Category: Dharma

Continuing to offer an overview of my weekly podcasts for the last two years, I offer the two series that supplement my book  Buddhist Life/Buddhist Path.

Buddhism began with the Buddha, a towering figure who lived some hundred generations ago, taught for forty-five years, developed a huge following of ascetics and householders, kings and paupers, and left behind a vast corpus of teachings, astonishingly profound and comprehensive, consistent, brilliantly coherent and still intelligible today. His teachings span not only the higher training of meditation, psychology and the path to awakening, but also practical advice on virtue, harmony, community and basic human values. He left behind a culture of peace and awakening and a monastic community that persist to this day. These talks on the Buddhist Life and Buddhist Path are based on the earliest stratum of scriptural sources, on early Buddhism. They supplement Book One of the text  Buddhist Life/Buddhist Path: foundations of Buddhist based on earliest sources, and it is recommended that these talks be heard in conjunction with reading the text.

There are two sets of podcasts, one called Buddhist Life and the other Buddhist Path:

Twelve talks, click on the image. These encompass instructions for leading an upright, virtuous and devoted Buddhist life, a life rooted in basic Buddhist values, which constitute the prerequisites for the Buddhist Path.

Twelve talks, click on the image. These encompass the four noble truths and the noble eightfold path, that is, systematic training in virtue, wisdom and equanimity and toward awakening.

I have been quietly reposting my podcast to this site since the beginning of COVID on THIS PAGE. I thought I would start highlighting some of these posts for the sake of my blog subscribers, starting with:

What did the Buddha think of women

I have to admit that on first encounter the early Buddhist texts struck me as abstruse and disconnected, and that – given their antiquity and obscure history – I fully expected them to remain so. With further engagement over time, however, I was delighted to discover a brilliant, methodical and consistent mind shining through those profound teachings and now marvel at how well time has treated these ancient texts. Among other things, I recognized the coherence of the Buddha’s methodology.

Every field of at least intellectual interest sets parameters for what it investigates and how it investigates it. We’ve had the scientific method since the seventeenth century that bounces between empirical discovery/verification of objective data, and hypothesis formation. Mathematics, art criticism, philosophy, law music, psychology and so on have methods appropriate to their fields, sometime explicitly stated, sometimes with an implicit culturally sustained understanding. The characteristic method reflects, but also shapes, the character of the respective field, by setting parameters on its scope of concern and on its means of explanation. It is the same with the Buddhadhamma

The Buddha’s method breaks down into four recognizable parameters, each of which the Buddha articulates explicitly and carefully. Bringing them together and then pointing out how they logically cohere is the task of the current paper. The parameters of the Buddha’s method are:

• Practicality. The Buddhadhamma serves to support practice and practice serves to bring benefit. What lies beyond that has little place in the Buddhadhamma.

• Subjectivity. The realm of Buddhadhamma, its practice and its benefit is the world as we experience it. Underlying mechanisms that stand behind our experience have a marginal role in Buddhadhamma.

• Insubstantiality. What we presume experientially to be true or to exist “out there” independently of our cognition of it is of dubious validity.

• Conditionality. Conditional relations constitute a privileged way to explain the world meaningfully without resort to underlying mechanisms.

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Saturday afternoons, July 11 – August 29, 2020

led by Bhikkhu Cintita

“Kind words: adventures in being nice” (for kids, 7 – 12 years old), 1:00 – 1:50 pm

Are you a jackal or a giraffe? Giraffes are gentle creatures with super big hearts. They also have really really long necks and can see what is going on even far away. They’re nice. Jackals are greedy, fight over dead animals, and live close to the ground. They’re mean. We all have both in us, but as Buddhists we can learn to be more and more like giraffes by talking and listening to people the way giraffes do. (The topic of this class is much like that of the adult class, but explained for kids. We will begin each class with the refuges and precepts and conclude with sharing the merits.)

“When we don’t agree: harmony through empathy” (adults/teens), 2:00 – 2:50 pm

We live with conflict at many levels, from family to politics, at work and while shopping. This class is about bringing harmony into our lives. These teachings are based largely on the Buddha’s Dharma and Vinaya – the Buddha gave special attention to how to maintain harmony in the Sangha. They also draw heavily from “Non-violent Communication” (NVC), a modern set of practical techniques employed successfully in conflict resolution throughout the world, which are remarkably consistent with the Buddha’s teachings. Both emphasize deep understanding. There will be some recommended readings.

Information and registration

These classes will be conducted on-line. Please install Zoom (zoom.us) on your device. Email bhikkhu.cintita@gmail.com with the subject line “Zoom classes,” to register or ask questions. To register, include your name, where you live (city or state) and which class(es) you would like to enroll in. You will receive by email instructions for joining the even on-line, updates and course materials. STAY SAFE! – BC

Download flier

Last week’s talk demonstrated the exemplary support the Buddha provided to women’s practice. This week we will look at a controversial text, describing with the origin of the nun’s sangha, that at first sight seems to paint a starkly contrasting picture of the Buddha.

Buddhism is not widely known as a religion of gender-equality. But the early the discourses show repeatedly that the Buddha had the deepest kindness and respect for women, as particularly evident in his treatment of the nun’s Sangha. (In part two we will look at the most controversial text in this regard.)

Understanding the aggregates. The aggregates are a foundational teaching of the Buddha, but they are rarely properly understood. This talk shows how to identify all the aggregates in your own experience and explains their role in contemplative practice.

Podcasts from the last two weeks follow.

What is the Buddha-Sasana?  The Buddha-Sasana is Buddhism as a living tradition, something that evolves, spreads to new lands, dies out in old lands, rather than Buddhism as the Dharma, which is much more static. A key question for the Buddha seems to be is how well the Buddha-Sasana would retain the authenticity of the Buddha-Dharma.

The story of my ordination. A narrative account of BC’s 2009 bhikkhu ordination in Burma. This story appears in his 2012 book, Through the Looking Glass, which can be found under “books” on this site.

Find all my audio’s and video’s HERE.

Source: The story of my ordination