Sean Oakes, PhD

When the Buddha looked for an image to describe the force of grasping and the intensity of suffering, he chose fire. In our moment of accelerating planetary warming and a climate crisis brought on by the burning of fossil fuels, fire as a metaphor for greed, endless consumption, and the cycle of pain they create feels all too apt. As we explore the Buddha’s teachings on fire, we find the core insight of the first two Noble Truths—that grasping is the cause of suffering—relevant both for personal healing and awakening, and the collective challenge we face as a culture trying to rein in the ancient forces of greed, hatred, and delusion in ourselves.

In this month’s Dharma study, we look at the famous “Fire Sermon” of the Buddha, and explore craving in personal and collective practice with talks by Amana Brembry Johnson, DaRa Williams, Rick Hanson, Thanissara, Heather Sundberg, and more.

The war in Palestine/Israel is profoundly painful for everyone involved, including those of us witnessing the conflict and feeling it impact our communities. How might the Buddha’s teachings support us as we engage in bearing witness and participating in the larger conversation unfolding around this war and other violent conflicts? Non-violence, understood as arising from wise view and expressing as wise action, is a radical Buddhist approach to social engagement, and challenges views we may hold around right and wrong, guilt and victimhood, identity, ancestry, and land ownership. Conversation about politically-charged situations can be difficult in Dharma spaces, but the profound implications of the Buddha’s teaching can also become a real support for us in negotiating complex social and political realities.

Talk recorded at Monday Night Dharma Talk & Meditation

The Buddha’s path to happiness and freedom is a training of the heart. With wise action and meditation we interrupt the cycles of craving and reactivity, and grow in clarity about ourselves and the world. Craving manifests in the body as emotion and impulse, and in the mind as thinking: the wandering mind, judgment, worry, and all the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what is important. Meditation trains us to interrupt these stressful mental habits and cultivate in their place states of presence, focus, and agency through the practice of samādhi, the final limb of the Eightfold Path. Samādhi refers specifically to a series of four states of deep focus and stillness known as jhāna, or meditative absorption. While the jhānas take time and perseverance to cultivate, they are among the most transformational of all Buddhist practices.