Greetings, Friendlies! A swerve into classical philosophy. :) Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) initially proposed the concept of “noumena”, contrasted with “phenomena”. Phenomena are what make up human experience. What we call objects and experiences, phenomena originate from our sensory perceptions (aka Saḷāyatana, sense doors, sight, sound, taste, etc), these perceptions are then formed into phenomena, ie, […]
Greetings, Friendlies! Last time we looked at some rather extraordinary examples of avijjā, of not understanding how our minds work. This time I’d like to share a case that struck me quite strongly, precisely because it was so much closer to home than the others. This case covered a former Johns Hopkins (JHU) student. She […]
Greetings, Friendlies! Following on from Pile of Provisional Positions 3, about the Classical View of Humanity, and the idea of Avijjā as not understanding how our minds work… In the two semesters I studied Cognitive Science at Johns Hopkins, the course that most blew my mind (and this is a high bar) was Cognitive Neuropsychology. […]
Greetings, Friendlies! Following on our metaphorical room cleaning: let’s begin by picking up the Classical Western View of Humanity. The Classical View seems important juxtaposed against what is possible with a more scientifically informed view. By scientifically informed, I mean, among other things, physics (itty-bitty physics all the way up to great big physics), ecology, […]
Greetings, Friendlies! I’d like to offer a framework for what it is I think I’m doing, and for what that might mean for you as a reader, how you might engage should you be interested in such engagement. The Classical PhD holds one advantage over the Independent PhD: inherent in the structure one is in […]
When I was small(er) my parents gave me the book, What to Do When Your Mom or Dad Says… Clean Your Room!. Part of a series titled “Survival Series for Kids” (Seriously. My poor parents.): A proto- Marie Kondo treatise. With better pictures. One begins by clearing off and making the bed. That is, establishing […]
Greetings, Friendlies! I harbor some baseless supposition (BS?) that classical dhamma education unfolds via a structure honed over, perhaps, several thousand years? Theories and practices presented in an order and at a pace curated and refined for generations. Practical. Reproducible. Safe. I have not been the beneficiary (or victim) of such a system; coming up […]
If I consider you as inside my tribe, I am naturally “good” to you. I will take care of you; I may even risk my life to save you or that which you love.
If I consider you outside my tribe, look out.
What I see as the fundamental problem, and what I am most interested in working on, is that we humans do not understand the kind of beings we are.
Greetings, Friendlies. :) For your consideration: what about translating Avijjā as “Mis-understanding”? “Ignorance” seems a little pejorative, “confusion” a little apathetic. Mis-understanding may sound odd at first, but in dhamma circles we do something similar when we speak of dis-ease. We are not speaking of illness, we are speaking of _not being at ease_. In […]
Previously we proposed that chemotaxis may be a precursor of vedanā and that holding this view (lightly) may contribute to a more embedded/interconnected understanding of human-beingness in the spectrum of life. This time I’d like to play with the idea that infusing an understanding of vedanā with a sense of taxis/movement can more coherently embed […]
Articulating an idea in the vedanā discussion: Sometimes dharma teachers note that a precursor of vedanā may be observed in organisms as simple as single-celled bacteria. These organisms move towards food (that which is beneficial) and away from toxins (that which is harmful). The term for this movement is “chemotaxis”. “Chemo” from the Greek “khemeia”, […]
Perhaps. Some dharma teachers claim there is no English equivalent for the Pāli “vedanā” . Although I do not know a word in common usage, there has been a word used in psychology since the 1930s, “valence”, that I think will do the job very well. [1] In (the HIGHLY recommended) How Emotions Are Made, […]
“if we want to focus our minds on serious and difficult things, we may at points have to take some radical steps – and to do things that will strike some people as odd and or even unwarranted.” ~Alain de Botton, How to Think More Effectively A few years ago I wrote about Gregg McKeowen’s […]
Chatting with a friend about Existentialism, Buddhist Ethics, Determinism, Free Will (because that’s the kind of nerds we are). Today’s position on determinism / free will: I come from a strongly evolutionary perspective, and a strongly materialist perspective. Should be logically hemmed into determinism. I also study ethics and attempt to cultivate (aka, re-wire my […]
Perhaps. Regarding Viññāṇa, I first heard the phrasing “Consciousness Of” from John Peacock’s “Buddhism Before the Theravada” series (Part 5, 53:45): “…consciousness is always a consciousness of…” something. That is, Gotama spoke of consciousness always having an object. (MN 38) “Consciousness is reckoned according to the very same condition dependent upon which it arises. Consciousness that […]
Dear Friendlies, Greetings! Writing in a rush, my fingers tangling in the keyboard. Please excuse if incoherent; excited. I think I’ve understood something (again), and wondering if any of you have advice in this direction. An aspect of my life that is lacking in cultivation is the eleventh parami. Humor. Levity. Actually I think the best […]
In the Metta Sutta (Snp 1.8 and Khp 9) there is a line Gil Fronsdal translates “As a mother would risk her own life to protect her child, her only child”. The Pāli here translated as child is “putta”. John Peacock has said that this more accurately translates to “son” (see 1:11:22). My knowledge of Pāli […]
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. :)
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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 […]
