[Gad]

 

This venerable bhikkhu gave an excellent sermon and broke down various preconceived ideas about Buddhism.

I retained this from his speech; he distinguished between anicca and anitya. He clearly said that annica does not mean impermanence. It’s Anitya who means that. He said that we do not need Lord Buddha to understand impermanence. It would be ridiculous if Lord Buddha awakened just to teach us something we already know. “We suffer in our minds when normal regular routine incidents happen in the outside world”. This is what I understood from his description of the annica nature. He also said that there are many ways to describe the annica nature. However, impermanence is not the central point of this nature.

He also broke the preconceived idea that you have to be in the present moment. If it were necessary to only be in the present moment (mindfulness) that means that a criminal must only think about his crime and nothing else. A reptile that can remain motionless for hours waiting for prey is mindfulness. Lord Buddha is not talking about that, rather he is talking about being aware of the process of cause and effect.

The venerable bhikkhu also spoke about the fact that kamma is not deterministic. A kamma vipaka only happens when the causes come together for it to happen.

I also noticed one thing. When you want to explain something, you have to explain it in the language of the listener. When I talk about language, I don’t necessarily mean physical language (although that is important) but in such a way that the person can find elements of the Buddha Dhamma in their own experiences. This venerable bhikkhu does it well in his speeches. His audience is mainly students, so he uses examples that relate to their lives. Of course, his speeches or his way of explaining may not suit everyone.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Jorg

[Lal]

Thank you, Gad.

I have started a new thread, “Jethavanarama Buddhist Monastery – English Discourses,” under the “General Forum.”

• Discourses of general interest can be posted there. That way, it will be easier to find them later on.
• If it is a specific topic, one can use a different forum (like Gad did.)

3 users thanked author for this post.

Jorg, Yash RS, Gad

[Author]

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