Advayavada Study Plan - week 3

Friends,

In Advayavada Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path is interpreted dynamically as an ongoing and autonomous, non-prescriptive, investigative and creative process of progressive insight reflecting in human terms overall existence advancing over time.

Adherence to the familiar Five Precepts and a well-considered understanding of the Four Signs of Being and the Four Noble Truths suffice to start off on the Path at any time. Nirvana means, in Advayavada Buddhism, the total extinction of existential suffering (duhkha, dukkha) as a result of our complete reconciliation with reality advancing over time.

The Noble Eightfold Path in Advayavada Buddhism is fully personalized: it is firmly based on what we increasingly know about ourselves and our world, and trusting our own intentions, feelings and conscience.

The Path we follow is (1) that of our very best (samyak, samma) comprehension or insight followed by (2) our very best resolution or determination, (3) our very best enunciation or definition of our intention, (4) our very best disposition or attitude, (5) our very best implementation or realization, (6) our very best effort or commitment, (7) our very best observation, reflection or evaluation and self-correction, and (8) our very best meditation or concentration towards an increasingly real experience of samadhi, which brings us to an even yet better comprehension or insight, and so forth.

By following the Noble Eightfold Path in this way you get in tune with wondrous overall existence advancing over time; old mistakes are left behind; sorrow, doubt and remorse immediately start disappearing; and your life at once gathers new impetus.

Last week's second preliminary subject was the Second Sign of Being, the second fact of life: anatman, the selflessness of everything, and therefore the finitude or transitoriness of all individual existents, including ourselves.

This week's preliminary ASP subject is again the ubiquity of suffering (duhkha, dukkha) in the world, which is simultaneously the Third Sign of Being (fact of life) and the First Noble Truth of Buddhism.

According to Advayavada Buddhism, it is indisputable that the Buddha did not believe in Brahman (God, a transcendent and immutable Absolute) or in the atman or atta (soul, immortal self) and taught that human beings suffer because they do not understand and accept that all things in life are instead utterly changeable and transitory. They are prone to suffering (duhkha, dukkha) quite simply because they wrongly strive after and try to hold on to things, concepts and situations which they believe to be permanent, but are not.

In Advayavada Buddhism, the concept of duhkha does not include emotional grief nor physical pain. It refers solely to the existential suffering, angst and regret non-enlightened human beings are prone to - the enlightened person accepts with understanding and compassion the grief and pain which are part and parcel of human existence; equanimity does not mean insensitivity to our own feelings and those of others.

The purpose of the ASP is that we study (and debate in the group, family circle and/or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the weekly subject, particularly in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, and our place and responsibilities in the family, group, sangha, society at large, etc.

Tip: Write down this week's subject (duhkha, existential suffering) in your pocket diary!

John Willemsens,
Advayavada Foundation.
<http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/index.htm#plan>

Advayavada Study Plan - week 2

Friends,

In Advayavada Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path is interpreted dynamically as an ongoing and autonomous, non-prescriptive, investigative and creative process of progressive insight reflecting in human terms overall existence advancing over time.

Adherence to the familiar Five Precepts and a well-considered understanding of the Four Signs of Being and the Four Noble Truths suffice to start off on the Path at any time. Nirvana means, in Advayavada Buddhism, the total extinction of existential suffering (duhkha, dukkha) as a result of our complete reconciliation with reality advancing over time.

The Noble Eightfold Path in Advayavada Buddhism is fully personalized: it is firmly based on what we increasingly know about ourselves and our world, and trusting our own intentions, feelings and conscience.

The Path we follow is (1) that of our very best (samyak, samma) comprehension or insight followed by (2) our very best resolution or determination, (3) our very best enunciation or definition of our intention, (4) our very best disposition or attitude, (5) our very best implementation or realization, (6) our very best effort or commitment, (7) our very best observation, reflection or evaluation and self-correction, and (8) our very best meditation or concentration towards an increasingly real experience of samadhi, which brings us to a yet better comprehension or insight, and so forth.

By following the Noble Eightfold Path in this way you get in tune with wondrous overall existence advancing over time; old mistakes are left behind; sorrow, doubt and remorse immediately start disappearing; and your life at once gathers new impetus.

In week 1 the preliminary subject of our Study Plan was the First Sign of Being, the first fact of life: anitya, omnia mutantur, everything changes, the impermanence and changeability of everything, of all existents, including ourselves.

In the current week 2 the preliminary subject is the Second Sign of Being, the second fact of life: anatman, the selflessness of everything, and therefore the finitude or transitoriness of all individual existents, including ourselves.

It is important to grasp how everything originates in conditions and causes and to see that everything, including ourselves, depends on everything else and has no permanent self-existence, that all things are interdependent and individually finite.

The purpose of the ASP is that we study (and debate in the group, family circle and/or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the weekly subject, particularly in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, and our place and responsibilities in the family, group, sangha, society at large, etc.

Tip: Write down this week's subject (fact: no self-existence) in your pocket diary!

John Willemsens,
Advayavada Foundation.
<http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/index.htm#plan>

Advayavada Study Plan - week 1

Friends,

In Advayavada Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path is interpreted dynamically as an ongoing and autonomous, non-prescriptive, investigative and creative process of progressive insight reflecting in human terms overall existence advancing over time.

Adherence to the familiar Five Precepts and a well-considered understanding of the Four Signs of Being and the Four Noble Truths suffice to start off on the Path at any time. Nirvana means, in Advayavada Buddhism, the total extinction of existential suffering (duhkha, dukkha) as a result of our complete reconciliation with reality advancing over time.

The Noble Eightfold Path in Advayavada Buddhism is fully personalized: it is firmly based on what we increasingly know about ourselves and our world, and trusting our own feelings and conscience.

The Path we follow is (1) that of our very best (samyak, samma) comprehension or insight followed by (2) our very best resolution or determination, (3) our very best enunciation or definition of our intention, (4) our very best disposition or attitude, (5) our very best implementation or realization, (6) our very best effort or commitment, (7) our very best observation, reflection or evaluation and self-correction, and (8) our very best meditation or concentration towards an increasingly real experience of samadhi, which brings us to a yet better comprehension or insight, and so forth.

By following the Noble Eightfold Path in this way you get in tune with wondrous overall existence advancing over time; old mistakes are left behind; sorrow, doubt and remorse immediately start disappearing; and your life at once gathers new impetus.

The ASP subject of week 52 was the Eighth Step on the Noble Eighfold Path: our very best (samyak, samma) meditation or concentration towards an increasingly real experience of samadhi.

This week's preliminary ASP subject is again the First Sign of Being, i.e. the first fact of life: omnia mutantur, everything changes, the impermanence and changeability of everything, of all existents, including ourselves.

Actual and potential change are certainly the most important aspects of pratityasamutpada, interdependent origination, the universal dynamic principle of existence that without exception 'all causes are effects and all effects are causes'.

The purpose of the ASP is that we study (and debate in the group, family circle and/or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the weekly subject, particularly in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, and our place and responsibilities in the family, group, sangha, society at large, etc.

Tip: Write down this week's subject (fact: impermanence) in your pocket diary!

Happy New Year!

John Willemsens,
Advayavada Foundation.
<http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/index.htm#plan>

Advayavada Study Plan - week 52, and Season's Greetings!

Friends,

In Advayavada Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path is interpreted dynamically as an ongoing and autonomous, non-prescriptive, investigative and creative process of progressive insight reflecting in human terms overall existence advancing over time.

Adherence to the familiar Five Precepts and a well-considered understanding of the Four Signs of Being and the Four Noble Truths suffice to start off on the Path at any time. Nirvana is, in Advayavada Buddhism, the total extinction of existential suffering (duhkha, dukkha) as a result of our complete reconciliation with reality advancing over time.

The Noble Eightfold Path in Advayavada Buddhism is fully personalized: it is firmly based on what we increasingly know about ourselves and our world, and trusting our own feelings and conscience.

By following the Noble Eightfold Path thus you get in tune with wondrous overall existence advancing over time; old mistakes are left behind; sorrow, doubt and remorse immediately start disappearing; and your life soon gathers new impetus.

Last week's ASP subject was the Seventh Step on the Noble Eighfold Path: our very best (samyak, samma) observation, reflection or evaluation and self-correction of our efforts.

This week's ASP subject is the Eighth Step on the Noble Eighfold Path: our very best (samyak, samma) meditation or concentration towards an increasingly real experience of samadhi.

samadhi = total concentration (of the mind, cf. enstasy); non-dualistic state of consciousness in which the experiencing subject becomes one with the experienced object; total absortion in the object of meditation; transcendence of the relationship between mind and object; merging of subject and object; to contemplate the world without any perception of objects; suspension of judgement; satori; bodhi; rigpa; realization of the sameness of the part and the whole, of the identity of form and emptiness, of samsara and nirvana, of the immediate and the ultimate; mystic oneness; perfect attunement with wondrous overall existence; oceanic feeling; wonder, awe, rapture; essential purity; deep love and compassion; awareness of our common ground.

The purpose of the ASP is that we study (and debate in the group, family circle and/or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the weekly subject, particularly in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, and our place and responsibilities in the family, group, sangha, society at large, etc.

Tip: Write down this week's subject (meditate towards samadhi!) in your pocket diary!

This is the last weekly ASP subject this year. Our next ASP subject will be issued in week 1, starting January 4th.

We take advantage of the opportunity to wish you very pleasant holidays and a superb 2010.

John Willemsens,
Advayavada Foundation.
<http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/index.htm#plan>

According to Nagarjuna Pratitya Samutpada is Unreal (Sangharakshita)

Nagarjuna does not shrink from the conclusion that if causation is unreal the pratitya samutpada is also unreal. In fact, he insists upon it, for according to him only by recognizing the merely relative validity of this teaching can its true import be preserved. The Hinayanists had interpreted the Buddha's 'conditioned co-production' as the temporal sequence and spatial juxtaposition of ultimately real entities between which real causal relations obtained. Such an interpretation amounted to a repudiation of the fundamental Buddhist doctrine, of which, paradoxically, the pratitya samutpada was intended to be an expanded statement, the doctrine of the essencelessness and unsubstantiality of all phenomena whatsoever. In the interests of the correct intepretation of the Dharma, Nagarjuna showed that the pratitya samutpada taught not a real causal relation between entities but their mutual dependence, hence their lack of independent selfhood, and that it therefore consisted of a sequence and juxtaposition not of realities, as the Hinayanists thought, but only of appearances. Consisting as it did entirely of appearances the pratitya samutpada was itself merely an appearance; it was unreal; it could not be said to exist, or not to exist, or both or neither. Consequently it was to be equated with shunyata [emptiness].

In this way did the dialectic of Nagarjuna, by exposing the contradictions inherent in the Buddhist doctrines themselves when taken literally, serve as a reminder of the supremely important fact that these doctrines, constituting the conceptual formulations of Wisdom, possessed not absolute but only relative validity, and were not ends in themselves but only means to an end. That end was of course Enlightenment. By shattering the hard shell of literalism in which Buddhism was then imprisoned, Nagarjuna not only saved it from suffocation and probably death but also gave it room for future development. Recognition of the relativity of the means to a certain end leads, sooner or later, to the recognition of the possibility of there being a plurality of means. As far as the various methods conducive to Enlightenment are concerned, however, since they must pertain either to Morality, or to Meditation, or to Wisdom, all are included archetypically in the Means to Enlightenment proclaimed by the Buddha.

One of the principal charges brought by the Mahayanists against the Hinayanists was that the latter conceived Nirvana almost exclusively in terms of negation. They defined it either as the cessations of pain or of the five skandhas or of the pratitya samutpada or some either supposedly positive entity or collection of entities: the Absolute was defined as privation of the contingent. Since the world, in the sense of the total aggregate of causally associated dharmas, was believed to be real, the cessation of the world was a real cessation therefore valid in the absolute sense. One of the results of Nagarjuna's dialectic was to render such a position quite untenable. Pratitya samutpada being ultimately unreal its cessation too was unreal; Nirvana could not, strictly speaking, be defined in terms of cessation. In fact it could not be defined at all. (from A Survey of Buddhism, by Sangharakshita [Dennis P.E. Lingwood], 1957, 1980, London 1987)

Advayavada Study Plan - week 51

Friends,

In Advayavada Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path is interpreted dynamically as an ongoing and autonomous, non-prescriptive, investigative and creative process of progressive insight reflecting in human terms overall existence advancing over time.

Adherence to the familiar Five Precepts and a well-considered understanding of the Four Signs of Being and the Four Noble Truths suffice to start off on the Path at any time. Nirvana is, in Advayavada Buddhism, the total extinction of existential suffering (duhkha, dukkha) as a result of our complete reconciliation with reality advancing over time.

The Noble Eightfold Path in Advayavada Buddhism is fully personalized: it is firmly based on what we increasingly know about ourselves and our world, and trusting our own feelings and conscience.

By following the Noble Eightfold Path thus you get in tune with wondrous overall existence advancing over time; old mistakes are left behind; sorrow, doubt and remorse immediately start disappearing; and your life soon gathers new impetus.

Last week's subject was the Sixth Step on the Noble Eightfold Path: our very best (samyak, samma) effort and commitment in carrying out our plans.

This week's subject is therefore the Seventh Step on the Noble Eightfold Path: our very best (samyak, samma) observation, reflection or evaluation and self-correction of our efforts.

The purpose of the ASP is that we study (and debate in the group, family circle and/or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the weekly subject, particularly in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, and our place and responsibilities in the family, group, sangha, society at large, etc.

Tip: Write down this week's subject (check what I'm doing!) in your pocket diary!

John Willemsens,
Advayavada Foundation.
<http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/index.htm#plan>

Advayavada Study Plan - week 50

Friends,

In Advayavada Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path is interpreted dynamically as an ongoing and autonomous, non-prescriptive, investigative and creative process of progressive insight reflecting in human terms overall existence advancing over time.

Adherence to the familiar Five Precepts and a well-considered understanding of the Four Signs of Being and the Four Noble Truths suffice to start off on the Path at any time. Nirvana is, in Advayavada Buddhism, the total extinction of existential suffering (duhkha, dukkha) as a result of our complete reconciliation with reality advancing over time.

The Noble Eightfold Path in Advayavada Buddhism is fully personalized: it is firmly based on what we increasingly know about ourselves and our world, and trusting our own feelings and conscience.

By following the Noble Eightfold Path thus you get in tune with wondrous overall existence advancing over time; old mistakes are left behind; sorrow, doubt and remorse immediately start disappearing; and your life soon gathers new impetus.

Last week's subject was the Fifth Step on the Noble Eightfold Path: our very best (samyak, samma) implementation or realization of our intention.

This week's subject is therefore the Sixth Step on the Noble Eightfold Path: our very best (samyak, samma) effort in carrying out our plan.

The purpose of the ASP is that we study (and debate in the group, family circle and/or with good friends) the meaning and implications of the weekly subject, particularly in the context of whatever we ourselves are presently doing or are concerned with, or about, such as our health, relationships, work, study, and our place and responsibilities in the family, group, sangha, society at large, etc.

Tip: Write down this week's subject (do my best!) in your pocket diary!

John Willemsens,
Advayavada Foundation.
<http://www.euronet.nl/~advaya/index.htm#plan>