[Buddha-l] Tibetan word for meditation

[Richard Hayes]

On Tuesday 21 November 2006 12:10, Malcolm Dean wrote:
 
> Um, no. Not repeatedly (unless you're referring to earlier
> conversations). The assertion was made here, on Buddha-L, and went
> unchallenged.... and we don't want to fire Buddha-L, do we?

Buddha-l doesn't exist, so it can't be fired. But we'll try to fire the person 
who first said that the Tibetan word for meditation means paying attention. 
We just can't have such egregious errors on buddha-l.

> The point is
> important for any neurological or information-based approach to
> Buddhism. I prefer to call this thoroughness and persistence, but if
> Richard wants to call it obsession, I'm obsessively persistent.

I( think of perseverence as steadfastly pursuing a productive, wholesome and 
worthwhile goal. Obsession (prapanca) is persistently pursuing a line of 
thought that yields nothing of value. Steadfastly pursuing the 
information-based approach to Buddhism seems to me a lot more like obsession 
than perseverence. But that's a judgment call that probably speaks more about 
my own ignorance of the subtle values of your project than anything else. 
Suffice it to say I have not yet seen anything in your project that strikes 
me as being productive and wholesome in the way that other approaches to 
Buddhism are. But if it's getting you closer to nirvana, go for it.

-- 
Richard P. Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes