More On Conversation in Last Post

In the last post there was talk between a Buddhist teacher and myself about whether the simple way was always true.

There were other points that were raised. I can't remember what got us around to it but I said that once I thought the East was best but that now I believe that Western thinking has a lot to offer as well and that I consider both valid.

He replied in terms which seemed to be saying. The people who developed the way of Buddhism were not stupid and have a lot of track history which validates it. He also said that
in the west we love inventions etc. He also seemed to be saying that he has met a lot of westerners who are saying that maybe Buddhism should be different in the west. That westerners have a lot of questions and that they like to show they are clever.

I thought about what he was saying at the time he was saying it and afterwards. I wondered why he was referring to inventions presumable meaning western inventions. Well I was talking about western rationalism rather than inventions. Also I would say that ways of thinking do not emerge and develop necessarily because people want to be clever. Sometimes people may talk to appear clever but sometimes they do this with all kinds of types of thinking which may include Buddhist or Western philosophy.

Western rationalist scientific philosophy and method may include the following. Western psychology may want to attempt to measure whether something can have affect on the mind. To do this we could gather groups to practice meditation. We could have a group of fifty people which further we could divide into say male and female. These two groups would practiced simple awareness meditation. As well we could gather another fifty people again divided equally into male and female who would practice some form of visualisation. We could attempt to measure positive change within the groups by before and after questionnaires.

The aim would be to see whether all forms of meditation are equally efficacious under differing conditions. If the results were inconsistent with this assumption then it shows there are other factors influencing the situations of human beings meditating.

I suppose the point of me talking about this is I have doubts as to whether we can have a one size fits all method of trying to progress with meditation. In my own experience I have found that some things have helped me better than other things. As such I will argue this in a first person reportage way. In some ways scientific method is meant to beyond the personal. But sometimes it can also bring us back to it if the results produce variability. That is, variability can mean there are individual conditions to activities therefore sometimes is it better that we find out ourselves what suits us best.

With the above I am not assuming simply that the West is rational and the east is not but only that some kinds of scientific method developed first in the West.