Can a Layperson Practice the Actual Dhamma?

[@HillsideHermitage]

The books mentioned in the video discuss the historical differences between the Suttas and the later Commentaries and Abhidhammas, the original jhana practice taught by the Buddha, and later yogic-style concentration practices: - "Early Buddhist Meditation: The Four Jhanas as the Actualization of Insight" by Keren Arbel - "Reexamining Jhana: Towards a Critical Reconstruction of Early Buddhist Soteriology" by Grzegorz Polak (www.academia.edu/34093551/Reexamining_Jhana_Towards_a_Critical_Reconstruction_of_Early_Buddhist_Soteriology) - "Nikaya Buddhism and Early Chan: A Different Meditative Paradigm" by Grzegorz Polak ___________________________________ @14:48 - A mistake, it wasn't Mahasi's teacher, but the teacher of Ledi Sayadaw called Hpo Hlaing. For further reading of some works that unintentionally reveal implicit esoteric, yogic, and Abhidhammic views that underlie modern Theravada, see: - "Kate Crosby - Esoteric Theravada: The Story of the Forgotten Meditation Tradition of Southeast Asia" - "Kamala Tiyavanich - Forest Recollections: Wandering Monks in Twentieth Century Thailand" - "P.L. Dhar - Thai Forest Tradition and Advaita-Vedanta" ____________________________________ If you wish to support the Hillside Hermitage Sangha and this channel you are very welcome to do so via: www.hillsidehermitage.org/support-us

[@aranyawaasii]

wonderful reference list. many thanks

[@johnylimapersonaltrainer1419]

My reverence, Bhante.Thank you. I would also sugest the Kumara Bhikku's work on Jhanas and Samadhi, about the suttas version.

[@ishowinertia]

Its funny how most people only think intense withdrawal is experienced only with hard drugs or alcohol. Try giving up just coffee and internet and eating more than necessary to see just how hard it is. The pressure is brutal.

[@ady38]

Conversely,.knowing how hard it is to give up simple pleasures, imagine how hard giving up a substance that your brain and body are literally addicted to..like you feel like you'll die if you don't satisfy the craving. Then we can use that awareness to generate compassion based on knowing a bit more about the extent of craving.

[@zorananda]

Thank you so much for this guidance for lay practitioners and those who aspire to become one. Sometimes being in the unconducive environment, for which everyone is fully responsible for, can be a bit overwhelming. The chanda for the teaching can fluctuate. Sometimes there are moments of contentedness with non activity , restraint, and so on, and then there are times when that contentedness is lost. One becomes immersed in distractions. Binge-watching, binge-listening, binge-eating,binge-talking. At those times, the Dhamma seems to be just another of those things that one distracts oneself with. Even if precepts are not broken, no coarse engagement in acts of sensuality are committed , yet the liability for sense desire is still there and you can clearly tell that by acknowledging the degree of curiosity that one displays towards sense objects. The calming sittings can give a temporary relief, possibly even just a cover up and quite soon desire and the simultaneously agitated mind prevail again. I was always reluctant and ashamed to ask about that specific situation when one has seemingly naturally lost interest in any sexual activity but one is still a husband/wife and is naturally confronted with the bodily lust of one's spouse. I guess that such a sporadic act which is by any means not desired but actually felt like a annoying and wasteful burden is just another circumstance of the self chosen environment and can only be endured. One could just hope for a tolerant and understanding spouse that will not push one too much in such circumstances. There might be no desire for whatever sexual activities anymore, there might be disgust about it. There might be the clear intellectual consensus of a trap, a hook, a costly addiction and one might even honestly consider to never again in one's life willingly engage in the act. Yet the curiosity about it remains, sometimes more, sometimes less pronounced and with it one's liability and the delight and expectation of the possibility of some future event of sexual satisfaction. The ordinary lay environment is what it is. It gives one the impression of being needed, having responsibility for others and thereby covers up the fear of loneliness and the truth of a utterly meaningless life that revolves around the satisfaction of your sensual addictions. Frankly speaking more often than not i don't see how it would be practically achievable to still remain in a lay family environment and at the same time make such drastic modifications that would be needed for to have a more quiet, more simple, less arousing , less enticing and less distracting habitat. It's good to hear from Ajahn that it is doable. At times when one feels scattered and overwhelmed just a small push might be enough for to help one to make the effort and to put things in a more orderly perspective again.

[@stefanvidenovic5095]

5:51 - The sutta in question is probably Anathapindikovada Sutta (MN 143): [TLDR intro: When householder Anathapindika was on his deathbed, Sariputta and Ananda went to him and gave him the teaching...] When this was said, Anathapindika the householder wept and shed tears. Ven. Ananda said to him, _"Are you sinking, householder? Are you foundering?"_ _"No, venerable sir. I'm not sinking, nor am I foundering. It's just that for a long time I have attended to the Teacher, and to the monks who inspire my heart, but never before have I heard a talk on the Dhamma like this."_ _"This sort of talk on the Dhamma, householder, is not given to lay people clad in white. This sort of talk on the Dhamma is given to those gone forth."_ _"In that case, Ven. Sariputta, please let this sort of talk on the Dhamma be given to lay people clad in white. There are clansmen with little dust in their eyes who are wasting away through not hearing [this] Dhamma. There will be those who will understand it."_ ------------------------------- So, Anathapindika, who was even a Sotāpanna, was not taught these higher explications of the Dhamma (nothing beyond the basics that the Buddha taught him on their first meeting), simply because he was not set on the training (in his mind), he still voluntarily lived as a layman (maybe others depended on him or he just did not feel the need to take on the practice). It's not the lack of ocher robes that disqualified him, it was his choice to not practice (by staying a busy layman).

[@theinngu5560]

Thank you for this Bhantes…..it has motivated me to eat only in the morning everyday rather than just in Upostha days which I had decided to do. 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 ☸☸☸

[@ThaniyoThero]

Related talks on how a layperson progresses on the path by "abandoning the household lifestyle"-which is essentially what makes one a renunciant - one who has abandoned the worldly life and lives the holy life: kzbin.info/aero/PLUPMn2PfEqIwE9JTNlKnL72SHaZ_k5IJl&si=XBCpR9v5_qCagPRG

[@prashansa7634]

Thank you bhantes and vandami bhantes

[@extremelyrarebird]

Thank you Venerable! This was timely and helpful for me to reflect upon- as someone struggling and questioning why or how to keep the eight precepts in my current situation. For our own benefits, and that of others, we must not ''lower the bar'' of what the Dhamma is 🙏

[@TheJosephHammond]

Thank you deeply for encouraging the keeping of the eight precepts longterm Ajahn. 🙏🙇🏻🙏🙇🏻🙏🙇🏻 I also give thanks for you mentioning virtues appreciation of merit for the benefit of all those who express generosity towards the virtuous. I rejoice in generosity, self-discipline, & restraint & I invite everyone who reads this message to rejoice and share in the merits as well. Sadhu Sadhu Sadhu! Anumodami! May you and all your relatives be happy & healthy. I offer these words as expressions of goodwill, gratitude, & appreciation of goodness. May all beings benefit triple blissfully. 🙏💐💛☸️☀️💐🙇🏻

[@dkmn7568]

Thank you Ajahn. This was very inspiring 🙏🙏

[@patinrm]

This is what I needed to hear. Thank you ❤

[@shouldi9575]

I didn't want to admit that sensuality is bad.. it was like my mind was saying THAT part of sensuality is not good, but THIS part is great, surely ALL of it can`t be bad.. Precepts, sense restraint and contemplation are really needed to see it..thank you for all your videos ❤

[@francoisguillemette9075]

Thanks Bhante, great talk.

[@shelinahetherington4661]

Well said, Ajahn 🙏🏽

[@SG-if8iw]

Excellent talk. Thank you, bhante.

[@StanleyFamilyFun]

Good morning dhamma family

[@phyzix_phyzix]

Thanks for the video. I was under the impression that some lay people had attained nibbana through arahantship. Namely, King Suddhodana, Uggasena, and Santati.

[@RobertHawthorne-j3v]

At 32:12 the Ajahn mentions two pali words (I think "dhammanasari and saddhanasari"). What do they mean? I think I'm probably getting the words wrong because they are not showing up on a search.

[@ThaniyoThero]

Dhammānusārī and Saddhānusārī

[@johnylimapersonaltrainer1419]

Dear Bhante, could you elaborate on the relation between the practices of contemplations made by lay followers in the A.N. 5:57 and A.N. 11.12 and their relative outcomes, please? Specially 5.57, that says it would result on giving up the fetters and the anusaya. Thank you very much. 🙏🏿

[@kib3571]

The key is whether the layman can adhere to the precepts.

[@laurentiusogor1572]

Sadhu Sadhu Sadhu 🙏🏼

[@CO-nl4li]

Hello, Bhantes. Thank you for this talk. All of your talks are very helpful for me. If I may ask a question, what are your thoughts on having to hunt to survive? Does this invalidate the practice if its essential for survival? For most of human existence (~300,000 years), survival has been a matter of kill or be killed, do or die -- have most of these people been doomed to accrue bad karma for simply choosing to survive? I don't ask this question in defense of hunting nor to be provocative -- I only ask as someone who sees the harsh reality of nature that humans have been subjected to for hundreds of thousands of years... I wonder how this reality relates to the practice of Buddhism. Thank you and may you both be well. 🙏

[@CD-kl1dn]

Thanks Bhante

[@kzantal]

🙏

[@MichaelRickicki]

Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu! Anumodami Bhante!

[@liamnonig5717]

5:50 which suttas say "we do not teach this..."?

[@zorananda]

MN 143

[@Coral-h4c1]

what if my goal is sotapanna, to be more precise "the lack of self-view". How can I best undo the self-view

[@stefanvidenovic5095]

That is the hardest one to attain (from our standpoints). To attain it, you must first understand what it is and for that you need to take on 8 precepts (whether lay or monk), guard the sense-doors, spend time alone as much as possible, renounce as much as you can (there's almost always extra stuff, habits and people in life one does not really need), study the suttas very seriously and invest a lot of effort in trying to understand them, by reading (from proper sources, that match them well) and thinking about it. And don't "meditate" about it (breathing, "mindfulness", focusing, etc), that will only waste your time. Proper meditation only becomes possible after Stream-entry. Also, I would advise listening to all the Dhamma talks on this channel (it would take you a couple of months, few hours each day) at least once, this would go very well with your sutta study, as you would soon find (HH has incomparably the best sutta-matching status among all of interpretations).

[@nebojsaignjatovic9724]

Enlightenment is a soup, and I am a fork. 😊🖐️

[@ady38]

Reflection on the 5 aggregates (khandas) is a good place to start I think, because they are the basis on which we form identity. Reflect also on the 6 sense bases as they're related to regeneration of self view through craving and clinging. PS there's nothing wrong with meditation, as Bhante says it can provide some benefit (in terms of calming the overactive mind, and establishing a steady state for detecting the sensations in the body so you can discern them early enough to not act on them, and also the arising and passing of thoughts).

[@jeremyc4893]

Ordination doesn't make one special. Commitment is what makes one special. Which can be expressed by ordination.

[@Coral-h4c1]

nothing makes one special

[@AscendingGuru]

No... You must have the buddhist certificate. All ordained monks if the sangha have a certificate that they can show, so you only give them the alms food.

[@MrCastleJohnny]

So basically the path is mostly about developing virtue if I understood it correctly. Who are the masters of this tradition today ? Or is it just about Buddha as a teacher? That's dangerous because the scripture doesn't interept itself because it is not a mind. A mind needs to interpret the text and misinterpretations exist. This is why the the path needs teachers today, those who have purified their understanding of the texts.

[@memesmojo5622]

in tibetan buddhism there are said to be three stages of dharma practice: 1. Study 2.Contemplation 3. Meditation and three levels of : 1.understanding 2.experience 3. realization Ajahn seems to emphasize contemplation and understanding, which are good, but its not everything.

[@zorananda]

I don't mean to scare you away but just to inform you that Ajahn and his little Sangha do not endorse any of the existing buddhist traditions nor the practices taught by those. This phenomenological buddhist movement takes only the early Suttas and the writings of late ven. Nanavira as their sole reference points. That's why you will not find any opinions , discussions or comparisons with or about other traditions and teachers ,weather mahayana or theravada or any other. Simply because from the standpoint of the early Suttas all of them clearly disqualify. How? Emerse yourself in the 300+ videos of HH as well as reading the early Suttas and find out by yourself.

[@leonstenutz6003]

Caution with youthful passion. No one person owns the truth of dhamma.

[@sertulariae8294]

i hope that one day you overcome the fetter of aversion 😂😂

[@jeremyc4893]

In the suttas, there are laymen that became Arahant. Granted, they are rare exceptions.

[@ReservoirPunk]

You have to remember the conditions they lived in at that time. Totally different than a layman today.

[@theinngu5560]

I think that the layman who became an arahat subsequently died. I heard that if the layperson who became an arahat didn’t ordain within a certain time, they would die..but not sure where this is in the Suttas.

[@stefanvidenovic5095]

Generally, in such rare occurrences, it is reasonable to assume that those people who made extremely fast progress (whichever stage of liberation) even in non-optimal circumstances (lay life), probably had already done a lot of ascetic practice in previous lives, under whichever teaching or religion, so their minds were far closer to the goal already, even before meeting the Buddha. But that's not to say that they would have figured it out on their own, they most likely wouldn't because Taṇhā is extremely hard to see fully and properly for what it is, so much so that it takes a Buddha to discover it and explain it to others.

[@CD-kl1dn]

@@stefanvidenovic5095 Maybe, but while saying or reading this, one should not fall into the mistaken belief that achieving right view or Nibbāna in this life is impossible due to past actions. At any moment, it is within everyone's power to choose Dhamma over sensuality, to choose to not follow the momentum of past actions rather than continuing to reinforce it. By going against the grain of habitual tendencies, one can gradually bring that momentum of the citta to a halt and begin building a new one-one oriented toward non-craving. Ultimately, it comes down to how much and how consistently one prioritizes this shift.

[@TheApatheticGuy]

Views and opinions, views and opinions. The world drowns in the flood of views and opinions.

[@dimopetrov4982]

The lotus flower emerges out of the mud, without that wouldn't be a flower! Don't forget that!

[@zenmonjoshin9996]

The dhamma doesn't differentiate between right and wrong, layperson or monk. It is ultimate equality, free from distinction.

[@outsaneoutsane2747]

In the Anguttara Nikaya (AN 6.119), the Buddha explicitly states that a layperson who practices well can attain the same stages of awakening as a monastic. He highlights the possibility of lay followers reaching the fruits of stream-entry (sotāpanna), once-returning (sakadāgāmi), non-returning (anāgāmī), and even arahantship. Why is this monk talking false dhamma

[@HillsideHermitage]

He's not; you are just lacking a more complete picture. AN 6.119 means that those lay disciples are Noble disciples, not arahants. They have developed certainty regarding the Dhamma and have experienced what the Deathless is, or "got a taste of nibbana." Of course, the phrase "amataṃ sacchikata" can be taken to mean "experienced nibbana" not as a glimpse but in an ultimate sense. However, the Buddha would have then been contradicting himself, since in MN 71, he very explicitly states that without abandoning the fetter of a household life, his own Noble disciples cannot make an end to suffering and become arahants.

[@outsaneoutsane2747]

@ as a monk you should know that the clinging of fetters happens in the citta. In MN 71, vachagotta asks if there is any householder, WITHOUT GIVING UP THE FETTERS OF HOUSEHOLD LIFE that can put an end to suffering. So it’s not the fact of being a householder that is restrictive, but the clinging to the fetter of household life that is restrictive, and this is obviously true as any type of clinging is what restricts the citta from being liberated, but it’s certainly not an explicit statement that a householder cannot attain nibbana, you are misinterpreting the teaching

[@HillsideHermitage]

You seem confused. There is no such thing as "clinging to fetters." You cling (upadana) to the five aggregates, and you are fettered (saṁyojanaṁ) by the actions and choices that you make, which are rooted in greed, aversion, and delusion. As the Buddha said, one is what one does. So, if someone is a householder, it's because they act like one. Saying one can abandon the fetters associated with household life while still acting as a householder is thus a contradiction in terms. It's like saying one can abandon sensual desire yet still engage in sexual intercourse, which, of course, makes no sense. If, on the other hand, you simply mean that one does not need to formally ordain in order to reach nibbana, then, of course, that's correct. There were plenty of cases of people that were not monks when they became arahants, most notably the prince Yasa and the famous Bahiya. But they were very clearly NOT householders living a household life with its possessions, duties, and tacit attachments.

[@outsaneoutsane2747]

@@HillsideHermitage I don’t agree. sakkayaditthi is personality view, this is released by vipassana and non clinging, and it is the same with other fetters which ultimately consist of the 5 khandhas. Even the asmi mana is a sankhara of the subtlest kind. It is possible to be engaged in the world and not cling to it. You eat once a day, do you cling to the thought of the coming meal or the meal while you are eating it? Do you cling to your bed? Clinging itself implies a lack of ultimate understanding anyway, a misperception of conditions based on sanna, sankhara and papanca. And just because you don’t live a householder life doesn’t mean that you arent still clinging to it.

[@HillsideHermitage]

I don't know where you are getting your ideas from, but it's certainly not from the Suttas. The fetters do not "consist of the 5 khandas", nor is sakkayaditthi released by "vipassana". But enough has been said already and it's obvious that the differences in our respective views are insurmountable, so the only thing left is to genuinely wish you the best for your Dhamma endeavors.

[@snowflakemelter1172]

Anyone that claims there is a path to attaining enlightenment or that " you" can attain it, have it or acheive it is living in a delusion and wasting your and their time.

[@HaroldManingat-t6d]

and how can you say or know that?

[@hometest-1579]

So that would include the Buddha, in your view?