One reason this blog post and podcast series came about could likely be due to my meditation practice becoming stale and now provides an outlet for a somewhat more advanced level where details are dived into. If and when exploring this sutta on your own, it’s recommended to drop the intricate, sometimes tedious language I go into here to the fullest extent possible. It’s important to remember my intent here of placing plenty under a spiritual microscope to merely visit modes of deconstruction and analysis for study and (formal) practice possibilities, not as a general normalized mode of living. And while I go into minute details pertaining to this sutta please keep in mind it’s likely more helpful not to keep considering this sutta in isolation but within the broader context of the Buddha’s (other) teachings.
Category Archives: Dharma Questions
What are thoughts? Are dreams like thoughts?
The January 11, 2022 Insight Timer live event description explaining the title questions: Let’s powwow for 30 minutes or so on these two questions from my “Distortions and Dreams” event to address any parallels between thoughts and dreams. We may even do some mindfulness of thinking meditation To save time, the short answer is IContinue reading “What are thoughts? Are dreams like thoughts?”
Wellbeing Is The Shape Of The Heart: Ajahn Sucitto Online Mediation Retreat
Truth is always good news; even if it is the truth about something unpleasant because then you can actually master it Luang Por Sucitto After joining the online retreat Love As The Breath Of Life by Ajahn Sucitto I joined and enjoyed the practice and already some of the fruit of this retreat Wellbeing IsContinue reading “Wellbeing Is The Shape Of The Heart: Ajahn Sucitto Online Mediation Retreat”
Dharma Questions: Miscellany — Part 6
For the (early) non-personal Buddhist symbol of a lotus, why is it said a blue one can’t be used? Are there any trickster(s) (archetypes) in Buddhism? Perhaps Mara or Devadatta? Why or why not? Can techniques leading to a non-dual state also provide a condition for susceptibility to unwholesome mind control especially if and whenContinue reading “Dharma Questions: Miscellany — Part 6”
An Integrating Presence (Three Minute) Meditation And Reality (Characteristics) Contemplation
Meditation:
Meditate continuously for three minutes on an object
Contemplation:
Able to keep attention on the object the entire time?
If not, why is that?
If yes, did the quality and degree of attention change?
Why can’t we lock a consistent, unchanging attention to something without it wavering, or changing, or without distraction?
Perhaps then consider that in life, and especially noticeable in meditation, we sometimes think we should able to keep a consistent, unchanging attention to something. Maybe we can now better see how this erroneous view of deceptively defaulting to expecting constancies in life can result in stress and unsatisfactoriness
Dharmic Strategies For Empaths
This niche topic for empaths, or energetically sensitive beings, encapsulates years of note taking from experience, study and practice, provides nine categories of approach:
1) Gratitude for opportunities
2) Mindfulness (– especially of contact and vēdanā)
3) Hedonic Tone and the Three Characteristics of Existence
4) Self and identification
5) Equanimity and compassion
6) The Four Right Efforts and Five Hinderances
7) Energy
8) Non-attachment
9) Miscellaneous strategies
Materiality And Mentality | (7/27/2021 — “Ask Us Anything – LIVE” With Denny K Miu And Guest Beth Upton)
For this month’s regular open-audience, open-discussion “Ask Us Anything LIVE” — continuing discussions about meditation and related topics — Denny and I chat with meditation teacher Beth Upton most significantly about the Dependent Origination link Nāmarūpa, or Materiality and Mentality, which, according to Wikipedia, is “used in Buddhism to refer to the constituents of aContinue reading “Materiality And Mentality | (7/27/2021 — “Ask Us Anything – LIVE” With Denny K Miu And Guest Beth Upton)”
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
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 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?
Dharma Questions: Miscellany — Part 3
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 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?
