dedicated to a peaceful & just society
grounded in contemplative & spiritual practice
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Midwestern Dhamma dedicated to a peaceful & just society grounded in contemplative & spiritual practice |
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Oak Park, ILWhat guides our meditation & daily practice of Dhamma? Right View-Understanding guides the path & itself arises from study & reflection. Consequently, Liberation Park encourages wise study of the Buddha's teaching as found in the Pali Suttas.
We will meet every other month, on Sundays (dates below). We begin with a 30 minute meditation, followed by a talk on the topic, a short break & a conversation. Prior reading of the core material (!!) is required for attendance at the class.
2010 Sessions: January 17, March 21, May 2, July 18, September 26, & November 14.
Two translations are available on Access to Insight: Kelly, et al & Narada. Maurice Walshe's translation is published in The Long Discourses of the Buddha (Wisdom).
Please use these "directions" to reflect on the significant relationships in your life, which may not fit tidily into one of the six. Consider, too, the reciprocal responsibilities between you and the people with whom you are related. Are there responsibilities we tend to prefer and others that are downplayed or repressed?
Satipatthana is the organizing framework for much of meditation practice in early Buddhism, guides our training in mindfulness (sati), and matures into deeper contemplation of these four areas of life: body, feeling, mind, and Dhamma.
Please read a competent translation of one of the main satipatthana suttas: MN 10 and DN 22. You might want to compare with the Anapanasati sutta (MN 118, download pdf), which offers a more systematic approach linked by breathing.
An excellent, comprehensive exploration of this core teaching is found in Satipatthana by Analayo Bhikkhu, available from Windhorse. This is well worth your time and energy, whenever you are ready to jump in.
Continuing the above explorations of these suttas & mindfulness practice.
Further details will be posted after the September session.
You might also be interested in the Insight Chicago workshops happening on Saturdays immediately before the Oak Park classes.
We will begin 2010 with a sustained look into sunyata (voidness, emptiness), starting with Ajahn Buddhadasa's seminal book, still the best Theravada writing on sunyata. Participants are asked to read the entire text and come prepared with observations, insights, and questions.
!! Buddhadasa Bhikkhu's Heartwood of the Bodhi Tree (Wisdom)
!! The Little Sutta on Emptiness (MN 121)
The Bigger Sutta on Emtiness (MN 122)
You might also consider Reading the Suttas according to the Suttas (MP3)
We will continue with Ajahn Buddhadasa's text and use it to read the classic Mahayana Heart Sutra. Please review Heartwood (!!) and see how it lines up with the Heart Sutra.
!! Various translations of the Heart Sutra are available online. Choose any one or two of them that you like. Here's one in pdf. Red Pine translation c/o Google.
And here's an article comparing the Heart Sutra with the Pali suttas.
Next up, we will look into Nagarjuna's classic Mulamadhyamakakartaika. A few English translations have been published.
!! Stephen Batchelor's Verses from the Center (Riverhead/Penguin) is most accessible.
Jay L Garfield's The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way (Oxford UP) is more complete, scholarly, lengthy, and difficult.
Preparation: Please select a few stanzas or a whole chapter that interest you, that you have read, pondered, & investigated carefully, and that you would like (or will endeavor) to make some comments about. No need to be erudite, just take some stabs at thinking & observing with Nagarjuna. When possible, link with Heartwood of the Bodhi Tree.
Comment: Increasingly, Garfield's commentary on the Mulamadhyamakakarika seems to overburdened philosophical reasoning & jargon. I suspect Nagarjuna would feel the same way. I'm still using his translation of the text but no longer consider it better than Batchelor's. I'd rather compare the two versions and others.
Unlike Garfield, I take Nagarjuna's stanzas as observations, inquiries, and practices; not as philosophical argument. I don't think Nagarjuna is debating anyone (tho perhaps his own assumptions, thoughts, and memories). I would like to use them more as practices of Dhammanupassana and Dhamma inquiry than as obtuse philosophy. I'll bet that was Nagarjuna's intention, too. I suggest we read these as meditations and explore them as practice.
Garfield really lost me with his interpretation of Chapter 26. It reads almost as lifted from the Visuddhimagga, which is later than the Mulamadhyamakakarika. I'm trying to find a Sanskrit edition of the Mulamadhyamakakarika in order to see which terms are there and which not.
I'm working on a new study program for friends in Lawrence, KS. It will include new and old talks, readings, and references to other web resources. For now, its focus is Practicing with the Four Noble Truths. If interested, you can follow along here.
