[Buddha-l] Withdrawal of the senses

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Dan Lusthaus schreef:
> Plotinus is a pivotal neoplatonist. Reading Indian thought as an exotic
> version of neoplatonism (or gnosticism) is a misleading -- though
> entrenched -- distortion. Controlling the senses in Buddhism and the Gita
> means to remain detached within the sensorium, not to shut down sensation
> itself. Detachment in this context means that pleasurable sensations don't
> condition one to desire positively, and painful sensations don't condition
> one to hate or avoid.
>
> Dan Lusthaus
>
>
>   
I understand that texts are different, but there's only so much you can 
do with your body and mind. So similar practices can have a different 
meaning, but similar effects. Plotinus also describes visualisation in 
the Eneads. In the Giita Arjuna 'sees' Kri.s.na in his true form, this 
doesn't seem to me merely to be unattached perception.
I wouldn't be so sure about what the Giita really says, because it's not 
written by one person overnight.

Erik
>   
>> More on the idea of withdrawing the senses. - M.
>>
>>
>>     
> http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/plotinus_soul-source.asp
>   
>> "In sum, we must withdraw from all the extern, pointed wholly inwards;
>> no leaning to the outer; the total of things ignored, first in their
>> relation to us and later in the very idea; the self put out of mind in
>> the contemplation of the Supreme; all the commerce so closely There
>> that, if report were possible, one might become to others reporter of
>> that communion."
>>
>> Plotinus : The Soul's movement will be about its source
>> from the Enneads 6.9.7-11, Translated by Stephen Mackenna and B. S. Page
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-- 
Groet

Erik


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