Trent Walker is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies and a Lecturer in Religious Studies at Stanford University. He holds a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and has published widely on Khmer, Lao, Pali, Thai, and Vietnamese Buddhist texts and recitation practices. Trent began his training in Cambodian Buddhist chant in 2005, under the guidance of Koet Ran, Prum Ut, Yan Borin, and Preah Maha Vimaladhamma Pin Sem. His online multimedia … [Read more...]
Breaking the Cycle (Brāhmaṇa Saṃyutta [SN 7.2.2])
The composers of Pali poetry love to play on words-puns, alliteration (see lines 3,6 & 7), and double intentions abound in the verses that have emerged from the lost world of ancient India. This poem is unique in its thorough repetition of the first phrase, which sets the tone of cyclical activity that drones on and on until the pattern is transformed. Even the pronunciation of punappunaṃ contributes to this: The first two syllables rise up in tone, a pause or break occurs at the … [Read more...]
Upon the Tip of a Needle (Mahā Niddesa 1.42)
This remarkable and powerful poem, found buried amid the rather dry linguistic commentary of the Niddesa (a canonical commentary on the Aṭṭhakavagga of the Sutta Nipāta attributed to Sāriputta), speaks to the dual themes of impermanence and selflessness. In the later systematic psychology called Abhidhamma, these themes are developed into the doctrine of momentariness and the thorough enumeration of impersonal phenomena. All human experience is ever-changing, but is … [Read more...]
A Day of Practice and Discussion, Inspired by the Maṇgala Sutta
These brief comments are extracted from a day-long program at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies on November 14, 1999. The Maṇgala Sutta Sutta Nipāta 258-269 1 1. The teachings in the sutta are about empowerment, in a way, to craft our lives, to make a life that can be in harmony with other things, a life that can be supportive of our deepest values and the reliance on and respect of simplicity. The blessings in the sutta are, of course, expressions of relationships in the … [Read more...]
Three Views of Transience
–The Diamond Sutra –Saṃyutta Nikāya 22:95 This famous verse serves as a climax to the Diamond Sutra, a foundation text of the Mahāyāna tradition. Here we see the Sanskrit version in its original script, along with a transliteration and literal translation, as well as a version translated from the Chinese (quoted in Mu Soeng, The Diamond Sutra, p. 135). The same sentiment is articulated in the Pali verse on the right, taken from the Saṃyutta Nikāya. Notice that the Pali verse … [Read more...]
Dharma Rain
Mother Rain S 1:80 vuṭṭhi alasam analasañca mātā puttaṃ va posati vuṭṭhibhūtā upajīvanti ye pāṇā pathaviṃ sitā ti The rain pours down on weak and strong As a mother nurtures her child. The spirits of the rain sustain All creatures who dwell on the earth. * Slipping Away Heraññakāni Thera Thag 145 accayanti ahorattā, jīvitaṃ uparujjhati, āyu khīyati maccānaṃ kunnadīnaṃ va odakaṃ. Days and nights go hurtling by Till our lifetime comes to an end. the life of mortals slips … [Read more...]
From Self-Judgement to Being Ourselves
Diana Winston has been involved with IMS's Young Adult Retreat since 1993. She teaches dharma to teenagers and adults, and is currently training with Jack Kornfield as a vipassanā teacher. Her upcoming book, due out from Perigee Press in Summer 2003, is called Wide Awake: A Buddhist Guide for Teens. She is also the founder of the Buddhist Alliance for Social Engagement (BASE) Program. Tonight I am going to talk about something that many of us deal with, especially in our teenage years: … [Read more...]
All About Change
Change is the focal point for Buddhist insight—a fact so well known that it has spawned a familiar sound bite: “Isn’t change what Buddhism is all about?” What’s less well known is that this focus has a frame, that change is neither where insight begins nor where it ends. Insight begins with a question that evaluates change in light of the desire for true happiness. It ends with a happiness that lies beyond change. When this frame is forgotten, people create their own contexts for the teaching … [Read more...]
Lessons from an Illness
Marilyn Judson has studied vipassanā meditation with Shinzen Young for the past nine years, and with Thich Nhat Hanh for five years before that. She has a daily sitting meditation practice, meets weekly with her sangha for dharma and discussion and sitting practice, and attends several vipassanā retreats each year. I was lying in my hospital room and starting to feel desperate and afraid. I had a suction tube down my throat, an I.V. in my arm, and I hadn’t eaten in three days. Twenty-four … [Read more...]
Mind and Brain
There are generally two approaches to understanding the relationship between the mind and the brain. By mind we mean the subjective side of things, the full range of lived experience, both conscious and unconscious, including such things as thought, cognition, memory, desire, emotional states, and even perhaps the sense of transcendence. By brain we refer to the objective side, the physical stuff between our ears, with its complex architecture of inter-related neurons and the electro-chemical … [Read more...]