[charley]

The word “meditation” comes from the Sanskrit word “ma”, which means to think about, to consider, to ponder, to reflect.

There are an incredible number of schools of meditation that flourish throughout the West, as well as in the East. One of the key translators/interpreters of Buddha’s words was the Sanskrit scholar, Max Mueller (Müller) – who wrote in the 1800’s and in doing so brought what Buddha wrote about to the West. The fact is that he mistranslated the word “nirodha” as meaning suppression, instead of what it really means: “negation”. “Nirodha” was one of the Buddha’s 4 noble truths and a key aspect of the Buddha’s “teachings”, as they are referred to as such. Therefore, considering the influence of authoritarian thinking, most schools of meditation followed Mueller and others’ interpretation as to what the Buddha meant, and most schools of meditation offer many different techniques as to how to control, cease, suppress or end thought. No one bothers to explain "nirodha" or “ma” because it would mean that their schools would be soon seen as islands of deception themselves. “Ma” means to think about what is going on, what is happening around oneself, and to see into the nature of reality and see what is false, and put it aside; in other words, by the seeing of what is false, one has negated what is unreal. I must state here that the discovery of reality is the one of the reasons as to why one mediates. Thus, the important thing is to see into the nature of things, to have an insight into things. Thus, one may call this perception an insight vision (aka “Vipassana”).

Now, if one takes what is happening in the West, how do all these various schools of meditation find validation? All these different forms and varieties of meditation find validation in that they appeal to a variety of people, in other words to the varying conditioning of different people, and have only one result - that of reinforcing whatever conditioning exists a priori. Obviously, all these different schools develop a system. They have to in order to sustain and maintain their schools; and, obviously, each system varies according the kinds of people they attract. So, it is clearly seen that all these different schools of meditation have caused incredible damage, in that instead of freeing people from the conditioning they are burdened with, they encourage (albeit unwittingly) the perpetration of whatever conditioning the victim has. They have also caused damage socially in that all these monks are just guys who have joined - and live outside the real world in conclaves - are still stuck with all their burning desires and testosterone, and treat all women as garbage (kitchen support staff). Also, in all Buddhist countries, the population treats women as slaves, domestically and sexually.

Another problem involved with all these different schools of meditation is that they use concentration as a modus operandi for their versions of meditation. Now, one asks what is involved in concentration? Usually, it means that one is focusing all of oneself into one’s interest(s), whatever that interest is – politics, making money, one’s job, etc. Therefore, it is clearly seen that concentration has nothing to do with true meditation.

Unfortunately, most schools of meditation offer various methods: sitting in rather ridiculous postures, breathing exercises, the repetition of various Sanskrit phrases (for which one is usually charged a large sum of money); so, one states quite emphatically that all of these methods are nothing more than self-hypnosis.

One is quite aware that proper breathing has been proven by doctors to have beneficial affects on one’s health, but that has nothing to do with true meditation. Sadly, almost all of these schools start off by offering breathing exercises to many to their "clients" (please be aware that the word "client" actually means "dependent"), who do indeed experience an increased feeling of well-being, and this is one way that such co-dependent victims accept, conclude, and are caught in the guru's thrall - that breathing exercises and everything they are taught after that is part of meditation. So, you can see, that this thread is dedicated to debunking - through "negation" - all the false gurus and their darn schools of the assertions and affirmations that it is possible to "teach" meditation. In other words, what I am saying is that it is a false claim to begin with that one can even "teach" meditation.

As an aside, a long time ago, I asked someone who claimed to be a Buddhist and had been practicing Buddhist meditation for over 20 years about why he was into Buddhism per se, and he told me (point blank), that Buddhism tends to attract the intellectual, the narcissist.

I will be adding to this thread from time to time...