Category: philosophical counseling
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Craving As The Key to Suffering And Non-craving As The Key To Liberation
This morning I had an excellent conversation with a young man about SN 56, “Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Dhamma.” I now understand more deeply–conceptually as well as experientially–“what the Buddha taught” (to cite Walpola Rahula). The Middle Path: Neti Neti and Non-craving The reason the Buddha begins by speaking with the five…
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‘I’m Desperately Searching For Certainty’; or, On Hyperpluralism
A conversation partner told me yesterday: “I’m desperately searching for certainty.” The natural reply would be to point to Descartes’ attempt to provide a rational foundation upon which modern culture could stand, but is that where this hunger–and anxiety–began? The historian Brad Gregory doesn’t think so. In his excellent book The Unintended Reformation: How a…
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‘When You Are Thinking Of Neither Good Nor Evil, What Is Your Original Face?’
In the Platform Sutra, Huineng, the sixth patriarch of Chan (Zen), is confronted by a monk seeking enlightenment. “Since the object of your coming is the dharma,” Huineng tells him, “refrain from thinking of anything and keep your mind blank. I will then teach you.” The Platform Sutra informs us that only after the monk…
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How Could Craving Be At The Very Bottom Of My Suffering?
In “Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Dhamma,” said to be the first sutra given upon the Buddha’s awakening, we learn about the middle way, the four noble truths, and the eightfold noble path. It is the second noble truth that leaped out at me as I was re-reading this sutra yesterday. Recall that…
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Mind And Body Arise While I Abide
A Meditation Mind arises and I abide. Body arises and I abide. Mind not arising, I abide. Body not arising, I abide. It, therefore, makes no difference whether mind or body arises or not, no difference at all to me. It is as if mind, intermittently arising, and body, intermittently arising, were to appear–to me–in…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 