Posts Tagged ‘impermanence’
Practice Circle: Mindfulness of Sound
Stop what you’re doing right now, and just listen. Were you surprised by all you heard? Before you stopped to listen, you may have been completely unaware of all of the sounds going on. As soon as you directed your attention to them, there they were, loud and soft, far and near, pleasant, unpleasant and…
Read MorePractice Circle: Autumn and Impermanance
We’ve crossed the Equinox, and here in the northern USA where I live, the arrival of autumn is unmistakable. Green leaves dry and are touched with orange, red and gold. The evening turns cool and dark. Soon the lush profusion of life will give way to the barren cold of winter. It’s a very good…
Read MorePractice Circle: See Confusion as Buddha
I love the Tibetan Lojong slogans because so many of them provocatively explore the dharma from angles that we can tend to overlook. I often initially react negatively toward them, because they are trying shock us into understanding our practice in new ways. The slogan we will work with at Practice Circle on July 23,…
Read MoreTragedy Led Me To The Dharma
I sometimes think the deaths of my parents led me directly into Buddhism. When I was fourteen years old my dad was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He was in his early 50s. I remember when he told me. He had been having stomach problems for a while and he saw a doctor and they found…
Read MoreWhat Is Dependent Arising?
By Linda Blanchard I said that dependent arising is both very simple, and very complex, but always helpful, and worth the effort to understand. Let me start with the very simple. It Really Is Simple Dependent arising says that we come into the world with certain drives that cause us to build a view of…
Read MorePractice Circle: Autumn and Impermanence
We’ve crossed the Equinox, and here in the northern USA where I live, the arrival of autumn is unmistakable. Green leaves dry and are touched with orange, red and gold. The evening turns cool and dark. Soon the lush profusion of life will give way to the barren cold of winter. It’s a very good…
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…
Read MoreThe Footman's Snicker
Go: get a piece of paper. Write down your four favorite possessions. Write down your four favorite pastimes. Write down the four parts of your body you like the best. Write down the four people you care for most. Write down your four best personality traits. Go ahead. Do it now, then come back. I’ll…
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…
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