The Factors of Jhāna (with audio description)

This is an idealised version of the arising of the Jhāna factors,...mainly for making clear the meaning of the terms. In actual practice, things might not progress as smoothly as depicted here. The light shown, in Buddhist terms is always a manifestation of the 5 spiritual faculties (Indriyas), that is, faith or inspiration, energy, mindfulness…

Dreams, Hallucinations and Thoughts below the Threshold of Consciousness

These are the mental activities of Life left to itself They constitute the first stirrings of a latent mind seeking manifestation. Their essential characteristic is that mental activity and thought are entirely governed by sensation and bodily processes. Yet, analogous to the generation of concepts through mental processing, during these processes, there happens a synthesis…

Teachings on Matter

The 4 Elements The four elements were known to most cultures of the past (although in some cultures there were 5). To get any handle on matter, making it an object of the conscious mind in order to diminish its hidden influence over that mind, one has to somewhat learn to classify it. Only in…

Conscience and Intuition (Sila-,Samadhi-,Pañña-Sikkha)

Very often people find it difficult to find a point of contact in their own experience with certain ideas that they yet consider to be somewhat important to know about. So in this blog, I try to give some clue about how to consider about two very important faculties of mind: 'Conscience' and 'Intuition'. Therein…

Mind dependent on Body

All external events count as objects, first of the 5 sense‐bases, than of the mind, therefore without mastering the environment first (for a bhikkhu, the bhikkhus training and way of life, etc.), self‐knowledge can never become complete (yet, perception of the environment, depends in turn again on the perceiving faculty) ¹ Mind-element ² Mind-consciousness-element ...being…