|
|
 |
Please support Dharma Seed with a 2025 year-end gift.
Your donations allow us to offer these teachings online to all.
|
|
|
|
|
The greatest gift is the
gift of the teachings
|
|
|
| |
|
Dharma Talks
|
2013-04-30
Dependent Origination: Consciousness
62:42
|
|
Rodney Smith
|
|
|
The third link in Dependent Origination is Consciousness. Consciousness springs forth from the fertile ground of ignorance and mental formations. We might think of this expression of consciousness as "egoic consciousness," the sense that "I am conscious of..." Different traditions use various definitions for the term, consciousness. In Buddhism there are different consciousnesses for each sense door. To get a sense of what this means, image you are standing on the ocean shore. If you focus exclusively on sight, certain memories and sense impressions will flood your mind, but if you concentrate exclusively on smell, there will be a whole new set of sense impressions and accompanying memories that may be very different from your visual consciousness. So too with each sense door - hearing, tasting, thinking, touching - each evokes a different set of memories and mental formations. The mind collates these separate consciousnesses into a single consciousness with "me" as the central casting figure. When each person speaks of "my consciousness or my mind" they usually mean the summation of all the separate consciousnesses falsely organized (ignorance) as a single conscious entity.
|
|
Seattle Insight Meditation Society
|
|
In
collection:
Dependent Origination
|
|
|
2013-04-20
Connecting Inner and Outer Responses to Climate Change
37:28
|
|
Donald Rothberg
|
|
|
At this time of climate disruption, we need powerful responses--integrating more "inner" spiritual practices and principles, on the one hand, with skill in "outer" responses, on the other. This integration or marriage can happen in many ways as we participate in the "great turning"--whether our primary emphasis, to use Joanna Macy's analysis, is stopping further damage from occurring, transforming our institutions, or helping to shift consciousness. Without this integration, however, spiritual practice runs the risk of becoming a kind of middle-class escapism and activism runs the risk of being caught in self-righteousness, attachment to views, demonization of the "enemy," and burnout. We need a new integration! We look at several dharma principles that can be the basis for such an integration, consider briefly how Spirit Rock is responding (and might respond further) to climate issues, and especially look at the figure of the bodhisattva.
|
|
Spirit Rock Meditation Center
:
Responses to Climate Change: Awareness, Action and Celebration
|
|
In
collection:
Responses to Climate Change: Awareness, Action and Celebration
|
|
|
|
|
