Introduction to Dhamma Sukha 2012 updated-i2UYLtBJmsc.en.vtt.txt

From: https://youtube.com/watch?v=i2UYLtBJmsc

Context: Throughout this transcript, Bhante Vimalaramsi is the speaker unless otherwise indicated.

in the heart of the user fountains a new

tradition is being born the tradition of

American forest monks that will follow

the original practices of Buddha after

25 years of meditation practice

Vontae Bimala Ramsey has come back to

his home country of the USA and settled

into a rural area of Missouri that is

two hours south from the city of st.

Louis

well we're setting up here is a place

where monks and nuns can come and teach

and practice meditation and a study

center where they can learn about what

the Buddha taught but we're also going

to have space for people that want to

come for longer periods of time three

months six months a year and we have a

large piece of land here we have over a

hundred acres so we'll be able to

facilitate even building a village where

people can come and they can keep their

five precepts and live in community of

other like-minded folks

got ready to go to Asia I quit my job

which I was very successful at and I

went to San Francisco and there I was

going to fly to Rangoon and the night

before the plane flight I went to a

public shower at the YMCA and I took a

shower and I'd opened up my locker

and I forgot something in the shower

there was a towel that I forgot so I

walked back to get it and when I came

back my money and my passport and all of

my ID was gone so I had to start all

over again and saved up money and it

took a little while but eventually I got

up enough money to go back to Asia and

there I became a monk anyway while I was

in Burma I did many many three months

retreats between 12 and 15 of them I did

an eight month retreat in Burma and this

was the time in 1988 when they had their

social unrest and they kicked all of the

foreign monks out of the country and

then it took me two years to get back in

the country to get the visa and that

sort of thing then I did a two-year

retreat at trami I ate with Sydow who

Jonica at the end of two years he told

me that I was ready to go out and teach

but I wasn't satisfied I didn't feel

like I'd gotten as much as I should have

I went back to Malaysia many people were

very interested in having me teach the

Burmese method of meditation but I

didn't feel like it led

- what it talks about in the soup this

didn't lead to nirvana the way that I

was explaining Ivana so instead of

teaching the Epis onna what I did was

started teaching loving-kindness

meditation and that became very popular

in in Malaysia there was some times I

was giving huge retreats many sometimes

as many as 75 people and then at one

point I was asked to go to the largest

monastery in kuala lumpur by cash

freedom ananda who has just since died

not too long ago it so happens that

there was a monk that came from sri

lanka

that was a meditation teacher and he

asked me how i talked so i explained to

him the way that i was teaching and he

told me your teaching exactly right but

you're using the language of

commentaries why don't you put the

commentaries down and then go to the

suta's and just use your suta's as your

guide so that's what i did and as soon

as i did that there were light bulbs

going off in my mind I was understanding

everything in the suta's because I

didn't have the overlay of the

commentaries to kind of cloud my

thinking since then I have developed a

way of teaching where I read the suta so

you know that it's not coming for

me and explain what this it does mean so

this has been a very practical and

amazing path that I've been on so this

is a cootie and this is a modern-day

cootie and the that means it is a

meditation cabin for up to four people

so over the next two years what kendama

suka Meditation Center expectant United

International Buddha Dhamma Society we

will be sending Bonte to the

universities to do talks about the

compatibility for the different

traditions to come together and work

together for different peaceful

coalition projects in the United States

we're hoping that they will share what's

working for the layperson

and we can share what is successful with

the meditation practice for people to

ease suffering and then we will work and

continue to teach online and we will

continue to do reaching out for training

monastics to teach in English in the

United States no matter what their

tradition is to teach Dhamma English and

we will also expand our program for the

disability project where we have one

cabin and we'll add two or three more to

that circle in the last few years we've

been teaching people online and we've

been fairly successful with that by

using the computer they can be at home

they take their 5 precepts in the

morning they sit and practice meditation

then they can go to work at lunchtime

they take another little period of time

for meditation then they can come home

and listen to a Dhamma talk and then

write to me about what's happening in

their practice and then they can sit a

little while longer so it

kind of a a new way of doing a retreat

but you get the chance to practice all

day long that way we've found this to be

quite successful and people do progress

very nicely when they do that one of the

most recent developments is Ustream and

we are now getting focused on setting up

a studio where we can do more work right

here on site in a small studio and

different monastics can take turns doing

Ustream your stream reaches out to the

person and they can see you while you

are teaching and they can email

questions to you and then you can answer

them directly to the people and they can

be in many many different locations when

they do this they don't have to be in

the same room anymore

so all of these technological

developments are here for us if we're

going to reach out to the young people

to the next generation we have to do it

by using what they're familiar with

they're going to be picking up Ustream

on iPod they're going to be picking up

Ustream in many many different mediums

buy and be able to hear as much as we

can tell them about Buddhism well I've

been a Buddhist for about forty years

practicing the pasta meditation for most

of that and then a year ago little over

a year ago I decided to enroll in a

retreat that was led by Svante viloma

Ramsey friend of mine

recommended that I do such and it

changed my life in wonderful ways having

been a Buddhist to really see the Dharma

unfold in front of me practicing this

tranquility Insight Meditation was a

revelation within a few days I had

experienced in meditation what I hadn't

been able to do and practicing a

straight food pasta technique for maybe

nearly 40 years in an industrial treats

so I'm very grateful to Avante for doing

that and as a retreat went on I

experienced even deeper states of

meditation so what we're trying to do is

get back to the original teaching of the

Buddha and the more that I read the

sutras to people the easier they

understand an awful lot of people are

looking for a path that they think is

very complicated but the Buddha's

teaching is very simple not always easy

but very simple to understand this is

the path that does lead to liberation