"Seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom;
yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom;
seek learning, even by study and also by faith."
Doctrine and Covenants 88:118

"And the gatherer sought to find pleasing words, worthy writings, words of Truth."
Ecclesiastes 12:10



Friday, May 11, 2018

A Zen perspective on Dhyana

Dhyana is usually translated as meditation.  Prajna as insight.  The terms are much wider in meaning, more fraught with implication, and accompanied by a nimbus of religious experience in Buddhism's various branches than we non-Buddhists are aware of.  D. T. Suzuki's chapter Zen and the Unconscious is partly about how Chan Buddhism in 1st millennium China understood these terms as opposed to how they were used in other strands of Chinese Buddhism.

Again, I am struck with a contrast to what I find unappealing in Nisargadatta -

"Dhyana is not quietism, nor is it tranquilization; it is rather acting, moving, performing deeds, seeing, hearing, thinking, remembering; Dhyana is attained where there is, so to speek, no Dhyana practiced;  Dhyana is Prajna, and Prajna is Dhyana, for they are one."

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