01 Meditation Panel Preface.indd - United Nations Day of Vesak 2013

Approximately 160 articles were received the 2 nd IABU Conference from around the world.
We have selected about 110 of them for presentation at the conference. There are articles from different
levels of scholars, ranging from the most senior of professors and on downward to undergraduates.
Each of the articles have merits of interest within them. We decided on four programs (sub-themes).
This is the volume for Buddhist Philosophy and Meditation Practice.
PANEL SUMMARY - BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY & MEDITATION PRACTICE:
In the spirit of the middle way, the apportioning of papers to panels has been conducted
in an attempt to nd a balance between working with thematic afnity, and trying to juggle time
allocations and speaker availability. Papers for this session should have included advanced studies
related to philosophical issues in meditation practices; dialogues on meditation differences in
the traditions; theological or cosmological issues and any resultant meditative attainments – what is
next after these realizations? This panel aimed for a serious discussion of deep philosophical points
actualized as possible or benecial, with evidence of transformation. We hope that serendipity in
this instance accords with the planned conceptions, and ultimately, the aims of the panel.
The rst paper, by Jason Siff, discusses ‘The Language and Description of Meditative
Experiences’. As he points out, we have the Buddha’s words, not his experiencesas his legacy:
so the reconstruction of meaning from what has been left behind is an essential process both for
meditators and exegetes. By exploring the role of rst-person testimonial and questioning as a means
of testing the reliability and worth of meditative growth, the author explores ways that the arousing
and honest accounting of changed states in meditation can be achieved. From his perspective as
a vipassan meditation teacher, he investigates David Kalupahana’s work in establishing a ‘language
of existence’ and a ‘language of becoming’, positing a middle way between these two as helping
the expression and development of meditative practice. Arguing that experience, perceived within
the stages of knowledge (ña) can be articulated, explained and tested through appropriate questioning
and wording, he offers his own term, ‘transformative conceptualization’, a means by which meditators
can construct their own narratives. Carefully fostered, such narratives, by superseding partial,
misleading or dispiriting accounts, can accommodate nuance and discriminatory awareness amongst
those practicing within this meditative system.
In ‘Thought and Praxis in Contemporary Korean Buddhism: A Critical Examination’,
Assoc. Prof. Jongmyung Kim considers the thought and identity of the Chogye Order. Focusing rst
on its emphasis on the concept of emptiness, meditative thought, and Flower Garland (K. Hwam;
Ch. Huayan; Jp. Kegon) thought the author then investigates the order’s soteriology, concentrating
on historical development and procedures, before assessing how these work together in the Order.
Taking a historical perspective, the paper explores a number of problems he observes in the Order, its
textual roots and the practical implications of these, in a survey that includes the role of devotional
and ascetic as well as meditative activities. The author argues for a more varied understanding of
the nature of practice and its relationship with theory within the Order, and for a reassessment of its
place in modern society. By exploring text and modern academic and practitioner based comment,
he asserts that the Chogye Order needs to redene the notion of Buddhist practice beyond what he
terms Kanhwa Sn absolutism, as ‘a process of one’s living up to the basic teachings of the Buddha’,
and so come to accept a more diverse and inclusive approach to practice and theory.
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