Leeward Shore

Photo of Daniel Ingram

Wednesday, June 22nd. Finally, an external motivator! (Given that internal motivation was lacking on Monday and Tuesday...) We had book group/Sangha tonight, and--of course--there is sitting. There was also a discussion. Just Bill, Deborah, Anthony, and myself. Great discussion of Chapters 5-5 of No Problem No Self, particularly as pertaining to sitting meditation. The next day, I read the following passage from MASTERING THE CORE TEACHINGS OF THE BUDDHA, An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book by The Interdependent Universe but conventionally attributed to
The Arahat, Daniel M. Ingram, MD MSPH:

The first odd phenomenon I have noticed is that when students of

meditation gather together to discuss Buddhism, they almost never talk

about actual meditation practices in depth and detail. They almost never

talk about their diligent attempts to really understand these teachings in

each moment. It is almost an unacknowledged taboo that nearly any

politically correct topic under the Sun is acceptable as long as it doesn’t

have to do with trying to master meditation techniques. While there are

sporadic moments of “dharma combat” or heated discussion for the

purpose of learning and sharing the dharma, even these tend to be

mostly on the philosophy of all of this.

For once, we actually broke this taboo in sangha tonight. We had a great discussion of what explicitly goes on in meditation; each one of us sketched it out. It was most helpful!