The Ariyapariyesana Sutta is one of the most significant suttas in the Sutta Pitaka. It provides continual guidance on establishing and maintaining an authentic, practical, and effective Dhamma practice…
The Sikh Sutta teaches the the Eightfold Path is a path that incorporates the three aspects or trainings necessary for becoming Rightly Self-Awakened as the Buddha instructs. The Eightfold Path is a training in developing heightened virtue, heightened concentration, and heightened wisdom…
The Upaddha Sutta provides guidance on an underlying theme running throughout the Buddha’s Dhamma – wise associations.
The Sallatha Sutta – The Two Arrows is a key teaching as it clearly explains what for many is a confusing aspect of the Dhamma – individual contributions to suffering…
The intense desire to alter the dhamma to fit confused views rooted in ignorance of The Four Noble Truths has persisted until today. This has resulted in many contradictory “Buddhist” religions that together present a confusing “dharma.”…
Right Speech is always compassionate speech as it is speech informed by the wisdom of Four Noble Truths developed through the Eightfold Path…
“This is what I teach. I teach these things because they are related to my Dhamma and they support the principles of a life integrated with the Eightfold Path. These things that I teach lead directly to disenchantment, to dispassion…
The Yasa Sutta – Freedom From Entanglements teaches importance to avoid creating a “Dhamma” practice that depends on external entanglements as its theme…
In the Sabbasava Sutta the Buddha teaches the ending of mental fermentations from the refined mindfulness developed through the Eightfold Path…
The Khajjaniya Sutta is a profound teaching on the confusion and suffering that follows from clinging to speculative views rooted in ignorance of Four Noble Truths. The Buddha’s described the personal vehicle for ongoing stress and suffering as “Five Clinging Aggregates.”
In the Cula-Saccaka sutta the Buddha is challenged to debate by Saccaka, a follower of Nigantha Nataputta, the local leader of a Jain sect….
The Anuradha Sutta is another sutta where the Buddha is asked questions whose basis is rooted wrong views ignorant of Four Noble Truths and Dependent Origination…
In the Vatthupama Sutta, the Buddha uses the simile of a dirty or clean cloth to teach the importance of abandoning magical, mystical, and fabricated views …
Understanding Four Noble Truths cannot be developed through distracting rituals, magical endowments across non-physical “realms”or painful deprivations.
As shown in this sutta, and the supportive linked suttas, it is clear that a “dharma” practice that encourages self-identification in conceptual, speculative, and suppositional realms was something the Buddha continually cautioned against, but sadly continues and is encouraged by most modern Buddhism By Common Agreement groups…
Devadatta was driven by the need to be acknowledged as an enlightened being rather than actually develop the Dhamma. He wanted to introduce his own “dhamma” and gain recognition with his peers material wealth, and power. Devadatta plotted to have the Buddha killed so that he could take over the Sangha…
The Dhammannu Sutta is similar to the Dhamma-Viharin Sutta. [1] In both suttas the Buddha describes in detail what it means to have developed a well-integrated Dhamma practice..
In the Dhamma-Viharin Sutta, the Buddha is teaching that engaging with the Dhamma through intellectual study alone will not develop cessation of craving after and clinging to views ignorant of Four Noble Truths, and the confusion and suffering that follows…
I do not answer these questions as they are not fundamental with the goal. They do not develop disenchantment, dispassion, with calming, with unbinding, with direct knowledge, with awakening…
“Vaccha, the notion that ‘the cosmos is eternal’ is a thicket of views, as are all these views. These views are a wilderness of views. These views distort reality. These views are fetters…
In the Kalama Sutta the Buddha addresses greed, hatred and deluded thinking directly as a way of pointing out how other teachings fail to directly address the defilements…
Engaging in the dhamma and taking true refuge in the dhamma does not begin with recognizing the paradox of attempting to “save all sentient beings” but with the realistic and achievable goal…