Out of the 10 recollections in the 40 Kammaṭṭhāna how is upasamānussati practiced to the level of Jhana ?

Buddha meditated for days under the bodhi tree. Does it mean he sat and did not move for days? Or does it mean he did normal things (like drinking water, urinating etc), but in a total meditative state?

From the Buddhist perspective, is there an inherent conflict between being a believer in a theistic religion and a practitioner of Buddhist meditation?

Are there any records of this? Though I'm more curious about the first council, I'm generally curious about their participation in any of them.

I have never been clear on the exact nature of rupa. Is rupa the experience of the physical, is rupa not experiential but instead it's what is in 3D space and is there whether or not it's being experienced(like how most people view material reality before practicing Dhamma) or can rupa be both experiential and not experiential(conceptual?) at the same time? We are supposed to see reality through our individual experience but it seems to me that rupa might not be an "experiential reality kind of teaching". Is rupa only about when we are experiencing "hardness","coldness","wetness" when we touch an ice cube or is rupa the "formation" of the ice cube or could Rupa just be the concept of the ice cube? How I interpreted the teachings on rupa told me rupa might be conceptual at times and ultimate at other times but really I don't know. -Thank You :)

On page 13 of [Good Questions, Good Answers](http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/gqga-5ed.pdf) it says, > The Buddha taught us to try to understand our fears, to lessen our desires and to calmly and courageously accept the things we cannot change. Is it true that we're taught to try to understand our fears? Assuming it's true, do you suppose it means nothing more or less than the first noble truth: i.e. that dukkha is fear and vice versa? Or does it mean something else? Are there techniques to "understand our fear"?

"There are in this body head-hairs, body-hairs, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, pleura, spleen, lungs, intestines, intestinal tract, stomach, feces, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, grease, saliva, nasal mucus, synovium (oil lubricating the joints), urine, and brain in the skull." source This seems like a pretty comprehensive list, but semen and menses are noticeably missing; although if they were included, there would obviously have to be separate male and female versions of this contemplation. Do we know why they are missing? Are other body parts missing? It seems unusual given how direct the Buddha's teachings normally are; so I imagine there is a reason. Thank you!

The Buddha has been said to be compassion however i have not seen compassion described. 1. What does it mean to be compassionate? 2. How is it different to love, sympathy and empathy?

If a practitioner of mindfulness has experienced cessation/fruition should they use the memory of that as their anchor or should they continue to use the perception of the arising and passing away of kalapas? Or does focusing on either one of these cause the practitioner to develop different skills?

Considering the five aggregates and the sense in which they are all not-self. Thoughts (samskāra) are one of the five aggregates so they too are 'not me' or 'not mine'. In one sense this is a statement which accords with my own experience while on and off the meditation cushion. They display an impermanence and often they arising unbidden (or as part of a web of causal relationships that I don't control). In another sense however this doesn't accord with my experience. My thoughts don't happen to anyone else. They are thoughts in my head happening to me. I know (well I think I know) the second statement is a wrong view. So why are thoughts not mine if they never happen to other people.

This question was prompted by https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/q/9488/254 --- On page 31 of [Good Questions, Good Answers](http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/gqga-5ed.pdf) it says, > **Explain what insight meditation is** > > During insight meditation a person just tries to be aware of whatever happens to them without thinking about it or reacting to it. > > **What is the purpose of that** > > Usually we react to our experience by liking or disliking it or by letting it trigger thoughts, daydreams or memories. All these reactions distort or obscure our experience so that we fail to understand it properly. By developing a non-reactive awareness we begin to see why we think, speak and act the way we do. Is "without thinking about or reacting to" experience, deliberately counter-productive? Is it counter-productive, in scenarios when you should be trying to: - Learn something new (learning something is presumably trying to allow yourself to be affected, to "produce" a change in the knowledge you have)? - Create something new (e.g. if you're making or writing something for your work/livelihood)? Wouldn't it be better to be absorbed in or by the experience, to absorb the experience, in these scenarios? I fear it's counter-productive: - Because it's intended to be (counter-productive) - Because it's an addition (of some kind of awareness to the mind-state) and therefore a distraction - Because having reaction (i.e. effect on your own knowledge) is the purpose or goal when learning - Because having reaction (e.g. thoughts like "this is good or not good") are the tool when creating

My questions are: - How is karma any different more believable than supernatural gods passing judgement when we are talking about rebirth after the point of death - rebirth being inextricably linked to karma? I've read a lot about how seeds of karma ripen into result, and what seem to me to be absurd cosmological realms existing under a flat earth, but then teachers have said karma is just moment to moment. Then it changes to it is not even moment to moment but a universal law like gravity. I mean no disrespect by this, but gravity is observable whereas being born as a human and then a dog after you die because of unskillful karma is not. - Also some humans are born in such a way (severely disabled) that dogs are smarter than they are? Why is rebirth in human realm classified as higher when some humans suffer more than some animals and have less of an intellectual ability to reason than dogs or crows? How are you sure this transition to lower rebirth exists, as in the hell realms which sound like really bad places that physically exist, aside from anecdotal evidence that cannot be observed through experience? - Why does no one support rebirth with any solid evidence, but claim it as a result of karma where karma is portrayed as a natural law? If you are claiming there is evidence, where is it and how were the observations conducted? Are you just taking this persons word for it, or can you reproduce the result? How do you know this? Personally, it seems to me that this notion of lower rebirth at the time of death could be true but is just as likely not to be true. So the people that claim it positively exists based off it just seeming to make sense or anecdotal evidence are no different than Christians or Muslims who believe in their gods because it just seems to make sense to them. There is an essay that explains this quite well and references Pali suttas. [Rebirth is Neither Plausible nor Salient.](http://jayarava.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/rebirth-is-neither-plausible-nor.html) An excerpt that asks this a bit more eloquently than I can: > "There is one more consideration here. Rebirth is intimately linked to the Buddhist doctrine of karma. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago (Son of the Śākyas) that the idea of being judged on the basis of your actions is one that might have come into Buddhism (and Hinduism) from Zoroastrianism. All large scale cultures seem to have a metaphysical overseer. In most cultures it comes in the form of a god who monitors your behaviour. Why do we need monitoring? In ancestral small scale societies we all knew what everyone was doing because we spent all of our time together. Privacy did not really exist. But as we became civilised and started living in larger scale communities it became impossible to keep everyone under surveillance to make sure they were keeping to the rules. Society is predicated on the idea that most people follow the rules most of the time, and if we catch someone breaking the rules we punish them somehow. One of the harshest non-fatal punishments is shunning which was practised in the early Buddhist Saṅgha for some offences (it still is). So gods like Indo-Iranian Mitra/Mithra, developed to keep a celestial eye on everyone and keep order. In non-Vedic India however the function was not divine, and not anthropomorphised, but became an impersonal built-in property of the universe, i.e. karma. However the function of karma is no different to the function carried out by judicial gods (e.g. Mitra or Zeus), or the oversight function of a mono-gods (e.g. Jehovah), and that karma is still a supernatural agency. Karma was invented to make sure that private actions have public consequences, though the astute reader will notice that the consequences are mostly private—that is divorced from the society in which the action was done—as well, since they are put-off till a future life."

Recently I read/heard someone saying that the [agamas](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%80gama_(Buddhism)) are/were dismissed and downplayed in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism throughout history. I understand that Mahayana texts received much attention in these regions, but I wonder if the (presumably) lack of importance given to the agamas are simply due to them being neglected among the vast literature, or if they were explicitly disliked (for a specific reason?) or considered inferior, or obsolete. **EDIT**: Trying to be clearer: I'm looking for historical evidence for either chinese/japanese appreciation of the agamas, or evidence of reasons for chinese/japanese to neglect these books across the centuries.

On page 24 of [Good Questions, Good Answers](http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/gqga-5ed.pdf) it says, > - The gentle, loving type of person tends to be reborn in a heaven realm or as a human being who has a predominance of pleasant experiences. - The anxious, worried, or extremely cruel person tends to be reborn in a hell realm or as a human being who has a predominance of unpleasant experiences. - The person who develops obsessive craving, fierce longings, and burning ambitions that can never be satisfied tends to be reborn as a hungry spirit or as a human being frustrated by longing and wanting. I have three questions: - If a person is all three (i.e. gentle, loving, anxious, and longing) then what determines their future rebirth? - Why are 'anxious' and 'cruel' both reborn in hell? - Isn't someone who is cruel more harmful than someone who is anxious, and therefore more 'deserving' of hell? - Is an anxious person reborn in hell because anxiety a hellish (unpleasant) experience, i.e. if you choose to live a life of anxiety you're therefore inclined to choose to be reborn in hell? - Do cruelty and/or anxiety correspond to *[kilesas](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleshas_%28Buddhism%29)* ? The introduction to the Wikipedia article says, > Kleshas include states of mind such as anxiety, fear, anger, jealousy, desire, depression, etc. ... but I don't see anxiety (nor cruelty) listed later in the article, e.g. in the list of 10 defilements.

It gets really hard for me to meditate when there is something really important happening in my life, something that triggers overwhelming emotions such as fear, anger or total despair. Avoiding them is not a solution, they don't simply go away. I try the usual method to deal with them (seeing for what they are and repeting "fear...fear...fear..."), but it seems those big emotions and events can block or even stop my meditation. I'm 100% sure I'm not the first one to face this "challenge", so any advises on how to deal with it would be great.

What is the right mindset we should have towards physical exercises according to buddhist practice ? e.g. Weight training , cardio , running etc. In my case I'm spending most of my day sitting at desk , so having some exercise is necessary to be healthy . **But would this consider as clinging to body?** I can understand having supplements such as protein shakes could be considered as clinging.

Is there a reason why I get this overwhelmed feeling and want to cry when I visit the Temple?

Are there exceptions that pleasant feeling is not followed by craving, and unpleasant feeling not followed by aversion? I understand cases where when one is mindful, feeling does not lead to craving. Feeling just arises and ceases. Another way of phrasing the question is: apart from absence of craving/aversion or arising of craving/aversion, does pleasant and unpleasant feeling lead to something else, or it does not lead to something else?

I'm vegan is about 1 year, and as time.
I felt my voice became deeper and more resonant.
I watched some of the monks has such voice
Why is my voice changing?

Lately I've been noticing how often people in my everyday life mention being proud of themselves or their loved ones for some good effort or action or being ashamed of themselves (or decrying others should be ashamed of themselves) for some lack of good effort or bad action. Even in court precedings, it seems judges take into account whether or not the convicted is "showing remorse" when sentencing. It seems to be considered a positive thing to display your pride or even your shame when appropriate. In my studies of Buddhism so far, I don't really recall learning anything specific about pride and shame but have only a vague notion that these emotions don't seem very "Buddhist"; maybe being related to ego or judgement. Did the Buddha teach anything about pride and shame? Are they ever considered positive mind states in Buddhism? Thank you.