Is this a beginning of anatta? Where to go from here?

Yes the puthujjanas are obsessed with what they feel and phenomenology. Some even ask what does it feel like to be an arhant.
Anyway, since you care about what you feel, the only experience felt that you should care about is the jhanas, certainly not the sensual experience, and the of course in details it is piti, sukkha, samadhi and so on.
THe way to judge the result of your knowledge of the dhamma is certainly not to spend your energy writing about who you feel music or how you feel the taste of some food, or the scent of rubber . THe first famous step is the lack of doubt in the dhamma and of course the lack of ''sakkāya-diṭṭhi''.
If you want to know what the lack of ''sakkāya-diṭṭhi'' is all about,  you can read
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.089.than.html
and his statements like

"In the same way, friends, it's not that I say 'I am form,' nor do I
say 'I am other than form.' It's not that I say, 'I am feeling...
perception... fabrications... consciousness,' nor do I say, 'I am
something other than consciousness.' With regard to these five
clinging-aggregates, 'I am' has not been overcome, although I don't
assume that 'I am this.'

that's all there is to the lack of ''sakkāya-diṭṭhi'' . the lack of ''sakkāya-diṭṭhi'' is itself a label regrouping all the statements in this quote.
I you want to now what ''''sakkāya-diṭṭhi'''' is all about, since you are a puthujjana, you already naturally regards the ''5 aggregates'' as ''I am this'' and even more stupid from you, you turn that into a ''I am'', typically by regarding as and calling them ''mine''. You have been doing this for many years already, so no need to explain more.
Once you no longer regard any aggregate  as ''mine'' you can claim that you lack ''sakkāya-diṭṭhi''.
So ask yourself

"Concerning these five clinging-aggregates described by the Blessed One — i.e., form as a clinging-aggregate, feeling as a clinging-aggregate, perception as a clinging-aggregate, fabrications as a clinging-aggregate, consciousness as a clinging-aggregate: Do I assume anything with regard to these five clinging-aggregates to be self or belonging to self?"'"

If you reply by yes, then you are a puthujjana.
If you reply by

"Friend, concerning these five clinging-aggregates described by the Blessed One — i.e., form as a clinging-aggregate... feeling... perception... fabrications... consciousness as a clinging-aggregate: With regard to these five clinging-aggregates, there is nothing I assume to be self or belonging to self."

then you lack of ''sakkāya-diṭṭhi''.
Later on, you can wonder if you have a natural lack craving towards the senses and ill-will to see  if you are at the next stage.
Here is the bad way to relate to the senses:

“While experiencing that same painful feeling, he harbors aversion toward it. When he harbors aversion toward painful feeling, the underlying tendency to aversion toward painful feeling lies behind this. While experiencing painful feeling, he seeks delight in sensual pleasure. For what reason? Because the uninstructed worldling does not know of any escape from painful feeling other than sensual pleasure. When he seeks delight in sensual pleasure, the underlying tendency to lust for pleasant feeling lies behind this. He does not understand as it really is the origin and the passing away, the gratification, the danger, and the escape in the case of these feelings. When he does not understand these things, the underlying tendency to ignorance in regard to neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling lies behind this.
“If he feels a pleasant feeling, he feels it attached. If he feels a painful feeling, he feels it attached. If he feels a neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling, he feels it attached. This, monks, is called an uninstructed worldling who is attached to birth, aging, and death; who is attached to sorrow, lamentation, pain, dejection, and despair; who is attached to suffering, I say.

-- From SN 36:6, cited in In the Buddha's Words
here is the proper way to relate to  the ''world''

“Seeing thus, monks, the instructed noble disciple becomes disenchanted with the eye, with forms, with eye-consciousness, with eye-contact, with whatever feeling arises with eye-contact as condition—whether pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant; becomes disenchanted with the ear … with the mind … with whatever feeling arises with mind-contact as condition…. Becoming disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion [his mind] is liberated. When it is liberated there comes the knowledge: ‘It’s liberated.’ He understands: ‘Destroyed is birth, the spiritual life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more coming back to any state of being.’”

-- From SN 35:28, cited in In the Buddha's Words


Having trouble meditating long sessions (Physical pain)

Are you using a posture that is too strenuous for you? For example, trying to sit in a lotus position, when you have never done it before?

If so, use an easier posture:

a chair that allows you to sit in an upright or balanced way,
folding your legs one in front of the other in the "Burmese posture" with a cushion or folded towel to support your backbone
a bench

Be careful of pain. Some pain is comes from restlessness and disappears the moment you move, and it is OK- you can even use it and study it, as a way of getting to know dukkha and impermanence. But if the pain endures after your sit (especially if it is in your knees), use an easier posture. Don't try so hard that you injure yourself permanently.

If you are new, and you're doing 10 minutes, and you're doing it every day, then you are starting very well.


There were fourteen questions to which Buddha remained silent. The universe is eternal,  The universe is not eternal.. were two of them. Read the following sutta.
MN 63 - Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta: The Shorter Instructions to Malunkya
One day a man called Malunkyaputta approached the Buddha and demanded that He explain these questions to him. He even threatened to cease to be His follow if the Buddha's answer was not satisfactory. The Buddha calmly retorted that it was of no consequence to Him whether or not Malunkyaputta followed Him, because the Truth did not need anyone's support. Then the Buddha said that He would not go into a discussion of the origin of the Universe, whether it is eternal or not eternal etc. To Him, gaining knowledge about such matters was a waste of time because a man's task was to liberate himself from the present, not the past or the future. To illustrate this, the Enlightened One related the parable of a man who was shot by a poisoned arrow. This foolish man refused to have the arrow removed until he found out all about the person who shot the arrow. By the time his attendants discovered these unnecessary details, the man was dead. Similarly, our immediate task is to attain Nibbana, not to worry about our beginnings.
Another Sutta to read in this context is AN 4.45  -  Rohitassa Sutta: To Rohitassa

Once I was a seer named Rohitassa, a student of Bhoja, a powerful skywalker. My speed was as fast as that of a strong archer—well trained, a practiced hand, a practiced sharpshooter—shooting a light arrow across the shadow of a palmyra tree. My stride stretched as far as the east sea is from the west. To me, endowed with such speed, such a stride, there came the desire: ‘I will go traveling to the end of the cosmos.’ I—with a one-hundred year life, a one-hundred year span—spent one hundred years traveling—apart from the time spent on eating, drinking, chewing & tasting, urinating & defecating, and sleeping to fight off weariness—but without reaching the end of the cosmos I died along the way. So … ‘I tell you, friend, that it isn’t possible by traveling to know or see or reach a far end of the cosmos where one doesn’t take birth, age, die, pass away, or reappear.’”
[When this was said, the Blessed One responded:] "In this very one-fathom long body along with its perceptions and thoughts, do I proclaim the world, the origin of the world, the cessation of the world, and the path leading to the cessation of the world."
When the Buddha uses the term “world” or “cosmos” (loka), his primary meaning is the cosmos as experienced in terms of the six senses. As with the other factors of dependent co-arising, there is no need to study the cosmos “out there” behind our experience of the senses. It is enough simply to understand the cosmos as directly experienced for that experience to be brought to an end.


What is the difference between fear and anxiety?

In traditional Pali, fear is bhaya-bherava (lit. Fear-Panic), while anxiety is udhacca-kukucca (lit. Worry-Wrongdoing).

As I understand from the way these are used in suttas,

Fear is defined as an acute sense of danger. It is rather specific, like fear of something coming out of jungle and attacking you. Even if it is uncertain what exactly may happen when you sit in the middle of jungle, fear still has a very clear sense of directionality, there is no expectation that something good may happen, only bad -- otherwise it would not be fear.

Panic is defined as the accompanying sense of helplessness, or sense of our inability to deal with the object of fear.

(More about these two can be found in Dharmafarer's great analysis of Bhaya-Bherava-Sutta.)

While anxiety is defined as either a wavering remorse of something you should or should not have done (kukucca), or a wavering expectation of remorse you suspect you may experience in the future because you are not doing enough of something you feel you should be doing (udhacca). So unlike fear, anxiety involves wavering back-and-forth; there is an element of uncertainty in it. Also, the object of anxiety is yourself, your own acts, while the object of fear is external.

(More about anxiety is also available on Dharmafarer. See also one of my favorite suttas, Second Anuruddha Sutta.)

As explained by Buddha, the recommended way to deal with fear is by switching focus from obsessive waiting for the object of fear to appear, to getting ready to deal with it should that actually happen. While the recommended way to deal with anxiety is by developing one's wisdom, esp. understanding of Dharma, Three Marks of Existence, and (in Mahayana) by deepening one's realization of Emptiness.


Are all non-monastic ways of life wrong livelihood?

"Is it true that..." is a difficult question to answer. If you mean, according to a certain school, then yes, according to the Theravada, it is true, since an arahant is unable to practice non-monastic livelihood. They are said to either leave the household life or pass into parinibbana.
See, for example, the enlightenment of Khemā:

At the conclusion of the lesson Khemā was established in Arahatship; the multitude also profited by the lesson.
Said the Teacher to the king, “Great king, Khemā ought either to retire from the world or to pass into Nibbāna.” The king replied, “Reverend Sir, admit her to the Order; as for Nibbāna, never!” She retired from the world and became one of the Teacher’s foremost female lay disciples.
Dhp-A 347 (from Buddhist Legends)

N.B. the word "never" should actually be "enough!", in the sense that it's not time to think about that now.
The point is that, as mentioned in the linked answer, there is a difference between conventional morality and ultimate morality. Conventionally, only those livelihoods mentioned explicitly are wrong, just as only adultery is wrong for one who keeps five precepts. That doesn't mean that ordinary sexual desire is not ultimately misguided; it is. Likewise, any livelihood for the purpose of maintaining a household life is ultimately misguided.
The only exception I can think of is where one's household life is identical to a monastic setting (i.e. no need for ambition, concern for belongings, etc.).


Judgment, Stereotyping, and Empathic Compassion

The answer to this questions points to an idea that is central for achieving Buddhist Enlightenment. This is the idea that mind has a built-in tendency for reification, stereotyping and overgeneralization; that all our suffering and confusion comes from this tendency; and that liberation from suffering and achieving clarity requires liberation from that.

Mind has this intrinsic function to delineate entities. As it observes the facts, it tries to connect them and create a consistent picture, a story, a model that explains the cohesion behind the facts. I suppose doing so has an evolutionary advantage, because constructing a model gives us a way to predict the model's future behavior.

However, this method has its flip side - which is, we tend to equate our models with reality. Indeed, outside of models there is no experience of the world. So, naturally we tend to assume our models are correct, and as long as they come from experience and have some forecasting power, we tend to attach to them. This gives us a quick way to make decisions about the world. We see something, we recognize it as one of the previous things we have seen, we classify it, and based on that automatically pick the reaction. It's a very efficient mechanism, great timesaver. Imagine if we had to reevaluate everything from scratch every time we saw things.

At the same time, assuming our models are reality gives rise to a sort of perceptual blindness. We end up seeing with our brains, not our eyes. We jump to conclusions. We become stubborn. We are judgmental. We are superficial. We are tone-deaf and blind to nuances.

So getting more details for our models - any details really - increases the chance to get some evidence that will uncover the holes in our model-building. This shows up in your example above, when getting a sense of persons's background, facts from their personal history, can helps us see beyond our mind-made model of them, and into the real person.

Buddhist Enlightenment is to go beyond models. Realization of "Emptiness" is seeing that all our models are mind-made. Buddhist tolerance, total acceptance, humbleness, is the social application of this realization. Buddhist suchness is the emotional state we get when we learn to live in a non-stereotyped inner world, not dragging any models from the past. Buddhist meditation is to see into our modeling process, and learn to go beyond that. Buddhist liberation is to liberate from the oppression of models.


In simple words, defilements are like little clouds that descend on the head -- and when you look around through one of them, you see everything in a different color or blurry or distorted.

That's what they are, they are glitches that affect your interpretation and evaluation. The problem with defilements is that subjectively they are indistinguishable from reality, it just looks like that's the way the external object actually is -- not a cloud over your head. Or you may get really angry with someone and yell at them, thinking your anger is justified - but it really just a defilement, a temporary madness.

In the original Buddha's teaching, as recorded in Pali Canon, the major types of defilements are:

lobha -- usually translated as desire or greed -- that's the defilement that suddenly makes some things appear very likable.
dosa -- usually translated as anger or hatred -- that's the defilement that makes some things appear very wrong.
and moha -- usually translated as ignorance or delusion -- that's the defilement that makes you confused about what's what.

The traditional metaphor is that these three are like the three base paints that mix in various proportions to create the innumerable variety of defilements observed in real life.


What is a good response when some-one says 'sadhu' to you?

'Sadhu' means good. So you can say 'Sadhu' back. Here in Sri Lanka we commonly say "Theruwan Saranai", which means "May the noble triple gem be your refuge".


How can mindfulness be about immovable attention?

When one gets absorbed, focused, or mindful in anything, no matter what the object is, the mental factor called “ekagghatha” takes over and make the mind latched on to it. Being mindful depends on the situation. The kind of mindfulness one has when driving a car is different from the mindfulness when reading a book, and the mindfulness needed to attain a jhana is different from those two.

The jhana that one comes to by using the breath only would not help in walking this Path. As you correctly pointed out Buddha figured this out, and managed to break through and achieve Nibbhana. Just by focusing the mind on the breath, one can achieve only a mundane type of jhana. Also trying to be mindful by doing “walking meditation” by saying “lifting the foot”, “putting it down” would only get you to this lower level mundane jhanas.

The higher levels of Jhana that furthers the Noble Eightfold Path are achieved by supermundane “ekagghatha”  that one comes to by coming to upacara samadhi.  When listening to a Dhamma discourse or reading about a Dhamma concept one can get to this type of mindfulness.

When contemplating on bad consequences of mind-made pleasures, willingly giving up by comprehending their bad outcomes one is able to come to the higher levels of Jhana.

If one’s intention is to walk this Path, the focus should be something related to Nibbana. It could be a Dhamma concept or Nibbana itself. Focusing on the peacefulness of discarding sense pleasures can be done only when one comprehends the true meaning of anicca, dukkha, anatta. By being mindful the correct way, one can come to samma sati.


Interpretation of Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

The paper titled "Between reverence and revolt:
Hesse and the two faces of religion" suggests that Hesse was primarily a (Christian) Protestant.

It says for example that in his 1921 diary he wrote:

  “And now the whole of Buddhism increasingly appears to me to be
  a kind of Indian Reformation, an exact equivalent of the Christian one”

So far as I know, a primary Protestant belief is that people are saved by God (maybe by their love of God and/or by God's love): a Christian's duty (to God) is faith and obediance, which God rewards with salvation (perhaps miraculous salvation).

I think it's also (especially in contrast with pre-Reformation Catholicism) something to do with a personal relationship, unmediated by clergy (and perhaps by ritual), between each person and God.

I guess that influences this sentence:

   But while Govinda with astonishment, and yet drawn by great love and expectation, obeyed his words, bent down closely to him and touched his forehead with his lips, something miraculous happened to him.

You wrote, " It's always been completely mysterious to me." Perhaps that's because it's so Christian-influenced.


What is the meaning of "dhammā" in the context of the four satipaṭṭhāna?

I think the following perspective on all four satipatthanas will help in understanding the  meaning of the fourth one. The four satipatthanas are supposed to counter the four vipallasas (perversions) which are: permanence, happiness, self, and beauty. So, mindfulness of the body counters the beauty perversion; mindfulness of feelings (and the fact that all vedanas are included in dukkha) counters the happiness perversion; mindfulness of mind (which is anicca) counters the permanence perversion; and, finally, mindfulness of the dhammas counters the self (atta) perversion. Thus, one reviews dhammas to realize anatta. To view four perversions would be inappropriate attention (ayoniso-manasikara), but the four satipatthanas, would be training in appropriate attention (yoniso-manasikara).

So, overall, I think the meaning of dhamma in this context is exactly what they are: analytical properties of experience, ultimate phenomena, and everything else that apply to dhammas (mind objects, matikas, dhamma lists, etc).


Is the word 'real' synonymous with 'exists' in Buddhist doctrine?

In the conventional truth, mirages exist and are real as a mirage but not real as water. Dreams exist and are real as dream but not as a play in a theater.
So there is nothing which can be said conventionally existing but unreal because it is real in that way it is called to exist.
Conventionally existent Buddhas alleviate the conventionally existing suffering of conventionally existent sentient beings.
The suffering sentient beings are conventionally existent and are also conventionally real.
Conventionally existent Buddhas however don't alleviate the conventionally unreal and nonexistent suffering of the son of a barren woman.
I think this answer by @Tenzin Dorje to a related question may be relevant too.


Help with a weekend slump in meditation practice

Because of the longer sits you are likely graduating to the higher Visuddhiñanas, such as Visuddhiñana #3: sammasana-ñana

  Seeing how each object, even while being noticed, comes to destruction
  and disappearance, the meditator comprehends it as impermanent in the
  sense of undergoing destruction. He further comprehends it as
  suffering (painful) in the sense of breaking up after each arising.
  Having seen how various painful feelings arise in continuous
  succession — how if one painful feeling ceases, another arises, and
  when that has ceased, again another arises — having seen that, he
  comprehends the respective objects as just a conglomeration of
  suffering. Further, he comprehends the object as consisting of mere
  impersonal phenomena without a master, in the sense of not arising of
  (or by) themselves, but arising subject to conditions and then
  breaking up.

  This comprehension of an object noticed, as being impermanent,
  painful, and without a self (impersonal), through knowing its nature
  of impermanency, etc., by means of simply noticing, without reflecting
  and reasoning, is called "knowledge by comprehension through direct
  experience."

source: Progress of Insight, Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw

The solution is to intensify the observation of the sensations, and break down the pain into smaller component parts. Notice that even the most solidified pain has impermanence - it occurs in pulses and waves - the pain is not uniform from moment to moment.

When you see the pain as not a solid mass but also born of the cycle of birth and death the pain should dissipate. Don't decommission your knee or joints by overdoing it, be gentle on your body and mindfully change positions if you can't bear it. Buddhism needn't be masochism :)

The next ñana (knowledge) Arising and Passing away is important. Good luck, your dedication is admirable.


Does the second precept only apply to theft?

No, it's meaning is far wider even in Theravada, let alone in Mahayana.

Check out Thanissaro Bhikkhu's compilation of Vinaya: the cases he lists include dealing with counterfeit money and smuggling goods without paying custom duties -- which clearly goes beyond expropriating someone's property.

Of contemporary teachers, e.g. Bro. Chan Khoon San (trained in Myanmar's Theravada) lists the following Types of Taking What Is Not Given in his Introductory Course on Early Buddhism:

  The most blatant, involving threats or force, are daylight  robbery, extortion, purse snatching, kidnapping.
  The second type is stealing or secretly taking the article without  the owner's knowledge such as housebreaking, burglary and
  pick-pocketing.
  The third type is fraud, laying false claims or cheating by  confidence tricksters to gain someone's possessions.
  The fourth type is deceit when dishonest traders cheat their  customers by false weights and measures or supply products of  lower
  quality than specified.
  The fifth type is forgery when people pass counterfeit money as  real or sell counterfeit gold and jewelry.
  The last type, though seemingly slight, is very common and  occurs when employees take small items from their company for  their own use
  without paying for it.

Most importantly, we should not forget the main purpose of training rules: to help one "curb the grosser forms of defilements" (Bro. Chan Khoon San):

  The actions prohibited by the precepts such as killing, stealing,
  sexual misconduct, false speech and  partaking of intoxicants are all
  rooted in greed, hatred and delusion and when we succumb to them, we
  strengthen these evil roots that they become dominant traits. By
  undertaking to observe the precepts, we weaken the grip of these evil
  roots by dispelling them with wholesome mental volitions. Each time
  the precepts are upheld, each time the moral volitions become
  strengthened, until  eventually morality becomes a habitual trait
  through the condition  of repetition (asevana paccaya).

Sat-Dharma (True Dharma) is famously "good in the beginning, good in the middle and good in the end". Among other things this means that Buddhist precepts both play their role at supporting social harmony and decreasing anguish at large, AND they propel the practitioner towards Enlightenment. All interpretation of Buddhist precepts must be made in light of their dual purpose.


How to avoid adding concepts to our thinking

The short answer is: by not adding concepts to the thinking, by not feeding it.

  There are moments that "noting" does not help.

Sometimes the mind is more quiet, sometimes it is more uneasy. Don't expect that in meditation you will always progress, or that the progress will be steady. Don't create the expectation that the mind will always settle when meditating, because it can be unsatisfying. Don't fight your mind and don't force it to calm down, it can be frustrating.

Instead, when you notice your mind is wandering, bring your awareness back to the object of meditation. The practice of meditation is not to stop adding concepts to the thinking actively, or to learn to interrupt the process of thought. But it is more like weakening the impulse and momentum of thought. Thinking will never completely cease as it inherent to the human being. But with practice you get less overwhelmed and blinded by it, thinking becomes subtle and calm. Then, don't be anxious about being peaceful or settling the mind, because this anxiety defeats the purpose of meditation, it just would feed the eager to think.

You can also practice to perceive the thoughts in a distanced manner. When someone is wandering on the thoughts, it is like he/she is immersed on them, being carried away by them. Then instead of being in the flow of the thinking, try to watch the thinking from outside. Be aware of the process of thought, perceive how it moves and watch it go away by itself. Instead of trying to block the chain of thoughts, something that is usually ineffective, try to stop feeding it and let it go.

There is also shamata, a practice to improve the stability of awareness. Begin by keeping the focus on the breath as long as you can. It seems that shamata is commonly disregarded for its simplicity, but it is very important. How can you meditate on something if you your awareness isn't stable? If you are really into it, I suggest you to read the book "The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind" by Alan Wallace.

And last, vipassana can be helpful to perceive that it makes no sense to "feed the trains of thought". From one side, thinking usually tries to fight the impermanent and unfulfilling marks of existence, and asserts the identity (the concept of self). From other side, thinking itself is impermanent (it is mostly random in the long run), is unfulfilling (its desires and aversions are never completely met) and have no self (it is not absolute, nor apart from everything else). Although thought is produced, you don't need to get overwhelmed and blinded by it, you don't have to be driven by it.

EDIT:

Adding some more explanation on second paragraph after the quote, regarding interrupting the thought or stopping adding concepts to it.

And adding a bit more info to shamata and vipassana part.


Is Near death experience in enlightenment true?

I believe such peculiar experiences may be significant, or may not; but in Buddhism one shouldn't cling to them. Enlightenment would involve an understanding of the three marks of existence: impermanence, no-self, and suffering. I mean, if you delve into that experience and gain enlightenment, good! But if you do so and then everything remains exactly the same, you might be discouraged. Just do not cling to the whole phenomenon.


Buddhism Supernatural feats and abilities

Psychic powers are not necessary to end suffering:

DN24:1.4.13: What do you think, Sunakkhatta?
DN24:1.4.14: Whether or not there is a demonstration of psychic power, does my teaching lead someone who practices it to the goal of the complete ending of suffering?’
DN24:1.4.15: ‘It does, sir.’

Phenomena, including psychic powers, appear and disappear on their own without our grasping at them:

AN9.36:2.3: Take a mendicant who, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unskillful qualities, enters and remains in the first absorption. They contemplate the phenomena there—included in form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness—as impermanent, as suffering, as diseased, as an abscess, as a dart, as misery, as an affliction, as alien, as falling apart, as empty, as not-self.

Focus on the Noble Eightfold Path instead of the phenomena. AN9.36 continues further, instructing us to experience and relinquish such phenomena with deeper practice--eventually, perception of those phenomena will fade with greater skill in immersion:

AN9.36:9.4: They turn their mind away from those things,
...
AN9.36:10.2: But the two dimensions that depend on these—the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, and the cessation of perception and feeling—are properly explained by mendicants who are skilled in these attainments and skilled in emerging from them, after they’ve entered them and emerged from them.”


They both "are" and "are not" difficult to understand?

For example I just told my mum what the four or five precept are, starting with "no killing" -- because when we met in the morning we agreed that it had been a full moon overnight, and I mentioned it's a Buddhist holiday world-wide on full moon days, and she asked how Buddhist celebrate -- so I explained the five and the eight precepts, that monks have 227 rules, that lay people practice 5 all the time, and practice 8 on holy days, to be like monks -- some lay people practice the 8 all the time, many practice just on holy days (like, Christians go to church on Sundays, while Christian priests go to church every day).

She said she wouldn't be able to remember 227 rules -- I told her that people are trained, before and after ordination! -- and that for lay people, there are only 5.

The 5 are easy to remember! "No killing", "no lying", "no sexual misconduct", etc. I think those are easy to understand, someone will do that anyway even without being Buddhist.

And after that: generosity, kindness, reserve, maybe prudence, good social behaviour. Not rocket science, amirite?

And then the noble truths and so on.

I find two or three big difficulties. Two are linguistic:

Some people or texts use words like "mindfulness" without explaining them, like I'm supposed to know already what they're talking about, but perhaps the word means something different to each person. Normally when you learn a word like "cat" or "dog" it might be with reference to an example (of a cat or dog) -- demonstrating "mindfulness" isn't so easy, it's a bit intangible/abstract or requiring definition, and/or examples.
My mum at least won't put up with Pali. Couldn't you explain it in English? :-) Not that she's never learned another language, but it isn't easy (to do so) and why should she.

The third of course are the real difficulties, i.e. what you might call Mara or something ...

... which I'd also know as: ignorance, foolishness, lack of discipline, bad habits, rationalisation ('voice of temptation'), and what not -- projection, identification -- denial -- and what might be understood as logical mistakes such false dilemmas, faulty generalisation. Also lack of energy, lack of joy, and so on ...

... these (like "the seven factors of enlightenment" and so on) are, kind of, the diagnoses or prescriptions of the Buddhist teaching. I guess they're "difficult" in the same way as it's "difficult" to be doctor! Different beings, seemingly with different problems ... and the general advice doesn't always work for them, and "concepts" can be difficult to convey (perhaps especially at moments when people think they have real problems).

We're not all trying to be full-time doctors though, maybe, so, perhaps it's not that difficult?

Or maybe it doesn't seem as difficult as it used to, when you're relatively well, "not so bad".

I'm a bit mindful of this advice I got from MatthewMartin, the last time I asked about this topic -- How to explain what Buddhism is? -- one bit of it was,

  If someone really has no problems, that's great, they are Enlightened! The historical Buddha (According to Stephen Batchelor's retelling) said as much on his death bed, when he asked if anyone had any questions left, no one did, so he said, well you all must be enlightened then. People need Buddhism when their current raft has sunk. If there is food on the table, a comfortable place to sleep, and they have no complaints about their daily routine, then our jobs as Buddhists is to rejoice in their success (mudita).

You may or may not agree, I think it helps me to reconcile the difficult Buddhist concepts with the daily life of people who aren't overtly Buddhist.


Absolutely... this is an important topic for new monks and intensive meditators alike. As the Buddha himself said in the Sabbasava Sutta:

“What taints, bhikkhus, should be abandoned by enduring? Here a bhikkhu, reflecting wisely, bears cold and heat, hunger and thirst, and contact with gadflies, mosquitoes, wind, the sun, and creeping things; he endures ill-spoken, unwelcome words and arisen bodily feelings that are painful, racking, sharp, piercing, disagreeable, distressing, and menacing to life. While taints, vexation, and fever might arise in one who does not endure such things, there are no taints, vexation, or fever in one who endures them. These are called the taints that should be abandoned by enduring.

Reflecting wisely means, of course, with sati, hence meditating.
Relevent, I think, is the Mahasi Sayadaw's discussion on self-mortification:

A wrong interpretation as to what constitutes self-mortification is being made by some teachers in contradiction to the teaching of the Buddha.
According to them, earnest, tireless effort required for meditation amounts to self-mortification. This view is diametrically opposed to the exhortation of the Buddha who advised strenuous, unrelenting exertion (labour) even at the sacrifice of life and limb to attain concentration and insight.
"Let only skin, sinew and bone remain. Let the flesh and blood dry up. I will exert incessantly until I achieve the Path and Fruition I work for." Such must be the resolute firmness of determination, counseled the Buddha, with which the goal was to be pursued.
Thus strenuous, relentless efforts in meditation practices for achievement of concentration and Insight should not be misconstrued as a form of self-torture. Leaving aside meditation practices, even keeping of precepts which entails some physical discomfort is not to be regarded as a practice of self-mortification. Young people and young novices suffer from pangs of hunger in the evenings while keeping the eight precepts. But as fasting is done in fulfillment of the Precepts, it does not amount to mortification.
For some people, the precept of abstaining form taking life is a sacrifice on their part; they suffer certain disadvantages as a consequence, but as it constitutes the good deed of keeping the precept, it is not to be viewed, as a form of self-mortification. In Mahādhamma Samādāna Sutta of Mūlapaṇṇāsa, the Buddha explains that such acts of sacrifice at the present time is bound to produce beneficial results in the future. The Buddha said; "In this world, some people abstain from taking life, causing some physical and mental sufferings to themselves. They take up the right view (of not killing) for which they have to suffer physically and mentally. These people, thus voluntarily going through suffering, to keep; the precepts, at the present time, will after passing away, attain the higher abodes of the devas. These ten meritorious deeds are known as good practices, which produce beneficial results in after life through suffering for the present.
Thus any practice which promotes Sīla, Samādhi and Paññā is not profitless, not self-mortification which is not to be indulged in, but beneficial and is in line with the Middle Path which should certainly be followed. It should be definitely noted that only that practice which does not develop Sīla, Samādha and Paññā but results merely in physical suffering constitutes self-mortification.
(from Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta)

As for a means to practice, it does depend on whether you are practicing samatha or vipassana. Practicing samatha, you would bear with it by ignoring it in favour of the main object of focus, e.g. the breath. Practicing vipassana, you would focus on the hunger as physical and mental aspects of experience, perhaps noting it as "hunger, hunger" or "feeling, feeling", as well as any associated mental and physical phenomena that arise surrounding the hunger.
Hunger, being an existential phenomenon, would not make a proper object of samatha meditation.


Your teacher maybe refering to the insight that can occur during meditation but I'd like to widen this to include any Buddhist meditation methods or variations thereof. Also, the unearthing of deep-seated unconscious material can produce unpleasant mind and behaviour altering states.

The Buddha's teachings can be quite potent for some and respect must be given to the process of unfolding insight.

There is a sutta that describes the power contained in the teachings and it's probably the most extreme example. (Vesali Sutta, SN 54.9.) The Buddha had given the monks a practice before going away for two weeks. When he came back some of the monks had taken a knife to themselves and ended their lives. They had fallen into the extremes of the disgust of their own bodies.

It's wise therefore to have a healthy mind and body so that one can hold the fascinating experiences and insights that may arise.


What does enlightenment actually entail in Shugendo?

Well it is the same exact Enlightenment as in other schools, just expressed differently.

Kami are the spirits or energies of the universe. These are things of the same nature as devas and maras of Pali Canon and deities of Vajrayana and Shingon. In Greek paganism they were called daemons. Jung called them complexes. In our times we could call them memes.

Because in Theravada and more so in Yogacara the world is made out of phenomena of mind, external entities having their own existence are not posited. Still, what animalistic schools would call "mastery of spirits" is practiced in phenomenological schools as "mastery of phenomena".

When seen at universal scale, kami are made out of Musubi, the creative power permeating the universe, which refers to the same principle that is invoked by the concepts of Mahavairocana of Shingon, Tao of Taoism, Buddha Nature of Mahayana, Shunyata of Madhyamaka, Three Marks of Existence of Theravada, Dang energy of Nyingma and so on.

As the goal of Shingon is the realization of one's nature as identical with Mahavairocana, and the goal of Taoism is unity with Tao -- the goal of Shugendo is becoming one with kami.

This should not be understood primitively, as expanding one's "I" to the size of the universe (an interpretation sharply criticized by Gotama), but rather, as deconstructing "I" completely and practically, while attaining effective insight into one's own nature being an interplay of formations.

The naive experience of non-duality ("I am the universe"), which is sometimes mistakenly equated with bodhi, is what Buddha called “the state of Brahma”. It is just one of the experiences that practitioner has along the way, and may both happen before bodhi and be intentionally generated after bodhi. In addition to the state of Brahma, Buddha enumerates the following liberation-related states (AN 4.190):

The state of a deva — ability to intentionally generate rapture, pleasure, bliss, and equanimity in one’s body-mind at one of the four jhana levels.
The state of Brahma – development of loving-kindness (really, the four immeasurables) culminating in the experience of unity with the world.
The state of imperturbability — ability to maintain one of the four formless absorptions.
The state of an arya ("noble" / "civilized") — the state of having first-hand experience and direct realization of the validity of the four noble truths, the principle of this/that conditionality, and the three marks of existence. More broadly, the state of arya entails deep understanding of practical implications (benefits, drawbacks and limitations) of any conceptual construct, as well as the virtual nature (aka "shunyata") of all modes of phenomenal existence.


Are there any Buddhist monasteries near Varanasi?

Venerable Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche has built a classic Tibetan monastery in Sarnath called Vajra Vidya Institute. When you reach Sarnath, go to the backside of the Deer Park. The area is known as Kajoohay. Ask for directions to the "Big Tibetan Temple" or "Big Mandhir".

There are other Buddhist temples and monasteries in Sarnath: Tibetan, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Sri Lankan, Cambodian, Vietnamese etc.


Misinterpretation of a Pali phrase - Rupan Jirathi

This appears in the Najīratisutta ( Najīrati - What does not decay / what does not age; version in Sinhala and English). From what I have heard and learned in this context what is referenced as Nama is reputation and not the mind.

E.g. the some historic people are long gone but they are still remembered for what they were.


I do not know of a sutta where the Buddha suggested ritual. (There may be one; I just don't know of it.) But I do know of a sutta where the Buddha guided a follower to understand that ritual is ineffective. In SN 42.6, Paccha-bhumika Sutta: [Brahmans] of the Western Land the Buddha gave 4 examples of crowds trying to affect an outcome with rituals. Here are two for example:

"Very well, then, headman, I will question you on this matter. Answer as you see fit. What do you think: There is the case where a man is one who takes life, steals, indulges in illicit sex; is a liar, one who speaks divisive speech, harsh speech, & idle chatter; is greedy, bears thoughts of ill-will, & holds to wrong views. Then a great crowd of people, gathering & congregating, would pray, praise, & circumambulate with their hands palm-to-palm over the heart [saying,] 'May this man, at the break-up of the body, after death, reappear in a good destination, the heavenly world!' What do you think: would that man — because of the prayers, praise, & circumambulation of that great crowd of people — at the break-up of the body, after death, reappear in a good destination, the heavenly world?"
"No, lord."

and also:

"Suppose a man were to throw a jar of ghee or a jar of oil into a deep lake of water, where it would break. There the shards & jar-fragments would go down, while the ghee or oil would come up. Then a great crowd of people, gathering & congregating, would pray, praise, & circumambulate with their hands palm-to-palm over the heart [saying,] 'Sink, O ghee/oil! Submerge, O ghee/oil! Go down, O ghee/oil!' What do you think: would that ghee/oil, because of the prayers, praise, & circumambulation of that great crowd of people sink, submerge, or go down?"
"No, lord."

The sutta ends with the only effective "ritual" that I'm aware of from this time; which is the listener going for refuge.

"I go to the Blessed One for refuge, to the Dhamma, & to the community of monks. May the Blessed One remember me as a lay follower who has gone for refuge from this day forward, for life."


Practise what is explained in MN 19.
In other words, it is not sufficient to label a thought as "harmful" and then worry about it.
Instead, when the harmfulness of the harmful thought is thoroughly considered & examined, the harmful thought will end, due to truly understanding its harmful nature.


Mindfulness while Studying or Listening to Dhamma Talks

Uilium. I hope you are well my friend. I think if you were to view things from an experiencial point of view- so acknowledgement of all experience through sensory input ( the 5 aggregates)seeing, smelling, tasting, touching...etc. Also the body can multi-task but the brain can not, for example you can only think one thought at a time, you can't think of both a banana and an elephant simultaneously, unless you combine them, then it's still only one thought being processed.

So back to your question specifically, when i read, i listen very attentively to my voice, but if i'm reading in my head, then i might focus on the touch or feeling of the book or pages. Wherever the mind goes, just focus on that during your studies.

I hope i have helped in some way, my friend.
Metta.


Let's say you are learning to play baseball.  One of the first thing you find out is that the game has nine innings.  What, you ask breathlessly, comes before the 1st inning????  While you are mulling that over, your turn comes at the plate.  You stand there asking yourself "What comes before the 1st?  What comes before the 1st????".  As you delve deeply into the fundamental nature of innings, their arising and their passing away, the pitcher lobs three balls to the catcher in quick succession.  The umpire calls you out.  You go back to the dugout none the wiser on the nature of innings nor having actually played the game.

Buddhism doesn't seek to make any ontological statements about reality.  Even the headiest of Buddhist philosophies are exclusively soteriological.  The statements they make on the nature of being, mind, karma, etc. are to be understood exclusively within that context.  Notions of beginning and endings or the nature of reality are entirely Western constructs that are completely out of bounds in discussions of Buddhism.  More to the point, they have no bearing whatsoever on the endeavor of Buddhist practice.

  "Don't waste your time on doubts and arguments that have nothing to do
  with this." - Seng-Ts'an.


Wholesome means without defilements of greed, hatred & delusion; regardless of which or how many khandhas.

"And what is the root of the unwholesome? Greed is a root of the unwholesome; hate is a root of the unwholesome; delusion is a root of
the unwholesome. This is called the root of the unwholesome.

"And what is the root of the wholesome? Non-greed is a root of the wholesome; non-hate is a root of the wholesome; non-delusion is a root
of the wholesome. This is called the root of the wholesome.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.009.ntbb.html


When and how should a layperson declare their achievements?

...then if he wants he may state about himself: 'Hell is ended; animal wombs are ended; the state of the hungry shades is ended; states of deprivation, destitution, the bad bourns are ended! I am a stream-winner, steadfast, never again destined for states of woe, headed for self-awakening!'

"I am a stream-winner!", and as for people like Nyom Alexander, at least you can help them with frog-pills. Be aware that a fully awakened person neither lives nor could live in a household, other than the Noble Beggars.

As for a monk, it's not good to do so (toward laypeople) and if doing such as a deliberated lie it is even a reason to fall out of the community.

It may be good to add that a stream-enterer would seldom be able to teach and lead much and as most are still just a householder, give less inspiration for those having real faith.
But it's a great achievement and a great place for mudita with such or sometimes for much karuna, like in Nyom Alexanders situation, not even knowing the Dhamma yet and believing to be awakened. Thats really much place of huge pity and the reality that beings are heirs of their actions, not really to be helped.

See a Noble Ones answer for more details; and keep such people high and protected without the need that they would need to tell.

(not given for trade, exchange, stacks... but for your way out) See? ;-)


Technically, consciousness (viññāṇa) is that aspect of the mind that is aware; it is the qualia of modern Western philosophy.
Colloquially, it is used to refer to the entire mental ensemble that includes sensation (vedanā), recognition (saññā), processing (saṅkhāra), and awareness (viññāṇa). This is because the other three aggregates are always accompanied by awareness. Just as water has colour, temperature, etc., so too, consciousness has sensation and other mental concomitants.
Doctrinally, it is a cornerstone of Buddhist philosophy, which takes an experiential paradigm as the basis of reality (as opposed to the temporospatial paradigm of modern science). Each conscious qualia constitutes an atomic entity in the complex matrix of multi-perceptional reality.

cittena nīyati loko, cittena parikassati.
cittassa ekadhammassa, sabbeva vasamanvagūti.
By the mind the world is led, by the mind is it carried away.
Of the mind, the one thing, all indeed go according to its power.
-- SN 1.62


Predetermined future vs. Free will in Buddhism

I think the best answer to this is in the concept of "noble silence" which is often described when the Buddha was asked such questions.  Basically what it comes down to is, are you looking for answers to a lot of philosophical questions? If that's your main interest, then go to grad school in philosophy. On the other hand, if you're looking for guidance in a system of mental (and, sometimes, body) techniques that help you lighten up, not take yourself and your drama so seriously, and be kinder to other people, then buddhism may be able to provide that for you. As with everything else, though, there are no guarantees in life.

Now, hopefully that serves as a caveat that there isn't such a thing as a definitive buddhist answer to such metaphysical questions, (or a definitive answer, period) but I'll provide my own best shot at an answer. Free will and determinism don't have to be black and white.  You feel like you could freely choose to walk any direction you want at the next moment, but actually you can't choose to walk straight up or down. There are some choices you get to make, and others that are constrained by causes and conditions. From a buddhist perspective, walking up and down is less important than the inner psychological constraints on your freedom that occur from your own afflictive emotions (klesha). So in some sense, you could say that the purpose of Buddhist practice is to help you move farther towards free will by dissolving or otherwise getting past the inter constraints of karma in your own mind, and in your chain of dependent origination.


Only wholesome actions can lead to wholesome resultants.

In the same way only unwholesome actions can lead to unwholesome resultants.

This is stated in the first 2 verses of the Dhammapada.

What are the unwholesome actions based in? They are based in the 3 unwholesome roots (akusala-mūla) which are greed, hatred and delusion. From these roots all other defilements emerge.

To act in a wholesome way one needs to cultivate and act on the 3 wholesome roots which are non-greed, non-hatred, non-delusion (wisdom). Actions based in these roots will lead to wholesome resultants for oneself and others.

How to cultivate the wholesome roots? By following the Noble Eightfold Path. In here we have the recipe for overcoming suffering and ignorance.

Especially the Wisdom-group which contains "Right View and Right Intention" is relevant here with regard to the twin verses in the Dhammapada, since it cultivates intentions based on renunciation, good-will and harmlessness.


I can feel the rising and falling of sensations in vipassana, but what to make of thoughts?

How should I treat thoughts?
You should strive to know thoughts as thoughts. If you are observing impartially, that's good. If you are ignoring the light, fleeting thoughts, it depends what you mean. You don't want to actively ignore anything as that will cultivate aversion or even a dullness of mind. If you mean the thoughts are just too light, too fleeting to catch, then you're doing what you can, and your coverage will improve with practice, if you strive for it.
The other side of this is that it's more important to impartially observe whatever comes up, rather than simply impartially observing thoughts. That is, you should try to stay in the here and the now. A thought might become frustration, and you should observe that impartially. Then the frustration becomes hotness in the body. As soon as we are aware of the hotness, we should observe the hotness. Or perhaps coldness following fear. And then maybe the thought comes back, and we observe that, or we feel an irritation on the skin, and we observe that. I'm giving as many examples as I can from my own experience to try to illustrate that when a thought overtakes us, the here-and-now can be a swiftly-moving target.
What is the conditioned reality of thoughts?
The Buddha placed thoughts on an equal footing with all other sensations, as you can read in the very brief Sabba Sutta (found in the Samyutta Nikaya, Sutta #35.23):

"Monks, I will teach you the All. Listen & pay close attention. I will speak."
"As you say, lord," the monks responded.
The Blessed One said, "What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavors, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas. This, monks, is called the All. Anyone who would say, 'Repudiating this All, I will describe another,' if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain, and furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range."

So from a meditative point of view, the most objective things you have are the thoughts and the senses. Don't worry too much whether thoughts are objective or subjective. Rather consider objectively that a thought is a thought, and seeing it as anything else is subjective.


Zen is very unlikely to produce LSD-like effects. It is just sitting. There isn't an object like breath or visualization to focus on, it's more like un-focusing the mind.

According to some ancient sources, some ritual substances produce effects that are called "siddhis," or in laymens' terms, psychic phenomenon. Ancient texts in yoga and Buddhism contain descriptions of states of consciouness associated with siddhis, or iddhis.

"Psychic powers arise by birth, drugs, incantations, purificatory acts or concentrated insight." - Patanjali Yoga Sutra

This web site is about Mindfulness Meditation, which like Zen practice, moves one AWAY from altered states, rather than to them. The effects of this are not "powerful" but are more permanent, if that interests you.

Siddhis: In Tibetan Buddhism it's much the same as Shaivism (not sure why Wikipedia did not list for Buddhism here):
"Shaivism
In Shaivism, siddhi are defined as "Extraordinary powers of the soul, developed through consistent meditation and often uncomfortable and grueling tapas, or awakened naturally through spiritual maturity and yogic sādhanā."
Eight primary siddhis according to Shaivism
According to some forms of Shaivism, the eight classical siddhis (Ashta Siddhi) or eight great perfections are:
Aṇimā: reducing one's body to the size of an atom
Mahimā: expanding one's body to an infinitely large size
Garimā: becoming infinitely heavy
Laghimā: becoming almost weightless
Prāpti: ability to be anywhere at will
Prākāmya: realizing whatever one desires
Īśiṭva: supremacy over nature
Vaśiṭva: control of natural forces"

Or in Pali text its called "iddhi" or "rddhi"
According to Bowker, there are eight ṛddhi powers:

Replicate and project bodily-images of oneself,
Make oneself invisible,
Pass through solid objects,
Sink into solid ground,
Walk on water,
Fly,
Touch the sun and moon with one's hand,
Ascend to the world of the god Brahmā in the highest heavens
According to the Iddhipada-vibhanga Sutta (SN 51.20)

Having been one he becomes many; having been many he becomes one.
He appears. He vanishes.
He goes unimpeded through walls, ramparts, & mountains as if through space.
He dives in and out of the earth as if it were water.
He walks on water without sinking as if it were dry land.
Sitting crosslegged he flies through the air like a winged bird.
With his hand he touches & strokes even the sun & moon, so mighty & powerful.
He exercises influence with his body even as far as the Brahma worlds.
In the book Great Disciples of the Buddha by Nyanaponika Thera and Hellmuth Hecker, there are several additional powers described:

The Divine Eye (Clairvoyance)- this power allows one to see beings in other realms as well as see the future
The Divine Ear (Clairaudience)
Travel by Mind-Made Body(Astral Travel)
Travel with the Physical Body (to other realms)
Telekinesis (Supernormal Locomotion)
Flying
The power of Transformation
The ability to replicate one's body
Penetration of others' minds (Thought Reading)
Passing through solid objects
Diving in and out of the Earth as if through water
Walking on water
Touching the sun and the moon with one's fingers
Becoming invisible
Recollection of past lives (some would call this a power, some would call it true knowledge)

Even in the case of those who seek to develop these powers, it's not a matter of something temporary such as a drug. It's more like a life-long pursuit. Most Buddhist, even advanced ones, see this a a trap, only further attachment, and will try to avoid these as much as possible.


It is normal or expected for metta practise to bring up underlying mental states of non-metta.

Also, in Buddhism, to understand the quality of our 'friends' or 'associates' is also important (refer to "foes in the guise of friends" & "warm-hearted friends" in the Sigalovada Sutta).

Many people in the world may appear 'superficial' to us, particularly if we are 'crisis oriented'.

If these 'associates' pose no inherent danger to us, we can let go of our expectations towards them and show friendship in a less-personal & more detached manner.

Most of your anger appears to be related to expectations you have towards these people that those people cannot fulfil. If so, your expectation towards them are unreasonable.

If your lifestyle has changed & you wish to associate when them less, simply say so to them.

This does not mean you cannot be there for them if they need something important from you.


UPDATE:

  The earlobes are elongated, partly to indicate the Buddha is
  all-hearing and partly as a reminder of the heavy earrings that
  weighed them down before Siddhartha renounced material things to seek
  enlightenment.

ref: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2714/why-do-statues-of-buddha-have-long-earlobes

Ah ha, the Ears reference comes from the 80 minor marks:
ref: http://news.fjnet.com/english/abcOfBudd/200606/t20060626_30901.htm
(credit to  yuttadhammo for solving the mystery)

The idea that the Buddha or a Buddha has 32 marks or physical qualities popped up in Buddhism and iconographers followed this list, but long ears isn't on that list.

ref:
http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/sutra/level2_lamrim/initial_scope/safe_direction/thirty_excellent_signs_major_marks_.htmlo


Submission in Buddhist teachings / practices

The idea of surrender in Buddhism in general can vary very, very widely, depending on the particular ideology. Some ideologies believe you need to submit totally to a Guru to be enlightened, others do not. It depends on how people have set the system up in the first place. Pureland Buddhism is particularly strong about this point, and I encourage you to look it up.

That being said, it is important to mention that Buddhism is not, at its core, about believing in something or submitting to an ideology.. it is about The Dialectic or Conversation that happens when you try something, find out it is not quite as described, then ask a question about your personal experience and get a clarifying answer, or engage in a debate. That is the dynamic. Discovery through experience, discussion and debate.

So, submission and dominance fall then to the status of Dualistic Thinking, and are no different than black and white, cold and hot, or back and front. Both are illusory... Maya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion)).

Surrender in the Buddhist sense, on the other hand, is about letting go of any fixed notion of self, the universe or any other idea, and trusting in experience to guide you to truth. It doesn't mean that you give up.. it means you let go of the strong attachment you have to particular ideas about the world and yourself, and allow mind and body to take you to places where you can experience truth.


What were the source documents of the PTS Sutta Pitaka?

Sources Consulted for the PTS Pali Nikāya Texts

Dīgha Nikāya

Edited by
Vol. 1, 1890: T.W. Rhys Davids and J.E. Carpenter
Vol. 2, 1903: T.W. Rhys Davids and J.E. Carpenter
Vol. 3, 1911: J.E. Carpenter

Ph = M = B - the Phayre MS. of the India Office Library (Burm. ch)
Bm Burmese ms, royal Mandalay Collection, India Office, No. 40
Br Printed Burmese text, Rangoon
Sm A ms in Sinhalese characters in the possession of Professor Rhys Davids
Sc Sinhalese manuscript belonging to J.E. Carpenter
Sd Sinhalese ms. belonging to T.W. Rhys Davids
St Sinhalese ms, Turnour Collection, India Office
Si = K  Printed Siamese text, King of Siam's edition 1893 (Siamese ch)
RhDt Rhys Davids' trnscript

Majjhima Nikāya

Edited by
Vol. 1, 1888, V. Trenckner
Vol. 2, 1896, R. Chalmers
Vol. 3, 1899, R. Chalmers

A = - Sk the Copenhagen MS. No. VI (Singh. ch)
Ph = M = B - the Phayre MS. of the India Office Library (Burm. ch)
St Sinhalese ms, Turnour Collection, India Office
Bm Burmese ms, royal Mandalay Collection, India Office, No. 40
Si = K  Printed Siamese text, King of Siam's edition 1893 (Siamese ch)

Anguttara Nikāya

Edited by
Vol. 1, 1885, R. Morris, 2nd Ed.: A.K. Wrder
Vol. 2, 1888, R. Morris
Vol. 3, 1897, E. Hardy
Vol. 4, 1899, E. Hardy
Vol. 5, 1900, E. Hardy

T = St Sinhalese ms, Turnour Collection, India Office
Ba No. 2276 (in Sinhalese) of the Oriental Mss. in the Library of the British Museum
Bb No. 2412 (in Sinhalese ch)  of the Oriental Mss. in the Library of the British Museum
Ph = M = B - the Phayre MS. of the India Office Library (Burm. ch)
Bm #122, #123 Burmese ms, royal Mandalay Collection, India Office, No. 40
S.M. (Sinhalese ch) Morris collection
B.K. Burmese texts
M. #s 125, 130 of the Mandalay collection (Burmese ch), India Office Lib.
M6 Morris Ms. (Sinhalese ch)
M7 Morris Ms. (Sinhalese ch)
M 8 Morris Ms. (Burmese)
S = Si = K  Printed Siamese text, King of Siam's edition 1893 (Siamese ch)

2nd Ed:
Ke Siamese editionof the text
Ce Sinhalese edition of the text
ChS Chaṭṭha Sangīti Piṭakaɱ

Saɱyutta Nikāya

Edited by
Vol. 1, 1884, M.L. Feer
Vol. 2, 1888, M.L. Feer
Vol. 3, 1890, M.L. Feer
Vol. 4, 1898, M.L. Feer
Vol. 5, 1890, M.L. Feer

B (Burmese ch) ms of the Bibliotheque nationale in Paris
S1 Copenhagen ms
S2 British Museum ms
S3 Morris ms

Composed as an appendix to the article: On the Importance of the Pali Text Society Translations at

http://buddhadust.net/dhammatalk/dhammatalk_forum/give_ear/ge_015.importance_pts.htm


It sounds like "equanimity", which is a normal result of meditation.


I like to teach them as linear, but it's not really that simple. The Buddha said (SN 46.53) that when the mind is agitated you should cultivate the last three (tranquility, concentration and equanimity), and when the mind is sluggish, the second through fourth(investigation of dhammas, effort and rapture):

"At such times, monks, as the mind is sluggish, that is the wrong time to cultivate the enlightenment-factor[265] of tranquillity, the enlightenment-factor of concentration, the enlightenment-factor of equanimity. What is the reason? A sluggish mind is hard to arouse by these factors.
...
"Monks, when the mind is agitated, that is the wrong time to cultivate the enlightenment-factors of investigation-of-states, of energy, of rapture. Why? An agitated mind is hard to calm through these factors.

Mindfulness, the Buddha notes, is to be always cultivated:

"But as for mindfulness, monks, I declare that it is always useful."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/walshe/wheel318.html#passage-58


The ten Bhumi are stages of enlightenment post initial breakthrough or satori (what I personally equate with stream-entry). As such they are not meant to be comprehensible or serve as instructions for those who did not make it to the first Bhumi yet. They speak about practitioner's relationship with the world as he or she transitions from student's perspective to that of a buddha and teacher.

To get to the first Bhumi, the student must accomplish non-conceptual (experiential) realization of Emptiness. This in its turn requires disbanding the ego -- the main purpose behind the six paramitas and various "humiliating" experiences teacher drives student through.


There is no sound in jhana (Kathāvatthu).


The main principle of happiness and freedom, especially emphasized in Mahayana Buddhism, is unselfishness:

(1) We feel concerns about ourselves, and about various conditions which also focus into ourselves.

These concerns are created by fixations on good and bad - as they exist from our point of view.

For example, I see the modern human world as cruel, unjust, full of stupidity, destroying the life on Earth, doomed.

But that view comes from my particular perspective. If I take into account that in the past millions of people in Europe died from plague and famine, and many were burned alive for their views, I could understand that some progress actually happened.

We can conduct an experiment: think about the same ugly things when we are in a good mood. Then probably negative thoughts would not stay for so long, they would not occupy our mind.

That experiment shows that habitual thoughts accompany our emotional state. In an easy state we would have more optimistic view on the same problems.

Therefore,

(2) We can drop our self-centered concerns, and shift our attention to caring about others.

You might say it looks like too simple idea to really work well, but then let me ask: have you tried?

Mahayana has thoroughly developed system, called the way of perfections (paramitas). Most often we speak about Six paramitas (they are the main core of the path).

Giving selflessly drops our egoistic burden. Every time we give without egoistic concerns, we return a step back to our original unconstrained and natural feeling.
Discipline means to keep our wholeness despite habits and distractions which try to carry us away from our natural heart.
Patience is an art of remaining relaxed. We have habits to be dissatisfied, to rush somewhere else rather than to be just here. Patience means we want to live every moment in complete wholesome manner. Not wasting our life in chasing feverish desires, not escaping this moment to self-compressed heat of constraint.
Enthusiasm comes from understanding that if we remain passive then our energy dissipates, and we live in dull, gray world.
Concentration is all the previous perfections together:

Selflessness.
Wholeness.
Relaxed presence.
Energy of joyful deeds.

Moreover, concentration means gathering of all our abilities, experience and knowledge, all our skills and open vision in the focus of being completely now.

It means we are able to control our mind, because it's not scattered; distractions can't catch it so easily.

Finally,

Wisdom.

It means prajna - the ability to see everything as it is. It guides our practice of all the other five paramitas. And these five paramitas in turn create open, clean mind, which means the mind of wisdom.

That way we actually drop oppositions and concerns. We have no burden anymore. We naturally are doing something to make the world more beautifil, but we definitely understand that doing that we don't need to make ourselves suffer.

PS. Several practical tips

1. Take the responsibility

Ordinary attitude is: "The world is so bad that my life is in misery, and I can't do anything about it".

Better attitude is: "Whatever be the world, I wish to use my life for the benefit of all beings".

Reasoning:

Letting conditions make me waste my life has no sense. So regardless of conditions I decide to use my life wisely.

With that in mind, make a resolution to be responsible for your life and death by yourself, not letting adverse conditions make you useless.

2. Drop inner oppositions

Ordinary attitude is: "I should force myself to be a decent, effective person".

Better attitude is: "Whatever qualities I manifest, it's a resource and a field of exploration".

Reasoning:

Trying to force themselves, people divide in themselves, try to manipulate with themselves and act against themselves. That leads to wasting efforts in struggles and creating inner resistance to our own endeavors.

With that in mind, you decide to accept whatever manifests in your mental continuum as a resource and a field of exploration - not struggling with that, but dissolving oppositions.

These two decisions can transfer you from a position of a victim to a function of explorer and scientist who studies how to improve human life for the benefit of all sentient beings.


Mental States Versus Physical Substrates

What are the benefits specific to seeing the mind as mental states, rather than as a physical substrate?

I'm not convinced that buddhism sees the mind exclusively in terms of mental states, but rather taking both materialism and mental states into account. For instance, dependent origination details the relationship between physical properties and mental phenomena.

I guess it may seem that only mental states are relevant for buddhism while one reads those parts of abhidamma that deals with examining these things.

(On a side note, psychology is a field consisting of a great deal of different disciplines, besides neuroscience. Concepts like mental states are therefore also valid for psychological research).


Someone else will answer this better than me, but I'll get the ball rolling.

Chan is the form of Buddhism that came to dominate Buddhist life in China up to the time of the communist revolution. It was a lot of meditation, mixed in with a lot of Pure Land Buddhism, scholarship and the whole gammut of Buddhist practices, including prostrations, repentance, everything.

Chan was then transmitted to Japan via Dogen around the time of the Kamakura era. At this point, Zen is radically simplified, loses the Pure Land component. Dogen is a medieval Japanese monk-- he's a nice guy, but no one is going to mistake him for a modern Oxford or Tokyo University intellectual.

Also at this time, when Japanese nobles needed to send their kids to school, they would send them up the road to the Buddhist monk, who knew how to read. While they were there, the parents figure the should also learn about calligraphy, tea ceremony and things that upper class Japanese noble kids needed to learn. This created the confusion about Zen's connection to these Japanese cultural arts. (And this confusion was later exacerbated by apologists for Zen, who wanted to appeal to skeptical, but nationalist countrymen in the revival or preservation of Buddhism)

Next big event is the Meiji reformations, where the Japanese imperial government, in a policy hostile to Buddhism, initiated reforms allowing (demanding?) that monks marry, eat meat and so on. From this we get the idea that Zen has nothing to do with strict morals, renunciation, vegetarianism, celibacy, and so on.

The last big event is the educated class in Japan learning pretty much everything that the Europeans knew and being heavily influenced by essentially European ideas. (among them ideas of the age of enlightenment and the protestant reformation) Not bad mind you, as a 3rd party, I could care less if the Indian ideas imported into Japan were being diluted of their Japaneseness by mixing with European ideas.

And the person to bring that "pre-westernized" Zen to the US was DT Suzuki. Before anyone had a chance to start mixing up western progressive ideas with Chan (as filtered through Japan), it had already been done.  DT Suzuki Zen removed anything that looked like religion from Zen.


Is it true that Lord Buddha was born in Sri Lanka?

Lumbini, Nepal has been recognized as the birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama since a stone pillar was placed at the site by the emperor Ashoka circa 245 BCE.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumbini


Verses and lines of dedication of merits: Does one like to share traditional and personal verbal ways?

There are probably as many answers to this question as there are Buddhists, but as you ask the question to all, I thought maybe I can offer something about the rule, rather than the form.

There are several textual sources regarding what is appropriate for dedication - in general one may dedicate ones' actions any way one may wish, but then the behaviour does not lead to liberation, and is therefore not Dharma activity, unless the dedication is in line with Dharma activity.

These are the four ways of dedication that are in accordance with Dharma activity, as I have been taught from within the Himalayan tradition:

Dedication towards one's own liberation and enlightenment.
Dedication towards the liberation and enlightenment of all beings.
Dedication towards the longevity of Buddha's words.
Dedication towards the longevity of the Sangha and one's Dharma teachers.

Of these four, the best is the first because it involves taking personal responsibility for the Buddha Dharma through the greatest means possible.


According to the Monk's Sila, they can not accept money, since money is related to sensual pleasures. Therefore when monks have to deal with money, it's better to take help of a lay follower. In Sri Lanka, in the past and even nowadays in some places, there's a lay follower called "abittiya" is residing in the temple or the monastery to intervene in actions like dealing with money in order to help monks. In some occasions the chief donater of the temple too engage in such activities to help monks. So it's better if someone can help monks in such actions because it's a great help and also a meritorious act since it help a monk to protect his Sila.


It doesn't sound anything like Buddhism. A Buddhist monk violates a Vinaya rule, if he touches a girl or woman, regardless of age or relationship, but Buddhist monks aren't the only ones who wear yellow clothing.

Anyways, it sounds like he was simply trying to say something magical to make the child feel fascinated. Most of us like to hear someone saying something special about us to feel good, depending on a body feature or some other external factor. Instead, we should examine our mind states to see if we really have the wholesome qualities praised by the wise.


Difference between satipatthana and vipassana

Vipassana is a compound of two words: vi - and passana. Vi means various, i.e. the three characteristics (transiency, unsatisfactoriness, non self). Passana means right understanding or realization by means of mindfulness of mentality and physicality. Vipassana therefore means the direct realisation of the three characteristics of mentality and physicality.

Vipassana or the right understanding requires the right awareness(Satipattana).

In other words, 'Satipattana' is the meditation you do to gain Vipassana.
It is of 4 kinds:

Kayanupassana(awareness of the body): the movements and postures.
Vedananupassana(awareness of feelings): bodily and mental sensations of pain, happiness, calm, etc.
Cittanupassana(awareness of the mind): thoughts that arise in the mind – of the past or future, good or bad;
Dhammanupassana(awareness of phenomena): groups of mental and physical phenomena that are of specific interest to the meditator, including the mental states that cloud one’s awareness, the six senses by which one experiences reality, and many others

More at http://www.sirimangalo.org/text/how-to-meditate/chapter-one-what-is-meditation/


In what sutta (of any canon or tradition) the Asita prophecy and the above events are described?  ...

.

  Asita apparently see the child Bodhisattva either on the very day that he was born, or within
  three days thereafter. The Buddha,vaṁsa Commentary mentions the 5th day as the “head lustration” and
  naming day, when 108 brahmins were invited. If these, 8 of them—beginning with Rāma
  (J 1:56, v270)
  —were versed in reading the 32 marks of the great man. Seven of them raised two fingers, predicting that
  the child would become a wheel-turner if he lived a household life, and become buddha if he renounced
  the world.

  The youngest of them, Koṇḍañña, was certain of the child’s future, and raised one finger, proclaiming
  the he would surely become the Buddha. Koṇḍañña later becomes the eldest of the group of 5 monks who
  attended to the Bodhisattva before his awakening. However, Asita is not mentioned amongst these brahmins.

Source: Introduction to Nālaka Sutta by Piya Tan

    ...  he saw a sick, an old, and a dead person. ...

  Even though I was endowed with such fortune, such total refinement, the thought occurred to me: 'When an untaught, run-of-the-mill person, himself subject to aging, not beyond aging, sees another who is aged, he is horrified, humiliated, & disgusted, oblivious to himself that he too is subject to aging, not beyond aging. If I — who am subject to aging, not beyond aging — were to be horrified, humiliated, & disgusted on seeing another person who is aged, that would not be fitting for me.' As I noticed this, the [typical] young person's intoxication with youth entirely dropped away.

Source: Sukhamala Sutta, Four sights

  And what is ignoble search? There is the case where a person, being subject himself to birth, seeks [happiness in] what is likewise subject to birth. Being subject himself to aging... illness... death... sorrow... defilement, he seeks [happiness in] what is likewise subject to illness... death... sorrow... defilement.

Source: Ariyapariyesana Sutta, Four sights


I think that a Buddhist answer is "There's nothing that should be viewed as self".
For example I experience (or "there is a perception/recognition of") "looking at the computer screen", however "looking at the computer screen" shouldn't be viewed as "self" ... it's not permanent.
The "Anatta-lakkhana Sutta: The Discourse on the Not-self Characteristic (SN 22.59)" is maybe the most famous sutta about "anatta", but my favourite is the "Alagaddupama Sutta -- The Discourse on the Snake Simile (MN 22)" which I mentioned in this answer, i.e.:

there was no view of self that would not lead to suffering

Or in more detail:

Bhikshus, you may well cling to the self-doctrine that would not cause sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair to arise in one who clings to it. But do you see any such possession, bhikshus?”
“No, bhante.”
“Good, bhikshus. I, too, do not see any doctrine of self that would not arouse sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair in one who clings to it.

See also the topic How are 'conceit' and 'identity-view' not the same?: where people talk about the difference between a fixed/permanent "view", and a temporary/transient "thought, feeling or emotion".


"Plunging" or Challenging Yourself in a New Enviornment

I have never seeing this term as a concept in Buddhism nor Zen. To the best of my knowledge, the closest formulation of something in that vein are the specific instructions to practice samadhi in the Vishuddhimagga targeted at people with distinct temperaments  -- which is kind of a compilation of pedagogical strategies developed at the time. Example:

"A suitable lodging for one of greedy temperament has an unwashed sill and stands level with the ground, and it can be either an overhanging [rock with an] unprepared [drip-ledge], a grass hut, or a leaf house, etc. It ought to be spattered with dirt, full of bats, dilapidated, too high or too low, in bleak surroundings, threatened [by lions, tigers, etc]. with a muddy uneven path where even the bed and chair are full of bugs. And it should be ugly and unsightly ..."
A suitable resting  place for one with hating temperament is not too high or too low, provided with shade and water, with well-proportioned walls, posts and steps, with well-prepared frieze work and lattice work, brightened, with various kinds of painting, with even smooth soft floor, [...] smelling sweetly, of flowers and perfumes and scents set about for homely comfort, which makes one happy and glad at the mere sight of it."
-- Visuddhimagga, Chapter III


You may want to try the following as I have been attended some events there too :

http://www.fpmtabc.org/ - More to Tibetan Buddhism
https://www.facebook.com/buddhistlifemission
http://www.buddhistfellowship.org/cms/ - More to Theravada
http://www.kmspks.org/

Hope this helps. =)


In Buddhism there is no solution for 'my problem', because there is no problem in the first place. The mind is creating problems out of ignorance, and causing useless suffering. The title says 'Being assertive/manipulative', but as you wrote the people you ask say you're straightforward. Where is the problem? I would suggest to drop this thinking and pondering upon 'I', 'me', 'mine' and focus on the real practice. By using mindfulness ('thinking', 'emotion' ...) and in daily life applying the practice of sila (morality).

Therefore you should know the 10 skillful/unskillful actions and practice them (the skillful ones) actively in daily live (i.e. try to speak in a honest way).


Where is the Buddha originally quoted as saying "On heaven and earth, I alone am honored"?

The Pali version isn't quite as strong. According to Malalasekera:

Immediately after birth the Bodhisatta stands firmly on his feet, and having taken seven strides to the north, while a white canopy, is held over his head, looks round and utters in fearless voice the lion's roar: "Aggo 'ham asmi lokassa, jettho 'ham asmi lokassa, settho 'ham asmi lokassa, ayam antimā jāti, natthi dāni punabbhavo” (D.ii.15).
http://www.palikanon.com/english/pali_names/b/buddha.htm

The meaning of the phrase is "I am the highest in this world; I am foremost in this world; I am the best in this world; this is the last birth; there is no further becoming here."
Nothing I've found specifying heaven and earth; it also doesn't seem proper for the Bodhisatta to have said "I alone am honoured", since it is patently untrue.


Masturbation: Does it break the 3rd precept?

Argumentation is a tricky thing; it's easy to skip a step and before you realize it, you've got an argument whose premises don't actually necessitate their conclusion.

Premise: The whole point (in general) of keeping the [third] precept is to make good kamma both in mind and body.

Premise: Masturbation alters the mind state and creates bad mind-made kamma.

Conclusion: [Masturbation should] also be considered as sexual misconduct and breaking the third precept.

I'm not sure if you actually meant that the point of keeping the precepts in general is to make good kamma, or just the third, but either way, whether this premise is true or not, it doesn't necessitate the conclusion. We can see this by substituting the word "masturbation" with "consensual sex", "gambling" or even "dancing" - just because an act is unwholesome doesn't mean it violates any of the precepts, let alone the third.

You might have a better argument if your second premise pointed out that masturbation created bad karma relating to sexuality; we can maybe assume this was implied as obvious. Still, if masturbation is breaking the third precept, why is not consensual sex, or even romantic kissing or fondling?

The third precept does not cover all unwholesome activity relating to sexuality, just as the first precept does not cover all acts of violence. They are specific rules designed to keep people from breaking a basic moral code that would otherwise lead them to be reborn in the lower realms.

ANSWER: So, while masturbation may be unwholesome (and a cause of addiction), it does not by any means break any of the five precepts. It does violate the eight and ten precepts, and is a major offence against the vinaya for a bhikkhu.


This is highly anecdotal, but... Behring Breivik allegedly had a great interest in mindfulness meditation.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2012/may/22/anders-behring-breivik-meditation

It is no coincidence that Sila is such a central aspect of buddhism. You can't reach buddhahood without it:

  One makes an effort for the abandoning of wrong view & for entering into right view: This is one's right effort. One is mindful to abandon wrong view & to enter & remain in right view: This is one's right mindfulness. Thus these three qualities — right view, right effort, & right mindfulness — run & circle around right view.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.117.than.html


What is "Anapanasati" day which is coming on this November 14?

It's the anniversary of Buddha delivering the Anapanasati Sutta (Sutra on the Mindfulness of Breathing), an important Sutra about meditation

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uposatha#Special_uposatha_days

(Sorry but I don't know enough to answer the other questions you asked, but I hope this answer and reference helps to some extent)


What is 'letting go' and 'detachment' actually?

What are the actual sanskrit and pali terms for 'letting go' and 'detach'?

Quoting from "Re: What is the last thing to let go?":

  In the Suttas paṭinissagga and its synonym vossagga are the words that usually get translated ‘relinquishment’, ‘letting go’ and suchlike. What is relinquished is appropriation (ādāna) which is a term for taṇhā and upādāna.

And:

  Paṭinissagga (letting go) is the broad term and then nekkhamma (letting go) is a more specialised one. Nekkhamma is paṭinissagga with respect to desire for sense-pleasures.


What do Buddhists do to prevent sexual desires?

Yes, they do something to lower sexual desire. Sexual desire is a form of sensual desire which is the first of the 5 Hindrances to meditation practice. The commentaries to the Satipatthana Sutta list 6 antidotes for sensual desire:

Learning how to meditate on impure objects
Devoting oneself to the meditation on the impure
Guarding the sense doors
Moderation in eating
Noble friendship
Suitable conversation

The first two methods refer to the practice of Asubha Bhavana (the meditation on the foulness and impurity of the body), which explicitly counteracts sexual lust and is one of the Four Protective Meditations. In this technique you examine your own body by looking at  each of the 32 body parts individually. The purpose is to see the sign of the unattractive nature of the human body.

"And further, O bhikkhus, a bhikkhu reflects on just this body hemmed by the skin and full of manifold impurity from the soles up, and from the top of the hair down, thinking thus: 'There are in this body hair of the head, hair of the body, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, fibrous threads (veins, nerves, sinews, tendons), bones, marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, pleura, spleen, lungs, contents of stomach, intestines, mesentery, feces, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, solid fat, tars, fat dissolved, saliva, mucus, synovic fluid, urine.'
"Just as if, O bhikkhus, there were a bag having two openings, full of grain differing in kind, namely, hill-paddy, paddy, ...; and a man with seeing eyes, having loosened it, should reflect thinking thus: 'This is hill paddy; this is paddy, ...' In the same way, O bhikkhus, a bhikkhu reflects on just this body hemmed in by the skin and full of manifold impurity from the soles up, and from the top of the hair down, thinking thus: 'There are in this body: hair of the head, hair of the body, nails, ...' - MN 10

A very good practical guide is in the video series of Bhikkhu Bodhi's course of the 4 protective meditations


Om - meaning and "significance" of it in Buddhism - esp. in theravada?

There is no OM or AUM in Theravada to my knowledge. It's found only in Mahayana and Vajrayana.

The 14th Dalai Lama explained here the meaning of OM in "OM MANI PADME HUM" as:

  The first, OM, is composed of three pure letters, A, U, and M. These
  symbolize the practitioner's impure body, speech, and mind; they also
  symbolize the pure exalted body, speech and mind of a Buddha.


What does this mantra Om Ah Hum Sarba Amrita Siddhi Hum Dze mean?

Mantras aren't complete sentences, so you can't really translate them, but the individual syllables usually have standard symbolic meanings, but there are always multiple layers of meanings in any given mantra, but here goes:

The first part, Om Ah Hum, is a very important set of syllables. Om represents the enlightened body of a Buddha, Ah represents the enlightened speech of a Buddha, and Hum represents the enlightened mind of a Buddha. Om is very commonly used to begin a Mantra and Hum is often used near the end of a Mantra, like in the famous Mantra for Avalokiteshvara, Om Mani Peme Hum.

Sarba I assume is a derivation from the Sanskrit word Sarva, which means all or every, and Amrita means nectar, so Sarba Amrita means all nectar.

Siddhi is a term that can refer to attaining magical powers through meditation, but I think it can also be used as a general term for spiritual attainments in general.

Hum is again, the representation of the enlightened mind of a Buddha, and as previously stated, it is often used near the end of a mantra.

I don't know the meaning of Dza however.


Is Bhikkhu allowed to keep his food in refrigerator for next day or for long period?
Not proper food, only certain types of edibles:

The Four Sorts of Edibles
Any nutriment that a bhikkhu puts into his mouth is classified in four
groups, which specify the time limits during which he can consume or
store them:
(i) Food — Limited from Dawn to Noon (Yaavakaalika)
(ii) Fruit juices — Limited to One Day (Yaamakaalika)
(iii) Medicinal-tonics — Limited to Seven Days (Sattaahakaalika)
(iv) Other Medicines — For All One's Life (Yaavajiivika)
-The Bhikkhus' Rules: A Guide for Laypeople

This is also what I've seen in some western monasteries.

Is this common sight to see a refrigerator in a monk's room in Theravada monastery?
The few times I've been in a monk's private room, I never saw one. But in the same housing (under the same roof), it's common.


Here's an article which might answer exactly that.
A Treatise on the Paramis
The article is detailed. One paragraph from its introduction is as follows,

The "requisites of enlightenment" are the paaramiis themselves, the main topic of the treatise. The word paaramii derives from parama, "supreme," and thus suggests the eminence of the qualities which must be fulfilled by a bodhisattva in the long course of his spiritual development. But the cognate paaramitaa, the word preferred by the Mahaayaana texts and also used by Paali writers, is sometimes explained as paaram + ita, "gone to the beyond," thereby indicating the transcendental direction of these qualities. The list of paaramiis in the Paali tradition differs somewhat from the more familiar list given in Sanskrit works, which probably antedates the Mahaayaana and provided a ready set of categories for its use. Our author shows that the two lists can be correlated in section xii, and the coincidence of a number of items points to a central core already forming before the two traditions went their separate ways. The six paaramiis of the Sanskrit heritage are: giving, virtue, patience, energy, meditation, and wisdom. Later Mahaayaana texts add four more — resolution, skillful means, power, and knowledge — in order to co-ordinate on a one-to-one basis the list of perfections with the account of the ten stages of the bodhisattva's ascent to Buddhahood. The Paali works, including those composed before the rise of Mahaayaana, give a different though partly overlapping list of ten: giving, virtue, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness, determination, loving-kindness, and equanimity. Unlike the Mahaayaana, the Theravaada never developed a theory of stages, though such may be implicit in the grading of the paaramiis into three degrees as basic, intermediate, and ultimate (section xi).

And from its conclusion,

(xvi) What is their fruit?
Their fruit is, in brief, the state of perfect Buddhahood.  In detail, it is the acquisition of the form-body (ruupakaaya) resplendent with the multitude of meritorious qualities such as the thirty-two characteristics of a Great Man, the eighty minor marks of physical beauty, the fathom-wide aura, etc.; and, founded upon this, the glorious Dhamma-body (dhammakaaya) radiant with its collection of infinite and boundless meritorious qualities — the ten powers, the four grounds of self-confidence, the six kinds of knowledge not held in common with others, the eighteen unique Buddha-qualities, and so forth.[34] And so numerous are the Buddha-qualities that even a perfectly enlightened Buddha could not finish describing them, even after many aeons. This is their fruit.
And it is said:

If a Buddha were to speak in praise of a Buddha,
Speaking nothing else for an aeon's length,
Sooner would the long-standing aeon reach its end,
But the praise of the Tathaagata would not reach its end.

Other paragraphs, in the middle of the article, are more interesting (more practical, "petaining to practice"). They include:

(i) What are the paaramiis?
(ii) In what sense are they called "paaramiis"?
(iii) How many are there?
(iv) What is their sequence?
(v) What are their characteristics, functions, manifestations, and proximate causes?
(vi) What is their condition?
(vii) What is their defilement (sa"nkilesa)?
(viii) What is their cleansing (vodaana)?
(ix) What are their opposites (pa.tipakkha)?
(x) How are they to be practiced?
(xi) How are they analyzed (ko vibhaago)?
(xii) How are they synthesized (ko sa"ngaho)?
(xiii) By what means are they accomplished?
(xiv) How much time is required to accomplish them?
(xv) What benefits do they bring?
(xvi) What is their fruit?


Think about it - we go to refuge to the Buddha, Dharma, and the Sangha.  If community wasn't important, it wouldn't be one of the Three Jewels.  There's ample scriptural support for this as in Dhp 6.78, the concept of the kalyaṇa-mittata or spiritual friend, and the Upaddha Sutta where the Buddha called admirable companionship the "whole of the holy life".  While it can be difficult to find a group where you feel "at home", being around like minded individuals striving to the same end will only bolster your practice.  Furthermore, even those tiny annoyances like someone shifting during meditation, someone coughing, or a loud breather help strengthen your concentration and resolve.  Life is not perfectly collected samadhi!  We need to learn how to overcome obstacles.  What better time than when you're on the cushion!  I think it important to add that monasteries are supposed to be places most conducive to the spiritual life.  If solo meditation was somehow "better" than group meditation, then monks would not sit with each other.  Needless to say, this is clearly not the case.

I will also say that personally, I always sit more deeply when I meditate with others.  The ritual of driving to the same place, seeing the same people, and feeling the energy in the room - nothing can replace that!

As off color as this metaphor is, I feel the need to share it.  One of my teachers once told me that meditation without community is like sex by yourself - it's pleasant and effective, sometimes something dramatic occurs, but always there is the sense that something is missing!  :-)


Best way to develop different meditation practices (simultaneously or not)

Ideally what you should be doing is a different kind of Ānāpānassati Meditation. What almost everyone will try to do is the "breath mediation” or “mindfulness of breathing”.  Very few of us know that Ānāpānasati is infinitely more deeper than just focusing on one’s breath.

In many suttās it is described as assāsa/passāsa, which conventionally means taking in / putting out of something, and particularly to breathing in / breathing out. My advice to you is to take “So satōva assāsati, satōva passāsati” to mean “He maintains his mind on dhamma (what is beneficial) that should be taken in (kusala or moral) and those that should be gotten rid of (akusala or immoral)”.

“Assa” is same as “āna”, and “passa” is the same as “āpāna”. When  “sati” is added for being mindful of that, it becomes ānāpānassati. So, from now on, what ever that you do, wherever that you go, from the time you wake up, and until the time that you go to bed, try to be selective in taking in “good things” and throwing away “things that are not beneficial”. That is where mindfulness comes in. That cannot be done with breath.

That means basically all the time! One just needs to be mindful of one’s actions, speech, and thoughts, and stop bad ones and cultivates good ones.

Try to be like a “rukkhamūla”. “rukkha” is “tree” and “mūla” is the “root”; even though the top of a tree sways back and forth with the wind, the tree trunk close to the root is very stable. Thus take “rukkhamūla gatō vā” to mean getting to a stable mindset. Get into a calm and stable mindset that is devoid of greed, hate, and ignorance; keep a modest attitude without any sense of superiority; be forthright and honest, and keep the mind on the main object of cooling down the mind”. That can be done anywhere, a formal seated meditation is not needed, even though that could be helpful.