The Zen of Advaita - Stephen H. Wolinsky Ph. D.

Transplanting ZenOne of the biggest problemsand one which still remainslargely unseen, is when thereis an attempt to transplant“spirituality” from one cultureto another. For example one mighttransplant Indian yoga to theWest. However the psychology, thecultural metaphors, in short theway that the mind is organized,might be very different in theWest from the East. Appreciatingthis, my teacher NisargadattaMaharaj tried to teach theparticular student according tohow their mind was organized.To illustrate, he taught “me”using Western scientificmetaphors, while many of hisIndian disciples receivedtraditional Indian culturalmetaphors. This is critical toappreciating the problems ofgetting techniques or teachingsthat are transplanted from oneculture to another, from one timeperiod to another, not to mentionfrom one person to another.12