Tuesday, June 9, 2020

Via Daily Dharma: Generate Lovingkindness

By nature [the heart] contains both love and hate. It contains ill will, rejection, resentment, and fear, and also love. But unless we diminish the hate and enlarge the love by doing something about it in our daily life, we have no chance of experiencing that peaceful feeling that lovingkindness generates.

—Ayya Khema, “Love Is a Skill”

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Adittapariyaya Sutta: The Fire Sermon

Adittapariyaya Sutta

The Fire Sermon

I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying at Varanasi in Gaya, at Gaya Head, with 1,000 monks. There he addressed the monks:

'Monks, the All is aflame. What All is aflame? The eye is aflame. Forms are aflame. Visual consciousness is aflame. Visual contact is aflame. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on visual contact, experienced as pleasure, pain, or neither-pleasure-nor-pain that too is aflame. Aflame with what? Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. Aflame, I say, with birth, ageing death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, grief’s despairs.

'The ear is aflame. Sounds are aflame...
'The nose is aflame. Odors are aflame...
'The tongue is aflame. Flavors are aflame...
'The body is aflame. Tactile sensations are aflame...

'The intellect is aflame. Ideas are aflame. Mental consciousness is aflame. Mental contact is aflame. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on mental contact, experienced as pleasure, pain, or neither-pleasure-nor-pain that too is aflame. Aflame with what? Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. Aflame, I say, with birth, ageing, & death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, grief's & despairs.

'Seeing thus, the instructed Noble disciple grows disenchanted with the eye, disenchanted with forms, disenchanted with visual consciousness, disenchanted with visual contact. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on visual contact, experienced as pleasure, pain, or neither-pleasure-nor-pain: He grows disenchanted with that too.

'He grows disenchanted with the ear...
'He grows disenchanted with the nose...
'He grows disenchanted with the tongue...
'He grows disenchanted with the body...

'He grows disenchanted with the intellect, disenchanted with ideas, disenchanted with mental consciousness, disenchanted with mental contact. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on mental contact, experienced as pleasure, pain, or neither-pleasure-nor-pain:

He grows disenchanted with that too. Disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion, he is released. With the release, there is the knowledge, "Released." He discerns that, "Birth is depleted, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world."'

That is what the Blessed One said. Glad at heart, the monks delighted at his words. And while this explanation was being given, the hearts of the 1,000 monks, through no clinging (not being sustained), were released from the mental effluents.

Back to BuddhaSutra.com