Archive for the ‘ Meditation ’ Category

Mind is Mess

If there is one thing we need to know, it is this – and know it well. We are so fond of our minds we practically worship them, and make no attempt to keep them under control. When we should constantly aware of where they are, and what they are doing. As soon as I [ READ MORE ]

Enlightenment is Not Enough

When I speak of Enlightenment, I mean in the Buddhist sense – where you are able to understand how things are in their most basic sense, and be free from delusion. The practitioner achieves this completely on her own – or as she might say: by merging with Buddha nature. It is important not to [ READ MORE ]

Calculative Thinking and Meditative Thinking

This is from Martin Heidegger’s Discourse on Thinking, in the book Existentialism, pages 151-152. This so easy to understand that anyone could benefit from reading it. Why isn’t everyone doing so? There are lots of reasons, but the one Heidegger gives is the flight from thinking - something I have noticed myself. One of the [ READ MORE ]

The Mind is a Mess

Of all the things we ought to keep firmly in mind, this is the most important – but our minds want us to forget this. They want us to think they are competent beings, firmly in control. People may go crazy once in a while, but outside of that they are our constant friend. This [ READ MORE ]

Meditation Involves Suffering

It is a common misconception that meditation should produce a state of bliss – and that is why people want to do it. Pain is not something they want, they avoid it as much as possible. This is the calculus of their logic: more happiness and less pain. Accepting pain to them seems ridiculous, avoiding it is the only thing [ READ MORE ]

Enlightenment in Popular Culture

To the American popular mind, Buddhism has become an in thing. Everyone agrees it is a good thing (even a wonderful thing), without having any idea what it is. One of the items absorbed in this process was a belief in enlightenment – in the Eastern, not the Western sense. To them, it simply meant [ READ MORE ]

Small Mind, Big Mind

This is a Buddhist concept, and is nearly impossible to explain, it can only be experienced – usually only after a long period of intense meditation, although some have attained it (and enlightenment also) easily and spontaneously. I do not want to dwell in what enlightenment is – let alone who has it (or had it). This is a [ READ MORE ]

Heidegger on Being and Thinking

I like small books that are well thought-out. Heidegger’s book The Question Concerning Technology is like that. He says the most amazing things, for example: The essence of technology is by no means anything technological. Any technical person can understand that intuitively – but cannot explain it. To do that, we have to back off [ READ MORE ]

Our Empathy Deficit

This is America’s biggest problem – by far. It is the root of all our other problems – which are without number, to be sure. If we can’t help each other, and don’t even want to, not God himself can save us. I have started reading Born for Love for the second time – and [ READ MORE ]

Hume and Buddhism

This connection has been noted many times, but never analyzed in depth – because Buddhists didn’t know much (or care much) about Western Philosophy, and Western Philosophers have had scant interest in Buddhism. They lived in separate worlds – literally, East and West. I have been listening to Hume in 90 Minutes by Paul Strathern – [ READ MORE ]

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