I heard this joke from Seinfeld, I'm paraphrasing from memory here so it's going to lose a fair amount of impact from the humor.
The joke:
What's with 'grape nuts'*?
You pour it out of the box into a bowl, there are no grapes, and there are no nuts.
People can just redefine words into whatever they want now?
What's next?
'Shoes' are 'milk'.
You put socks on your feet, and then you pour 'shoes' all over them.
* 'grape nuts' = the product name of an American breakfast dry cereal that you pour into a bowl and eat with milk.
Seinfeld might as well have been joking about Visuddhimagga and Ajahn Brahm redefinition of jhana
What's with 'vitakka' and 'vicara' * in first jhana according to Ajahn Brahm and Visuddhimagga?
There's no thinking, there's no evaluation, nothing that resembles vaci-sankhara, linguistic labels or communicable speech. You pour first jhana into a bowl, and there's no vitakka and vicara to be found.
Just placing your mind and keeping it in a frozen stupor for a predetermined amount of time.
So monks can just redefine fundamental words with established meaning into anything they want now?
What's next?
Redefining 'body' as a 'body of mental factors completely devoid of a body?'
> keeping it in a frozen stupor
ReplyDeletePlease avoid using derogatory language, the practice is legitimate even if the words are to be rechosen.
Incidentally, I myself practice by this methodology (and I have no other options, I cannot do your jhanas)