Optimism versus Realism

Yesterday, we started our Pali and Abhidhamma class after lunch, so I did have a few hours free in the morning. I met some young sayalays, some are half-orphans, and some without parents. I followed them wandering around the Thabarwa centre.

We did chanting together and circling around the pagoda. Then they showed me their favourite places and trees. Their favourite stick was stuck among the branches, so we tried to hit it with a stone or another branch to make it fall down.

On the way to a monastery, the young nuns saw flowers on the ground, and they were happy. They plucked the flowers, and I suggested them to offer them to the Buddha.
After paying respect to the Buddha statues in a nearby pagoda, they pointed to me a tree that had many fruits (the name is Ji thi), and then they were busy collecting the fruits. Then they saw a statue of ascetic that is sitting on the ground, and they hug it like old friends. (You can see in the photos attached.)

Normally, the children in Myanmar grow among the nature, and live together with friends. They play with neighbours and classmates, and have many friends. They look at people with fearless eyes, because they are not afraid of strangers. That is why Myanmar children have big and open eyes.

I was thinking, these young nuns are young, yet they are happy with nature, Their minds are not burdened with burdens of life, i.e. aging, sickness, death, sorrow and lamentation.

How can we, still maintain some innocence like them, looking at the world with optimism, with hope, at the same time, having a matured mind knowing the sufferings in life? How to balance optimism with the reality of life?                                    

I think, the answer is one has to see the outer world with optimism, but see the inner world that is composed of five aggregates that are arising and falling away, with wisdom.

         (17th Feb 2016, by Sayalay Cala Theri)

Why I became a nun?

Personal Story from Sayalay Aggavati

Enjoyment

I worked as a tour guide before I became a nun, when I was working as a tour guide. I used to dress up well, had great fun by going to different places and meeting different types of people. I enjoyed my work very much. It was an exciting and enriching experience. I visited many parts of Myanmar.

Personal Suffering

Then, on one occasion, I went with some tourists to a hilly place in a forest. The place was full of mosquitoes and I suffered from mosquito bites and I was infected with malaria. Without knowing my situation, I went back to my home in Yangon. After a few days, at the middle of one night, my body felt feverish, and I suffered from very high fever.

                       [Click here to read more]

WHAT BUDDHISTS BELIEVE

WHAT BUDDHISTS BELIEVE

By Sayadaw Dr. Nandamālābhivaṃsa[1]

          Buddhists believe in the Buddha, believe in kamma; believing that conditioned things are impermanent, unsatisfactory (sorrow) and have no soul. You can see clearly that the Buddhists believe in the Buddha. When we believe in the Buddha, we believe in the knowledge of the Buddha that is omniscient (sabbaññutañāṇa) which means the Buddha knows everything. The Buddha teaches universal truth. It can be divided into two: the wholesome state and the unwholesome state. It is different from other religions.

In other religions, people believe in God, or the Creator. This God creates everything. We are created by God, therefore God blesses the people. People pray to God and confess to him. Buddhists do not believe in God neither do they believe that God is the Creator. We are not created by God.

     According to the Buddhist texts, God is none other than Brahma: the Brahma god. In his past life, he successfully practiced samatha (concentration) meditation. Then he was reborn as the Brahma god. He is powerful because of his practice. He cannot create everything

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[1]                  Note: This Dhamma talk given by Sayadaw Dr. Nandamālā at ITBM University in 20 December 2015. We are very inspired by this Dhamma talk, therefore we like to share this Dhamma with you all. This has not been checked by sayadaw. Please forgive us for any mistake found in this transcription and editing. Transcription by Serena Ho, Edited by Sayalay Cālā Therī and Ng Pei Fuen. This is under our Aggācāra Dhamma Project.

                                                             [Click here to read more]

Discussion on Mind and Matter, and self.

In Suttanta, there is talk on 'I', mine, self. In Abhidhamma, there is only mind-matter. But we need to conventional truth or concept to communicate with people and to live harmony with people. We need to respect those who are older than us, wiser than us etc. There are human, people, dogs and cats etc. At the same time, we need to keep the truth in the mind, there is only mind-matter. As the mind thinks, the body acts. There is no self.

[Click here to read more.]

Analytical study of the some Pāḷi words

In January 2016, we will start with the analytical study of some Pāḷi words

-Hupeyya, kilasu, Uppilāvita, kutthita sahoddha

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to All!

Below is the Burmese study lesson through New Year Wishes.


The wish at the Beginning/Foremost  of New Year

The old year finishes and fades away, and the new year has arrived.

May there be light and bright blessing

At this time the auspicious new year,  may the mind be free from all dirts (defilements).

May you be use pure mind and has only happy and serene smile in the whole year.

May the meritorious deed, property, wisdom and business be accrued (increased) just like a tide.

ႏွစ္သစ္ ဦးဆုေတာင္း

ႏွစ္ေဟာင္းကုန္ေပ်ာက္ ႏွစ္သစ္ေရာက္

ထြန္းေတာက္  မဂၤလာရွိပါေစ ။

ႏွစ္သစ္မဂၤလာ   ဤခ်ိန္ခါ စိတ္မွာညစ္မဲ ကင္းပါေစ။

တႏွစ္ပတ္လံုး  စိတ္ျဖဴသံုး ရႊင္ျပံဳးႀကည္သာ  ရွိပါေစ။

ကုသိုလ္      ဥစၥာ ပညာ စီးပြါး       

ဒီေရအလား တိုးပြါးႀကပါေစ။

We encourage you to learn the Burmese of this poem. This poem is written by Sayadaw Chanmay.

Pali and Abhidhamma teaching at Thabarwar Centre, Than Lyin.

Teaching 12 days course - Introduction to Pali and Abhidhamma,and Dependent Origination in Thabarwar Centre, Than Lyin.
Date: 5th Dec to 17th Dec 2015
Book used: Pali Made Easy, Fundamental Abhidhamma, A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma
Teacher: Sayalay Cala Theri