Yoga - Re: The Gates of Shila, Samadhi, and Prajna [was Re: Belief is contrary to mental heal

Author

Re: The Gates of Shila, Samadhi, and Prajna [was Re: Belief is contrary to mental heal

Sevenhundred Elves

2005-06-16, 8:54 am

Robert Epstein wrote:

>
>
> Sevenhundred Elves wrote:
>
<snip>
>
> First of all, I'm a yoga teacher. I taught Iyengar style yoga in New
> York for fifteen years. Right now I'm not teaching, but I still
> practice.

That's why I'm sure your input would be most welcome over in alt.yoga.
So sure, in fact, that I'm taking the liberty of crossposting into that
group now. (If you for some reason is opposed to that, just re-edit the
headers, and we'll keep it confined to apz). I do believe it would be
beneficial for everyone if you could spare some time to participate in
some conversations over in alt.yoga. There are lots of beginning yogis
who come there for advice, and you'd love to participate in the
philosphical discussions, I'm sure.

> I think you'll find extremely interesting parallels in the
> yoga sutras and the teachings of the Buddha. I believe that Buddha was
> an accomplished yogi and that he was versed in the same practices as
> Patanjali, only he transformed them towards his specific wisdom and
> created an even more refined tradition. There are some very interesting
> translations and commentaries on the yoga sutras; at least five that I
> know of in English and I know there are more. If my family wasn't
> asleep I'd go to my bookshelf and recommend my favorite translation,
> even though being a restless reader, I've only read pieces of each
> translation.

I too have read Patanjali's Yoga sutras in a few translations, that's
what, together with reading in alt.zen etc, has put me on this "quest".
I have noted so many similarities between Buddhism and yoga that I've
become curious about the history of it all. I also agree with your view
that the Buddha was a yogi of some kind, now I'm curious about what
kind. Was he a part of the Samkhya (sp?) tradition, or what? How much
has Buddhism influenced yoga, and vice versa? Cross-fertilization
between the two traditions is happening today, and has probably happened
at more than one time in the past. I'm sure Patanjali was very much
aware of Buddhist perspectives. He even describes one kind of meditation
that i guess may be Buddhist in origin:

Yoga Sutras I, in Swami Vivekananda's translation
"37. Or (by meditation on) the heart that has given up all attachment to
sense-objects"

Commentary by Vivekananda:
"Take some holy person, some great person whom you rever, some saint
whom you know to be perfectly non-attached, and think of his heart. That
heart has become non-attached, and meditate on that heart; it will calm
the mind."

> As for zen in the time of the Buddha, here's my take on it: Buddha
> taught direct meditation or contemplation on the nature of the mind, so
> that one would see through mental projections and come to a state of
> peace beyond the conflicts and addictions of those thought-forms. That
> form of meditation was called dhyana. That is the same term that is
> used for meditation in the Yoga Sutras. Buddha taught this practice to
> advanced disciples according to tradition, and it was passed down.
> Further down the road, Bodhidharma brought the practice of dhyana and
> its resultant non-presumption of mental definitions of things from India
> to China, where he shocked a lot of people and developed a following.
> In China they pronounced Dhyana as Ch'an and Ch'an practice combined the
> current practices and principles of Taoism, which was a nifty fit, with
> Dhyana meditation practice. It was a very powerful combination and
> became a major tool of enlightenment. Ch'an was passed from China to
> Japan, where it was pronounced zen in Japanese. zen is nothing other
> than the hybrid tradition of Taoist philosophy and Dhyana meditation as
> taught by the Buddha. So the practice itself is either the same or
> similar to the actual meditation practice of the Buddha.

Thank you. A very clear presentation. I noticed that I have overlooked
much of the Taoist influence on Zen.

S.