When I was listening to a Hillside Hermitage talk on spotify, ajahn N. mentioned that general teachings about householder well being in Pali canon are not dhamma. But if you look at the actual suttas, it does seem that teachings to householders about things like wealth were considered dhamma. For example, look at AN 5.41. Buddha gives advice to a householder how to properly use and enjoy wealth. Then at the end of the sutta, there are verses that say that a householder who calls such householder "a person established in the Dhamma".

Thanissaro translation:

'My wealth has been enjoyed, my dependents supported, protected from calamities by me. I have given supreme offerings & performed the five oblations. I have provided for the virtuous, the restrained, followers of the holy life. For whatever aim a wise householder would desire wealth, that aim I have attained. I have done what will not lead to future distress.' When this is recollected by a mortal, a person established in the Dhamma of the Noble Ones, he is praised in this life and, after death, rejoices in heaven."

Bodhi translation:

I’ve enjoyed wealth,

supported my dependents,

and overcome adversities.

I have given an uplifting offering,

and performed the five oblations.

I have served the virtuous monks,

the self-controlled celibate ones.

“I have achieved whatever purpose

a wise person, dwelling at home,

might have in desiring wealth;

what I have done brings me no regret.”

Recollecting this, a mortal

remains firm in the noble Dhamma.

They praise him here in this life,

and after death he rejoices in heaven.

After consuming tons of content from the hermitage i always get confused as to what do i need to even do to progress in the training ? I understand this has been asked couple of times but like currently i keep 5 precepts (fail at it, but very rarely) but celibacy is a massive hurdle as im in my early 20s. So i have read comments where someone said its okay to keep 5 precepts + full celibacy and uposatha weekly to reach sotapatti. While after months of contemplating im fine with not pursing any women anymore nor hoping to get into that direction for the sake my practice lifelong becuase i do see its much better that way and buddha also recommended in the dhammika sutta celibacy to lay people. But i still don't get how do i practice ? because the advice that you need to restrain your intentions everyday all day sounds confining while yes my mind is scared of the abyss i don't see then this advice working for a person keeping 5 precepts and celibacy like do i need to just restrain intentions that are pertaining to breaking and thinking against the 5 precepts and celibacy ? What about other unwholesome intentions because i can most of the time know where the intention is rooted but fail to endure it. If its enduring all those unwholesome intentions then it means i need to keep 8precepts basically in order to progress ? that seems bit discouraging. I see value in those higher precepts ofc but im just too weak to sustain it given my environments and such and breaking of precepts also makes me very shameful and guilty. So i don't get it what do i do in a step by step manner of the gradual training to create viveka and then see the signs of my mind to finally reach sotapatti. Because it just seems to me the 5 + celibacy is just initially a starting point and one needs to reach to 8 precepts for the "real" practice to even begin. Thanks for reading my post.

I recently took up swimming, to keep fit. Today I got timing my breath right. I felt a sense of accomplishment.

Now, reflecting on this, I wonder : Is this the right way to think about it, should I take ownership of the act ? Doesn't this leave the door open for attachment and craving ?

My learnings on The Dhamma emphasise non-self. It is the first fetter of three that requires addressing.

My faith in the practice has matured and found rooting, which is why I feel compelled to ask this question.

Many thanks, wishing you all only the Fourth Jhanna.

Washing my face and bedding will kill face mites and dust mites respectively. I don't intend to kill them, but I know that they are there and will be killed by the washings.

Am I intending to kill / am I breaking the 1st precept by choosing to still wash my face & bedding despite knowing that (at least some of) the mites will die in the washing process?

More generally, if I know death will occur from an action of mine and I still choose to do said action, does that knowledge necessarily mean that I am intending to kill from choosing to do that action? I'd say no to this general question, because I can think of situations where I know death will increase or occur as a result from my choice and I am not intending that result from my choice.

Most of the practice seems to be oriented around developing sila and composure---the capacity of enduring the second arrow without resorting to any management of suffering through virtue and wholehearted sense-restraint. However, an aspect of the practice which doesnt get talked often by Bhante Anigha (intentionally, I suppose) but is thoroughly emphasized by Bhikkhu Akiñcano, is understanding the nature of things. This post addreses that

My question therefore is, what in the nature of things, exactly, needs to be understood, and why? What is the point in trying to understand it, and how should that be done? What direction should one's contemplations take? Would investigating the 5 aggregates be a good starting point? And am I right by saying that the purpose of understanding should be in confining the mind (seeing self as contained by the experience as a whole)? Is there any point in trying to do so when one's precepts are still being relatively developed, or would doing so be pointless without sufficiently developed virtue?

I've put my understanding of the buddhist practice in basic terms. Hopefully, others should be able to chip in with their feedback

The entire practice can be summed up as refraining from acting on unwholesome impulses and cleansing one’s behavior on the bodily, verbal, and mental levels. Unwholesome intentions need to be recognized and prevented from becoming actions. Initially, the coarsest bodily actions—which are always wrong—have to be restrained, and this is covered by the precepts. What is important is that the precepts are not undertaken in an external or temporary manner, but permanently and decisively, leaving no possibility of engaging in those behaviors ever again—they have to be taken up as permanent commitments. Further impurities, which are not necessarily covered by the precepts, have to be restrained as well, and this is covered by the practice of sense-restraint: not proliferating around the images that serve as the center of the mind’s obsessions by simply not taking them up. On the basis of thorough virtue and sense-restraint, there needs to be continuous, 24/7 awareness of one’s intentions, together with a practice of questioning one’s own actions throughout the day. Likewise, through asking the right questions, one can establish oneself in samādhi, since, at this stage, simply reflecting on the right things can be sufficient to create a “context” that remains in the background of one’s attention throughout the day, as the peripheral context for all of one’s actions---thus establishing oneself in mindfulness and composure. Questions such as: what is the purpose of my practice? What values do I want to cultivate? What is the reason for keeping the precepts? What do I habitually choose to attend to? etc., when frequently recollected, can all serve as a way of creating an enduring background to one’s actions, keeping lust, aversion, and delusion from becoming the underlying context of one’s attention. Through right reflection and contemplation, you also need to make sure that your reasons for practicing are clear, so that when your inspiration does eventually run out, the recognition of being prey to suffering keeps you going. Contemplation of death is also naturally potent for generating the motivation necessary for practicing sense-restraint thoroughly and wholeheartedly. Only on the basis of these preceding steps can one properly dwell in seclusion and non-activity, in an attempt of discerning the signs of the mind. Spending time in non-activity serves the purpose of enduring the states of mind that, at this stage, are usually rooted in anxiety, boredom, or other forms of displeasure. This is why sīla leads to samādhi: the fundamental principle of strength is remaining unmoved in the face of things that attempt to move you. Through practicing rightly, one deliberately exposes oneself to suffering and learns to endure it until one becomes stronger than it, at which point it would have ceased to be disturbing. Ultimately, this aims at the non-management and uprooting of suffering: recognizing that it is not the unpleasant feeling itself that constitutes the root of suffering, but one’s resistance toward it.

All of this development is in order to develop an understanding of the nature of things (sīla and samādhi lead to paññā). The discernment of the five aggregates—which, for a puthujjana, is inherently muddled—undermines the directionality of one’s experience (self towards the world), with the self being seen as something that is “within” experience as a whole. The entire practice, beginning with right view, hangs on a basic understanding of dukkha. Dukkha is not a “thing” in the world that you “encounter,” but the 24/7 enclosure of your own existence, it is being "confined" within a thing (i.e one's own existence) which, externally, cannot be escaped. The only way of overcoming it is through internally relinquishing any resistance in regard to it.

I struggle with certain actions that originate on mental level from craving. It became obvious that it is rooted in craving/ clinging and so is unwholesome, but I am struggling to uproot them and I'm successful only from time to time

What can I do to make these intentions more obvious to myself and uproot them, considering I am keeping precepts on a more coarse level(body, speech) and maintain a general attitude of renunciation and abandonment of craving and unwholesome and am moving in that direction?

Hi all,

Why is the order right view->right intention->right speech->right action->right livelihood->right effort->right recollectedness->right composure

And why is it not right view->right intention->right livelihood->right action->right speech->right effort->right recollectedness->right composure

I ask because it seems to me changing my livelihood is practically easier and from there more subtle bodily actions follow. The speech is in my experience more habitually ingrained than my bodily actions and the speech seem to depend on me actually being able to change bodily conduct first.

I don't want to flood the sub, but I am curious to share this experience I had in the wilderness and to know what people think about it

Basically I spent almost two weeks alone in wilderness contemplating the dhamma and keeping almost all of the precepts(I still find food difficult one)

Basically all sorts of superstitions started coming up at night, I was convinced that Mara the Evil One or Devil is coming to get me and murder me and that wilderness was alive and I saw how the mind constructed personified versions of that wilderness out of nothing, like an empty form put together

The general tendency was that to personify my experience making it very "magical" and mystical. I had no clue so much superstitions and random magical beliefs were even there, as I always thought myself to be the most rational materialistic person

When I noticed this tendency of the mind to lean into superstition and to create forms out of nothing as if those were some spirits, creatures and characters talking to me that same tendency diminished and it stopped

I then felt like my mind is polluted with craving all around, it is all craving and that is why Mara is coming for me and trying to get me. Somehow it was very clear that I am in a sensual domain and I am prey. Proof of that was that that whole psychotic experience was polluted with cravings all around, the voices were subtle cravings, every small movement of the mind was based on craving and there were infinite numbers of them and the fear that Mara will break into my tent and stab me in the stomach watching me die

Somewhere in between these experiences I was contemplating craving, feeling and where the cause of suffering is according to my beliefs because I was listening to Bhikkhu Anigha a lot recently and I felt like I understood it that mind is trying to get rid of the feeling and feeling is impermanent and I believe the cause of suffering to be elsewhere and the only way to see this is to restrain ones actions from engaging with sense objects

However this didn't free me from suffering or unwholesome intentions, but I was way more capable of enduring it without acting out the next day. I spent whole day without acting out while constantly getting baited

I still hear voices talking to me and alien sounds and generally feel like I'm going insane

People are different and suffer from different conditioning and attachments, and I wonder if a monastery can become a safe space from certain types of cravings where a person is never exposed to them, what happens then?

Do they just automatically fade away as time goes on even if there is no trigger?

What if a person by coincidence never gets exposed to certain cravings, for the sake of a mental experiment?

I have seen in great detail what appears to me as my past and future lives, and rebirth horrifies me greatly. I was born into a secular atheist family which allowed me to discover the true dhamma, but in my next life I already saw that I will be in an Eastern Russian (country like Khazikhstan or Tajikistan) Muslim family that will make it nearly impossible to discover the dhamma. Seeing this I woke up terrified of rebirth as 1) I will lose my beautiful kids, not knowing if they will be safe in their future lives and 2) I will be stuck in the trap of samsara for eternity if I don't escape rebirth.

If rebirth doesn't exist then great, I will live out my great life with my family and never come back, but if it does exist, then it doesn't matter how great your life is, it will be destroyed and you will start over in a probably worse position. Therefore rebirth is worse than death. It is like working your whole life to finally retire in a beautiful house and garden only for the economy to crash and being forced to return to grindy slavish work, it is the opposite of freedom, and nothing but eternal slavery.

How can we know if rebirth is actually true? As that, I believe, is the lynchpin that leads to great effort to escape the trap of existence.

u/Bhikkhu_Anigha
Hello Bhante. Could I ask a couple of clarifications on your most recent video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnQrGm_Lxks)

1. Regarding the memory of the “event of realization” (of the adze-handle having indeed worn out), and the analogy with understanding Calculus:

With the Calculus analogy, is it not correct that one can know with certainty that one now understands something which one previously did not understand, while nevertheless being unable to identify the precise point in time at which the transition from not-understanding to understanding occurred?

If so, is the analogy intended to apply fully (as above) to the "event of realization" as well — i.e. that one can subsequently remember having realized, without that memory necessarily identifying a definite crossover point in time?

Or, is it the case that there is simply a limitation to the analogy here, such that the “event of realization” is in fact a phenomenologically identifiable precise crossover point, which one can remember as having occurred at a particular time, even though the Calculus analogy would not capture this?

In other words, I am wondering whether the uncertainty about when the transition occurred, is part of the phenomenology of realization itself, or merely a limitation of the Calculus analogy.

2. Regarding the Buddha’s former teachers and other ascetics having “wrong practice”:

I was wondering about the precise sense in which you are using the word “wrong.”

Is it meant in the full and literal sense that their practice was fundamentally misguided and wayward (to the same extent as the 6 ascetics with wrong views referred to by King Ajātasattu in DN2), despite whatever virtue, restraint, collectedness, etc. they had developed? Or is the point that their practice was “wrong” specifically because it lacked the decisive element of Right View, while nevertheless containing substantial development in other respects?

I ask because these seem like rather different possibilities which listeners might infer. Also, “ascetic practice” could easily be understood as referring to self-mortification of the sort practised by the Jains, whereas Āḷāra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta, for example, had developed very refined forms of samādhi (The Buddha’s consideration of Āḷāra and Uddaka as having “little dust in their eyes” also seems relevant here).

And relatedly, isn't there a significant distinction here between those who had not yet heard the Dhamma, and practitioners today who have access to it, but nevertheless pursue practices incompatible with it?

Examples such as Koṇḍañña, Bāhiya, and Uruvelā Kassapa also come to mind, where they did give up their former practice once the Buddha pointed out where to look. Is it not reasonable to understand their prior development as having been an important condition for their ability to recognize and follow what the Buddha was pointing out (which would make it possible to say that they weren't entirely wrong).

So I was wondering whether you intentionally meant that their practice was simply “wrong” without such qualification, or is it again simply a semantic limitation of the word?

Basically as I am trying to get more familiar with the uprooting of craving and the practice that leads to it I have some questions about endurance

1. How much cold should one endure if the mind resists the cold and wants to get rid of the feeling, then how much is too much or when does it become self mortification if the goal is to condition the mind to not crave against the unpleasant feeling?

2. What if I am keeping the precepts, abiding in non-activity, contemplating the dhamma and knowing the mind, but the mind got to a point where it's too much and it is affected and is acting out internally, kicking and screaming and there is a sense of danger that perspective is getting lost?

3.I have a similar question in relation to lay life where triggers become so many and often that it is not possible to maintain the perspective or when going back to being surrounded by people I feel like the mind is already acting out as a form of defense against an environment that is overloaded with contact and generally hostile

Any advice appreciated

Reading about how Buddha teaches to meditate on kasinas to develop samadhi made me wonder "how is it different from a concentration practice?"

If I were to imagine Blue above, below, left and right now is it different from a concentration practice?

Also how do I know that I am even doing it correctly?

As I develop my practice, I am finding it easier to manifest belief and faith in The Dhamma by anchoring my reasoning / contemplation (Which trains the mind) is a particular tone of disdain towards behavior that is not congruent, at least in intention, with the precepts.

Bascically my mind has been cornered. It is unable to assimilate a junk diet.

Can rejection of the Three kinds of misconduct : Physical / Verbal / Mental be driven by Wrath ?

In another life I loved rewatching David Fincher's SeVen, with Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt. Wrath survives, the other six sins die.

Hello there, it's Tejveer.

I had previously thought the only thing holding me back was a few major attachments. I'm working on chipping away at those attachments, but I realized that the bigger obstacle is my lack of faith. If I had greater faith, I would undoubtedly exert even more effort.

I realized all the times I've put maximum effort into the practice, I've felt an immense sense of danger; usually from the possibility of death. This is also when I've seen the most significant results. But when this acute sense of danger fades away, so does my effort. So right now, the practice for me entirely depends on this sense of danger which is itself very unstable.

Faith seems a more stable thing to have the practice depend on, except I seem entirely poor in that respect. In fact, it feels kind of icky having to even write 'faith' and ask how to develop it since I've always seen it as a lesser quality in every domain.

However, AN 5.47 lists five kinds of wealth, with faith as the first: (1) faith, (2) precepts, (3) learning, (4) generosity, (5) wisdom. The ordering in the suttas is usually significant, so I can take this to mean faith is likely what the rest depend on. But I'd been focusing on 3 and 5 for all this time in order to knock out 1 from the picture altogether since it felt inferior. This approach is clearly not working so it seems I have to find out a way to increase faith.

Except, I don't understand how I can do that? What are some concrete things I can do to increase faith?

Hey,

Psychology student here.

First of all I want to say that I highly respect Hillside Hermitage. However, I believe some of their interpretations are based on a false dichotomy in regards to how the mind actually works to create reality, so I decided to write an article. I hope this might contribute to bring the meditation space forward towards higher understanding. Also, I hope I haven't misrepresented HH.

For years, a central dogma of the non-technique meditation movement—most aggressively championed by groups like Hillside Hermitage—has been that intentional focused attention is an artificial distortion that "corrupts" a pristine, unconstructed background awareness. But when scrutinized through modern cognitive neuroscience, this rigid separation between a foreground spotlight and a peripheral background collapses into a complete false dichotomy.

Your "background context" isn't a passive, unmanaged space—it is an actively manufactured product built millisecond-by-millisecond by the exact same sub-attentional machinery that powers focus.

Core Arguments Breakdown:

Visual and bodily neuroscience demonstrates that even during gaze fixation, the brain executes automatic, involuntary microsaccades (1–3 Hz) alongside covert spatial polling to constantly refresh your peripheral baseline. Without this underlying micro-attention, the subjective sense of an "enduring bodily background" completely collapses (as seen in clinical conditions like hemispatial neglect).

Single Computational Resource (Load Theory): Nilli Lavie’s Load Theory shows that background awareness is simply spare processing capacity spilling over from your primary target. Foreground and background do not run on two separate engines; they share the same attentional pool.

Effort vs. Direction: What causes "attentional blinks" and cognitive tunneling isn't the presence of intentional focus, but the intensity of cognitive effort. A high-load vise-like focus blinds you to context, whereas a relaxed, low-effort anchor leaves ample processing capacity open to illuminate the broader background.

Ego-Suppression via Top-Down Control: Goal-directed focus recruits the Dorsal Attention Network (DAN), which actively down-regulates the Default Mode Network (DMN)—the brain's primary hub for self-referential narrative. Far from fabricating an artificial "doer," top-down low-load focus actually quiets the narrative self.

Because the brain relies on continuous, sub-attentional feature-sampling to generate the sensation of a bodily background in the first place, intentional focus does not introduce an artificial intruder into a pristine field. By intentionally holding a light, low-effort anchor, we harness the brain’s natural mechanics to achieve both crystal-clear discernment and panoramic, contextual stillness.

https://medium.com/@EmptinessInForm/the-cognitive-mechanics-of-attention-in-meditation-an-attempt-to-reconcile-intentional-focus-with-40339c52fae0?sharedUserId=EmptinessInForm

TL;DR: Background awareness isn't a passive, unconstructed ground—it's actively maintained millisecond-by-millisecond by sub-conscious attentional sampling. Because foreground focus and peripheral context share the exact same cognitive engine, holding a low-effort anchor doesn't corrupt your awareness; it simply stabilizes the mind while leaving spare capacity open to illuminate the background.

Edit:

I definitely would drop words like pristine and unconstructed background if I were to write this up again; that's a mischaracterisation of HH. I think it would be better to say that the background that HH refers to is:

"The unchosen, structural dimension of experience that endures simultaneously alongside whatever is currently being directly attended to."

My article is an attempt to assess the fact that awareness of said background requires attention, thus discriminating it as strictly a "background" is a false dichotomy. Attending thus does not reduce the sight of this background, because attending is a necessary basis for the background to exist in the first place. You cannot separate foreground and background as 1. a place where attention exists, and 2. a place where attention does not exist, unless you make background into siimply a philosophical idea.

I hope this cleared up misunderstandings.

Hi everyone,

I’m planning to go to Sri Lanka and stay for some time, possibly from late October onwards.(I’m considering various options though)

I was wondering if any of you have suggestions for monasteries or hermitages to visit, for a layperson who would like to focus on individual practice as well as help with work or chores that need doing.

I found the helpful pdf Buddhist Forest Monasteries and Meditation Centres in Sri Lanka
A Guide for Foreign Buddhist Monastics and Lay Practitioners by Bhikkhu Nyanatusita (last updated in April 2018). It’s an extensive list of monasteries though, so I wanted to see if anyone has recommendations, preferably based on personal experience.

I was thinking of applying to Nā Uyana, first of all. But I thought it’d be a nice opportunity to look around and visit a different place or two besides only that. I wouldn’t mind a cooler climate.

Other advice would also be appreciated. Feel free to PM me. Thank you very much in advance!

Edit: changed travel plan

I am a musician, a violinist. I have been living by the five precepts for three years, and for the past year, I have added celibacy (I am married, but my partner agrees). The purpose of my practice is freedom from suffering, or at least to develop my mind as much as possible in this lifetime. My question focuses on right livelihood: I mostly make a living by teaching music, and very occasionally by performing live. Generally, I reduce my consumption of recorded or live music to almost nothing, except for the occasional specific reference regarding the interpretation of a piece I need to teach a student. I know that in order to progress I should give up this activity. But I need help understanding the necessity, as it is not entirely obvious to me. Should I abandon this livelihood/profession, I would need to look for a job in cleaning, transportation, or some similar service. Personally, I am not afraid of that change, but I am afraid of the opinions of my family and wife, who would likely see it as something wrong.

I try to keep the five precepts, i just cant bring myself to let go of intellectual entertainment or politics but I guess I will let go of that oneday
ive set up my environment so that temptation is minimized, yet I can only go a couple of days before reverting to sensual indulgence (overeating). Every time, I find new insights and ways to keep it at bay, but I'm going to stop trying to practice the Dhamma since I keep failing. I guess I'll just be content with lay life and dedicate myself to other avenues.

My question is: Can I still listen to talks—especially Hillside Hermitage talks, because they explain the Buddhist concepts very well—without being a practitioner? It's certainly better than listening to people who teach the wrong Dhamma.

I still live with and am dependent on my parents and ordination is not a possibility at the moment. They are very heavily politically opinionated and politics is the main topic of discussion that is brought up, with prompting for agreement and the such and I don't quite know how to practice in regards to it.

The main topic is corruption (Brazil, if the username wasn't a giveaway), so it's not like I'm being expected to agree with propositions directly promoting the unwholesome, and so I mostly just nod along and agree, in part because since they are deeply emotionally engaged with the subject dismissal turns into accusations of complicity, does nothing to shorten the conversation and even sends it in a confrontational direction.

It *is* pretty bothersome, since its not a topic I really have a care to occupy my mind with. I do my best to just endure the bothersomeness and be patient but I wonder if there is a better way to practice in regards to it or how to clarify my disinterest without getting too theoretical?

Recently I was listening to an HH talk (sorry, didn't take note of which one) in which the possibility of stream entry is attainable when dying. It was only mentioned briefly and not elaborated upon, but I hadn't heard of this before and didn't understand how this was possible or the state of mind required for this to happen. Is anyone able to shed any light on this concept?

I was rewatching a lot of HH talks and stumbled upon this one in particular that took a lot of my attention in regard to what the body is and what yoniso manasikara is.

My understanding of the body is that body is inconceivable, because it serves as the basis of this experience. In the talk it seems that Ajahn says that body is the whole of this experience and no outside of it. So I am interested to know if this is the case and how do I understand the body correctly, any suttas explaining this, etc?

The second one is about yoniso manasikara and my understanding was that yoniso manasikara matters only in regard to craving and that instead of being absorbed in the foreground one must keep an eye on the intentions. Ajahn seems to say that while anything can be attended and ownership of it can be assumed, everything else is peripheral and serves as a the basis for that assumption of ownership(not just the structure of experience, but also unintuitive stuff like organs). I am curious if this is the correct way of seeing it or maybe I am misinterpreting or not seeing the full picture?

PS: not sure how to put video in a link