March 19, 2010
- Daniel Ingram on Meditation -
Notice that this has nothing do to with some sort of vague spacing out in which we wish that reality would go away and our thoughts would never arise again. I don’t know where people get the idea that vague aversion to experience and thought is related to insight practice, but it seems to be a common one. Mindfulness is about being very clear about our actual reality as it actually is. It is about being here now. The ultimate truth is found in the ordinary sensations that make up our world. If you are not mindful of them or reject them because you are looking for “depth” and “transcendence,” then you will be unable to appreciate what they have to teach and be unable to do insight practices.
“I don’t know where people get the idea that vague aversion to experience and thought is related to insight practice”
I bet I could dig up a bunch of quotes that would point to where people get this idea.
But anyway he sounds credible. Is his a unique take on things?
Comment by ted heistman — March 19, 2010 @ 2:51 pm
He means where the people who said the quotes you are offering to go off an find got the idea. Not the people who read the quotes.
Comment by Ian — March 19, 2010 @ 3:21 pm
well, it seems to go back a long ways.
So if this is the kernel of truth of the whole Buddhism thing that Ingerham is presenting in an “open source” way, probably what happened is that a bunch of corrupt despots highjacked Buddhism long ago and kept these metaphysical errors alive through their autocratic top down leadership style.
So its basically been Like “You are enlightened when we say you are enlightened” That’s how they kept control of it “in the family” so to speak.
Didn’t Ingraham basically come out and say “I am an arahat.”?
That would be breaking the mold in a significant way.
Comment by Ted — March 19, 2010 @ 4:04 pm
I think I recall it being along the lines of “if what is written in the policannon, or whatever, is true, or I can understand it, then I am an arahat.”
That seems to be a departure from having some big muckety muck from some “unbroken lineage” declaring or confirming it.
Comment by Ted — March 19, 2010 @ 4:09 pm
I also recall that a lot of Buddhist practitioners, people I would peg as sychophants, have a really negative impression of his arahatship.
So that’s one more in the plus column for the guy as far as I am concerned.
Comment by Ted — March 19, 2010 @ 4:15 pm
Why must there always be someone in control who makes evil decisions? Why can’t bad stuff just happen? Why is there always a conspiracy theory with you Ted? I’ll never understand it…
Buddhism’s got a 2500 year old history. I am amazed that you can summarize it’s history so simply and dismissively.
Comment by Ian — March 19, 2010 @ 4:17 pm
Because its top down and autocratic.
Control freaks really frown on things “just happening” in fact they hate it so much that they create autocratic systems of top down control in order to ensure that what happens is what they want to happen.
decentralized populist movements behave differently.
Systems that monopolize knowledge within an initiated elite behave differently.
These are all historical characteristics of Buddhism.
You are saying none of this has to with anything? Authority has no bearing on it?
Comment by Ted — March 19, 2010 @ 5:34 pm
He strikes me as a Protestant. If everyone thought that The Roman Catholic Hierarchy was more or less “a good bunch of folks” and that they meant well in keeping everyone ignorant and having the mass in latin and keeping Bible reading within the clergy, then……well would people be better off?
I say no.
I think there is much in Buddhism that is like old World Roman Catholicism. a Robe wearing clergy with arcane foreign sounding titles, chanting in a foreign language.
What’s wrong with wanting this all to be more egalitatian?
Comment by Ted — March 19, 2010 @ 5:48 pm
OK, so I’ve lurked watching this discussion for a while now.
My own take, fwiw:
There ARE spiritual leaders out there. They can be different for different people. They can come and go: when the student is ready, the teacher appears. But when guidance becomes enshrined in a thing or an organization, then there is a RISK of confusing the representative with the thing represented. That’s idolatry, which is a kind of forgetting or blindness; and idolatry leads directly to really enormous huge bad things like what happened to the entire civilization of Babylon.
Comment by speedbird — March 20, 2010 @ 5:18 am
I agree. An earlier point I was making though was that the office of Guru is set up to be idolatry, even with a hypothetically good guru. They are set up to be worshipped as God in the flesh.
But as far as there being genuine spiritual teachers I agree, there must be. There are also a lot of con artists out there and I don’t think its just being a killjoy to notice that.
Alex Grey and Ken Wilber even got suckered into falling for Con Artist Da Free John, mistaking him for an Avatar.
I like Alan Watts, he has been my spiritual teacher in a way. I read three of his books. I read the Bagavad Gita several times. So I have no problem letting Krishna be my teacher.
Comment by Ted — March 20, 2010 @ 12:18 pm
There are con artists out there, my point though is that not ALL people who claim to be teachers are con artists, and that not ALL organizations are suppressive. I am taking your comments to mean that this is true 100% of the time without fail, which seems to be what your critique of Buddhism is about. That it is top-down and therefore must be evil. If that’s not what you mean, than fair enough, I’ve misunderstood.
Buddhism has been a mainly monastic religion for most of its history. Monasticism is all about discipline, and relying on the lay community for support. In very few cases (though I admit Tibet may have been one of them) does this lead to suppression of the people.
I don’t have any problems with you line of thinking, but I do have problems with your grand sweeping statements all-or-nothing. Such as:
No, I am not saying that NONE of this has to do with ANYTHING. I’m saying your extremism on the subject rubs me the wrong way. You condemn a 2500 year old religious system that has helped a lot for people for a really long time, and you have the gall to call them vampires and satanists. This offends me. It’s prejudiced stereotyping, and it comes from someone who’s not been involved with Buddhism as a path at all, as far as I know. Reading a few Alan Watts books and checking out a Shambala center does not qualify you to make such sweeping condemnations, even if you have done a bunch of internet “research”. I KNOW you are familiar with my blog, and if you are, you surely understand that I have a rather high regard of Buddhism. The fact that you come here and repeatedly insult a tradition that I have made it very clear I support I find to be personally insulting and kind of a jerk thing to do.
If all you want to do is come here and criticize, please don’t come here any more.
Comment by Ian — March 20, 2010 @ 3:52 pm
I won’t criticize Buddhism if it upsets you. You obviously don’t want to hear it.
Comment by ted heistman — March 20, 2010 @ 6:56 pm
It’s not that I am closed to the criticism, more the black-or-white, mass condemnation of the entirety of a very long lived and complicated tradition. But yes, I would appreciate it if you didn’t bring that kind of thing here. Thank you.
Comment by Ian — March 21, 2010 @ 4:36 pm