Teacher: Christopher Ash
Weekly Conversations
When a specific course is not happening, I open up our Zoom venue each Sunday at 4:00 PM, Sydney-Melbourne time, for conversation. These weekly Kalyanamitta meetings are open to those who have done my courses or have made an arrangement with me personally.
If there is a topic designated for the Sunday meeting, it will be listed below in the events.
Courses
Any courses will be on Zoom; and all are held on Sundays at 4:00 PM, Sydney-Melbourne time. In between courses we enjoy our regular conversations.
Individual Sessions with Christopher
If you have any questions about the approach to the Dharma, or feel in need of support, I’m available for one-on-one sessions.
In case there is extra content, click on the heading-link for the particular course.
Our first conversation for the year. We'll have two open conversation meetings, and then we'll start the Dependent Arising Course. (See the preceding events entry, for a little information. More later.) Starts, 5th February 2023, a five-week course. This will be a 'Dependent Arising Course,' using the 'Wheel of Becoming' (Bhavacakka) and the Upanisa Sutta. We'll study the unhealthy patterns of the 12-links, and also the Buddha's suggestions of a different, healthy dependent arising cycle. The Buddhadharma is organised around the principle that experiencing is central to the 'wakeful' life. ("Buddha" means 'awake.) All the familiar Buddhist terms - mindfulness, situational awareness (clear comprehension), meditation, grounded attention (yonisomanasikara), wisdom, and so on - are experiential terms. That is, they are about intimate knowledge of the life of the body. This 'knowledge' is, however, not intellectual. We know the body from within the body, the feeling-tones from within the feeling-tones, the perceptions from within the perceptions, the intentional (shaping) processes from within those processes, and consciousness from within consciousness. Felt meaning plays a fundamental role in this self-knowledge. How is this so? Eight weeks of exploring Buddhism as a path of heart. This course began on 13 August, 2023 (Eastern Australia). Each week, there will be a short talk on the topic of the week, and then there will be group conversation about the practice of the topic. The topics will be sufficiently independent for you to attend all, or any number of the sessions that you wish. On the other hand, there's a design in the sequence which will benefit whoever attends all the sessions. In the weeks between 13 August and 1 October 2023. we will explore the following topics: 13th August. Topic: Personal Experience. 20th August. Topic: Personal Experience. The experience of 'darkness'; the experience of the cessation of 'darkness.' Enlightenment. 27th August. Topic: Concepts, Reality, and Experiencing. Care in conducting experience in accordance with Reality; and the meanings of 'Buddha.' Taking personal responsibility for knowing yourself and Reality. 3rd September. Topic: Life’s implying and carrying forward; and our wanting. The practice of mindfulness in Buddhism. Five primary sentient (that is, felt) processes. Intimacy with sentient these processes as the Way of Mindfulness. 10th September. Topic: Meaning-making. Meaning in nature, in human life, and in Buddhadharma. 17th September. Topic: Cancelled due to illness. 24th September. Topic: Care, altruism, compassion, responsiveness. The nature of being human, in Shakespeare’s mirror: ‘Most ignorant of what we are most assur’d – our glassy essence.’ To what kind of process does the word ‘mind’ refer? What does ‘heart-mind’ imply? 1st October. Topic: The Meaning and Activity of Generosity 8th October. Topic Dependent Arising, Experiencing, Heart, and Gratitude. __________________ On Sunday, if there are volunteers, we'll do the thing we are known for in our group - direct experiential learning through mindful, focusing-oriented, phenomenological inquiry. If there are no volunteers, I'll undertake my own short inquiry into some aspect of Dharma (which can be on a topic of your choosing), and a conversation can follow about the universal aspects of that process.
The centrality of the felt body in experiencing. The centrality of personal experience in Buddhadharma.
How misperception of self brings blocked bodily-felt processes (particularly, greed, ill-will, and ignorance).
- The Buddha, from Mahātaṇhāsankhaya Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya I 265.