Searching for a sutta

Exploring the Dhamma, as understood from the perspective of the ancient Pali commentaries.
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EmptyShadow
Posts: 107
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2011 3:34 pm

Searching for a sutta

Post by EmptyShadow »

Anyone know from which sutta is this story?
In this talk, Luang Por said he ordained when he was twenty years
old and after seven years of living as a monk, he realized he was not
making much progress in his meditative practice and that he did not
really understand what the Middle Path was. He thought about this
deeply and recalled the story of the Buddha visiting a group of monks
practicing meditation along a riverbank but not experiencing much
success. The Buddha told them Nibbana was like a huge, vast ocean
and they were like logs floating down the river trying to get there.
Instead, they drifted onto the brambles and snags along its banks
and got stuck. He told them the “inner” bank is one of the objects of
sight, sound, scent, taste, sensation, or thought that enters through
one of the six sense doors (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, mind); the
“outer” bank is their reaction to it in the form of “Liking” or “Disliking”
and their mental proliferations about it. For lifetimes after countless
lifetimes, the Buddha told them, they got caught on one bank or the
other, unable to free themselves from the world of suffering. So, he
instructed them to watch their mind throughout the night and to keep
it from getting ensnared on either side. When the Buddha returned the
next morning, he found they all did so well, they had each become a
Sotāpanna and had reached the first level of enlightenment.
The quote is from book called "Illuminated by Love" about Ajahn Jamnian.
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Sam Vara
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Re: Searching for a sutta

Post by Sam Vara »

EmptyShadow
Posts: 107
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2011 3:34 pm

Re: Searching for a sutta

Post by EmptyShadow »

It doesn't sound quite the same suttas, and the setting is different. Idk :shrug:
EmptyShadow
Posts: 107
Joined: Fri Jan 07, 2011 3:34 pm

Re: Searching for a sutta

Post by EmptyShadow »

I just realize that the story sound alot like the stage of “equanimity about formations” that is prior to stream entry, in the pure vipassana progression of insight.
I didn't know that you could practice it directly like this. :thinking:
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