Dharma Wheel

Before I had studied Ch’an for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and rivers as rivers. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and rivers are not rivers. But now that I have got its very substance, I am at rest. For it...

Across the street from us there is a big old apple tree. It’s been there since we moved into the neighborhood. It changes appearance from day to day, season to season, year to year. Sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically. But it’s always there. Does the apple tree exist? Here are some spontaneous...

Varis wrote: ↑Mon Jun 01, 2020 10:56 am From a sutric view, for laypeople it doesn't matter as long as you're not harming people

I’d be interested seeing a supporting reference for that.

I think it ought to be acknowledged that modern culture is far more sexually libertarian than traditional cultures of all kinds, Buddhist included. Since the ‘sexual revolution’, attitudes towards sexual relationships and sexual identity have been completely changed in the modern world - it isn’t ca...

Well, they mean different things, but presumably, for those with Prajñāpāramitā, the prognosis is good.

‘Noesis’ is a term that is used in Husserl’s philosophy - usually paired with noema - but I haven’t studied it.

within the domain of discourse of comparative religion, ‘the absolute’ has a meaning, but that doesn’t make it easy to define . The question at hand is about "Zen’s stand regarding ‘The Absolute’", and as the term itself was taken from Blofeld's translation, it turned out that Huangbo's records did...

the word ‘absolute’ is just a placeholder. A placeholder for what? A placeholder for something we have a vague intuitive grasp of, but that we don’t know. And you can’t ‘specify’ or ‘define’ any such thing as ‘the absolute’. What is it to define? It is to say what something isn’t, to delimit a mean...

That’s just the kind of writing that got me interested in Buddhism in the first place. I know it’s likely to get a lot of criticism but it makes sense to me. (But then, I am a technical writer by profession, who’s knowledge of Buddhism, such as it is, has mainly been acquired by reading, so it stand...

Anders wrote: ↑Thu May 28, 2020 12:04 pm

Wayfarer wrote: ↑Thu May 28, 2020 11:26 am but only for the sake of the delusional beings enticed by it.

What, do bodhisattvas never have fun?

only when it's someone else's, from what I've heard.

LastLegend wrote: ↑Thu May 28, 2020 5:45 am I am suspecting based on my delusional thought there might be an Arahant on this forum.

Probably among the first things Arahants abandon is the internet. Bodhisattvas, however, might continue to visit, but only for the sake of the delusional beings enticed by it.

I certainly feel it can be a lay practice, but a lot does depend on the character of the practitioner, seems to me. Like a lot of people, I got drawn to Buddhism through popular books about Zen, but as a practical matter, it is a demanding path. Not at all like the kind of instantaneous realisation ...

My recent contact with Jodo Shinsu has been salutary. In their view, the path of self-effort (which includes many traditional schools of Buddhism) whilst perfectly sound, is also only really feasible to a very small number of aspirants. As Harold Stewart (an Australian poet who lived the last part o...

Entering the search term 'the unconditioned' in Suttacentral returns many interesting results. But if you ask 'what is the unconditioned?' then there can't really be an answer, because all replies to such a question are, as it were, conditional.

My input is that, from a philosophical perspective, Buddhism has always sought to avoid conceptual absolutes, or ideas or symbols that are taken to represent some purported ‘absolute’. This is because such an effort invariably results in some form of dogmatic view (dṛṣṭi), where the purported ‘absol...

Excellent site and bio. Looks like a formidable scholar.

Again, 'eternalism' is not accepting the fact of individual agency or of persons. 'Eternalism' is the religious belief that there is an everlasting essence that will be reborn in perpetuity, forever - hence the name! There's a lot of disinformation and confusion spouted on this forum about this ques...

Then a certain brahman approached the Blessed One; having approached the Blessed One, he exchanged friendly greetings. After pleasant conversation had passed between them, he sat to one side. Having sat to one side, the brahman spoke to the Blessed One thus: “Venerable Gotama, I am one of such a do...

What is 'essence'? It's basically a term from Aristotle -'esse' being 'that which defines what something is'. Esse is 'essential nature', which confers the identity of the thing. You can take away 'accidents' - color, size, etc - and still retain essence, but if the essence is taken away, then you h...

Not everything is impermanent. The flux of phenomena are impermanent. If everything was impermanent then the Buddha's teaching would not have lasting validity.

That’s easy to say.