Date
March 30, 2022
Readings
Siddhartha 9-12
Quote from Wang Yangming
Wang Yangming was a Ming Dynasty Neo-Confucian philosopher, who was both familiar with and influenced by Buddhist ideas. Here, he discusses the difference between what he takes to be ‘real knowledge’ as opposed to ‘ordinary knowledge’. It might be helpful to think of this in the context of Siddhartha’s own journey of discovery.
“Real knowledge is different from ordinary knowledge. I was once with a farmer who had been mauled by a tiger, when someone happened to mention that a tiger was mauling people in the area. [Naturally], everyone was alarmed. But this one farmer had on his face an expression that differed from the rest. Everyone, even a child, knows tigers maul people, but they do not posses real knowledge. It is only real knowledge
if it is like that of the farmer. When people continue to do what they know they should not do, this is because they do not really know it is wrong. If they really knew, they would not do it.” — Wang Yangming
Monks, Meditation, and Cognitive Penetration
Here are a couple of links describing the results of studying the brains of advanced meditators:
The Brains of the Buddhists - The Atlantic