Search results for: Phenomenology

The Wings to Awakening Preface
… The first discipline is phenomenology, the branch of philosophy that deals with phenomena as they are directly experienced, in and of themselves. There are many schools of modern phenomenology, and it is not my purpose to try to equate the Buddha’s teachings with any one of them. However, the Buddha does recommend a mode of perception that he calls “entry into emptiness (suññatā …
The Wings to Awakening B. Kamma & the Ending of Kamma
… Even though the Buddha’s phenomenological approach answered his questions as to the nature of kamma, it also reshaped his questions so that they had little in common with the questions that most people bring to the practice. As with all insights gained on the phenomenological level, dependent co-arising is expressed in terms closest to the actual experience of events. Only when a …
The Wings to Awakening G. The Seven Factors for Awakening
… As we noted in I/B, the knowledge that puts an end to the efﬂuents deals with experience in the phenomenological mode. Thus, the best questions for weakening the efﬂuents are ones that lead the mind into that mode. Now, not all questions are helpful in this way. Some deal in terms that focus the mind on narrative or cosmological issues in ways that …
The Wings to Awakening H. Discernment: Right View
… This phenomenological mode of perception, or “entry into emptiness,” sees things simply in terms of what is present and what is not [MN 121]. Here, realizations are expressed merely as pointers to present phenomena without any content that would point to anything outside of direct experience: “There is this,” [MN 102] “Such is form, such is feeling,” [§149] etc. The Pāli name for this …
The Wings to Awakening ii. The First Truth
… This is why discernment needs the faculties of conviction, persistence, mindfulness, and concentration to give it the detached assurance and steady focus needed to stick with pain in and of itself, in the phenomenological mode, and not veer off into the usual narratives, abstract theories, and other unskillful defenses the mind devises against the pain. Only through the development of the five faculties into …
The Wings to Awakening C. The Four Right Exertions
… In the third stage, the function of exertion becomes finer yet, as it maintains a basic “empty” or radically phenomenological awareness of the frame of reference in order to bring the mind to the state of non-fashioning appropriate for the process of Awakening. The equipoise of this state—beyond the categories of effort or non-effort—explains the paradox expressed in §62, which …
The Wings to Awakening Introduction
… The third insight, however, went beyond shamanism into a phenomenology of the mind, i.e., a systematic account of phenomena as they are directly experienced. This insight was exclusively Buddhist, although it was based on the previous two. Because it was multi-faceted, the Canon describes it from a variety of standpoints, stressing different aspects as they apply to specific contexts. In the course …
The Wings to Awakening B. The Four Frames of Reference
… In other words, one tries to stay with the phenomenology of immediate experience, without slipping back into the narratives and world views that make up one’s sense of the world. In essence, this is a concentration practice, with the three qualities of ardency, alertness, and mindfulness devoted to attaining concentration. Mindfulness keeps the theme of the meditation in mind, alertness observes the theme …
The Wings to Awakening iii. The Second & Third Truths
… Thus the practice takes the same approach as phenomenology: exploring the processes of conditioning from the inside as they are immediately experienced in the present moment. This is why the pattern of dependent co-arising lists factors of consciousness—such as ignorance, attention, and intention—as prior conditions for the experience of the physical world, for if we take as our frame of reference …
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