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Discourse

PPP, Part 17, Saṅkhāra-ing? Fabricating?

Greetings, Friendlies. :) I notice I’ve started using the word “Fabricating”, which I inherited from Rob Burbea. I think (though I’m not certain) he’s talking about the fact of our minds fabricating/constructing experience, from the grossest levels of full-blown papanca all the way down to the subtlest levels of subconscious conceptualizing. And I think this […]

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cognitive science DharmaPhD Discourse

PPP, Part 13, Interpreter Module, Avijjā, Saṅkhāra

Greetings, Friendlies. :) What happens if we take the Interpreter Module, Avijjā (as mis-understanding how our minds work), and Saṅkhāra (as “principle of construction“), and puzzle-piece them together? At least one arrangement gives us an Interpreter Module which is receiving information that is, at best, limited and conditioned, at worst, inaccurate or grossly incomplete (Avijjā). […]

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Discourse Scholarship

PPP, Part 7.2, Talking About Saṅkhāra, Part 2, In Contradiction

Greetings, Friendlies! Continuing from last time in our Neighborhood of Make-Believe… Akincano Weber began that Saṅkhāra talk: The word “karoti” means “making”. “Saṅkharoti” means “making things together”, means compounding things, forming things, processing things with each other. …the noun saṅkhāra is applied to basically three aspects of a dynamic sequence. [1] It is applied to […]

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Discourse

PPP, Part 7.1, Talking About Saṅkhāra, Part 1, Trouble in Paradise

Perhaps. If it is the case that one’s understanding is demonstrated through clarity of instruction… then it may be we are in some trouble regarding the concept of Saṅkhāra. A particularly good example of a recurrent phenomenon: a 2022 retreat with Akincano Weber and John Peacock on Dependent Origination [1], the Saṅkhāra talk. Sixty-four minutes […]

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Discourse Scholarship

MN 139, Part 3: Safety of the Other

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 […]

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DharmaPhD

Some thoughts on “Bhava”, “Saṅkhāra”, “Habit”, and Basil Ganglia: Part 1, Untangling the Knot

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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Discourse Scholarship

Fight or Fall Away? Two Views on Habit Change.

Comparing Charles Duhigg’s and Judson Brewer’s positions on the Habit Loop and Habit Change.

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Discourse Scholarship

Dharma PhD (the podcast) Episode 5

Dharma PhD podcast Episode 5, hit the airwaves this morning. Yay! Come and have a listen while Co-host and I talk about John Peacock’s “Buddhism Before the Theravada, Part 4”. We talk about how, in Buddhist traditions (and maybe our own psychological traditions?) human experience is playing out on a backdrop of misunderstanding how our […]