[Buddha-l] Question for academic teachers of Buddhism

[Richard Hayes]

On Wed, 2008-06-25 at 10:51 -0400, Jackhat1 at aol.com wrote:

> ============
> Meditation can be misused, overdone and become an obsession. Would you  agree 
> that it does have a place in Buddhist practice (8-Fold Path) and ethnic  
> Buddhists as a whole tend to not recognize its importance?

Meditation is one component of the eight-component path. It seems to me
that the tendency of some Westerners is to see meditation as the main
component and to see all other components as somehow being auxiliaries
to meditation. A more accurate picture of the path, I think, is to see
all components as supporting all the others, none of them being more or
less essential than the other seven.

Not being an anthropologist, I am not in a position to comment much on
Asian Buddhists in general. My own observations have been of people who
are quite committed to a full Buddhist practice, with a big emphasis on
service (what Hindus call karma yoga), social and political involvement
and personal meditation. But that's the sort of person I tend to seek
out and find. They may be no more representative of Asian Buddhist
culture as a whole than a Quaker is of Western Christian culture as a
whole.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico