How to LIVE if we're sure we'll die?

(Buddhism Podcast) When death comes, what truly matters? | Buddhist Wisdom

Some are as if dead already

Things can wait. What's the rush?

Heedlessness (Pāli pamada, Sanskrit pramāda, Tibetan bakmepa) is a Buddhist term translated as "heedlessness," "carelessness," "negligence," and so on. In the Mahayana tradition, pramāda is defined to not apply oneself earnestly and carefully to adopting a wholesome attitude and abandoning unwholesome actions. More

The heedful do not die*

I'll do what can be done right now.

Heedfulness (Pāli appamāda, Sanskrit apramāda, Tibetan Wylie bag yod pa) is a Buddhist term translated as "diligence," "conscientious," "concern," "vigilance," and so on. It is defined as taking great care concerning what should be adopted and what should be avoided [1, 2].

In the Theravada Pāli canon, a vast collection of the historical Buddha's earliest teachings, the term appamāda is very significant. The essence of its meaning cannot be captured with a single English word. "Heedfulness," "diligence," and "conscientiousness" all capture certain aspects of appamāda. It is identified as one of the 11 virtuous mental factors in the Mahayana Abhidharma teachings. More

• *One will never again die when one gets off of the samsaric cycle of endless "wandering on" of rebirths chasing fulfillment that is not to be found.
• Nirvana is "the deathless" (amata, amrita, ambrosia)



Watch my death-defying jump against nature!

• The Four Right Efforts: (1) The effort to prevent harmful, unskillful things that have not yet arisen. (2) The effort to abandon harmful, unskillful things that have already arisen. (3) The effort to promote the arising of skillful things that have not yet arisen. (4) The effort to maintain, develop, and bring to culmination skillful things that have already arisen.

Five Recollections (Upajjhatthana Sutta)

What did the historical Buddha teach?

Here are two English translations and the original Pali text of the "Five Recollections," remembrances, or contemplations:

1. I am sure to become old; I cannot avoid aging.
   I am subject to aging, have not gone beyond aging.
2. I am sure to become ill; I cannot avoid illness.
   I am subject to illness, have not gone beyond illness.
3. I am sure to die; I cannot avoid death.
   I am subject to death, have not gone beyond death.
4. I am subject to separation and loss and to be parted from all that is dear and loved by me.
   I will grow different, separate from all that is meaningful and appealing to me.
5. I am the owner of my actions (karma), heir of my actions, actions are the womb (from which I have sprung and will be reborn), actions are my relations, actions are my protection. Whatever actions I do, skillful or unskillful, of these I shall be the heir [2].
   I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, wholesome or unwholesome, to that will I fall heir [3].

Cultivate all eight factors of the Path

The Buddha advised, "These are the five facts to often reflect on, whether one is a woman or a man, a layperson or a monastic" [5].

Since the Buddha redefined karma as "intention" (cetana, the decisive intent underlying a deed or action) in the Nibbedhika Sutta, intention or intentionally-committed actions may be better translations of "karma" in the fifth recollection. More

"Buddha Nature," Ven. Thanissaro?

In honor of Festivus, which customarily begins with the "Airing of Grievances," let's take a critical look at Tan Geoff (American translator Ven. Thanissaro, abbot of Wat Metta, California) and the Mahayana-Hindu concept of [some sort of self to cling to through the idea of an essential] "Buddha Nature." Feel free to differ in the comments section for the traditional "Feats of Strength." Happy Festivus, the holiday for the rest of us!

What is "Buddha Nature"?

Ego Podcast (Buddhism) Discover the Buddha’s profound teachings on the nature of the mind (citta) and the path (magga) to true freedom (nirvana). Learn why the mind is neither inherently good nor evil, but capable of immense transformation. This video explores the Buddha’s insights into intentional actions (karma), freedom of choice, and the process of dismantling ignorance (moha, avijja, miccha-ditthi) to achieve liberation (mokkha, moksha). Find out how understanding (panya) and training the mind leads to ultimate peace and Awakening (bodhi).

#Buddhism #BuddhaNature #Mindfulness #Freedom #Awakening #Discernment #Dhamma #TrueFreedom

COMMENTARY

I have a right to my opinion! - Yes,
venerable sir, but state it as such.

Alas, this podcast suffers from too many Ven. Thanissaro (American Geoffrey DeGraff) bad translations, using his idiosyncratic renderings of many Pali terms one might otherwise recognize as countless other Western Buddhist translators have kept them. If one gives a new rendering, it would be customary to provide either the Pali term being translated or the common rendering.

But Ven. Thanissaro doesn't care anything about that, recklessly innovating and misleading countless readers through free distribution on websites like accesstoinsight.org and his English language books. If advice from Bhikkhu Bodhi couldn't restrain him, what could?

Therefore, we try to avoid his translations altogether, opting for the much more reliable and useful work of Bhikkhu Bodhi, Maurice Walshe, Andrew Olendzki, Ajahn Sujato, the Buddhist Publication Society and the German-Jewish monks who, following in the footsteps of the British team who worked on the Pali Text Society translations, give reliable and illuminating renderings of difficult Buddhist terms and concepts.

The one-man wrecking crew that is Ven. Thanissaro (Mr. Geoffrey DeGraff) will either go down in history as the biggest English-speaking goof with poor grammar (Hire a reliable editor and don't brow beat the person into submission with your heavy-handed opinions and quirks!) or the man who saved a generation of would-be Buddhists who never read the legends of Pali-English translation.

The other less serious but equally annoying problem is the A.I. voice can't pronounce even simple words like simile, making one realize that for a podcast on ego, there doesn't seem to be anyone home, just a machine reading text that seems tailor made by Thanissaro (aka Ajaan Geoff).

• Long ago his first Western student (Ven. Mahindo or Tan Jess) was inducted to Wat Metta and had a miserable time until he quit, as many others had who visited and were brow beaten and yelled at by the know-it-all monk-in-charge who had been thrown out of Thailand, it is rumored in Thailand, for trying to break Thai law and take over a temple. If one becomes abbot, one de facto owns the property, which Thai law did not allow. We tried to warn Tan Jess to go to Thailand and ordain there or at least see the tradition there, but he was being bossed around by Ven. Thanissaro by then so only did what he was told. This was long ago, when the latter was writing Wings to Awakening. Having a look at the manuscript, we thought it was garbage -- exactly for its idiosyncratic renditions of Pali words in needless misleading ways, bad grammar, and questionable novel interpretations of things -- and urged Tan Jess to say so if he were reading it over and being asked for notes. He was seized with terror; he wouldn't dream of making an actual note, correction, comment, or criticizing his "all-knowing" teacher, thinking what he might suffer as retribution for his candor and honest evaluation. Because he was a coward, and because Ven. Thanissaro surrounded himself with cowards or yes-men to look at his manuscripts and praise him, they are of poor quality. This is the way we revere monks in the tradition. It's wonderful that Ven. Thanissaro tackled these texts. What might have been if he had done so in a peer-reviewed way or with an editor to put his jumbled writing and invented-grammar into standard English? We were shocked to be told by Bhikkhu Bodhi that he corresponded with Ven. Thanissaro because this meant it was not that help and guidance was not available to Tan Geoff but that he apparently dismissed it, rejected it, or ignored it altogether, much to the detriment of the world. If you make people fear you and you don't take anyone's advice, this is what you can expect to happen to you. He photographs his own covers, edits his own writing (which is one way of having them go unedited), gets someone to proofread the obvious errors, and viola -- a generation of readers who think he's faithfully rendering the Pali canon. It is a pity. So we are reluctant to feature this nice sounding mechanical video, which makes some good points but makes the poorly, almost certainly reading verbatim from some Tan Geoff tome.

Otherwise, a good point is being made. By relying on such post-historical Buddhist concepts -- seemingly derived from Brahminical Vedic Hindu ways of thinking, which insists there is identity, and luminous consciousness is it (and identical with Brahman), an Atman of one kind or another, a waterdrop longing to return to the ocean (samsara) and be forever at rest in an eternal heaven.

Mahayana evades the impersonal nature of all things, preferring in its philosophy to go on and on about "emptiness" without seeming to know what phenomena are empty or devoid of. Self-nature, yes, but also of self or anything belonging to a self (soul, ego, personality). The Mahayana majority reads the Heart Sutra and it never occurs to them to study it, analyze it, and see how straightforward the point is being made: shunyata = anatta.

• Ego Podcast (Buddhism), Winter Solstice, 12/21/24; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly COMMENTARY