Posts Tagged ‘Pali canon’
Self 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 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 MoreLearn Comedy From The Buddha
So the Buddha walks out from under the bodhi tree and turns out to be a comedian. No seriously, give me some respect here. I’ve been reading lots of the oldest stories we have about the Buddha in his day, and have been surprised to realize that some of the stories he tells, and some…
Read MoreOn Self and Self-Control
The Shorter Discourse to Saccaka (Cūḷasaccaka Sutta, Majjhima Nikāya 35) contains one of the most incisive discussions of anatta or not-self in the Buddhist Canon. However, it is also one of the most thorny to unpack, since the argument it presents is far from clear. The sutta centers around a debate between the Buddha and…
Read MoreAiming at Nonproliferation
A White House staff member was recently fired for “a series of inappropriate and mean-spirited comments” in his Twitter feed, including snarky criticisms of several of his colleagues and superiors. Somehow the news is all too ordinary. It’s hard to venture anywhere on the internet without encountering nastiness. Discussions devolve into arguments, arguments into feuds,…
Read MoreRegarding "Superhuman States"
Sometimes, although not nearly as often as in later traditions, it seems as though the Buddha of the Nikāyas is a kind of superman. What do I mean? In a few passages it’s as though he did not consider himself entirely human. Some of this has to do with notions that the Buddha and his dhamma…
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