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Further to our discussions of modernism and so on, here’s a classic example of post-modern academic thought on Buddhism, Robert H. Sharf’s “Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience.” While I think his major thesis is overblown, there’s no doubt he makes many interesting and pertinent observations about how modern Theravada meditation has developed.For [...]

I stole this very cool video from ~C4Chaos. A nice Saturday morning dharma teaching.

ABSTRACT

Presented by Shinzen Young.

The purpose of this talk is threefold: (1) to describe how senior adepts use mindfulness to reduce suffering and gain insight into selfhood and emotions. (2) To point out how the method they use in many ways parallels what scientists do when confronted with a complex and inscrutable system in nature. (3) To discuss how this fundamental parallelism between the two endeavors can become the basis for a productive collaboration in the future.

By Stillman Brown

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submitted by Ulvund [link] [3 comments]

In the Science of Enlightenment series Shinzen Young mentioned that one of his dreams is to teach meditation at ivy league universities, like M.I.T. I’m not sure how far Shinzen had accomplished that dream. However, just recently, Shinzen had the opportunity to share his approach to mindfulness meditation to a bunch of geeky Googlers at the Googleplex. It’s not M.I.T. but the geekiness atmosphere is there. Below is the video.

Big thanks to Chade Meng (aka the Buddha in the Googleplex) for making this happen. I hope that someday Shinzen’s approach and style of teaching meditation be taught in universities as part of the humanities, health, and science departments.

Thanks, Shinzen! Today, Google Talks. Tomorrow, TED Talks… moment by moment, just this…

submitted by nsfwdreamer [link] [comment]

Lifelogging provides an effective way to objectify pieces of our lives, and when it is used in the service of subjective practices like meditation it gets really juicy. Equanimity Project works at the convergence of the objective and subjective, providing tracking of meditation to aid in establishing a practice and overcoming resistance. The Equanimity application is currently available for the iPod Touch and iPhone, but the website also includes printable charts and a flash timer.

Out of the 108 Upanishads, there are 21 which are known as the Yoga Upanishads. These contain various methods of Dharana (i.e. one-pointed concentration). The book Dharana Darshan by Swami Nirajananda Saraswati of the Bihar School of Yoga discusses them in detail