[Buddha-l] Eckhart and Buddhism - general question

[S. A. Feite]

On Jul 2, 2010, at 12:51 PM, Richard Hayes wrote:

> On Fri, 2 Jul 2010 12:27:57 EDT, Jackhat1 at aol.com wrote:
>
>> My favorite Eckhart quote is, you have to bust through
>> God to get to God.
>> To me, it is very Buddhist.
>
> It is also reminiscent of the anonymous English mystical
> text, The Cloud of Unknowing. The whole premiss of that
> wonderful book is that the only way to find God is to
> forget everything you think God might be. Forget
> scripture, forget theology, forget philosophy.


Very similar also to Shankara's 15 angas or stages of advaita where  
Shankara defines the nondual expereince of Brahman in the last two  
rungs, dhyana and samadhi, as:

dhyana: 'I am the very Brahman' by such vrtti remaining without any  
object of concentration (niralambana), grantor of supreme joy,

samadhi : becoming free of all transmutations (nirvikAra),  
maintaining the vrtti of being identical with Brahman, *then  
forgetting that very vrtti.*

Steve