Posts by Doug Smith
Pain and Proliferation
The Buddha’s gradual path to awakening begins with generosity and ethical behavior. These calm and gladden the mind, taking it away from states of possessiveness or regret. However when it comes to gaining the wisdom essential to right view, the Buddha tells us in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta that there is something which “is to be…
Read MoreOn Conventional and Ultimate Truth
One of the most famous Buddhist tropes is the distinction between “conventional truth” and “ultimate truth”. While these terms never appear in the Nikāyas, and so cannot be traced back to the Buddha himself, they do trace to the abhidhamma period, perhaps as a potential explanation for the copious and problematic use of “self” talk…
Read MoreEscaping Dispute
The Gratification of Dispute How often do you engage in disputes over your views and opinions? Dispute and argument are an integral part of many secular philosophies, maybe even their most prized practice. Science itself functions around the adversarial methods of dispute, debate, and peer review. The difference between “natural philosophy” and what we consider the science of today…
Read MoreSelf and Social Status
When we introduce ourselves to someone new, they will ask us who we are. It’s a hard question to answer. In a nutshell it’s a question about self identity. There are various culturally formed habits we fall into when answering. I have family in Spain, where asking your name is is not entirely innocent. There they…
Read MoreEarly Roots of the Four Noble Truths?
The triad of gratification, danger, and escape is one of the Buddha’s most incisive contemplations for investigating everyday experience. In his book on the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, Anālayo says that “each of these insights can be considered a particular aspect of [the Buddha’s] comprehensive realization” of the dhamma. (p. 106n57). The Buddha applies the formula quite literally…
Read MoreBāhiya's Training on Mental Obsession
The Buddha’s succinct, cryptic teaching of the dhamma to the bark-cloth wearing ascetic Bāhiya is one of the most famous in the early Canon. Bāhiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only…
Read MoreThe Buddha and Blasphemy
With the recent tragedy at Charlie Hebdo blasphemous satire is in the news, and many ask if it should be allowed. There are many different degrees of “allow”, and most discussions on the matter, particularly the more virulent, trade off of these different degrees. First there is the plain issue of legality: should the state allow satire?…
Read MorePhilip Kitcher on Secular Humanism
One criticism of ‘New Atheist’ books has been that they lack sophistication, that they attack only the most extreme forms of theistic belief without touching its more nuanced, liberal forms. So it comes as a welcome development to read Philip Kitcher’s new book, which takes a more nuanced look at religious belief and practice. As…
Read MoreImpermanence and Emptiness: a Reversal in Perspective?
The Buddhist notion of emptiness (suññatā/śunyatā) is famously difficult to get one’s head around. In a presentation this past Saturday Sharon Salzberg described it as a combination of impermanence (anicca) and interconnectedness. This is a good first go at understanding emptiness, although the simple concept “interconnectedness” doesn’t really do justice to the recondite complexity of dependent origination…
Read MoreA World of Impermanence: the Three Marks
The three marks of existence (anicca, dukkha, anatta, or impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and non-self) have always played a central role in Buddhist dhamma. They outline its basic metaphysics, the ground which characterizes lived reality. The Buddha viewed these characteristics as everlastingly true of the world: “Bhikkhus, whether Tathāgatas arise or not, there persists that law, that…
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