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From: SECBH@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (Jack Carroll)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Question of Detachment
Message-ID: <1990Dec22.021844.27964@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 22 Dec 90 02:18:44 GMT
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In article <1990Dec21.003216.2518@nas.nasa.gov>
tilley@ssd.Kodak.Com (David Tilley)

>This seems (to me) to be connected with
>the Sutras on Mindfullness. If you
>are constantly mindfull of the current
>moment of the current action
>then you will be free of the goal. (See
>The Miracle of Mindfullness by
>Thich Nhat Hahn).

My own formal meditation instruction has been limited to that given
in the Korean Zen Center which I attend, and I have read commentaries
on mindfulness - Thich Nhat Hahn's books I read early on.  However,
there is something in the Theravadin analysis and method which I
have found especially helpful.  Perhaps it appeals to something in
my disposition, I haven't given it a lot of thought.

I think many Westerners find Theravadin Buddhism too nit-picky in
its approach, and if one's first exposure is to the Zen sect then
Theravada can be even more jarring.

Shortly after becoming a Buddhist I read a collection of short essays
called "The Basic Facts of Existence" published by the Buddhist
Publications Society of Sri Lanka.  It focuses on the ideas of
dukkha, anicca and anatta and the essays are in a variety of styles
and intellectual levels.  More than any other book I have read on
Buddhism, this is one I keep returning to.  Somehow for me (and
I regret that I cannot explain this) it presents the ongoing flux of
life and the notion of the arising/being/decaying process in a way
that allows me to focus on it more readily outside of the reading
itself, e.g. - as in caring for the terminally ill as I described.

>Has the Bardo been of any help or meaning to you?

While I have attended a Tibetan Buddhist center and have attended
dharma talks by lamas and read Tibetan commentaries, I have not
really connected with the Bardo teachings except out of a sort of
academic interest.

Jack Carroll