Buddhist practitioners who follow the Pāli canon consider meditation or sammā samādhi to be an important and essential element of the Noble Eightfold Path that constitutes the fourth of the Four Noble Truths. Sammā samādhi, according to the Pāli canon, involves developing meditative states called the jhānas. Brasington (n.d.) pointed out that “The jhanas are eight altered states of consciousness, brought on via concentration, each yielding more concentration than the previous” (para. 1). Followers of the Zen Buddhist tradition, on the other hand, do not consider mastering the four jhanas as part of their meditative practice. Kasulis (1998) suggested, “In Zen meditation, one quiets the mind and merely lets phenomena appear. Dōgen called this a state of ‘without-thinking’ as opposed to either ‘thinking’ or ‘not-thinking.’ Thinking, for Dōgen, included any form of sustained conceptualization whether fantasy, cogitation, believing, denying, wishing, desiring or whatever” (Kasulis, 1998, “5. Medieval philosophical anthropology: Zen Buddhism,” para. 3). In other words, unlike the Theravāda techniques of meditation, Zen meditation focuses on not focusing on anything. Zen Buddhism’s views of meditation are perhaps the most important aspect that distinguishes it both from the Theravāda and the Mahāyāna schools of Buddhism. No other Buddhist tradition equates meditative practice with enlightenment. As Nagatomo (2006) suggested, “The most distinguishing feature of this school of the Buddha-Way is its contention that wisdom, accompanied by compassion, is expressed in the everyday lifeworld when associating with one’s self, other people, and nature” (para. 1). In other words, enlightenment is not a pursuit of the mythical and otherworldly; instead, it is living in the here and now realizing one’s Buddha nature: “It is only through the fulfilment of one’s own particular being that an individual can relate to totality. Dōgen’s idea of Buddha-nature is thus immensely life-affirming and supportive of the individual and the particular—of the concrete imperfection of the here-and-now, rather than a mystical perfection still to be reached” (Raud, 2015, p. 12). References Brasington, L. (n.d.). Entering the Jhanas. Lion’s Roar. https://www.lionsroar.com/entering-the-jhanas/ Kasulis, T. (1998). Medieval philosophical anthropology: Zen Buddhism. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Taylor and Francis. Raud, R. (2015). Dōgen’s idea of Buddha-Nature: Dynamism and non-referentiality. Asian Philosophy, 25(1), 1–14. https://doi-org.ezproxy.umgc.edu/10.1080/09552367.2015.1016733 |
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