According to these suttas, is itsomewhat possible through seeing the inherent harm in sensual pleasures, to shy away from them? I remember that it by first experiencing piti during meditation that one slowly but surely starts to abandon sensual pleasures.

With objectless mindfulness, if I am in a bad mood the mood perseveres. I just observe the bad mood but it doesn't easily stop. However, if I applied concentration on an object such as the breath, the mood immediately dissipates and even sometimes vanishes. **Does strong concentration *repress* emotions, or does it process them in a healthy way? In other words, does focusing on the breath still permit the emotions to be experienced naturally despite an absence of thought or feeling?**

I have been a practicioner of mindfulness and vipassana for a few years. I have felt that buddhism is at odds with striving towards professional success and ambition. Ambition and professional success inherently has elements of attachment and passion, which are at odds with the fundamental virtues of buddhism (such as equanimity). On one hand, I would like to be my best self in professional life and make significant contributions to my field, but when I have this mindset I experience negative emotions like insecurity, impatience. Do you think that these two things are at odds with each other and if not, why?

This time when the controller of the breath disappears thoughts too disappear cittarupa stop by presenting a line across and the top of it there is a picture of a person. After a minute breath appeared. And there was no observer too at that time. What is the meaning of the cittarupa which appeared and what is the stage?

The Buddha mentioned, "The stage beyond study", in chapter 5 of the Shurangama Sutta. What did the Buddha mean by this?

One of my favourite Buddhist quotes is from the 14th Dalai Lama > Don’t try to use what you learn from buddhism to be a buddhist; use it > to be a better whatever-you-already-are. Amazing. But does anyone know the wider context of this quote. When did he say it and what was the talk i.e. can someone get a fuller transcript of the teaching? Many Thanks

While "animal" past lives seem to get a fair amount of attention I can't seem to find any about people recalling being in the hell realm or that of hungry ghosts. Aside from Mahamogallana's recollection of being Mara Dusi in MN50 and being pulled into Avici, I just can't find any past life recollections of hell or ghosts. Only descriptions of each realm as opposed to remembered experience. Is this just something we don't yet have in English translations, even from people's personal recollections (not just the Pali canon), or is it more of something that just barely exists?

How many types of Buddhism are there? Someone told me about SGI, Nam Myo Ho Renge Kyo. How that is derived from the Buddha. but mostly on the lotus sutra. Can we read the lotus sutra in English online?

I am a 24 year old male and i am very interested in joining a Buddhist monastery and becoming a monk so that i can give my life a right and peaceful purpose. But my parents follow Hinduism and think that this religion is superior of all so they don't want me to become a Buddhist and also becoming a Buddhist monk. So i don't have their permission to join a Buddhist monastery. They are self dependent and don't need any help from me. So how can i become a monk?

Did Gautama Buddha believe in the existence of soul in human body? If not, why?

I find this guy fascinating but during that time I can only think that he may have played eye-spy on the banks of the river Ganges or flicked pomegranate seeds at the bodhi tree. I'm probably way off here though with my silliness. In all seriousness, what was leisure to him?

I have been trying to hunt far and wide to see if anyone in the internet world has attempted meditating with someone else by connecting your foreheads together? As discussed in a previous thread about the significance of touching foreheads, the sky-eye, upper dantian, sixth chakra, etc is a hugely powerful aspect of the body and referred to during prostrations and greetings. I have only meditated with someone else like this once, in a temple and was certainly aware of the intense connection it could hold before I did it. However, I wasn't sure if anyone else has tried to do this, or does this often, and if so, why? What is your experience? I have also experienced this in dreams, as well as visualised doing this in meditation with someone else who has received it during their own meditation practice too (which I find pretty incredible!). I'd love to hear of any experiences where you have managed to connect with others in meditation too?

I am wondering a few questions in regard to sexual desire and Buddhism. 1. Is fantasizing a form of craving and thus worse than sexual activity without it? What are the mental processes involved? 2. How much does a single orgasm, for example, affect the spiritual path? Basically what is the magnitude of the effect? 3. Is it possible that some individuals cannot eradicate lust and should merely diminish it?

Knowing intellectually the three characteristics is one thing, experiencing them is another. As far as I understood, vipassana happens without will, since it is morality that leads to rapture and sukkha, which then helps to stabilize the mind, in order to facilitate clear seeing. My question then is: 1) Are most people both generically and wrongly coining in the term vipassana to point to a "new age" technique that has nothing to do with "clear seeing" according to Buddhism? 2) In how far needs meditation development? According to AN 10.1 it is moral purity that leads to consummate concentration necessary for seeing the three characteristics. > [Ananda:] "What, O Venerable One, is the reward and blessing of wholesome morality?" >[The Buddha:] "Freedom from remorse, Ananda." >"And of freedom from remorse?" >"Joy, Ananda" >"And of joy?" >"Rapture, Ananda" >"And of rapture?" >"Tranquillity, Ananda." >"And of tranquillity?" >"Happiness, Ananda." >"And of happiness?" >"**Concentration**, Ananda." >"And of concentration?" >"**Vision and knowledge according to reality.**" >"And of the vision and knowledge according to reality?" >"**Turning away and detachment**, Ananda." >"And of turning away and detachment?" >"The vision and knowledge with regard to Deliverance, Ananda." >— AN 10.1 With regards

In the Theravada tradition, there is a list of 38 objects of meditation. In them, there are 3 colors: Blue-Green, Yellow, Red. This is not what I'd expect if these three colors are picked in a way which is based on a basic neurological phenomena. Can anyone point me to classical references detailing experiences and meditative observation on the nature of color observation?

Buddhism teaches us to practice harmlessness. Would it be considered harmless to go around destroying non-'sentient' parts of nature? Can consciousness, particularly the pure awareness aspect, reside in such parts of nature (e.g. non-animals), or why not?

Some of these jhanas are incredibly powerful but they have an opposite, that being emotional and mental upheaval and the dark nights. Essentially, I realise that there are valuable insights to learn from both their extremes but I find that delusion can arise as part of the mental upheaval (I thought I was in love with my teacher) now that I'm out of the delusion it seems so silly. Buddha had mentioned in a few suttas (I can't remember their names) that jhanas are the way to nibana but was this within the context of who he was giving the teaching to? As an example, the satipathanna sutta was taught to the kuru people because they already possessed a deep wisdom and an advanced ability to learn quickly thus, the teaching he gave was conducive to their ability to attain higher levels of realisation very quickly.

Is there any reason or any sutta tells why Buddha choose sacred fig for meditation and austerity?

If we take meditation objects like caganusati, silanusati, buddhanusati, maranasati etc. we can clearly see that all of them require active and sustained thought, however so does metta bhavana or asubha bhavana. Why then is there a distinction in name?

Does the concept of "Mara Devaputta" (The being called Mara) exist in all schools of Buddhism? What is mentioned about that concept?