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snake
United Kingdom
279 Posts |
 Posted - Jan 07 2006 : 4:40:31 PM
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Just sitting as in serene reflection meditation http://www.throssel.org.uk/
Would this be considered jnana yoga or vipassana?
thanks |
Edited by - snake on Jan 07 2006 4:41:43 PM |
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snake
United Kingdom
279 Posts |
Posted - Aug 13 2006 : 1:27:46 PM
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| anyone? |
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Scott
USA
969 Posts |
Posted - Aug 13 2006 : 3:36:40 PM
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Snake,
What's the difference between Vipassana and Jnana? Aren't they interwoven? |
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snake
United Kingdom
279 Posts |
Posted - Aug 13 2006 : 6:19:10 PM
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Scott,
I'm not sure,the whole Bhuddist thing seems quite complicated with different divisions etc,I was hoping for a bit of clarity from someone with some experience in this area |
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Scott
USA
969 Posts |
Posted - Aug 13 2006 : 7:49:25 PM
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| Well, in my experience, the two are the same. |
Edited by - Scott on Aug 13 2006 9:07:11 PM |
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LittleDragon
29 Posts |
Posted - Aug 14 2006 : 12:15:59 AM
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From my VERY limited understanding:
Soto is one of the two main schools of Zen, the other being Rinzia.
Rinzia relies more heavily on koan mediation.
Soto practice relies more heavily on "just sitting", which is what Zazen means. You would probably start out counting your breaths up to ten and then starting over again. After that you would just observe the breath. Then you would just sit, like doing mantra without a mantra.
Zen practice in general is less complicated (doesn't mean easier) than Yoga and tries to bypass all of the states between the normal world and jump straight into nondual so I wouldn't say its similar to jnana yoga, which again to my limited understanding seems heavily dualistic until perhaps the final stages.
Vipassana, I believe, is more of a southeast asian Bubbist practice which uses "noting", labeling all of your sensory and mental impressions or sensations. Supposedly, when you get good at this you can label over 20 sensations a second. I guess that would put you in the "be here now" state. They claim it to be the only road to enlightenment as opposed to the concentration practices which is mostly what the many different practices of yoga would be (mantra, ect.) although concentration skills are supposed to strenghen your vipassana practice. They would use the term "samatha jnanas" to distinquish proficienies in concentration skills.
So I would say soto, vipassana, and jnana are quite different roads, perhaps to the same destination.
The Three Pillars of Zen by Roshi Philip Kapleau is the best description of the Zen experience that I know of. |
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mufad
44 Posts |
Posted - Aug 14 2006 : 03:26:37 AM
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Hi,
Jnana Yoga is union through knowledge - intellectual knowledge - by seeking answers to questions like "who am I" - by a process of rejection of obvious answers - Not this - Not that - Neti, Neti, and thereby by a process of elimination we arrive at the right answer. Jnana Yoga finds expression in Addwaita philosophy, non duality.
Vipassana is a specific technique, having roots in budhism, it is mainly popularised in our present times by Mr. S N. Goenka - see http://www.dhamma.org
The soto zen link given by snake is like a budhist ashram in uk I guess, they seem to have different techniques of zazen meditation.
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snake
United Kingdom
279 Posts |
Posted - Aug 14 2006 : 04:21:56 AM
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Thankyou all.
I like the idea of just sitting,yes I know it would be really difficult but I like the unclutteredness sounding of it. hmmm |
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Scott
USA
969 Posts |
Posted - Aug 14 2006 : 09:59:25 AM
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Hopefully I can clear up any lingering misconceptions...
quote:
Soto practice relies more heavily on "just sitting", which is what Zazen means. You would probably start out counting your breaths up to ten and then starting over again. After that you would just observe the breath. Then you would just sit, like doing mantra without a mantra.
That's right. This is called shikantaza.
quote:
Zen practice in general is less complicated (doesn't mean easier) than Yoga and tries to bypass all of the states between the normal world and jump straight into nondual so I wouldn't say its similar to jnana yoga, which again to my limited understanding seems heavily dualistic until perhaps the final stages.
You have to think about what these modalities are actually for, and what they do. Jnana yoga is the seeing yourself as not phenomenon. Zen is experience of no self. The ways of going about it are different but they both seek to achieve the same end, so you can see there's actually one underlying practice. The two are experientially the same.
quote:
Vipassana, I believe, is more of a southeast asian Bubbist practice which uses "noting", labeling all of your sensory and mental impressions or sensations.
Don't you see how this is necessary for jnana yoga? Without being aware of all of these things and applying neti-neti to them, you can't be successful in jnana yoga. And the end of Vipassana is the self being seen through, so that there's pure experience of these things, devoid of self.
quote:
Supposedly, when you get good at this you can label over 20 sensations a second. I guess that would put you in the "be here now" state.
That's a crappy state to be in if you're still identifying with the sensations. The sensations can be pretty torturous. I'm always in the be here now state, and I'm not yet enlightened...and it kind of sucks! It's not as good as Eckhart Tolle says. There's still a bunch of suffering here and now. It just doesn't have the snowball effect, where you think about it and make it worse. But there's also no way to escape the suffering, because of constantly being here and now.
quote:
They claim it to be the only road to enlightenment as opposed to the concentration practices which is mostly what the many different practices of yoga would be (mantra, ect.) although concentration skills are supposed to strenghen your vipassana practice. They would use the term "samatha jnanas" to distinquish proficienies in concentration skills.
That's correct, but I'd like to add that if you solely did the concentration practices, you're still kind of doing vipassana. There are those times when the mind wanders, and in that you're "noting" and moving on...just like in vipassana. When you stop your meditation, you go back out into the world and become aware of subtle sensations. Any meditator will tell you their world has changed due to the practice.
Why people sit still and pay no attention to anything outside of themselves in vipassana is so that they burn up the habitual tendencies inside of themselves...those tendencies which cause the mind to wander during concentration practices. Both achieve the same effect.
quote:
So I would say soto, vipassana, and jnana are quite different roads, perhaps to the same destination.
I say when you define them, they seem to be different, but when you actually practice them they are seen to be the singular path to enlightenment. |
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LittleDragon
29 Posts |
Posted - Aug 15 2006 : 01:22:06 AM
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Mufad,
Does Jnana Yoga really get past the Sankhya duality of Purusha and Pakriti?
Scott,
I am still going to have to maintain that the different meditative traditions are different enough so that one may be more suited to a particular individual (or even culture) than another while at the same time granting that there are many striking simularities and overlaps.
But in the spirit of finding common ground (and perhaps starting an argument) I am going to suggest that all truly comprehensive, genuinely transformative, meditative traditions have the following in common in spite of differing practices.
They have the potential to help one do the following:
1 Suspend the internal mental dialog.
2 Disidentify the "I" from the things it normally identifies with. (That neti neti thing.)
3 Suspend the judgement of things/events by the scale of duality, (Good/Bad, pleasant/unpleasant) thereby reducing attractions and aversions.
4 Disolve the boundary between I/not-I. (Which is the underlying duality of all dualities.)
5 Be consious (Chit) of the joy (Ananda) of existance (Sat).
PS
quote:
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Supposedly, when you get good at this you can label over 20 sensations a second. I guess that would put you in the "be here now" state.
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That's a crappy state to be in if you're still identifying with the sensations. The sensations can be pretty torturous. I'm always in the be here now state, and I'm not yet enlightened...and it kind of sucks!
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Yes, I think in vipassana you are supposed to come to the conclusion that these sensations "are not self, do not satisfy, and do not last". |
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Scott
USA
969 Posts |
Posted - Aug 15 2006 : 09:28:18 AM
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Little Dragon,
You asked Mufad this question, and of course as usual, I'd like to give my input.
quote:
Does Jnana Yoga really get past the Sankhya duality of Purusha and Pakriti?
There is one enlightenment, which breaks all of these things because it breaks you. The enlightened state isn't what we imagine it to be when we hear about it, so it's best to say that we should just wait til we are enlightened ourselves to understand. Otherwise there's no way to understand it.
quote:
I am still going to have to maintain that the different meditative traditions are different enough so that one may be more suited to a particular individual (or even culture) than another while at the same time granting that there are many striking simularities and overlaps.
I guess it's like how a sofa and a loveseat are different. I prefer to say they're both chairs, but you prefer to point out the differences, like how a loveseat has one less seat. So, I can understand what you mean and I agree with you. A sofa isn't a loveseat. My point in this topic was to point out the underlying similarities, so as to give more understanding to each of the modalities.
quote:
Yes, I think in vipassana you are supposed to come to the conclusion that these sensations "are not self, do not satisfy, and do not last".
Yes, that is the goal...the same as jnana yoga. To actually do this is more spontaneous than derived. I don't want to say it's by grace, because that can cause even more confusion...but it's just that the longer you sit, the more you pull up and confront, and the more you do that the deeper you get. So deep, til the point where everything you're pulling up is every phenomenon and that includes any possibility of identification...so it's truly impossible for your consciousness to say "I am this".
So, because of that spontaneity, I prefer to point it out when someone says that you're supposed to change your identification with things. It's not something that YOU do. Same discrepancy with jnana yoga. They say you're supposed to apply neti-neti but it's not as if it's that simple at all. Jnana yoga is just about reaching that same point in vipassana. |
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LittleDragon
29 Posts |
Posted - Aug 16 2006 : 11:53:43 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Scott
I'm always in the be here now state, and I'm not yet enlightened....
But a good number of people have used that concept, if not those exact words, to describe enlightenment. Where does the misunderstanding lie? |
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Scott
USA
969 Posts |
Posted - Aug 17 2006 : 02:05:39 AM
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Easy question, but tough answer.
I still have karma. Things covering up pure being. When those things are gone, I will still be here and now. But with them, I'm also still here and now.
Anyway, no matter what I say I'm gonna suck at the answer. My apologies. |
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