The Pali Canon contains a puzzle on the topic of truth (sacca). On the one hand, there are passages teaching the four noble truths and asserting that these truths are categorical—i.e., universally true across the board (DN 9). There are also passages equating the attainment of awakening with the “attainment of truth” (MN 95). On the other hand, there are passages like these, from the Aṭṭhaka Vagga (Sn 4), implying that the Buddha was beyond holding to any assertions as “true” or “false”: Of … [Read more...]
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
One Tool Among Many: The Place of Vipassana in Buddhist Practice
What exactly is vipassanā? Almost any book on early Buddhist meditation will tell you that the Buddha taught two types of meditation: samatha and vipassanā. Samatha, which means tranquility, is said to he a method fostering strong states of mental absorption, called jhāna. Vipassanā—literally "clear-seeing," but more often translated as insight meditation—is said to be a method using a modicum of tranquility to foster moment-to-moment mindfulness of the inconstancy of events as they are … [Read more...]
Putting Down the Burden
The Buddha’s Awakening gave him, among other things, a new perspective on the uses and limitations of words. He had discovered a reality—the Deathless—that no words could describe. At the same time, however, he discovered that the path to Awakening could be described, although it involved a new way of seeing and conceptualizing the problem of suffering and stress. Because ordinary concepts were often poor tools for teaching the path, he had to invent new concepts and to stretch pre-existing … [Read more...]
All About Change
Change is the focal point for Buddhist insight—a fact so well known that it has spawned a familiar sound bite: “Isn’t change what Buddhism is all about?” What’s less well known is that this focus has a frame, that change is neither where insight begins nor where it ends. Insight begins with a question that evaluates change in light of the desire for true happiness. It ends with a happiness that lies beyond change. When this frame is forgotten, people create their own contexts for the teaching … [Read more...]
A Verb for Nirvana
Back in the days of the Buddha, nirvana (nibbāna in Pali) had a verb of its own: nibbuti. It meant to “go out,” like a flame. Because fire was thought to be in a state of entrapment as it burned—both clinging to and trapped by the fuel on which it fed—its going out was seen as an unbinding. To go out was to be unbound. Sometimes another verb was used—parinibbuti—with the “pari-" meaning total or all-around, to indicate that the person unbound, unlike the fire unbound, would never again be … [Read more...]
Food for Awakening: The Role of Appropriate Action
The Myth of Bare Attention The Buddha never used the word for “bare attention” in his meditation instructions. That’s because he realized that attention never occurs in a bare, pure or unconditioned form. It’s always colored by views and perceptions—the labels you tend to give to events—and by intentions: your choice of what to attend to and your purpose in being attentive. If you don’t understand the conditioned nature of even simple acts of attention, you might assume that a moment of … [Read more...]
Mindfulness Defined: Street Smarts for the Path
What does it mean to be mindful of the breath? Something very simple: to keep the breath in mind. Keep remembering the breath each time you breathe in, each time you breathe out. H. Rhys-Davids, the British scholar who coined the term “mindfulness” to translate the Pali word sati, was probably influenced by the Anglican prayer to be ever mindful of the needs of others—in other words, to always keep their needs in mind. But even though the word “mindful” was probably drawn from a Christian … [Read more...]
Freedom from Buddha Nature
“What is the mind? The mind isn’t ‘is’ anything. ” —Ajaan Chah “The mind is neither good nor evil, but it’s what knows good and knows evil. It’s what does good and does evil. And it’s what lets go of good and lets go of evil. ” —Ajaan Lee A brahman once asked the Buddha, “Will all the world reach release [Awakening], or half the world, or a third?” But the Buddha didn’t answer. Ven. Ānanda, concerned that the brahman might misconstrue the Buddha’s silence, took the man aside and gave him … [Read more...]
Perennial Issues
Toward the end of World War II, Aldous Huxley published an anthology, The Perennial Philosophy, proposing that there is a common core of truths to all the world’s great religions. These truths clustered around three basic principles: that the Self is by nature divine, that this nature is identical with the divine Ground of Being, and that the ideal life is one spent in the quest to realize this non-dual truth. In the years since Huxley published his anthology, the idea of a perennial … [Read more...]
Getting the Message
Ajaan Thanissaro (Geoffrey DeGraff) has been a Theravadin monk since 1976 and is the abbot of Metta Forest Monastery in San Diego County, CA. The Buddha is famous for having refused to take a position on many of the controversial issues of his day, such as whether the cosmos is finite or infinite, eternal or not. In fact, many people—both in his time and in ours—have assumed that he didn’t take a firm position on any issue at all. Based on this assumption, some people have been exasperated … [Read more...]
