Metta Retreat 2008 Questions and Answers

Metta Retreat 2008 - Questions and Answers

Ajahn Pasanno

1. Can you speak a little about samatha/vipassana and explain the difference between serenity and equanimity?

2. Could you please explain about the death process…how quickly does rebirth occur?

3. How do you respond to personal mistakes without guilt?

4. How would you describe the jhana states?

5. When there is a lot of pain in the body, it is difficult to maintain “right effort,” yet sometimes through patient endurance the pain lessens or dissipates. Could you speak about right effort and the connection between right effort and samadhi?

6. What is loving kindness? What is the body and mind’s experience when I feel metta for myself and others?

Q & A Session 2 – Wednesday, Sept. 10

1. As with quantum mechanics, does just being aware of the breath affect it?

2. How does mediation help people with serious mental delusions?

3. What is the definition of wholesome?

4. What is monasticism like and how would one become a monk?

5. How will I know if I’m experiencing loving-kindness?

6. How can one develop mudita?

7. What is the difference between tanha and lobha?

8. What does “non-contention” mean?

9. How does one work with doubt?

10. Do you have any advice about working with internal and external vibrations?

11. Please repeat the metta phrases you taught yesterday.

Q & A Session 3 – Thursday, Sept. 11

1. One of my lay insight mediation teachers said, “The Western lay practitioner is an experiment in Buddhism.” What do you think? To me it seems our lay teachers are also an experiment.

2. This is a common scenario: I’m caught in a story of praise and blame. I notice. A voice says, “That was very quick. You’re getting good at this.” I wake up again. “Ah, I know you Mara….” Mara seems to co-opt every moment of awakening to feed the ego. Is there something you can suggest?

3. The lovingkindness chant includes “May I abide in freedom from affliction.” Why is affliction not included in the wish for all beings?

4. When we have a retreat work period that requires us to leave a sitting after 15 or 30 minutes, should we come to the meditation hall and leave early or just practice elsewhere for that period?

5. This morning, you spoke about bringing to mind the metta nimitta. I have some understanding of the feeling of metta, but no understanding of the metta nimitta. Could you explain more fully?

6. Can you speak about working with fear and loss of ego identity, fear, and death?

7. Could you talk about opportunities for women who wish to practice in the monastic tradition?

8. I’m not sure in the context of this retreat when to be resting simply with the four foundations of mindfulness and when to be reciting metta phrases. Can you please advise as to how/when to skillfully move from one practice to the other?

9. It seems that metta would be much easier without a self to protect. How does one realize anatta?

10. What is upekkha – equanimity – and how does one practice it?

11. What is the most fun part about being a monk?

12. What does it mean – the four pairs, the eight kinds of noble beings – in the recollection of the Sangha?

13. What are the general Theravada monastic communities thought on S. N. Goenka’s mediation techniques and vipassana centers?

14. When doubt is mentioned under the hindrances, is it mainly referring to doubt about the Buddha’s teachings? Are there other implications?

Q & A Session 4 – Friday, Sept. 12

1. Realized beings abound these days. Care to comment? When the conditions are conducive and the inquiry is in earnest, is it possible to wake up quickly?

2. Which suttas describe path and fruit?

3. I am hoping to go to the Udon/KhonKaen area in Thailand. Are there temples and teachers thers you could recommend?

4. Would you way a bit about the benefits of practicing loving-kindness during the dying process, both for the one who is dying as well as for the caregiver?

5. If everything about me is impermanent, and even "myself" is illusory, just the rising and falling of kamma, then who or what am I addressing when I wish myself well-being?

6. For most of the time on this retreat, I've tried to work with a persistent problem from a variety of angles, but as I work with it it seems to get worse; it seems obsessional. Any suggestions?

7. Was Ajahn Chah an anagami when Ajahn Chah got angry with that young monk? I thought the root of anger was uprooted at that stage.

8. Please explain in English the Pali chant you give as a blessing at the meal and at other occasions.

9. What is the difference between awareness and consciousness?

10. Would you share some of your personal journey, including the time before you became a monk, and why you became a monk, and how the holy life can help people grow and change?

11. Please talk about challenges you had in practice and how you worked with them.

12. What is the Pali word for letting go or relinquishment? Is this the opposite of upadana?

13. What is clinging to the belief in self (sakayaditthi)?

14. Do you think being introduced to Buddhism guided you to the contemplative life or would you have become a monk in any tradition?

15. Please say a few words on posture.

16. Please explain devas to us.

17. What is the difference between "meditating on" or "contemplating" and just thinking about something. Can you give some examples how one may skillfully meditate on something versus unskillfully? What does sankhara mean?

18. When I think of people with spontaneous open generous hearts, they are full of loving-kindness, sympathetic joy and compassion, but do not seem equanimous. Can upekkha come naturally or is it a result of cultivation?

19. What is the difference between piti and sukha?

Q & A Session 5 – Saturday, Sept. 13

1. Did Ajahn Chah still have anger? You said some palm-reader said he had anger, and Ajahn Chah said, “Yes, but he didn’t use it?” What does that mean?

2. Would you explain the duties parents and children have towards each other as explained by the Buddha?

3. Do you have any strong sense as to how you feel about your 35 years as a monk? Any outstanding lessons?

4. Is it hopeless to send loving-kindness to Mara?

5. Can you offer suggestions as to how to get past joy in one’s meditation?

6. What are the characteristics of personality? Are they conditioned by kamma? How do I learn not to take mine as truth and real?

7. Just to clarify – when doing loving-kindness practice, is any phrase OK to repeat? They can be said as a chant, right? At any speed? Is any chant best for achieving concentration?

8. Sometimes when I get concentrated I have spontaneous body movements both gross and subtle. Any comment?

9. Is gladness the same as thankfulness?

10. What does Pasanno mean?

11. Can I give a metta hug to the cute little Ajahn?

12. The near enemy to equanimity is aloofness. Can you offer clues on how to differentiate between these in oneself?

13. In your opinion, why do you think Mogallana is portrayed in the scriptures as mostly an idiot/unwise and Sariputta is portrayed as wise?

14. What are the primary distinctions between Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana?

15. How many people are on the Abhayagiri monastic waiting list? How long do they usually wait?

16. What could American culture learn from Thai culture?

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