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Discourse Meta Practice

Dharma PhD (the podcast) Episode 9: Everything is Included in Dhamma Practice

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_).

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Discourse Practice Scholarship

MN 139, Part 4: On Political Discourse

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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Discourse Practice

Ajahn Nisabho, Culture War Pacifism: The Dhamma of Dolly Parton, 2023-04-15

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, […]

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Discourse Practice

Metta To Their Chair

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 […]

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Discourse Practice Scholarship

Transcendent vs Imminent Nibbāna. Is this a thing? And how does it impact practice? (Part 1)

Part 1 – Are there two Nibbānas?

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Discourse Practice Scholarship

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 […]

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Discourse Practice Teaching

Is Pain Vedanā? (And Why Does It Matter?)

(TL;DR: No. Pain is not Vedanā.)

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Practice Scholarship

Stephen Batchelor on Human Flourishing – Upcoming Online Events

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:

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Practice

On Maps and Terrain

When the map and the terrain disagree, trust the terrain.

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Discourse Practice

The Most Important Precept?

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 […]

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Discourse Practice Scholarship

Dharma PhD (the podcast) Episode 8

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 […]

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Discourse Practice Scholarship

Dharma PhD (the podcast) Episode 6

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 […]

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Practice

Life Is a Bridge

Life is a bridge. Cross over it, but build no house on it. ~ Jennifer Louden

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Discourse Practice

Dharma Practice, Transmogrified

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 […]