But, Shannon, isn’t Hemisphere Lateralization just a handy reframe for neuroscience-junkies? I’m glad you asked. :) We’ve already considered HemLat as a powerful explanatory model. But if that were all it offered it might sit—more or less comfortably—alongside other dhammic explanations. For example, I once told a teacher on retreat that I was nauseous and […]
Category: Practice
Greetings, Friendlies. :) For some Dhamma folk, discussions of “brain hemispheres” and “neural algorithms” elicits an instant—perhaps bodily—contraction. The resistance seems to come from a belief that the richness of human experience, the sacredness of being, is being reduced to mere mechanism. But that view is itself reductionist: “Either I must throw off the knowledge […]
Greetings, Friendlies. :) I play improv. It’s a kind of make-believe for grownups. If you know the TV show “Who’s Line is it, Anyway?”, that’s improv. Kalyana-mitta express surprise when I refer to improv as sīla practice. How could such undignified behavior qualify as ethical training? Where are the robes? Where are the cushions? Where […]
Greetings, Friendlies. :) It is my understanding reading the suttas that all this bhāvanā stuff, this eightfold path stuff, does in fact have a goal. Awakening. Bodhi-pattī. I have not, however, found a satisfyingly simple answer to the question, “What is awakening?” Some will say this is because there is not a satisfyingly simple answer […]
Greetings, Friendlies. :) In some dhamma traditions a type of bhavana (cultivation/meditation) is practiced that goes by names like Bare Attention, Open Awareness, Choiceless Awareness. Presently I prefer Christina Feldman’s “Simple Knowing”. From her book Mindfulness: a way of attending where no judgment or narrative is added to the experience of the moment. A thought […]
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.
This is one of a series of transcripts of talks I have found particularly helpful. This talk was made available by Audio Dharma; the talk is available here: Metta as a Path to Awakening (Part 1). AudioDharma.org 0:00 The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California, please visit our website at […]
This is one of a series of transcripts of talks I have found particularly helpful. This talk was made available by Audio Dharma; the talk is available here: Metta as a Path to Awakening (Part 1). Insight Meditation Center 0:00 The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California, please visit […]
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_).
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, […]
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 […]
Part 1 – Are there two Nibbānas?
Categories
On Anurodha, “Liking”
In your day-to-day, off-the-cushion experience, what part of the 12-link Dependent Origination cycle (12-nidanas) do you notice most readily? I ask because I think it may be the case that many of us spend our days “liking” stuff or “disliking” stuff. But liking/disliking is not in the 12-nidanas. When I first began learning about Dependent Origination I was surprised to […]
(TL;DR: No. Pain is not Vedanā.)
Buddha-Stiftung, a Secular Buddhist organization in Germany, will be hosting two online events with Stephen Batchelor on the topic of Human Flourishing. From their email:
Categories
On Maps and Terrain
When the map and the terrain disagree, trust the terrain.
Earlier this week I was chatting with a friend and the Five Precepts came up. (Because that’s the kind of Dharma Dorks we are…) They said the Fourth Precept, “I undertake the training-precept to abstain from false speech”, is the most important. Because, they said, if you behave according to all the other precepts, you’ll […]
Greetings, Friendlies! Episode 8 is ready for you. Jeff helps me with my CPP homework on MN26, the Ariyapariyesanā Sutta. It’s not a deep dive like in this post; instead we talk about what it might look like to apply the theme of the sutta in daily life. As always, send us a line; we’d […]
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 […]
Categories
Life Is a Bridge
Life is a bridge. Cross over it, but build no house on it. ~ Jennifer Louden
Last year my dharma practice transmogrified. Let’s call this Part 1: What Happened. I had been practicing in a general way for some years. Omnivorous, secular, hot on cognitive science and evolutionary psychology while grazing here and there the texts and contemplative practices of various religious traditions. Rummaging around in the dharma bin, but unable […]
Dharma PhD 