"You are your own teacher. Looking for teachers can't solve your own doubts. Investigate yourself to find the truth inside, not outside. Knowing yourself is most important."
Achaan Chah
"May you have good health, happiness and peace.Strive on ardently for Nibbanic Bliss."
"HAPPY NEW YEAR!"
With Metta,
Bro. Oh Teik Bin
4 comments:
I have met people who asked me which monk to believe as different monks say different things. I told them to use their common senses. And I got the reply which said what if our common senses are wrong. Our common senses can be wrong because of all the conditions implanted in our minds until we lose our common senses. Some people do believe that chanting for the decease for a certain period of time must be done for the decease to go to pure land. Or the soul of the decease will go to hell or to the woeful states. I like to post this question: Supposed a cultivated monk passes away in the forest without people knowing, where will he be reborned? hell? From this incident. We can know that our minds are conditioned by what others say such as dhamma books, dhamma teachers, suttas... They are merely for reference and not the absolute truth. Venerable Acaan Chah stated that the teacher is in us and I think that is true. Think for ourselves using our common senses. If you have lost it, do learn from your children. Sometimes, children have clearer minds which are free from conditions.
Dear Wei Shen,
Thanks for your comments. To my mind, your thinking and analysis is good. Yes, in the final analysis, even our so-called 'free choice' views and opinions may be conditioned by so many factors ... our past lives, our upbringing, secular education, subtle conditioning from the forces that impince upon us ... from our teachers, peers, mass media etc.
So is there a way out to reach into our unconditioned mind and to see things as they really are with Right Thought and Right View? Yes, one has to walk the Path, the Noble Eightfold Path ... to learn, understand, practice and most importantly to realize the true nature of things. One has to practise Bhavana ... in particular the Vipassana Meditation. Only then can true Compassion and Wisdom arise ... free from the taints, bonds, conditioning, tangles that bind us in Samsaric Wheel ... fetters that block our true liberation of the mind.
Wonder what Weng Hong's Blog is ... do let him know about this dhammatelukintan Blog.
With Metta,
Bro. Oh Teik Bin
Bro Oh, what you said did show me the way to really liberate my mind from conditions. I hope more people would comment. I would enjoy reading articles written by you on social and dhamma issues if you are free to post them. This can be a place we share the dhamma and ideas.
I'd be most happy to share my Dhamma thoughts and reflections from time to time when I have the inspiration ... and the time.
Wisdom ... my heart tells me that a mind with wisdom would have the following qualities :
1. True compassion for all sentient beings
2. A good degree of calm, understanding and peace
3. A mental state of equanimity in the midst of the changing worldly conditions
4. Adaptability and flexibility in a world that moves on and on in a flux
5. A clarity of the mind that can penetrate into the true nature of things beyond mere superficialities
6 A high degree of mental alertness
7 Very strong mindfulness of all physical and mental phenomena
8 An ability to let go and let things be when circumstances require it
9 A lessening of attachment, aversion and the feeling of 'I-ness'
10 Being in greater and greater harmony with the world within and the world without.
With Metta,
Bro. Oh Teik Bin
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