Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

bodhidave

@bodhidave.bsky.social

1.7K followers 300 following 3.6K posts

humanistic psychodynamic Buddhist deconstructionist ... and all-round sweet guy interested in cross-cultural parallels in contemplative practice . https://utexas.academia.edu/DavidCollins [header is the rock garden at Ryōan-ji; avatar is an enso]

utexas.academia.edu

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · Nov 21

1:2

The numbers of followers for this account increased this week. I'll re-post an essay I have online which reflects on the present-day "mindfulness" movement.

In that piece, about half-way through, I mention the experience of practicing the jhānas ... and ...

thesideview.co/journal/deco...

Deconstructing Mindfulness

There’s been a marked increase in studies of mindfulness and meditation in recent years.

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 14m

contemplative practice (meditation) as a kind-hearted honesty that is a path towards ... and an expression of ... how things really are

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 5h

... something something about an ICE box ...

😬

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 5h

bsky.app/profile/bodh...

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · Nov 1

The #Buddha was once walking with some of his followers, and he pointed to the ground and said, "This would be a good place to build a temple."

The god Indra placed a blade of grass in the ground and said, "The temple is built."

🙏 🙂

(~ Book of Serenity, case 4)

screenshot of text that says:

“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”

– Henry Miller

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 5h

I don't pretend to be able to offer a full on diagnosis, but as a psychologist I've long been struck by how his statements are continually in line w/ *what he perceives can benefit him*—rather than true or false or legal or illegal or moral or immoral. And he appears to be getting worse cognitively.

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 6h

"I see what you did there"

a scowling jack o' lantern with an eye patch

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 9h

For me a sign of a healthy relationship is when we like the person we ourselves can be in the context of that interaction.

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 16h

a closer view

bsky.app/profile/bodh...

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 11d

I'm entering a weeklong silent retreat in a Zen Center north of #Asheville in the coming hour. This is the view from the back yard currently. 🙂 🙏

#BloomScrolling

bright blue skies with white clouds over blue mountains with a white moonflower and a lot of puffy flower seedlings in the foreground

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d

she's definitely singular 👍

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d

Contemplative traditions, esp. Zen, will say, on the one hand, there's nowhere to go — but also that awakening is transformative.

My strong sense is that that transformation lies in us seeing what is already actually happening

(which includes our sense of "I" as being a part of what is happening).

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d

heh ... I didn't realize there was a movie

poster for The Invisible Woman, showing a shadowing female figure, with headshots of actors, Virginia Bruce, John Barrymore, John Howard, and Charlie Ruggles

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d

Journaling during a Zen sesshin (intensive silent retreat) is discouraged, but I typically jot down a few notes to come back to afterwards. I just had a look at my notes from last week's retreat, and find:

"Flow is worship."

(I'm not enraptured by Csikszentmihalyi's term "flow," but I like that^.)

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d

awesome

🙏 (<= praying hands)

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d

🙂 🙏

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d

remind me whereabouts are you? (I'm near Asheville, NC)

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d

I did not know that. :)

thanks

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d

from a couple weeks back, yours truly and a katydid (who'd gotten just a bit too familiar, in letting themself into the house)

t-shirted hand extended and holding a fat green katydid, on a wooden porch with bright green forestation in the background

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d

bsky.app/profile/bodh...

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · Dec 1

Zen of course places a lot of attention on our not being conceptually stuck. Among the fun examples:

San Francisco Zen Center founder, Suzuki Roshi, once said that the Buddhist teaching of impermanence can be summarized in *two words*:

"Not always so."

🙂 🙏

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d

the deadly white bunny from Monty Python's Holy Grail, beside a skull on the ground

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d

I'm reminded that the Christian "Saint Josaphat" was a mis-representation of the story of Buddha's life, and the name "Josaphat" a mispronunciation of "bodhisattva." 🙂 🙏

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barlaam...

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d

I discuss jhāna practice in this video (29 minutes). www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XjE...

Experiencing the Theravādin Buddhist Jhāna Absorptions through the Breath, David Collins

YouTube video by Ho Centre for Buddhist Studies

www.youtube.com

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d

I am reminded of Buddhist jhāna practice. The jhānas are altered states of synesthesia, created through concentrated focus on an object. Those states can entail very subtle experience — but they are still generated. They are still "agitations" of the mind, and they must be "let go" for liberation.

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d

but what are your feelings about Jack of Lantern?

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d

in the backyard of the Zen facility outside #Asheville where I was on retreat last week there's a bank of American fireweed, which can grow over six feet and has dandelion-like seed fluffs, which creates a nice effect when a breeze blows 🙂🙏

blue skies with some white clouds over distant Appalachian mountains, foregrounded by dark green trees and, in front of them, a row of tall weeds with lots of dandelion like fluff balls on them

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 1d

and of course down under they have ...

slɐᴉdnsɹɐɯ

bodhidave @bodhidave.bsky.social · 2d

a LOT goes on when you get simple and quiet 🙂 🙏

here's an account of a retreat I did 25 (!) years ago ...

www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/4jxy3...

www.dropbox.com