I meditate daily for 30 minutes, and right after each session my mind is very calm, centered, stable; I just exist in the present moment without much thinking. However, after a while, the compulsive thinking comes back, wants to drag me towards unhappiness. I feel this is like an illness. Therefore, is meditation a cure to this illness (will it go away one day if I meditate more/longer? What should I do?) or is it just a temporary easing of symptoms? I want to cure the illness. Thanks.

I asked a question previously about the object of meditation being faint. Perhaps I'd like to reformulate my question more specifically as I still encounter these kinds of problems, and I will provide the sensations I experience. When trying to meditate on the breath at the aperture of the nostrils, the breath is not present and cannot be felt, no matter how much I try to arouse attention. It could only be slightly felt at the level of the abdomen. When I try to visualize any object, this object is usually extremely faint and transparent almost. I have the impression my mental agitation is feeble, but also that the clarity of my mind is very dull. I'm wondering what could be the causes of this. Is it a too weak concentration? Too weak mindfulness? Is it a kind of lethargy and dullness? How can I remedy to this? Of the possible solutions I've read about I understand arousing attention (which I have difficulty doing), applying certain antidotes as the perception of light or enlivening the mind, or perhaps some other solution I don't know about. Perhaps changing the object? I'm actually unsure of any of these solutions. Greatest thanks.

The Four Noble Truths are defined in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta as: > "The Noble Truth of Suffering (dukkha), monks, is this: Birth is > suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is > suffering, association with the unpleasant is suffering, dissociation > from the pleasant is suffering, not to receive what one desires is > suffering — in brief the five aggregates subject to grasping are > suffering. > > "The Noble Truth of the Origin (cause) of Suffering is this: It is > this craving (thirst) which produces re-becoming (rebirth) accompanied > by passionate greed, and finding fresh delight now here, and now > there, namely craving for sense pleasure, craving for existence and > craving for non-existence (self-annihilation). > > "The Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering is this: It is the > complete cessation of that very craving, giving it up, relinquishing > it, liberating oneself from it, and detaching oneself from it. > > "The Noble Truth of the Path Leading to the Cessation of Suffering is > this: It is the Noble Eightfold Path, and nothing else, namely: right > understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right > livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. From this, it is widely assumed that to end suffering, we must end craving and that's it. However, according to SN45.179 and SN45.180 , it is not just craving that must be ended, but also the ten fetters, through the Noble Eightfold Path. > “Bhikkhus, there are these five lower fetters. What five? Identity > view, doubt, the distorted grasp of rules and vows, sensual desire, > ill will. These are the five lower fetters. This Noble Eightfold Path > is to be developed for direct knowledge of these five lower fetters, > for the full understanding of them, for their utter destruction, for > their abandoning.” > > “Bhikkhus, there are these five higher fetters. What five? Lust for > form, lust for the formless, conceit, restlessness, ignorance. These > are the five higher fetters. The Noble Eightfold Path is to be > developed for direct knowledge of these five higher fetters, for the > full understanding of them, for their utter destruction, for their > abandoning. So, why is craving singled out in the third noble truth, rather than including all of the ten fetters?

I believe in patterns, and patterns of patterns, where scale is of secondary importance. Much like a fractal. The formula is more fundamental then the form. From there on, I believe that the mind will always be delusional. That is inherent to the formula by which it operates. The hypothesis is supported by the following: an illusion arises when the mind perceives something with an error. Hence the mind will never have a 100% accurate map of reality, and thus will always be delusional to some extent. Bridging to Samsara: I do not believe that there is an end stage, that it is boolean like: you either are in samsara, or you are not. I believe that to be true for very specific 'mental puzzles' though (more on that later). So I think, like with all things, that samsara is a concept. If you think of samsara to exist by itself, it is an illusion. Moving forward from this point of view I think that samsara can be experienced on a micro scale and macro scale. Macro scale would be to exerperience the end of samsara on the level of a life time. In the reality frame from which we now both view this webpage. Micro scale would be to experience the end of samsara during a meditation session. Let me give an example of ending samsara at micro scale. I am meditating on the feeling of my body which is reflecting mental effort. Then suddenly I find myself inside this story (my mind is wandering). The theme of the story is aligned with the bodily feeling that I was focusing on. The central theme is that I am trying to do something, I try to solve something like a mental puzzle. I am trying to do this inside a context which hosts a 3D environment, full of visual and other sensory perception, a memory and entire past, etc. So it looks like a life-time. Not 'my' life necessarily. I may even be in a complylety different role or life than the one I am currently experiencing. Now the crux is: when I come to realize what I am mentally doing, and that there is no need to do it, I let go. That moment the entire environment fades, or I stay there and be in control of keeping it alive (only for a while). Much like a lucid dream. I can choose to wake up out of it, or just enjoy the scenery while being freed from this mental strain. That what I was doing, comes forth from craving and desire and illusions. So the moment I realize myself and fully see what I am doing, I can let go. No moment earlier, because when I do not see fully what I am doing, and I would attempt to let go, I would fool myself. With that, the environment collapses or when I put effort in, I can keep it alive for a while. The thing is: I am freed from the mental strain. The reason I am relating all this to the cycle of birth and death is that: the entire environment, experience of self, the role I have there and what not, seems to be in function of self-reflecting. To find out what I am doing and learn about myself. And as soon as I let go, I die there. The environment goes away or I am no longer in the role that I was in. Now my understanding of ending Samsara from a Buddhism perspective is that it is described at the scope of a life-time. I am wondering, is there any literature that talks about ending samsara at a more micro scale level. Like the example experience I gave above? From my personal experience I come to the conclusion that there are too much similarities between the meditation experience described above and my life, that is likely for them to have their root in the same formula, only on a different scale, like a fractal pattern.

This looks like a bunch of riddles, for that pardon me.... If someone run past you and some chasing him with weapons ask you if you saw him or not, seeing the danger that he is in you might want to lie but if you do not lie he might get hurt If your boss call you and ask if one of your Co-workers said something bad about the boss, you will have to be truthful but in doing so you break a precept as you are using your word to make two people dislike each other. In these kind of situations can we imagine some other thing and answer thinking i'm answering in reference to my imagination and skip the breaking of precepts? Like saying i did not saw the man who ran away, thinking "There is no such being called me in reality, also there is no man who ran away in reality either"? ------ I saw something like this done by Lord Buddha when Lord Buddha tamed the anger of "Anguli maala". Lord Buddha says.... "I've stopped now you should" while walking, this was said in reference to the stopped journey through samsara in a Lord Buddha's life not in reference with feet.

In the *Parayanavagga*,Gatha #93, the Buddha says to Dhotaka: "Yam kinci **sampajanasi**" What is the exact meaning of the word *sampajanasi* ?

I drink kombucha, a fermented and very slightly alcoholic tea, in order to ease recurring gastrointestinal distress. Although I use this drink as a tool, is it considered a breach of the fifth precept?

There are answers here that suggest that being a buddha is not the same with entering nirvana. Many people enter nirvana. Very few become buddhas. So I wonder, say you enter nirvana. But then you want to "complete the mission", like replaying the whole game. Can you do that? Let's say there is some bodhisatva that doesn't enter nirvana until he accomplish something. So after he enters nirvana he can't accomplish what he wants to accomplish? Are there buddhas that do not enter nirvana?

I just want to know:
1)Why do we still don't know exact birth & date year of the Buddha?
2)What are the factors that is limiting in knowing Buddha's birth & death year?
3)Why many people/countries/traditions contradict? Many countries following different traditions, follow different Buddhist calendar year i.e. years since Buddha left.
4)Even the recent Nat Geo Excavations reveal he might be born in 6th Century B.C. A 2013 news which still doesn't official claim nor does it leave a convincing conclusion till date, on whether their findings are indeed perfect or not. Nor their findings seems to be accepted if its true.
5)Does the pali text gives any reference to the same?

According to tradition, there were 27 Buddhas before Gautama Buddha . Is Gautama Buddha the greatest Buddha out of all the 28 Buddhas?

What is worth desiring from the world when everything is impermanent ? I can't even desire Nirvana , because I never get it. Here it states that I can not say Nibbana as mine or me or myself( I can not say I am in state of Nibbana and I can not say Nibbana as mine): > “He directly knows Nibbāna as Nibbāna. Having directly known Nibbāna > as Nibbāna, he should not conceive himself as Nibbāna, he should not > conceive himself in Nibbāna, he should not conceive himself apart from > Nibbāna, he should not conceive Nibbāna to be ‘mine,’ he should not > delight in Nibbāna. Why is that? Because he must fully understand it, > I say. ( I am asking this question to understand the depths of knowledge... I am trying not to take delight in asking such questions.Buddha says one should not even take delight in Nibbana.)

I am planning to be samanera or sramanera for now. Later, would like to be a buddhist monk. I am interested in Theravada tradition. I live in India. But I have no idea what is the procedure to be one or to whom to contact for that. Is there anyone who can guide me on this?

I am near. May be few hours or days. Right now it is getting a little harder to behave properly according to the society. I just don't talk much because I don't have much to say. I'm not able to engage with people. All I do is keep sitting in silence in bliss, sometimes solving mathematics or playing chess or listening music.

I found a rather compelling critique on the Internet and would like to ask you to answer this. He probably misunderstood dukkha, however, he is somewhat right on the nihilism aspect of buddhism. In the end, not being reborn is the goal so why should one act benevolently? I know it sounds stupid but I would like to have a sensible rationale why buddhists then practise loving kindness etc? There is the link: [A Critique of Buddhism by Benjamin Studebaker](https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2013/08/23/a-critique-of-buddhism/) >Nirvana is the state of enlightenment in which one is freed from desire (and thus suffering). One who has achieved nirvana no longer reincarnates. When one who has achieved nirvana dies, said individual ceases to be entirely. > >However, there are two ways to deal with desire–one way is, as Buddhism suggests, to eliminate it. The other is to actually achieve what you desire, to get what you want. There are entire moral theories that suppose that desire satisfaction is the principle source of good. So though desire may be the source of suffering, it may also in turn be the principle source of goodness. How else can we be benevolent toward others other than by helping them to get the things they want or ought to want? The benevolent behavior Buddhists are encouraged to engage in via the eightfold path seems to require that they fulfill the desires of others. How can the path to enlightenment entail leading others away from enlightenment? It’s contradictory. > >The next trouble I have is with the third noble truth (and, consequently, with the fourth), the belief that desire (and thus suffering) can be altogether eliminated. To eliminate desire altogether would eliminate not merely suffering, it would eliminate happiness, as happiness is the product of satisfying our desires. In order for it to be possible to eliminate desire, we would have to actively pursue an entirely neutral mental state. And how could we pursue such a mental state without, on some level, desiring that mental state itself? > >Even more importantly, if we are not desiring anything, if we are in a perpetually neutral state, are we really alive in any meaningful sense? Does not life entail pursuits of some kind or another? The man without any goals or dreams is a man already in the grave. Yet that does indeed seem to be the goal of Buddhism–those who achieve nirvana cease to reincarnate and cease to be. So the goal of Buddhism does seem to be well and truly non-existence. This leads to a very disturbing contradiction. The point of life, according to Buddhism, is to achieve permanent death. > >In which case, doesn’t Buddhism imply that we ought not to create life in the first place? If all beings that are alive are beset with desires and suffering until they achieve nirvana, and most beings never achieve nirvana, isn’t creating life an overwhelmingly harmful activity? Yet Buddhism does not explicitly oppose childbirth anywhere that I can see, and it certainly doesn’t advocate for the humane killing of other beings in order to eliminate the suffering that goes with life for most of them. > >But perhaps, in order to achieve permanent death, we have to do behave benevolently toward others for some length of time. But what meaning does this benevolence have if all of these other beings are themselves best off permanently dead in a state of non-existence? How can we be good to someone whose life’s purpose is not to be happy but to achieve death? > >There is a stench of nihilism about all of this. All human projects are the result of desire, so Buddhism negates all human projects. At the same time, Buddhism maintains that we should behave benevolently toward one another, but if benevolence consists of making others happy and happiness for others means achieving their projects and humans having projects is the source of human suffering, then being benevolent under Buddhism consists of preventing people from achieving their rightly considered life purpose, the achievement of permanent death. And how could we all simultaneously attempt to achieve permanent death when doing so involves sating one another’s desires that we have all mutually committed to eradicate? In the end, all of this must be resolved one way or the other–the contradiction is too strong. > >Either Buddhism is a nihilist theory, in which life’s only purpose is its end, or Buddhism is a moral theory of how we should treat each other, in which case Buddhism’s methodology for eliminating suffering is not really about desire, but is really just about being nice to other people. In the latter case, either Buddhism is mistaken about what suffering is, or Buddhism is mistaken about whether or not it can be eliminated or ought to be eliminated. > >In sum, it just doesn’t hold together. While desires lead to suffering, they also lead to happiness if we can manage to achieve them. The entire human project has, for thousands of years, been about improving the human condition by achieving human goals. Buddhism rejects the very idea that human beings ought to have projects or goals that they desire to achieve, and in so doing, Buddhism (as I’ve understood it) denies the human project. If that’s not nihilism, I don’t know what is.

One hears of religious psychosis , with a 'Buddhist' element. As well as people who convert to or begin to study / practice Buddhism and seeming different, somehow worse; more solitary or unconcerned, etc.. What is going on these sorts of lives, becasuse I don't think "zen sickness" always applies to confusion with the dharma?

If I'm meditating for example with music and I am aware of the changes of the music that is impermanence right? If I breathe in and out that is impermanence? However, how do I see dukkha and not self (especially not self)? Dukkha can be a scratch for instance? One last question: In Vipassana one experiences all three characteristics, but does one also contemplate on all threes or is that a seperate meditation? Thanks in advance!

Here is a quote from [MN 26](https://accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.026.than.html) : > One, standing up to greet me, received my robe & bowl. Another spread out a seat. Another set out water for washing my feet. However, they addressed me by name and as 'friend.' > > So I said to them, > > > 'Don't address the Tathagata by name and as "friend." The Tathagata, friends, is a worthy one, rightly self-awakened. Lend ear, friends: the Deathless has been attained. I will instruct you. I will teach you the Dhamma. I can understand why the Tathagata might not be addressed by name; but why not as "friend"? Perhaps similarly, from the Maha-parinibbana Sutta: > And, Ananda, whereas now the bhikkhus address one another as 'friend (āvuso)', let it not be so when I am gone. The senior bhikkhus, Ananda, may address the junior ones by their name, their family name, or as 'friend'; but the junior bhikkhus should address the senior ones as 'venerable sir (āyasmā)' or 'your reverence (bhante)'. What's the need for, what's the benefit of, the "reverent" form of address? Or what's the harm, if any, in the "friendly" mode of address? If you can, I'd appreciate answers: - From canonical sources (e.g. suttas or commentary) - From post-canonical sources (e.g. later, or modern, articles or dhamma talks) - From personal experience - and/or which apply to lay people (when addressing monks, or teachers or other venerables) --- Edit: I think that [ruben202's answer](https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/25219/254) is ample evidence that it *is* so, in the culture and in the suttas and other scriptures. I'm not sure I understand *why*, though. For example: - A venerable *is* a friend -- or are they not? - Is the behaviour (or mode of address) *mere* ritual? - Is there said to be a benefit, some purpose, some effect: for society, for the individual's state of mind or karma, or even for the venerable? I imagine one benefit may be orderliness in the classroom: giving the venerable an opportunity to speak; another benefit is that it might be somehow associated with "faith" (i.e. being willing to listen without yet knowing); is another *obedience* for some good reason? The whole question seems to me a bit associated with some identity-view and so thicket-of-views. The only answer I can think of is a reference to the sutta (reference required) where the Buddha said that people need some teacher or leader, and he (having none) would take the Dhamma as his -- but that's speculation, whereas I'm asking for answers based on references or experience.

I'm confused. The 50+ year old nanny whom I hired to take care of my firstborn has just resigned a week ago. Before she left, I willingly gave her about 25% more than the salary we agreed upon. I also bought her some nice gifts for the lunar new year. I even told her to contact me if someday she need any (financial) help and not to tell anyone, including my wife. Until now, I'm still hoping she would contact me (not that I wish her to be in bad financial situation) because I really want to lighten her financial burden. So my two questions are: 1) am I feeling pity or compassion? I really really want to help her more as she told my wife she was (kind of) stressful of her financial condition. Also, I think she had taken care of my baby so well. 2) is this an attachment? Sorry for my lack of basic understanding of Buddhism. Thank you. Btw, I'm 34. Thank you for your kind answers and I'm sorry for the edit.

How do I deal with healthy desires like wanting to get a relationship etc? Is it wrong intention to want that or is it good if it stems from non-ill will, renunciation etc.? Likewise, it's bad if I thirst to get a girlfriend but how then do I deal with the accompanied depression? Loving kindness to oneself? Contemplating on the impermanence or the unattractiveness of the woman might not work in the heat of the moment when I'm depressed (Self compassion probably does and then realizing that other ppl face the same problem .. in essence: Im not alone with my problems)

As suggested in this comment , we shall try to look more closely into this. Does Nirvana have svabhāva in Madhyamaka? Here, svabhāva is as defined in Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka, and commonly translated as inherent existence, inherent nature or inherent substance. Why conditioned things (the Pali term sankhara) do not have inherent existence (svabhāva) is explained in this answer , this answer , this answer and this essay . However, Nirvana is unconditioned. So, does it have or not have svabhāva? And why?