As I settle into today's round of boring-but-necessary work, I have some thoughts on meditation I'd like to share. Will be a few tweets.
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First of all: meditation is a skill you can cultivate. The effect may access something else, but it is a skill you can learn and practice.
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This is important because several traditions, esp. in an impoverished western view, seem to hinge on meditation not being about skill...
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Notions such as "effortless attention," "not trying to meditate," etc. gets thrown around a lot, particularly by Western Zen evangelists.
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These notions aren't wrong, but it's important to understand that they describe something closer to the pinnacle of accomplishment...
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... which, to your layman's ears, is exactly what Zen says isn't there.. This is a linguistic trick that means smth else, however.
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And while the usage in Zen is actually correct, it's easily misunderstood. So too for many other traditions, esp. Buddhist traditions.
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Let's return to the idea of meditation-as-a-skill. You may know the idea that skill acquisition works in stages. In basic terms...
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... we start out thinking a lot about how to do something (kick a ball, sing a verse...) and doing it in a very clumsy, mechanical manner.
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