It is quite common in Buddhist circles these days to hear the following assertions:
1. everything affects everything else, at least minimally, in one way or another
therefore
2. everything is interdependent
and
3. interdependent co-arising is the fundamen
It now seems definitely to be autumn. Misty mornings. Cool weather that feels cold by comparison with what went before. Interesting how one forgets what winter felt like. There is little to write about in terms of activity here. All goes on as usual.
Read more…Commentary on Summary of Faith and Practice
Part 27 "Delineated by the Precepts" from the sentence "The Buddha Body is delineated by the precepts"
To delineate is to loosely define. It is to create a sketch or outline that indicates the shape or n
Read more…Finally the weather broke. Last night we had a big storm with torrents of rain. The outside world is suddenly refreshed. The earth had become hard and dry, the grass all yellow. The rain fell and was soaked in by he ground like a great dry sponge. Th
Read more…For some time now I have been predicting the rearmament of Europe. Now Mr Junker in his address is starting the ball rolling. Brexit facilitates this process. The UK has always been a brake upon it. The balance of forces since WWII has been a deal in
Read more…In my Principles Against Common Fallacies
7. Spiritual maturity requires a sense of separation.
These days there is a great emphasis in spiritual teachings upon interconnectedness. These ideas have some sense, but should not be taken too far. Separat
Read more…The moon rises further east each evening and gows in size. Three quarters now.
The days are hot and today the wind was particularly dry. Perhaps it is the sirocco. The winds from Africa rarely get this far north, but today the air had a quality altog
Read more…The half moon is orange in the clear evening sky in the south. The crickets are chirping and the summer heat persists.
Elja has a regular industry of jam and syrup making going on in the kitchen and fruits continue to ripen.
Inside we work on editing
Read more…We had our usual Friday visit to Oasis this morning and today for the first time did the ritual in French which was very nice. Annette has been doing some great translating work. She has done the whole of our service book and I am now editing it, eve
Read more…Commentary on Summary of Faith and Practice
TEXT: Faith & practice cannot be differentiated
COMMENTARY
Differentiating
"Cannot be differentiated" means that one cannot tell one from the other. You can see a person's real faith in their practice. Prac
Read more…Isn't it wonderful news that the USA has agreed to spend money on clearing up all the anti-personnel munitions that they dropped on Laos during the Vietnam War ! They are actually going to spend something like a tenth of a percent of the cost of the
Read more…This morning I read one or two interesting things that led to me writing a blog post about not knowing what we know.
Meanwhile, outside, the flowers are blooming...
Fruit
Today Elja was picking berries and making jam and syrups while I was sawing logs that Adam was then storing away in the woodshed. All preparations for the colder months to come.
We are still getting plenty of garden produce. Today I harvested a
Read more…In my post: Principles Against Some Common Fallacies...
5. 'Oneness' and 'interdependency' are mutually contradictory ideas and neither is central to Buddhism.
Interdependency exists, but is a special case, not a universal one.In the Abhidhamma secti
Read more…A Compelling Novel
I have recently read the Iris Murdoch novel, The Unicorn. It is what is technically referred to as a 'closed' novel in 'gothic' style; closed in the sense that the characters are constrained in a closed world by the structure of th
In my post: Principles Against Some Common Fallacies...
4. The idea of 'interbeing' was not taught by Buddha.
This item is close to that of yesterday. However, we can address the matter from a different angle. One often hears these days that the esse
Read more…We are a community of three once again, now that Elja is back. It is blackberry season and we have been picking berries and she making syrups in the kitchen.
I have been doing some woodwork and the hut in the barn now has a roof, effectively giving
Read more…In my post: Principles Against Some Common Fallacies...
3. It is not true that believing that all people are part of one another will necessarily make somebody a better person. People are often careless of themselves.
Advocacy of the idea that we are
Read more…In my post: Principles Against Some Common Fallacies...
2. It is not necessary to create a 'self' before you abandon it.
The attempt to square Western psychology with Buddhist psychology sometimes yields useful ideas, bit it also often leads to confu
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