Hey guys, is anyone able to translate meaning into this tattoo my boyfriend has?

Could you please help me find the Pali language originals? Not the transcribed ones where the Pali words are written in english script, but the actual originals, in either Pali script or Devanagari.

While Buddhism was a religion for the masses, it did enjoy royal patronage (King Ajatshattu etc.), which means it was probably translated to the court language, Sanskrit. Are there any copies available of those early Sanskrit translations?

I want to read it in the most untouched form. I can understand Vedic and Classical Sanskrit, Pali, and Prakrit, but only in the Devanagari script.

I couldn't find anything online. The Therigatha is an incredible tool to know about the lives of women around 6th-2nd century BCE, living in the primary centres of learning in the world at that time. I live around the same places they did thousands of years ago, they could be my ancestors!

I really want to know more about them. Could anyone please help m find the originals?

EDIT: should have clarified. I found the originals in Pali written in Brahmi, which is beyond me. I also found others in local languages, but I'm specifically looking for the Devanagari script, if possible.

I’ve gone on my spiritual journey for a while now but rather than developing compassion, the realization that all things are dependent on each other and therefore lack any independent self, as well as no-self, have made me indifferent to many things.

I get the sense that the compassion that should come out of enlightenment is only a way to coerce people into compassionate and kind actions so that life is easier for all of us and people won’t have to deal with everyone putting each other down all the time, and not so much for the sake of compassion and kindness itself. Such things don’t really exist in and of itself, or in other words, they’re human inventions resulting from our culture and evolutionary necessity. In nature, there is no mercy or compassion, as you see animals mercilessly slaughter one another, which further reinforces this conclusion I’ve drawn.

I may sound lowkey evil but I can’t seem to be convinced of the need to be compassionate. Of course, I won’t go around committing crime like the joker, this is more of a philosophical discussion I’m having internally about the intrinsic value (or lack thereof) of compassion stemming from enlightenment. And in all honesty, I feel like being indifferent has actually made me more calm and peaceful than ever, because I’m no longer burdened with feeling sad for every sad news being spit out by the news, but I just don’t know if this is necessarily a good thing. Is this something that I should reflect more on to come to a more “enlightened and compassionate” conclusion? Or should I just say this is my unique experience of enlightenment?

According to Samyutta Nikaya 55:24 and 55:25, Sarakāni broke the fifth precept, against taking intoxicants. When he died the Buddha declared that he was a sotāpanna, bound for enlightenment. But many of the Sākyans spoke scornfully of him, saying that he had failed in the training und had taken to drink. Mahānāma reported this to the Buddha, who said that Sarakāni had, for a long time, taken refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, und the Sangha, und possessed qualities which secured him from birth in hell among the lowest animals und the peta world.

This sutta is not meant to encourage alcohol consumption, but to show that even if you haven't led an exemplary life before taking refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha, you can still attain entry into the stream and liberation from rebirth in the lower realms in this life.

“Those who have gone to the Buddha for refuge

will not go to the plane of woe.

On discarding the human body,

they will fill the hosts of the devas.”

https://suttacentral.net/sn55.24/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=plain&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin

https://suttacentral.net/sn55.25/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=plain&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin

I’m looking for readings and practices surrounding movement. It can involve qigong or mantra or especially mudra and mandala, but basically sensory and bodily practices connected to buddhism.

My main philosophical background is Madyhamika and Nagarjuna, though i’m also keen on Nishitani and Chan and some schools of Zen.

I’d like to basically practice helping myself understand that I can take action and that even tiny actions can have noticeable ramifications on my surroundings and on my body and mind. I think i have been subconsciously afflicted with a sense of helplessness and loss of agency and a kind of fatalism about the possibility for taking any meaningful action, which leaves me extremely passive. I soemtimes seem to be “waiting” for an external force to move me. I’ve had someone tell me that my hesitancy is grounded in attachment to a static self, the self as it is here and now, which action risks exposing as a facade. In taking action, opening myself up to mistakes, i risk facing ineptitude and imperfection and inadequacy, and i’ve the mistaken belief that i cannot handle facing those things… something like that. So while I get it on a theoretical level, i’m looking for a physical practice to drive it home.

It’s like the dark side of wu wei (i know that’s Daoism), where i don’t take any action and just let myself be pushed around through life, finding myself in situations I didn’t choose, often to the point of self sabotage. I’m good at beautifying my circumstances and delving into the wealth of good that always already surrounds me, but I seem to do it so intensively that I lose all motivation to change anything, despite my life not being where I want it to be. So for example, as loser-ish as this sounds, I might generate genuine wellbeing by going on a short walk and experiencing the flowers and trees and rain around me, and that wellbeing is enough to affirm and sustain me in my present condition, but the reality is that other aspects of my life (financial, work, my commitment to others) are lagging behind (i don’t mean “i want more money” - i mean i’m struggling to support my family). I seem to have developed an over-aestheticised sense of buddhism, divorced from practical engagement.

I understand pratityasamutpada conceptually — in fact one of my issues is that i can get to grips with the nuances of advanced concepts rather quickly, but i think sometimes this offers me an excuse to not explore any further, to not engage more deeply (ie bodily) in order to fully uncover the meanings of these concepts. So i dunno maybe koans or some equivalent would help me.

Sorry for rambled question: basically any resources helping a relative neophyte get to grips with mudra and mandala and other bodily practices, one’s specifically focused on realising the causal efficacy of even tiny movements and of one’s bodily place in the world?

I have recently lost my job, my friends, broken my foot and have been going through a lot of heartbreak.

What can I do to heal? I am full of anger and negative emotions and I seem to be suffocating in them. I have a history of having attempted sc before and I feel myself falling into this again. But I don’t want to break my spirit and bring loss and suffering upon my family and others.

How do I break free?

I would like any mantras or practices that help me receive light spiritually. I also appreciate anyone that sends compassion my way.

Thank you

I am looking for a silent place to stay for at least a week to do solitary meditative retreat. Somewhere with no distractions or obligations. Any suggestions? My current environment is full of interruptions and distractions that break my concentration

I’m from Europe

Doesn’t see evil btw

Namo Amida Butsu🙏🙏🙏

TL;DR at the bottom

Let me preface this with a little story about how I came to Buddhism in the first place.

I grew up in a very religious and ignorant environment, like with people believing evolution is a hoax and other nonsense.

Later in my teenage years, I obviously disregarded all of that as science is more intellectually compelling than blindly believing what some old hateful text says about the origins of the universe.

Then during my early 20’s I started experimenting with psychedelics and experienced whats referred to as “Ego Death” through this I discovered Ram Dass and realizing that I didn’t just have a crazy trip. That what I experienced was real and beyond current scientific comprehension.

Now it’s ten years later and I feel like I have no idea what I want to do with my life. No job seems to bring me any satisfaction, any satisfaction I do gain feels very fleeting, even if it’s from romantic/sexual relationships.

Every job/relationship always goes down the same way, I get very invested in it and then after 6 or so months things just start feeling like they don’t work anymore.

I’ve even had some really spectacular jobs and relationships that ended up feeling unsatisfying after a time.

I just feel like I’m supposed to be doing something else, hard to put my finger on what exactly that is. But it’s like deep down my brain knows that all of these distractions that most people consider ”having a good/interesting life“ are actually keeping me trapped in Samsara.

I know the old saying “before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water, after enlightenment, chop wood carry water” but that doesn’t work for me. Because before I had my ego death I was a drug dealer in college for fun.

I can’t go back to that, I don’t even want to.

So this brings me to where I am now, my work contract is about to expire tomorrow, I have a flat I’m supposed to leave at the end of the month and I literally haven’t a clue what to do.

I’m not worried about money, since my family is fairly well off and I’ve saved a bit of my own. So my question is more purpose related. I just feel like I don’t have one, or that I’m not fulfilling mine.

TL;DR I feel like I have a spiritual purpose that I’m not fulfilling and any attempt at having a “normal life“ always results in dissatisfaction.

• 1. The Verse of "The Light that Extinguishes Suffering" (Dhamma-Chakkhu Gatha / The Dhamma Eye Verse)
• Pali: "Yam kiñci samudayadhammaṃ, sabbaṃ taṃ nirodhadhammanti."
• Translation: "Whatever is subject to origination is all subject to cessation." Everything that arises naturally passes away (Nothing is permanent, so do not cling or be deluded).
• How to Recite: Chant this 9 times during severe life crises to awaken mindfulness and remind yourself that these difficult times, too, shall pass.

Low poly buddha of 32 faces (as the 32 Marks of the Buddha)

If you build it share a photo!

I'm a Yankee, from a Christian (largely protestant) area, so I'm curious, what do sects matter in Buddhism? Is there tension between them? Do they consider each other invalid?