Thanks for your reply. Going on a vipassana retreat and participating in a shamanic ceremony are definitely things I'd like to do at some point. All of my investigations have been solitary, for the most part, so I am ignorant of the collective side of things. (as a nerd, I am generally ignorant of the collective aspects of life anyway!)
I think if meditators were to study continental philosophy in particular, they would find many fruitful parallels to concepts in Eastern thought. Phenomenology involves examination of arising phenomena in a similar fashion to mindfulness, though I don't think it is ever as clearly explained. There is within it an attempt to overcome the subject-object distinction, and to re-frame the relationship between scientific objectivity and the lived experience of the human life-world. Unfortunately it is also some of the most impenetrable stuff ever written!
>>I've also found that " they have to rely on the cognitive, social and philosophical resources of their time and place." is not as big of an influence as you think it is.
I will take you up on that, but it might take me a few years. :)
Oh yeah! Though my knowledge of Western philosophy is shallow, I know there are not only parallels, there are outright convergences. The key is in the experience.
I see this in all the wisdom traditions, so that includes a reading of Jewish, Christian, and Islam.
Check out Terrance McKenna some time if you haven't. There is in which he does a trialogue with Rupert Sheldrake and Ralph Abraham. While I don't precisely agree with some of McKenna's comments on religions, his works are excellent sources of questions. :-D
I think if meditators were to study continental philosophy in particular, they would find many fruitful parallels to concepts in Eastern thought. Phenomenology involves examination of arising phenomena in a similar fashion to mindfulness, though I don't think it is ever as clearly explained. There is within it an attempt to overcome the subject-object distinction, and to re-frame the relationship between scientific objectivity and the lived experience of the human life-world. Unfortunately it is also some of the most impenetrable stuff ever written!
>>I've also found that " they have to rely on the cognitive, social and philosophical resources of their time and place." is not as big of an influence as you think it is.
I will take you up on that, but it might take me a few years. :)