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Buddhism

Absolute Certainty & Perpetual Transformation

May 22, 2023 by Beth Reninger Leave a Comment

Harry Potter boarding the Knight Bus

To begin this essay—the latest in a series exploring certainty—let’s recall some questions lingering from a previous post, having to do with the relationship between phenomenal appearances and Awareness, in terms of their certainty: * Is it actually necessary that appearances are less certain than the Awareness within which they arise and dissolve? Is there no scenario in which they are, say, …

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A Caterpillar’s Thought Experiment

May 18, 2023 by Beth Reninger Leave a Comment

Caterpillar on branch

Imagine ... Imagine … that you are a caterpillar. Perhaps a plain green one, or perhaps you’re sporting fancy spots or stripes: green, black, orange, white, red or yellow. Or maybe you’re a furry black and brown one -- or one with colorful spikes -- but in any case, a caterpillar. You’re one of many caterpillars. Your world is filled with caterpillars. What you notice is that the caterpillars …

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Only By Courtesy: Sankara’s Definition of Real

December 16, 2022 by Beth Reninger Leave a Comment

Federer Nadal shaking hands

As of late, I’ve been enjoying a pair of books, toggling back-and-forth between them in a way that feels quite interesting and enriching. One of them—Insight into Emptiness by Khensur Jampa Tegchok—harkens from the Buddhist Madhamakaya tradition. The other—The Seven Great Untenables by John Grimes—expresses the view of Advaita Vedanta. So, I read a bit from one, then a bit from the other—as …

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Revisiting The Tenets Of Valid Cognition: When Is Knowledge Reliable?

November 25, 2022 by Beth Reninger Leave a Comment

Rodin's The Thinker

Seems like once a year or so that I feel drawn to reviewing – and hopefully in some manner clarifying – the tenets of valid cognition. And so it is that I embark once again on this journey … What Is Valid Cognition? The phrase “valid cognition” (Sanskrit: pramāṇa) is one that appears largely in Buddhist philosophy – though there are similar explorations within Yoga and Vedanta. The aspects of …

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Turtles All the Way Down: Tao as First Cause

October 21, 2022 by Beth Reninger Leave a Comment

Turtles All The Way Down

Would it be fair to consider the Tao of Taoism to be more-or-less the equivalent of the Aristotelian “unmoved mover”—the “first cause” of all motion in the universe? Let’s explore .... Why? Most two-year-olds, as they’re first learning how to speak, become fascinated with the question “why?”—which they quickly discover can be applied not only to their initial inquiry, but also—ad infinitum—to …

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Practice Notes: Untouched & Deeply Felt

January 6, 2022 by Beth Reninger Leave a Comment

Butterfly cocoon on black

It’s been a month now, at least, since I first opened this Word file, and typed in the title—Practice Notes: Untouched & Deeply Felt. I expected that (as is generally the case) I’d return, within the next day or two, to complete the essay. Yet that impulse, until today, just never arrived. Somehow, for a long time, nothing else was needed. Somehow, the title in and of itself (with fewer …

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