r/HillsideHermitage

I wonder how hard is it to get accepted in a monastery of a HH type.

Atm I keep 5precepts+celibacy, but I am early on celibacy and who knows how long it's gonna take before I can feel distance from lust

Since I got this far I see more and more that wordly environment would not be suitable even if I was successful in getting everything I want I would still have to deal with the unwholesome one way or the other. Monastic life appears highly privileged opposed to that

Is it hard to get accepted in a monastery for future ordination? Are monasteries looking for new people, is the process very hard, etc? I am 30yo male

I have watch a ton of videos of the teachig of Hillside. I have a lot of faith in Ajahn teaching. I have try my best to avoid sensuality. I know that it is beginning of the path. Unless one can keep 8 precepts there is no further development on Dhamma. I didnt manage to quit sensual desire yet but I try to keep it at minimum.

Yesterday we found out that my mother got ovariaon cancer. I am experiencing a lot of suffering. I know that I should't try to manage the suffering. I should endure it as Ajahn said. But I can't find a way out of this pain. I still rely on sensuality to cope with this pain. I know its just a distraction. But I dont have no where else to go to. I shouldnt use method like watching nostril or watching sensation to calm my self down either.

What is your advice in situation like this?

I figure the best answer might be something like "just endure it". But I really can't right now. I'm not that skillfull yet.

Thank you

While listening to a Dhamma talk by Hillside Hermitage, at the end of the talk it was said that one of the best ways to start working on restoring sensory restraint is to admit it publicly or to people you know.

I have already told people I know in real life, so now I’ll say it on this subreddit.

I’m a compulsive eater. I have spent thousands of dollars on food and hundreds of hours dieting. Every day is a struggle not to eat compulsively. Although I have been getting better, a big part of that is due to the Dhamma, as well as removing my access to money and allocating all my finances to someone I trust. Nonetheless, it has improved.

I am very grateful that I have never tried and never will try alcohol or any other substance.

I am also very grateful that I have what is, in comparison to what many other people suffer from every day, a relatively fortunate problem.

I hope everyone else struggling with compulsions also gets better and finds a way out of them.

Where the Kosambiya Sutta connects"Right View" and harmony, HH teachings are often interpreted as an introspective pursuit that minimizes the role of the positive actions that foster harmony and emphasise the role of avoiding the negative actions rooted in greed, aversion, and delusion.

The Buddha provides specific, actionable behavioral instructions (the six qualities) to resolve a conflict. The practice here is functional and relational. Even if imperfect, such a practice can be helpful even if the person has not attained right view, as long as it is done within the training with precepts and sense restraint.

Avoiding actions rooted in unwholesome intentions is one part of the training. Doing actions that aren’t rooted in such intentions but rooted in opposite intentions should be another part of the training. The other part is not emphasised by Hillside Hermitage.

Buddha instructs Bhikkhus to treat others with bodily, verbal, and mental kindness and not just asks them to avoid actions of bodily, verbal and mental enmity.

Buddha says that these things are also essential along with living according to precepts and having right view.

I understand that like meditation and mindfulness, one’s understanding of what counts as metta and karuna or friendliness and kindness will not be correct initially. But, one should strive towards that understanding in both ways: by avoiding certain actions and by doing certain actions.

Consider these quotes:

1. “… are you treating your spiritual companions with kindness by way of body, speech, and mind, both in public and in private?”

2. “Mendicants, these six warm-hearted qualities make for fondness and respect, conducing to inclusion, harmony, and unity, without quarreling”

3. “Furthermore, a mendicant shares without reservation any material things they have gained by legitimate means, even the food placed in the alms-bowl, using them in common with their ethical spiritual companions …”

My question is: Have I understood the teachings of this and similar suttas correctly? Do Hillside Hermitage also emphasise such teachings in their talks? Are such positive qualities should be cultivated while striving for the right view along with training with the precepts? Are there HH videos on this topic?

It would be great if a whole sutta study like talk is made on this topic.

So I did as Ajahn said for a while now and my intentions are "to feel pleasant, to avoid suffering, to diminish suffering, to avoid pain, to get rid of pain, wait for the unpleasant feeling to go away... and so on"

So I wonder "is being aware of these and not acting on them all that matters?"

🙏

There’s a lot of misconception and misunderstanding surrounding your perspectives of sense restraint and celibacy in relation to Sotapanna attainment. I think the Venerables should

() Create an entire series strictly for laypeople in how to practice the Buddha’s teachings.

() Clear up all misunderstandings and misconceptions.

Apparently, many people are confused, and in some cases, become discouraged to practice due to the beliefs of how to practice as a layperson regarding Sotapatti attainment.

Can the Venerables accomplish this task?

When I practice sense restraint, I eventually reach a point where I begin to lose sleep by completely being incapable of finishing my sleep cycles. (I start the practice of sense restraint with the attitude that I will NEVER give in to sensuality again. No escape hatch for the mind to endure with the knowledge that there is a way out). 

It’s like this energy builds up in the body and I’m faced with an unbelievable amount of restlessness prior to sleeping. I get somatic symptoms such as jaw pain, nerve pain in my temporal, a “Crazy” stimulated feeling in my eyes. Enduring this long enough I’m able to fall asleep, but I end up waking up at 2-3AM with the inability to fall back asleep.

The issue I’m having is - when I don’t get sleep, I am a COMPLETELY different human being. I’ve made so much progress as through training I no longer engage in certain behaviors like alcohol or junk food even during states where I get no sleep. However, one thing that I am still struggling with is masturbating during these times. It is because I crave relief it gives me from this pressure and a lot of times cannot handle the thought of not getting any sleep again - because it affects everything the next day. It’s not like I’m running on 1 hour of less sleep, but I cannot function on literally 3-4 hours of sleep for multiple days. There have been cases - weeks.

Is no sleep a period I have to be willing to go through, or is this an indication of my current threshold in the practice of sense restraint? Perhaps my threshhold or symptoms could mean that I'm not practicing it correctly?

I followed the link on HH's website but it shows "a server with specified hostname could not be found".

Is the link outdated? Anyone has the correct one?

One: HH’s Watching the Peripheral

He talks about this in almost every video. We look at our entire context, our entire current experience and see ourselves as part of it. Anything that comes up is part of that context. No subject/object dualism, just experience happening. Observer is part of the experience. You can mix in anicca here too. Since experience is constantly changing, i.e. phenomena arising, enduring and passing, it cannot be something you can reliably call a permanent self. Just processes and phenomena. They are always given, impersonal, and you’re within the given.

Two: Elements

Elements are one of the “contexts” from method 1. For example the earth element. Everything in the “material” experience has solid properties to it. On the basis of solid properties, our bodies exist. In the body, neurons fire up and make up a sense of self. So self is just a phenomenon in the world made of elements. So contemplating the earth element is the context wide enough to include all of our experience, and nothing that comes up can disturb this contemplation if seen as contained within the currently experienced context. The important bit is that elements should be contemplated from the first point of view, or in a non-dual way.

Three: The Five Skandhas

We investigate each skandha one by one, until we see each of them as impersonal phenomena. One of them or a combination of them makes up the sense of self, but it’s an empty illusion as only the skandhas themselves are there. Thoughts come and go on their own — they are not self. Consciousness arises only in relation to objects of consciousness, so it’s not an independent self either, just a device, just a process. And so on for each skandha.

Rob Burbea’s “Seeing that Frees” is excellent for this.

Four: Specifically the Body

Contemplating the body specifically is very important to cement the no-self view. We contemplate every single part of the body starting from hair or nails (the most impersonal, alienatable parts). We want to be able to see the entire body, inside and outside as an object. HH would emphasize here that we should not investigate the body like a scientist would, because objectifying it would just reify the observer-subject again, and just place it outside of the body. So we must contemplate the body within the context of the entire currently enduring experience as per method 1.

It’s important that no part of the body is left uninspected because we must have the entire inventory of what constitutes the basis of our physical sense of self within the context of entire experience.

HH constantly reminds that these Satipatthana practices must be exercised only with the Right View as described in method 1. So this method already implies you have an understanding of dependent origination — as Matryoshka-like containers unfolding and manifesting the experience.

- Try to live the same day every day. No room for curiosity. (What arises will cease)

- Dispassion towards contact. (Choices are for the ignorant)

- Enjoy inactivity. (Stream Entry)