[Buddha-l] Mere meness

[Joy Vriens]

Hi Piya Tan,

 
"Mere Buddhism then would also be "early Buddhism" (in the sense of that of the Buddha's own time and say about a century after that), or pre-sectarian Buddhism. We have enough record of such teachings to live by. " 

***I have my doubts and intuitions about our knowledge of "early Buddhism", or at least that which is generally presented as such, but I am convinced that the teachings going under the header "early Buddhism" are good teachings to live by.


"I have just an article by Ajahn Brahmali (a pupil of Ajahn Chah) about Samadhi and Lokuttarajjhana, where he commented something like we should take the Suttas as they are: let the Suttas interpret themselves, and not use the Commentaries to do that. (Of course, purists may say that we are treating the early texts like evangelists the Bible). Let's simply answer that we are not evangelists."


***Yes, I find that an excellent approach too. I have been taught too many nutshell summaries of what was the actual message of this philosopher and that religious teacher, that kept me from actually directly plunging in their sayings and writings. After having done so (the plunging that is) for a couple of them, I got a totally different experience and idea of them. I think that going for a core message and then to define thinkers/seekers by that reducing them to a couple of core quotations is a mistake anyway. By going for core messages, one often misses the best parts. To read a "writer" (by lack of a better generalist term) is to travel along with him/her, letting oneself being mesmerized by him/her for a start. First surrender to it, then use your critical thinking if you have to. A bit like with story telling. Can one enjoy a story and get the essence of a story (and I don't mean the morality etc., but the pleasure) when one's critical thinking is activated? 

"Mere Buddhism also refers in a very significant way to mindful training. "Traditional orghnized Buddhism" I think has it the wrong way: study the texts then you will understand what meditation is about".. 

***The reality is I think mindfulness training (having learned the basics form an experienced and compassionate practitioner) helps one understand the texts and traditions better. More important than that, it bring a profound mental calm and clarity."

In order to do something specific, we need a story/narration to motivate us to do so, we have to hypnotise ourselves into it. When we adhere to a story, we are already calmer and clearer. I don't know about its profundity though, I wouldn't know how to measure it ;-) Then whatever we believe we need to do to make us calmer and clearer will indeed make us calmer and clearer.   

"Otherwise we would mostly be merely dumplng our own mental garbage in this anarchy called the internet (or Buddha-L)." 

***As you may have already noticed ;-) I have found that in the mental domain, anarchy tends to be what really happens. A continuous afflux of various information and disinformation. I have learned to make it more or less manageable for me through filtering, but I am afraid the filtering (and therefore the impression of calm this produces) is less real than the anarchy.

Joy
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