User:Furthershore/sandbox/Mun Bhuridatta

Teachings related to virtue

 * The customs of the noble ones: One should not simply follow along with the customs of one's nationality, as it is inevitably the customs of a society of people with defilements in their hearts. One should instead learn the customs of people who had trained themselves to be rid of defilement. The dhamma in accordance with the dhamma: One should bring one's standard of behavior up to that of the dhamma, rather than modifying the dhamma to meet one's preferences.


 * Virtue is a matter of the mind: "Intention is what forms the essence of virtue. What is intention (cetana)? We have to play with this word cetana in order to understand it. Change the 'e' to an 'i,' and add another 't.' That gives us citta, the mind. A person without a mind can't be called a person. If we had only a body, what could we accomplish? The body and mind have to rely on each other. If the mind isn't virtuous, the body will misbehave in all sorts of ways. This is why we say that there is only one virtue: that of the mind. The precepts deal simply with the flaws we should avoid. Whether you avoid the five flaws, the eight, the ten, or the 227, you succeed in maintaining the one and the same virtue. If you can maintain this one virtue, your words and deeds will be flawless. The mind will be at normalcy — simple, solid, and unwavering."


 * Observance of both the Vinaya and the protocols.

Teachings related to samadhi

 * Jhana is open to people


 * Ones meditation topic must be keeping in line with one's temperament: Everyone is different, so the meditation method used is different for everybody.

Tranquility and insight
One's meditation topic must not just capture one's interest, but also give one a sense of samvega: An important component of getting the mind into strong concentration is desire spurred by the insight that sensual phenomena are not worth clinging to.

This insight leads to tranquility, which leads to further insight, which then, in turn, leads to further tranquility. So tranquility and insight go hand-in-hand, and samadhi and panna go hand-in-hand as well.

Teachings related to release

 * Nirvana is characterized by a state of activityless consciousness

All teachings are conventional
Ajaan Mun taught that all teachings use conventional language and so are a matter of convention. Therefore, the real distinction is between the teachings, and the experience of release. The teachings are used to arrive at release, and then the entirety of the Buddhist teachings are transcended. Ajaan Mun writes"The four Noble Truths — suffering, its cause, its cessation, and the path to its cessation — are activities in that each truth has an aspect that has to be done: Suffering has to be understood, its cause abandoned, its cessation made clear, and the path to its cessation developed. All of these are aspects that have to be done — and if they have to be done, they must be activities. So we can conclude that all four truths are activities. This is in keeping with the first verse quoted above, which speaks of the four truths as feet, stair treads, or steps that must be taken for the task to be finished. What follows is thus termed activityless-ness — like writing the numerals 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0, then erasing 1-9, leaving just 0, and not writing anything more. What is left is read as 'zero,' but it doesn't have any value at all. You can't use it to add, subtract, multiply, or divide with any other numerals, yet at the same time you can't say that it doesn't exist, for there it is: 0 (zero)." This runs counter to the two-truths doctrine, which is a thread of Buddhist scholarship that states that Buddhist teachings can be categorized into conventional teachings and ultimate teachings.