These remarks have been excerpted from a program offered at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies on November 13, 2005. We did a few different things together just now. We observed our breath. We used a certain kind of attention to incorporate the breath into a purifying practice, which is common in many Buddhist, especially Tibetan, traditions. And we were open to whatever images or memories or thoughts might arise for us. Then we began to focus on what we can, in general, call … [Read more...]
Working with Anger
Harvey Aronson
These thoughts have been extracted from a program offered at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies on November 12, 2005. One thing psychotherapy and Buddhist practice have in common is that they are both attempting to uncover our subjectivity and allow us to access a kind of emergent knowledge. A lot of the time we walk around with preconceptions about everything; we know how were going to be, we know how other people are going to be. Buddhist practice works to help us get out of these … [Read more...]
Fully Quenched
Andrew Olendzki
When Anāthapiṇḍika, the wealthy merchant from Sāvatthī, visited Rājagaha one time on business, he found the household of his wife’s family in great commotion and unable to greet him with their characteristic style. He was told by his host that the Buddha had been invited for a meal the next day, and all the preparations were for this momentous event. The sound of the Buddha's name, we are told, stopped Anāthapiṇḍika in his tracks. “Did you say ‘Buddha?'” he asked three times, as if sensing some … [Read more...]
Truth
Andrew Olendzki
This sort of structured discourse found in the Pali literature can seem like linguistic sleight-of-hand, but when one examines it closely and works with it in experience it shows itself to be an insightful and practical guide for finding one’s way among the tangle of views and opinions passing for truth in our world. We cannot help but base much of our belief on insubstantial grounds, but we can avoid the pitfall of regarding our knowledge as definitively true until we have verified it directly. … [Read more...]
Getting the Message
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
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...]
Deep Listening: An Interview with Gregory Kramer
Greg Kramer
Gregory Kramer is the director of Metta Foundation in Portland, OR, (www.metta.org) and teaches Insight Dialogue meditation and Dharma Contemplation worldwide. I presume you didn’t graduate high school saying to yourself, “I’m going to spend my life teaching Dharma.” Might there have been a few steps between there and here? How did you get into all this, Gregory? Actually, I did graduate high school feeling a close affinity to the internal life. That’s just how I was as a kid. I didn’t … [Read more...]
What the Buddha Taught
Andrew Olendzki
One question that often comes up for the modern student of Buddhism is “What did the Buddha teach?” The short answer, it seems to me, is something like “Who knows?” It’s kind of like asking “What is a tree?” (or any other question, for that matter). There is just no getting at what something really is. All that can be said is what it looks like from this perspective or that point of view, which, when you think about it, is saying far more about ourselves than about the tree, or about what the … [Read more...]
