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)”
Category Archives: wisdom
Images For The Minds Of The Three Kinds Of People In The World
The three types of people in the world are likened to a person with a mind like an open sore, a person with a mind like lightning, and a person with a mind like diamond.
“And who has a mind like an open sore? It’s someone who is irritable and bad-tempered. Even when lightly criticized they lose their temper, becoming annoyed, hostile, and hard-hearted, and they display annoyance, hate, and bitterness. They’re like a festering sore, which, when you hit it with a stick or a stone, discharges even more. In the same way, someone is irritable and bad-tempered. Even when lightly criticized they lose their temper, becoming annoyed, hostile, and hard-hearted, and they display annoyance, hate, and bitterness. This is called a person with a mind like an open sore.”
Illustrated: The Buddha’s Five Themes For Addressing Unskillful Thoughts
In the Vitakkasaṇṭhāna Sutta — The Relaxation of Thoughts (MN 20) the Buddha provides five themes to attend to at the appropriate times for those intent on heightening the mind. (The full post includes images and passages with explanations)
1) Small Peg Knocking Out Larger One (to attend to another theme)
2) Disgusted By Wearing Carcass (to know certain thoughts are unskillful, blameworthy, and resulting in stress)
3) Looking Away (to pay no mind to unskillful thoughts)
4) From Running To Walking To Standing To Sitting To Lying Down (to relax thought fabrications)
5) Clenching Teeth (to crush unskillful/evil mind with awareness)
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 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?
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
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?
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”
Integrating Presence 