Posts by Linda Blanchard
A Secular Understanding of Dependent Origination: #2 Sankhara
In the last post I offered a fairly plain description of what was meant by “ignorance” in the first link in the chain of dependent arising. It is ignorance of what dukkha is, how it comes about, that it can come to an end, and the way to do that. I said that dukkha is…
Read MoreA Secular Understanding of Dependent Origination: #1 Ignorance
This post is the first in a series of twelve on dependent arising (the translation of paticca samuppada that I prefer over dependent origination, or co-dependent arising, or interdependent origination or any of the other variations). I plan to take each link in the classic chain of twelve and explain — in the plainest language…
Read MorePlaying With Pali: Poking Under the Hood
I was not good at grammar in grade school, and I got no better at it in high school. I found all the terms and the rules to be counter-intuitive, a lot like geometric axioms. In both cases, it seemed like these were rules applied on top of things that should be understood in some entirely other way (in one’s bones). I could understand them while I worked with them or when I was in the middle of a course of study, but they instantly disappeared from my memory the second I turned my back for a moment. How bad I am at grammar will come as no surprise to those who understand grammar and enough Pali to feel pain when observing my ongoing dabbling in translation via my personal blog. The question they must be asking themselves — and you may well ask, too — is “Why does she bother?”
The reason is this: however bad at grammar I am, with my cheat sheet and the free tools that are readily-available via the internet, there is no better way to check the integrity of the translations I’m looking at than to poke around in the Pali that is the closest we will get — short of time travel — to the Buddha’s actual words.
Read MoreFood and Fire in Dependent Origination
You wouldn’t know from the title of the sutta — “The Greater Discourse on the Destruction of Craving” — that this is one of the suttas that gives the most detail on dependent arising (aka dependent origination, interdependent co-arising, etc) but it is one in which the Buddha attempts to put across the concept that was the backbone of all his teachings. He describes it backwards (which is normal) and forwards (used almost as frequently). He covers arising, and he covers cessation (backwards and forwards). And then he describes it in terms of fire, in terms of nutriment, and in terms of one person’s life, as well as pointing out what we should and shouldn’t care about if we properly understand it (we would not, for example, have any reason to be wondering who we were in the past or who we will be in the future).(1)
Read MoreOn "Nutriment" and Life As Process
One of the many little things I have discovered while studying the Pali texts over the last several years is that the people of the Buddha’s time were obsessed with food. You may laugh, if you like, but this is actually important. I hear all the time that, in interpreting these texts, we need to…
Read MoreThe Buddha On Love
“Suppose, bhikkhus, a man loved a woman with his mind bound to her by intense desire and passion. He might see that woman standing with another man, chatting, joking, and laughing. What do you think, bhikkhus? Would not sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair arise in that man when he sees that woman standing with…
Read MoreLetting Go of the Raft
*~*~* “I shall show you how the Dhamma is similar to a raft, being for the purpose of crossing over, not for the purpose of grasping…” *~*~* [MN 22.13 All translations of the sutta in this post are by Bhikkhu Bodhi] *~*~* The Buddha’s simile of the raft gets a lot of use lately…
Read MorePop Quiz: What Is Dependent Arising?
Dependent Arising (paṭicca samuppāda, also known as Dependent Origination, Interdependent Arising, &c) is of special interest to me. The other day while I was browsing various online forums, I found a monk expressing amazement that anyone could think it was about — well, I’m not going to say what he was amazed by, but suffice…
Read MoreA Mala Prayer
*~*~* The first time I am aware that I met another Buddhist, I met several. There was the man who would become my teacher, Dennis, who was quietly organizing a visit from some Tibetan lamas and the monks accompanying them. There may have been more Buddhists among those of us who had arrived to hear…
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