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I don’t know whether the meditators used in this study were training under Buddhist methods or something else.

Buddhist teaching focuses on three aspects: sila (morality, but not in Abrahimic sense), samadhi (concentration), and panna (wisdom).

Each of these form a feedback loop into each other. Meditation is just one third of that. Meditation without morality and wisdom can turn you into a psychopath. You cannot understand or study meditation without understanding morality and wisdom.



In Buddhist teachings, both samadhi and panna (related to vipassana) are forms of meditation.

Samadhi is concentration meditation, to get single-pointed focus on the meditation-object. (often the breath)

Panna/Vipassana is insight meditation. You focus on all of the different sensations coming in rapid-fire, like noting 'thought, breath, sound, sound, thought, sound, pressure' as they arise -- like frames of a movie or video game.

The Buddha and teachers today often recommend concentration meditation, in order to reach a state of focus, followed by insight meditation, as the natural progression towards stream entry / nirvana.


Aside:

>sila (morality, but not in Abrahimic sense) //

Would you care to expand on that, specifically the "not in [the] Abrahimic sense" part. I'm not particularly familiar with Buddhist teaching of what morality is but it sounds from wikipedia as if there is a large overlap in form to Abrahamic teaching.

What would you say are the main differences?


Different as in the reason for morality. Why is morality important? It is not because a soul will be judged for violating 'thou shall' commandments. It is explained more in terms of Karma, the intentions your mind generates (karma) will be the forerunner to future states of your mind. Think of it in terms of causality in the context of plasticity of your mind. Your mind becomes conditioned by intentions it generates. The intention for greed will lead to a more greedy future state of the mind. Here is a short explanation of 'sila' (morality)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VBbQvM4CBY


Thanks for the link, I'll check it later.

Looking at Wikipedia though: Karma, 5-precepts, sounds the opposite of what you're saying.

Also, fwiw, the Mosaic "ten commandments" are supposedly "thou shalt not" rather than "you must not": ie "if you walk closely with God you won't find yourself doing these things". The Hebrew is hayah in Exodus 20, so like "it will come to pass that you won't murder".

The idea in Christian terms, further expanded in the New Testament, becomes that your mind should be "renewed" leading to not, eg, being greedy.


> I don’t know whether the meditators used in this study were training under Buddhist methods or something else

"Methods"




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