josh dippold

Questions To Assess The Office Of The Director of National Intelligence’s ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Assessment Report’

[4/9/2022 UPDATE: Pentagon releases 1,500 pages of secret documents about shadowy UFO programme after four year battle https://www.the-sun.com/news/5053632/us-government-releases-1500-pages-secret-documents-ufo-programme and https://www.livescience.com/ufo-report-human-biological-injuries and some claiming all these documents available at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lL1b6yHJ_A7bnNEANhKq2w9Y0uuieWh4%5D I previously wrote about preparing the general public for mass disclosure, how such a thing may be gone about, and some of the questions, challenges andContinue reading “Questions To Assess The Office Of The Director of National Intelligence’s ‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Assessment Report’”

Form And Formless | (6/29/2021 — “Ask Us Anything – LIVE” With Denny K Miu)

For this month’s regular open-audience, open-discussion “Ask Us Anything LIVE” — continuing discussions about meditation and related topics — Denny draws from, and summarizes the teaching of Shifu Ji Ru to link together the Four Great Elements, Four “Mighty” Postures, Four Right Knowings, Four Foundations of Mindfulness, Three (or Four) Dharma Seals, and Three Gates of Liberation.

June 2021 Full Moon Dhamma Gathering: Truth

Due to a major interest in truth, I answered the call to read a Sutta at Beth Upton’s June 2021 full moon gathering. Each of these monthly online get-togethers explores a different topic and offers “a chance to deepen our connections with each other through group meditation and Dhamma discussion.”

Amongst other things, this blog post includes the text I read along with a passage from another text I considered reading; relevant quotes about truth; the main questions we explored and some we did not

Dharma Questions: Miscellany — Part 5

This irregular “Dharma Questions” series deals with “dharma” meaning both the truth of the nature of reality and some Buddhist teachings. Amongst other things these questions can be:
• thought experiments
• borderline musings not meant to be answered
• from laziness of not contemplating or researching them yet

There’s 16 questions. Here’s two:

What is the root condition of annica — impermanence, inconstancy?

What are any and all similarities and differences between “Para Brahman” and “Nirvana”?

Dharma Questions: Miscellany — Part 4

There’s 18 questions. Here’s two:

Why is truth not a perfection/Pāramitā in Mahayana?

Can (the whole cycle of the) 12 links of Dependent Origination go backwards due to retrocausality?

An Integrating Presence Meditation: Classic Mindfulness Imagery — June 2, 2021 At Fat Cat Longevity

This semi-formal guided meditation practice include these classic mindfulness images and similes:
◦ a relaxed cowherd after the harvest
◦ surgeons probe gathering information before action
◦ ploughshare to prep the ground for wisdom
◦ elephant’s neck supporting the head of wisdom while turning the full body to look, not just the head, for full attention
◦ climbing a platform with detachment for an broader perspective and overview
◦ town gatekeeper knowing who to keep out and able to direct who comes in
◦ wheel spokes connecting the hub of the body to the outside of the wheel of our experiences while helping to steer
◦ hitching post to tame and keep animals from wandering off all the while the strong post remains unmoved
◦ balancing aspect like walking with bowl of oil atop the head

Towards Everyday Implementation Of The Universal Beautiful Mental Factors

Dhamma and meditation teacher Beth Upton — who’s other chats I’ve posted — recently held a three part event with Dharma Gates called “Truth, Suffering and Liberation”. I’ve edited out most everything except my responses to Beth’s questions and her responses to me so please watch the full video at the end of this post especially if requiring more context.

Beth read an excerpt of the Aggañña Sutta about the origin of human kind on planet earth then linked our suffering, caused by the defilements (dramatic depicted in the sutta) to the Buddha’s antidote: the The Universal Beautiful Mental Factors (sobhanasādhāraṇa). Beth then offered a short teaching followed by a guided meditation and discussion on her condensed and more practical version of these Mental Factors from the Abhidhamma which are:
• Faith
• Mindfulness
• Non-greed
• Non-hatred
• Morality
• Balance
• Tranquility
• Lightness
• Softness
• Flexibility
• Uprightness/Authenticity/Truthfulness
• Proficiency

This post includes my responses (in an edited video) to Beth’s group-guiding questions along with a few new written responses.

Practicing in the Desire Realm | (5/25/2021 — “Ask Us Anything – LIVE” With Denny K Miu)

For this month’s regular open-audience, open-discussion “Ask Us Anything” — continuing discussions about meditation and related topics — (despite some technical snafus) Denny and I pick one topic each we’ve yet to discuss much publicly — the Eight “Touches”, and wholesome sexuality(/sexual energy), respectively.

Dharma Questions: Miscellany — Part 3

There’s 19 (groups of) questions. Here’s a sampling of two:

How do sankhārā [formations/mental formations/volitional formations] come from ignorance? What is the process?

How does effort for vitakka wax and wane? How does vitakka turn into, or allow, or go along with vicāra?

Resources for Abhidhamma — Advanced Buddhist Thought, Inquiry, Analysis and Psychology

After auditing the now public Abdhidhamma and Development of Buddhist Thought, part of Mid-America Buddhist Association’s Diploma in Pali and Buddhist Studies (DPBS) I was inspired to create this post. (If interested in checking out ongoing classes at MABA, please email to request free auditing, or please enroll). Here’s some Abhidhamma resources, some of whichContinue reading “Resources for Abhidhamma — Advanced Buddhist Thought, Inquiry, Analysis and Psychology”