Thursday’s session will be our last class; Joan and I are going out to California a week from Wednesday to spend some time with our grandson and his parents, and I’ll miss the last scheduled session.

Throughout the course, as we’ve looked at the various topics that Buddhist scholars, historians, practitioners and teachers tend to spend most time discussing and working to understand, we’ve used, almost as our exclusive source for the core teachings regarding those topics, the discourses recorded in the Pali Canon. On Thursday, we’ll look at just what that is: what texts compose the canon, how they were chosen, how they were recorded, their relation to other Buddhist texts, and where they fit into the various traditions that define Buddhism today.

Unlike some of the other topics we’ve discussed, this one is not particularly challenging intellectually (although I do think that it’s enormously interesting, and important to an understanding of the sort of thing that Buddhism is). What I hope we’ll be able to do is make relatively short work of reviewing the basics, which I’ve covered in a relatively short essay I wrote several years ago, have revised several times since, and is now posted on our Dharma Study website. Then we’ll use the bulk of the class for a more general discussion, in which we can air some of the questions that have arisen through the past six weeks, and review what we’ve learned and where we hope to go with that.

I look forward to seeing you on Thursday.

I’ve written a page on the Squidoo site about the Gotami Sutta and how to integrate the lessons it teaches into your meditation practice. I just came across Squidoo a couple of days ago; it’s an interesting concept, and it looks like it might be a good way to publish stuff that’s a little bit longer, a little bit more complex, and has a slightly longer useful life span than a typical blog post, and that’s more likely to be discovered by more people than a typical Page on a minor Wordpress blog like this one. Another advantage is that the links to books go to Amazon, from whom Squidoo collects a small referral fee. 5% of that fee goes to charity; about half comes to me; and Squidoo keeps the rest. (We’re talking pennies here, not dollars; you pay no more for the book than you’d pay if you found it through an Amazon search.) Like I said, an interesting concept.

I’m mainly interested in what you think of the article itself, especially those of you who find meditation practice appealing and may actually have started to do some meditation on your own. There’s a Guestbook module at the bottom of the Squidoo page (which, for some weird reason, they call a “Lens”). Leave me a comment if you have something to say.

In the past couple of sessions, the topic of emergence has been a dominant feature of the discussion. We are, as far as we can know, only our experience, and all experience, whether sensory, affective, or mental, emerges from our contact with the phenomenal world. Since our experience is constantly changing, emerging from the fundamentally impermanent nature of the phenomenal world, and since we can be understood only in terms of our experience, then we are emergent beings.

Emergence is at the core of the Four Noble Truths; with dukkha as a given condition, taking innumerable forms, we can reach the true understanding that dukkha emerges from our craving (essentially, a craving for permanence in one form or another), that dukkha will cease to emerge when the craving ceases, and that the conditions to bring that cessation about involve reworking our lives according to eight factors of understanding, action, and insight.

In Session 6, we will examine the nature of dependent emergence in its most elaborate exposition, as a chain of 12 links, each of which serves as a necessary condition for the next, starting with ignorance as the given (again, in many differently conditioned forms), and ending, at least (of course) temporarily, in dukkha.

This chain of dependent emergence, called paticcasamuppāda in Pali, is, for many historians and philosophers of Buddhism, the Buddha’s most radical and original contribution to the way in which we understand the world and our place in it. The essay I’ve written, which I hope you will find time to read (at least once) before our class, is based on a dharma talk I gave last year at the Cincinnati Buddhist Dharma Center; I’ve re-worked it considerably, based on work I’ve been studying by some very original scholars of early Buddhism: Noa Ronkin, Sue Hamilton, and Richard Gombrich; and my experience in November at the Spirit Rock Study Retreat with Stephen Batchelor.

It’s an enormously complex subject, and no one I’ve read pretends to understand it perfectly. I’ve tried to make my own limited understanding of it clear and to relate that understanding to the lives we lead here and now, 2500 years after the Buddha developed the ideas and in a world that even he might have been unable to imagine.

I look forward to our discussion.

(AKA “Fools Rush In”)

Sorry to be late getting this essay on Enlightenment and Nibbana posted, but it was hard to write, and I didn’t want to get it either too confusing or too terribly wrong. I hope that I’ve struck a decent balance between clarity and precision, and that the essay, and the teachings it links to, will give us the basis for a good discussion on Thursday.

Here’s where we start getting into the fun stuff.

Most Westerners, if they have any notion of Buddhism at all, associate Buddhism with the notion of kamma (Sanskrit karma) and rebirth. The idea, at its most basic, is that you’re reborn again and again; if you’ve made good kamma (e.g. been kind, generous, honest, etc.), you’re reborn into fortunate circumstances; if not, you’re reborn less fortunately. The goal of enlightenment is to bring rebirth to an end. (And really, who would want that?)

In our session on Thursday, we’re going to look at the Buddhist notion of rebirth (and its inevitably accompanying re-death) with a little more nuance. The understanding that I will present is my own understanding. While it is rooted in canonical sources and is in general accord with an understanding of kamma and rebirth that has been articulated by many modern Buddhist scholars and practitioners, it is far from an orthodox view of the subject (if the idea of orthodoxy even makes much sense in the context of Buddhism). It is certainly not how an ordained Buddhist monk is likely to present the idea. For one sample of such a presentation, you might want to look at Bhikkhu Bodhi’s start at an essay on the subject. He’s clearly uncomfortable with the whole idea of having to justify the notion of rebirth as it is presented in the canonical teachings, but he is also unwilling to accept that a changing scientific view of the world might give one permission to interpret the canonical teachings in a way that is too very different from the interpretations offered by the classical commentators.

When one is presented with a new idea, especially one that seems to conflict with ideas that one already holds, the temptation is to assume that we understand the new idea, on first hearing, well enough to evaluate it. We do so, decide whether we’re for it or against it, and dig our heels in. From that point on, our strategy is more or less to interpret any argument we’re given, or any evidence that’s offered, in light of our entrenched position, and to push back against the argument, reject or re-interpret the evidence, and ridicule or revile the motives of anyone who disputes our entrenched position. Unfortunately, that’s how most public discourse proceeds in this country today.

There is another way. That is to assume, if something makes no sense to us, or seems to conflict with a deeply held belief, that we may not be understanding it rightly. We can make an effort to understand it differently, so that it begins to make a little more sense, or to pose a less certain threat to our existing views. If we assume a certain level of good will on the part of those who confront us with new ideas, we may even begin to find some common ground: shared assumptions about how things are, or about how we’d like things to be.

That is the approach I’ve tried to take with my essay on kamma and rebirth. The idea of rebirth has never made much sense to me, and my instinctive rejection of that idea caused me, for many years, to reject Buddhism in general. As I’ve come to understand Buddhism better, and especially as I’ve come to admire the Buddha himself and to find relevance and wisdom in his core teachings, I’ve had to re-evaluate my instinctive reaction of an idea that was clearly close to the center of the Buddha’s own conceptual universe.

There is no question that the Buddha accepted the fact of rebirth; it was part of his cultural milieu, and it is an important component of very many of the teachings we have in the Pali Canon. But it’s also true that the Buddha resisted, strongly and consistently, any attempt to define exactly what happened in the course of rebirth. Indeed, views about the detailed workings of the rebirth process – just what was reborn and how the influence of kammic action emerged in an individual’s life – were among the most pernicious views of all; the most difficult fetter to break. The Buddha’s reticence on this topic, along with his general encouragement to think things through for yourself and to give authoritative precedence to direct experience, justifies, I believe, the kind of redefinition of kamma and rebirth that I’ve tried to work out in my essay. I encourage you to read that essay before this coming week’s session, and also, if you have time, to read Bhikkhu Bodhi’s more orthodox understanding.

I anticipate a good discussion, and I look forward to seeing you all on Thursday.

In Session 1, we discussed the first of Buddhism’s “Three Refuges”, the Buddha; in session 2, we discussed the Dhamma; and now in Thursday’s session, we will be looking at the third Refuge—the Sangha. I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to get a posting up with some relevant readings; I’ve been fighting a pulled muscle in my back, and it’s painful to sit at the computer for more than about 10 minutes. I do have the materials mostly ready for next week’s session, and I’ll have those posted by the weekend.

A typical Buddhist group session—a sitting or a dharma talk—opens with the participants “taking the three refuges”:

I take refuge in the Buddha
I take refuge in the Dhamma
I take refuge in the Sangha

For a second time, I take refuge in the Buddha
For a second time, I take refuge in the Dhamma
For a second time, I take refuge in the Sangha

For a third time, I take refuge in the Buddha
For a third time, I take refuge in the Dhamma
For a third time, I take refuge in the Sangha

That’s not like a religious person taking refuge in God, or in Jesus. It’s more like an expression of confidence:

• I have confidence that the Buddha did, in fact, achieve awakening to a set of truths that are hard to see and important to know if we wish to lead a fulfilled life.
• I have confidence that his formulation of those truths, and of the Path that will allow us to realize their benefits in our lives here and now, is comprehensible and practical; I can understand those truths, and I can follow that Path, and, if I do, I will be better off.
• I have confidence that the community of those who have followed the Buddhadhamma over the centuries—not only Buddhist monks and nuns, but committed and diligent lay followers—has developed a body of techniques and guidance teachings within which I can find the particular words and practices that resonate with my unique condition and can help me reach the goal of liberation that the Buddha claimed as the essence of his teaching.

In session 3 of the Topics course, we will review, briefly, the first two refuges, and we will look into the meaning of the third from several points of view; we will look at the historical development of the sangha, at the role of the sangha within Buddhist doctrine, and at the nature of the sangha today, both in traditionally Buddhist cultures and in our Western society.

At Integral Options Café, a very fine Buddhist website, there is a good review of a new book on Mindfulness as a way of dealing with everyday difficulty. I think you might find it interesting in light of the brief mindfulness meditations with which we’ve been opening our class sessions.

Class Notes, Session 2

Session 2 is the only session in which both the Topics course and the Teachings course will be dealing with the same subject—the Buddha’s first Discourse, Turning the Wheel of the Law, The Dhammacakkappavatthana Sutta. We’ll take a different approach to that Discourse in each class, sufficiently different, I would hope, so that those who are in both courses will not be bored or find the two classes repetitive.

In the Teachings class, we’ll look at the events leading up to Gotama Siddhatta’s Awakening as the Buddha, his formulation of his enlightenment experience as the Dhamma—the set of regularities and fundamental principles that determine how processes and events emerge from precedent conditions; essentially, the “natural law” that governs not only events in the physical world but also the course of our human lives and the progress of our well-being. We will then focus our attention on how that Dhamma was articulated in this first teaching and how it must have been received by its audience, the five monks, all born into the Brahmin caste, who had been Siddhatta’s companions during the period when he was practicing a path of austerity and extreme renunciation.

In the Topics class, we’ll cover those same subjects much more telegraphically, and then spend much of our time looking into the philosophical implications of the truths enunciated by the Buddha; we’ll look in more detail at the multiple ways in which he applied the concept of a “Middle Way”, and we’ll examine in some detail the particulars of the Eightfold Path.

Prior to both classes, it would be good if you could find the time to read two documents:

• The Dhammacakkappavatthana Sutta itself, both the rendering I have supplied, and the more literal translations that are linked to from that document. This is, after all, the most fundamental text in Buddhism, and it would be a good idea to see how different translators have handled some of the difficult technical terms it introduces.
• An essay I wrote some time ago, borrowing extensively from material on Access to Insight, on the Buddha’s Early Life and Development. Essentially, the events covered in this essay take us from Siddhatta’s birth right up to the point at which he is ready to deliver the Dhammacakkappavatthana Sutta.

For the Topics course, I’d also recommend that you take a look at a precîs I prepared of a long piece by Bhikkhu Bodhi on the subject of the Eightfold Path. The original is on Access to Insight; there’s a link to the original in the precîs if you want the whole story.

Another superb resource, especially for those of you with mp3 players (iPods or the like), is the strong selection of talks by Stephen Batchelor at DharmaSeed.org. Stephen has visited Spirit Rock Insight Meditation Center in Marin County every other year since 2005, and all of his seminar talks are available from that site. I attended the retreat he led this past November, and it was a thrilling experience. In particular relation to the topics we discussed this past week and that we will be discussing this coming week, I recommend talks #1, #2, and #3 from the 2007 retreat. Go to this page; if you just want to listen on the computer, you can click on the “Stream” button; if you want to download the audio file to your computer for transfer to your player, right-click on the “Download” button.

One fundamental thing about the Buddha’s teachings is that they are rooted in the world; in words that are repeated many times in the texts, those who follow the Path realized by the Buddha will come to enlightenment “right here and right now.” And because those teachings, like everything else we experience in the normal course of events, are contingent upon the conditions and circumstances from which they emerged, it helps, in understanding the teachings, to understand (however dimly we might understand across a gulf of half a planet and 2500 years of time) the place and the culture into which Siddhattha Gotama was born and in which he delivered the discourses through which we know him.

I’ve created and compiled a set of maps that can help us with that understanding; the maps will be useful in both courses, and it would be good to print them out, especially the second one—the political map—and bring the printed map(s) to class with you.

The Buddha. There is no longer any doubt among scholars and historians that the Buddha was an historical figure who was born among the Sakyan people of Northern India about 2500 years ago. He was the son of a powerful and wealthy leader of the Sakyans, a member of the Gotama clan; his given name was Siddhattha and he was known as Siddhattha Gotama. All of the evidence indicates that he was uncommonly intelligent and well-educated, with a charismatic personality. At the age of 29, dissatisfied with the transient nature of human life and the inability of even great wealth and power to deliver lasting happiness, Siddhattha left home and accepted the discipline of a renunciant wanderer; for the next six years he traveled on foot through northern India, studying with some of the finest teachers of his time, learning the techniques of yoga, living on alms, practicing severe austerities, and developing the meditative method that would form the basis of the practice he came to teach.

At the age of 35, sitting in meditation under a fig tree close to the village of Bodh Gaya, near the modern city of Rajgir, Siddhattha achieved the enlightenment he had been seeking: he came to an understanding of how things unfold in this world, and especially how the inescapable impermanence of the world is experienced as pain and distress, and how a person can live and train the mind to reduce or end that experience of pain.

With the attainment of that direct and powerfully experienced insight, Siddhattha became “The Buddha”, a term meaning “Enlightened One” or “Awakened One”. For several weeks following the experience, the Buddha contemplated the implications of his insight and developed his Dharma, his formulation of the truth that he’d come to understand about the world and the human condition. He then proceeded, over the next 45 years, to teach that Dharma to a growing community of male and female followers, disciplined, loyal, and self-reliant.