- Four Kinds of Karma
The Buddha talks of four kinds of karma. I'll go through each of them and what the Buddha says about each. We'll see that the fourth and final one is quite strange and surprising, and may hold a key to how we can understand our practice…
- The Strange Case of the Dog and Cow Duty Ascetics in Early Buddhism
So-called dog- and cow-duty ascetics approached the Buddha to ask him about their practices. We will look at the sutta in which this occurs and at what the Buddha had to say to them.
- Three Ways Desire Makes the World
We'll look at three ways that desire "makes the world" for us, from the traditional Buddhist understanding of cosmology to a more down-to-earth way, and finally to a deeper, more fundamental understanding of the role desire and attachment…
- The Three Realms of Existence
What are the three realms of existence in early Buddhism? We'll begin by looking at the way early thinkers sometimes had odd ways of approaching the world. Then we'll turn to the early Buddhist account of the three realms themselves, and…