Reflection on passages from the suttas of the Pali Canon where the Buddha addresses what he means by "namarupa" (name-form) and Viññana (consciousness).
The story of Ch'an Master Teshan; through Ch'an (Zen) the Chinese make Buddhism their own - a similar challenge faces us in the West today; the practice of 'What is this?' is the practice of the First Noble Truth: dukkha; how Zen fits into the context of the Four Truths; the Four Truths and the Four Great Vows; the self who practices the path is neither existent nor non-existent; Layman P'ang: chopping wood and carrying water.
Hui-neng's definition of sitting meditation; the middle way as the avoiding of the 'deadends' of existence and non-existence; the Greek philosopher Pyrrho as an example of a similar attitude; Hui-ko asks Bodhidharma to 'set his mind at rest'; the infinity of things; emptiness as the unfindability of things; to question 'what is this' is the practice of such emptiness that neither affirms nor denies anything.
Reflections on the nature of 'religion'; the Buddha's awakening as a resolution of the questions posed by life itself; Zen as a 'direct pointing to the heart, independent of scripture'; the aim of Buddhist practice is the achievement of autonomy; towards the possibility of a 'secular religion'.
Concluding remarks: recap. on namarupa/consciousness, and reiteration that, as a way of embracing dukkha, this account of experience is prescriptive NOT descriptive; example from literature that illustrates the poignancy of this view of life; reflection on Dhammapada v. 80 to illustrate how the self is a project to be realised, a middle way approach that avoids both eternalism and nihilism; reflection on three suttas that provide a foundation for ethics and one's relation with others; how to tend to the Buddha entails tending to those who suffer.
Recapitulation on the principle of conditioned arising; the 6, 10, and 12 "links"; an analysis of the passage where the Buddha declares that consciousness is conditioned by nameform [namarupa] and nameform by consciousness; the meaning of term namarupa in Brahmanic thought; a phenomenological account of each of the nama factors (contact, feeling, perception, intention and attention) and their role in consciousness.
The parable of the ancient city as a template for a secular Buddhism, i.e. how the four truths and conditioned arising provide a framework for a new culture or civilisation; further reflection on "fully knowing dukkha" in terms of its cognitive, affective and aesthetic implications; how stream entry entails autonomy, as well as confirmed confidence in Buddha, dharma and sangha; the humanised Buddha as the appropriate model for one's practice of the dharma not the arahant.
Reflections on the Buddha's first sermon: how the four noble truths are a translation of the principle of conditioned arising into a way of life; the middle way as avoiding the two dead ends of worldliness and religiosity; the four truths as prescriptions rather than descriptions, as a sequence of tasks to perform rather than a set of doctrines to believe; the first truth as fully knowing dukkha both in depth and breadth.
An analysis of the Buddha's account of his awakening in the Discourse on the Noble Quest (M. 26) as an existential shift from attachment to a 'place' to the seeing of the twofold 'ground' of conditioned arising and nibbana, followed by a psychological interpretation the subsequent passage which describes how, inspired by the god Brahma, he set off to teach his first sermon in Isipatana (Sarnath).
Further reflections on the meaning of the term "secular"; the Buddha's comparison of his teaching to a snake; an enquiry into what is distinctive and original in the Buddha's teaching: the principle of conditioned arising, the process of the four noble truths, the practice of mindful awareness, the power of self reliance; reflections on citations from the Pali canon concerning the principle of conditioned arising.
A reflection on the difficulties involved in and the methodology of a secular approach to Buddhism, followed by a reading of and comments on the Kalama Sutta, considered as a primary source text for secular Buddhism.
