Ajahn Brahmali: Day 2 Afternoon Session Sutta Study and Q&A 17.05.21
Channel: Anukampa Bhikkhuni Project
Date: 17/05/2021

In this afternoon session on day 2 of the retreat, Ajahn Brahmali looks at a number of discourses of the Buddha beginning with the MN 54 The Potaliya Sutta. Staying with the theme of the fleeting nature of sensual pleasures within the context of our lives, Ajahn compares the sensual world to a dream and how the reality of life is often quite different. Ajahn suggests using the "...and then what?" contemplation to reflect on our worldly activities such as career, relationships and how we can perhaps shift our focus more from the aim on to the process of our conduct through body, speech and mind while going about these things as our "kamma is made in the process". Ajahn mentions the Dhatabhumi Sutta MN125 to refer to getting to the top of the hill to survey the bigger landscape is like seeing sensual pleasures clearly as a more gross, restless happiness compared with the happiness one arrives at through meditation. SN1.4 "Time Flies By", AN 74 The Araka Sutta and SN13  further elucidate the limits of the fleeting sensual world and how we should "drop the world's bait". By really taking this on board and reflecting deeply, we may begin to grow our own spiritual world so that our inner qualities form the platform from which we engage with life.

This teaching is part of a special 8-day online retreat called “Why We Suffer & How We Get Free,” given by Ajahn Brahmali and Ven Canda in support of Anukampa Bhikkhuni Project. The teachings explore two of the Buddha’s famous causal sequences, Dependent Origination and Dependent Liberation, which together reveal the entire course of human experience, through this world and beyond to Nibbana. 
Anukampa is a UK Charity and pioneering project that is raising funds to develop the first Theravada Bhikkhuni Monastery in the UK, where women can train towards full ordination. Donations of any amount are very gratefully received to help us achieve this noble aim, welcome you as guests and continue to spread the priceless Dhamma teachings. Please visit http://www.anukampaproject.org/donate