The concept of anatta (non-self) lies at the heart of Buddhist philosophy, challenging the deeply ingrained human tendency to identify with a fixed, permanent self. While I, as an artificial intelligence, do not possess subjective experience or a sense of self in…
2300 years ago emperor Ashoka‘s son, a Buddhist monk by the name of Mahinda, was sent to Sri Lanka to propagate the Buddha’s message to the people of Sri Lanka. He met the king, who happened to be on a…
One evening about two weeks ago I picked up the Samyutta Nikaya and stumbled over a short sutta which mesmerized me for the next two weeks. It is one of those short yet deep suttas which makes the Samyutta Nikaya…
In addition to an earlier post on Ven. Malunkyaputta‘s most interesting analysis of vipassanā meditation (right in front of the Buddha) which clarified what “bare awareness” actually boils down to in terms of meditation practice there is another beautiful personal…
Practical ideas on anussati, sati and apilapanā. Today I would like to invite you to a short experiment. It is going to be very simple. Here is the experiment: Think of a random number, for instance “1325”. Now close your…
Many of you already know about my deep gratitude towards Ven. Ñāṇananda who I consider to be one of the greatest living Dhamma and Meditation masters. If anything you ever read on this blog might have helped you, all that…
Comparing Buddhist techniques of observing (vipassana) we can distinguish three approaches: The first one defines itself as merely “observing what is” in a supposedly neutral fashion. Various traditions define this to be simple a “looking at what is happening” without…
Is the practice of vipassanā the application of viriya (energy), sati (mindfulness), samadhi (concentration) but only when it generates wisdom (paññā), more specifically ñāṇadassana (knowing and seeing)? Introduction The Sutta-Pitaka has a couple of texts which are not the word…
One might wonder how and why the modern vipassana movement experienced its revival just over a century ago in Burma. Looking back at 19th century Theravada countries, we can observe a widespread renaissance of Pali studies. This period saw the…
The Pali language has a very interesting verb called “maññati”. Or rather the way the Buddha uses this verb is very intriguing. It is related to our English “to mean” or German “meinen”. It can be translated in a variety…