, as I see it, is not with conceptualization itself, but with conceptualization that ascribes erroneous attributes to the objects and the experiential act itself. An experiential event can be viewed as a field distributed between two poles, the objective datum and the subjective act that cognizes it. Ordinarily, on account of the spontaneous functioning of unenlightened consciousness, this polarity is reified into a sharp duality of subject and object. The subjective pole seems to coalesce into a substantially existent “I,” an ego-self that hovers in the background as an autonomous and independent entity. The objective pole presents itself as an object that is there “for me,” ready to serve or oppose my purposes; thus it becomes a potential object of craving or aversion. This process is what the suttas refer to as “I-making” and “mine-making” (ahaṃkāra mamaṃkāra). It is the task of meditation to dismantle this structure by penetrating the selfless nature of all phenomena, whether pertaining to the objective or subjective poles of the experience.
narrated by Jonathan Nelson
2023
9 minutes 10 seconds
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'Investigating the Dhamma' as a book and eBook can be found at https://store.pariyatti.org/investigating-the-dhamma.
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Part 3 - Mindfulness and Bare Attention from 'What Does Mindfulness Really Mean' by Bhikkhu Bodhi.
Many commentators who teach and practice in the contemporary vipassana movement have sought to convey the experiential flavor of mindfulness by means of the expression “bare attention.” With certain reservations (which I will discuss), I believe this characterization is acceptable if understood as a procedural directive for cultivating mindfulness in accordance with certain methods. It helps a novice meditator who has newly embarked on this unfamiliar enterprise get a grip on the appropriate way to observe the phenomenal field. The purpose of the expression would then be seen as pragmatic rather than doctrinal, as pedagogical rather than definitive.
narrated by Jonathan Nelson
2023
21 minutes 56 seconds
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'Investigating the Dhamma' as a book and eBook can be found at https://store.pariyatti.org/investigating-the-dhamma.
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Part 2 - The Meaning of Sati from 'What Does Mindfulness Really Mean' by Bhikkhu Bodhi.
A problem in hermeneutics, with intimate bearings on the actual
practice of meditation, concerns the exact meaning of the word
sati both in general and in relation to Buddhist contemplative
activity. We take the rendering “mindfulness” so much for
granted that we rarely inquire into the precise nuances of the
English term, let alone the meaning of the original Pāli word it
represents and the adequacy of the former as a rendering for the
latter. The word “mindfulness” is itself so vague and elastic that
it serves almost as a cipher into which we can read virtually
anything we want. Hence we seldom recognize that the word
was chosen as a rendering for sati at a particular point in time,
after other terms had been tried and found inadequate.
narrated by Jonathan Nelson
2023
23 minutes 50 seconds
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'Investigating the Dhamma' as a book and eBook can be found at https://store.pariyatti.org/investigating-the-dhamma.
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Part 1 - Mindfulness in the Buddhist Path from 'What Does Mindfulness Really Mean' by Bhikkhu Bodhi
.
The entry of systematic mindfulness practice into the fields of stress reduction and psychotherapy has dramatically altered modern medicine’s perspectives on our capacity to regulate and overcome our human vulnerabilities. Mindfulness made its debut as a therapeutic discipline in 1979, when Jon Kabat-Zinn introduced his program of “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction” at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. Since then its use to reduce pain and stress has been adopted by hundreds of medical centers, hospitals, and clinics around the world. The application of mindfulness in clinical settings has spread beyond stress reduction to psychotherapy, where it has proven a potent tool for helping patients deal with such conditions as depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorders.
narrated by Jonathan Nelson
2023
12 minutes 20 seconds
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'Investigating the Dhamma' as a book and eBook can be found at https://store.pariyatti.org/investigating-the-dhamma.
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Sangha at the Crossroads by Bhikkhu Bodhi
"In this article I want to focus on one particular constituency of Buddhists in present day Sri Lanka, the Bhikkhu Sangha, the Order of Monks. I intend to examine, though briefly, the problems it faces and its prospects for the future. This task is especially critical because of the central role the Sangha plays in guiding the destiny of the Sāsana, and it is clear that if the Sangha does not learn to deal with the momentous forces inundating present-day society, the future will see it increasingly relegated to the sidelines...."
This is a Pariyatti audiobook of the essay "Sangha at the Crossroads" from the book Facing the Future: Four Essays on the Social Relevance of Buddhism by Bhikkhu Bodhi.
Narrated by Shelina Hetherington
2023
38 minutes
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View Facing the Future: Four Essays on the Social Relevance of Buddhism by Bhikkhu Bodhi at BPS.
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The Changing Face of Buddhism by Bhikkhu Bodhi
"If Buddhism is failing to penetrate deep into the hearts of those who profess it as their faith, we have to ask ourselves why, and to ask what can be done to reverse present trends. I would like to approach these questions by first asking what role Buddhism is intended to play in our lives in the first place. I will deal with this question by distinguishing two aspects of Buddhism both stemming from the Buddha’s original teaching. I shall call these the liberative and the accommodative strands of the Dhamma...."
This is a Pariyatti audiobook of the essay "The Changing Face of Buddhism" from the book Facing the Future: Four Essays on the Social Relevance of Buddhism by Bhikkhu Bodhi.
Narrated by Shelina Hetherington
2023
30 minutes
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A Buddhist Approach to Economic and Social Development by Bhikkhu Bodhi
"The notion of economic and social development has today become the rallying call of politicians, business leaders, and policy planners clear across the globe. This notion thus exercises a tremendous influence on the lives of all human beings, both at the personal level and as a determinant of social policy. Although the Buddhist texts prescribe certain principles to guide human beings in their economic and social activities, the notions of economic and social development that dominate current policy formulation have no precise parallels in earlier epochs. Thus to give adequate treatment to our topic it is not enough merely to listen to the canonical texts. Rather, we must draw out the implications of such ideas as economic and social development in their bearings on present-day social policy. Then we must use the profound perspectives offered us by the Dhamma as a tool for evaluating them and judging their worth."
This is a Pariyatti audiobook of the essay "A Buddhist Approach to Economic and Social Development" from the book Facing the Future: Four Essays on the Social Relevance of Buddhism by Bhikkhu Bodhi.
Narrated by Shelina Hetherington
2023
45 minutes
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View Facing the Future: Four Essays on the Social Relevance of Buddhism by Bhikkhu Bodhi at BPS.
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A Buddhist Social Ethic for the New Century by Bhikkhu Bodhi
"In Theravada Buddhist circles during the past few decades a debate has repeatedly erupted over the question whether or not jhāna is necessary to attain the “paths and fruits,” that is, the four graded stages of enlightenment. The debate has been sparked off by the rise to prominence of the various systems of insight meditation that have become popular both in Asia and the West, especially among lay Buddhists. Those who advocate such systems of meditation contend that the paths and fruits can be attained by developing insight (vipassanā) without a foundation of jhāna. If we use the Buddha’s teachings as a lens to examine the corporate economic system and its offshoot, the consumerist culture, we will see that it is ultimately detrimental to the well-being of both its masters and servants alike. Drawing upon the tools of Buddhist analysis, let us briefly sketch the inner dynamics of this system. We see in the first instance that such a social order is founded upon ignorance or delusion (avijjā, moha), namely, the supposition that material wealth and consumption are the criteria of the good life. According to the Buddhist texts, when ignorance infiltrates our cognitive systems it issues in a series of “distortions” (vipallāsa) which infect our perception (saññā), thinking (citta), and views (diṭṭhi). The Buddha mentions four such distortions: the notions that the impermanent is permanent, that the painful (or suffering) is pleasant, that the insubstantial is a self, and that the unbeautiful is beautiful. At the most basic level we perceive things by way of these distortions; when these distorted perceptions are taken up for reflection, we start thinking in terms of them; and finally, under the combined influence of distorted perception and thought, we adopt views—that is, beliefs, doctrines, and ideologies—that affirm the mistaken notions of permanence, pleasure, selfhood, and beauty."
This is a Pariyatti audiobook of the essay "A Buddhist Social Ethic for the New Century" from the book Facing the Future: Four Essays on the Social Relevance of Buddhism by Bhikkhu Bodhi.
Narrated by Shelina Hetherington
2023
1 hours 03 minutes
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Audiobook copyright, 2023 Pariyatti
View Facing the Future: Four Essays on the Social Relevance of Buddhism by Bhikkhu Bodhi at BPS.
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The Jhānas and the Lay Disciple According to the Pāli Suttas by Bhikkhu Bodhi.
"In Theravada Buddhist circles during the past few decades a
debate has repeatedly erupted over the question whether or not
jhāna is necessary to attain the “paths and fruits,” that is, the four
graded stages of enlightenment. The debate has been sparked off
by the rise to prominence of the various systems of insight
meditation that have become popular both in Asia and the West,
especially among lay Buddhists. Those who advocate such
systems of meditation contend that the paths and fruits can be
attained by developing insight (vipassanā) without a foundation
of jhāna...."
This is a Pariyatti audiobook of the essay "The Jhānas and the Lay Disciple According to the Pāli Canon" from the book Investigating the Dhamma by Bhikkhu Bodhi.
Narrated by Jonathan Nelson
2023
1 hours 16 minutes
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Audiobook copyright, 2023 Pariyatti
View Investigating the Dhamma: a Collection of Papers by Bhikkhu Bodhi.
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Story 98 from 'A Lifetime Doing Nothing' by Ian McCrorie.
There is an old story about a young seeker who asks the
abbot of a nearby monastery for guidance on how to become
enlightened. The abbot declines his request but sends him to a
shoemaker in a nearby village. The abbot assures him that the
shoemaker will help him achieve enlightenment. The young
seeker went to find the shoemaker, with one caveat from the
abbot: “Learn everything you can from the shoemaker, but
don't ask him anything spiritual.”...
narrated by Ian McCrorie
2023
12 minutes 28 seconds
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'A Lifetime Doing Nothing' as a book and eBook can be found at https://store.pariyatti.org/a-lifetime-doing-nothing.
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Story 97 from 'A Lifetime Doing Nothing' by Ian McCrorie.
How long will it take to be enlightened? This is such a firstworld
question. We want the truth and we want it now,
to paraphrase Jim Morrison. There is no answer to that
question, because it is the wrong question. And what’s more,
enlightenment is not simply an answer, similar to the woman
in Saks Fifth Avenue who asked how much the fur coat cost
in the window who was told, “Madam, if you have to ask, you
can’t afford it.” Nevertheless, let’s respond with the truth rather
than attempting an answer to the wrong question....
narrated by Ian McCrorie
2023
4 minutes 41 seconds
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'A Lifetime Doing Nothing' as a book and eBook can be found at https://store.pariyatti.org/a-lifetime-doing-nothing.
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Story 96 from 'A Lifetime Doing Nothing' by Ian McCrorie.
My teacher in India eventually attracted so many students that
he began to appoint assistants to lead retreats on their own.
I began assisting him in 1996 and soon was made a senior
assistant teacher. I led ten-day retreats throughout Canada,
the United States, England, Myanmar, and India. I especially
enjoyed addressing the many issues my students faced, most
of whom were dealing with the daily shock of seeing into the
skittishness of their minds for the first time. I was on a mission
to spread the teachings, I had status and prestige within the
community of meditators, and my personal practice was
strong. How my life had changed!...
narrated by Ian McCrorie
2023
5 minutes 54 seconds
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'A Lifetime Doing Nothing' as a book and eBook can be found at https://store.pariyatti.org/a-lifetime-doing-nothing.
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Mettā