"In ancient times when seafaring merchants put to sea in ships, they took with them a bird to sight land. When the ship was out of site of land, they released the bird; and it flew eastward and westward, northward and southward, upward and all around. And if the bird sighted land nearby, it was truly gone; but if the bird saw no land, it returned to the ship." - Anguttara Nikaya 6.54 The word used here for "truly gone" is tathāgatako (translated by E.M. Hare in the PTS edition as "gone for … [Read more...]
The Interdependent Arising of Feeling (Insight into the Aggregates)
Today we are turning our attention to the second of the aggregates, the aggregate of feeling. Before we get very far, however, we will need to appreciate the fact that the Buddhists are using this word quite differently than we usually do in English. Our understanding of the word “feeling” has been molded considerably by the Greek influence upon Western civilization. The Greek philosophers tended to divide the person into three parts. First there are the appetites, the raw drives like … [Read more...]
The Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness
dhammesu dhamm-ānupassī viharati ātāpī sampajāno satimā vineyya loke abhijjhā-domanassaṃ One abides contemplating mental objects as mental objects, ardent, fully aware, mindful, having put away covetousness and grief for the world. —Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta The Bhāvana Program is a seven-day vipassana retreat of sitting and walking practice which includes a textual study session each morning. This new model, unique to BCBS, allows for an in-depth investigation of the Dhamma using both … [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...]
Mind and Brain
There are generally two approaches to understanding the relationship between the mind and the brain. By mind we mean the subjective side of things, the full range of lived experience, both conscious and unconscious, including such things as thought, cognition, memory, desire, emotional states, and even perhaps the sense of transcendence. By brain we refer to the objective side, the physical stuff between our ears, with its complex architecture of inter-related neurons and the electro-chemical … [Read more...]
How Does Meditation Train Attention?
"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...]
Buddhism, Body, Mind-Problem?
Many of the key questions scientists will be trying to answer in this century revolve around the mind and its relation to other entities. Is the mind the brain? Is the mind the body? Is the mind the body in the environment? Or is the mind some abstract entity that lives outside space and time altogether? I believe that Buddhist philosophy can help the process of reconciling these issues. Science is based on the assumption that there is a single “real” reality that we each see through … [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...]
Theravada in the West
The multifaceted challenges of contemporary Buddhism were explored during an historic weekend conference—to our knowledge, the first of its kind—held last June at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. Twelve leading teachers of Theravada Buddhism, equally representing the lay and monastic traditions, addressed cutting-edge issues arising from the relatively recent introduction of Theravada Buddhism to the West. Throughout its long history, Theravada Buddhism has existed in a protected … [Read more...]