Ajahn Amaro - How Can I Stop This Story-Making Factory?
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- Опубліковано 3 лип 2024
- DOWNLOAD LINK : www.amaravati.org/?s=how+can+i...
Ajahn Amaro (born 1956) is a Theravadin teacher, and abbot of the Amaravati Buddhist Monastery at the eastern end of the Chiltern Hills in south east England. The centre, in practice as much for ordinary people as for monastics, is inspired by the Thai forest tradition and the teachings of the late Ajahn Chah. Its chief priorities are the practice and teaching of Buddhist ethics, together with traditional concentration and insight meditation techniques, as an effective way of dissolving stress.
Ajahn Amaro was born Jeremy Charles Julian Horner in Kent. He was educated at Sutton Valence School and Bedford College, University of London. Ajahn means teacher. He is a second cousin of I.B. Horner (1896-1981), late President of the Pali Text Society.
Apart from a certain interest in the theories of Rudolf Steiner-to which he had been introduced by Trevor Ravenscroft,Amaro's principal enthusiasms on leaving university were, by his own admission, pretty much those standard-issue among sceptical students of the day: sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.
Having completed his honours degree in psychology and physiology, in 1977 he went to Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand on an undefined "open-ended" spiritual search. He somehow found himself in northeast Thailand, at the forest monastery of Wat Pah Nanachat. Ajahn Chah's charismatic impact and the encouragement of the senior American monk Ajahn Pabhakaro were decisive. It changed his life. Having become a lay renunciate, four months later he became a novice and in 1979 he received upasampada from Ajahn Chah and took profession as a Theravadin bhikkhu. He stayed in Thailand for two years. Amaro then went back to England to help Ajahn Sumedho establish Chithurst Monastery in West Sussex. With the blessing of his abbot, in 1983 he moved to Harnham Vihara in Northumberland. He made the entire 830-mile journey on foot, chronicled in his 1984 volume Tudong: The Long Road North.
In the early 1990s Amaro made several teaching trips to northern California. Many who attended his meditation retreats became enthusiastic about the possibility of establishing a permanent monastic community in the area.
Amaravati, his mother house back in England, meanwhile received a substantial donation of land in Mendocino County from Chan Master Hsuan Hua, founder of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Talmage. The land was allocated to establish a forest retreat. Since for some years Ajahn Sumedho had venerated the Chinese master, both abbots hoped that, among its other virtues, the center would serve as a symbolic bond between the otherwise distinct Theravada and Mahayana lineages.
Care for what became Abhayagiri was placed in the hands of a group of lay practitioners, the Sanghapala Foundation. Ajahn Pasanno was appointed founding co-abbot of Abhayagiri with Ajahn Amaro. The latter announced on 8 February 2010 that he would be leaving Abhayagiri and returning to England, having accepted a request from Ajahn Sumedho to succeed him as abbot at Amaravati.
Dhamma Talk
Like Ajahn Amaro, i also began visiting monasteries as i had no food nor place to stay... a few years later i was ordained and living in a cave in a cliff in the mountainous forsts of Chumporn, trying to emulate the Forest Masters and Attain Panya. Now im a Layman again, but in truth, the snowball of mindfulness practice, never stops, even if you disrobe. And so, just as the mental formations (sangkhara) never stops conditioning itself, it is also true to say that, once you have made the inner staring and mindful attentiveness as to what is happening within the 5 Khandas (aggregates), then it becomes second nature to practice. The practice never stops, even if you disrobe. Once you start to practice constant watchfulness, and it becomes past the point where you need to exert effort, and becomes 'second nature' then you are always a practitioner and a savaka, whatever you are wearing.
My mind is easily distracted, so I write down almost word for word your teachings. Then read and reread the teachings until the teaching is absorbed in my bone marrow.
I love this guy. He sounds like he's down the pub, sipping a pint. He hasnt got that "teacher guru" vibe that is unsettling.
Jimbo very true. Incidentally, he came from a drinking family, had his own beer glass at 6 years old, and frequented pubs most of his late teens and early twenties. He was a very heavy drinker as he speaks of in many of his talks. So his style was formed during those years. I have a deep love for him as I visit his monastery very often.
robbiepeterh hey bro. I have been to Amaravati and stayed on a couple of occasions and this particular part of Ajahn amaros history you talk of really resonated with me because of my past. I was wondering if you could post any links to talks on the subject.
It's because he's not selling anything or trying to get you to support his Ego.
As to this topic of the ceaselessness of mental formations (thinking).. the enlightened consciousness will remain in stillness and peace, and not be bothered by the endless thoughts and memories and projections.. just don't get entangled in them. Seeing them as something external instead of something internal , helps to gain insight into the fact that 'your thoughts' are not really 'yours'. Nor are the thoughts your 'self' Birds make a sound and our consciousness becomes aware of it.. it doesn't bother us. But 'our own' thoughts, do bother us, because we identify with them (wrongly.. because thoughts and emotions are not self, they are just temporary fading and rising events). - The trick lies in recognising the fact that the brain is an organ that is transient, unsatisfactory, and not self.. beyond our control. The mind will do as it wants, you cannot supress it. You can only see it is not self, and treat it the same way as you treat the rustling of the leaves outside as you meditate, or the wind in your hair.. it is not self, it is the brain doing what it wants. Just leave it alone and stop prodding it. The mind will always throw up such chimeras at you, but then so do the birds outside, and the cars flying past down the road.. You cannot stop the brain, nor can you stop the world from moving. But, you can disentangle and stop clinging to it, and take no notice. The Kammathana method is not to still or suppress thoughts.. it is to watch the thoughts tire themself out, and just observe, and see their impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and non selfness.. just keep watching them, and noticing them. Thats how to stop the process. you stare at it until it gets tired all by itself. Ajahn's sermon is excellent for the inclusion of the teachings which begin at about 16 minutes in about the process which occurs through the senses.
Ajarn Spencer i
To summarize in brief, we are not our thoughts, but we are the observer of our thoughts.
@@terranhealer and even the observer is not the self.
Thank you Ajahn.Since I've increased my meditation to one hour sessions
4-5 times a day my mind is wandering all over.I am Alternating 1 hr walking then 1 hr sitting . Listening to this talk again has been very helpful.Thanks.
Ajahn amaro also gives very detailed discourses and most beneficial to the listeners
EXCELLENT AND VERY JOYFUL DHAMMA TALK.!!! SADU SADU SADU!!! ANUMODAMI !!!
Very good talk full of wisdom and useful tips to keep an awareness of the mind and its nature in daily life
Thank you for sharing this :)
havent even started listening yet, but i love the title of this talk.. been trying to stop it for a long time now.. sangkhara.
That's funny... your mind has already begun the story of Love before listening.
SYNAPSE ON that is funny!
Good relevant teaching.....Thank you. Sadhu 3X!
Great talk!
And hes so witty of u listen carefullu. Lovely understated english humour.
thanks!
Sadhu sadhu
Help my understanding please...
Assuming roughly:
...sense contact >> feeling (like/dislike/neutral) >> perception >> thought >> associations >> expanding sprouting narrative(s)/storyline(s) (i.e. fuel) >> triggers habit patterns (e.g. regret/panic/anger/aversion etc etc) according to any one of the 3 character types...
And this process can be traced back with mindfulness to the initial sense contact (e.g. thought/smell/taste/sound/sight/feeling)
Q. What if the sense contact was given birth to during sleep and one simply awakes suddenly each morning in a sea of say anxiety or panic and its not clear whats fuelling it or what the pattern of thinking was to result in the anxiety?
I hope I've made sense and you're able to share your thoughts. Thanks
During sleep you experience synesthesia. Sensory input either comes from a collage of multiple senses or is generated from within. If you're being disturbed during restfulness, it's likely that something in your waking life is also disturbing you. That is you have encountered conflicting data and don't know what to make of it. When we confront the unknown we can either turn around, stop and think (that could take an eternity), or proceed with the course into the unknown.
I think you can still try to investigate what kind of thought that make you panic. Because sometimes you can remember your dreams. At least you should know why you panic? som kind of cathastrophic thought perhaps?
🌸🙏🌸🙏🌸🙏
There is the natural mind you had before the rearrangement"" of thought and thinking... that mind was naturally silent, the one that wasnt overzapped or anything.
All thoughts .. 46:07
My homage 🙏🏻please advise me out of heart and hatred 😊couldn’t leads to life prosperity. Please.
Blow up the Factory - with the fairy talers in it of course.
Lol
Where can I get good Sangha in or around Birmingham.
108shadow108 Hi if you Google Birmingham Vhiara they have meditation retreats. They follow Mahasi Sayadaw, it's all beautiful teachings.
much metta friend.
Hi Kevin, thats great, I have been there before a few times but mostly it was closed, but its a very nice place and I have often just sat in the gardens. I will try again to contact them so thank you for reminding me. With Metta
Did you find somewher?
Shadu Shadu Shadu.
lol,..add: " mental illness" to the mind,...and then,try to stop it. ( like a freight train)
I just had an epiphany: If "I" am trying to stop the mind,then I am Not the mind, I must be a separate entity,...hmmm,...
definitely, I MUST "save" this video,...thanks Sir!! ( Psychiatry doesn't even begin to teach one to control the mind, only to dull it,...with a chemical lobotomy)
Daniel Hawkins check out also ramana maharshi's "who I am" and nisargadatta's non dual, "I am that", Vedanta teachings for more on exactly that - identity and identifying and disidentifying. ram Dass articulates eloquently as well his lectures worthwhile besides all the great forest monks ajahn sumedho, brahm, thanissaro bhiikhu, ajahn Sona etc. etc. etc. it's the greatest of topics as you rightly highlight!! the writings and lectures on the major topics of the five aggregates and the satipatthana more central to this theravadan tradition the thai forest monks like ajahn amaro are connected to
Great,thanks...I'll check it out,...(sure it beats Alcohol)
@@danielhawkins6619 you are not your mind/thoughts. You are the observer of those thoughts