What is this?

The Image of Ethics (Part 5) - (In Psyche's Orchard) 26 mentions

• there in regard to our practice dharma practice certainly there in regard to
• in epistemology that goes with my underpins my dharma practice what does it lead to what does it open what does
• many years of modern philosophy and dharma and modern physics etc a lot of that is is
• um if we take buddha dharma and especially pali canon buddha
• break down broadly the ontological approach in buddha dharma not quite so clean cut but let's say two
• but that would be kind of one end of a certain view of a certain buddha dharma view just taking this kind of very
• me that those who emphasize her whether they're in the dharma or outside of the dharma those who emphasize the
• they're in the dharma or outside of the dharma those who emphasize the impossibility of knowing any
• the beginning i think in the soulmaking dharma teachings ontology and epistemodial considering ontologies and
• i think we need to certainly in soulmaking dharma again as ethics is a part of that we need to and
• kind of axiomatic to fundamental to soulmaking dharma you know we can look back in history in
• and all this is within the careful discipline of soulmaking dharma practice and sensibility
• and we already looked at how saw making dharma can give
• something much more congruent with soulmaking dharma contemplating the timeless or having a
• and reward in that sense we could again soulmaking dharma could uh modify what he wrote there and take the
• categories beyond all attributes like when people talk about the dharma kaya or people talking the via negativity
• can be modified from the perspective and the understanding of soulmaking dharma but what it will lead to is is a
• i think is you know i wrote this letter to to dharma teachers 10 years ago i think it was and about
• climate change and about flying so much in the dharma and and i was fully aware there was a very strident tone a very
• not that experiencing actual soulmaking dharma practice now i know there are some people who've listened to loads of
• very central modification that that the soulmaking dharma paradigm brings as we said in regard to the augustine example
• um with regard to soulmaking dharma and practice
• prevalent around all that because still making dharma is born now at this time in our culture
• um philosophy and psychology and dharma understanding and isn't that all a bit elitist
• then we'll say well if you're trying to propose a soulmaking dharma approach to ethics then that's that's really elitist
• thank you for listening to learn how you can support the teachers and dharma seed please visit

Dilemmas and Delineations: How did we get here?! (Part 1) - (Eros Unfettered - Opening the Dharma... 26 mentions

• approaching what insight meditation is and what the dharma is and how to think of that
• approach to this was again not not very conventional dharma but it's more like let the students have their desires so
• interesting and not simple and desire in the dharma is also not simple so i don't think we already went into
• and choose a path or if you say a version of buddha dharma that allows a great passion for realization for deep
• and some choose a path or a version of the dharma where actually not a lot of passion is needed the vision the
• traditional sort of interpretation of dharma i would say my um my
• include myself again sort of at the edge of of dharma would even conceive of an endlessly
• derailed by some of your approaches to the dharma often in a quite uncomfortable manner the this isn't
• attempting to reconcile romantic love with the dharma and i would like to explore this possibility in order to
• much this seems to be insisted insisted upon in the dharma and this has been a huge difficulty in my recent attempts to
• so uh adequately addressed in in the dharma at present for the most part
• penetrating inquiry dharma inquiry and always in dharma inquiry always there's
• dharma inquiry and always in dharma inquiry always there's something really fundamental to see
• conceiving um not just a dharma but of life and of existence and of who we are and what the
• usual or narrow sort of ways we can interpret the dharma or understandings of dharma or frameworks may not be
• interpret the dharma or understandings of dharma or frameworks may not be enough or are not enough to open up this
• tessellated with our usual maybe the more typical dharma teachings about craving and letting go of craving and
• these teachings integrate into the usual dharma and teachings about craving and letting go and releasing dukkha and the
• because of uh as i said one one way of understanding the dharma unfolds a certain depth and a certain
• so you know maybe more typical if you like dharma psychology as a sort of more um let's say just the teaching of the
• one of the immense strengths of the buddha's teaching and dharma teaching is that he kind of gives us a set of
• um but they serve to simplify so dharma concepts serve to simplify simplify because they fabricate less
• too they they they simplify in the sense that the dharma concepts and become ways of looking that move towards less and
• direction so much the power of dharma practice and dharma concepts and other distinctions
• so much the power of dharma practice and dharma concepts and other distinctions other delineations become necessary what
• um psychology we need a dharma psychology that both recognizes

An Ecology of Love (Part 4) - (An Ecology of Love) 25 mentions

• and window bearings phrase it should be traditionally dharma way of speaking about things in terms of qualities of
• reasons and sometimes limited through different cultures whether it's dharma culture or other culture
• this of uh in regard to activism of the view of what dharma is the conceptual structure or limit or
• the conceptual structure or limit or framework of what the dharma is and our imaginal sense of fantasy of what the
• concept um so our view of the dharma um also has a big impact on
• so one way is in relation to the idea our belief of what the dharma says about self so relating to what we just said
• quite popular hold on to the view that the dharma teaching is always towards not self
• etc not engaged or or for instance that what the dharma teaches of the self is just a process
• the better you try and see self that way and that's a kind of dharma perspective to to hold on to
• okay so that's one way of view of the dharma through its view of what the teaching is about self and not self
• activism that can play with the image of the dharma practitioners revolutionary as troublemaker
• of shunted aside or disallowed often in in in in certain dharma dharma spheres
• a second uh way that the view of the dharma the concept and image of the dharma can constrain activism is in
• dharma the concept and image of the dharma can constrain activism is in regard to our conception of the four
• people say you know it's ridiculous to conceive of a dharma and the ethics of the dharma it doesn't include all that
• conceive of a dharma and the ethics of the dharma it doesn't include all that one teacher i heard when i said
• no climate change it doesn't concern the dharma at all it's not it's not involved and someone might hear that just say how
• completely ridiculous you're making the dharma irrelevant to modern modern life but if there's this opening up of of the
• the right usage of them but it kind of cognitive dissonance i think in dharma practitioners are very very common a
• a person thinking it's an ideology conception of what the dharma is what the four noble truth is and what they're
• of depth and power all kinds of things you need to come just within the dharma and then you think about other other
• aspects of one's like so can we view the dharma that in a way that actually strangely open or might sound strange
• um richer way of of uh viewing the dharma but
• self-view as i've talked about that not so much of you of the dharma um and with the view itself and the view
• um and with the view itself and the view of the dharma um are involved in all this business

Questioning Awakening - (November Solitary) 25 mentions

• and or most talks try and sort of explain the dharma if you like try and
• actually explain what that teachers take on the dharma is um
• uh and also on dharma seed and of course when you come to
• underneath how we think of and conceive the dharma practice the path etc
• it's not often those the way we think and conceive of the dharma and the assumptions underneath how we're
• thinking of and conceiving of practice path dharma and not often at the forefront of our minds they're sort of
• um what the goal is actually what the dharma is it's it's actually really really wide and quite divergent
• just the other day and he's been in the dharma scene internationally for i think more than 40 years so it's really quite
• wrapped up in the range of the kinds of dharma there are is is uh wrapped up in that is the sense of where we're going
• so to compare a few sort of different packages if you like of of dharma and goal
• some for some people for many people what the dharma is is really uh the attempt if you like or the
• phrase i don't think it's the kind of what we could call existentialist dharma the awakening there if you like is
• anything anything you want have any view you want about the dharma but are we really free to inquire
• mythos and ethos of what we call the dharma or what the dharma is to us massively massively
• irrelevant or if the view of the dharma is really what we're doing is releasing
• simplicity in this is absolutely pervasive in the dharma world not just the insight meditation tradition
• what the offering is that's the advert for buddha dharma reducing suffering let me ask you
• so i would say for most people who love this who are really into dharma whether it's insight or something else it's
• uh is a very popular notion and not just in dharma circles people want to go parachuting before
• worldview has found its way into the dharma has impregnated the dharma with its assumptions and its views
• communicated it also comes into the dharma sometimes but then what happens in relation that
• hundred years so any dharma that's based on that as truth is actually outdated
• need to be based in reality we need a dharma based in reality look guys it's been almost an hour are you okay if it's
• um we need a dharma based in reality what do you mean by reality
• reality how are we defining reality and in the existentialist kind of dharma i think it's

Image, Mythos, Dharma (Part Three) - (Day Retreat, London Insight) 24 mentions

• causes the present okay it's important a dharma practitioner uh
• case that we also if you're involved in dharma and you love dharma that we also have a fantasies of what awakening is
• um philosophy and and also you could say of some dharma emptiness sent a more pervasive emptiness i mean one might ask
• their fantasy their mythos of what awakening is of what the dharma is and also of what the cosmos is
• awake of what awakening is what the dharma is of what the cosmos is not just the reduction the technology of
• beauties which we which is part of what we love when we love the dharma and that includes uh if you like a kind
• just be a bit more aware the dharma as a mythos for beauty and for soulfulness
• um and go back to the parrot john keats soulmaking dharma as a mythos for soul making
• conception of what is the ground of the dharma so
• beauty of soulfulness the fantasy of dharma the fantasy of what liberation is and the fantasy of the self and the
• but the mythos the fantasy of the cosmos of the self of the dharma is what's playing
• so even what i was calling the existentialist version of the dharma um i would say there's actually an
• enchantment there for whoever has has that picture of the dharma when it's actually enchanted by the
• that in one way of thinking about what the dharma is is that's part of deep liberation that's exactly what's part of
• is is probably roughly equal to a lot of other dharma properties in terms of the way it reduces suffering
• different ground a very different ground grounding the dharma in imagination in in a very different ground it opens up
• if at least at times at least at times the dharma a practice is not primarily for ending suffering but rather for
• that's available to us of the self of the dharma of the cosmos etc when donna and practice become a little
• or a little bit more let's say like art is dharma as art and when we hear that we tend to think oh yes the art of
• enchantment partly art dharma as art not what's are for
• whole point when you say dharma's eye open something up
• different words is it the case then that buddhism and the dharma has acted a special teravarden dharma has actually
• that buddhism and the dharma has acted a special teravarden dharma has actually um constrained to one narrow and small
• life life this every day of course it's important that the dharma flows in and influences and makes an impact on our

Am I Free to Inquire? - (The Boundless Heart) 24 mentions

• wanting to understand and this is our inquiry too as as dharma practitioners i understand
• central thrust of dharma practice and the central question in in dumb practice if
• inquiring even into the framework of the dharma and that's what the dharma is it's a framework questioning
• the self the world the frameworks the dharma these are big big bold ques it's a big bold questioning
• so sometimes in some spiritual circles and even a lot of dharma and even insight meditation circles there's a
• and as i said right from the opening talk the dharma is is is a set of ideas in a way and it takes time to digest
• but you can translate this to what it means about my dharma practice and the way i am in relationship to life my
• all and so is this true for the dharma in my practice yes and we touched on that last
• and a funny thing you know i started to cut onto something like giving dharma talks and just meeting people in
• this re this desire for simplicity i think also runs very deep in dharma circles and spiritual circles and
• and some of this has to do with cultural influences from zan into the dharma in the west etc and because we have
• oftentimes it's the opposite and even in the dharma we tend to think actually really what we're trying to do is
• why does it have to be that way why does the dharma have to be that way why does our relationship with the
• why does our relationship with the dharma have to be that way so this all this might make sense to those of you
• discovery an open-ended search for truth also in spiritual matters in the dharma all the sense that there's actually just
• that and if you know the history of the the dharma's moved to tibet for hundreds of years
• so all this all this of course applies to the dharma inquiry and the inquiry we have
• foreign with the dharma it's especially nowadays we might not what does not fit into the
• we might not what does not fit into the dharma what doesn't fit into the dharma framework so i was talking to someone
• try to fit it on maybe it doesn't fit is the dharma even applicable in that sense
• sense is there even one dharma anymore we talk about vidharma says this and in the
• about vidharma says this and in the dharma it says that is there even one it's so already in western culture it's
• cultural zeitgeist what is the one dharma there's all kinds of mixings going on there
• and if you've been involved in the dharma a long time that might be quite a question to even entertain

The Movement of Devotion (live and shortened version) - (Re-enchanting the Cosmos: The Poetry of... 24 mentions

• realm of psychology or psychotherapy or dharma or other spiritual eyes so often unwittingly there is a re-introduction
• figures like richard dawkins and other people but also within the dharma there's a kind of aggressive secularism
• um that comes from certain voices in certain positions within dharma and uh uh in a way because of the aggression
• disenchantment of certain kind and enchantment that runs through the dharma but even more than that in the wider
• oh it was like dharma culture but it's not really only dharma culture it's um wider
• it was like dharma culture but it's not really only dharma culture it's um wider than that in in the culture of uh
• radically different basis and approach to the dharma so radical actually means from the word
• is radical and it's a big deal so all dharma concepts whatever it is aggregates or
• them are truths or realities there's no dharma concept that really is a truth in that sense
• in that sense um or reality but all of them all dharma concepts big ones are little ones are
• it's difficult for many people nowadays in in dharma circles and and wider circles
• um give a different ground to the to the dharma ground of ground lessons a basis in emptiness in this fullness of
• of ways these ideas have sedimented in dharma culture and in the consciousness obviously of practitioners etc
• so so much in the languaging of mindfulness or dharma um one one president was talking about
• would say is the main point of classical dharma which exactly is understanding that how perception is fabricated as i
• and this is the thrust of the main point of what i would call classical dharma um meaning dharma doesn't include the
• of what i would call classical dharma um meaning dharma doesn't include the imaginal etc
• and so there's this in in the in the both in dharma culture and other spiritual cultures if we even use the
• years old and have been surpassed in science and philosophy in in dharma in all kinds of things
• as we said uh dharma understand if we go deeply enough if i approach it in the right way
• basis but permeating through the whole of the dharma and with all this as i said in in in in
• with uh with anything really or certainly not the dharma um
• um because how often i hear from people they were listening to a dharma talk from this teacher or that teacher or
• what we'll find in our practice and in our lives and the way the dharma sort of develops for us is is actually kind of

Sila and Soul (Part 1) - (Four Circles, Four Parables of Stone and Light) 23 mentions

• soul and sia soulmaking dharma and imaginal practice and ethics and buddha dharma and the
• soulmaking dharma and imaginal practice and ethics and buddha dharma and the wider range of buddha dharma in its
• and ethics and buddha dharma and the wider range of buddha dharma in its relationship with ethics and then even
• culture or wider cultural inheritance around morality and buddha dharma just just a few brief things there
• by contrast to a certain extent buddha dharma and if you know buddha especially from insight meditation tradition but
• white true but generally speaking most people who come to buddha dharma if they've had a painful history with
• relief from there in the in the buddha dharma's presentation of it as we inherit it in the west but certainly
• coupled with the fact that western buddha dharma a lot of western buddha dharmacs is certainly the inside
• presented and laid out in the buddha dharma as they come to it is more spacious and palatable not for everyone
• our psyche in our minds the mixture of what we've received from buddha dharma and the abrahamic religions
• the abrahamic religions and modern and buddha dharma and then the emphasis also in modern western buddha diamond on uh
• certainly from the perspective of soulmaking dharma is still a kind of um
• and at the same time what you've got in some maybe most dharma circles buddha dinosaurs this is a kind of
• this out before lastly what you have is an inheritance uh in the buddha dharma certainly in theravadin buddha dharma
• an inheritance uh in the buddha dharma certainly in theravadin buddha dharma and the insight meditation tradition
• kind of a wider tradition and context of the dharma where we do talk about um ethics and values and what's nobility
• diesel emissions and all the rest of it um and that was woven into the dharma talk and then got a note from a
• come in but there was just a few years ago some concern among dharma teachers who were involved in that world
• um you probably know him more from dharma talks actually where sometimes i and other teachers have quoted him a
• trust it how do i know and sometimes i ask people in dharma talks at different different dial talks
• models that we receive through the dharma and being being a little bit limited
• and modeling from teachers and other students in in in the dharma world or it's only in the insight meditation world
• thank you for listening to learn how you can support the teachers and to dharma seed please visit

The Meditator as Revolutionary - (The Boundless Heart) 23 mentions

• and she made a very insightful comment uh she's not a dharma practitioner but just to preface it a little bit
• just to preface it a little bit uh buddhism the dharma talks about suffering in the end of suffering that's
• suffering in the end of suffering that's that's the thread through all dharma teachings and everything suffering and
• there's a a revolution dharma practice is a kind of revolution sometimes people say
• swords in life and in practice and one of them can be the danger that dharma practice can itself become a little
• ourselves and for others and this is where the dharma comes in so let's unpick some of those back in uh
• okay fair enough but again what does this have to do with the dharma it always has to do with dharma and dharma
• this have to do with the dharma it always has to do with dharma and dharma practice so please bear that in mind
• itself we're in the middle of that and dharma practices in the middle of that consumerism and economic thinking and
• this is always the question in the dharma my responses are they helpful or not
• says about therapy we can say about the dharma therapy could be causing depression as
• through therapy and i would add or meditation or dharma practice another thing they talk about
• stuff one of the words that dharma means the original word dharma also one of its
• one of the words that dharma means the original word dharma also one of its meanings is duty it's interesting one of
• so all this to me very much affects dharma practice and and how i i feel i need to think about and relate to dharma
• dharma practice and and how i i feel i need to think about and relate to dharma teaching
• everything is said there i i have to ask myself as a dharma teacher am i supporting that
• danger what what am i modeling as a dharma teacher am i modeling a kind of nice security of fitting nicely and as a
• the modern expression of buddhism the buddha said the gift of the dharma is the highest gift you can give someone
• is the highest gift you can give someone but what is the dharma what is it to me the dharma is about values so when i'm
• but what is the dharma what is it to me the dharma is about values so when i'm teaching the dharma i'm also teaching
• the dharma is about values so when i'm teaching the dharma i'm also teaching about values values that matter values
• so what that means is if you if i want to give the gift of the dharma it means speaking up about values it means

"I Sing The Body Electric": On Orientations in Practice - (Re-enchanting the Cosmos: The Poetry... 23 mentions

• realm of psychology or psychotherapy or dharma or other spiritual eyes so often unwittingly there is a re-introduction
• figures like richard dawkins and uh other people but also within the dharma there's a kind of aggressive secularism
• um that comes from certain voices in certain positions within the dharma and uh
• disenchantment of certain kind and enchantment that runs through the dharma but even more than that in the wider
• oh it was a dharma culture but it's not really only dharma culture it's um wider
• it was a dharma culture but it's not really only dharma culture it's um wider than that in in the culture of uh
• radically different basis and approach to the dharma so radical actually means from the word
• is radical and it's a big deal so all dharma concepts whatever it is aggregates or
• are truths or realities there's no dharma concept that really is a truth in that sense
• in that sense um or reality but all of them all dharma concepts big ones are little ones
• it's difficult uh for many people nowadays in in dharma circles and and wider circles
• um really want to give a different ground to the to the dharma ground of ground lessons a basis in emptiness in
• of ways these ideas have sedimented in dharma culture and in the consciousness obviously of practitioners etc
• so so much in the languaging of mindfulness or dharma um one one person was talking about
• say is the main point of classical dharma which exactly is understanding that how perception is fabricated i said
• this is the thrust of the main point of why we call classical dharma um meaning dominant doesn't include the
• and so there's this in in the in the both in dharma culture and other spiritual cultures if we even use the
• years old and have been surpassed in science and philosophy in in dharma in all kinds of things
• as we said uh dharma understand if we go deeply enough if i approach it in the right way
• basis but permeating through the whole of the dharma with all this as i said in in in in
• with uh with anything really or certainly not the dharma um
• um because how often i hear from people they were listening to a dharma talk from this teacher or that teacher or
• what we'll find in our practice and in our lives and the way the dharma sort of develops for us is is actually kind of