Clarity
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Last time, I suggested that modernity clouds the mind in ways far more pervasive than any single act of consumption. This is why the fifth precept matters so much. In modern Western contexts, it is usually read as a caution about alcohol: a reminder not to drink to excess. But if we take seriously the…
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Emptiness (sūnyatā) explains the nature of everything. The explanation was already implicit in the earliest teaching of no-self (anattā) – that humans have no permanent, unchanging ‘self’ (or soul), but instead consist of five aggregates: the body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. Another early teaching looks to the nature of experience, concluding that nothing…