concentration
Not-self & the unity of the person
21/January/2010 12:03 PM
Given the Buddha’s teaching on “not-self” (anattā),
which seems to deny my existence as an individual
person, what foundation is there for my sense of
personal unity? For I need a sense of unity in order
to function in the world. Otherwise, I’m still here,
but fragmented, broken into conflicting desires and
impulses.
In the discourse where he introduces his teaching of not-self, the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta (Characteristics of not-self), the Buddha speaks of the practice of not-self as the recognition of any experience as: “This is not mine;” “I am not this;” “This is not myself.”
This practice is ruthless. Whatever I experience is neither mine nor me. Everywhere I look, I find absence. Wherever I look, I don’t find someone I can identify with as me. And the Buddha does nothing, in this discourse, to fill this gap. The teaching is relentlessly negative — not mine, not this, not myself. Nothing is left standing. Read More...
In the discourse where he introduces his teaching of not-self, the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta (Characteristics of not-self), the Buddha speaks of the practice of not-self as the recognition of any experience as: “This is not mine;” “I am not this;” “This is not myself.”
This practice is ruthless. Whatever I experience is neither mine nor me. Everywhere I look, I find absence. Wherever I look, I don’t find someone I can identify with as me. And the Buddha does nothing, in this discourse, to fill this gap. The teaching is relentlessly negative — not mine, not this, not myself. Nothing is left standing. Read More...
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On points
21/July/2009 05:52 PM
In my previous entry I discussed mindfulness as
memory of an extended present — a remembered present
— as distinct from awareness of a present moment.
Lived time is not divided into moments. In fact, it
does not seem to be divided, at all.
The equivalent of a moment in time is a point in space. Just as the language we use when speaking of time is complicated by the idea of a “moment,” so, I have come to feel, is the language we use when speaking of concentration complicated by the idea of a “point.” What do we mean by a point? My OED devotes four columns, extending over a page of small print, for “point” as a noun. High up on the list of meanings is “a minute part … of something; the smallest unit … of measurement.” This notion of a point fits neatly with the idea of concentration as “focus.” If we use a lens to focus the sun’s rays on a single point, for example, the concentrated sunlight creates great heat. Similarly, if we focus our minds on a small and clearly defined aspect of our experience — the breath at the point that it enters and leaves the body, for example — the mind can become very powerful. Read More...
The equivalent of a moment in time is a point in space. Just as the language we use when speaking of time is complicated by the idea of a “moment,” so, I have come to feel, is the language we use when speaking of concentration complicated by the idea of a “point.” What do we mean by a point? My OED devotes four columns, extending over a page of small print, for “point” as a noun. High up on the list of meanings is “a minute part … of something; the smallest unit … of measurement.” This notion of a point fits neatly with the idea of concentration as “focus.” If we use a lens to focus the sun’s rays on a single point, for example, the concentrated sunlight creates great heat. Similarly, if we focus our minds on a small and clearly defined aspect of our experience — the breath at the point that it enters and leaves the body, for example — the mind can become very powerful. Read More...