The categories of being. These categories are given in Gotama’s meditation blueprint, the Anapanasati Sutta. The premise of that text is that being arises not in the abstract (as life or existence), but as particular phenomena in particular locations: the body, feelings, thoughts, and sensorium. This, then, is the Buddhist periodical table. Anything and everything that arises in your life, says Gotama, arises as a thing-event in/on/with/through the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. So, awakening is, in the first instance, awakening to precisely the nature of these elements — their function, weight, gravitational force, trajectory, flavor, content, duration, conditioning mechanisms, interrelations. The lab for investigating these thing-events (dharmas/dhammas) is the meditation room. The posture is upright, solid, still, and silent. The lab is empty. Because none are required, there are no paraphernalia. Because none is required, there is nothing superfluous to the investigatory process."
http://progressivebuddhism.blogspot.com/2010/11/buddhist-manifesto.html
No comments:
Post a Comment