Samma sati is right mindfulness. Sati is also translated as “bare attention”. It contrasts with the familiar mode of consciousness, which uses impressions as inspiration for its experiential confabulations. Those are the papañca elaborations, or embellishments, which are used as springs for the expression of latent defilements. The Buddha described four foundations of sati...
A boy lost in the woods. The path is a dragon to be fled, cobblestones made of logical paradoxes to be solved. There is a sign pointing to freedom and wealth. There are warnings; a cacography of leaves and bare twigs, foretelling failures and eternal damnation. The spirits sing sweet songs, gossamer echoes of Ariadne’s thread. “Here is freedom, here is choice.” But the boy...
Samma vayama right effort is the 6th of the eightfold path. I shall not give up my efforts until I have attained whatever is attainable by perseverance, energy, and endeavour. We share in four great endeavours: Prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states Abandon the unwholesome states that have already arisen Arouse the wholesome states that have not yet arisen Maintain and perfect the...
I have been on an epic journey. I have travelled a countless distance and endured unmeasurable inflictions. This is my story. It began with a breath I learned to sit with the breath and discovered great subtleties of silence. In time these places of bliss became distracted by moments of tension. I tugged on the thread. At the end of the tension was a discomfort, small and ambiguous. It was a...
The middle section of the eightfold path concerns sila (ethics): samma vaca (right speech), samma kammanta (right action), and samma avija (right livelihood). Here are a medley of considerations: Positioning the paths within the path The eightfold path sets off from an acknowledgement of suffering. So too the paths of sila are means towards an eradication of suffering. The logic of the sila is...
The eightfold path is a destination of liberation, a trail to liberation, and an intention to a direction that is to liberation. I have only wet the soles of my feet at the shore of right view, gazing at an ocean whose depths promise suffocation more obviously than freedom. The architecture of right view strains the acrobat inside, casting spotlights on enormous edifices filled with niches to be...
You are welcome to sit by the fire, its flames dance in the rhythm that aches for freedom inside us, and the rumble of the consuming fuel echoes the debt of time that strikes at us in unrelenting syncopation. You are welcome to sit by the fire, I am telling myself a story. It is not my story. Here it begins. When you wake up in the morning, you are you, and there is no doubt. When you lay down to...
A memory. I wake up and the dragon is already there. There are stab wounds in my chest; shards of fractured glass drifting in the circuits of my heart and invading its walls. Today there is a scratch marking my belly. It is deep in some places, and an admixture of acid and a heat that is hot but never warm. I don’t know if I woke the dragon up, but I have known – many times before...
The search for answers is fueled by curiosity, directed by questions, and treads along a pavement of non-delineated possibility. I have turned to Buddhism to learn about meditation. I meditate to unfurl the self, clean the glass darkly, and strengthen the mind. The Buddhists promise only an understanding of suffering and a means to its end, though there are many milestones along this road. I wish...
The topology of progress is frustrating in the revelations of its unexpected troughs, and heights that transcend themselves into plateaus. The revelation of progress is frustration, proving itself only by the quagmire of unfamiliar stretches, yet (do not fear, for) they hide in their shadows easy slopes of epiphanies spurring euphoria. New lessons earn new vistas promising fresh territories for...
