Sean Champ's List: Buddhist Theory and Practice

• We’re not free; we can’t see other options, other possibilities.
• The goal of attention, or shamatha, practice is to become aware of awareness.
• steady and unchanging, like the pole to which the flag of ordinary consciousness is attached.
• awareness of awareness,
• instead of being carried away by the wind, we turn our attention inward
• With practice, that space—which is the mind’s natural clarity—begins to expand and settle.
• to watch our thoughts and emotions without necessarily being affected by them quite as powerfully or vividly as we’re used to.
• slowly our identity shifts from a person who defines him- or herself as lonely, ashamed, frightened, or hobbled by low self-esteem to a person who can look at loneliness, shame, and low self-esteem as movements of the mind.
• The process is not unlike going to the gym. You have a goal—whether it’s losing weight, building muscles, promoting your health, or some other reason. In order to achieve that goal, you lift weights, jog on a treadmill, take classes, and so on. Gradually, you begin to see the fruits of these activities; and seeing them, you’re inspired to continue.
  
• In the case of attention practice, the important point is to know that the goal is to establish and develop stability of awareness
• what, in Buddhist terms, is known as ordinary awareness
• Just notice and identify what you’re thinking or feeling.
• We practice ordinary attention every moment of every day.
• Sometimes, thoughts and emotions are not very clear.
• Physical sensations could reflect a host of emotional or mental states
• The important point is to simply look at what’s going on and acknowledge whatever you’re experiencing just as it is, rather than to resist it or succumb to it.
• meditative awareness— approaching thoughts and emotions as objects of focus through which we can stabilize awareness.
• . “Watch the thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations,” I told him.
• You’ll start to see that it has a lot of parts. It’s made up of thoughts, like ‘I should have done A, B, or C. Why didn’t I do X, Y, or Z?’ It also comprises emotions, such as fear, anger, and resentment, and physical sensations, including churning in the stomach, an accelerated heartbeat, and sweating.
• Whatever you’re feeling—whether it’s panic, anxiety, loneliness, or people-pleasing—the basic approach is to try to watch any of the smaller bubbles with the same sort of attention applied to watching a physical object or focusing on a sound.
• Focus on that with meditative attention. In so doing, gradually your attention will shift from identifying as swallowed up in an emotional bubble to the one watching the bubble.
• The third stage of the exercise involves a little bit of analysis: an intuitive “tuning in” to determine the effect of the practice.
• As I was taught, there are three possible results of applying meditative awareness to an emotional issue.
• that the problem dissipates altogether.

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• The second possibility is that the thoughts, feelings, or physical sensations intensify
• an indication that deeply embedded perspectives are beginning to “loosen up.”
• Initially, the plate or bowl looks messier as the residue spreads. Actually, though, the plate isn’t getting messier; the dried food is dissolving.
• e third possibility is that emotions may just remain at the same level, neither diminishing nor intensifying
• That’s also great! Why? Because we can use an emotion—and the thoughts, images, and physical sensations that accompany it—as strong supports for attention practice.
• So often, we allow our emotions to use us.
• Applying attention practice, we use our emotions as a focus for developing awareness, an opportunity to look at the “looker.

  • When "the looker" doesn't understand that this kind of reflexive "looking" is going on, perhaps a communication gap may develop around it, however?
• Focusing on form, sound, or physical sensations develops your capacity to look at long-term, overwhelming emotional states.
• In the beginning, it can be difficult to immediately address strong emotions or the biases that have developed over long periods.
• Emotions can color perception, behavior, even physical sensations
• Practicing in this way, you can gain experience on how to deal with emotions.

  • This can be dangerous, however - if becoming preoccupied with the secondary emotions.
• to discover the looker rather than being overcome by what is looked at.

  • Perhaps one should be mindful of one's responsive "looking", as well.
• to develop a stability of awareness

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• Animals have always been regarded in Buddhist thought as sentient beings
• the doctrine of rebirth held that any human could be reborn as an animal, and any animal could be reborn as a human

  • This should be understood in context with Buddhist concepts of life and rebirth - as may differ significantly towards contemporary scientific concepts of the same.
• sentient beings currently living in the animal realm
• One could not, therefore, make a hard distinction between moral rules applicable to animals and those applicable to humans; ultimately humans and animals were part of a single family. They are all interconnected.
• separated from humans

  • This suggests what may be an unnatural, and - in terms of Buddhist cosmology - a furthermore inaccurate division between the 'worlds' as such.
• Tiryagyoni in Sanskrit, Tiracchānayoni in Pāli.
• In cosmological terms, the animals were believed to inhabit a distinct "world"
• Rebirth as an animal was considered to be one of the unhappy rebirths, usually involving more than human suffering

  • Again, this should be considered in the context of the nature of Buddhist concepts of life and rebirth - and perhaps should be differentiated from scientific concepts of the same.
• acting primarily on instinct.

  • With a note: Wikipedia may not be suitable as a primary reference about Buddhist cosmology, but may be indicative of some selective trends and references in the same.
• the Mutual Possession of the Ten Worlds

  • This really needs a bibliographical reference!
• In the 'Devadatta chapter of the Lotus Sutra the Dragon King's Daughter attains Buddhahood in her present form, thus opening the way for both women and animals to attain Buddhahood.

  • This would be an inaccurate statement if that way was not closed before the Lotus Sutra, though given a hint to in the Lotus Sutra. Shakyamuni may not have been the first Buddha, nor the last.
• The Chinese scholar Tiantai
• Bodhisattva (the past-life Buddha)

  • Note that "past-life Buddha" may not be an accurate definition of the concept of Bodhisattva, in the broader Buddhist canon.
• The Jātaka stories which tell of past lives of the Buddha in folktale fashion,
• how, in a past life as King Shibi, Shakyamuni sacrificed himself to save a dove from a hawk.^[1]

  • One notes that it's a reference onto a work in the collected publications of beloved SGI.

  • Here! We *finally* have a bibliographical reference in this Wikipedia article. At the time of this bookmark note, it is the first bibliographical reference in the article - after many statements that should certainly need a bibliographical reference.
• The first of the five precepts bans the taking of life

  • ...except for "The precepts as defined by Wikipedia," lol.

  • This may represent an oversimplification of the precepts.
• narrowly interpreted
• The Buddha taught that all sentient beings, including those in the animal realm, possess Buddha nature and therefore can attain enlightenmen

  • Needs citation

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• a voluminous body of literature native to India concerning the previous births (jāti) of the Buddha.
• previous lives of the Buddha, in both human and animal form.
• The Theravada Jatakas comprise 547 poems,
• The commentary gives stories in prose that it claims provide the context for the verses
• Alternative versions of some of the stories can be found in another book of the Pali Canon, the Cariyapitaka,
• a number of individual stories can be found scattered around other books of the Canon

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• to develop a free movement, not fixed on one point.
• We go round looking for opportunities, trying to create opportunities,
• In judo it’s called ‘cutting off the bull’s horns.’ After eight years’ intense practice, you develop something very strong and that’s the bull’s horns — that’s what you fight with. It’s not only in Judo: it may be a technique of domineering, or pathetic helplessness.
• These methods fail in the end, so we give them up
• one becomes a beginner again.
• that when we’re becoming strong and well-known, and we have mastered something, then we should take up something else where we are going to be no good at all.
• They say that when you’ve become a great big frog in your own pond and you’re puffing your self up, go to the neighbouring pond and become a tadpole, a tiny little tadpole.
• being able to go freely into other forms.

  • Doesn't this advice ultimately lend the reader into the cycle of birth and death?

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