Playing around with my smart phone and found you can make a lock screen out of just emojis. So… This is my kind of dhamma. Sure, dukkha. But it’s okay to have a sense of humor about it. May you hold your dukkha with a little levity. :)
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The Cosmic Type
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Live Immediately.
This sounds awfully familiar somehow…
Greetings, Friendlies! I was recently (re)introduced to a little practice in the vast sphere of Wise Communication (sammā-vācā) maybe worth sharing: If wise communication involves an openness, a willingness to hear and to understand, then the exercise is to notice the times when I am not able to do that. When I close off, when […]
Dear Friendlies, Greetings! Some of you will appreciate the pleasant vedanā I feel reporting that on “Discuss and Discover” (the Sutta Central Forum) Ajahn Brahmali is posting about his translation of the Vinaya Pitaka. He has also put out a request for comments on a draft of the introduction to the Bhikkhuvibhaṅga: I am currently […]
In Bhikkhu Bodhi’s essay on the Upanisa Sutta (SN 12.23), he writes this about the Pāli word “Nibbidā”, often translated “disenchantment” or, less to my taste, “disgust”. the word’s literal meaning [is] “finding out.” Maybe everyone already knew this. It was news to me. What? “Finding Out?” DuckDuckGo unearthed a 2003 article by Andrew Olendzki […]
Transcript for Episode 9 of Dharma PhD (the podcast); we talk about bringing a dhammic lens to the zombie apocalypse (ie, HBO’s TV Series, _The Last of Us_).
On the hunt for dhammic video editing mitta; apply here!
Akincano is sharing his essay “On Reading the Suttas”. Dharma PhD approved!
Perspective, Acceptance, Forgiveness, Gratitude. Thanks, science.
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MN 139, Part 5: Subhūti
Maybe it’s not really about Subhūti?
Continuing to unpack MN 139, On Avoiding Conflict (Parts 1, 2, 3)… recently Ajahn Nisabho gave a bonzer talk, Culture War Pacifism: The Dhamma of Dolly Parton. He spoke about engaging skillfully in political discourse, about not being caught up in the collective papañca of the culture wars. Might this bit in MN 139, about […]
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Jhāna-Walla
‘Nuff said.
There is a role for political discussion, for talking to people about what is meaningful. There is a role for political action and taking action. But when one is determining when and how to do that, it’s very important to understand that as practitioners of this path, you have stepped into a higher order narrative, […]
Bridging anthropocentricity, one bacteria-laden blog post at a time.
Heard this in a bonzer talk a few days ago. This is it, isn’t it? It’s about, if you’re a closed sort of person, it’s about how do we open up more? Even if I can’t open up to the person, I can open up _in the direction of_ the person. And just that little […]
MN 139, on avoiding conflict, could be divided into three themes: cultivating oneself, communicating with others, and seeking out good influences in one’s life. I didn’t catch this at first, but now I see in this second theme, Communicating With Others, Gotama encouraging us to speak in such a way that we allow our interlocutors […]
Greeting, Friendlies! Part of the tangle of ideas I spoke about in Part 1 comes from reading or hearing teachers or practitioners* use words in contexts such that I think they are referring to a territory near(ish) to Awakening. In this post I’d like to acknowledge these words and ask the hivemind what others might […]
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MN 139, Part 2: Synopsis
Cultivating oneself, communicating with others, and seeking out good influences. All this in the service of avoiding conflict. Sounds reasonable.
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MN 139, Part 1: How to Not-Conflict
Playing around with different translations for the sutta title. Parsing Pāli for fun and profit…
I’ve been thinking a lot about Awakening. What is it? How does one get there? What does one “get” from it? Why do I want whatever it is? Are these even the right kinds of questions to be asking?
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Within Yourself
Happy Birthday, Marvin.
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Mae West on Rebirth
Single lifetime liberation, yo!
My kind of meditation instruction. :)
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It’s Probably the Fifth Jhāna
Greetings, Friendlies! Please excuse the radio silence; took myself to the woods for a 25-night personal samadhi/jhāna retreat. For guidance I followed Rob Burbea’s excellent 2019 3-week jhāna retreat at Gaia House. I’ve worked with Bhante Vimalaramsi’s TWIM and Leigh Brasington’s (Ayya Kema’s) techniques; very much enjoyed the spin Burbea brought to the practice. I […]
There is nothing here that has not been explained beforeAnd I have no skill in the art of rhetoric;Therefore, lacking any intention to benefit others,I write this in order to acquaint it to my mind. ~Shantideva, A Guide to the Boddhisatva’s Way of Life, Translated by Stephen Batchelor
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The Eleventh Pāramī
During an Insight Dialogue Online session this week, the lovely Susie Clarion quoted someone saying A Sense of Humor might make a nice eleventh pāramī. I vote for Levity. :) PS: If you’re not doing Insight Dialogue yet, why not give it a try? PPS: In my iOS Pāli-English Dictionary, null results for both humor […]
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Especially Buddhism…
Brought to you by the inimitable Mr. Alan Watts. :)
Sometimes ideas get all wrapped up and around and through each other and a clever theory, when gently prodded, reveals itself a writhing, gnarly mess. Maybe this doesn’t happen to you? It totally happens to me. I think I understand a thing, I get all excited about it, I try explaining it to someone, or […]
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Hungry Ghosts
