This is one of a series of transcripts of contemporary talks which have particularly resonated with me. This talk was made available by Audio Dharma; the talk is available here: Buddhism Before the Theravada Part 6. Insight Meditation Center 0:00 The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California please […]
Author: Shannon M Whitaker
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Dharma PhD on Somebody Else’s Podcast
Greetings, Friendlies! I was recently interviewed by the extraordinary and delightful Ruriko Watanabe on her podcast, “自灯明法灯明 Be the light for yourself, let the Dharma be your light“. Ruriko is working to introduce Secular Dharma (Secular Buddhism?) into mainstream Japanese culture. She is currently interviewing participants from Stephen Batchelor’s 2021 12-week course “After Buddhism and […]
Greetings, Friendlies! Super fun news. Leigh Brasington, a meditation teacher best known for teaching jhānas, released a new book over the weekend. If you don’t already know him, Leigh is quite a character. Rather than going through the trouble of releasing through a publisher, he decided to self-publish and the ebook is available for dāna. […]
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Models of Perception
Sometimes a random note in a pile of paper opens up the most delicious rabbit hole. I offer you the fruit of an evening’s fall in to, and subsequent scramble out of, said hole. You’re welcome! [28DEC2021 Note: I mistakenly understood the Pāli word “Viññāṇa” to be translated as “Perception”. Today I realized I had […]
January Practice Daily 0.5-1.0 hour metta practice (TWIM-esque). As we prepare to move and upend our life, I’m finding my mind quite unsettled. For a few days I only practiced guided body scans; I found I needed the support of someone talking me through it. But eventually I was able to get back on the […]
Greetings, Friendlies. :) As promised, a new episode of Dharma PhD (the podcast) posted today. Nominally Episode 6 continues our discussion of John Peacock’s series “Buddhism Before the Theravada, Part 5”, but this episode was all over the map. So I took the liberty of diverging in this episode. We are still talking about Paṭiccasamuppāda […]
This is one of a series of transcripts of contemporary talks which have particularly resonated with me. This talk was made available by Audio Dharma; the talk is available here: Buddhism Before the Theravada Part 5. AudioDharma.org 0:00The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. Please visit our website […]
Intro Preparing for Dharma PhD (the podcast) Episode 6 I started in to my dictation software, “Today we’ll be talking about Paṭiccasamuppāda, sometimes translated ‘Dependent Origination’. Paṭiccasamuppāda is…” Pause. “Wait. What is Paṭiccasamupāda?” This is why it takes so long to produce a podcast episode. Wikipedia says Paṭiccasamupāda “is a key doctrine in Buddhism … […]
In Stephen Batchelor’s Buddhism Without Beliefs, the penultimate chapter, “Imagination”, begins with a quote by Richard Rorty: “[A] talent for speaking differently, rather than for arguing well, is the chief instrument of cultural change.” This is what Dharma PhD is all about, learning how to speak differently.
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We’re Back!
Greetings, Friendlies! BooBear and I have settled(ish) on the West Coast of the US. The cross country trip was _amazing_; Five Stars. Highly Recommend. This is just a quick touch to report that we’ve landed and that the Independent PhD progresses by leaps and bounds. Thanks to all of you who reached out; I can […]
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DharmaPhD is on Vacation :)
Greetings, Friendlies! Jeff and I are still in the process of relocating from the East Coast of the US to the West Coast. But I want to send out word that all is well; as soon as I stop galavanting and unpack household goods, we’ll get back into the business of broadcasting. In the meantime, […]
Comparing Charles Duhigg’s and Judson Brewer’s positions on the Habit Loop and Habit Change.
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Life Is a Bridge
Life is a bridge. Cross over it, but build no house on it. ~ Jennifer Louden
I’ll be attending Stephen Batchelor’s upcoming seminar series, hosted by Bodhi College, “After Buddhism and Beyond”. It is a twelve-part series, run in two semesters from February through the end of June. My understanding is that the series will consist of 3-hour course blocks of seminar, provided via Zoom. According to the series website, “Each […]
Dharma PhD podcast Episode 5, hit the airwaves this morning. Yay! Come and have a listen while Co-host and I talk about John Peacock’s “Buddhism Before the Theravada, Part 4”. We talk about how, in Buddhist traditions (and maybe our own psychological traditions?) human experience is playing out on a backdrop of misunderstanding how our […]
This talk was made available by Audio Dharma; the talk is available here: Buddhism Before the Theravada Part 4. If you’d like to explore further, we’ve produced a podcast episode about this talk (Episode 5, if you’re already subscribed). I’d love to hear what you think! Okay, okay. Just one more thing. A friend of […]
Greetings, Friendlies! Welcome to 2021! The 2020 Q4 summary is: experimenting. There were lots _and lots_ of experiments, big and small. The podcasting workshop closed down and I found myself without a dedicated Akimbo workshop for the first time since February. It was a little bit lonely, but there was much more space, less tending […]
This talk was made available by Audio Dharma; the talk is available here: Buddhism Before the Theravada Part 3. If you’d like to explore further, we’ve produced a podcast episode about this talk (Episode 4, if you’re already subscribed). I’d love to hear what you think! One more thing… a friend of mine said that […]
Bhante Vimalaramsi at Dhamma Sukha teaches a technique he calls “The 6Rs” for focusing attention during meditation. I’ve found it super useful for meditation, but also for daily life. I made a little modification, now it’s only 5Rs, and I talked about it in Episode 38 of Buddha Bites: When I first started working with […]
In preparation for this blog post, I reviewed the 2020 Q2 update and laughed outloud. The first sentence, “What a crazy busy quarter.” 2020 Q3. What a crazy busy quarter! :D The Akimbo Podcasting workshop was (as the Story Skills workshop was) transformational. I hate using language like that, but there it is. How so, […]
I’m in the midst of producing several Buddha Bites podcast episodes on Vedanā (aka Hedonic Tone Edit 2023: aka Feeling Tone). It’s challenging! Some deets about the process: As I wrote back in March, a 2019 retreat led by Akincano Weber and Dr. Judson Brewer hooked me on the implications of Vedanā. When I talk […]
We’re very much in experimentation phase here at DharmaPhD. To produce EP3 of Dharma PhDthe podcast, I used an audio editing program designed for podcasters called Descript. If you have three minutes and would like to smile, I cannot help but recommend their ad video. It’s delightful. But. The real thing to announce is that, […]
This post accompanies a podcast episode and a transcript of Peacock’s talk. I’d love to hear what you think. Happy reading! It is a lovely July morning. BooBear kisses me farewell and I, grinagog, board the Greyhound bus which is to spend the day ferrying me from Baltimore, MD to New York State. I trot […]
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Over on Insight Timer
I thought it might be useful to mention that I have guided meditations over on the Insight Timer app. Search “Cultivate“, which is the pseudonym I’m using to corral my teaching activities. (Ahem, cultivate.gg, ahem.) See you there!
This talk was made available by Audio Dharma; the talk is available here: Buddhism Before the Theravada Part 2. If you’d like to explore further, we’ve produced a podcast episode about this talk (Episode 3, if you’re already subscribed). I’d love to hear what you think! Okay, okay. One more thing… I made a very […]
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Quit Your Cliticizing
No, ladies and gentlemen et. al. That is not a typo. Today my dharma-vocab was upgraded. Thanks to the inimitable Anu Garg at A.Word.A.Day, I now know the verb “cliticize”, which means “To attach or become attached”. From one practitioner to another I beg you: Quit Your Cliticizing.
This talk was made available by Audio Dharma; the talk is available here: Buddhism Before the Theravada Part 1. If you’d like to explore further, I’ve also written a commentarial blog post about this talk and we’ve produced a podcast episode on it (Episode 2, if you’re already subscribed). I’d love to hear what you […]
I am writing this post in July, 2020, amidst a confusion of half-arsed quarantining efforts in the US. The edifice of US formal education is showing its cracks. For many, self-directed education is not only a viable option, it is the best possible option. Particularly for adult learners, and particularly for those adult learners for […]
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Dharma PhD Update, 2020 Q2
What a crazy busy quarter. on 12MAY I got an email from Seth Godin’s Akimbo program saying that the Story Skills Workshop was opening on 18MAY. My entire life got squeezed into 8-hour writing/workshopping/critiquing/responding. It was crazy. But. That workshop was one of the most important I’ve taken. It transformed my ability to communicate. As […]
Several folks have asked me about becoming an MBSR teacher. Thought I’d share this last draft of my response; it may be helpful to others. :) *******Dear Rachida, greetings! As promised, here is a brain-dump of my knowledge re: becoming an MBSR teacher (in English): Background: As you probably know, MBSR was developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn […]
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