Buddhist Society of Western Australia

Ajahn Brahmali teaches about the idea of "going against the stream", and how we can use this to enhance our spiritual practice.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

Ajahn Brahmavamso Mahathera (known to most simply as Ajahn Brahm) is the popular Buddhist teacher to a growing international audience of people keen to learn meditation and develop a deeper spiritual understanding. He is also the founding father of an emergent Australian forest tradition of Buddhist monasticism focused on being true to the original roots of the Buddha's Teaching of Dhamma and Vinaya.

This talk was retrieved from Buddhist Society of Victoria, visit the BSV Podcast Channel and BSV YouTube Channel.

Please support BSWA in making these teachings available by donating via Patreon or our General Expenses Fund.

To download the audio, click on the audio tracks' title to open up in Podbean.

More dhamma teachings are available from:

• BSWA Podcast Channel (Dharma talks and guided meditations)
• BSWA DeeperDhamma Podbean Channel (retreats and suttas)
• BSWA YouTube Playlists
• Books and articles are available on our website.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

Dhamma talk by Ajahn Mudito on the 3 Jul 2022, at the Buddhist Society of Victoria (BSV). 

Bhante Mudito was born in a remote village in Northern-Finland. After completing military service, he travelled to the United States where he attended chef school and worked in a high-end hotel for a few years. While living in New York his long-time interest in Buddhism evolved as he started meditating with different groups. He sought after many teachers and found many of them to be too lofty of simply too boring. But then the stars aligned when Ajahn Brahm wrote his hit book Open the Door of your Heart and on the book promotion tour he came to New York where Mudito fell in love with Ajahn and his simple teachings. He has followed Ajahn Brahm ever since and in 2010 he went to stay in Bodhinyana and ordained as a monk in 2012.

Please visit the BSV Podcast Channel and BSV YouTube Channel

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

Ajahn Brahm retells his personal story of the ‘Two Bad Bricks’ to demonstrate how we often focus on our mistakes and negative aspects, instead of the wonderful and beautiful parts of our life. Ajahn Brahm built a brick wall at the Bodhinyana monastery and misplaced two bricks. He hated that wall, until one day someone pointed out the other 999 well placed bricks and suddenly he realised the wall was in fact a nice looking wall after all.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

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

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

Dhamma talk by Ajahn Mudito on the 19 Jun 2022, at the Buddhist Society of Victoria (BSV). 

Bhante Mudito was born in a remote village in Northern-Finland. After completing military service, he travelled to the United States where he attended chef school and worked in a high-end hotel for a few years. While living in New York his long-time interest in Buddhism evolved as he started meditating with different groups. He sought after many teachers and found many of them to be too lofty of simply too boring. But then the stars aligned when Ajahn Brahm wrote his hit book Open the Door of your Heart and on the book promotion tour he came to New York where Mudito fell in love with Ajahn and his simple teachings. He has followed Ajahn Brahm ever since and in 2010 he went to stay in Bodhinyana and ordained as a monk in 2012.

Please visit the BSV Podcast Channel and BSV YouTube Channel

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

This talk was retrieved from Buddhist Society of Victoria, visit the BSV Podcast Channel and BSV YouTube Channel.

Please support BSWA in making these teachings available by donating via Patreon or our General Expenses Fund.

To download the audio, click on the audio tracks' title to open up in Podbean.

More dhamma teachings are available from:

• BSWA Podcast Channel (Dharma talks and guided meditations)
• BSWA DeeperDhamma Podbean Channel (retreats and suttas)
• BSWA YouTube Playlists
• Books and articles are available on our website.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

Ajahn Hasapanna describes how having the right attitude brings about happiness.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

Ajahn Brahm talks about how to practice kindness in different situations, and reminds us when it's hot to keep a cool head and when it's cold to keep a warm heart.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

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

“One who sees dependent origination sees the Dhamma; one who sees the Dhamma sees dependent origination.” (MN 28)

Come and take a deep dive with Ajahn Brahmali in the exploration of Dependent Origination. Dependent origination is one of the core teachings of the Buddha on conditionality: how conditions arise and how they cease, and is key to liberating wisdom. Ajahn Brahmali’s practical and down-to-earth approach makes this complex teaching accessible and applicable to our daily lives.

‘When this exists, that comes to be; with the arising of this, that arises. When this does not exist, that does not come to be; with the cessation of this, that ceases… with the remainderless fading away and cessation of ignorance comes cessation of volitional formations; with the cessation of volitional formations, cessation of consciousness…. Such is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering.” (SN 12.37)

This special event will include 30 mins of meditation, 1 hr talk, and 30 mins Q&A.

0:00 - Introduction
2:54 - Integrating one's work with spiritual practice
4:07 - Meditation
25:01 - Talk
26:43 - What is Buddhism?
31:15 - Simile of a handful of leaves
32:28 - Dangers of "philosophising"
34:53 - Buddhism as a positive psychology
36:38 - Dependent Origination intro
38:05 - First Noble Truth & rebirth
40:59 - Second Noble Truth
42:39 - Alternative formulation of the Second Noble Truth
43:49 - Craving, rebirth, suffering
48:32 - Craving leading to taking up
50:01 - Psychological insights
56:18 - Grasping skilfully
59:54 - Insights into our life
1:05:51 - Kamma and rebirth
1:07:22 - Causes of craving
1:09:37 - Feeling
1:10:41 - Contact (experience) and senses
1:11:42 - Consciousness
1:18:00 - Willed activities
1:20:21 - Delusions
1:24:37 - Self
1:27:07 - Overcoming ignorance
1:30:29 - Question: Sankara vs Bhava
1:34:13 - Question: Criminality, conditioning, repentance
1:38:41 - Question: Ignorance as the root of rebirth
1:40:02 - Question: Does rebirth require unknown physics?
1:43:31 - Question: Making choices
1:47:44 - Question: Descriptions of Dependent Origination
1:53:53 - Question: Aṅgulimāla
1:56:08 - Closing

About the presenter

Ajahn Brahmali was born in Norway in 1964. His interest in Buddhism and meditation started after a visit to Japan. Having completed degrees in engineering and finance, he began his monastic training as an Anagarika in England at Amaravati and Chithurst Buddhist Monasteries. Listening to the teachings of Ajahn Brahm, he decided to travel to Bodhinyana Monastery, located south of Perth, and has been there since 1994. He later received higher ordination with Ajahn Brahm as his preceptor.

Ajahn Brahmali’s knowledge of the Pali language and the Suttas is excellent. He has completed the only full translation of the Vinaya Piṭaka (Monastic Law) into English. It is available on the SuttaCentral website and will be published as a proper book in the next few years. Bhikkhu Bodhi, who translated most of the Pali Canon into English, called Ajahn Brahmali one of his major helpers for the recent translation of the “Numerical Discourses of the Buddha”. Ajahn Brahmali has also published a number of essays, including the book “The Authenticity of the Early Buddhist Texts” in collaboration with Bhante Sujato. Most of his publications are available online at bswa.org

The monastics at Bodhinyana Monastery greatly appreciate Ajahn Brahmali’s Sutta and Pali classes, and often rely on him to clarify the Vinaya (Monastic Law) or Suttas. Since 2013, Ajahn Brahmali has been giving regular talks at Dhammaloka Centre in Perth, and led ongoing courses on the Early Buddhist Teachings. Ajahn Brahmali’s clear and thoughtful talks make the teachings of the Buddha easily accessible to all. He travels extensively in Australia, Asia and Europe to share his knowledge and experience through teachings and retreats.

Facilitator: Tina Ng

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

Ajahn Brahm talks about proof of reincarnation and stresses the importance of growing wholesome inner qualities.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

In this final part of the Right Stillness Workshop, Ajahn Brahmali and Venerable Sunyo looks at understanding the power and profundity of jhāna.

Find the entire series and reading materials on bswa.org here.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

In this final part of the Right Stillness Workshop, Ajahn Brahmali and Venerable Sunyo looks at understanding the power and profundity of jhāna.

Find the entire series and reading materials on bswa.org here.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

In this second part of the Right Stillness Workshop, Ajahn Brahmali and Venerable Sunyo looks at the controversies and misconceptions of Sammasamadhi.

Find the entire series and reading materials on bswa.org here.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

*There is a brief silence at 1:02-1:13 - the missing audio for the first 15 minutes has now been restored*

In this second part of the Right Stillness Workshop, Ajahn Brahmali and Venerable Sunyo looks at the controversies and misconceptions of Sammasamadhi.

Find the entire series and reading materials on bswa.org here.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

Ajahn Brahm explains how having an open heart can lead to being patient, caring and inner peace.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

Published with permission of Treasure Mountain Podcast. Please visit Treasure Mountain Podcast, Treasure Mountain website and Treasure Mountain Facebook page. 

In this episode of Sage Advice we have as our guest, Ajahn Nissarano who is coming to us from Newbury Monastery, which is just north-west of Melbourne, Australia.

Ajahn Nissarano was born in 1952 in Perth, Western Australia. In 1997, he was ordained by Ajahn Brahm as a novice monk and a year later took full ordination. This year will be his 25th Rains Retreat, Vassa. He lived in Sri Lanka from 2006 to 2019, for a total of 13 and half years. During that time, he lived for 8 years in a cave on the side of a mountain, surrounded by forest and going for alms round to the village below. He returned to Australia regularly to teach, primarily at the Buddhist Society of Victoria. In January 2021 he became the Senior Monk at Newbury Buddhist Monastery, outside Melbourne, which is run by the Buddhist Society of Victoria.

Ajahn Nissarano joins us on this episode of Sage Advice to discuss the topic “our most urgent task”. We are so busy these days, we often lose sight of the big picture. And we can become so distracting that we don't even see what our most urgent task in life is. In this interview Ajahn Nissarano offers advice on what is most essential and urgent for us to focus on if we are to really develop the spiritual qualities.

Links from this episode:

• Newbury Monastery, Victoria - https://www.bsv.net.au/monastery/

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

In this first part of the Right Stillness Workshop, Ajahn Brahmali looks at the contexts and definition of Sammasamadhi.

Find the entire series and reading materials on bswa.org here.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

In this first part of the Right Stillness Workshop, Ajahn Brahmali looks at the contexts and definition of Sammasamadhi.

Find the entire series and reading materials on bswa.org here.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

Ajahn Brahmali reflects on the Buddha and teaches us how to enhance our Buddhist practice.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

Ajahn Brahmali reminds us about the impermanent nature of relationships and teaches us how to have good relationships with others. Ajahn also explains the benefits of having positive relationships.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.