Today we are going to think about how powerful our minds are. Just by thinking, we can collect good or bad karma. Today the Bhante is going to give us some tips for training our minds. He’ll also tell us a little bit about the great Arahant Monk Upāli. He was the monk who was the top expert in the Vinaya, the rules that monks and nuns follow. We’ll find out how, because of his mind in a previous life, he was born as a low caste barber in his last life.

6:24 Sermon on the power of the mind

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Have you ever been blamed for something you didn’t do? Most people have. It doesn’t feel good, does it? We may even get angry at the person who is accusing us. And afterwards most people don’t learn anything from the situation. Maybe they just complain about the person who accused them. But do they attain the first stage of enlightenment from being accused? Well, today we’ll hear about a farmer who, with the help of the Supreme Buddha, was able to attain the first stage of enlightenment learning from the situation of being wrongly accused.

5:27 Story of the wrongly accused farmer

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Have you heard the word sutta before? A sutta is a specific teaching or sermon given by the Supreme Buddha or one of his enlightened disciples. It’s amazing, isn’t it, that over 2500 years later, we still know what the Buddha taught? Today we are going to start to talk about ways that we can read these suttas for ourselves.

5:41 Sermon

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Have you ever had to make a difficult decision? Maybe there was a time that you had to decide not to tell a lie, even though you might get in trouble. Or maybe you had to decide to help someone else, even though it might mean that you loose something for yourself. Well, today we’ll learn about a young man who had to make a difficult decision. He had the chance to do something really, really good, but he might risk loosing his job. Sometimes it’s hard to follow the Buddha’s teachings. But in this show we’ll get to learn the secret to making good decisions.

5:58 Sermon on the florist Sumana

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Have you ever heard about the lay disciple Visākhā? She was an amazing person. For one thing, she was the woman who was the biggest supporter of the Supreme Buddha and the Sangha. No one gave more than she did. But what’s really amazing is that she was a stream enterer. Not just that—she attained this first stage of enlightenment when she was only seven years old. That’s incredible, isn’t it. We shouldn’t think this Dhamma is only something that adults can understand. Even kids can get stages of enlightenment if they work hard to understand the Dhamma.

Now even though she was a stream enterer, she could still get sad sometimes. This is one of the differences between a stream enterer and an arahant like the Supreme Buddha. Stream enterers still have some attachment to things in their mind. And today we will learn about a time that Visākha was very sad because of this attachment. Fortunately, she was able to go to the Supreme Buddha and talk about the situation and he helped her overcome this sadness.

5:55 Sermon on the teachings to Visākha, Udana 8.8

Today

6:18 Ratana Sutta. Read online or download a PDF.

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They talk about loving kindness, so afterwards we are going to meditate by listening to some ancient verses that guide us in developing a mind full of good wishes for everyone in the world. You can either listen along silently, or click on the show notes link to download a copy or follow on line.

5:37 Dhamma discussion on loving-kindness and attachment

Do you know what a view is? You may hear people use that word when they look out a window of a very tall building and say, “Wow, that’s a great view! You can see so many things from up here!” Well, that’s one kind of view. Another kind of view is a view about how the world works. Just like when you go up a tall building and look out you have a good view, the Supreme Buddha, with his wisdom, was able to have a perfect view about how the world works. He called that Right View. In Pali we say Sammā Diṭṭhi. Today we’ll learn about the type of Right View that the Buddha wanted us to develop on the path to enlightenment.

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• Stories of Heavenly Mansions from the Vimana Vatthu. Get your own copy or listen for free online.

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Sometimes we may hear about things happening in the world that seem a little scary. Usually we try not to think about these things, don’t we. But sometimes we keep hearing about them again and again so it’s hard to ignore. It’s important to talk to someone we trust and ask questions and tell them how we are feeling. If we can talk to someone who knows the Buddha’s Dhamma, we get the chance to use the Buddha’s teachings to calm our mind and do things to help our situation.

Today, one of the monks is going share some suttas taught by the Buddha that reminds us of all the good things we can do, even in a dangerous situation.

5:48 Sermon on the Vannaropma Sutta & Jetavana Sutta (SN 1.48)

16:36 “What you should do”

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