During this dialogue, Peter continued exploring the topic of “Benevolent Intention”. The focus this week is on how the factors of the eightfold path can be applied to cultivating wholesome relationships. His presentation was followed by a lively discussion. Next week’s topic will be “Balancing Life Between Work and Home”.
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This is the first of two dialogues exploring the vital importance of relationship experience for developing an integrate sense of self, that is, ego. Peter combines Buddhist teachings with current psychological understanding of how necessary relationship is, from just out of the womb throughout the lifetime of a person. When interpersonal dynamics are distorted, the self-states of each person are confused and conflicted. Benevolent Intention (Right Intention), combined with Clear Awareness (Right Understanding), manifested through Right Speech and Right Action (Benevolent Narrative and Benevolent Behavior), provide more integration in the succession of “selfing moments”. This integrative process provides the foundation for spiritual growth; relationship is the field of play for this process. Next week, Peter will discuss various aspects of Buddhist meditative process that fosters skillful relationship experiences.
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Continuing the series of dhamma dialogues regarding the Four Noble Truths, this talk begins exploring what is traditionally called Right Livelihood, part of the virtue aggregate of the Eightfold Path. As previously, Peter emphasized the importance of developing new ways of describing the concepts of Buddhism that are more accessible in the modern era. Because our culture is more complex and has more variable stressors, more categories are presented; the focus of next week’s dialogue will be Benevolent Relationships. Of course, even though the concepts can be described or categorized differently because the stressors are different, our nervous systems are likely quite similar in functioning relative to the Buddha’s era, so strong emphasis is placed during all these dialogues on cultivating the mind through meditation practice.
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During this dialogue about the practice of Right Action, Peter again emphasizes the importance of combining a deepening understanding of our internal processes through mindfulness practice with a revisiting of the classic concepts and jargon of the Buddha. Peter offered some information from modern neuroscientific research that suggests how karma is formed through memory consolidation, citing various areas of the brain and their functions. This was combined with how the cultivation of samadhi (concentration/tranquility) and sati (mindfulness/insight) produce a “buffer zone” of non-reactive awareness that allows the application of benevolent intention to emerging behaviors. This was followed by a lively discussion of the implications that are presented through this new understanding of ancient wisdom.
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During this talk, Peter again emphasized how different 21st century culture is from the time of the Buddha. During that era, it was assumed that a person’s karma was determined by what clan he or she was born into, and karma was equivalent to fate. The Buddha’s radical change was claim that a person’s salvation from suffering, related to karma, depends upon his or her ethical behaviors, not birth status. Peter further emphasized that modern scientific research also suggests that relief from suffering is ethical, in that the different regions of the brain recruited in the process of developing a personal narrative work best when the results represent kindness rather than self-absorption. During next week’s talk, this topic will be revisited to explore how modern neuroscience takes the place of old Brahmanic philosophy, to make sense of the universe of human consciousness.
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This dhamma dialogue continues on the theme introduced last week on the contemporary meaning of the teachings of the Buddha found in the discourse on the Four Noble Truths. In particular, the topic reviews the classical characteristics of Samma Vaca, Right Speech, then explores the modern view that the sense of self is largely realized through internal narrative, before emerging into the spoken word. Peter emphasized that the impulse that generates the internal narrative is a feeling, which is the urgent impulse to either become enmeshed in a pleasant feeling, or to avoid an unpleasant feeling. Therefore the focus of mindful investigation is most skilfully applied at the level of feeling in the body, to prevent being “enchanted” by the emerging narrative, through craving and clinging. This focus is in agreement with the Buddha’s teachings on how to modify karma through wise attention to feeling, found in the doctrine of dependent origination. In next week’s dhamma dialogue, the focus will be on contemporary approaches to Samma Kammanta, Right Action.
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