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 […]
Tag: atomic essay
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 so as to avoid 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…
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 […]
Edit: If you want to start with Part 1, that’s here. The meditation teacher Leigh Brasington wrote a book on Dependent Origination which he self published and made available for Dāna on his website. He kindly (and enthusiastically!) read my previous post on DO and Conditionality. With his permission, here’s an image we cobbled together: A few […]
In Part 1 we talked about motivation for starting an Independent PhD. But why an Independent PhD rather than a classic, Institutional PhD? I describe my Independent PhD as “Four-ish years of study, practice, and discourse that culminates in a book no-one will read.” But the beauty of an Independent PhD is that it doesn’t have to be four […]
You probably know the Indian parable of the Blind People and the Elephant (Ud 6.4), where a group of folks who are blind-since-birth are brought together ’round an elephant. I propose a different ending. What if, instead, the blind people figure it out by working together?
Part 1 – Are there two Nibbānas?
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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 […]
Greetings, Friendlies! The writing challenge continues; taking a quick zoom out and spending a few sessions writing about the Independent PhD as the container for this Dharma PhD gig. I don’t know if y’all are interested in this material; maybe anything that is not a sutta spreadsheet is anathema? Let me know if that’s the […]
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MN 122 – Translation Comparison
Greetings, Friendlies! This month’s homework for the Bodhi College CPP is MN 122, The Longer/Greater Discourse on Emptiness. As previously, I’ve compiled a spreadsheet comparing translations between Sujato, Ñanamoli, and Ṭhānissaro: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1J23pjMQkIRkus0LOthLGtHriaZA6Pq4UTwjVaD0umlo/. Exciting stuff. Structure The sutta is not divided into chapters but seems to discuss 9(ish) different things: Mendicants should not allow themselves to […]
(TL;DR: No. Pain is not Vedanā.)
When I first began studying Dependent Origination, it was not clear to me where DO (paṭiccasamuppāda) ended and Conditionality (idappaccayatā) began. Today it’s a little more clear; here’s what I think, and why I think it matters: Conditionality (idappaccayatā) is the way the world is. All phenomena are dependent on (conditioned by) other phenomena. The […]
I’ve recently learned of the writing workshop Ship 30 for 30. The structure is writing <250 word "Atomic Essays" every day for 30 days.
Dharma PhD 