"Attention, attention, attention!" —Zen Master Ikku's answers when asked for the source of the highest wisdom It helps to conceptualize meditation as an attentive art, so let’s start with meditation’s two basic categories. The first kind employs an effortful, sustained attention. This variety of concentrative meditation is the easiest to understand. It’s what we begin with and what we return to frequently during meditation. Concentration implies that we narrow our focus voluntarily. We … [Read more...]
The Sixth Sense
We are used to thinking of ourselves as autonomous agents experiencing an objective world that is out there, separate from us in here. This is as natural to us as breathing. Unfortunately such a view of the self inevitably brings with it a great deal of suffering. The Buddha has shown us how to overcome this suffering by teaching us how to see our experience of self more clearly. Following his guidelines, we can learn to see how we construct a sense of self from the raw material of experience. … [Read more...]
The Last Stronghold of Self
I find Buddhist practitioners to be quite good at establishing skillful intentions. We endeavor to keep the precepts, to rise up to the demands of daily practice, and to diminish sense desires. And this can be inspiring to witness. Our resolve is undeniable. Still, the thing I hear most often as a Dhamma teacher is how frustrating it can be trying to stay on course once we establish our intentions. We are constantly faced with patterns and habits that run contrary to our … [Read more...]
The Net of Brahmā: 62 Flavors of Wrong View (Dīgha Nikāya 1)
This chart outlines at a glance the first discourse of the Dīgha Nikāya, the Long Discourses of the Buddha, which lays out a number of different ways in which people can hold mistaken views about the nature of the self and of the world. The first eighteen views are based upon speculations about the past, while the final forty-four all have their root in speculation about the future. In both cases we see the drawbacks of “hammering it out with reason,” but we also see how easy it can be to … [Read more...]
The Five Spiritual Powers
Sarah Doering has had a long association with the Insight Meditation Society and with the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. On both boards for many years, she has been a devoted practitioner of insight meditation, and has been teaching at IMS for the past several years. Sarah is currently one of the resident teachers at the newly opened Forest Refuge. Three Month Retreat October 1999 For forty-five years after his enlightenment, the Buddha wandered about northern India teaching. … [Read more...]
Freeing the Mind
This article is excerpted from a talk given at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies on September 18, 1994. One of the most important teachings of the Buddha is the teaching about the nature of mind, the nature of awareness itself. Often in meditation practice we focus predominantly on the arising objects, like sounds, the breath, sensations, and thoughts. But another side of the practice is to also notice the nature of that which is being aware. Of course, that’s much more subtle. … [Read more...]
The Not-Self Strategy
This is a revised version of a talk given during the course on Background to Breath Meditation taught by the author at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies in February, 1993. Books on Buddhism often state that one of the Buddha’s most basic tenets is that there is no soul or self. Of course, different books qualify this tenet in different ways. Some say that, no, there is no self, but yes there is the moral principle of karma operating beyond death; others say, no, there is no separate … [Read more...]
Anatta: A Practical Approach
Like many practitioners, I have always found the teachings about anattā—or selflessness—hard to fathom. And the experience of anattā has always seemed elusive to me. (If there's no self, then who's writing this sentence?) So last fall, when I saw that Narayan Liebenson Grady's "old yogis" practice group at CIMC was about to take on the subject, I was intrigued. The group, which has been meeting since 1994, is for people who have been practicing for three years or more, and who have some … [Read more...]
Seeing the Truth of Freedom
Sharda Rogell has been teaching retreats at IMS for more than ten years. After living in England for the last three years, she will soon be moving back to the US. People have come to the practice by many different paths. What brought you to meditation, Sharda? When I was about 27 I was going through a very difficult time in my life and was experiencing an extreme amount of dukkha [suffering]. I was living in North Carolina at the time and was at a point where I really didn't have any … [Read more...]
Killing Me Softly with Dharma
About ten years ago I gave up the notion of ever being a successful manager. I vowed to never again work in a place where my job was to guide and support others. The suffering experienced in that position was too much to bear, and I gave up trying to work out how to manage it. Last year I started work as the Center Manager at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. Why did I change my mind? What happened? What part did my Buddhist practice play? Let’s go back those ten years. The corporate … [Read more...]