Monthly Archives: April 2013

Advayavada Study Plan – week 18

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Dear friends,

This week (18) we again closely survey the 8fold path that eliminates the cause of suffering.

In Advayavada Buddhism, the Noble Eightfold Path is understood dynamically as an ongoing and fully autonomous, non-prescriptive, investigative and creative process of progressive insight, reflecting in human terms wondrous overall existence becoming over time, and is composed of (1) our very best (Pali: samma, Sanskrit: samyak) comprehension or insight followed by (2) our very best resolution or determination, (3) our very best enunciation or definition (of our intention), (4) our very best disposition or attitude, (5) our very best implementation or realization, (6) our very best effort or commitment, (7) our very best observation, reflection or evaluation and self-correction, and (8) our very best meditation or concentration towards an increasingly real experience of samadhi, which brings us to a yet better comprehension or insight, and so forth.

The Noble Eightfold Path in Advayavada Buddhism is fully personalized: it is firmly based on what we increasingly know about ourselves and our world, and trusting our own intentions, feelings and conscience. Adherence to the familiar Five Precepts (not to kill, not to steal, sexual restraint, not to lie, and refraining from alcohol and drugs) and a well-considered understanding of the Four Signs of Being and the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths suffice to start off on the Path at any time. Nirvana is, in Advayavada Buddhism, the total extinction of suffering as a result of our complete reconciliation with reality as it truly is.

Kind regards,
John Willemsens
Advayavada Foundation
@advayavada

Advayavada Study Plan – week 17

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Dear friends,

This week (17) we further deepen our understanding that ignorant craving is the real cause of suffering.

According to Advayavada Buddhism, it is indisputable that the Buddha did not believe in Brahman (God, transcendent and immutable Absolute) or in the atman or atta (soul, immortal self) and taught that man suffers because he does not understand and accept that all things in life are instead utterly changeable and transitory; if the Buddha had ever expressed belief in Brahman and the atman or atta, such a fact would have been unequivocally recorded in History. Man is prone to suffering (duhkha, dukkha) quite simply because he wrongly strives after and tries to hold on to things, concepts and situations which he believes to be permanent, but are not.

Man’s mistaken view of things is produced by a thirst or craving (called trishna in Sanskrit and tanha in Pali) which is in turn caused by his fundamental ignorance (avidya, avijja) of the true nature of reality. And this thirst or craving can easily take on a more unwholesome form: already as sensuous desire, ill-will, laziness, impatience or distrust will it seriously hinder any efforts to better his circumstances.

Kind regards,
John Willemsens
Advayavada Foundation
@advayavada

Advayavada Study Plan – week 16

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Dear friends,

This week (16) we again study the ubiquity of suffering (dukkha/duhkha) as thoroughly as possible.

duhkha (Skt.) undergoing suffering, sorrow; dissatisfaction; frustration, stress; pervasive unsatisfactoriness; gnawing unease; the existential distress nonliberated human beings are prone to, one of the three (in Advayavada Buddhism, four) signs or marks or basic facts of being (anitya, anatman, duhkha and pratipada); suffering in the sense of suffocation: ‘the state of the Infinite delusionally imprisoned in the finite, that manifests as human suffering’ (Kimura); in Advayavada Buddhism does not include emotional grief or physical pain; suffering is ‘not a permanent feature of reality’ and is ‘only admitted and entertained as a possible contingency in life as it is generally lived’ (B.C. Law); ‘basic frustration that reality does not conform to our innermost desires’ (Loy); the first noble truth.

Kind regards,
John Willemsens
Advayavada Foundation
@advayavada