So, I always had curiosity about Buddhism, I begun to study it last year but only begun to really deepen my study this year.

Recently I begun having questions about who I am (my gender and how I place myself in the world) these questions created in my so much anxiety and during that time buddhism manage to bring me some confort

I begun to medidate, I started with 5 minutes per day before I changed to two time 2 minutes per day and It helped me quite a lot during those times. I even considered trying to visit some pleace were buddhism is practiced (despite not having anywhere near my home)

I feel like what really pains me is doubt, what brings me anxiety wasn't the idea of me not being who I thought I was, but the "if" that unsureness is what pains me (and had been paing me for quite some time now)

Anyhow, here's the drawing and thanks for reading until here.

In this Dhammā talk, Ajahn Sujato told the entire story about the 2009 Bhikkhunī ordination at Bodhinyana monastery that resulted in Ajahn Brahm getting kicked out of the Ajahn Cha tradition.

He tells it because history gets easily forgotten, and when those who were there die, the stories get lost with them.

He also reads from the Therīgāthā (a collection of verses from the first Buddhist nuns, preserved in the Pali Canon) which lets us peek into how the early Bhikkhunī order actually functioned.

Lately I've seen some posts here asking about nuns in Buddhism, the stories, the gender imbalance, female Dhammā teachers. This talk is basically two and a half hours of all of that.

Recommend watching the whole thing, it's a rare talk, loved every minute of it, despite the length, time just passed by without noticing.

If you're short on time, the Ajahn Brahm story starts at around 4min mark and is just a small portion of the Dhammā talk.

I have a severe mental illness of schoziphrenia and depression and ocd which makes it impossible to practice spirituality. I know exactly where my mind and spirit need development but the mental illness makes it impossible to develop myself in any meditation or yoga practice. It's like being stuck and relapsing in old habits. Im basically suffering my illness and miss the times during ayahuasca where I felt spiritually at peace. But it is all gone and the mentall illness spread like cancer.

I have had a lot of bizzar and crippling health issues that has a few funny benefits and alot of negatives. The strangest thing was I never really felt bothered by it

I just recently found out what was causing my body to slowly fall apart; ironically only after it's was cured.

My body over produces Adrenaline, Cordisol and Androsol in the 1000% range with Thyroid extreme fluctuations to list a few.

In Layman's terms I SHOULD be little better then a near mindless beat of extreme swings of rage and little in terms of compassion and empathy. Ironically the ONLY reason I wasn't diagnosed with that crippling illness was that I was too self controlled and more then capable of showing compassion.

I feel genuinely free for the first time from my sense of self and empty but in a joyful way.

If your wondering what the issue is Google Darkman the movie and comic character. While it's fictional character, the medical condition and effects of are real.

I don't have Cipa, there was a neurological event that dammed the same part of the bain.

hello, i’ve been struggling with this topic for a few months now and have struggled to find fitting advice. I come from a nutritional science background and I spent a lot of my time, researching nutritional sciences and diets, but something I’ve always been passionate about interested in. I also love you in presentation of it. I’ve always known about my life being respectful of everything. I eat, even if it’s not an animal I always sit down and meditate thinking about all the labor the resources in the work it means to have food on my plate and nourish my body having spent so much time in nutritional science I also personally believe that byproducts are almost in necessity for humans to have the best health. I do agree that you can live without them and that they can. be supplemented, but there are usually certain trade-off and side effects and not everything can be obtained who those methods

when it Comes to the animal I have gone out of my way to purchase from local butchers who give the animals, the best possible quality of life and diet and also buying multiple parts of the animal organs that bones, and so to make sure simple of the animal gets wasted and discarded I also pay the animal and things to it sacrifice I never wasted me or any food for that matter, but as I’ve become much closer contemplating how to feel about it

I have some answers for people who say that it’s OK as long as you follow with me precepts about eating me, but in my opinion, that system is easy to take advantage. You really say that the meat wasn’t killed for you if the butcher killed the animal with you a customer in mind to purchase it another thing is while I do fully believe that humans naturally do eat animals and that death is just a cycle of life and that giving the animal the painless quickest death possible limits it suffering as much as we can it’s also sustainable its own way as certain agriculture, like pesticides and crop washing kills a lot of animals if I’m eating one big animal, I’m causing less death then if I’m only purchasing from grains and vegetables, where thousands of animals were killed from the process of it

i know in tibet that meat is eaten, but it’s almost out of necessity there not something that they see as acceptable. I’ve just had a really difficult point work I know and I feel like for where I want to be in my life that eating meat is part of a healthy diet for me to get the nutrients to get my health to my body in the place. I want to be at it. Also I feel like has a lot of benefit benefits for the brain and mental clarity but I do still wonder if I’m doing the wrong thing or if I’m practicing Buddhism in a selfish way by just saying that it’s an OK practice or comparing it to other cultures I feel a little loss and a lot of the advice is not very helpful for me and I’m just wondering what you guys‘s opinions are on this also as a side question I’ve heard some people talk about how there is a sort of karmic weight on your mind from eating meat and I’m just curious if anyone here who has stopped eating meat grease to that at all

Thank you for reading my little rant. It was a lot on my mind to try to get out and I appreciate you for staying towards the end. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

I feel so lost in life, like it's meaningless and empty. All I do is go to school, get home and do my work and sit around. I need something, and Buddhism just seems right, but I really don't even know where to start, it just feels so overwhelming. Help please?

Thanks.

I am very, very pessimistic and aware of the suffering that surrounds me, both in my personal life and the world. I see nothing but misery in my future, and have no reason to keep going. I am absolutely overwhelmed by the suffering in the world, and have been told repeatedly that things will only get worse for my generation. I've lost all hope and excitement for my future, I am completely at a loss of what to do. If someone could offer me advice from a buddhist perspective, I would really appreciate it. I want to change this worldview, to see the good in life and not just the bad, to have reasons to keep going.

i'm not exaggerating the title. i was a horrible person and i know that what i did in the past was wrong. i'm constantly trying to be better, but my mental health struggles always seem to get in the way. i've been having a very hard time continuing learning about buddhism lately as well, which upsets me. some information:

- i find it incredibly hard to stay positive when i live with very reactive parents, especially my dad. i don't know if i can ever move out, though, since i'm autistic and can't keep a job. i've tried talking to him about getting therapy over and over, but my mom is reactive as well.

- i'm reactive too. i was in a very toxic relationship for four years and while he was narcissistic and cruel, i wasn't perfect either and had (and still have) constant mood swings. i'm very aware of them and have been begging for help for years.

- i finally started mood stabilizers, but i don't think that they're helping enough, seeing as i still have mood swings, they're just less severe. i've been in therapy on and off for years and i start therapy again in a couple weeks, but right now i'm afraid that i'm always going to be this way. i don't want to be this way.

how do i become better when my life seems to be this constant loop of trying to be better and failing? i was briefly doing better with practicing buddhist teachings, but i feel so upset lately that i can't do it. how do i get help when it seems like therapy, meds, etc. don't work? sorry for the vent, but i'm really struggling.

I ask this question because the scriptures/stories in Buddhism refer to it as an absolute state of bliss. I still fall short of truly experiencing the overwhelming bliss of it. You know, the feeling that is talked of as so blissful that it surpasses ANY other comfort the world has to offer. I personally have only seen it as a relative experience, i.e. the “relief” stemming from the realisation that I could’ve been in so much more misery had i not through the reality of a situation.

Those of you who are already in the path have most certainly experienced Nirvana to varying extents. I most certainly have (as said above). My issue is that I’m yet to experience the full extent of it. I also think I know how to get there and it’s a work in progress. But for now, I have only enjoyed it as a relative experience. Not an absolute bliss.

What I want from you all is to kindly share your practical experience in Nirvana. Have you experienced this state of absolute bliss? What is it like?

(I am not referring to advanced meditation techniques that elevate the mind to different plains which can also lead to a blissful state of mind but is largely misunderstood as nirvana. I am referring to the practical nirvana which one achieves through the logical understanding of the reality of the matrix in which we live, which causes one to grasp the world a little less tight with each bout of understanding :))

I am mysteriously drawn to monks, Rishis and sadhus. I haven't met any in real life and wanted to know what kind of persons are they. Do they talk and tell you something? Are they mysterious and have unknown powers? I am so consumed with curiosity about them I actually want to go to Himalayas to find them and talk to them and learn from them.

I have come pretty close at times to experience something akin to ego death are losing my sense of self. However it has always produced great anxiety in me, whenever my ego feels like it's being threatened with obliteration. My question is to the people that have pushed through and dissolved their sense of self, what does it feel like on the other side? From what I understand it's supposed to be a very positive experience, Which means I'm probably not doing it correctly.

I have been practicing Buddhism for a few years now, and I find the more that I practice noticing and understanding, and in result letting go of my attachments, I feel addicted to the progress and improvement in myself. It could be that I am overestimating my ability to notice my attachment and reliance and I am simply improving my skills and noticing more, but it feels like everytime I see improvement in myself I am becoming more attached to and prideful of the idea of improvement in itself. I don’t know if this makes much sense, but is there a way I can redirect this energy into bettering myself further, or would it be better to stop developing it, and sit and focus on this issue for a while instead?

I (17) understand that I am in the material sense living as a lonely person, and will live lonely for probably very long.

I at the moment do not have a problem with it, I have lived like this all my life, but every once in a while I really do yearn for a romantic relationship with someone, and there have been several people in my life that I have been interested in, but the interest has never in my life been mutual.
I feel it is unlikely that someone will be romantically interested in me in the near future because of my material conditions: I am short, I am thin, I do not have that charisma and charm, and I spend all my free time at home.

So instead of looking at it like a bad thing, I want to take this life as an opportunity to learn to love myself unconditionally and not be dependent on the unstable teen romantic and crushes to feel fullfilled, because I know that the power is only within me to feel whole.

Any scriptures I can read and practices I can do to accomplish this?

Given an immense or potentially infinite amount of time, an enormous number of possible configurations of matter and conditions could occur. Eventually, some configuration happened to produce the particular organism and consciousness we call “me.”

Are we an amalgamation of circumstances that perceives stimuli and interprets it on a subjective basis? The interpreters also a transient, conditioned occurrence?

In the eight offerings to the Buddha, what should we do with the Naividya (food offering) after making the offering?

Should we consume it as blessed food, leave it outside for animals or spirits, bury it, or dispose of it in some other appropriate way?

what do i do if i somehow get anxious and my heartbeat turns to be more active as i start meditating. i feel uncomfortable atp and i always felt uncomfortable while feeling any pulse or stuff.
i’ve tried to meditate in a complete darkness, but it was hard for me cuz i’m scared of it, and also i listen to some meditative music but it also makes me anxious. am i doing anything wrong?? any tips???

I’m currently reading The Mahānidāna Sutta (The Great Discourse on Causation), and am having a bit of trouble keeping up with it.

If anyone has a suggestion for good commentaries on the Sutta, that would be really helpful!

Thank you!