Re: O/T - Harpers: 'Lost in Thought: The psychological risks of meditation' Archived Message
Posted by johnlilburne on March 25, 2021, 2:11 pm, in reply to "O/T - Harpers: 'Lost in Thought: The psychological risks of meditation' "
the full extent of body- and world-hatred cultivated by Buddhism in its original form. Stephen Batchelor and others would dispute this reading of early Buddhism! Though early western students - like Schopenhauer - did read it this way. Because of its criticisms of absolutism/essentialism/the discrete self etc there was a tendency to see it at the other extreme as nihilistic/relativistic etc. That's a mistake. The 'Middle Way' tries to tread a path between these two dogmatic extremes. It's about accepting lived experience as just that, lived experience, without attempting to impose any explanations on that experience, metaphysical or otherwise. Buddha himself rejected metaphysical speculation. It is a sceptical and pragmatic approach. Meditation is a method which can help us appreciate the contingent nature of existence, the flow of experience. It is about freeing us from our tendency to block that flow, our clinging, our attachments. Individualistic consumerist westerners find that especially difficult because of attachment to an essentialist idea of self and the possessions and distractions and delusions that shore it up.
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Message Thread: | This response ↓
- O/T - Harpers: 'Lost in Thought: The psychological risks of meditation' - Ian M March 24, 2021, 12:53 pm
- Re: O/T - Harpers: 'Lost in Thought: The psychological risks of meditation' - Gerard March 24, 2021, 2:30 pm
- Re: O/T - Harpers: 'Lost in Thought: The psychological risks of meditation' - Gerard March 24, 2021, 2:43 pm
- Re: O/T - Harpers: 'Lost in Thought: The psychological risks of meditation' - Tomski March 24, 2021, 5:19 pm
- Re: O/T - Harpers: 'Lost in Thought: The psychological risks of meditation' - Sinister Burt March 24, 2021, 7:01 pm
- Re: O/T - Harpers: 'Lost in Thought: The psychological risks of meditation' - johnlilburne March 25, 2021, 2:11 pm
- Perhaps there are similar patterns as amongst the modern hikikomori?. - Ken Waldron March 25, 2021, 11:34 pm
- It can make you go blind. Nm - Shyaku March 26, 2021, 12:03 pm
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