r/HillsideHermitage

Broadly speaking, would Bhikkhu Akincano be considered a reasonable source to learn from? Is he just saying the same basic thing Hillside Hermitage teaches in a different way, or is he likely not of the right understanding to be able to be a good source?

I’ve contemplated this question a year or so ago: Here’s what I got:

() Sakkaya Ditthi - The understanding that existence is not in your control. The understanding that there’s a lack of ownership and permanence of phenomena.

() Asmimāna - The understanding that there’s no being “doing” something. It’s the understanding that there’s just phenomena taking place. There’s just biofeedback. There’s no being making intentions and doing actions. In other words, there’s no ego.

What do you say?

I apologize if this is too off-topic for this sub, but it's the only subreddit I know of that is explicitly oriented around the gradual training and which arrives at monasticism as the optimal path to achieving this.

I am currently in the midst of medically transitioning (on HRT, pursuing various surgeries to alleviate chronic and debilitating gender dysphoria, chiefly somatic), but I also want to live as a monastic and pursue the completion of the gradual training. Unfortunately, however, it seems like my options--especially for an environment suitable for the kind of development needed--are rather limited.

I don't like the idea that further transitioning forecloses my options in terms of what kind of lifestyle is feasible, but I also can't stop HRT (as it would cause things to worsen greatly) or leave my dysphoria untreated by opting to not pursue surgeries in order to preserve my monastic eligibility. This would seemingly be a form of self-mortification given the kind of suffering it would cause as a result. Yes, the goal of the practice is to uproot suffering, but that doesn't happen immediately, and the misery in the interim is not erased.

I have (not unsurprisingly) not seen much discussion about this, but I did come across one or two posts here from people (one of whom was considering detransitioning to become a monk, and another who was advised to become a samanera if the preceptor/abbot would permit it; though I am unsure how they would then procure HRT assuming they took that) in similar-ish situations, but I was kind of hoping to get input from others who are in the same boat.

Hey there practioners so about my question i have been keeping 5 precpets for a couple of years with little gaps. I'm trying celibacy now (also been under addiction to adult content for few years as well). So i often hear about not welcoming thoughts and not delighting in it. But how exactly do i do it?

In my experience let's take example of sexuality. I may be having a ​unpleasant mood, boredom and i say get triggered by say social media , or i get thoughts of engaging in sexual content , or fantasies and what not. So sometimes what i do is not like think about the thoughts like try not fuel it as bhante says but I don't know if i am doing it correctly. I try to either steer my attention back to the present or to what I'm doing now or i may do something else like ignore it or whatever. What this leaves me with is the pressure there in my mind to think in that direction that i generally am unable to endure and it makes me act out unwise in verbal and bodily behaviour.

While yes​ I'm aware ​navigating this mental domain needs a beforehand establishment in not acting out from verbal and physical domain for long ​what i have been noticing is that say I'm away from all these thoughts and have not acted out during those times i may indulge in thoughts of the thing im restraining myself from slowly day after day it builds up and i end up back where i started. So i want to overcome this habit or this snowball effect. Because when say I'm acting continuously unwisely and breaking celibacy precepts say the mental domain is hard to see and the acting out is fast and hard to stop but after stopping for a while days or weeks it's easy to see all that happening in the mind.

For reference i haven't broken the precept of killing for years now ​and i dislike bugs but everytime i see a bug and a unwholesome thought pops up i instinctively remind myself to not kill it and remind myself that i have take a precept so that thought subsides and I don't act on the thoughts , ​also thoughts ​don't proliferate more after that moment. Is this how that unwelcoming is done? Am i wrong somewhere or is my entire understanding not correct? Is it all about practice again and again? ​My idea is that brute forcing ​first not breaking precpets on physical level and then verbal then once that is kinda manageable try to not welcome those thoughts (but here​ is where i fail ) so yeah any guidance would be very ​helpful. Thank you.

I've been through a lot in the last year, but it was usually easy to maintain perspective on things during the struggle. When things are bad for me it's easier to have faith/take things seriously simply because my suffering is so great and it's obvious how much help I need.

Now my meds have been adjusted and I'm finally feeling normal for the first time in almost a year. And while that sounds like great news, I've actually found myself playing more video games and I even broke my month long celibacy streak under almost no pressure.

What do you all do to maintain perspective during good times? Death contemplation? Asubha? Things have been bad for so long I don't know how to handle the good!

Greetings,

absolute beginner here:

I cant wrap my mind around the relationship between desire and greed. Or chanda, tanha and lobha.

So, if we analyze the act of acting:

There is the state of the world A (i am hungry). We want to change this to another state of the world B (i am saturated). The tool to reach this specific state is eating.

So we eat.

We can use this template for every action.
I cant see where there is the distinction between unwholseome (greed) and wholesome or neutral.

What are the criteria. Can I see them only in my practice by rigorouse selfquestioning? Is this intelectual approach completely misguided?

Or put it in other words: How can an arahant act?

Thank you for your help and your work!

Greetings.

I am new to this subreddit, but I have been watching quite a few of Hillside Hermitage videos.

I am a university student. I want to keep the eight precepts and attain the first Jhana so that I won't have to turn to sense pleasures for happiness. But it's really hard when I have schoolwork and my studies. I have tried withdrawing from sense pleasures but it was unbearable when paired with the stuff I have to do for school. By the way, by sense pleasures I mean music and entertainment, since that's what I mostly turn to. That's the precept I find the most difficult to deal with. I don't want my life to be only filled with just schoolwork. That's just horrible. I don't want to be some robotic slave to schoolwork.

I want to become a monk, but there's no Buddhist monasteries in my country. Also I don't want to waste my parents' money and effort. Things have already been set in motion for me in terms of my academic life.

I feel like I'd keep the precepts much more easily if I was a monk, or at least a novice.

I want to attain stream-entry and then arahantship because this world is just not for me. I have felt that way as long as I can remember, even before encountering Buddhism and even before encountering Hillside Hermitage. I have always felt lonely, isolated, and different. I don't want to follow the same path of academics and work as other people. I've tried being like others (due to societal pressures) and it has not made me happy and it has driven me to have mental issues. It's not only my own suffering that made me turn to Buddhism, but also the suffering of others. I don't see how people get joy from worldly achievements. I certainly haven't.

So what do I do now? I genuinely don't know how to move forward. Whether I practice the Dhamma or I don't practice the Dhamma, the point is that I don't want to be a part of this world and all its worldly matters such as academics, work, etc. Though I think the Dhamma is the way out, I may just be too weak for it. Haha. I can't bear sense restraint on top of doing school stuff.

I feel like most of the people here are older adults who have graduated university already and have jobs. And you people probably have stable lives with stable incomes and a good amount of money. It may be easy for you to say "just do your responsibilities while practicing sense restraint", since you're just given tasks in your work and don't feel the need to do more to, say, have a promotion. But as a student I think I need to genuinely work hard and try to get a good job. I need to be free from being dependent on my parents. I'm still young after all...

Also I think I will genuinely experience bad work and uni experiences in the future. I think the workload will just keep piling for me in my life. I'm still early in my university journey, far from graduating, and I may even take up masters studies and a PhD since that's what my "dream" job needs. (It used to be my dream job, but not anymore, it's just the thing I am most okay with now)

So what am I to do?
I am torn between renunciation and worldliness.
On one hand I feel disconnected from the world and see it as a sign renunciation is for me, but on the other hand I am still quite young and need to work hard to have a stable, independent life and I find it really hard to do so without music and entertainment.

Additional note: I have sleep issues so I think it's hard for me to sleep on the floor or on a hard mat, so I can't really keep the eighth precept. So at most I try to keep six precepts + celibacy.

I’m in a situation where I will likely not be able to ordain for the foreseeable future. As for 10, 15, 20 years down the line, IDK. We’ll see then. But for now I have to operate as though it won’t be viable, as I simply don’t know if it ever will be given my condition. And my situation isn’t going to miraculously resolve itself any time soon.

Given this, what is the best way forward? How do I prevent myself from being dragged into environments that lead to me breaking virtue, and like, what kind of lifestyle on a practical level should an aspirant lead if ordination is essentially foreclosed? What kind of career makes sense if your goal is to get as close to Nibbana as possible as a layperson? And what kind of living situation, rural more off-grid? I imagine that a passive income situation would be best. A truly renunciate lifestyle—wandering for alms—is viable, but I can’t see how that would work as a non-monastic. So what would be the best alternative?

I haven’t seen much discussion around this issue in particular, so I hope it can be useful to others as well.

I have been in conversation with an old friend for some time about the dhamma - at least my understanding of it.

I had spent some time uncovering some views he had tacitly due to the scientific culture we were bought up in. Since they were challenged, he seems more open to consider the possibility of future birth, the weight of which he seems to be realizing to some degree now.

Because of this he showed some interest in HH's teachings, except I had nowhere I could point for starters. The slovenian videos? The sri lankan videos?

Unfortunately, HH's teachings now, even though they seem more targetted towards beginners, feel even more difficult to enter than they were before. It feels almost as if someone needs the context accumulated across all 500 videos and years of trying to make sense of the suttas and their pali to really begin making any sense of the new videos.

I think this is because of the following reasons:

1. The format of the videos. They are conversations between the venerables themselves, in which there is a questioner and answerer. The questioner assumes the place of an abstract viewer, rather than actual live viewers.
2. The content of the videos. The content is often a part of the whole of HH's teachings, where how that part fits into the whole is only sometimes mentioned, or when it is, it is overriden by the multiplicity of topics covered.
3. The lack of hierarchy in the videos. The videos seem like a bunch of topics concatenated together: A B C D E F ..., which is natural since IRL conversations flow without hierarchy; as new questions come up, the topics change. But this is extremely costly on the viewers because, in my estimate, every video has at least 15-20 topics changes. Viewers have to hold context of the discussion, see how it might be related to the multiple changes that previously occurred, process incoming discussions, remember very important bits. The same video may go from talking about sati, to yoniso manasikara, to a sutta, to sense restraint, to avijja, to another sutta, to meditation techniques, etc. This means the very important parts of the video, say topic B, F, H, are lost since the video is so linear.

This may be compared in contrast to a pre-planned video on a subject that has an explicit hierarchy.

Say there is a doctor who is giving an update on the medication plan to their patient over a 20 minute video. They plan that the starting 5 minutes are for introducing the purpose of this new plan; how it fits into the overall plan of recovery. The next 5 are for addressing existing medication. The next 10 are for new medication.

In the new medication, they will have 5 minutes for what the new medication is, why it's needed, and its sides effects. The next 5 for how to use it.

There is a clear hierarchy here. Three top-level topics: context, current medication, new medication. And the 3rd has two sub-topics: Introduction, application.

Compare this to if the doctor made a 1 hour video in conversation with another doctor. They begin by introducing the new medication, then the research paper that supports this, then the research papers that don't support this medication and the issues with them, then the context of the new medication, then some new research papers, then the application of the new medication, then the side effects, then its purpose, etc.

Of course, it is completely up to the venerables on whether this is of any benefit. But I think it would be very beneficial to existing members and to others outside the community willing to learn to have a course-like presentation of the core of the dhamma by HH, that builds from ground up.

The whole of HH's teachings can be divided into positive and negative parts. The positive is concerned with their own views, the negative with addressing views that will obstruct others from understanding/considering HH's positive views.

The positive part is concerned centrally with the HH's aim: to teach for the uprooting not management of suffering. Then this would be split off into two branches that elaborate on this distinction: on management and on uprooting.

In order for newcomers to understand why management is problematic, they must understand how HH understands the actual uprooting of suffering. So it is possible to start off from the uprooting branch and address that as its own topic in a video.

This branch would address what the root of the problem is (craving), what the solution is (removing craving), and how that solution is implemented (i.e., it would introduce the notions of the four noble truths and the five aggregates).

Then it's possible to more easily make sense of what management is (namely, everything that is not addressing the root), and why it's problematic (it doesn't address the root).

Then one could exit the positive branch and address the negative branch. Chiefly, meditation techniques.

The course/series could be divided in 3/4th part to the positive part, and 1/4th to the negative. In the positive, 1/2 is spent on uprooting, 1/2 on management. And the same hierarchical division goes down more and more, and every video would itself be just another hierarchical division.

This would just be one among many ways of presenting HH's central views. But I personally think this would help save much time on both HH's part as well as on the viewers' part due to the clarity it can bring.

If you sit or lie down with eyes closed and just rest for long enough, eventually the thoughts begin to slow down and the mind settles on effortless awareness of the body breathing. The clarity of the mind increases significantly if you practice it regularly. I think this is how Buddha experienced jhana when he was still a kid chilling under a tree.

Does Hillside Hermitage support such meditation? In my experience it

This might not make sense to anyone besides me but in some sort of synesthetic way I experience yoniso manasikara as being “on the left,” while sense restraint feels like it’s “on the right.” I think it might have something to do with the brain’s hemispheric lateralization. I’d be curious to know if anyone else experiences this.

If this post is too off-topic I apologize.

Hi everyone,

What do you make of Mount Meru (or Sineru) in the Suttas?

If the Buddha had direct knowledge of past lives, vast spans of time, and world systems, how should we understand the cosmology described in the texts?

I have been feeling rather demoralized lately with the practice. This is due to struggles in other areas of my life, but the path feels insurmountable while I stand here near the beginning (solid 5 precepts and celibacy, dabbling in the 8 precepts)

I wonder if I just need an attitude adjustment. Instead of seeing "this is where I'm falling short" perhaps I could see "look at how much I've already given up." What are others thoughts? Words of encouragement?

I have an upcoming surgery and I'm wondering if taking opioid painkillers afterwards is wise. Are medicinal intoxicants mentioned in the commentary at all?

Hey, so since losing the internship I previously had, I've been applying to other ones now that more jobs are coming out. Both through my university's board and externally.

I've got an software engineering interview coming up for one next Monday for a local business, which likely won't have a very technical process. I'll be competing with only 3-4 other university students. These students are looking for a job right now and chances are that's because they had no previous experience; most of the students at my unviersity have already found jobs through the program right now and started working.

Given all this, I can infer that I'll likely get accepted for the role since I have actual experience; unless I'm a culture mismatch, like I was for another gaming company. Though I doubt that'll be the case here.

The job description of the business, however, is underwhelming. I'm very sure none of the tasks will challenge me technically speaking. The business also doesn't provide software solutions primarily, so software is a secondary aspect, which means I likely won't be able to move within the business to different areas to grow technically.

But, from the dhamma point of view, this is great. Since the business isn't moving fast, especially technically, it means work life balance will likely be great. The business also seems to be looking for long-term employees given all the people working there have been there for more than 5+ years. The pay is also alright (~60k/year).

But I'm not sure whether I should prioritize the dhamma right now or later? My plan was to get a job that'd pay around 100k yearly, work for 4-5 years to save money for my family, and then ordain since I wouldn't be having this insurmountable feeling of debt to them. Of course, I'd still try my best to keep the precepts (failing right now) and be secluded within this.

If I accept this offer, and don't work on improving myself technically outside of work, it'll be fairly difficult for me to secure a better paying job in the future after graduation. But, if I do well, I can likely get a return offer there and stay for a long time, since that's what the culture there seems like.

Before, I was thinking of altogether not even interviewing for it because of how easy the work sounded and the limited opportunity it provided. But then I asked myself why I was looking for worldly growth so much? And what the limit for that growth should be? And since I wasn't able to answer them, and remembered the sutta where the Buddha was said to be the 'destroyer of worldly growth', I decided to reconsider my views on what I should be doing.

Currently, I'm thinking that if I get the offer, I'll accept it and just do open source work at the side, and study over weekends to eventually get some certifications. This way, I'll have an income with good enough work life balance to afford physical seclusion, whilst also not effectively destroying career.

But on the other hand, I have online assessments for other companies that are far more reputable, that I might be able to pass since I've been practicing for technical interviews. Getting into these would also likely give me far superior technical experience. But I'm not sure what my chances are for actually getting an offer from them right now. So pretty confused with what to do with these in the current situation.

Would appreciate any perspectives on this.

How come the Buddha saw a sick man, an old man, and a dead man, and that was enough for him to understand everything, yet we see them every day and we still don’t get anything? Everyone knows that everything passes and everyone dies, but who actually penetrates into the discernment and responsibility of these terrifyingly banal facts? We have an overwhelming amount of information that the Buddha did not have and which the modern age fortunately brings with it, that makes it utterly impossible not to be convinced of the fact that this world is a living hell that must be abandoned and not partaken in at any cost. Take any subject from history, astronomy, or biology, for example, and contemplate what it means to exist on a rock thrown into a void, maintained by an extremely fragile atmosphere being bombarded constantly by sun rays, existing in an essentially infinite universe, or what it means for there to have been 50 million casualties in a single world war in which the entire world was almost destroyed, and which was actually not so far back in the past as well (and which is on the brink of repeating itself quite soon again). Unrest is the mark of existence itself; anything which exists, whether biological organisms or planets, exists only in an extremely fragile balance of constant changes which maintain life in the state it is in and which can be perturbed at any given time (just like how the planets would fly into the sun if they stopped their orbit). My organism maintains itself only to the extent that it can function as a subtle balance of constant transformation of substances and biological processes, of forces and counterforces which mutually negate each other, while the most microscopic change within my organism or the smallest excess in such a force would be enough to wreck the entire balance, essentially collapsing my entire existence. The most microscopic chemical change would leave me disabled and in pain, and the smallest perturbation would wreak havoc on my body for the rest of my life, not to speak of the changes occurring in the macrocosm, of massive tsunamis and volcanoes erupting all the time, in the face of which my body is merely dust. The time I have is extremely limited because a small alteration of these subtle and fragile biological processes maintaining my life as it is is doomed to happen, and is actually immanent, like a pole which is barely maintained in balance and is destined to fall at some point, and thus it is not a thing that will happen in the very far-off future anymore, but more so right in the next moment, as an ever-present structure of collapse. Dying, infirmities, injuries and suffering are absolutely inevitable.

Yet nothing in our lives is shaken up and our existences are still not utterly shipwrecked by realizations that should have done just that. Any medic who has seen a cadaver in his life should have felt himself completely isolated and exiled from the entirety of Creation itself, yet anyone would probably just go along fine with their lives, very easily managing to be conceiving these horrific facts and inauthentically "transcending" them. However, once you have gained a renewable intuition of your own nothingness and ever-present fragility, everything is irremediably lost forever and nothing can be redeemed ever again; there is nothing to look forward to except your own grave. You do not belong to anything in the entire universe anymore—family, friends, vocations, or aspirations—since you are utterly alone with your own death, which you cannot escape, and it is just there on your doorstep, immanent to every second in your life, as if one were thrown into an existential solitary confinement that cannot communicate with the external world anymore, confined in a box with very little space for breathing, from where one is utterly isolated, and from where one cannot talk to people from the outside anymore. What in this world could matter for the person who already feels as if they’re merely waiting to head to the grave at any second now and cannot return to “life” again, and who would be wise enough to substitute the “beautiful views” and “nice experiences” one gets in daily life that make it seem as if it’s worth continuing, with the extremely confining, suffocating, agonizing perspective that the meditation of death, for example, brings with it, and sitting with that perspective for the rest of one’s life as if it’s the only thing worth ever paying attention to, as the only thing that should be the source of one's peace? It is to be terrifyingly alone and confined; everything which breathes is merely a sign of one’s own ultimate uselessness and eventual destruction, as the contemplation of one’s mortality should very well be revealing. Yet our perspectives remain immensely telescoped, and we remain interested only in maintaining and protecting our very small “spaces” in the entire universe, as if they meant everything, while absolutely everything is showing how we actually nothing and are utterly insignificant. Everything is convincing me that I am nothing, yet my existence is the only one that seems to be real

How come, however, that we can understand all this, that many people in the medical domain and not only get to see these things for themselves and have probably seen more than enough things to be aware of the absolute contingency and suffering of existence itself, yet nothing is absolutely perturbed in our daily lives nor in our fundamental attitude toward the world, and everything flies past our heads? How can one stop “misconceiving” suffering, effectively externalizing it from oneself, and how does one see it for what it is (as the Buddha did in the beginning) so that an understanding of being prey to suffering can be fully uncovered? Why is it so hard to arrive at such a perspective, and how can one undo the conceivings that make suffering and impermanence not be understood, that make any attempt at reflection of one's inevitable destiny, not sink in so deeply, if at all?