Buddhist Society of Western Australia

This talk is republished with permission by Metta Centre, teaching retrieved from http://Dhamma Talks – Metta Centre.

We decided that everyone should choose their own life path, but it seems that we forgot to talk about what makes a good life. Should you follow your bliss if your bliss is doing bad things? Is purpose innate or do we have a choice? How can we find purpose if life seems determined to strip it away?

0:00 - Metta meditation
22:12 - Finding purpose
32:33 - Being a monastic
33:55 - See the bigger picture
34:53 - Impermanence & choices

37:47- Q & A
38:30 - Choices & conditioning
41:59 - Regretting ordination
47:09 - Hard finding purpose
53:50 - Q: Challenges finding one's purpose
54:20 - Am I doing enough?
57:39 - What we want to become
58:17 - Our impact
1:01:13 - The present
1:02:03 - Perhaps the only purpose is waking up?
1:03:34 - Do choices end?
1:06:45 - Traditional values & expectations
1:14:45 - How to find purpose in the mundane?
1:16:40 - Pre-announcement: Buddhist Professional Network
1:17:43 - Too busy to consider purpose..
1:20:56 - Guiding principles
1:22:51 - Noble Eightfold Path
1:26:28 - Hard rejecting dreaded freelance jobs
1:28:20 - Closing
1:29:39 - Dedication of merits

About the presenter: Bhante Sujato is an Australian Theravada Buddhist monk ordained in a monastery in Chiang Mai in Thailand during the 1990s. Besides spending 3 years in the Bodhinyana monastery with Ajahn Brahm, he also spent several years in remote hermitages and caves in Thailand in Malaysia. He helped establish the Santi Forest Monastery in Bundanoon, where he was the abbot for many years. As a scholar of early Buddhism, Venerable Sujato has authored several books and essays, and is the founder of SuttaCentral.net, an impressive online collection of early Buddhist texts, attributed to the teachings of the Buddha or his earliest disciples, with translations and commentary available on the site. Venerable Sujato has taught Buddhism and meditation in Australia and internationally such as in Sri Lanka, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, America, Germany, Norway, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan and many others. Venerable Sujato is now residing at Lokanta Vihara (the Monastery at the End of the World) in Sydney, Australia.

Facilitator: Tina Ng

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