I just spent three marvelous days contemplating and discussing the cycle of dependent arising with 20 students. The topic invites the reflection that nothing exists separately or independently. Everything related to mind and matter arises due to causal conditions, and it ceases when those causal conditions cease. It might seem easy enough to agree with [...]
Happiness comes when we let go, not when we hold on. Do you sometimes feel the joy that comes with simplicity—the ease and sense of sufficiency discovered when you are without all your stuff, perhaps when you are traveling or camping? Renunciation brings joy by lightening our burdens. Recently some students have expressed interest in [...]
Have you ever seen the inside of a corpse? Can you visualize the layers of muscles, tendons, nerves, and bones in your shoulder, back, and legs? Do you know how many feet of intestines are packed into your abdomen? These may not sound like spiritual concerns, but contemplation of the body is a fundamental Buddhist [...]
Buddhism presents a model of twelve links of dependent arising to describe the causal relationships that give rise to suffering. It is usually depicted as a circle, with the cycle beginning with ignorance, and developing through a chain of causal conditions that include volitional formations (activities), consciousness, mentality/materiality, six sense bases, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, [...]