Got your trolling motor on, don't you!
On May 28, 2009, at 9:44 AM, Richard J. Williams wrote:
Vaj wrote:
Relapsing is extra!
Maybe so, Vaj, but even the Theravada
dualisitic philosophy on which Vipassana
is based, has been discredited and replaced
with the Mahayana Vijnanavada. Hardly
anybody takes the Theravada philosophy
seriously anymore - it's out-dated.
Because it's non-sensical, based a theory
of the 'dharmas' and 'point instants'.
No, as I previously indicated Vipassana use continues to expand, as
does it's research.
Since it has, by some accounts, around 100 million practitioners, it
not very accurate to say people don't take it seriously. You just
sound out of touch.
The research into the Mahayana psycho-mental
makes the research into the Theravada
cognitive therapy look like an anthill in
comparison.
Actually there's not nearly as much scientific research on Mahayana
approaches as there is Vipassana. You have that backwards Willy.
Although it's not uncommon to now see practices beginning with
"breath awareness" (Vipassana/Zen) as a beginning and segueing into
more common Mahayana and Dzogchen forms of meditation, in a sequence.
Regarding Zen and Vipassana:
"Does Zen really practice insight [vipassana] meditation? If so, what
is this style of meditation? And how exactly does it help one develop
insight?
Neither question has a simple answer.
Zen tends to be vague on these matters. In contrast, many persons in the
West now freely use the terms “mindfulness,” or “insight meditation”
to describe
the meditative practices used by the southern Buddhist schools of
southeast Asia
which follow in the Theravada tradition. Is the Zen way really so
different? Or
is this another semantic problem?
It seems to be largely a matter of words and emphasis, for in most
respects
the northern and southern practices are fundamentally similar.
Whatever names
attach to Buddhist mindfulness, it still starts out the same way: as
a nonreactive,
bare awareness open to anything. Indeed, the same basic “meditative”
approach is
available to almost anyone. “All” you must do is set aside mental
space, then
dedicate it fully to the here and now. The task is formidable. Only
slowly does
its outcome open up awareness, non-judgmentally, so that awareness
can take in
the natural ongoing changing sequences of direct experience."
-James Austin, Zen and the Brain
