"In ancient times when seafaring merchants put to sea in ships, they took with them a bird to sight land. When the ship was out of site of land, they released the bird; and it flew eastward and westward, northward and southward, upward and all around. And if the bird sighted land nearby, it was truly gone; but if the bird saw no land, it returned to the ship." - Anguttara Nikaya 6.54 The word used here for "truly gone" is tathāgatako (translated by E.M. Hare in the PTS edition as "gone for … [Read more...]
Buddhist Psychology: Classical Texts in Contemporary Perspective
In the first week of December last year the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies held a five-day residential course on Buddhist Psychology. The intention of the course was to introduce students to the classical models of mind and mental processing contained in the primary texts of the Pali Canon and other Buddhist texts, and then to review this material from the contemporary perspectives of modern psychology. The program was co-sponsored by the Cambridge Institute of Meditation 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...]
How to Understand
Joseph had been scheduled to speak with a group of people at CIMC the day after the tragic events of September 11th. Here are some excerpts from that talk. I’m glad we are able to come together this evening and share some reflections about the events of September eleventh. More than ever, it is timely and necessary to connect more deeply with ourselves, with each other and with the many suffering beings in the world. The question looming large for most of us is how to understand what … [Read more...]
Healing or Harming
A question that has been coming up a lot lately in various discussions is this: “According to the teaching of the Buddha, is violence ever justified?” The short answer is “No.” But in a longer answer that probes more carefully some of the practical dimensions of the human condition, there may be grounds for modifying this position. Perhaps the situation is not dissimilar from the two levels of truth found articulated in Buddhist philosophy, whereby something can be conventionally true but, … [Read more...]
A Simple Matter of Choice?
These remarks are exerpted from a Bhavana Program on Intention offered at BCBS in June of 2001. When we first look at the issue of intention, we might have the sense that it is all just a simple matter of choice. But when I reflect upon this phrase, I find myself putting a question mark at the end of it. A simple matter of choice? Maybe yes, maybe no. Let’s have a look and see what is happening when we make choices. First of all, we should recognize that in Buddhist teachings the idea of … [Read more...]
The Moon Released (Theragāthā 871-873)
Of all the monks and nuns who awakened under the guidance of the Buddha, none was more notorious than the author of these verses, the robber and murderer Aṅgulimāla. Originally named Ahimsaka (the harmless one), he was the son of the brahmin chaplain to the Kosala king and became a brilliant student in the medical school at Takkasilā. On account of a number of intrigues perpetrated by his jealous classmates, he set upon a course of ambushing victims on the road and cutting off their thumbs in … [Read more...]
The Buddha Taught Nonviolence, Not Pacifism
Paul Fleischman is a psychiatrist and a Teacher of vipassanā meditation in the tradition of S.N. Goenka. He is the author, among other works, of Cultivating Inner Peace and Karma and Chaos. In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I have found myself musing about nonviolence, its contributions, its limits, and its place in the Buddha’s teaching. I have also been surprised to hear many of my acquaintances confuse the Buddha’s teaching of nonviolence with pacifism … [Read more...]
Whose Life Is This, Anyway?
I don’t know many people in this country who really believe in rebirth—do you? I often meet Buddhists of various sorts, and yet it seems that most, like myself, have inherited from their cultural upbringing the “one life to live” model of the human condition. It makes me wonder how much of Buddhism we are really capable of absorbing. When we see how much of who we are now is embedded in our habitual responses to specific conditions in a world we each create from our unique illusions, what … [Read more...]
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