His name is Matthieu Ricard, I have received teachings
from him, and he is the real deal.

"Matthieu Ricard has lived and worked in the Himalayan
region for the last thirty years. He is a Buddhist
monk and resides at Shechen Tennyi Dargyeling
Monastery in Nepal.

Born in France in 1946, he grew up among the
personalities and ideas of Paris’ intellectual circles
and worked for his PHD degree in biochemistry at the
Institute Pasteur. After completing his doctoral
thesis in 1972, Mr. Ricard decided to forsake his
scientific career and concentrate on Tibetan Buddhist
studies.
He lived in the Himalayas with the greatest living
teachers of that tradition and became the close
student and attendant of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche until
his passing in 1991. Since then, Mr. Ricard has
dedicated his activities to fulfilling Khyentse
Rinpoche’s vision."

Jeff, you seem to criticize everything but your own
personal interpretation of the Pali scriptures. The
Buddha was just a man, albeit a man with a very clear
teaching that has appealed to many people and many
cultures. I think we often project our need for a
savior onto a particular person or soteriology.
Indians developed the idea of samsara and they also
developed a syetem for being free of it, in much the
same way that modern advertisers created a malady
called halitosis and then presented a cure called
Listerine. Samsara is nothing but a thought and the
Buddha was nothing but a man. There are many paths to
self-transcendence. Pali Buddhism is only one.
Thankfully, the way to freedom is alot less narrow
than you portray.

Peace,

Dave

--- "Jeffrey S. Brooks"
<jhanananda@...> wrote:

>
> Hello Dave, many apologies if my statement regarding
> Tibetan Buddhist
> contemplative practices seemed sectarian to you.
> Those who know me
> know that I criticize all formal religions equally,
> so I play no
> favorites, except I might be especially hard upon my
> own tradition,
> Theravadan Buddhism. The point that I make in
> criticizing the various
> religions is, while they claim to represent various
> paths to
> enlightenment, it seems the various religions really
> represent various
> forms of ignorance, delusion and doubt in the name
> of their
> progenitor. I hope you do not mind now, while I
> critique the article
> that you so kindly left us the URL for. Thank-you
> ever so much for
> posting this URL, because I had heard of this
> research project and the
> subject and had wanted to know more about it and
> him.
>
> With the kind of build up we get in the article "The
> Lama in the Lab"
> by Daniel Goleman, in Shambala Sun From, March 2003,
> regarding "Lama
> Oser" we can only hope he is the "real deal,"
> however, I have yet to
> see the evidence in support of this claim.
> Considering the research
> design specified that the lama execute "three
> meditative states" that
> were based upon a "visualization, one-pointed
> concentration and
> generating compassion" it is clear neither the
> researchers nor the
> lama understand what constitutes skilful meditation.
> And they clearly
> do not understand absorption, which is the
> definition of skilful
> meditation.
>
> Also, the lama's choice of practices only supports
> my claim that
> "Tibetan Buddhism is primarily interesting in
> ritualized devotional
> practices (yantras), mantra recitations and Tantric
> visualizations and
> as such does not understand what constitutes skilful
> meditation."
> This means they are no different than Theravadan
> Buddhism and all of
> the other religions of the world in their ignorance
> of what
> constitutes skilful meditation.
>
> The Buddha described skilful meditation (jhana) in a
> number of suttas,
> however, the best reference is the Maha-satipatthana
> Sutta (DN 22),
> please see below. Thus I can only conclude that
> this article reveals
> "research" that is another example of obfuscation
> and hyperbole at the
> expense of the pursuit of the truth.
>
> Maha-satipatthana Sutta, DN 22.21
> "And what is skilful meditation (sama-samadhi)?
> There is the case
> where an aspirant -- quite withdrawn from
> sensuality, withdrawn from
> unskillful (mental) qualities -- enters & remains in
> the first
> absorption (jhana)"... (through fourth jhana).
>
http://www.greatwesternvehicle.org/mahasatipatthanasutta.htm
>
>
> I might point out that Shambala Sun is a magazine in
> service of one of
> the most corrupt Buddhist "monks," Choigum Trungpa
> Rinpoche, to have
> ever arrived in the USA. If I may remind you all
> Choigum Trungpa was
> notorious for arriving to his dharma talks carrying
> a 6 pack of beer
> and an ever changing array of attractive women. He
> would drink
> continuously throughout his entire discourse. We
> should also remember
> that, due to his undisciplined life, he died of a
> combination of
> alcoholism and AIDS, thus Choigum Trungpa is hardly
> the "poster boy"
> of freedom from suffering and enlightenment. We can
> thus conclude
> that Shambala Sun can hardly be associated with the
> path of truth or
> enlightenment. Instead it is most probably a
> magazine in service of
> covering up the misbehavior of a highly flawed
> "linage."
>
> However, in one of Oser's proposed meditations, in
> which he produced
> an ""open state…" in which "The mind is not focused
> on anything, yet
> totally present," we can see that he may actually
> have arrived at the
> second stage of absorption (jhana). However, in the
> experiment with
> the MRI they say, "The prompt "on" was the signal
> for Oser to
> meditate, followed by silence for sixty seconds
> while Oser complied…"
> It is hard to imagine he could traverse the various
> stages of
> absorption within a mere 60 seconds. We can only
> hope that the
> remaining 3 hours that he was in the MRI that he was
> given sufficient
> times to traverse to deeper levels of absorption.
>
> In another experiment, when Oser attempted to
> "suppress the startle
> relfex," and they found this reflex almost
> "disappear(ed)" in him, we
> can assume he may have been successful at producing
> equanimity, thus
> he may have actually arrived at the 3rd stage of
> absorption (jhana),
> however we can hardly conclude that Oser is a
> "virtuoso of
> meditation," as the article says.
>
> Without further research with qualified subjects,
> who can demonstrate
> skillful meditation, we cannot make any conclusions
> of this research,
> other than to conclude it seems Oser, has arrived at
> only moderate
> development in meditation 2nd to 3rd stage
> absorption (jhana). It is,
> however, a good sign that these researchers have
> found someone who can
> at the very least produce the second stage of
> absorption, even if for
> only short periods of time. And, thus this research
> shows promise
> that Western science is beginning to actually study
> skilful meditators
> to find out what skilful meditation is.
>
> Kindest regards, Jhanananda
>
>
http://www.shambhalasun.com/Archives/Features/2003/200303mar/200303_goleman_dani\
el_neuroscience_meditation.htm
>
> Abstracts from the article "The Lama in the Lab" by
> Daniel Goleman, in
> Shambala Sun From, March 2003
>
> Lama Oser strikes most anyone who meets him as
> resplendent—not because
> of his maroon and gold Tibetan monk's robes, but
> because of his
> radiant smile. Oser, a European-born convert to
> Buddhism, has trained
> as a Tibetan monk in the Himalayas for more than
> three decades,
> including many years at the side of one of Tibet's
> greatest spiritual
> masters. … Davidson had wanted Oser—a particularly
> intriguing
> subject…But this—the first experiment with someone
> at Oser's level of
> training… Tibetan Buddhism may well offer the widest
> menu of
> meditation methods of any contemplative tradition,
> …Tibetan Buddhism
> may well offer the widest menu of meditation methods
> of any
> contemplative tradition..
>
> The initial suggestions from the research team were
> for three
> meditative states: a visualization, one-pointed
> concentration and
> generating compassion.
>
> one-pointedness—a fully focused concentration on a
> single object of
> attention… cultivating concentration is a beginner's
> method, a
> prerequisite for moving on to more intricate
> approaches…
>
> Oser proposed three more approaches that he thought
> would usefully
>
=== message truncated ===





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