Buddhist Studies by Douglass Smith
The Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies, 2023
One of the best known images of the Buddha is in bhūmisparśa, the earth-touching gesture. This ap... more One of the best known images of the Buddha is in bhūmisparśa, the earth-touching gesture. This appears down to the present day in both Mahāyāna and Theravāda depictions of Gotama the Sakyan Sage, as an indication of the defeat of Māra preliminary to his awakening, after calling the earth to witness. This paper investigates the literary and historical context of the gesture.
The Great Sutta on Good Fortune describes a thirty-eight step practice we can take to better our ... more The Great Sutta on Good Fortune describes a thirty-eight step practice we can take to better our lives. Two and a half millennia ago the Buddha outlined a path of practice leading to freedom and happiness. While he mostly taught monastics, the lessons of this Sutta are aimed at the rest of us: describing steps each of us can take that lead towards wisdom. The poem is one of the first learned and memorized by school children in South Asia, but it is little known in the West. This book guides you through all thirty-eight steps with an eye to how to bring them into your life, while providing historical context. The book includes a foreword by eminent translator and scholar Bhikkhu Bodhi.
The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Ethics, 2018
The Pāli Canon presents a number of summaries of the Buddha’s teaching, one of the most concise b... more The Pāli Canon presents a number of summaries of the Buddha’s teaching, one of the most concise being that of the Three Trainings (or Three Disciplines): ethics, meditation, and wisdom. The purpose of this chapter is to explicate the various formulations of these Three Trainings as well as to discuss their relationship to one another and other Pāli Buddhist teachings. While the Three Trainings are found in Tibetan and other East Asian Buddhist traditions, the focus of this paper will be on the Pāli material of early Buddhism and Theravāda in particular. As our intention is to lay out foundations for further chapters, the format here will be analytic in nature, looking at the three disciplines and their interrelations, along with analyses of what comes before the discipline, namely the ordinary worldling or person, and what comes after, namely the awakened person. The Three Trainings can be analytically divided, but the development of each reciprocates the development of the others. An illustration from the Pāli Canon, leaving out meditation, suggests that ethics and wisdom act ‘like one hand washing the other.’
Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, Nov 2015
In the present article I look at some claims that a form of anti-realism about separate material ... more In the present article I look at some claims that a form of anti-realism about separate material and mental things can be found within early Buddhism. We will see that while such claims bear a certain prima facie force, particularly when isolated to particular passages in the Canon, taken in a broader context they become less convincing. In contrast I will suggest that in the service of his ethical system the Buddha propounded an incomplete or inchoate metaphysics, but one with at least the suggestion of realism.
Philosophy East and West, 2016
We argue that it is both viable and fruitful to understand the Buddha of the Pāli Nikāyas as a ph... more We argue that it is both viable and fruitful to understand the Buddha of the Pāli Nikāyas as a philosopher.
Skepticism by Douglass Smith
Skeptical Inquirer, 2007
Is supernaturalism becoming the new worldwide fad in winemaking? Here is an examination of the bi... more Is supernaturalism becoming the new worldwide fad in winemaking? Here is an examination of the biodynamic phenomenon, its origens, and its purported efficacy.
The World of Fine Wine, 2006
Problems with the science behind biodynamic viticulture.
Philosophy by Douglass Smith
The World of Fine Wine, 2007
Bringing information theory to the claim that wine transmits information about place.
Philosophical Studies, 1994
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Buddhist Studies by Douglass Smith
Skepticism by Douglass Smith
Philosophy by Douglass Smith