The idea of rebirth has ancient roots in the West. The introduction of its Buddhist formulation to the West originated from contact between Christian missionaries and Asian Buddhists. Misunderstandings resulting from these encounters appear to have had a lasting impact on Western Buddhist ideas about rebirth. Although belief in rebirth need not be considered a precondition for embarking on the path to liberation, in the way this emerges in early Buddhist thought, an understanding of this core … [Read more...]
Gary Snyder, Dōgen, and the EcoSangha: The Practice of the Wild in the Anthropocene
Jason Wirth
“For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear,” sixteen-year-old Greta Thunberg courageously argued at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City in September of 2019. “How dare you look away and say that you are doing enough!” Warning that global carbon emissions are currently on track to exceed the Paris Accords’ aspiration for a 1.5-degree Celsius net gain in less than nine years, she raged, “How dare you pretend that this can be solved with business as usual?” With … [Read more...]
Taking Freedom to Extremes: Teachings for Responsible Social Action
Lila Kate Wheeler
In December, Kate Lila Wheeler, Katy Wiss, and JD Doyle will be teaching a program at BCBS called “Taking Freedom to Extremes: Teachings for Responsible Social Action.” In this course they will explore the Buddha’s teachings as resources for responding to the challenges and complexities of our social and political lives. Insight Journal conducted the following interview with the teachers via email. Insight Journal: Urgent and unprecedented challenges face human communities all over the world. … [Read more...]
Craving and dukkha
Bhikkhu Anālayo
In what follows I examine an aspect of the standard exposition of dependent arising, paṭicca samuppāda, namely the relationship between craving and dukkha. After an initial assessment of the significance of dukkha in the light of its standard translation as “suffering,” I turn to the relationship between craving and dukkha from the viewpoint of dependent arising and set against the background of the medical scheme of diagnosis underlying the four noble truths. In the final part of this … [Read more...]
A Whole-Life Path: A Layperson’s Immersive Approach to the Noble Eightfold Path
Greg Kramer
The Noble Eightfold Path offers us a way through life that is far more wise and intentional than the meandering path of ongoing suffering that our human conditioning naturally takes us on. If we are to experience the full liberating potential that the Path offers us, however, an ad hoc, semi-intentional, pick-and-choose application of the Buddha’s eight path factors won’t do. We need what I call a whole-life path, a fully immersive, always-on engagement with the Noble Eightfold … [Read more...]
Mu Soeng and the Evolution of the BCBS Library
Charles Creekmore
An Exercise in Interdependent Origination Like everything else in this world we inhabit, the library at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (BCBS) has become a long-term exercise in “interdependent origination,” as Buddhists would describe the “coincidence” of countless factors that create anything and everything. The common denominator connecting the emergence of the BCBS library has been the guiding hand of Resident Scholar Mu Soeng. He oversaw the expansion of the collection as it came … [Read more...]
On Time
Bhikkhu Anālayo
In this article, I study selected Buddhist perspectives on time. After surveying discourse references to specific times, kāla or samaya, as a way of introducing my topic, I turn to the idea of a moment, khaṇa, and the doctrine of momentariness. Then I study the three time periods in relation to vedanā, feeling tone, and proceed to the two occurrences of vedanā in the standard exposition of dependent arising, paṭicca samuppāda. Besides serving as the condition for the possible arising of craving, … [Read more...]
Five Spiritual Faculties
Willa Thaniya Reid
Insight Journal interviews Willa Thaniya Reid and Dr Elizabeth Day about the Five Spiritual Faculties, which they will be teaching in the course "Touching Nibbana through the Five Spiritual Faculties" at BCBS on July 12-17, 2019. Willa Thaniya Reid trained in the Thai Forest Tradition of Ajahn Chah, which harmonizes with her affinity for the natural world and for reflective practice grounded in the Buddha’s suttas. She was a monastic for 18 years, eight years as senior nun of … [Read more...]
Being Time
Shinshu Roberts
Shinshu Roberts is co-founder and teacher of Ocean Gate Zen Center in Capitola, CA. She will be teaching "Dōgen’s Being-Time as Teaching and Path" at BCBS on August 2-4, 2019. The following is an excerpt From Being Time by Shinshu Roberts, ©2018 by Shinshu Roberts. Reprinted by permission of Wisdom Publications. Introduction to Approaching the Study of Dōgen Dōgen Zenji founded the Sōtō School of Japanese Buddhism (thirteenth century) after returning from China, where he became a lineage … [Read more...]
Food and Insight
Bhikkhu Anālayo
In this article, I continue to explore the topic of mindful eating, broached in the previous issue of this journal, from the viewpoint of its potential to arouse insight. I begin by contrasting King Pasenadi’s tendency to overeat with the exemplary way the Buddha took his meals. Then I explore the distinction between worldly and unworldly feeling tones and survey passages relevant to the topic of fasting. In the final part of the article I turn to the insight potential of mindful eating. Eating … [Read more...]