- What I Got Wrong About Buddhism (And What Changed Everything)
Doug reflects on five key lessons he wishes he had understood earlier in his Buddhist practice: misconceptions about meditation, the importance of testing teachings rather than accepting them on faith, treating the Dhamma as tools rather…
- Free Will Worth Wanting: the Buddha's Radical Answer
The free will dilemma: are we mere puppets of our past conditioning? Or are we somehow magically able to rise above all causes to act with pure spontaneity? The Buddha rejected both these alternatives, and provided us with a third answer:…
- Free Will Worth Wanting: the Buddha's Radical Answer
The free will dilemma: are we mere puppets of our past conditioning? Or are we somehow magically able to rise above all causes to act with pure spontaneity? The Buddha rejected both these alternatives, and provided us with a third answer:…
- Buddha's Advice on Discussion and Debate
How did the Buddha handle difficult discussions and debates? We will look at four ways he said we should respond to questions, as well as the key differences between skillful and unskillful discussion. Then we will turn to how we can make…
- Buddha's First Sermon: Metaphor, History, Teachings
The sutta on the Rolling Forth of the Wheel of the Dharma is purported to be the Buddha's first sermon. We will consider the relevance of the metaphor of the wheel in this discourse. Then we'll turn to some historical questions and…
- Is there a "Buddhist Bible"? Key Buddhist Texts
Is there a "Buddhist Bible"? We'll consider some key Buddhist texts, by analogy with the Old and New Testaments. What are they, and how do they relate to one another? NB: This is not intended to be an exhaustive list — I only barely…
- Is the Two Truths Doctrine a Problem for Early Buddhism?
I'll look at a recent paper by Bhikkhu Sujato, and its claim that the Buddhist doctrine of "two truths" deprecates the Buddha's own teachings. What is the doctrine, and why might he think so?
- The Buddha's Argument for Non-self Through Impermanence: It's Strange!
The second argument the Buddha uses in his Second Sermon on non-self involves impermanence. I'll look at his argument there and why it seems rather odd to our ears. I'll consider one potential subtext for the Buddha's argument, and what…
- A Hidden Meaning Behind the Buddha's Second Sermon on Non-self
The Buddha's Second Sermon presents his first public argument for non-self. But it's an odd sermon, one that seems to leave out material that should be there. Why is this so? In this video I'll consider the first part of the sermon, what…
- Buddhism's Non-self: How Do You Know? Looking at a Critique
How do we come to know the truth of non-self in early Buddhism? Do we come to it through deep meditative insight, or by other means? We'll look at a recent critique of the claim that we come to know non-self through deep meditative insight.
- Consciousness and the Self: One Early Buddhist Monk's Famous Mistake
Are you your consciousness? We'll look for an answer to this question by considering the famous mistake of Sāti the Fisherman's Son, an early Buddhist monk who was famously corrected by the Buddha. We'll also consider where Sāti might…
- The Buddha on Self and Non-Self
The Buddha's teachings on the self and on non-self are some of his most subtle, interesting, and unique. We'll take a look at them in this video. We'll also compare the Buddha's view of the self with that of western philosophers David…
- The Buddha and Free Will
What might the Buddha have thought about free will? To answer that question we'll look at the history of the concept in Western philosophy, and then consider how it applies to early Buddhism. We will find that the Buddha would have…