User talk:Djlewis

I made these recent changes to the Tantra page because the page is primarily about Hindu tantra, yet has a title of "Tantra" in general and failed to make that important qualification clear, especially regarding comments about disrectability and danger. So, I added a brief paragraph about Buddhist (mainly Tibetan) Tantra, with links, and also qualified "Tantra" as "Hindu Tantra" in several places of the existing text.

djlewis 20:41, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Smṛtyupasthāna

On 5 March 2013 you edited the Satipatthana page; your edit is fine, but in your edit summary you wrote: practiced in most traditions of Buddhism --> "many" -- not in any of the multiple Tibetan traditions, which are widespread today, so "many" seems more appropriate. This is not correct; smṛtyupasthāna is a foundational teaching in some Tibetan traditions. See, for example, the page on the four applications of mindfulness at Rigpa Wiki, an online encyclopedia of Tibetan Buddhism. Rigpa Wiki's page on the thirty-seven factors of enlightenment also mentions smṛtyupasthāna. To see some of the English-language translations of Tibetan teachings on smṛtyupasthāna, search for the Tibetan transliteration "dran pa nyer bzhag bzhi" on Google Books. Also search for "dran pa nye bar bzhag pa bzhi" on Google Books. Best wishes, Porelbiencomun (talk) 20:46, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Porelbiencomun. I saw your response about the practice of the four mindfulnesses in Tibetan Buddhism. Yes, of course, these are part of the entire Tibetan tradition, found particularly in the 37 Factors of Enlightenment -- see http://www.drepunggomang.org/121-thirty-seven-factors-of-enlightenment. And yes, they are called satipaṭṭhāna. But I don't think that is the same as practicing according to the satipaṭṭhāna sutta, translated by the Theravadans as The Path of Mindfulness, as opposed to The Path of Shamatha, which as far as I know underlies all Tibetan traditions. One essential piece missing from the Tibetan practice is the full use of anapanasati, or breath meditation. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anapanasati#In_the_Indo-Tibetan_tradition. Without that, I don't think you can call a practice satipaṭṭhāna. Anyway, as you said, my edit is correct, it's just my comment that's in question. djlewis (talk) 02:39, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

PS -- you should sign your talk posts -- use four tildes. djlewis (talk) 02:39, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Djlewis, thanks for your response. You responded by editing my user page, and I wish you would have responded on my user talk page instead, as is customary (see Help:Introduction to talk pages/User talk pages). I've pasted your response above for easy reference. First, I'm not sure why you told me to sign my talk posts with four tildes, since I did sign my talk post with four tildes: look above and you can clearly see the signature. Or are you referring to somewhere else where I did not sign a talk post? Second, it seems that you and I have different interpretations of the sentence:

Satipaṭṭhāna is practiced most often in the context of Theravada Buddhism although the principles are also practiced in many traditions of Buddhism which emphasize meditation such as the Sōtō Zen tradition.

— Satipatthana#Contexts

You seem to interpret the phrase "satipaṭṭhāna is practiced" as "following the meditation instruction of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta precisely." If you interpret it that way, then it is probably true that none of the multiple Tibetan traditions "practice satipaṭṭhāna," but then neither does the Sōtō Zen tradition either. For this sentence to make sense, I think we have to interpret the phrase "satipaṭṭhāna (or smṛtyupasthāna) is practiced" more broadly, as a foundational practice of attention to the physical world [lus, kāya], the world of feeling [tshor-ba, vedanā], the world of mind [sems, citta], and the world of meanings [chos, dharma]. In this interpretation, some Tibetan Buddhists (especially the Nyingma tradition that descends from Longchenpa) certainly do practice smṛtyupasthāna. The Wikipedia article that you cite on ānāpānasmṛti supports this broader interpretation where it says:

As Batchelor noted, however, in other traditions, particularly the Kagyu and Nyingma, mindfulness based on ānāpānasmṛti practice is considered to be quite profound means of calming the mind to prepare it for the higher practices of Dzogchen and Mahamudra. For the Kagyupa, in the context of mahāmudrā, ānāpānasmṛti is thought to be the ideal way for the meditator to transition into taking the mind itself as the object of meditation and generating vipaśyanā on that basis. The prominent contemporary Kagyu/Nyingma master Chogyam Trungpa, echoing the Kagyu Mahāmudrā view, wrote, "your breathing is the closest you can come to a picture of your mind. It is the portrait of your mind in some sense... The traditional recommendation in the lineage of meditators that developed in the Kagyu-Nyingma tradition is based on the idea of mixing mind and breath."

— Anapanasati#In the Indo-Tibetan tradition

Thanks again for your response. Best wishes, Porelbiencomun (talk) 18:05, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Proposal on EMDR

Could I draw your attention to the proposal I've made on Talk:Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing#Multiple issues in this article. It seems that you have some knowledge of the area and interest in maintaining a good Wiki article and I think opinions need to be expressed about the current tags on the article. Chris55 (talk)