Articles
Dharma Teaching Articles
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Fundamentals of the Path
Unvarnished guidance on getting unstuck -- at any stage of the path.
Feeling tone is broadly of two types -- sensual and spiritual. Neither is reliable, but the latter serves our path. Can you distinguish them?
Not understanding this fundamental aspect of experience leads to untold suffering.
Even the qualities we are developing through practice, such as mindfulness and ethics, will change along the path. Mindfulness is not a single thing that we accumulate more of. How is your practice changing over time?
If we truly wish to see what is arising in the mind, we must create a suitable inner environment. Here are five ways.
Does this term evoke a mild groan? As patience develops, we come to feel its depth and strength. How does this happen?
Simplicity of body, speech, and mind is a foundational value that supports letting go all along the path.
The sincerity that combines clear knowing with not knowing -- a powerful support for practice.
It's not just giving that matters, but how we give. Buddhist teachings offer many useful reflections to refine our giving.
There are many ways of knowing, some more reliable than others. It's good to know how we know.
Equanimity is about letting the waves of experience be fully felt. To do this, strengthen your capacity of attention.
Cultivating a Change of View
Discussing the Dhamma is said to be one of the greatest blessings in life. It is also a skill. Do we understand how to use this opportunity as the path?
This multifaceted quality has three interconnected forms, all of which should be strong and balanced.
"Seeing clearly" means removing the dual lenses of societal expectations and past habits.
Discovering how your own mind is not an innocent observer of experience -- and what you can do about it. Sankharas can be reshaped.
Anything is a door to the Dharma. Meeting experience with calm or with action can help allay the fear of suffering.
A way to release some parts of the mind that are holding us back in subtle ways.
Life brings us a series of encounters, each one a "door." How can we get through each door with little or no suffering -- maybe even with joy? Attention and care matter.
How we begin exploring views beyond the personal, limited self.... necessary steps, but not the final arrival
"Practice consists not of going to new places, but of seeing with new eyes." ... But how do these new eyes emerge? It takes practice.
Practice expands the mind in wonderful and helpful ways. What kind of mind can hold it all?
Practice expands the mind in wonderful and helpful ways. What kind of mind can hold it all?
Learning to expand one's notion of time beyond the "personal time" that feels oppressive is the doorway to a timeless freedom. Not just for us, but for society.
Intention and Effort
How to replace the five hindrances with the seven factors of Awakening. Good food for the heart.
The traditional five abstentions are very, very good. However, with some deep reflection, it is possible to make the precepts distinctive for our own path.
Aligning body, speech, and mind is important work. It begins with the many levels of intention, from this moment to the overarching aim of our life.
We certainly must make effort on the path. Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, and sometimes none at all. How does this work?
Is it OK to want liberation? Isn't wanting the cause of suffering? There are skillful desires. In fact, liberation likely requires that you want it.
Repetition in practice is vital to fully develop certain fruits. We don't know in advance how a certain practice will bear fruit. Part of faith is to just let practice unfold (could be cross-listed with Faith below).
View, intention, and effort inform how things unfold. What did the Buddha say about beginnings?
Sometimes we can design our own practices. Sometimes it's better to just follow traditional ones. The key is whether we are releasing our preferences and ego, or reinforcing them.
Inspiration, Faith, Letting Go and Intimacy with the Dhamma
For those bringing the Dharma more deeply into their life, how can we find a sense of non-burden with the necessities of human life?
What do you care about so deeply that you won't stop looking until you find it? The great masters offer inspiration to us in our unique quest.
The quality of saddha (faith, confidence, or conviction) has cognitive, devotional, and motivational dimensions. And it is essential for liberation.
Developing an intimate relationship with the written texts of Buddhism is multidimensional, fruitful, and sometimes surprising.
It helps to stop requiring that the teachings immediately "apply to your life." When we release such transactional ideas, the teachings work more deeply into our heart.
Trying to control our path or our awakening process is bound to fail. We need to learn to relax into the path's unfolding, which takes both faith and discernment.
Buddhist teachings and practices are aimed at the end of suffering, not its mere reduction. Settle for nothing less.
Specialized Practices
Radiation of the Brahma-viharas strengthens the mind in the right way to let go. If you only practice "straight mindfulness," this is a great expansion of repertoire.
Analytical Mind Series
What is "the analytical mind"? We can use skillful thoughts to reduce the intensity of unskillful ones.
We can use the cognitive mind in ways that are actively beneficial. Through practice, we develop a "mind of Dharma" that sees in terms of the teachings.
Dharma investigation is different from thought-based analysis. We need to learn the distinction between these, and be willing to trust other ways of knowing besides our cognitive mind.
Clarifying/Redefining Terms
Popular (and political) ideas of "freedom" generally refer to the "freedom of license" -- being able to do what we want. The Buddha had a very different idea of freedom.
There is a wealth of words in Buddhism for this fundamental movement of the path. It is worth getting to know them in order to refine our practice.
A deliberate, perhaps provocative, redefining of this term. The essence of spiritual practice is skillful bypass. Doing so will naturally uproot the unskillful kind of bypass. Learn to discern the difference.