Articles
Gotama and Parfit on the Self
The self is perhaps one of the most fraught and confusing elements of the dhamma. The Buddha considered it an advanced teaching: it’s not something he brought up in discussions with laypeople. Indeed, the great lay benefactor Anāthapiṇḍika was apparently not aware of any of the doctrine of non-clinging until his deathbed, and urged that…
Read MoreRevisiting Meditation: Week 3
As predicted, emotion was a tough week for me to put words to. I’ve never really understood why it is so difficult for me to think about my emotions and really examine them and pinpoint what it is I’m experiencing on a “global” level, but it’s always been the case. I can always be aware of the…
Read MoreBuddhist Global Relief
We should all be looking for ways to help alleviate the dukkha of the world on a larger scale than just our own minds. But doing so is a much bigger program than sitting on the cushion, one that requires money and coordination. As secularists we would prefer that these projects be done without sectarian…
Read MoreRevisiting Meditation: Week 2
Note to readers: This is the third installment in a weekly series which focuses on establishing or re-establishing a consistent meditation practice. Please refer to my introductory article on this topic. While this week’s focus was on the body, it’s interesting to note that as much as this was the case, it was just as much…
Read MoreOn Clinging to Views
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” — Max Planck I have a confession to make: I cling to views. When I was a child, perhaps the…
Read MoreThe Whiner's Meditation Guide
I can’t meditate because it makes me sleepy. I can’t sit still, or I get hungry. All my annoyances from the day before comes up when I meditate. I find myself arguing with my boss when I meditate. I don’t think I meditate correctly. Does meditation even do anything? Is it working? I can’t meditate…
Read MoreBeyond Praise and Blame
This week William Irvine, a philosophy professor in at Wright State University in Ohio, wrote a short piece for TIME magazine on insults (he is the author of a book on the topic). The premise is relatively simple: we are social animals driven by desires to reach the top and, of course, to hold back others who…
Read MoreRevisiting Meditation: Week 1
Note to readers: This is the second installment in a weekly series which focuses on establishing or re-establishing a consistent meditation practice. Please refer to my introductory article on this topic. If any of you are following this course with me, and to all of you out there registered for the March Challenge, I hope…
Read MoreOn Supramundane Freedom
In my last post we looked a bit at mundane freedom: what it is, and what it is not. We saw that mundane freedom involved volitional formations (saṇkhāras) within a more-or-less deterministic causal nexus. What made the will free is that it was constituted by our desires, rather than by those of another. That is,…
Read MoreRevisiting Meditation: Getting Back on Track
It’s been a couple of years since I started up my study and practice of Buddhism. I have to say that the part of all of this that I often find the most challenging is not the reading up, not the discussions, not the carrying out of the dharma per se, but instead, in making…
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