Healing the mind
22 Jan 2025
What are we trying to do in Buddhist practice?
One way to think about the Buddhist path is of taking care of the heart and mind. Socrates said that he was concerned with taking care of the psyche. Rob Burbea described so much of the practice as being concerned with taking care of the heart. Other traditions might talk about taking care of the soul... how does that phrase sit with you?
In Buddhism...
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Not clinging to anything in the world: understanding the Satipatthana refrain
21 Jan 2025
The Satipatthana Sutta is perhaps the central meditation text in the Insight Meditation tradition. It outlines four domains in which we can be mindful:
body
feeling tone
mind
dhammas / frameworks.
Each of these has subcategories. But today I want to focus on how we interpret and practice the sutta’s instructions, particularly in the refrain. We're asking the question: what is samma...
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Ward Farnsworth's lead-pipe theory of the internet
6 Nov 2024
Ward Farnsworth has a beautiful analogy for how we got to this point in his book, The Socratic Method: A Practitioner's Handbook.
The ancient Romans built elaborate networks of pipes to deliver water where they wanted it to go. The networks were a marvel. But many of the pipes were made of lead, and the water carried the lead along with it. One school of thought regards this as part of the...
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Advice to beginners on the Buddhist path
4 Oct 2024
Be gently aware as you go through your day. Try to be present, and notice when the mind is pulled away from the present moment.
Be aware of that pull and what is happening in the mind.
When it's possible to let go of these distractions, you may wish to let them go and come back into a full experience of 1) what's happening, and, 2) how the mind is relating to that.
In formal practice especially,...
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My understanding of Buddhist practice and the four noble truths
19 Sept 2024
I found myself trying to neatly summarise how my thinking about Buddhist practice has developed recently, and my thoughts seemed to take the rough shape of the four noble truths.
The uncultivated mind will tend to get entangled in the messiness of life. This is painful or at least unsatisfying in a deep way.
It is craving and aversion that lead the mind to become entangled.
The mind can learn to...
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