Moving into impermanence

Clinical Handbook of Mindfulness, 2009

Drala Mountain Center Blog, 2023

The Buddha taught, through The Four Noble Truths, that there are basic sufferings we humans endure. Birth, Old Age (if we're lucky), Sickness, and Death. But the Buddha also taught there is a way out of this suffering. These various methods to get out of the cycle of suffering include multiple mind-body techniques to train the mind in order to not take on the world and our personal suffering as a personal burden. As if it were a heavy rock to carry on our backs or in our hearts. Instead, we can practice and free our minds from being stuck with this concept of suffering. Finding a transcendence to these realities of our human existence. When we cultivate compassion to liberate ourselves and others from the yoke of suffering, we can realize the profound reality of nature and the universe we exist within. Merging with the interdependent nature of phenomena. This is the long term freedom mediation offers.

2012

My subject is the redemption of profound suffering. I begin with the presumption that there is no suffering beyond the redemptive reach of God's grace. Drawing on insights from a number of academic disciplines, as well as on a wide variety of literary accounts of profound suffering, I consider the impact of the suffering of interpersonal violence on the formation of individual identity. I frame identity-formation in temporal terms, considering the impact of suffering in each temporal dimension: past, present, and future. In considering the past, I focus on the nature of memory, and argue that the memory of suffering resides in the body, soul, and mind, continually shaping the individual, and that a theological account of memory, therefore, cannot be reduced to-2-with its memory? 2 Is there any chance of surviving such violence and experiencing redemption in this lifetime? What this Project Is The claim of this project is four-fold. First, human identity is inherently temporal. Second, the experience of profound suffering, as a temporal experience, has a formative impact on identity. 3 Third, God is actively at work in the world making all things new. (This claim necessarily means that suffering can be redeemed; that there is no suffering, no memory of suffering, which can ultimately overpower the redemptive work of Jesus.) And fourth, that the redemptive work of Jesus is evident, if only in occasional glimmers, in even the most profound situations of suffering. That it is evident does not, however, necessarily mean it is immediately visible. Redemption, I suggest, is a particular type of revealed knowledge that can only be seen by one who has been trained to see. The community of the church has been gifted with particular, concrete practices which shape the imagination of disciples such that they can see, and are therefore called to bear witness to, this redemption. Secular therapeutic practices help individuals learn to cope

For a modern dharma practitioner, the struggle of coming to grips with self and selflessness really begins with confronting our own personality. While the Buddha referred to the aggregates of form, feeling, cognition, constructing activities and discernment as ‘personality-factors,’ in contemporary American society, 'personality' has come to take on a meaning and even a kind of phenomenology quite different from the Buddha’s use of that term, something other than even the simple classification of temperaments and character traits developed in classic Western psychology over the last century. And it has effectively been elevated to cult-like status. While purification is central to every spiritual discipline, it tends to get short shrift in the Western development of Buddhism. This paper offers insights from a personal journey on the path of cessation: what the Buddha referred to as turning away from suffering. And it suggests an approach to purification that is premised on the ideas of spiritual alchemy that date back to Taoist traditions which either pre-date or were contemporary in Buddha's time.

The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Pain, 2017

2006

This edition was transcribed directly from PageMaker files provided by the BPS. practice of the path, however, especially in its advanced stages of concentration and insight, it will be extremely helpful to have contact with a properly qualified teacher. Bhikkhu Bodhi Abbreviations Textual references have been abbreviated as follows: DN ..... Digha Nikaya (number of sutta) MN ..... Majjhima Nikaya (number of sutta) SN ..... Samyutta Nikaya (chapter and number of sutta) AN ..... Anguttara Nikaya (numerical collection and number of sutta) Dhp ..... Dhammapada (verse) Vism ..... Visuddhimagga References to Vism. are to the chapter and section number of the translation by Bhikkhu Ñanamoli, The Path of Purification (BPS ed. 1975, 1991) Chapter I The Way to the End of Suffering The search for a spiritual path is born out of suffering. It does not start with lights and ecstasy, but with the hard tacks of pain, disappointment, and confusion. However, for suffering to give birth to a genuine spiritual search, it must amount to more than something passively received from without. It has to trigger an inner realization, a perception which pierces through the facile complacency of our usual encounter with the world to glimpse the insecurity perpetually gaping underfoot. When this insight dawns, even if only momentarily, it can precipitate a profound personal crisis. It overturns accustomed goals and values, mocks our routine preoccupations, leaves old enjoyments stubbornly unsatisfying. At first such changes generally are not welcome. We try to deny our vision and to smother our doubts; we struggle to drive away the discontent with new pursuits. But the flame of inquiry, once lit, continues to burn, and if we do not let ourselves be swept away by superficial readjustments or slouch back into a patched up version of our natural optimism, eventually the original glimmering of insight will again flare up, again confront us with our essential plight. It is precisely at that point, with all escape routes blocked, that we are ready to seek a way to bring our disquietude to an end. No longer can we continue to drift complacently through life, driven blindly by our hunger for sense pleasures and by the pressure of prevailing social norms. A deeper reality beckons us; we have heard the call of a more stable, more authentic happiness, and until we arrive at our destination we cannot rest content.

History of European Ideas, 2018

Every epoch justifies itself before history by the finding of a truth that achieves clarity in it. What will our truth be? What will be our manifestation? Truths have their precursors that have paid, in some prison of forgetfulness, the crime of having seen from afar. But precursors are recognized only from the full truth which they preceded; only from the possession of this truth can the meaning of their enigmatic words be understood. Only in truth which has become clear do we recognize the half-veiled truth. The revelation that we feel we are witnessing in these current times is that of man in his life, a revelation that comes out of philosophy, with which philosophy itself is revealed to us. From a philosophy that employs its rational instruments to throw light on science, a 'Science of Sciences,' we have returned to a situation in which, without abandoning its heritage, philosophy, thought in its purest form, may advance with the impetus of passion, yet not to devour itself, as passion on its own does, but stopping itself in time before the prey flees and so bringing it to us intact. Passion by itself scares off the truth, which is sensitive and agile in avoiding its claws. Reason alone cannot capture its prey. But passion and reason together, reason charging forward with passionate impetus and braking at the right point, can collect the naked truth without damaging it. Philosophy is, then, as Plato said speaking of Pythagoras, a 'road of life.' Truth is the nourishment of life. However, life does not devour truth; it holds it high and in the end leaves it fastened above time, since 'time passes and the word of the Lord remains.' And thus, being conscious that, in the times in which we live, a truth emerges from the light of reason, and this comforts us and assists us in bearing the anguish of passing with time. 'Everything passes away' would be the great quietist solace if we did not pass away in the same way, if with the time that passes our own life did not pass as well. Grabbing hold of the truth, of our truth, associating ourselves with its discovery because we have accepted it in our interior, because we have made our life conform to it, rooting it in our being, we feel that our time, at least, does not pass in vain. Something of its passing remains, as in the flowing of water in the river, which passes and remains. 'Everything passes away,' the water of the river flows, but the riverbed and the river itself remain. But it is necessary for there to be a riverbed, and the riverbed of life is truth. And the riverbed is so necessary to the river that without it there would be no river, only a swamp. The escaping waters would have the momentary illusion of having achieved freedom, of having recovered the entirety of their potency. But this potency would gradually exhaust itself before the lack of limits; even if there were no other obstacle than unlimited extension, the fury of the water within the riverbed would abate, vanquished on the limitless plane. The riverbed creates the river just as much as the fury of the flow of water which passes through it. And it is good that life is rushing away from us, fleeing the cosmos itself; the flight from mere physical permanence as life falls into the heart/bosom? of time is also good, if this movement conforms to the riverbed of truth. It is then that the anguish of passing away is transformed into the joy of the wanderer.

This dissertation is dedicated to Nancy Petchersky and William C. Lane for their many gifts of cultural heritage, talents of singing and writing and allowing me to act out my role in their lives.

Philosophia: International Journal of Philosophy, 2021

The COVID-19 global pandemic, the ExtraJudicial killings (EJK) here in the Philippines, and the natural calamities we experienced have put human suffering in our collective consciousness. Perhaps one of the most enigmatic human experiences is suffering. We often associate suffering with misery, pain, loneliness, and even evil, but the mystery of suffering goes beyond its cause or reason because it touches on the very meaning of suffering, especially when we consider the suffering of the innocent. St. John Paul II (1984) in Salvifici Doloris (#3, henceforth SD) writes: "In whatever form, suffering seems to be, and is, almost inseparable from man's earthly existence." Indeed, suffering is part of our human existence, and there is no escaping it in this temporal life. Suffering is as much of a part of human existence as death. The moment we are born, we are bound to suffer and then die. We experience pain, illness, disability, hunger, poverty, grief, hatred, frustration, heartbreak, guilt, humiliation, anxiety, loneliness, self-pity, and death. We witness the mass execution of innocent people, the unimaginable toll of natural calamities on communities, and the poverty and hunger of the poor, to name a few examples of mass suffering. Human suffering reminds us of the Buddhist first noble truth, which states that there is suffering, human existence is suffering. According to the Buddha, suffering comes in many forms. Three obvious kinds of suffering correspond to the first three sights the Buddha saw on his first journey outside his palace: old age, sickness, and death. However, according to the Buddha, the problem of suffering goes much deeper. Life is far from ideal and comfortable; it frequently fails to live up to our expectations. Human beings are subject to desires and cravings, and more often, we desire the things of this world. However, even when we are able to satisfy these desires, the satisfaction is only temporary. Pleasure does not last, or if it does, it becomes monotonous. Even when we do not suffer from external causes like illness or bereavement, we are unfulfilled and unsatisfied. This is the truth of suffering; it is connected to our desires, according to the Buddha. It is only in death that we are able to free ourselves from suffering. Death offers us escape. Death, however, while something that is inevitable to happen, is not an option, escape is not an option. We continue living despite the suffering and miseries. However, given that we cannot escape suffering in this life, does it mean that our life