Bernat Font-Clos identifies an important contradiction in the ‘neo-early Buddhist’ perspective prominent among many contemporary meditation teachers in the Insight tradition and proposes a resolution of the contradiction which is consistent with a life-affirming rather than a renunciant approach to our experiences.
Alex Carr discusses how our engagement with our digital distractions (Netflix, videogames, Instagram, etc.) actually hinders our practice. In the modern world, our digital distractions can provide us with temporary relief from the symptoms of dukkha, but they also numb us and blunt our ability to engage positively in the world to address the underlying causes of dukkha in a skilful way.
We suffer not only because we have the tendency to be angry, greedy, and deluded, but because social, political, and economic structures foster these tendencies and amplify their impact. John Danvers discusses the characteristics of a society which would facilitate their opposites: compassion, non-harming, cooperation, and mindfulness.
In a dharma talk given to the Bluegum Sangha (Australia), Winton Higgins discusses the close affinity between Gotama’s notion of dukkha and the tragic tradition in western culture, beginning with the Greek tragic playwrights. A common theme is that our difficulties are an essential part of every human life. Our task is to embrace these difficult challenges and say ‘yes’ to life no matter how dire the predicament.
Mike Slott argues that Buddhists need to broaden their understanding of the causes to suffering (the Second Noble Truth) to include not only the inevitable sources of dukkha (sickness, death, etc.) and our own unskillful ways of being in the world due to craving, but also social and economic structures which harm human beings.
