Saturday, September 25, 2010

Parents of the Buddha [2]



Queen Maha Maya

Maha Maya was the older daughter of King Anjana of the Koliya tribe, who ruled Devadaha. As her name 'Maya' meaning 'charm', she was extremely beautiful. Also, she was very clever, talented and virtuous. She married King Suddhodana and became a chief queen, 'Mayadevi'. She lived happily in Kapilavatthu with King Suddhodana. But they haven't got any children for twenty years.

One night, she had a wonderful dream. In her dream, four devas carried her to the Lake Anotatta, located in the Himalayas. They bathed her and dressed her in deva's clothing, put perfumes and spread flowers on her. Soon, a white elephant carrying a white lotus blossom in its trunk appeared and cycled her for three times. It then entered her womb through her right side and disappeared.

The wise men in the palace interpreted the meaning of the dream. They said that the devas chose Queen Mayadevi to be the mother of the future Buddha.

Time had passed and she approached her due date. The king made arrangement for his queen to return her home town to give birth. It was their custom.

On the way, the queen and her large entourage rested in the 'Lumbini Park'. There, she gave birth to a baby prince, Siddharttha Gotama.

At the period of Vipassi Buddha, Maha Maya-to-be was the eldest daughter of King Banduma. She offered sandal wood powder to the Buddha. She also scattered them over the monastery. Then she prayed to be a mother of the future Buddha. Later in one of her past existences, she was the Bodhisatta Vesamsara's mother, Queen Phussati. Finally she became the mother of the Gotama Buddha.

Queen Mayadevi returned back to the palace with great joy. Unfortunately, she died after seven days.
The womb of the Buddha's mother should be regarded as a stupa. Therefore, no one was worthy to be impregnated in it. It was the matter of course that every Buddha's mothers have to die shortly after giving birth.

Queen Mayadevi was reborn as Santusita deva in Tavatimsa Devaloka. Her son, the Buddha, went up there and expounded the Abhidhamma Pitaka seven years after his enlightenment. Santusita deva became Sotappana at the end of the Dhamma. Then, attained the remaining fruitions step by step and finally achieved Nibbana.

Posted by Aye Sat

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Parents of the Buddha [1]


King Suddhona and queen Maha Maya were the parents of the Buddha. Also, Pajapati Gotami was worth to be one of his parents, as she nursed him at his very young age since his mother had departed.

King Suddhodana
Suddhodana was the son of King Sihahanu and queen Kaccana. They were of the Sakya tribe. He was an excellent sword-man and won many battles as a young prince. When he ascended the throne, he ruled his country, Kapilavatthu in justice. He married Maha Maya and Pajapati Gotami, both daughters of neighbourhood Koliya's king.
Twenty years after their marriage, he got a son named, Siddharttha Gotama by Maha Maya. Two sages among six, predicted that Siddharttha would be a Buddha and the rests said that he would either become a Buddha or an Universal Monarch.
King Suddhodana wanted his son to be like him, a king, but not a Buddha. Nevertheless, King Suddhodana definitely paid obeisance to his son for three times.
The first one took place when the king's teacher, the sage, Asita visited the baby prince. With surprised, the baby prince put his feet on Asita's head. Asita then examined the markings on the prince's feet and paid homage to him as a Buddha-to-be. On seeing this, king Suddhodana followed his teacher's act.
The second one occurred during the royal ploughing festival. Thinking that the prince was asleep, nurses left him alone under the shade of a tree and joined the ceremony. When they returned, they saw the prince meditating while sitting cross-legged, raised a few feet above the ground. They informed the king who paid an obeisance to his son.
Accepting the invitation of King Suddhodana through Kaludayi, the Buddha visited Kapilavatthu. With pride, the Sakyan elders did not visit the Buddha to pay homage. Only the younger Sakyans were sent.
So, the Buddha performed the miracle known as 'Twin Wonders'. He sent out red and blue rays that showed fire and water from either side of his body. Then only, the king and the Sakyan elders knelt down and paid homage to the Buddha. In fact, it was the king's third obeisance to his son.
King Suddhodana was the one who requested the Buddha, not to ordain a minor without the consent of his parents or guardians. The Buddha established the rule to do so.
King Suddhodana attained various stages of fruition while performing his royal duties. On the Buddha's first visit to Kapilavitthu, he became Sotapanna after hearing the discourse which included the verse that stated:
"Do not neglect the duty of going on alms-round; observe proper practice (in going on alms-round). One who observe proper practice lives happily both in this world and the next."
He offered meal to the Buddha in his palace and attained Sakadagami fruition after the Buddha preaching. And again became an Anagami after listening to the Buddha's Mahadhammapala Jataka. Finally, King Suddhodana gained an Arahatship on his deathbed when the Buddha came to see him and preached to him. A week later, King Suddhodana passed away as a lay Arahat.

Posted by Aye Sat

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Audiography on Theravada Dhamma Discourses [10]


ကိုယ့္ကိုယ္ကိုမ်ား ခ်စ္ပါရဲ႕လား / Ashin Pannajota (Taunsunn, Dhamma Duta). Sagaing, 1358 (B.E.)
How to love oneself; four dangers; Kamma and Vipaka; to do good deeds and avoid evil ones. <Dhammadownload Mp3 Disc 03: 04>
ေက်ာင္းလွဴ ဒါန္းရ က်ိဳးဖလ / Ashin Pannajota (Taunsunn, Dhamma Duta). Kyonpyaw, 1357 (B.E.)
About four types of monastery; benefits of donating monastery with example story. <Dhammadownload Mp3 Disc 03: 03>
ခႏၶာဝန္ထမ္း / Dr Ashin Pannissara (Dhamma Duta). Bago, Aug 1, 2006.
The reason of practising Vipassana meditation; “Bhara Sutta”: manifestation of five aggregates_Rupakkhanda, Vinnanakkhanda, Sannakkhanda, Sankharakkhanda, and Vedanakkhanda; sufferings of carrying one's khanda, the heaviest load; why beings got khanda; discarding Tanha; what is happiness (Sukha) and what is suffering (dukkha). <Dhammadownload 028>
တစ္ႀကိမ္လွဴရျမတ္ဒါန / Dr Ashin Pannissara (Dhamma Duta). Bago, Apr 7, 2006.
To make charity with good will (Benevolence); necessary facts to obtain successful donation and variation of benefits; example story_ “Vuttula pabbata” _about a couple trying to donate their own flesh as an alms-food during the period of food disaster. <Dhammadownload 015>
ႏူးညံ့ေသာသိမ္ေမြ႕ေသာအားႀကီးေသာ / U Sumangala (Deou Sayadaw). Kangyidaun, Jan 22, 2009.
The way the Dhamma is gentle and strong; how a religious devotee can persuade others to do so; example story: “Suvannamiga Jataka”; four milestones of Sasana. <Dhammadownload 514>
ပကတိေႁမြႏွင့္ တိုက္ေႁမြ ဥပမာျပ အလုပ္ေပးတရားေတာ္ / U Vimala (Mogok Sayadaw). [no date]
Khanda will mention Anicca if one wait and observe continuously with five Magga (i.e. the coincidence of Khanda and Nana. <Dhammadownload အလုပ္ေပး (၁): 03>
မွာတမ္းေတာ္ / U Sumangala (Deou Sayadaw). Mandalay, Aug 12, 2006.
Values to meet Sasana (Buddhist era); Paticca Samuppada; to disconnect craving (Tanha) and feeling (Vedana) using Nana. <Dhammadownload 039>
ဝိပႆနာေယာဂီေလးမ်ဳိး တရားေတာ္ / U Vimala (Mogok Sayadaw). Amarapura, Oct 11, 1957.
Classification of Vipassana yogi; the one who will attain Nibbana in his present life; Vipassana practice. <Dhammadownload Mp3 Disc 03: 11>
အတၱေျခာက္မ်ိဳး တရားေတာ္ / Ashin Janakabhivamsa (Chanmyay Sayadaw). Yangon, Aug 27, 2001.
What is meant by Atta; description of six types of Atta: Sayan vasi, Nivasi, Sami, Athi thayaka, Karaka and Veda Atta. <Dhammadownload Mp3 Disc 03: 03>
အတၱဒိ႒ိႏွင့္ သကၠာယဒိ႒ိ တရားေတာ္ / Ashin Janakabhivamsa (Chanmyay Sayadaw).Yangon,[no date]
Benefits of practising Satipatthana; ten Kilesa; dispelling Atta Ditthi and Sakkaya Ditthi. <Dhammadownload Mp3 Disc 03: 04>

Posted by Nyan U and Aye Sat



Saturday, September 4, 2010

Audiography on Theravada Dhamma Discourses [9]


ကမၻာအစႏွင့္ သတၱဝါအစ / Ashin Pannajota (Taunsunn, Dhamma Duta). Lashio, 1358 (B.E.)
Origin of the earth; four Avijja; seven happiness (Sukha); origin of living beings; Importance of listening to Dhamma and practising Vipassana meditation.Dhammadownload Mp3 Disc 03: 02> <
စားႂကြင္းစား / U Sumangala (Deou Sayadaw). Insein, Jan 9, 2009.
Importance of morals; comparison of noble and mean person with example story about five hundred each of thorough bred horses and stupid donkeys. <Dhammadownload 504>
တရားက်င့္တဲ့ ရည္ရႊယ္ခ်က္အမွန္ / Dr Ashin Pannissara (Dhamma Duta). Bago, Apr 5, 2006.
Wrong objectives to avoid and right objectives to have in practising religious meditation. <Dhammadownload 013>
ပုထုဇဉ္သဘာ၀ / Dr Ashin Pannissara (Dhamma Duta). Bago, Apr 6, 2006.
Two types of human_Ariya and Puthujana; nature of puthujana; advantages of being an Ariya; five places which one can reach after death. <Dhammadownload 014>
ရႈ၊ တည္၊ သိ၊ မၿငိ ဆင္းရဲၿငိမ္း တရားေတာ္ / Ashin Janakabhivamsa (Chanmyay Sayadaw). Yangon, [no date]
Realization of the nature of Rupa and Nama as it is by practising Vipassana meditation; five worker Magga and three abstainer Magga; Magga and Phala nana; Ariya Sacca. <Dhammadownload Mp3 Disc 01: 04>
၀ိပႆနာအစ မေတြ႕တဲ့စိတ္က စရပုံ အလုပ္ေပးတရား / U Vimala (Mogok Sayadaw). [no date]
To start Vipassana meditation by observing the undetectable consciousness. <Dhammadownload အလုပ္ေပး(၂): 01>
သခၤါရႏွင့္ သခၤတ တရားေတာ္ / Ashin Janakabhivamsa (Chanmyay Sayadaw).Yangon, [no date]
Explanation of Vipassana, Sankhara, Sankhata and Asankhata.<Dhammadownload Mp3 Disc 01: 10>
အလွည္႕ / U Sumangala (Deou Sayadaw). Kawkareik, Jan 1, 2009.
How kamma bhava (becoming) exists; one will have to receive what he did in return, must do good at all times to be good_story of “Khujjuttara”. <Dhammadownload 495>
အတၱျပဳတ္ေအာင္ ရႈပြားနည္း အလုပ္ေပး / U Vimala (Mogok Sayadaw). [no date]
To strive until nothingness is observed and detached egotism. <Dhammadownload အလုပ္ေပး(၂): 02>
အိပ္ျခင္း နိုးျခင္း / Ashin Pannajota (Taunsunn, Dhamma Duta). Sagaing, 1357 (B.E.)
Five Indriyas (faculties)(Awakening Dhamma: Saddha,Viriya, Sati, Samadhi, Panna); five Nivaranas (hindrances) (Sleeping Dhamma: Kamacchanda, Byapada, Thina-Midda, Uddacca-Kukkucca, Vicikiccha); how dhammanupassana satipatthana leads to Nibbana. <Dhammadownload Mp3 Disc 03: 01>
Posted by Nyan U and Aye Sat