Dhyana (Meditation) by Dr. Amartya Kumar Bhattacharya

From an article on academia.edu

The Sanskrit word “Dharma” literally means “Property”. For example, one says that the Dharma of fire is to burn. This means that the property of fire is to burn. The fire cannot be separated from its capacity to burn. Similarly, the literal meaning of Dharma ( Dhamma — in Pali, Fa — in Chinese, I—Io — in Japanese ) of man is the basic property of man from which he cannot be separated. This means the spirituality inherent in man. The objective of Buddhism is Nirvana ( liberation, Nibbana — in Pali, Gedatsu — in Japanese ) and Bodhi ( Enlightenment, P'u-ti — in Chinese, Bodai — in Japanese ). The word Buddhi means intellect and the word Bodha means to understand; it is from these words that the word Bodhi is derived.

Interestingly enough, he goes on to explain meditation:

Meditation is a pursuit of liberation, realisation is the end result. Post-realisation, one feels that one had been going about with his eyes closed and has now suddenly opened them. In the plane of the senses, his external world does not change but his way of psychologically processing his external world undergoes a drastic change. He becomes more peaceful with himself and with others. An awakened man, possessing an Enlightened mind ( Bodhichitta ), feels that he is surrounded by peace at all times ( the process of developing an Enlightened mind is called Bodhichitta ). It is important to understand that nobody tells him this; he feels it himself. He goes about doing his daily activities, but his way of processing his world has fundamentally altered for the better. He realises that he cannot and need not control all aspects of his extemal physical world. He realises that he gains more by letting go. He becomes aware of the non-peaceful moments in his life and tries to reduce their frequency and intensity. He opts for shifting his consciousness to his mind and becoming aware of his internal mental processes when waiting, for example, in a traffic jam or while waiting in a queue. He opts for harmony in his mental processes rather than chaos.

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(Welcome link) Meet ewk link note: The religion he is describing is very much at odds with Zen... the pursuit of liberation, the practice of meditation, the attainment of liberation, a liberation which is a "drastic change" in psychology, "surrounded by peace at all times"... it sounds much more like Christianity than Zen. Interestingly enough, it does sound like one kind of Japanese Buddhism, the Hakamaya-Dogen-Buddhism. Some people say that FukanZazenGi-Dogen isn't a true branch of Buddhism, perhaps because the enlightenment only exists within the practice.

Submitted January 15, 2020 at 11:38AM by ewk https://ift.tt/3a4ht3w