[Buddha-l] Vipassana?

[Franz Metcalf]

Dylan et al.,

You wrote that contemporary Zen mindfulness meditation "might be a 
later addition to Zen meditation -- (or perhaps, as you suggest, this 
is more Soto style as opposed to Rinzai)."

It *is* a bit more Soto than Rinzai, as Mitchell Ginsberg and I 
suggested, but I don't think it's a later addition. Without picking up 
my Bodhidharma (and therefore with a good chance of being wrong), I 
recall his meditation style to have been pretty balanced as well. And 
Huineng's "formless meditation" in the Platform Sutra sounds very much 
like mindfulness meditation as well.

(BTW: though both these figures are legendary, the very fact the Chan 
tradition needed to create them and put treatises [even "sutras"] in 
their mouths demonstrates the centrality of the ideas in those works.)

But, in contrast, you also wrote,

> Is it possible that in America, Zen meditation has begun to adopt some 
> aspects of Theravada Vipassana technique, as a way of making it easier 
> for beginners to start meditating?

And I have to agree. There is considerable cross-pollination going on, 
explicitly and tacitly, in American Buddhist meditation centers. I 
can't prove that, of course, but I believe it wholeheartedly. Few or no 
Zen priests in Japan get instructed to count their breaths and let 
thoughts arise and pass away and so on when they begin meditating. Of 
course hardly any of them ever *do* begin meditating, so this is not a 
big issue. But it shows that *some* new influences on the practice have 
had an effect. Hey, Zen needed it, and why not from vipassana?

Though I know less about it, one comment on vipassana. The particular 
vipassana technique that has swept this country and much of the Western 
world is only one technique (the Burmese method) among many rooted in 
Buddhaghosa and the Pali Canon. It's just that essentially none of the 
other techniques have hit it big here in the land of the free. So we 
need to be careful to distinguish between vipassana meaning "insight 
meditation," and vipassana meaning "Insight Meditation™", if you know 
what I mean. This is one reason I like Gunaratana (and second Richard's 
recommendation of his work): he doesn't buy the whole Insight Mediation 
Society package.

I'd love it if someone from that tradition showed I'm incorrect about 
this and set me straight. It would be reassuring to think IMS and 
Goenka's folks and other groups using the Burmese method have other 
arrows in their quivers.

Best,

Franz