Dalai Lama, Part II: Rigor in Meditation?

I promised more on the Dalai Lama's view of rigor in meditation. This blew me away. And if you missed the last post, we're still talking about the views the DL expresses in his "The Universe in a Single Atom" (audio or print). The second half of the book digs more into what Buddhism is about rather than just contrasting it with western science. In doing so, the DL sets up a case for combining Buddhist meditation with scientific analysis of thinking and brain physiology in a rigorous way to figure out thinking and happiness and what not. It’s a very good case. The most fascinating thing is the contrast with what we (or at least I) have been introduced to as Buddhist mediation. As noted earlier, I’ve had friends that approached Buddhism from the Western side (that is, as a personal exploration. Not from their parents.). Among them, one of my closest childhood friends lived at Muktananda’s ashram in LA where I’d visit him and maybe join a meditation session or two. What DL makes clear is that all (virtually all?) of the stuff we learn about meditation in the West…and it seemed virtually all that my friend saw as his ultimate goal…is essentially the calisthenics that 8 year old monks learn. The meditation built on “clear the mind, focus on a point, keep your mind quiet, etc. etc.” isn't some state a stone's throw from enlightenmend. Nah, it's just the basic skills, the scales, the stretching that one needs to master in order to do serious meditation. And what is that? It is active, results-oriented, rigorous, analytical, replicable, extensible to others, and investigative...about whatever topic one is analyzing. If you already know that, fine, click away. But if that isn't obvious, think about it a moment. We're talking about mature, skilled monks analyzing their own reactions, thinking, fundamental mental processes in a way that lets them guide others to replicate and test their findings in their own meditative analysis. This isn't just a little different from the typical Western view--it is almost the opposite. And yes, it is, in virtually every important sense, scientific. Once you picture this, can you possibly disagree that it might be valuable to combine this analytical, internal rigor (what the DL calls an "internal technology") with modern thinking about brain physiology and the science of the mind? I can't.

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