Your Daily Digital Buddhist Devotion for 08/19/2020

The perception of impermanence eliminates lust, ignorance, and conceit. Illustrated with a long series of similes.At Sāvatthī. “Mendicants, when the perception of impermanence is developed and cultivated it eliminates all desire for sensual pleasures, for rebirth in the realm of luminous form, and for rebirth in a future life. It eliminates all ignorance and eradicates all conceit ‘I am’. In the autumn, a farmer ploughing with a large plough shears through all the root networks. [Read More]

Your Daily Digital Buddhist Devotion for 08/18/2020

Contemplating the aggregates leads to liberation, but this may not be immediately apparent. The Buddha illustrates this with similes of a chook sitting on eggs, the wearing away of an axe handle, and the rotting of a ship’s rigging.At Sāvatthī. “Mendicants, I say that the ending of defilements is for one who knows and sees, not for one who does not know or see. For one who knows and sees what? [Read More]

Your Daily Digital Buddhist Devotion for 08/17/2020

A dog leashed to a post will always remain close to that post. In the same way, beings remain close to aggregates in this endless cycle of transmigration. The Buddha refers to a well-known painting called “Conduct”, and says the mind is even more diverse than that; and indeed, the animal realm is the most diverse of them all, and it is produced by the mind.At Sāvatthī. “Mendicants, transmigration has no known beginning. [Read More]

Your Daily Digital Buddhist Devotion for 08/16/2020

Transmigration has no knowable beginning; even the oceans, mountains, and this great earth will perish. But like a dog on a leash running around a post, beings remain attached to the aggregates.At Sāvatthī. “Mendicants, transmigration has no known beginning. No first point is found of sentient beings roaming and transmigrating, hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving. There comes a time when the ocean dries up and evaporates and is no more. [Read More]

Your Daily Digital Buddhist Devotion for 08/15/2020

A mendicant asks whether anything in the aggregates has even the tiniest bit of stability or permanence.At Sāvatthī. Seated to one side, that mendicant said to the Buddha: “Sir, is there any form at all that’s permanent, everlasting, eternal, imperishable, and will last forever and ever? Is there any feeling … perception … choices … consciousness at all that’s permanent, everlasting, eternal, imperishable, and will last forever and ever?” “Mendicant, there is no form at all that’s permanent, everlasting, eternal, imperishable, and will last forever and ever. [Read More]

Your Daily Digital Buddhist Devotion for 08/14/2020

A mendicant asks whether anything in the aggregates has even the tiniest bit of stability or permanence. The Buddha answers using the simile of a little dirt under his fingernail.At Sāvatthī. Seated to one side, that mendicant said to the Buddha: “Sir, is there any form at all that’s permanent, everlasting, eternal, imperishable, and will last forever and ever? Is there any feeling … perception … choices … consciousness at all that’s permanent, everlasting, eternal, imperishable, and will last forever and ever? [Read More]

Your Daily Digital Buddhist Devotion for 08/13/2020

Nothing in the aggregates has even the tiniest bit of stability or permanence. In a past life, the Buddha was a great king with vast properties, but all those conditions have passed away.At Sāvatthī. Seated to one side, that mendicant said to the Buddha: “Sir, is there any form at all that’s permanent, everlasting, eternal, imperishable, and will last forever and ever? Is there any feeling … perception … choices … consciousness at all that’s permanent, everlasting, eternal, imperishable, and will last forever and ever? [Read More]

Your Daily Digital Buddhist Devotion for 08/12/2020

The Buddha gives a series of similes for the aggregates: physical form is like foam, feeling is like a bubble, perception is like a mirage, choices are like a coreless tree, and consciousness is like an illusion. At one time the Buddha was staying near Ayojjhā on the bank of the Ganges river. There the Buddha addressed the mendicants: “Mendicants, suppose this Ganges river was carrying along a big lump of foam. [Read More]

Your Daily Digital Buddhist Devotion for 08/11/2020

The Buddha doesn’t dispute with the world; the world disputes with him. He has understood the five aggregates and explains them. Like a lotus, he was born in the swamp, but rises above it.At Sāvatthī. “Mendicants, I don’t argue with the world; it’s the world that argues with me. When your speech is in line with the teaching you don’t argue with anyone in the world. What the astute agree on as not existing, I too say does not exist. [Read More]

Your Daily Digital Buddhist Devotion for 08/10/2020

If you grasp at the aggregates as a self, you will meet with calamity, like a man swept down by a mountain river, grasping at grass or rushes.At Sāvatthī. “Suppose, mendicants, there was a mountain river that flowed swiftly, going far, carrying all before it. If wild sugarcane, kusa grass, reeds, vetiver, or trees grew on either bank, they’d overhang the river. And if a person who was being swept along by the current grabbed the wild sugarcane, kusa grass, reeds, vetiver, or trees, it’d break off, and they’d come to ruin because of that. [Read More]