Interesting new book

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Wayfarer
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Interesting new book

Post by Wayfarer »

Rethinking the Buddha: Early Buddhist Philosophy as Meditative Perception, Eviatar Shulman.

This is a recent title, published June this year. It is expensive at the moment, although with a fairly generous preview on Google Books. It argues that early Buddhist philosophy and meditation were intrinsically related and had a very different approach to that of the later Buddhist traditions.
The early Buddhist teachings were first of all verbalised reflections on meditative events. These reflections were then meant to guide meditative observations in order to cause future experiences to conform to these patterns of thought. Early Buddhist philosophy was thus first and foremost both a description and a prescription for meditative experience…Philosophy, as a form of direct perception that has been practiced to perfection, can be perceived in jhana
'Only practice with no gaining idea' ~ Suzuki Roshi
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dzogchungpa
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Re: Interesting new book

Post by dzogchungpa »

Just picked it up from the library yesterday, but I haven't looked at it yet.
There is not only nothingness because there is always, and always can manifest. - Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
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Astus
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Re: Interesting new book

Post by Astus »

I don't see that this paradigm has changed, that is, the connection between meditation and teaching. Although there were reforms as the previous description has faded and lost power, but if someone looks around in current Buddhist teachings that are considered the "best and easiest", it is always strongly associated with meditation (Thai Forest Tradition, Burmese Vipassana, Pure Land, Zen, Vajrayana).
1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?

2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.

3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.

4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.


1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
Greg
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Re: Interesting new book

Post by Greg »

Some of the other points would probably be a little more contentious.
This book makes two revisionary claims, both of which dramatically challenge the prevalent understanding of the teachings attributed to the historical Buddha. The first is that the early Buddhist discourses betray almost no familiarity with the doctrine known as the four noble truths, generally regarded as the hallmark of Buddhist thought; the Buddha – to the degree that he can be accessed through the early discourses of the Pāli canon – did not teach that life is replete with pain, that desire is the cause of this pain, that nirvāna is the end of pain, and that the eightfold noble path paves the way toward this blessed end. Rather, when the early discourses refer to the instruction that grew to become “the four noble truths,” they speak of a specific, concise set of meditative observations, which reflect on the conditioned contents of awareness and witness the processes by which these rise and fall. Almost ubiquitously, “the four noble truths” are not “noble” and are not “truths” but are tightly structured forms of meditative perception that allow a practitioner to react to the contents she encounters in her meditation in a way that was sanctioned by the early Buddhists. She is to practice this method of reflection to the degree that she spontaneously sees and experiences the events that arise in her mind according to its imprint.

A similar point can be made regarding the two other seminal philosophical doctrines of Buddhism – dependent-origination (paticcasamuppāda) and selflessness (anatta). These were not, originally, universally applicable laws of conditionality and of essencelessness, respectively, but complementary methods of observing mental occurrences in meditation. These doctrines were at first schemes of analysis that were meant to guide the running perceptual process of meditation. They were fashioned in order to instruct one to see things in a way that accords with Buddhist metaphysical intuitions and to induce a mental stance of detachment. This is a lived philosophy in the deepest sense possible, in which theoretical positions are to be ingrained in the mind as the result of diligent practice. We are not speaking of ideas but of intense, dedicated, meditative practice.
Interesting book though, thanks for the heads up!
Greg
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Re: Interesting new book

Post by Greg »

You are right, though I think many of his points are obvious and commonly accepted by everyone who is at least someone knowledgable. Doesn't everyone know at this point that "four noble truths" is a bad translation for a term that means something more like "four truths evident to noble ones." With that in mind, the statement "Almost ubiquitously, 'the four noble truths' are not 'noble' and are not 'truths' but are tightly structured forms of meditative perception that allow a practitioner to react to the contents she encounters in her meditation in a way that was sanctioned by the early Buddhists" is not really a departure. Unless he is arguing that Aryas only perceive the reality of catvāri āryasatyāni in equipoise and not in postmeditation. I didn't get that far in the book yet.
Bakmoon
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Re: Interesting new book

Post by Bakmoon »

In every Buddhist tradition I've looked into, meditation and doctrine are integrated together when presented by a competent teacher. Meditation teachings are always understood in terms of relevant doctrine, and doctrine is usually explained in the way that meshes the best with that school's meditation practice, even in schools that don't practice what most people think of as 'meditation' such as Pure Land and Nichiren Buddhism (and of course it seems quite silly to me to say that their chanting practices aren't meditation.) Maybe you could argue that when the early texts were composed they were integrated in a different way then the texts are understood nowadays, but I don't think you could seriously say that doctrine and meditation are two separate things in ANY tradition of Buddhism.
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Astus
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Re: Interesting new book

Post by Astus »

1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?

2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.

3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.

4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.


1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
tingdzin
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Re: Interesting new book

Post by tingdzin »

It strikes me as odd that this insight should be considered revolutionary, but I guess it's good that someone has formally presented it.
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Re: Interesting new book

Post by Wayfarer »

From what I read of the preview, it doesn't say 'revolutionary' but 'revisionary'. In other words, he is simply re-visiting the texts and analysing them again, with a fresh pair of eyes. If you take time to read the preview text on Google books, you will get a better idea of his approach. It seems to have something in common with Early Buddhism: A New Approach: The I of the Beholder by Sue Hamilton-Blythe. That book lays out its case in very painstaking, methodical detail, which is almost impossible to summarize, but I found it genuinely illuminating. I will keep an eye out for whether the Shulman book appears at my uni library next year.

@dzogchungpa - any feedback on your reading of it?

I really didn't like the Sharf article, I thought it had a very positivist and reductionist view - cynical, even.
'Only practice with no gaining idea' ~ Suzuki Roshi
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