Posted by: Dhammañāṇa
« on: July 26, 2019, 09:18:48 PM »In the Eyes of the Wise: The Buddha’s Teachings on Honor & Shame , generously given by Bhante Thanissaro, is btw. a nice short support on the "self-therapy-pattern", introduced by the Buddha.
There is also a very resent essay by Bhante. My person haven't read it yet in detail:
Several years back, I led a retreat in Santa Fe on the topic of karma. One of the readings was a passage in which the Buddha teaches his seven-year-old son, Rahula, how to examine his actions, as he would his face in a mirror, to make sure that he harmed no one—neither himself nor anyone else. One of the retreatants was a therapist who, the day after the retreat, was scheduled to hold the final meeting of a therapy group she had organized for some of her clients. She decided to Xerox the Buddha’s teachings to Rahula (MN 61) and share them with the group, to get their opinion on the Buddha’s parenting skills. Their unanimous verdict: “If our parents had taught us like that, we wouldn’t be needing therapy groups like this.”
What was striking about their verdict was that they arrived at it even though the Buddha’s teaching emphasized the need for Rahula to develop a sense of shame around his actions: If he didn’t feel shame at telling a deliberate lie, he was as empty of goodness as an overturned dipper was empty of water. If he realized that he had engaged in thinking that had harmed himself—or could lead to harm to others—he was to feel ashamed of those thoughts and to resolve not to repeat them....
There is also a very resent essay by Bhante. My person haven't read it yet in detail:
The Buddha Teaches His Son: An Essay on Majjhima Nikāya 61. This essay draws out some of the implications of the Buddha’s seemingly simple instructions to his young son.