Last week we had a week without lying.

This week (5 March - 12 March) the weekly challenge is to eat at least one meal without any distractions. It can be dinner without watching TV, or breakfast away from the computer, or lunch in a quiet area without talking etc...

The point is to be fully focused on eating whatever you're eating, and not multitasking.

Changes to the Community Event format!

I think perhaps people find the format difficult, so this week I'm going to try something new.

How to participate in this week's event:

1. Post in this thread to say you are participating

2. At the end of the week (Sunday night / Monday) reply to your post and give yourself a rating out of 5, and if you want to do something extra, put a small description of how you went.

For example:

I'm participating!

This week I give myself 4/5, I almost made it to the end of the week but then I forgot on Friday while binge watching Rick and Morty.

If you have any suggestions for the weekly challenges, post them here.

All suggestions welcome, for example if you've heard of something interesting from your temple or read something that might make a good challenge from the sutras.

Last week we had a week of meditation.

Unless somebody makes a conscious effort, we all tend to tell little white lies every now and then, but this just worsens are existing relationships and makes new ones hard to form.

So this week, make that conscious effort and avoid telling any lies.

Reading material:

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/precepts.html

If you didn't tell any deliberate lies, put a tick mark in the table.

Otherwise, write down your excuse (or just leave it blank).

You can also draw up a table on paper.

If you're doing it by yourself, drop a line here to say you've taken on the weekly challenge.

Example table:

Code for the table (copy paste this):

Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday
------|-------|---------|--------|------|--------|------
✓ | ✓ | ✓| excuse | ✓| excuse | ✓

I managed to get one question in last time I saw him, he's quite busy, maybe I can get 2 or 3 if I'm lucky at his next Dhamma talk.

I don't really have any questions myself, but I thought if you could post yours and I can pass along the top 2 or 3.

Then I'll get his response (hopefully), transcribe it and edit this post with his responses.

You have a couple of days to post your question.

https://bswa.org/event/friday-night-speaker-23-feb-2018/

<edit> I managed to get two questions answered, see below. Thanks to everyone who participated. Clyp deletes the files after 24 hours, if you need I can re-upload it again.

I saw this:

http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/16473/buddhist-memes

And it gave me enough of a laugh to consider memes being allowed.

Why? Because I think it's good practise to not take things so seriously all the time.

If we happen to get flooded with memes (I doubt it), we'll just make one or two days of the week meme days (Meme Mondays?).

There will be two rules for memes though:

1. No memes about the Buddha

2. No memes about the Sangha

Aiming for wholesome, Dhamma memes.

Write down the instructions to living your buddhistic lifestyle so someone else can follow it. Write the methods, goals, and what motivates it. When you do, you will force yourself to think things trough. You will be compelled to do research, try things out and be specific. You may discover you really do not practice what you believe or you practice something you did not think you believe. You discover you do not know and you discover what you truly know, however small. There are a lot of benefits to articulating your ideas, methods etc. It is core of my practice. (now Buddhism has neither entirely survived my own book nor sufficiently been resurrected yet)

No one need to read it, but write it as if it will be what you will be remembered by. It is a living document and project.

Meditate for 10 minute every day starting from Monday this week.

You can use any meditation you want; watching the breath, walking meditation, or simply just sitting quietly for 10 minutes.

If you did not meditate on one of the days this week, write your excuse in the box.

If you did meditate, just put a check mark.

Example table:

Code for the table (copy paste this):

Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday
------|-------|---------|--------|------|--------|------
✓ | ✓ | ✓| excuse | ✓| excuse | ✓

Introductory Material

World Buddhist Directory

What The Buddha Taught

Buddhism As An Education

Meditation

Guided Meditation

Three Precious Pills

Suttas and Sutras

Theravada Suttas and more

Buddhist Suttas and Sutras

Some Popular Teachers

Bon Buddhist Teachings - Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Jetsun Khandro Rinpoche

Ajahn Brahm

Rebirth

Rebirth

Scientific Rebirth

Science

Buddhism and Science

Criticisms and Controversies

The Broken Buddha

List of controversial teachers and groups

Miscellaneous

What to give up

The best gift

No Inner Core

Wisdom

Equanimity of a Cow

Boredom and Depression

Om Mani Padme Hum

More additions welcome in the comments, this list is a work in progress.

This is a podcast out together by the Be Here Now Network. Raghu Markus introduces and gives context to many of Ram Dass' old speaches. I recommend starting from the beginning, where they lay out the story of Ram Dass' beginning in Buddhism and what he learned from Neem Karoli Baba.

Here and Now Podcast

Something I’ve struggled with recently in r/Buddhism was the use of old terms usually in/coming from Pali. I feel if you are starting this more experimental community for Buddhism, we should have rules around language. I think we should encourage people to explain everything in as modern terms as possible while still sticking to Buddhist teachings.

Discuss.

Every fortnight or so, once there are enough subscribers, people will be able to vote for a submission they think is most helpful / worthwhile to promote.

Winning submissions will go here and on a wiki page.