Every Buddha image we see reflects such calm, amused acceptance, it is not easy to appreciate just how radical a figure Siddhartha Gotama Buddha really was. Yet when we look closely at the ways he acted in the world he inhabited, and at the teachings he left behind for us all to follow, I think it fair to say the Buddha was one of the more radical humans ever to have walked the earth. The word “radical,” according to a pocket dictionary at hand, most simply means “favoring fundamental … [Read more...]
True & False: Dharma After the Western Enlightenment
Insight Journal: How do Western Buddhists, in spite of our many modern views, take their forms too literally? Rita Gross: Since I often teach in a Mahāyāna setting, let me use an example from that tradition. According to Mahāyāna legend, the Buddha hid his Mahāyāna teachings in the realm of the nāgas, serpent-like creatures who dwell under the sea, because his students were not yet ready to receive them. Eventually these teachings were retrieved by the great 2nd-century master Nāgārjuna. This … [Read more...]
The Arrows of Thinking
Papañca & the path to end conflict In a striking piece of poetry (Sn 4:15), the Buddha once described the sense of saṃvega—terror or dismay—that inspired him to look for an end to suffering. I will tell of how I experienced saṃvega. Seeing people floundering like fish in small puddles, competing with one another— as I saw this, fear came into me. The world was entirely without substance. All the directions were knocked out of line. Wanting a haven for myself, I saw … [Read more...]
Mindfulness & the Cognitive Process
If sati, mindfulness, is not there in ordinary life, it is not working. If it is only there on retreat, and absent in your daily life, this is also problematic. What makes this integration so difficult is that taṅhā, desire or craving, is not just something added to our experience: It is literally built into our cognitive process. We are, if you will, born with the pathology of desire. Part I: The Pathology of Desire Craving, or taṅhā in Pali, is the central problem identified by the … [Read more...]
Getting Out of the Romantic Gate
Ajaan Thanissaro--whom many of our readers know well either from his courses at BCBS and/or from his prolific translations, commentaries, and transcribed Dhamma talks--has been studying and writing about how Romantic and Transcendentalist thought have affected Western understanding of Buddhadhamma for some time. He has deep familiarity with the relevant Western philosophical traditions, and this, combined with his first-hand understanding of Dhamma texts and practices, makes him an extremely … [Read more...]
Deep Dukkha
Getting Down in the Trenches with the First Noble Truth In his book, Venerable Father: A Life with Ajahn Chah, Paul Breiter tells the story of an encounter with Ajahn Chah after the latter had just completed two successive nights of long Dharma talks. As Ajahn Chah was walking away from the meditation hall, he said to Breiter, “Anicca, dukkha, anattā—I can’t listen to any more!” As most Buddhist practitioners know, anicca, dukkha, anattā—impermanence, suffering, no-self—refer to the three … [Read more...]
We Are Constructed Through Metaphor
While mindfulness meditation shows us that language pervades our mental experience, some of those who analyze human experience have long felt there was even more to it than that. Recent analyses of language suggest that metaphor is not just a type of language use but the very structure of language—and therefore thought—itself. From there, we are not far from seeing that what we regard to be “self” is largely constructed through language. Craving, clinging, and attachment are much stronger … [Read more...]
Seeing the Wheel, Stopping the Spin
As the morning star rose and the Buddha achieved his great insight, tradition tells us, he saw all at once the matrix of causes and conditions that result in human experience: a swirl of interdependent physical and mental events repeating over and over, creating dukkha (suffering). Because he saw so clearly, he also saw how to end the suffering: nibbāna. One could stop the spinning cycle forever. Its dynamic nature—its seeming strength—was also the gate to freedom. One of the most important … [Read more...]