REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
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Assaji
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by Assaji »

Hi,
LonesomeYogurt wrote:Here's a diagram I made to explain the interlocking, self-contained nature of the experiential process. It's based on a chart on Wikipedia that I can't find anymore, so I did it from memory. I think it's accurate
One of the corrections is that consciousness is interconditioned with nama-rupa.

Here's my diagram:

http://dhamma.ru/lib/paticcas.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Even though it has inaccuracies, the references below help to build the correct picture.
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Assaji
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by Assaji »

Hi Mr Man,
Mr Man wrote:I asked them because I was hoping you would answer and we could take it from there.
I don't see how the discussion of my personal experience would lead to anything worthwhile.
If you say "It's not so difficult to get in touch with past lives" surely my question is fair?
For example, I say "it's not so difficult to see in mind's eye a four-dimensional cube". The only test would be to test this personally, and ask others who have done it.
If you assert "In ancient times, even more people than today, were simply able to remember past lives." I am interested as to how you came to that conclusion.
From ancient texts.
Or if you say "many children" I think it is fair to question what many would mean in a population of say 1.2 Billion
What for? Are interested in what I'm saying, or interested to disprove what I'm saying?
Are you writing me off here?
I just wrote what this reminds me off, and suggested a solution.
Nyana
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by Nyana »

danieLion wrote:So, the perspective goes like this, from my point of view: You secular or modernist Buddhists don't have the REAL, original teachings of the Buddha on "meditation," but I (insert contemporary teacher's name) do and will teach it to you. But first, you have to believe in rebirth so when you have questions about progress variance, I can easily dismiss your inquiries and over-simplistically tell you that it depends on the work you've done in previous lives. Again, so as not to be misunderstood, I am open-minded about whether or not rebirth is in fact real. I'm not against it and I'm not for it and will modify my conviction one way or another as time goes by and I'm confronted with new data. However, to say, in effect, "I teach only original Buddhist meditation and in order to do it right you have to beleive in rebirth," seems not only provincialistic but also exclusionary. It also implies that some degree of BLIND FAITH is required to progress on The Path, something even the Buddha never demanded.

I would really appreciate hearing you thoughts one these matters as I find them to be serious issues for Buddhists living in the modern world.
As we have no direct access to what the Buddha actually taught during his lifetime, there is no way of substantiating appeals to "original Buddhism." Aside from that, it seems that there are a couple of related questions here.

First, what is the function of meditation in the Buddhist path of liberation according to the extant sources that claim to be the teachings of the Buddha (and that are generally agreed upon by the ancient Buddhist traditions and modern scholars to be the earliest records)?

And second, what is the place and function of the teachings on rebirth in relation to the Buddhist path of liberation?

In order to develop an intellectual understanding of the role of meditation in the Buddhist path of awakening, I would recommend the following:

1. On the Practice of Buddhist Meditation According to the Pāli Nikāyas and Exegetical Sources by Rupert Gethin.
2. The Four Satipaṭṭhānas in Early Buddhism by Tse-fu Kuan.*
3. Wings to Awakening: An Anthology from the Pāli Canon by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu.
4. The Buddhist Path to Awakening by Rupert Gethin.

For sources on the role of the teachings on rebirth, there is the following:

1. Dhamma Without Rebirth? by Bhikkhu Bodhi.
2. Does Rebirth Make Sense? by Bhikkhu Bodhi.
3. The Truth of Rebirth: And Why it Matters for Buddhist Practice by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu.
4. Distorted Visions of Buddhism: Agnostic and Atheist by B. Alan Wallace.




* Toward the end of this paper there are a couple of dubious statements about saññā & saṅkhāra which were abandoned by the author himself in later publications. Otherwise, it is a decent survey of the suttas on the subject of the satipaṭṭhānas.
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Mr Man
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by Mr Man »

Dmytro wrote:Hi Mr Man,
Mr Man wrote:I asked them because I was hoping you would answer and we could take it from there.
I don't see how the discussion of my personal experience would lead to anything worthwhile.
If you say "It's not so difficult to get in touch with past lives" surely my question is fair?
For example, I say "it's not so difficult to see in mind's eye a four-dimensional cube". The only test would be to test this personally, and ask others who have done it.
If you assert "In ancient times, even more people than today, were simply able to remember past lives." I am interested as to how you came to that conclusion.
From ancient texts.
Or if you say "many children" I think it is fair to question what many would mean in a population of say 1.2 Billion
What for? Are interested in what I'm saying, or interested to disprove what I'm saying?
Are you writing me off here?
I just wrote what this reminds me off, and suggested a solution.
Hi Dmytro
What is the difference between relating your personal experience and the experience of your friends? If I were to say "it's not so difficult to see in mind's eye a four-dimensional cube" the implication would be that I could do it and if someone was to ask me to clarify I would answer - no big deal. I'm interested and I don't want to disprove but I certainly think it is worth questioning. Actually there is nothing to disprove - we are not in that arena.

It's interesting that there are now many people in the "west" (possibly more than in asia) who believe that they have had a genuine experience of a past life or that this it is possible to have one. Why would that be?
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Prasadachitta
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by Prasadachitta »

Hello Dhamma chat folks,

I'd like to add an extra question that I think may fill out the original OP. Lets say a person accepts this ...
(LonesomeYogurt)"the impersonal stream of experience does not begin at birth or end at death, but continues in a cycle of arising and ceasing across multiple lifetimes as propelled by ignorance."
,

but that person remains skeptical about the possibility of recalling past life particularities or at least skeptical that there is any way that kind of cognition could be authenticated either subjectively or objectively? What do folks here or tradition as we know it tell us about how this bears on the efficacy of our practice?



on a personal note...

I post this question to point out that there is not an either or situation but a few nuances to how one might view rebirth. I personally accept the first part about as much as anything I have ever accepted based on circumstantial evidence. I'm uncertain about accepting the possibility that past life particularities can be recalled at all and if they can be I cant see how one would ever authenticate them no matter how detailed the recollection is. For that matter I may be having past life recall pretty regularly. I'm not kidding about that. I seem to recall some stuff which is totally out of context for me personally. I am not interested in authenticating this stuff from the perspective of this life much less any past one. I'm interested in letting go and with that stuff I find it easy. It's a bunch of other clearly proximate and contextual stuff which I find very sticky.


I hope we all find a way to practice ardently.

Metta

Prasadachitta
"Beautifully taught is the Lord's Dhamma, immediately apparent, timeless, of the nature of a personal invitation, progressive, to be attained by the wise, each for himself." Anguttara Nikaya V.332
danieLion
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by danieLion »

...delete...
daverupa wrote:...Instead, appeal to a common human morality offers a much more fruitful beginning. Cause and effect with respect to wholesome & unwholesome states of body and mind dovetails well with this approach, and offers a practical experience of kamma prior to emphasizing ideation about it, avoiding two of the more knotty topics for newcomers.

Meditation further builds on this approach, per the gradual training - delightfully and joyfully free of worry about these things.

:heart:
Thanks Dave. For practical purposes, I'm inlcined to agree with this.

...delete....
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danieLion
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

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...delete...
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danieLion
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

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...delete...
Last edited by danieLion on Sun Mar 10, 2013 3:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
danieLion
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by danieLion »

...delete...
Last edited by danieLion on Sun Mar 10, 2013 3:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
daverupa
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by daverupa »

danieLion wrote:our incredible capacity as humans to invent, concoct, fabricate, imagine, and more often than not delude ourselves into believing all kinds of things we have no way of testing the ultimate validity of.
Indeed; so you go on to ask about belief v. knowledge. The five things that can turn out in one of two ways, however, cover much of the same ground: "Conviction, liking, unbroken tradition, reasoning by analogy, & an agreement through pondering views", per MN 95.

For an example of something that can be known, as opposed to simply believed, especially in the context of views and whether something is imagined or not, we have the following:
DN 1 wrote:"When those recluses and brahmins who are speculators about the past, speculators about the future, speculators about the past and the future together, who hold settled views about the past and the future, assert on sixty-two grounds various conceptual theorems referring to the past and the future — that too is conditioned by contact. That they can experience that feeling without contact — such a case is impossible.
"Conditioned by contact" is directly observable, and I note that occasions of seeing with wisdom in the suttas turn out differently than the previous five approaches to learning. They have only dukkha and dukkhanirodha as learning targets, not conceptually satisfying explications of various issues such as past and future, and this ...targeted phenomenology?... avoids these five problems.

You can directly know your posture, for example, and it is on the basis of this kind of certain knowledge (i.e. personal knowledge, per SN 12.68) that meditation (satisampajanna, guarded senses, right effort, satipatthana, etc.) is undertaken.
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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robertk
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by robertk »

the Buddha's teachings on the perceptual delusions of human cognition suggests that he'd agree with Nietzsche here. In this sense, belief in rebirth, whether through faith or knowledge, is not only ultimately a matter of personal choice, but also impossible to disentangle from our incredible capacity as humans to invent, concoct, fabricate, imagine, and more often than not delude ourselves into believing all kinds of things we have no way of testing the ultimate validity of.
from my perspective it seems far more fanciful to imagine that humans , for example, were merely a matter of pure chance. i try as much as possible to understand the materialist point of view but it seems so incredibly far-fetched thAT i really wonder how anyone could buy into it. :thinking:
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LonesomeYogurt
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by LonesomeYogurt »

daverupa wrote:I don't think so; rebirth and metaphysical retribution is liable to drive away secular and materialist inquirers, in my experience.
And teaching that great effort is required for enlightenment is liable to drive away lazy inquirers, while I'm sure an emphasis on the Buddha's disdain for the Caste system is likely to drive away bigoted and ethnocentric inquirers. Hell, if we wanted to, we could stop emphasizing the unwholesomeness of violence or sexual misconduct in order to make Buddhism more attractive to the violent and promiscuous inquirer!

I'm not, of course, comparing materialism with racism or brutality; I'm simply pointing out that the best way to destroy the core integrity of any movement or philosophy is to worry too much about making it palatable. The question is not, "What can we take out of the Dhamma in order to make it more appealing to those who hold ideas in opposition to it," but instead, "What can we take out of the Dhamma that still leaves an effective vehicle for liberation?"

Buddhism is not a secular or materialist philosophy, so why are we surprised that an accurate portrayal of its teachings scares away secularists and materialists? In my opinion, many figures in Western Buddhism, most of them lay teachers as opposed to monastics, have been trying far, far too hard to neuter any and all elements of the Dhamma that might ever make anyone uncomfortable. In most popular Dha(r/m)ma books or lectures you'll hear today, there's no talk about rebirth, no talk about the horrible karmic consequences of violence or promiscuity or intoxication, no talk about real non-self, and no talk about anything that could be considered even vaguely offensive to the secular or New Age tastes of those in attendance. Instead, the emphasis is on "interconnectedness" and self-affirmation. And I'm sure it gets more people to show up and even maybe more people to spend some time on the cushion. But in the end, we're not doing anyone any favors by taking out the parts of the Dhamma that challenge our unwholesome ways or refuse to give us easy comfort.

A monk I spoke to once said that truth and happiness were buried treasures, and unless one was focused on one particular spot to dig, he or she wouldn't get anywhere. "Spiritual tourism," he said, was like digging a few holes around the spot and hoping their depths all add up to one very deep hole, while this neutered, New Age spirituality was like digging one small hole and then convincing yourself you found the treasure when the ground starts getting hard. He cautioned that while the former leads just to disappointment, the latter is even more dangerous; while the former goes away frustrated, the latter rushes out to start writing checks based on the cash they think they have! This is the danger of making the Dhamma palatable at the expense of its core message: It creates a web of self-affirmation and comfort that tricks people, a warm and fuzzy blanket that won't hold up against the cold winds of reality. If we have real compassion and real concern for propagating that Dhamma that we most revere, we won't just take out the parts that are real bummers for those who aren't interested, any more than a biology professor would see his lab volunteers dwindling and say, "Well, I guess it's time to stop asking that my students accept evolution."

I'm sorry if this seems like a tangent or a rant, but I think it relates to the core issue of how we can balance the core truths of the Dhamma, even when they are diametrically opposed to modern American sensibilities, with an approach that is gentle enough to get the truth out to people without scaring them away - and this entire discussion about the importance of rebirth for modern practitioners is at the heart of such a struggle. I don't claim to know the answer, mind you, but I have no problem saying that too many of us have gone too far in one direction at the expense of the Buddha's noble dispensation.

Just my thoughts.
:anjali:
Gain and loss, status and disgrace,
censure and praise, pleasure and pain:
these conditions among human beings are inconstant,
impermanent, subject to change.

Knowing this, the wise person, mindful,
ponders these changing conditions.
Desirable things don’t charm the mind,
undesirable ones bring no resistance.

His welcoming and rebelling are scattered,
gone to their end,
do not exist.
- Lokavipatti Sutta

Stuff I write about things.
daverupa
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by daverupa »

LonesomeYogurt wrote:worry... about making it palatable... neuter any and all elements of the Dhamma that might ever make anyone uncomfortable... we're not doing anyone any favors by taking out the parts of the Dhamma that challenge our unwholesome ways or refuse to give us easy comfort... a web of self-affirmation and comfort that tricks people, a warm and fuzzy blanket that won't hold up against the cold winds of reality.
This does all look problematic. Not worrying about rebirth, however, doesn't run afoul of any of this. Arguing for or against, now what is that but agitation with contact as condition?
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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mikenz66
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by mikenz66 »

Great summary LY!

:anjali:
Mike
daverupa
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by daverupa »

polarbuddha101 wrote:
The Pataliya sutta: Samyutta 42.13
This sutta demonstrates...
Well, checking Section III, I note that the vaunted right view with effluents (brought up by the headman but not labelled as such) is set aside as one of four perplexing claims, and it is this perplexity which is discussed in my signature, to be overcome without reference to kamma or rebirth. Therefore, this bhavana happens in the absence of any talk of rebirth, as stated.

This headman had confidence in the Buddha, and still the Buddha did not teach one of the four ethical views listed therein. He taught, instead, kammapatha and the brahmaviharas, and showed how joy as a factor of awakening could be generated in the absence of speculation.
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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