Joseph Goldstein is a co-founder and guiding teacher of IMS. He has been teaching vipassanā and mettā retreats worldwide since 1974. In 1989, he helped establish BCBS and, more recently, IMS’s Forest Refuge. He is the author of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, One Dharma, The Experience of Insight, and Insight Meditation, and co-author of Seeking the Heart of Wisdom. A pdf version can be downloaded here. As challenging as it is, it seems important to explore the meaning and … [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...]
Mindfulness: Gateway into Experience
These words are excerpted from a dharma talk given at BCBS on January 18, 1997 as part of the Nalanda Program's weekend retreat. Mindfulness (sati) reveals to us the nature of reality, of our own mind and body in each moment of our experience. When we apprehend any aspect of our experience with mindfulness, we find that experience to be fleeting. Seeing the fleeting nature of all our experiences over a period of time, we become grounded in the wisdom or insight that we cannot rely on any … [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...]
Generating Spiritual Friendship: Reflections from a Gray Haired Mentor
Jean Esther has been practicing the Theravada tradition for the past 22 years. She is a psychotherapist in private practice in Northampton, MA and occasionally teaches meditation classes in the surrounding area. At the suggestion of my hairdresser about two years ago, I decided to let my hair grow naturally: goodbye permanent brown, hello natural gray! Other than enjoying the occasional positive comment, I truthfully didn’t think any more about it. Then one day across our lunch table in … [Read more...]