[Buddha-l] Loving your object of study

[jkirk]

 Curt wrote:

>Therefore anyone who genuinely upholds the inseparability of insight
and 
>calmness will have nothing to do with cultivating just one of them
while 
>rejecting the cultivation of the other.

Your knack for stating the obvious never fails to amaze me. Yes, Curt, you
have managed yet again to understand my point. If one consciously focuses on
cultivating insight, then calmness will naturally follow, even if one does
not consciously focus on it. And if one consciously focuses on cultivating
tranquillity, insight will naturally follow, even if one gives no thought to
it.

I'm not sure what would happen if one consciously decided to reject one of
these two desiderata, because I can't imagine anyone actually advocating
such a strategy. My guess is that if someone were to try such a strategy,
the result would be the achievement of some kind of mediocrity. Perhaps it
would even lead to becoming a Republican.

Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
===============
While I can't comprehend why anyone would reject one leg of the di-pos
(sorry if I got the Greek number wrong), I don't agree that cultivating
vipassana leads to samatha; however, the reverse might be true. Samatha
could enable better, more perfected vipassana. Cultivating vipassana onlt
could lead to endless vipassana, with the consequence of endless papanca.
Thus, cultivating samatha would seem quite necessary to cool out the
floating world of vipassana, no matter how many insights vip. might provide
along the way. Doesn't the human mind/body, for most productive
consequences, need the practice of one-pointed mind as well?  Having said
that, I still am glad that there are many scholars and practicers who work
hard on developing knowledge, as well as insight and tranquility.
Joanna K.

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