Yet more philosophy—and as with any other human source of information, there is likely to be insight as well as error. Nyanaponika Thera (1991–1994) was best known for promotion of Theravada Buddhist philosophy and instruction in mindfulness meditation. * en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyanaponika_Thera * en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Nyanaponika_Thera “In the present era after two world wars, history seems to repeat its lessons to humanity with a voice more audible than ever, because the turbulence and suffering that, alas, are generally equivalent with political history, affect increasingly larger sections of mankind, directly or indirectly. Yet it does not appear that those lessons have been learned any better than before. To a thoughtful mind, more gripping and heart-rending than all the numerous single facts of suffering produced by recent history, is the uncanny and tragic monotony of behaviour that prompts mankind to prepare again for a new bout of that raving madness called war. The same old mechanism is at work again: the interaction of greed and fear. Lust for power or desire to dominate are barely restrained by fear—the fear of man’s own vastly improved instruments of destruction. Fear, however, is not a very reliable brake on man’s impulses, and it constantly poisons the atmosphere by creating a feeling of frustration which again will fan the fires of hate. But men still bungle only with the symptoms of their malady, remaining blind to the source of the illness which is no other than the three strong Roots of Everything Evil . . . pointed out by the Buddha: greed, hatred and delusion.” “The Heart of Buddhist Meditation”, Nyanaponika Thera (Weiser Books, Boston, MA: 1965; © 1954, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka) The book cited above was probably his only useful work. Judging from the critique I devised from a collection of other works, Nyanaponika Thera was dogmatic, mired in unwarranted beliefs about the physical world, and prone to conformity. He made his living selling religion promoting the all-too-common metaphysical nonsense regarding death and rebirth found in Buddhist religion worldwide. The book cited above, however, is merely instruction in method of mindfulness meditation, composed of translation and embellishment of older texts from ancient authors. The ancient world of the Buddha lacked any significant insight into physical or biological science. It is only the practical methods of mental development that are of value in the text cited above. The content of mind is dependent on the quality of information one receives as well as the application of critical thinking. The latter was not within the ken of this author, and that indeed is a major fault of most persons mired in metaphysics. Your perceptions and desires are products of conditioning and other sentient experience you have acquired up to this point in life. You can change the contents of your mind, and you can shape your mind to be pro-social, rational, and smarter, too. That task is part of what is called mental development and, in my opinion, requires a long-term commitment to high quality education about the real world including the evolution of our species and how the human mind has evolved along with evolution of our brain. Some kinds of suffering are self-imposed although we do not always recognize this to be the case. Instead we are on a sort of automatic behavior method of coping with reality. We can change our sentient experience however by a sort of deconstruction into component parts; from that point it is ultimately a matter of adopting new, rational, wholesome paradigms. Unless you have brain damage, as in dementia, you will never lose certain mental schemas and memories. Your inner life is largely based on those schemas. The perceptions and sentient experience you have can be moderated and shaped purposefully as long as you are still functioning. Such an approach requires vigilance and practice. It can be enhanced with greater knowledge of the real world and acquisition of critical thinking skills. MINDFULNESS MEDITATION Consciousness is a function of a cognitive neural network processing both sensory data and memory. Sentient experience can be subjectively deconstructed into four foundations of mindfulness: 1. Mindfulness of body. 2. Mindfulness of sensation as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral (physical sensation). 3. Mindfulness of state of mind (attitude, emotion). 4. Mindfulness of content of mind (ideas, learned skills, memory, mental images, beliefs). As you consider this paradigm there will be the usual background of a continuous stream of thoughts, random or specific ideas, and images, feelings that come and go. Any of these can distract you, but you can just ignore them, too. The brain will do this sort of thing as long as you live. There is no need to suppress any of it; your brain normally processes information via random association or cognitive models you have acquired either on purpose or by random experience. These are the things that usually drive your perceptions and behavior, even your dreams. Dhamma claims that all there is of good and evil arises from mind, and that there are three strong roots of evil: greed, hatred, and delusion. Dhamma claims that there are two kinds of health, namely, physical health and mental health. Many people enjoy good physical health even into old age. But relatively few people enjoy good mental health unless they are vigilant and relentless in rooting out delusional thinking, alleviating ignorance via insight and rational inquiry.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 21:37:55 +0000
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