Las Siete Purificaciones y los Conocimientos de Vipassana (original) (raw)
Related papers
Meditation Revisited (co-authored by Andreas Doctor)
Wading into the Stream of Wisdom. Essays in Honor of Leslie Kawamura. Ed. Sarah F. Haynes and Michelle J. Sorensen. Contemporary Issues in Buddhist Studies. Berkeley: BDK America., 2013
T he term bhāvanā/sgom is usually translated as "meditation," but from a philological standpoint it is more rigorously rendered as "cultivation" or "familiarization." It may indeed be that rendering the term bhāvanā as "meditation" is only an approximation and may even be in some ways misleading. That said, we'll stay with this rendering as it is more or less conventionally adopted in Buddhist circles. We'll discuss some of the translational issues below in more detail. The principal question taken up in this paper is what modern non-Asian Buddhists understand meditation to be. Two types of answers interest us here: (1) Many non-Asian Buddhists will maintain that "meditation" refers to a practical activity of sitting calmly, with concentrated nonconceptual, non-analytic awareness. They will also hold that this activity is what most Tibetan monks and other Buddhists do as their fundamental spiritual practice. Being a readily identifiable practical skill, its nature is not considered to be an important subject of philosophical speculation. (2) Others at some point will treat "meditation" as a normative term. Thus for them not everything called "meditation" is equal, as some practices are more effective, faster, more beneficial, deeper, etc., and some are potentially quite antithetical to what meditation should be. What meditation should be and what it achieves thus become a philosophical issue of some urgency. The resolution of these issues may even be seen as necessary precondition for the success of the practice. In the first half of this paper, Andreas Doctor examines some aspects of the first type of response. Based on his experience with Westerners and Tibetans in Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling (bka' rnying shes grub gling) monastery in Nepal, he contrasts how the term "meditation" is in fact used very differently by these two groups, and how in Tibetan usage
The Nature of Human Mind as Revealed from the Buddhist Idea of (Inner) Purification
The terms mano, citta, and vibbana are used both interchangeably 1 and complementarily to refer to the mind. Where they are used complementarily, each term represents a specific function of the mind and can therefore be approached differently. This paper will attempt to understand the nature of the mind specifically from the perspective of the Buddhist idea of inner purification. Consequently, the term citta will receive primary emphasis. Meanwhile, the idea of inner purification will be taken as a shift from the ideas of physical purification, a shift which was both sotereologically/epistemologically and ethically desirable.
2010
Wherever he goes, Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard is asked to explain what meditation is, how it is done and what it can achieve. In this authoritative and inspiring book, he sets out to answer these questions. Matthieu Ricard shows that practising meditation can change our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. He talks us through its theory, spirituality and practical aspects of deep contemplation and illustrates each stage of his teaching with examples. Through his experience as a monk, his close reading of sacred texts and his deep knowledge of the Buddhist masters, Matthieu Ricard reveals the significant benefits that meditation - based on selfless love and compassion - can bring to each of us.
Developments in Buddhist Meditation Traditions: The Interplay between Theory and Practice
2022
This book examines four developments in Buddhist meditation traditions from the viewpoint of an apparently ongoing interaction between theory and practice: A gradual reduction of the sixteen steps of mindfulness of breathing to just focusing on the breath; an apparent fascination with light and fire imagery leading to investing the mind with intrinsic luminosity and purity; a tendency to grant increasing importance to absorption as indispensable for the progress of insight or even as intrinsically liberating, and a change of compassion meditation from a boundless radiation to directing this quality toward specific individuals and eventually just aiming it at oneself.
Rethinking Meditation, chapter 1
Rethinking Meditation: Buddhist Meditative Practices in Ancient and Modern Worlds, 2023
Rethinking Meditation provides a new theoretical and historical approach to Buddhist and Buddhist-derived meditative practices. It shows how, rather than coming down to us unchanged from the time of the Buddha, the standard articulation of mindfulness as bare, nonjudgmental attention to the present moment is a distillation of particular strands of classical Buddhist thought that have combined with western ideas to create a unique practice tailored to modern forms of thought and ways of life. Part genealogical study and part philosophical argument, it inquires into some of the widespread assumptions about how meditation works and what it does, presenting a view of meditative practices as technologies of the self embedded in cultural forms of life. It shows that the relationship between meditative practices and cultural context is much more crucial than is suggested in typical contemporary articulations, which often emphasize transcendence of cultural conditioning and achieving “objective” internal access to the contents of consciousness. Meditation, McMahan argues, is always situated in social contexts and draws from repertoires of cultural categories, concepts, and values, sometimes accommodating them and sometimes resisting them. Rethinking Meditation also considers the scientific study of meditation and meditation in relation to modern articulations of secularism, freedom, authenticity, appreciation, and interdependence. It also examines the potential for meditation to enhance autonomy and addresses recent attempts to bring meditative practices to bear on social, political, and environmental issues.
Philosophy of Vipassana Meditation: Appreciating the Rational Basis of the Insightful Meditation
2007
Sceptical modem scholarship has so far ignored the philosophical significance of ViJl"SsaniL Suspecting it as just another form of mystical religious practice, and therefore lacking any academic value, the academic world often consciously sleers dear of vipassanii.. In this paper however, I intend to make a bold claim that vipassanii has a solid philosophical and phenomenological foundation. So the aim of this paper is to demystifying!he viJl"SSani by showing the ways in wbich the principles of Yiprus8.lJi suppon my claim thai it hl!Ji " profound philosophical foundation. The paper is simply an in.illl1ioo to anyone, !he sceptics and the faithful alike, to consider the strengtbs and the weaknesses of the arguments presental here. The arguments in the paper unfold progressively, .. they are drawn upon the delineation and the discussion of some of the key concepts of the vipB1lSlll1ii. Beginning with Ibe epistemological argument of p8i1if. (insightful awareness), the paper defends ils claim, by way of exploring the phenomenological argument of vl'XillJlii (experience), the psychological argument of flI¢Ia (craving), the sOleriological argument of shaking off the ta!'hi (craving), Ihe epistemological argument of slHfIpajaiiiia (correctly and wholly understanding the reality), the methodological argument of satipal!hiina (foundations of mindfulness); and the paper concludes with some practical remarks on the significance of catching the moment as a way of applying vipassanii in daily tife.]
Buddhist Meditative Practices on the Path Towards Awakening
The phenomenon of awakening is beyond our ability to frame, deconstruct or analyse; however, we can observe the path taken and psychological changes that take place as one walks towards this ineffable experience. To understand the psychology of spiritual growth it is important to frame the meaning of awakening within the context of the tradition which is analysed. The context is the path, soteriology, textual and historical framework. Within the early Buddhist community, we often find reference to the path of insight or panna as a means to awakening through the popular practice of Vipassana. Although this is the key ingredient to the permanent psychological change involved in radical freedom, the path of jhana is often overlooked as an integral practice which supports insight. This paper focuses on the phenomenological attributes of jhanas and the importance of concentration or calm abiding on the path to awakening within the early Buddhist context. To contextualise the practices, we must first understand the early Buddhist notion of what awakening is and what are its phenomenological attributes. We can do this by examining how the jhanic states act as a support for insight to arise. Through the analysis of the definitions used in early textual sources such as the Pali Canon and Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga to describe the phenomenological outcome in each jhana we can understand how different meditative practices create appropriate conditions for awakened states to arise.