You don’t have to have read a lot of Buddhist texts to know that consciousness comes streaming through six doors, each one framed by one of six cognizing organs and opening onto one of six cognized objects. Just take a moment to explore the field of experience, and you will see that you know things in six different ways. One sphere of knowing is visual, another is auditory. Seeing and hearing are two different activities, each using separate parts of the body and distinct processing centers in … [Read more...]
Mindfulness for Children
At what ages developmentally can kids meditate? I will be very honest with you and tell you, I don’t have a clue, but as far as I can tell, nobody else does either. I look forward to the day when some of the research scientists I work with figure this out. I am very interested in this intellectually, but what I am more interested in is teaching children how to approach experience with an open mind, with an open heart. Which brings me to the Quaker Oats box, how we start most of our new … [Read more...]
Freedom Through Not Knowing
I was ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist monk in 1974, and trained in that tradition—the Geluk tradition, the more scholarly tradition of Tibetan Buddhism—for the following six or seven years. Part of that training involved dialectics, the logical and critical analysis of Buddhist doctrine. One of the assurances I was given as a young monk was that, were I to devote myself to this critical inquiry, I would come to certainty that ideas such as rebirth and karma can be demonstrated by reason to be … [Read more...]
Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening
Having taught Buddhadharma for almost 40 years, Joseph Goldstein has written or been co-author of many books. His newest, to be published November 1, is Mindfulness: A Practical Guide for Awakening. While his earlier books focused on various teachings about meditation and other insight practices, distilling the Buddha's teachings as he learned them from his teachers, Munindra, Goenka, and Sayadaw U Pandita, his new book comes from a deep personal investigation of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, one of … [Read more...]
A Conversation with Bhikkhu Anālayo
This month we have an interview with Bhikkhu Anālayo, probably best known to students of Dhamma in the West for his 2004 book, Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization, which has since become a touchstone modern interpretation of that key sutta. He paid an informal visit to Barre earlier this summer as part of larger trip to the U.S. (He lives & teaches in Germany.) Bhikkhu Anālayo graciously answered some questions for Insight Journal. His 2004 book, while very approachable for those … [Read more...]
Did the Buddha Teach Satipatthāna?
Chip Hartranft’s work bridges the traditions of yoga and Buddhism. He is the founding director of The Arlington Center, uniting yoga and dharma practice, and has taught an integration of yoga movement & meditation in the Boston area since 1978. An independent scholar of early Indian Buddhism and yoga, Chip is the author of The Yoga-Sutra of Patañjali: a new translation with commentary and the forthcoming How The Buddha Taught Meditation: Tracing The Path From The Canons Back To The Original … [Read more...]
Metta Sutta Verse 9
Standing, walking, sitting or lying down, As long as one is devoid of torpor, One would resolve upon this mindfulness —This is known as sublime abiding here. tiṭṭhaṃ caraṃ nisinno vā sayāno vā yāvat’ assa vigatamiddho, etaṃ satiṃ adhiṭṭheyya, brahmam etaṃ vihāram idha-m-āhu. Standing, walking, sitting or lying down, These four are meant to cover all the positions one can place the body in, thus conveying the idea that both loving kindness and mindfulness can be practiced at all … [Read more...]