Do you have any interest in the philosophies of introflection pioneered by Buddhism?

[The Grand Nudger]

You're thinking of zen buddhism, likely, Em. No scripture, no doctrine, no ritual. Not focusing on anything. Mushin no shin.

You know, the irony for me in the opq is that the kind of buddhism I find value in is the one where you don't think about fucking buddhism.

[emjay]

You're thinking of zen buddhism, likely, Em.  No scripture, no doctrine, no ritual.  Not focusing on anything.  Mushin no shin.

You know, the irony for me in the opq is that the kind of buddhism I find value in is the one where you don't think about fucking buddhism.

Nah, I don't know much about Zen Buddhism. I think Aegon has talked about it quite a lot, may be wrong, but pretty sure my book is not about that. I'm sure it's along similar lines though.

I'm sorry if I'm being dense, but I don't follow... what's the type of Buddhism where you don't think about Buddhism?

[The Grand Nudger]

Not knowing much about zen is a good setup for a zen joke.

The book you have is very explicitly about modern revisionist buddhism. Zen is mahayana. Or, at least, it started out that way - but it got alot of purchase in the west due to our interactions with japan. Other (historical) forms lean into tradition and scripture and ritual and dogma, zen leans out. Zen is the "just sitting" kind (that's where it gets it's name), that regards the pursuit of enlightenment as futile. Insomuch as there's a cycle of suffering you will be locked into it, no matter how much study or meditation you do.

You can probably see how this appealed to feudal warlords.

[emjay]

Not knowing much about zen is a good setup for a zen joke.

The book you have is very explicitly about modern revisionist buddhism.  Zen is mahayana.  Or, at least, it started out that way - but it got alot of purchase in the west due to our interactions with japan.  Other (historical) forms lean into tradition and scripture and ritual and dogma, zen leans out.  Zen is the "just sitting" kind (that's where it gets it's name), that regards the pursuit of enlightenment as futile.  Insomuch as there's a cycle of suffering you will be locked into it, no matter how much study or meditation you do.

You can probably see how this appealed to feudal warlords.  

Right, well there's definitely no mention of that in this book; that's the first time I've heard of a Buddhism that considers the pursuit of enlightenment futile. But interesting nonetheless.

[Angrboda]

There tend to be as many theories about what you're trying to accomplish with meditation and why as there are Buddhists who meditate.  I hesitate to add mine to the pile, but it seems obvious that through repetition, meditation is supposed to either equip the mind with a skill that it ordinarily does poorly, or as a topical to the ordinary thought patterns that exist outside of the meditative state.  There are supposedly studies that document improvement along certain metrics correlated with things like stress and anxiety, but even if valid, it's not clear what aspect of meditation is responsible for said effects.

As far as the role that God can play in meditation, while Buddhist metaphysics do not link the virtues of practice to any divinity, both Hindu meditation (such as Bahkti yoga) and Christian mysticism do involve a god in the process of the meditation and not uncommonly involve foci derived from their respective traditions (such as meditations on passages from the Bhagavad Gita).

My own thoughts on it come primarily from my favourite book on the subject, What The Buddha Taught by Walpola Sri Rahula, but I accept that that's just one interpretation, and further, accept TGN's arguments that those views may be 'retconned', ie a modern interpretation, which may or may not accurately reflect what was originally intended by the Buddha, but nonetheless, that's the form and interpretation of Buddhism that speaks to me personally, but each to their own.

I agree that through practice, the skills become stronger, and am vaguely aware of studies about meditation essentially rewiring the brain, which I personally put down to the fact that it is not a usual/natural practice, to focus in this way on mental phenomena, so I am not surprised if repetition of that causes new and strange connections in the brain to be established. And by 'topical', do you mean a supplement to the ordinary thought patterns that exist outside of the meditative state? I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with that turn of phrase.

As to the reduction of stress and anxiety, I haven't personally looked into any studies on that, so neither can I say much about what aspects of meditation might be responsible for that, but I just know that in general, in my own case, I have less stress and anxiety when I'm in a Buddhist frame of mind, than not, but I'd say that's more likely an indirect result... of thinking about the whole philosophy... rather than, or at least in addition to, a direct result of meditation, which is not something I do that often, but which this thread has made me interested to try again... and I really should read that book again.

As for the role of God in meditation, are you talking about the notion of mantras? Ie repeating some phrase or whatever as an object of meditation? If so, I understand where you're coming from, but have never tried that particular type of meditation myself.

Topical as in a topical medication, something applied locally that only has an effect local to where it is applied.

As to God, the Christian mystics teach that there are apophatic traditions, in which one focuses on what God is not, and kataphatic practices wherein one focuses on some attribute or thing related to God. The apophatic tradition, known as the negative way, focuses on eliminating fixations as to what God is by emptying one's mind. Hindu traditions speak of several different yogas, jnana, raja, and bhakti. Raja yoga is analogous to traditional Buddhist meditation, but jnana and bhakti meditation focus upon the divine in different ways, with jnana yoga being the path of knowledge or wisdom, and bhakti yoga being the path of love, of centering one's mind on love and worship of the divine personage.

[The Grand Nudger]

Zen buddhism and modernist (or western) buddhism present an interesting locus of competing motivations, lol.

In modernist buddhism, god and ritual and concrete dogma aren't there because it's a pitch to a largely secular and western (and humanist) audience. It wouldn't have worked otherwise. In zen buddhism, that stuffs not there because they were building empires. It didn't work, or, if we prefer, if it wasn't tang-alike it was gonna end up stuck on a spear. They didn't wanna hear about fucking gods and concurrent dissenting traditions. Certainly didn't want their soldiers having a moral crisis on the battlefield. In china and japan, the emergence (or success) of zen is linked to civil wars. Zen is the kind of inner calm you need to cut your brother down...even when...especially when, you're not angry with him and have nothing against him, personally.

Inevitably, in the west...highly militaristic culture that we are, elements of zen get rolled into the modernist pitch and into the popular zeitgeist - even if they're scrubbed of the military applications that spawned them, part and parcel of the same (present) moment in our culture.

[emjay]

Zen buddhism and modernist (or western) buddhism present an interesting locus of competing motivations, lol.

In modernist buddhism, god and ritual and concrete dogma aren't there because it's a pitch to a largely secular and western (and humanist) audience.  It wouldn't have worked otherwise.  In zen buddhism, that stuffs not there because they were building empires. It didn't work, or, if we prefer, if it wasn't tang-alike it was gonna end up stuck on a spear.  They didn't wanna hear about fucking gods and concurrent dissenting traditions.  Certainly didn't want their soldiers having a moral crisis on the battlefield.  In china and japan, the emergence of zen is linked to civil wars.

Hehe, I see, I think.

It's certainly interesting though... a whole new bunch of ramifications for a type of Buddhism that has no end game. Not that most people seem that comfortable with the traditional end game of Buddhism anyway, of basically annihilation... and that seems to me to be an issue of potentially competing motivations where theistic Buddhism is concerned. Ie any notions of heavens and hells, interwoven with Nirvana.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, nirvana is still the endgame of zen, it's just that zen has a more pessimistic view of our chances of getting there. In more optimistic forms of buddhism there's this idea that once you reach an enlightened state you can never go back. A sort of forward spiritual progress that adds up over lifetimes. In zen, those transitory moments of enlightenment, what we in the west would call the sense of the numinous..are just that. You're going to go back, you're going to end up doing all the same old shit, that experience isn't the state itself. The state is figurative, a goal to strive for because of the way it (allegedly) improves us in the here and now, nirvana is not a reality for us.

From a historic perspective, buddhism (or at least this type of buddhism) is a sort of archetype for what we would later derisively term the opiate of the masses. Things are fucked up, things will always be fucked up, you will always be fucked up. The goal is to detach from that fucked-up-edness just long enough to do one thing really goddamned well - to the exclusion of all other...and any, concerns.