Buddhist Meditation

by Edward Conze

As an intensely practical religion, Buddhism has concentrated on devising a great number of meditations. In recent years psychologists have shown great interest in the therapeutic value of these meditations, but accurate information about them has been hard to come by. The most outstanding original documents have now been made accessible by Edward Conze, who translated them from Pali, Sanskrit and Tibetan. The volume, originally published in 1956, also deals with the meaning of Buddhist meditation, and the relation of its methods and presuppositions to modern psychology.

Genres: Buddhism, Meditation, Religion, Spirituality, Psychology

184 pages, Hardcover

First published October 28, 1972

About the author

Eberhart Julius Dietrich Conze, who published as Edward Conze, studied Indian and comparative philosophy at the universities of Bonn and Hamburg. He later lectured in psychology, philosophy, and comparative religion at Oxford, held a number of academic appointments, and served as Vice-President of the Buddhist Society.

Reviews

[William West · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main thing I thought about while reading this was the contrast between the supposed "goal" of eastern and western thinking. Western philosophy, since at least Aristotle and especially since Descartes, has focused on how to legitimize the prioritization of the subject. Buddhist thought, by contrast, has centered on transcending subjectivity.

Like the Judeo-Christian tradition, Buddhism denigrates the body and sexuality. Yet unlike Jews and Christians (or Muslims) it does not do so by negating the body but rather obsessing over it in an essentially negative light. Meditation is, at heart, the mindful acknowledgment of the body as fragile and inadequate for the demands of the spirit, that which wants to be set free into ever lasting one-ness- the negation of all subjectivity. So, rather than covering up or denying the flesh, we are to acknowledge this existence as essentially bodily, but also to hate this existence.

We are to feel no desire beyond necessity, Buddhism would tell us, for food. We are to negate the beauty of the body wholeheartedly, by obsessing over its undesirability (the fact that it leaks fluids and is filled with stuff that, to use contemporary parlance, is "gross"). This impulse against physical reality is what I think drove Nietzsche to describe Buddhism as the purest "nihilism".

It seems to me that the Buddhist negation of the body, of sex, is necessarily patriarchal. Indeed, it may be a more extreme version of patriarchy than anything in the Judeo-Christian tradition. There are, after all, heroines of that tradition's phalocentric-transcendentalism. Traditional Buddhism treats the female body as nothing more than a diversion from "true-thought".

Buddhism is often romanticized by western orientalists as the "least oppressive faith." But does it not ask us to embrace our bodies just to throw our lives away? Shouldn't desire, no matter what its' form, be counted as worthy dharma?

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Conze, a scholar well versed in the historical writings and practices of Buddhist meditation, has in this book completed a survey of this topic. As such, this is a good book. One particularly interesting passage to me is the subject matter to concentrate on when entering a meditative state. The Visuddhimagga contains 40 subjects to meditate upon. These subjects are:
• 10 Devices (earth, water, fire, air, blue, yellow, red, white, light, enclosed space)
• 10 Repulsive Things (swollen corpse, blueish corpse, festering corpse, fissured corpse, gnawed corpse, scattered corpse, hacked and scattered corpse, bloody corpse, worm-eaten corpse, skeleton)
• 10 Recollections (Buddha, Dharma, Samgha, Morality, Liberality, Devas, Death, What belongs to the body, Respiration, Peace)
• 4 Stations of Brahma (Friendliness, Compassion, Sympathetic joy, evenmindedness)
• 4 Formless States (Station of endless space, station of unlimited consciousness, station of nothing whatsoever, station of neither perception nor non-perception)
• 1 Perception (of the disgusting aspects of food)
• 1 Analysis (into the four elements)
There are many such passages in this book. If you are interested in this subject and have a passing knowledge of Buddhist meditation, this survey may not add a lot of additional material. If you have no knowledge, then most of this will probably seem esoteric and unhelpful. On the whole, it is worth the read, but I’m not sure which segment would consider this an essential contribution.

See my other reviews here!

[보미 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gives valuable insight in how intense monastic life is, especially pertaining to Way to Enlightenment. An Awakened One that lives in Westernized society won't be able to mimic the exact workings of the Dharma in this book, but one can nevertheless find Nirvana in any place, any time--because it is our inherent nature. The Three Jewels: Sangha, Dharma, and Buddha, makes it so to speak, a little easier for monks to break the recurring cycles of Being, of suffering in this karmic world.

This is not a book a layman in Buddhism should read; one should know the rudimentary principles and Dharmas of Buddhism to even elucidate the prose. This book reads of that of a scholarly work. There were some passages I didn't understand; but that's the beauty of the abstract concepts of Buddhism: words cannot show the Way. They at most can guide you. Words are of the realm of form--thus they are not the Truth. They are subjected to the subject-object dichotomy. Only Pure Awareness can perceive the empty, formless nature of the Dharmas, the Truth. One must live it--that is how one may know its wisdom, but even that is an illusion. There is ultimately nothing to be obtained to which is already had: the True Self. The Dharma is there only to remind to which is dormant within you.

As it is always said in Buddhism, "The Buddha cannot save you, nor his teachings. Only you can." The Buddha is only the Great Teacher, only a guide. If you attach to the Buddha or even the Dharma, you will not reach Enlightenment as that is an ego trap.