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An Outline of Practice by Shinzen Young is a nonfiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is An Outline of Practice about?

Have you ever noticed that sometimes Buddhist practitioners seem sort of stiff or zombie-like in life? I went through a long period of that. What cured me was my encounter with Zen. Zen puts a big emphasis on acting, speaking, and thinking from a place of dynamic spontaneity. Zen spontaneity might be thought of as the motor analog of what I call flow. Recently I’ve been thinking about how practice involves training of one’s motor circuits as well as training of one’s sensory circuits. In Buddhism, action (Sanskrit karma) is traditionally analyzed into three categories: body (kāya) action, speech (vāk) action, and thought (citta) action. I find it interesting that thought can be viewed as both a sensory experience (vijñāna) and a volitional act (karma). When you think about it, it makes sense. On one hand, we see mental images and hear mental talk (sensory perceptions). On the other hand we visualize situations and mentally discuss them (intentional actions). Although we tend to think of the word “motor” as relating to the control of muscles, we should perhaps generalize that adjective to include the aspects of thought that are under voluntary control. I suspect that when neuroscien

Who reads An Outline of Practice?

Author

Shinzen Young

Publisher

Shinzen Young

Published

2016

Language

EN

Category

nonfiction