What is the real human realm, Is it Earth or are there many other places / Planets with humans? What are the words of Lord Buddha on this topic? I am looking for the Theravada perspective.

My day time job is with a Drug Helpline . This is an anonymous phone, chat and online Q/A service for drug and alcohol users and their relatives, friends, families and anyone with questions. This job gives a lot of opportunity to put wisdom and compassion into practice. In average, I am in contract with about 5000 people every year. All of them in need of help and support one way or the other. In my personal life, thinking and meditation on the three marks of Dukkha, Non-self and impermanence has helped tremendously. I soemtimes think that "if only the users of our service could think like that, it would be so much easier for them". Example: Very often relatives of drug users do the exact opposite of whar would be a good strategy, they yell, demand the person to stop and the next moment they give them money for "stuff in the apartment and food". Another classic is this "My partner is the cause of my sepair because he drinks/drugs". If compassion is the wish for others not to suffer, and I have a very firm conviction about what would be a good way for them to suffer less, how can I best convey this? I can't say "you should meditate on the three marks" and "your partner isn't causing your despair, you are". For one it would ruin the dialogue and also I'm supposed to support the users perspective. I cannot use personal experience because I am a so called "professional".

Following on from a few question I've asked about nihilism, I wondered - quite casually if not in an idle way - whether seeking to enlighten other sentient beings (into Buddhahood) is ever redemptive of either stimulus or response (I just mean self and other)? Because in zen you can't seek to be a buddha, and in pure land you seek deliverance from another buddha, and theravada teaches the path of the arhant.

I've been reading some of Stephen Batchelor's ideas, and find them quite interesting. Does anyone have references to further reading of secularized Buddhist ideas and literature?

Aside from ending suffering, encouraging compassionate action and leading one to nirvanna, **is there anything that Buddhism promotes, or says is good?** The reason that I ask is because in another recent question I asked about musical composers, and as I look around at related questions, I find that **dance, singing and listening to music seem to go against the 7th Precept.** I am not aware of any sutras promoting art or creativity, other than skillful actions and insightful discourse. It seems pretty flat to me, but I cannot find fault with it. As a person who has always danced and listened to music, and sometimes draws or paints, I am wondering just what we should be doing with our "one wild and precious life "? (Assuming that this is the last one.) **Is life good in itself**, once cleared of defilements? Can it not be enjoyed - meaning that something worthwhile is done that uplifts self and others?

People are different and have different skills and personalities. My partner is for example very good at visualization, she is very patient and also a fabulous cook! But she’s also a bit lazy (her words!). I am impatient, lousy at visualization and not that good at cooking. But I’m very eager. Enough of that --- In general I'm very interested in the wisdom side of Buddhism. This is really joyful for me. Many other people I know is really a lot more into the compassion side. For me, working on wisdom is in itself compassion generating because seeing suffering makes me more compassionate (both towards myself and others). But I also hear people who are already more compassionate types than me say that it's so important to evolve their compassion more. They f.ex. say they do this by watching movies with a lot of tears dropping and sad stories in them (I sometimes feel watching movies with sad stories to produce compassion is evidence that they could work more on their wisdom side -- or their awareness). Anyway, is the best practice for me to keep on working on the wisdom side and let compassion grow in it's own tempo or is it more recommendable to provoke compassion?

There are many varieties of delusion, and probably many ways to categorize them. I’ve heard one way of categorization that was interesting. This was from Alex Berzin. (Alex Berzin often talks from the perspective of Prasangika Madhyamaka , but here he was talking in very general terms .) He said there are two main forms of illusion/delusion/ignorance (Berzin uses the word 'unawareness'). 1. Doctrinally based illusion/delusion/ignorance. This one is based on something one has learned. F.ex. one might believe that God is the creator of the universe and that one has an irreducible ever lasting soul that is either going to heaven or hell. Or – more common, at least in the Western secularized societies – one might believe in science and assume that science is objectively right and think that if something cannot be measured scientifically it simply do not exist (an example here might be some behaviorists claim that consciousness is a superfluous concept and emotions are behavior). 2. The other form is "automatically" arising illusion/delusion/ignorance. This is not based on something you have heard or learned or indoctrination, but rather based on our karma. An example might be the feeling and belief that I have a core self, something that is holding all experience together, the “stuff that makes me me.” The belief that external reality is independent and self-existent, not imputed by mind, is another example. I’ve been thinking about this and it seems to me that all kinds of illusion/delusion/ignorance could be categorized as forms of *superstition*. Is Buddhism really all about recognizing that we have always been superstitious? Does the Buddha talk specifically about illusion/delusion/ignorance as superstition in the suttas?

When we ask someone "why do you do that?", we are asking for her/his reasons. It someone asks me "why do you play tennis?" and I say "I like to stay fit and I like to have fun. Tennis is good exercise and good fun, therefore I play tennis", I am giving my reasons. (It doesn't matter if having fun actually is a form of suffering. My reasons are still my reasons.) In light of Buddhist philosophy, would it be right to say that my reasons are the *causes* of my behavior? Is there any general agreement across tenet systems? Or is it one answer for Vaibhashika, one for Sautrantika, one for Chittamatra and one for Madhyamika?

As I practice more and more on seeing life as Dukkha, something interesting happens. I feel a greater sense of gratitude and contentment. I am not talking about seeing things as they are directly and non-conceptually, piercing through and seeing emptiness. I am a beginner, stuck in concepts. But the more I interpret my existence in view of impermanence/anicca, suffering/dukkha, and non-self/anattā, the more grateful and content I become. Am I "fooling" myself? Is it just another aspect of Dukkha, like when you are in love and don't see that it's going to end/change?

Death - What dies with death? Birth - What is born with birth? Can you provide any Sutta / Sutra references.

A very interesting discussion here on SE on breathing focus made me a bit confused. Allan Wallace says in the beginning focus on belly, then when you get better at it, diaphragm, then nostril/upper lip. He is basing his instructions (in *The Attention Revolution*) Kamalashila's *Stages of Meditation*. In the q/a i linked above some disagreement occurs there and some of the people there says diapragm is better. They are folks whom I've gotten very many good answers from before, and whse answers I therefore have come to trust quite much. But in almost al other books, videos, techers instruction the tendency is to say that once you get the hang of shamata, you should focus on upper lip/nose/nostril. If anyone has good references and arguments for focusing on diaphragm I'd like to hear them, and try it out.

My partner has practiced a lot of lucid dreaming. She is good at it, I'm not. All in all, I'm a conceptual, low level beginner not yet recovered from too many years of academics. I sleep 7 hours every night, and as I've gotten all the intoxicants out of my system (I'm referring to chemistry here, not Kant and Plato) I remember my dreams! I've read about lucid dreaming a bit, and understand it's vital to keep a dream journal. Does anyone have tips/own experience on what's best to focus on in such a journal? I've asked my partner, but she gets a bit impatient with me.

Philosophers throughout history have been trying to pin down what it exactly means to be human - what it is that separates humans from (other) animals. Some have voted for our ability to make rational choices for the future - in a word the ability to *intend*; and then acting accordingly or contrary to our own better judgements. Some put emphasis on our capacity for language and communication by the use of *signs*/abstract representations. Another variety is about freedom of will as opposed to freedom of action. Humans, they say, has both. Others still said it has really nothing to do with our rationality, but rather that it has to do with the internal structure of our will. That is to say, humans can want (or not want) to want something. We can have desires about our desires. I can say "I want to eat cake, but I don't want to be fat and I don't want to be seen as a person who succumbs to temptations. Therefore I shall abstain." A cat can want to chase and kill a mouse, but the idea is that the cat doesn't have the ability to say "I'm hungry and want to catch a mouse and eat it, but I don't want to be that kind of cat. Therefore I shall abstain." How is this in Buddhism? What makes us human, what separates us from animals? Is it our capacity to understand/see that samsara is suffering? Is it our ability to see emptiness and dependent arising? Our capacity to be freed from suffering? Is it our rationality? Is this the same in all traditions?

Is there a version of Satipatthana Sutta in **English AUDIO** . I have got the pali version but I do not understand the full meaning when I listen to it.The idea is to listen every day when I go to work and come home after work.

When I was in rehab (15 years ago) I was at a Camp Hill community. It wasn't really that helpful for my drug problem. Maybe I wasn't ready at the time and because I don't believe in God, I had a lot of resistance to the antroposofic cosmology . Also, Camp Hill is very hierarchic and not really a drug treatment program; it's for mentally disabled people. I find Buddhist meditation practices on non-self, suffering and impermanence much more helpful. What I did like about Camp Hill was that we always had a little prayer before meals. When I am about to eat, I very often wish I could have some kind of Saying Grace that could express gratitude (I don't know if 'Saying Grace' is the right term, in Norwegian it's called "table prayer"). Does anybody know any Buddhist prayers like that? It's not so important what tradition it comes from.

This question is about a very specific situation, but there might hopefully be a more general answer. We've had conflicts at work, to the extent that we had to get a psychologist help us! There are many reasons for the conflicts, but for me the problem is that many of my co-workers are kind of lazy, not very competent and spend their time not doing their job but knitting, chit-chatting, complaining about everything etc. This situation leads to conflict and I have spent too much time being annoyed and tried to change the situation. Still, I sometimes think negative thoughts about these people. When I catch myself thinking negative ("lazy, incompetent people") I try to take a look at myself and see what causes the thoughts and what I really am thinking. This strategy also helps me to not take it out on them. But the question is, does the thoughts in themselves create bad karma?

Regularly, after meditation or reading spiritual books, I get "epiphanies" (new pieces of information about myself, my behavior and/or the outside world), which induce strong emotions in me. I lose productivity, sometimes stop to meditate for a couple of days and need quite a lot of time to recover. Sometimes, but not always, I get an understanding of what should I do different now (based on that epiphany). As a result, I learn too slowly. Since I'm probably not the first to experience these problems (depressive state after learning things about me, which require me to do something differently), there is probably advice in Buddhist writings about how to fix it (so that the learning part remains and the depressive part is reduced or eliminated, i. e. the time between an "epiphany" and new way of doing things is minimal). What does Buddhist literature (especially from the Diamond way Buddhism) recommend in this situation?

I have seen how some Sutras / Suttas start with an open invitation to many beings to come and hear the words of the Lord. Now this makes sense as it was a teaching given by Lord Buddha to his followers.But now the times have changed "Pali" as a language is dead. It gave birth to many new languages and died in the process. So today we say the same suttas and some keep it original and some use their own translation. ---- - So how does the translation happen? Is there any mentioning on how beings in different realms understand a single language, I mean even we don't use "Pali" now so how does it happen? --- - And there is another side to this too. There are some really bad realms, like "Pretha" beings. They have only suffering with the exception of few having some comforts like clothes and food.These beings have no way of learning, So how does it happen, how do they understand the teaching when they come to hear it? ---- If you can,provide any Sutta / Sutra referance

I like studying Buddhism, especially Prasangika, but I find I sometimes get kind of conceptual. I practice shamata every day, but if a beginner like myself wants to try meditation/mindfulness with koans, where should he begin? Any general tips for dos and don'ts?

In Asia there are the 8 pilgrimage locations based on places the historical Buddha did things. Has any North American Buddhist organization, sangha, or the like created a list of pilgrimage destinations? Anyhow, the BNS specifically mentions rules for travel #37, I haven't figured out if this means one is supposed to go on a pilgrimage.