TMI is important in my personal chronology because of how it got me into this stuff. I don’t actually recommend it. There are other books I prefer to TMI.
MCTB isn’t core to my practice, either. I would be surprised if Daniel Ingram’s approach didn’t produce more psychotic breaks than traditional systems. It’s dry, fast and hard. When I tried out Ingram-style vipassana, I felt like something was going wrong and went looking for a different technique instead. MCTB is more like a reference book for me—a common language to communicate with Western secularists. I’d prefer to explain things in weeb (Daoist and Zen) terms, but that just confuses people.
I never got into the Pali Canon. I tried reading a translation of the Visuddhimagga, but my translation contained claims that are provably wrong. (The book said you can light fires with your mind.) My personal practice comes from traditional Zen sources like The Three Pillars of Zen: Teaching, Practice, and Enlightenment by Philip Kapleau Roshi, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones by Paul Reps, and the poems of Ryukan.
Right, I don’t blame you for referencing those books to communicate, because they are what a lot of readers on a forum like this would be familiar with. TMI is also important in my personal chronology, but I wouldn’t recommend it either. What I would want to popularize among crowds like this is the recent scholarly study and practice of “Early Buddhism.”
I started typing out more of a reply, but I think I should maybe just make a post.
By the way, I started going to a local Zendo within the past 12 months, and it is actually in the lineage of Philip Kapleau Roshi, so one of the books they recommend is The Three Pillars of Zen: Teaching, Practice, and Enlightenment as well (I haven’t taken a look at it yet). The Visuddhimagga is debatably in the “Pali Canon.” It is a commentary written by the monk Buddhaghosha some 1200 years after the compilation of the Suttas. The book I recommended earlier by Bhikkhu Bodhi is just from the Suttas.
Great comment!
TMI is important in my personal chronology because of how it got me into this stuff. I don’t actually recommend it. There are other books I prefer to TMI.
MCTB isn’t core to my practice, either. I would be surprised if Daniel Ingram’s approach didn’t produce more psychotic breaks than traditional systems. It’s dry, fast and hard. When I tried out Ingram-style vipassana, I felt like something was going wrong and went looking for a different technique instead. MCTB is more like a reference book for me—a common language to communicate with Western secularists. I’d prefer to explain things in weeb (Daoist and Zen) terms, but that just confuses people.
I never got into the Pali Canon. I tried reading a translation of the Visuddhimagga, but my translation contained claims that are provably wrong. (The book said you can light fires with your mind.) My personal practice comes from traditional Zen sources like The Three Pillars of Zen: Teaching, Practice, and Enlightenment by Philip Kapleau Roshi, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones by Paul Reps, and the poems of Ryukan.
Right, I don’t blame you for referencing those books to communicate, because they are what a lot of readers on a forum like this would be familiar with. TMI is also important in my personal chronology, but I wouldn’t recommend it either. What I would want to popularize among crowds like this is the recent scholarly study and practice of “Early Buddhism.”
I started typing out more of a reply, but I think I should maybe just make a post.
By the way, I started going to a local Zendo within the past 12 months, and it is actually in the lineage of Philip Kapleau Roshi, so one of the books they recommend is The Three Pillars of Zen: Teaching, Practice, and Enlightenment as well (I haven’t taken a look at it yet). The Visuddhimagga is debatably in the “Pali Canon.” It is a commentary written by the monk Buddhaghosha some 1200 years after the compilation of the Suttas. The book I recommended earlier by Bhikkhu Bodhi is just from the Suttas.
Thanks for the recommendation!