I am small and the world is great and beyond my comprehension right now. This at least I can say without doubt. But here is a dream. Once there was a fish in a fishbowl. There were pebbles on the ground, water all around, a toy castle, and a filtration system of some sort. Every so while food would fall from above the water, from where there was no water, a place of nothingness except pain of...
The Buddha called sickness, ageing and death, the divine messengers. The Buddha called death the supreme teacher, containing all teachers just the elephant’s footprint can contain all others. I know that I will become sick, that I will age, and that I will die. I know these things but rarely am I aware of them. I begin with an intention to be aware of that death. I spark my mind with...
The Pali cannon (MN 36) tells the story of the Buddha’s enlightenment. Before his liberation, the to-be Buddha tortured himself by emaciating himself and restricting his breathing, in his search for ultimate liberation. Past masters had failed him in his ultimate quest, and so he strived to find his own way. But when these efforts bore him to fruits, he considered that not all that is...
Emotions are a central concept in Western psychology and its language for introspection. The definition of “emotion” is nebulous, incorporating and alluding to a range of phenomenon, and yet it is an extremely powerful category for defining and referring to the human experience. Buddhism has a deeply and long developed model for describing, identifying, and deconstructing mental...
Samma samadhi is the last of the listed eightfold path. It is the nurturing of a mental state already present in every state of consciousness. It aims at the development of citt’ekagatta one pointedness of mind, when the mind centres its acts of consciousness around an object. Samadhi can be recognized by two salient features: Unbroken attentiveness to an object A consequent tranquillity...
A few things have entered my awareness recently, and combined with my present struggles and goals to produce an inspiration. I’ve been introduced to the DBT skill radical acceptance. I’ve come across strategies for reparenting and for relearning responses. And have discovered that the creator of DBT herself persevered through psychiatric struggles. Radical acceptance At DBT I have...
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...
Bhikku Nyanaponika Thera wrote a short book entitled The Power of Mindfulness, in which he describes four principles which may assist understanding the benefits, aims, and strategies of meditations. These he lists as: The functions of tidying and naming The non-coercive procedure Stopping and slowing-down Directness of vision Thera describes unofficial four powers for meditation, Regarding...
I may lose myself and be lost in the tangles of associations and prompts and distractions and imaginations and judgements and intuitions of the mindless mind. Sati (bare attention, mindfulness) is an exercise in the moment, and a propensity developed with training. The arising and leaving and intending-towards sati increase and decrease with practice. The Pali texts describe sati as a hot pan...
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 unwholeseome states that have already arisen Arouse the wholesome states that have not yet arisen Maintain and perfect the...