Is your Dhamma practice based on superstition? 

The Sutta discussed in this talk is AN 5.175. Also, check out the new essay by Ven Anigha: www.hillsidehermitage.org/unyoked-from-biology/

Sadhu Sadhu 🙏

Thank you very much, Bhante.🙏🙏🙏

What a beautiful end to the video, with the dog. A dhamma teaching in it's own right.

Thank you Venerables for these helpful videos. From my own personal experience the challenging part as a beginner was that my belief and faith was locked, restricted and limited. The crucial point for me was to realize that faith and belief is not something I will get after I find the missing answers of what I so deeply believed to be the only truth called right view and Dhamma which means I wrongly implied faith and belief is not in my control while in reality faith and belief is in our complete control and either we volitionaly choose to believe in something or not. But once I understood that faith and belief is in our complete control I reclaimed my power of faith and belief back and I used my power of faith and I put 100% faith and belief into the Buddha,Dhamma and Sangha and practiced with that power of faith and belief and I and was able for the first time with that power of faith and belief in the Buddha Dhamma and Sangha to stop a bad thought and think a good thought until the mind became peaceful by default. Then one achieves that furtile ground that Bhante speaks about where Dhamma contemplation only applies. During the last 2 years I have seen wonderful results and thank you Venerables for being so kind to people and producing these videos I appreciate it so much. There is nothing more valuable in this world than happiness and peace of mind and I am so thankful for you constantly putting out videos that makes people progress even more.

Good evening Dhamma family, absolutely love seeing new teachings uploaded. This Dhamma is deep

this video had a significant impact on my understanding of the practice. i am used to seeing things from the perspective of already being at the end of a path, so it was helpful to hear the whole part of "taking responsibility" for the five aggregates. i had been explicitly practicing awareness of the five aggregates as being not me, which led to a bit of a chaos.

Declaring the unowbability of the body and the aggregates while at the same time delighting in sense pleasures and being averse to displeasure is a contradiction in terms. To the extent that you don't delight in sense pleasures and don't stray away from displeasure, to that extent you have disowned the body and the aggregates.

Thanks for covering my favorite sutta.

Thank you for this talk. Even though I can see this for myself, or maybe this is the only logical explanation for me after trying possibly all the wrong ways about it. Hearing you talking about it in this very straightforward way using mostly our today's language is really reassuring for me as a confirmation that I may be indeed on the right path this time. Well obviously I still need some reassurance, but not as much anymore and Hillside Hermetige plays a huge part in it. May all of you be well and happy

Sadhu Bhante Best part 17:40 👍

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Dear Bhante, I listen to your talks regularly and I get very much out of them for my daily practice. As I am a lay practitioner, husband and father of small kids, my routines, challenges and experiences naturally differ from those of a fully dedicated forest monk. What concerned me most during the last months and years is the field of right effort. My problem here is on the level of enduring sensual desires or thoughts and emotions of anger and aversion. Having established mindfulness, I experience a recurring bodily and mental tension underlying daily actions and interactions. Not acting out of this tension, as you repeatedly recommended, is very hard in specific situations. Besides putting effort of structuring life in a balanced manner (getting proper sleep, moderation in eating, sense restraint etc.) I find it helpful to have cultivated a good bodily awareness, hence letting go of tensions first on a bodily level, e.g. calming the body by deep exhalation (as in the anapanasati practice), which also affects the emotional and mental realm. As I suppose from watching your videos, health and bodily fitness are also part of your daily life. Without getting too personal, can you give some hints what it does encompass from a subjective and embodied perspective of the Dhamma to not act out in difficult situations and where the limits of such an embodied practice are? Thank you!

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Oh wow, I feel like I asked this question a hundred times, about ritualistic chanting and behavior of most Buddhists and I was always told it increases faith in them... It was very very disappointing seeing this behavior in Bodhgaya where I assumed will be complete silence even if thousands are there... but no. The loudest, stupidest noise and rituals. Thank you for being so bluntly honest about this.

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Thanks great video as usual! I'm going to repost my question regarding Venerable Anigha's latest post here in the hope that it will be better seen. Venerable Anigha, would you mind explaining in other words the part where you say that seeing rebirth is about discerning that our choices are not the same as the body? Isn't this capacity to choose the same as the aggregate of Sankhara? Even though we experience it (citta/sankhara) as being separate from things appearing or manifesting, how can we be so sure it must predate this body? Maybe both are possible? It appeared in this life but we are not fettered by it for as long as we live? Also looking at the citta in this way, doesn't it sound like it is that citta that "roams around and experiences the result of good and bad actions"? Precisely what the Bhikkhu Sati believed? Just replacing the word consciousness with citta? Citta is often used as a synonym for consciousness in many modern theravada circles.

The chants are impermanent, they arise dependent on vocal cords which are impermanent and subject to decay ?

Chanting in itself is neutral. The application of it defines superstition from conscious intended and useful action. Inducing wholesome mental states and removing unwholesome mental states with the help of chants is not a superstition. Calling spirits and devas to rejoice together with you and rememberance of good qualities of the triple gem with the help of chants is not a superstition either. Expecting that chants will liberate you - that's a superstition.

PhD in Buddhism and fluent in PALI AND still not a stream winner LOL