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Part 6 - Expanding Into New Frontiers from 'What Does Mindfulness Really Mean' by Bhikkhu Bodhi
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Mindfulness has traveled a long way from its homeland in northeast India. It has journeyed to the island of Sri Lanka, the river basins of southeast Asia, the mountain monasteries of China, Korea, and Japan, and the hermitages of the Himalayan kingdoms. But the last lap of its journey is without parallel. Today Buddhist meditation has been lifted from its traditional setting in Buddhist doctrine and faith and transplanted in a secularized culture bent on pragmatic results. Here it is finding new accommodations in urban meditation centers and even in busy hospitals, pain clinics, and treatment centers. Its teachers and practitioners are more likely to wear street clothing or white coats than ochre robes; they are more likely to hold degrees in medicine and psychology than in Buddhist philosophy and scripture. Meditation is being taught to help people obtain release, not from the cycle of birth and death, but from the strains of financial pressures, psychological disorders, and stressful relationships.

narrated by Jonathan Nelson
2023
6 minutes 58 seconds

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Audio copyright, 2023 Pariyatti

'Investigating the Dhamma' as a book and eBook can be found at https://store.pariyatti.org/investigating-the-dhamma.

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Part 5 - Clear Comprehension from 'What Does Mindfulness Really Mean' by Bhikkhu Bodhi
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While I said just before that clear comprehension plays a more prominent role in the contemplation of experiential phenomena, the refrain on right mindfulness shows that clear comprehension has been present to some degree all along. The formula describes clear comprehension as a constant entering each exercise virtually from the start. Whether contemplating the body, feelings, states of mind, or experiential phenomena, the meditator dwells “ardent, clearly comprehending, and mindful.”

narrated by Jonathan Nelson
2023
5 minutes 55 seconds

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Audio copyright, 2023 Pariyatti

'Investigating the Dhamma' as a book and eBook can be found at https://store.pariyatti.org/investigating-the-dhamma.

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Part 4 - What the Suttas Say from 'What Does Mindfulness Really Mean' by Bhikkhu Bodhi
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Nevertheless, despite my reservations about the use of “bare attention” as an alternative expression for sati, if we consider how mindfulness is to be practiced in the system laid down in the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, we can find considerable support for the idea that the initial task of sati is to “keep to a bare registering of the facts observed” as free as possible from distorting conceptual elaborations. The problem, as I see it, is not with conceptualization itself, but with conceptualization that ascribes erroneous attributes to the objects and the experiential act itself. An experiential event can be viewed as a field distributed between two poles, the objective datum and the subjective act that cognizes it. Ordinarily, on account of the spontaneous functioning of unenlightened consciousness, this polarity is reified into a sharp duality of subject and object. The subjective pole seems to coalesce into a substantially existent “I,” an ego-self that hovers in the background as an autonomous and independent entity. The objective pole presents itself as an object that is there “for me,” ready to serve or oppose my purposes; thus it becomes a potential object of craving or aversion. This process is what the suttas refer to as “I-making” and “mine-making” (ahaṃkāra mamaṃkāra). It is the task of meditation to dismantle this structure by penetrating the selfless nature of all phenomena, whether pertaining to the objective or subjective poles of the experience.

narrated by Jonathan Nelson
2023
9 minutes 10 seconds

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'Investigating the Dhamma' as a book and eBook can be found at https://store.pariyatti.org/investigating-the-dhamma.

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Part 3 - Mindfulness and Bare Attention from 'What Does Mindfulness Really Mean' by Bhikkhu Bodhi
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Many commentators who teach and practice in the contemporary vipassana movement have sought to convey the experiential flavor of mindfulness by means of the expression “bare attention.” With certain reservations (which I will discuss), I believe this characterization is acceptable if understood as a procedural directive for cultivating mindfulness in accordance with certain methods. It helps a novice meditator who has newly embarked on this unfamiliar enterprise get a grip on the appropriate way to observe the phenomenal field. The purpose of the expression would then be seen as pragmatic rather than doctrinal, as pedagogical rather than definitive.

narrated by Jonathan Nelson
2023
21 minutes 56 seconds

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Audio copyright, 2023 Pariyatti

'Investigating the Dhamma' as a book and eBook can be found at https://store.pariyatti.org/investigating-the-dhamma.

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Part 2 - The Meaning of Sati from 'What Does Mindfulness Really Mean' by Bhikkhu Bodhi
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A problem in hermeneutics, with intimate bearings on the actual practice of meditation, concerns the exact meaning of the word sati both in general and in relation to Buddhist contemplative activity. We take the rendering “mindfulness” so much for granted that we rarely inquire into the precise nuances of the English term, let alone the meaning of the original Pāli word it represents and the adequacy of the former as a rendering for the latter. The word “mindfulness” is itself so vague and elastic that it serves almost as a cipher into which we can read virtually anything we want. Hence we seldom recognize that the word was chosen as a rendering for sati at a particular point in time, after other terms had been tried and found inadequate.

narrated by Jonathan Nelson
2023
23 minutes 50 seconds

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Audio copyright, 2023 Pariyatti

'Investigating the Dhamma' as a book and eBook can be found at https://store.pariyatti.org/investigating-the-dhamma.

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Part 1 - Mindfulness in the Buddhist Path from 'What Does Mindfulness Really Mean' by Bhikkhu Bodhi
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The entry of systematic mindfulness practice into the fields of stress reduction and psychotherapy has dramatically altered modern medicine’s perspectives on our capacity to regulate and overcome our human vulnerabilities. Mindfulness made its debut as a therapeutic discipline in 1979, when Jon Kabat-Zinn introduced his program of “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction” at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. Since then its use to reduce pain and stress has been adopted by hundreds of medical centers, hospitals, and clinics around the world. The application of mindfulness in clinical settings has spread beyond stress reduction to psychotherapy, where it has proven a potent tool for helping patients deal with such conditions as depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorders.

narrated by Jonathan Nelson
2023
12 minutes 20 seconds

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Audio copyright, 2023 Pariyatti

'Investigating the Dhamma' as a book and eBook can be found at https://store.pariyatti.org/investigating-the-dhamma.

More by Bhikkhu Bodhi.

View more books and audio resources available in the Pariyatti bookstore.

Sangha at the Crossroads by Bhikkhu Bodhi

"In this article I want to focus on one particular constituency of Buddhists in present day Sri Lanka, the Bhikkhu Sangha, the Order of Monks. I intend to examine, though briefly, the problems it faces and its prospects for the future. This task is especially critical because of the central role the Sangha plays in guiding the destiny of the Sāsana, and it is clear that if the Sangha does not learn to deal with the momentous forces inundating present-day society, the future will see it increasingly relegated to the sidelines...."

This is a Pariyatti audiobook of the essay "Sangha at the Crossroads" from the book Facing the Future: Four Essays on the Social Relevance of Buddhism by Bhikkhu Bodhi.

Narrated by Shelina Hetherington
2023
38 minutes

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View Facing the Future: Four Essays on the Social Relevance of Buddhism by Bhikkhu Bodhi at BPS.

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The Changing Face of Buddhism by Bhikkhu Bodhi

"If Buddhism is failing to penetrate deep into the hearts of those who profess it as their faith, we have to ask ourselves why, and to ask what can be done to reverse present trends. I would like to approach these questions by first asking what role Buddhism is intended to play in our lives in the first place. I will deal with this question by distinguishing two aspects of Buddhism both stemming from the Buddha’s original teaching. I shall call these the liberative and the accommodative strands of the Dhamma...."

This is a Pariyatti audiobook of the essay "The Changing Face of Buddhism" from the book Facing the Future: Four Essays on the Social Relevance of Buddhism by Bhikkhu Bodhi.

Narrated by Shelina Hetherington
2023
30 minutes

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View Facing the Future: Four Essays on the Social Relevance of Buddhism by Bhikkhu Bodhi at BPS.

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A Buddhist Approach to Economic and Social Development by Bhikkhu Bodhi

"The notion of economic and social development has today become the rallying call of politicians, business leaders, and policy planners clear across the globe. This notion thus exercises a tremendous influence on the lives of all human beings, both at the personal level and as a determinant of social policy. Although the Buddhist texts prescribe certain principles to guide human beings in their economic and social activities, the notions of economic and social development that dominate current policy formulation have no precise parallels in earlier epochs. Thus to give adequate treatment to our topic it is not enough merely to listen to the canonical texts. Rather, we must draw out the implications of such ideas as economic and social development in their bearings on present-day social policy. Then we must use the profound perspectives offered us by the Dhamma as a tool for evaluating them and judging their worth."

This is a Pariyatti audiobook of the essay "A Buddhist Approach to Economic and Social Development" from the book Facing the Future: Four Essays on the Social Relevance of Buddhism by Bhikkhu Bodhi.

Narrated by Shelina Hetherington
2023
45 minutes

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Audiobook copyright, 2023 Pariyatti

View Facing the Future: Four Essays on the Social Relevance of Buddhism by Bhikkhu Bodhi at BPS.

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A Buddhist Social Ethic for the New Century by Bhikkhu Bodhi

"In Theravada Buddhist circles during the past few decades a debate has repeatedly erupted over the question whether or not jhāna is necessary to attain the “paths and fruits,” that is, the four graded stages of enlightenment. The debate has been sparked off by the rise to prominence of the various systems of insight meditation that have become popular both in Asia and the West, especially among lay Buddhists. Those who advocate such systems of meditation contend that the paths and fruits can be attained by developing insight (vipassanā) without a foundation of jhāna. If we use the Buddha’s teachings as a lens to examine the corporate economic system and its offshoot, the consumerist culture, we will see that it is ultimately detrimental to the well-being of both its masters and servants alike. Drawing upon the tools of Buddhist analysis, let us briefly sketch the inner dynamics of this system. We see in the first instance that such a social order is founded upon ignorance or delusion (avijjā, moha), namely, the supposition that material wealth and consumption are the criteria of the good life. According to the Buddhist texts, when ignorance infiltrates our cognitive systems it issues in a series of “distortions” (vipallāsa) which infect our perception (saññā), thinking (citta), and views (diṭṭhi). The Buddha mentions four such distortions: the notions that the impermanent is permanent, that the painful (or suffering) is pleasant, that the insubstantial is a self, and that the unbeautiful is beautiful. At the most basic level we perceive things by way of these distortions; when these distorted perceptions are taken up for reflection, we start thinking in terms of them; and finally, under the combined influence of distorted perception and thought, we adopt views—that is, beliefs, doctrines, and ideologies—that affirm the mistaken notions of permanence, pleasure, selfhood, and beauty."

This is a Pariyatti audiobook of the essay "A Buddhist Social Ethic for the New Century" from the book Facing the Future: Four Essays on the Social Relevance of Buddhism by Bhikkhu Bodhi.

Narrated by Shelina Hetherington
2023
1 hours 03 minutes

Download Audio (31 MB)

Audiobook copyright, 2023 Pariyatti

View Facing the Future: Four Essays on the Social Relevance of Buddhism by Bhikkhu Bodhi at BPS.

View more books and audio resources available in the Pariyatti bookstore.