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Comment by fernly | Hacker News Reader

All those words about focus, concentration, taming the wandering mind -- and never even a passing reference to Buddhism, whose central practice is exactly that.

Certainly a Christian hermetic deals with the same problems as does a Buddhist monk, but I note one profound difference in their approaches. The Christian faces a dualistic world, and trains the mind to, as the article quotes one monk saying, "become strong enough to drive off the enemy’s stimuli.” The "enemy" being Satan, trying to divert the faithful. The Buddhist does not see the world as divided between warring good and evil influences, but rather views the wandering mind non-judgementally, as needing only constant gentle correction.

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I suspect the reason is because Buddhism is lumped in with the other major world religions, and therefore considered a form of faith or belief. If the author knew Buddhism well then they would realise that couldn't be further from the truth.

Another possibility has occurred to me: they know Buddhism but don't want to scare away readers that have the above misconception. Actually I often find myself avoiding Buddhist terminology when I'm asked about my meditation practices.

I had major misconceptions about Buddhism for years, and avoided anything related. This was probably because of a very toxic (Christian) religious upbringing that left me very suspicious of anything resembling religion.

When I started getting curious (and later serious) about meditation and then started going down the rabbit hole of understanding Buddhism, I couldn’t believe just how completely different it was than I was expecting, and how useful it was without taking on any metaphysical or otherwise religious beliefs.

I also find myself dancing around the details when I talk about meditation now. The misconceptions run deep, and I always feel compelled to clarify that I’m not talking about anything religious. I often think about how I would introduce a past me to these concepts without scaring that person away. I think it boils down to focusing on the philosophical ideas and experiential possibilities without touching any of the jargon.

The secular core of Buddhist thought has parallels in the Sankhya system of thought in the set of knowledge systems collectively called Hindu metaphysics.

Buddhism and Hinduism had active and passionately debated exchanges of ideas leading to continuous improvement of each.

Hinduism while considered to be a religion broadly speaking has a philosophical core that is rich and sophisticated in its treatment of the mind and how to observe and tame it. The thick outer layer of colorful belief systems makes it easy to reject it all as nonsense and hard to penetrate to get to the metaphysics of the mind.

The subjects discussed in this newsletter would be some of the first things a neophyte monk in 200 BC India would encounter whether couched in Buddhist or Hindu wrappers.

It's a valid approach - it was finding "secular enough" sources that got me to finally try meditation.

One being Gil Fronsdals introductory courses, which addressed this directly, and jokingly referring to Buddhism as the "B-word"

Hot take -- religion is a Western concept that formed the basis of a strategy for colonialism. The latest Dune movie references this well.

Buddhism as a lived experience is a set of guidelines and practices that direct a way of living. Ask folks from India as well and they will say Hinduism is a way of life and that is their "dharma".

The word "dharma" itself is often used as a translation for the religion, however it is closest to duty. And a Hindu will often follow practices from both Hinduism and Buddhism because ultimately they aren't in conflict and religion isn't meant to be identity. If you follow it as such, there is nothing to avoid.

> Buddhism as a lived experience is a set of guidelines and practices that direct a way of living.

Pretty much all sincerely religious people would describe their religion in these terms, including christians.

Buddhism and hinduism are certainly religions as well, especially when you look at the culturally embedded practice of them in asian cultures. "Only able to respect religions that they can consider not really religions" is a whole type of guy you find a lot on the internet. But globally it's a very fringe extreme minority kind of religious experience.

You can just value and respect religious experience, even though or, radically for this venue, perhaps because they are religion.

There are millions of people who believe in a super natural religion "Buddhism" who know almost nothing about the philosophy of it.

There's a body of thought that agrees. it says that at root it's the definition of the distinction between religion and the non religion. In defining what a religion is we define what it is not.

State Vs religion for example. How should religions affect a secular society. I'm not sure but it kind of started explicitly around the first millennium AD but some see the seeds before that embedded within from the beginning.

I had to check to make sure I wasn't on reddit. And the Dune tie-in!@!

Superb! Chef's kiss

There are mythic branches of the Christianities. In fact, most of the religions have mythic branches and the ideas about these topics on self are strikingly similar and convergent.

On the other direction, Buddhism is not so 'spiritual directed' in the prescientific history. The difference is just that Buddhism is very malleable. People can easily pick and choose the text and practices and even treat it as non religion. You can easily practice Buddhism in the modern context without the baggage.

> You can easily practice Buddhism in the modern context without the baggage.

An excellent book on this exact topic is Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor[0]. Very readable & super short. Recommended!

[0]https://www.amazon.com/Buddhism-Without-Beliefs-Contemporary...

In a discussion about what monks know about focus, I too find it strange that other schools and practices are ignored. The core of the Buddhist practice is about cultivating the mind for insight and clarity. In the linked article, I find the reasons offered by Nestorus to engage in reading rather specious and elementary, hardly scratching the surface of a vast and well practised domain.

His first point - that reading helps avoid toxic thoughts - is avoiding instead of getting to the root of the problem and fixing it. His third and "most mysterious" reason for immersive reading - that it deepens our understanding of the reading material because our minds are changing - is how education works in the first place.

The basic Buddhist teachings and practices even for lay people cover this vast domain concisely, with clear prescriptions to practice and try it out for ourselves, iterate and progress. In fact, the very first of the seven factors of awakening that we're advised to cultivate is mindfulness which underlies everything else. This commentary [1] provides an overview.

The practices are covered in more detail in one of the core teachings, MN10 - Satipatthana Sutta [2]. While reading/listening/remembering are valued as aids (it's called suta-mayā pañña - knowledge based on learning), pretty much every Buddhist monk and practising upāsaka / upāsika (layperson) are taught to practice the techniques and realise this clarity, focus, mindfulness, etc., for themselves. The instruction mentioned above - MN10 - instructs you on attention and mindfulness wherever you are and whatever you're doing, in the section on clear comprehension - you're cultivating the skill (bhāvana) where you're clear about what you're doing, why you're doing it, the consequences of your actions, etc., whether you're defecating, urinating, reading, lying down to sleep, whatever - a constant practice of mindfulness and a full-time job.

[1] https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/piyadassi/wheel0...

[2] https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/soma/wayof.html

>Satipatthana Sutta

I read some paragraphs of that link, and was interested to see that in a lot of places, there is a lot of repetition of the words and phrases, with appropriate variations.

I am guessing that it was a technique that was used to reinforce the learning by the listener, similar to how the Vedas and other ancient Indian scriptures were passed on by making the student repeat them a number of times and memorize them, because they were no modern things like books, and maybe even palm leaf manuscripts came sometime later. That's what I've heard, anyway, from parents and relatives.

And, good reference, thanks for sharing.

> The basic Buddhist teachings and practices even for lay people cover this vast domain concisely

Not so concisely I would say. What source are you refering to here? Because the Pali Cannon is very long…

MN10 as in my earlier comment is the starting point. The German monk Nyanaponika Thera provides a detailed exposition.

https://www.bps.lk/library-search-select.php?id=bp509s

https://archive.org/details/10011341809-the-heart-of-buddhis...

“The Buddhist does not see the world as divided between warring good and evil influences, but rather views the wandering mind non-judgementally, as needing only constant gentle correction.”

This is something I never understood about the New Age movement.

You use the word correction. Now, whether done gently or forcefully, the act of correcting something implies a path of some sort— to compensate for getting off-course while moving toward a target, if you will. If you cannot judge that you are off-course, how can you possibly (gently) correct yourself? Further, can you define a target without asserting a judgement? Can you say “Let’s aim for the stars” without simultaneously implying, not the moon, and not the earth?

Even viewing the mind as “wandering” is a strong judgement!

If the enemy is simply a name for whatever is pulling you off-course, then isn’t that embedded in any judgement of correction?

The article is a book review for a book about insights from early Christian monks — so that’s what the article discusses.

Well it's a book review about a specific book. So I don't see why bringing in Buddhism would be relevant in this case.

But related to this: the oldest Bible books are older than Buddhism. And they also contain references to meditation. So it is seems that meditation was already very common in the very old ages.

The topic is on what monks know about focus, so I'd say that any relevant monastic practices are relevant to the discussion, that includes Buddhist monks' practices on focus and mindfulness.

As to the second point - the Bible is older than Buddhism? What now?!? I'm surely in a different universe.

The Bible is obviously not older than Buddhism but some texts are. And they contain references to meditation.

Maybe the author could have used Buddhism as reference, but wouldn't he than have to reference Hinduism too? I mean: it seems the focus of the author was a book review.

The title was What Monks Know About Focus. The actual topic was justifying the value of reading.

Do you have any formal knowledge of what traditional forms of Buddhism teach? Because this assertion is divorced from what is actually contained in Buddhism. There is a duality, there is an evil one, and contrary to popular American conception, contains a panoply of divine beings and assertions concerning the moral nature of the universe. The following are not isolated instances, but are spread all over the Pali Canon.

The Pali Canon, SN 35:189 (tr. Thanissaro Bhikkhu)^2:

>There are forms, monks, cognizable via the eye—agreeable, pleasing, charming, endearing, enticing, linked to sensual desire. If a monk relishes them, welcomes them, & remains fastened to them, he is said to be a monk who has swallowed Māra’s hook, who has fallen into misfortune & disaster. The Evil One can do with him as he will.

>“There are sounds cognizable via the ear…

>“There are aromas cognizable via the nose…

>“There are flavors cognizable via the tongue…

>“There are tactile sensations cognizable via the body…

>“There are ideas cognizable via the intellect—agreeable, pleasing, charming, endearing, enticing, linked to sensual desire. If a monk relishes them, welcomes them, & remains fastened to them, he is said to be a monk who has swallowed Māra’s hook, who has fallen into misfortune & disaster. The Evil One can do with him as he will.

Similarly with gentle persuasion.

Pali Canon, MN 20 (tr. Thanissaro Bhikkhu)^2:

>If evil, unskillful thoughts—connected with desire, aversion or delusion—still arise in the monk while he is attending to the relaxing of thought-fabrication with regard to those thoughts, then—with his teeth clenched and his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth—he should beat down, constrain, and crush his mind with his awareness. As—with his teeth clenched and his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth—he is beating down, constraining, and crushing his mind with his awareness, those evil, unskillful thoughts are abandoned and subside. With their abandoning, he steadies his mind right within, settles it, unifies it, and concentrates it. Just as a strong man, seizing a weaker man by the head or the throat or the shoulders, would beat him down, constrain, and crush him; in the same way, if evil, unskillful thoughts—connected with desire, aversion or delusion—still arise in the monk while he is attending to the relaxing of thought-fabrication with regard to those thoughts, then—with his teeth clenched and his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth—he should beat down, constrain, and crush his mind with his awareness. As—with his teeth clenched and his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth—he is beating down, constraining, and crushing his mind with his awareness, those evil, unskillful thoughts are abandoned and subside. With their abandoning, he steadies his mind right within, settles it, unifies it, and concentrates it.

---

1 - https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN35_189.html

2 - https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN20.html

I've always been taught that these are just metaphors and skillful means to relate with concepts that are difficult to grasp at first. My teachers are mainly Vajrayana though, so maybe it depends on lineage.

Also, that excerpt from MN20 is interesting because it reminded me that Thich Nhat Hanh used that as an example of needing multiple sources to get at the meaning of the teachings [1], as it's different in MN36 where the Buddha gives examples of things that ultimately didn't work for him [2]:

> "I thought: 'Suppose that I, clenching my teeth and pressing my tongue against the roof of my mouth, were to beat down, constrain, & crush my mind with my awareness.' So, clenching my teeth and pressing my tongue against the roof of my mouth, I beat down, constrained, & crushed my mind with my awareness. Just as a strong man, seizing a weaker man by the head or the throat or the shoulders, would beat him down, constrain, & crush him, in the same way I beat down, constrained, & crushed my mind with my awareness. As I did so, sweat poured from my armpits. And although tireless persistence was aroused in me, and unmuddled mindfulness established, my body was aroused & uncalm because of the painful exertion. But the painful feeling that arose in this way did not invade my mind or remain.

[1] excerpted here: https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/10712/clenching...

[2] https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.036.than.html

Is there actually a contradiction between MN20 and MN36? In MN20, the use of suppressing thoughts by force is for a specific purpose at a specific time:

>When a monk is intent on the heightened mind, there are five themes he should attend to at the appropriate times. Which five?

>[...] If evil, unskillful thoughts—connected with desire, aversion or delusion—still arise in the monk while he is attending to the relaxing of thought-fabrication with regard to those thoughts, then—with his teeth clenched and his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth [...].

The object in MN36 is distinctly different:

>So it is with any brahman or contemplative who lives withdrawn from sensuality in body only, but whose desire, infatuation, urge, thirst, & fever for sensuality is not relinquished & stilled within him: Whether or not he feels painful, racking, piercing feelings due to his striving, he is incapable of knowledge, vision, & unexcelled self-awakening.

>[...] "I thought: 'Suppose that I, clenching my teeth and pressing my tongue against the roof of my mouth, were to beat down, constrain, & crush my mind with my awareness.' So, clenching my teeth and pressing my tongue against the roof of my mouth, I beat down, constrained, & crushed my mind with my awareness. Just as a strong man, seizing a weaker man by the head or the throat or the shoulders, would beat him down, constrain, & crush him, in the same way I beat down, constrained, & crushed my mind with my awareness. As I did so, sweat poured from my armpits. And although tireless persistence was aroused in me, and unmuddled mindfulness established, my body was aroused & uncalm because of the painful exertion. But the painful feeling that arose in this way did not invade my mind or remain.

The key difference lies in the context and purpose: MN20 provides tools for dealing with unwholesome thoughts as part of the path to mindfulness and concentration, prioritizing individual strategies if the prior fails--first of distraction, then consequences, then ignoring them, then relaxing them, and if all of these fail, then brute force is necessary.

MN36 is the litany of strategies that don't lead to nibbana, showing that extreme asceticism and forceful mental suppression alone do not lead to enlightenment.

In traditional Theravada, Mara, divinities, and reincarnation are very much considered real and not metaphorical. In any case, the original point stands that big-tent Buddhism does contain these aspects.

Yeah, I'm not sure, that's a question for someone more advanced in their practice than me! But what I was understanding Thich Nhat Hanh to be saying was that we can't just rely on what was written down because they too can contain misunderstandings. As a Baul teacher I've been lucky enough to practice with says, don't read books, but study well. [1] A few of my friends ordained with Thanissaro Bhikkhu when we were younger, so maybe I'll give them a call and see what they think!

And yeah, for sure, there are plenty of divinities and whatnot in Buddhism -- a teacher of mine was just teaching on diety yoga with us last night -- but at least the way I practice with it these days is as a way to better relate to something that goes beyond physical form.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JZ4__GTbjA

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