tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post2196267207126702333..comments2024-03-21T03:55:51.565-07:00Comments on Omniorthogonal: Introspection and meditationmtravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02356162954308418556noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-62007410320925958952011-08-04T23:11:40.455-07:002011-08-04T23:11:40.455-07:00I can only semi make sense of the meditation jargo...I can only semi make sense of the meditation jargon of the specific version of Buddhism I've been studying for 20 years. I recently started learning about the Theravada meditation jargon and it makes no sense to me at all.<br /><br />I'd say I didn't believe a word of it, except that it seems to work, based on fMRI data and lots of other hard science.<br /><br />I sort of suspect it works in spite of the theoretical model, not because of it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-43517308155244809152011-08-04T22:30:24.955-07:002011-08-04T22:30:24.955-07:00Some Buddhist meditation methods direct you to loo...<i>Some Buddhist meditation methods direct you to look away from mental events and toward the non-conceptual awareness within which the events occur. Is that what you had in mind? <br /></i><br /><br />Something like that.<br /><br />I'm not sure what introspection means either. I think I was trying to contrast a naive symbolic interpretation of the term (ie, building models of yourself) with Something Else. Buddhism seems to offer Something Else, but I can't really characterize what that might be. <br /><br />Or maybe I just wanted an excuse to find and repost that R. Crumb picture.<br /><br />I confess that I often can't make head or tail of descriptions of different meditation techniques and Buddhist jargon about the mind. But I have at least stopped being miffed by that fact -- I imagine that if you follow the practices for a couple of decades it all makes perfect sense.mtravenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02356162954308418556noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-32725171084542314372011-08-04T12:37:01.005-07:002011-08-04T12:37:01.005-07:00Hmm. I guess I'm quite unsure what introspect...Hmm. I guess I'm quite unsure what introspection is... quite apart from the diversity of views about meditation.<br /><br />Modern vipassana / insight meditation methods <a href="http://meaningness.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/theravada-reinvents-meditation/" rel="nofollow">were invented in Asia under Western influence</a> and appear to be much more "introspective" than earlier techniques.<br /><br />Some Buddhist meditation methods direct you to look away from mental events and toward the non-conceptual awareness within which the events occur. Is that what you had in mind?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-73564845490713476952011-08-01T13:04:28.115-07:002011-08-01T13:04:28.115-07:00There are multiple kinds of Buddhist meditation. T...There are multiple kinds of Buddhist meditation. The one you are referring to as "introspection" has the Pali name "Vipassana," and might better be called "Insight Meditation." Wikipedia uses a nice phrase to describe it: self-transformation through self-observation.<br /><br />A typical practice would be to do some "stabilizing meditation" (called "samatha" in Pali) as a kind of a warm-up, then thinking about a text or a mental exercise, for instance, some aspect of "the way things really exist" (which is given the epically misleading title "Emptiness").haineuxnoreply@blogger.com