To: soc.religion.eastern
From: Pat Monardo
Subj: Meditation and Buddhism (0000.medbudh.pm)
Date: unknown

regarding meditation, i am fairly conservative.
even the Burmese "vipassana" schools seem too radical for me.
mindfulness IMHO means developing a clear understanding of the
mind as an imperfect "dependent arising" that needs attention
and care and is an easily disturbed, damaged "functioning thing".
my basic jhana practice currently is still renunciation of the "desire realm". 
by the way, i just read that Asanga taught that the 3 baskets
(sila, samadhi, panna (prajna)) should be taught independly at first
but then combined sila, then sila+samadhi, then sila+samadhi+panna.

but, this is going a bit off topic, so let me put forward my
final offering on the Basics of Buddhism:

there is only one doctrine: Dependent Arising.
the 4 truths are to be understood as 2 truths:
the doctrine of Dependent Arising "resulting in samsara"
is the 12-fold teaching of conditioned existense.
the doctrine of Dependent Arising "resulting in nirvana"
is the 8-fold teaching of the Way.
personally i dont think there is a need for any further teaching
and i believe this is what the buddha taught.

EOF