00:00 Does emptiness have positive qualities? Is buddha nature the return of atman? 01:00 Ringu Tulku and Jamgon Kongtrul explaining Rangtong vs. Shentong 03:15 Khenpo Rinpoche on Shentong resembling mind-only teachings 05:27 Origins of tathagatagarbha 08:20 Passage from The Buddhist Self on the origins of tathagatagarbha 15:10 Khenpo Rinpoche listing benefits of the tathagatagarbha idea…
00:00 See Resurrecting Candrakirti for detailed discussion of Prasangika 00:50 Shift from conceptual to nonconceptual meaning of “emptiness” 01:45 William James on mystical experience 02:42 Alan Watts describing the mystical experience in This is it 06:15 Khenpo Rinpoche introducing Prasangika 09:30 Faith Mind Inscription by the Third Patriarch of Zen 16:33 Khenpo Rinpoche on going…
00:00 Recap of Yogacara and Madhyamaka 01:30 Svatantrika vs. Prasangika 02:50 Rangtong vs. Shentong 03:43 Khenpo Rinpoche on how Madhyamaka goes beyond Yogacara 05:09 Khenpo Rinpoche demonstrating the argument style 07:00 Deriving emptiness from foundational concepts 07:44 Emptiness = Impermanence + Dependent Arising 10:15 Parallels with Derrida 12:35 Yogacara and Madhyamaka on social construction 13:30…
00:00 Making the case for Buddhism over McMindfulness 00:45 Recap of previous stage 01:30 Mind-only (Yogacara, cittamatra) deconstructs inner vs. outer 02:30 Khenpo Rinpoche’s introduction 04:50 Yogacara and Madhyamaka in early Mahayana 07:15 Living in a simulation? 14:00 Passage from Living Yogacara introducing the idea with a poem 18:30 The Buddhist unconscious 20:00 Living Yogacara…
00:00 Podcast organized around Khenpo Rinpoche’s Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness 00:40 The 4 schools of Tibetan Buddhism (+ Bon) 01:50 Not a history, but this framework lays out the logical progression very well 02:34 Are there stages to practice? 04:45 Zen anti-intellectualism is a literary tradition, not a historical description 06:00 Boshan and…
I made a podcast to try something different. It’s a series of 6 lectures on the Buddhist concept of emptiness. It should be interesting to people who like meditation and philosophy. It has some popping and clicking but hopefully not enough to make it unlistenable. ——— 00:00 Emptiness teachings address human misery 01:40 Intended audience:…
What happened to “identity politics” isn’t very complicated. Black socialist women came up with it. Liberals are threatened by good ideas from the left, so they coopt them. There needs to be “progressivism”, which needs to be powerless, so that left-inclined people don’t actually leave the Democrats and make a real left. Olúfémi Táíwò has…
Kim Domenico is an infuriating kind of white person: the kind who says all the right things while remaining a liberal. Her latest is a commentary on a New York Times column and a movie. The important thing is that she endorses the column in the name of a liberal Christian agenda. Among NY Times…
Meditation instructions are important. They don’t just tell you what to focus on, but something about why and with what attitude. As a Buddhist, I’ll note that mindfulness and concentration are the last two components of the Eightfold Path, which also includes right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, and effort. Each element of the path…