I would say 100%, and I don't think it's boasting, nor an insupportable claim to arahantship. I'm still treading the Path as all (most?) of you are and I have all the imaginable cankers. Furthermore, I have the impression that anger, fear, irritation or lust will not be totally eradicated in this pr...

That's very interesting and it helped me find the excerpt I was looking for: https://host.pariyatti.org/treasures/A_Thousand_Lives_Away_Appendix_Winston_King.pdf "An Experience in Buddhist Meditation" by Winston L. King. Originally published in The Journal of Religion vol. 41, University o...

I remember having read, some years ago, a vivid account of a vipassana ten-day course in Burma when Sayagyi U Ba Khin was still alive. The author, a Western anthropologist, took the course himself and went to describe in great detail what he saw and felt there (it was finally published, if I recall ...

All the first Christians were believers in rebirth. Not only the Gnostics as you says but also Simonians, Basilidians, Valentinians, Marcionits, Manichean among others. Most of those are technically Gnostic-influenced sects, but I grant that the belief was far more widespread than it might seem if ...

The rebirth is not an Asiatic cultural trend. This is a world trend from always, from thousand years ago in all this world and in all the cultures without exception. I didn't mean that only Asians believe on rebirth, but that traditional Asian Buddhists do in comparison to a large part of what we c...

For me there's a huge difference between Buddhist reformers and modernists who stick to the traditional background of kamma and samsara and the ones who want to get rid of it. I don't think modernity doesn't have anything to teach other cultures; actually, in my view, most of those who do think so g...

Harvey's understanding of the matter can't be explained in Abhidhammic terms because remorse is not conceived as a vipāka in the Abhidhamma but as a mental factor (i.e. kukkucca) that arises with aversion-rooted cittas. Thank you very much, Bhante. It seems the Abhidhamma is clear in this respect. ...

I was told by a Sinhalese man that he is blue to mark his "carrying" a heavy kamma (having killed his parents in a former life) still to ripen at his death.

Dear friends, I'm working my way through the Abhidhammic system but I find the materials available in English rather dry and difficult, even when they are supposed to be introductory (the most "narrative" I know of are the Abhidhamma Studies of Nyanaponika Thera). I guess this is due to th...

I would say that they are labeled "wholesome" or "unwholesome" to recognize whether they are the result of past wholesome or unwholesome actions (kamma). But, as you say, in themselves they are indeterminate, as these cittas are disconnected from the roots (greed, hatred, delusio...

Postmodernism (ha ha*) can be said to be a "solid view of its own" as well. Even Justin Bieber fans have a solid worldview of their own ... There are differences indeed, but if they're from a Western background I think they're likely to appear as two sides of the same coin when compared w...

Will Buddhism “without mythology”, in your view, ever be able to constitute a solid worldview on its own? From what I know about Secular Buddhism, I think it already has. Effectively a new school has emerged as Buddhism has adapted to modern western culture. But this is nothing new, Buddha-Dharma h...

If Western science would in fact acknowledge anatta in any meaningful way, then Western science's whole reason to live would fall apart. If "someone is there" only provisionally, then the whole competition, the whole evolutionary struggle for survival is merely an absurdist game that even...

This is my first post here, but I've been reading yours for some time. So first of all thank you for your enlightening discussions :) As you all know very well, in the West Buddhism has been labeled once and again as a pessimistic worldview. Of course it's just too vast and complex a doctrine to be ...