Down with the Dharma

John and former Marine Carl Stahmer talk about Dave Grossman’s book “On Killing.” Topics include the inherent resistance within humans to kill, the way the military and police create physical and emotional distance between killer and killed so that soldiers/officers are able to override their resistance to killing, how killing becomes an individual and collective addiction, and what it takes to heal from the trauma and addiction of killing.

UWest student Farah Shaikh interviews UWest students, alumni, and faculty that teach Buddhist philosophy and meditation in California State prisons via The Engaged Buddhist Alliance. The EBA is a nonprofit founded by Dr. Lewis Lancaster, John Freese, Venerable De Hong, and Margaret Meloni. The EBA teaches to over 200 students in over 8 state prisons in Southern California.

Sequence of Interviews
Chris Johnson: PhD Student
David from Homeboy Industries
Venerable Doctor De Hong: EBA founder and leader
Tom Moritz PhD: Adjunct Faculty
Venerable Sumitta: PhD Candidate

Nick and John wax philosophic about the winter solstice.

Nick and John talk with Lama Rod Owens about what it means to be awakened in the Theravada and Tibetan traditions, the term “woke,” collective suffering, community, and embodiment from a social justice perspective.

John gives a Dharma talk on The Four Noble Truths from an early Buddhist perspective and from the perspective of Daoist internal alchemy.

Notes for The Four Noble Truths Episode

The three aspects: conceptual knowledge, practice, fruition

Suffering, suffering should be understood, suffering has been understood

Cause of suffering is craving, craving should be abandoned, craving has been abandoned

Cessation of suffering, cessation should be realized, cessation has been realized

Path to cessation of suffering, the path should be cultivated, that path has been cultivated

Three kinds of suffering: regular suffering, suffering due to change, suffering due to conditioned states

Consciousness feeding on the five aggregates, I-making and mine-making

The six links of dependent origination:

Body/mind, contact, sensation, craving, grasping, becoming

The three poisons of ignorance, craving, and aversion

Craving/aversion as the only link in the chain where a person has agency

The practice is to develop awareness of and equanimity towards body sensation in order to not be overwhelmed by and identified with a reactive emotion. Short term high, long term crash. Extractivism. Good in the beginning, middle, and end. Regeneration.  Example of Daoist alchemy. Small, medium, and large cessation

Eightfold Path: view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, concentration

Threefold training: precepts, concentration, insight

Five precepts: no killing, no stealing, no sexual misconduct, no false or harmful speech, no intoxicants

Right Effort: cultivate wholesome mental formations that are arising, bring up wholesome mental formations that are not arising, abandon unwholesome mental formations that have arisen, do not cultivate unwholesome mental formations that are not arising

Four Foundations of Mindfulness: body, sensation, mind, Dhamma. Three one structure. Body, breath, mind, Buddha Nature. Asana, pranayama, meditation, Samadhi. Jing, qi, shen, Dao.

Cultivate well being in body and mind, become sensitive to disturbance of body and mind, let go of disturbance, enjoy deeper well being of body and mind, become sensitive to disturbance, etc

The four jhanas.

The Four Fruits of Attainment: Stream Entry, Once Returner, Non-Returner, Arahat

The 10 Fetters Belief in rites and rituals, belief in self, doubt

Craving and aversion

Craving for subtle realm rebirth, I-making, ignorance

Nick and John talk to Carl Stahmer about his experience being a conscientious objector in the Marines during the first Gulf War, karma, volition, and the importance of daily practice.

Nick and John talk about the third and fifth precepts with their guests Joseph Rogers and Erin Smith. Joseph and Erin are former members of Against the Stream, an LA based Buddhist community that fell apart under the weight of a sex scandal with its founder Noah Levine. The discussion ranges from that particular sex scandal to other sex scandals in the Buddhist community in the U.S. to a discussion of addiction and the interdependence of all five precepts.

John and Nick talk with Yoga and meditation teacher Carah Ronan about the third precept of not engaging in sexual misconduct and how to work with sexual energy through meditation practice.