Comment by moron4hire
2 days ago
The problem is that Eastern medicine is also full of complete horse shit. How do you differentiate between the good and the bad without just reinventing from base principles?
2 days ago
The problem is that Eastern medicine is also full of complete horse shit. How do you differentiate between the good and the bad without just reinventing from base principles?
Of course, and I wasn't arguing that we shouldn't have contemporary scientific inquiry into what's going on. The Buddha said that we should do the practice for ourselves and not follow it just because someone else said so, or because it's tradition. [1] It's great to get some fMRI imagery of what's going on in the brain with advanced meditators. We should study what's going on because we should be curious!
But what I do find to be a little misguided is what I pointed out from the author's statement. There is a tendency in western circles to push away everything and not only just try to recreate based on first principles, but push those first principles away as well. The author was pondering a question that millions before her have done the practice of, without looking to any of those millions for a guide. Instead, I'd say listen to them, practice it, and if it doesn't work, discard it.
[1] https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.065.th...
the Buddha taught critical thinking regarding the base teachings, an emphasis that was lost by many later schools of thought
https://youtu.be/47-aixLukSo
If only there were some objective, fact-based way to differentiate subjective opinion from real results... But we both know that's not possible; the only real answer is to blindly accept ALL medical theories as valid.