What Hardcore Dharma discussed last week:*
\nThe 5 Skandhas.
\nWhat they are:
\n1.\u00a0Form
\n2.\u00a0Feeling
\n3.\u00a0Perceptions
\n4.\u00a0Mental Formations and
\n5.\u00a0Consciousness.
\nWhat they mean:
\nForget sugar, spice, slugs or snails.\u00a0 These aggregates, boys and girls, are what we are made of.\u00a0 They\u2019re also where we can look for what we call our \u201cself\u201d and emerge as empty as the claw hook of those torturous stuffed animal vending machines you plugged quarter after quarter in at Jimmy\u2019s arcade birthday party when you were ten and didn\u2019t yet know that the manufacturers of these games weren\u2019t necessarily advocating for your triumph.
\nWhat this does for my practice:
\nMeh,\u00a0not so much.\u00a0
\nFrom the department of gripes made by folks with nothing to grip about:
\nI’m feeling the ache of a\u00a0resistant, distended mind over-gorged on lists.\u00a0 The five this, the eight that, the fifty-nine this\u00a0 \u2013 it\u2019s too intellectual \u2013 it feels too much like accumulating knowledge for the purpose of dropping awesome sounding dharma bombs \u201c(snorfle) Well if you think about this in the context of the twelve nidanas …(snorfle snorfle)\u201d in open talks to get the cute newcomer to pull his\/her made-in-China-Mexican blanket closer to you the coming Monday.\u00a0 The minute discussions feel like mental entertainment.\u00a0 Analytical specificity seems to usurp the actual emotional practice-oriented specificity.\u00a0 The study feels overly advanced \u2013 like popping blood vessels while struggling for a side crow in yoga class when what one really needs to do is gently work on synching movement to breath.
\nNote: Please add \u201cto me\u201d to every sentence of the preceding paragraph.
\nSo what I want to know from the (Intermediate) Hardcore Dharma community and the community at large is why or if you think studying these lists matters for your personal day to day practice.\u00a0 Sometimes I feel like I should spend one year contemplating each of the four reminders (human birth, impermanence, karma and samsara), remind myself fairly frequently of the eightfold path, meditate every day and call it four years spent incredibly (possibly overly) enmeshed in the study of Buddhism.\u00a0 I understand this level of detail in monks and nuns but it seems crazy as laypeople to further complicate our mental energy, which is already so divided by a worldly existence, with brain gymnastics.\u00a0 Prove me wrong: does it serve some other purpose?\u00a0 Do you have some real-life examples of how the more philosophical abhidharma teachings have helped you out in your life as a practitioner? I mean, all I want to do is cultivate a sense of real, clear-seeing presence in this brave new world with such people in it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Like shirts and shoes, is a gluttonous appetite for dharmic analysis required?
\n*As I previously mentioned, I’m reading along, listening the the podcasts, but not attenting HCD in the flesh.\u00a0 This could be part of my problem, I admit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What Hardcore Dharma discussed last week:* The 5 Skandhas. What they are: 1.\u00a0Form 2.\u00a0Feeling 3.\u00a0Perceptions 4.\u00a0Mental Formations and 5.\u00a0Consciousness. What they mean: Forget sugar, spice, slugs or snails.\u00a0 These aggregates, boys and girls, are what we are made of.\u00a0 They\u2019re also where we can look for what we call our \u201cself\u201d and emerge as empty…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-media"],"yoast_head":"\n