[Buddha-l] Tibetan word for meditation

[RonLeifer at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/21/2006 5:42:03 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, 
_rhayes at unm.edu_ (mailto:rhayes at unm.edu)  writes (ironically I trust): 

But we'll try to fire the person 
who first said that the Tibetan  word for meditation means paying attention. 
We just can't have such  egregious errors on buddha-l.
 
As that person I take responsibility, in lieu of Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche  
whose definition of meditation I reported but who, unfortunately, has by now  
reincarnated and is not available to account for utterances from his previous  
life.

Although I found them authoritative and informative, none of the  definitions 
of meditation given on Buddha-l conform exactly to Rinpoche’s, much  to the 
general consternation.  I don't think Rinpoche was giving a  dictionary 
definition. Buddhist teachers I have studied with have often given  creative 
translations of Tibetan terms. In this case, it was my impression that  Rinpoche was 
tailoring his definition to his audience but, at the same time,  capturing a 
basic feature of meditation with an unorthodox translation. I had  the 
opportunity to discuss American psychiatry with Rinpoche while planning the  Karma 
Kagyu conference on Buddhism and psychotherapy in 1986. He was aware that  
American psychiatry, the so-called medical science of mind, is immature and  confused 
compared to Buddhist views of mind. When a psychiatrist asked him to  define 
meditation, he clowned around, pretending not to know the word. It was a  
moment of high, ironic comic art. With his response, Rinpoche implied to his  
incredulous audience that he did not know anything about meditation while he  knew 
and his audience knew that it was they that knew nothing about it. 

In contrast to the present dialogue between Buddhists and neuro  scientists 
in which he latter try to validate meditation by showing how it is a  function 
of the the brain, Rinpoche gave a simple, basic definition – meditation  is a 
function of mind, namely, paying attention. (I’ve heard another definition  of 
meditation from a different Lama which also does not seem to appear in  
Tibetan English dictionaries, namely, “becoming familiar with.”) These  
definitions fit both shine or shamatha and also lag thong or vipassana both  of which 
involve paying attention and becoming familiar with. In fact, every  form of 
meditation, including all that have been given to this list, involve  these two 
activities. 

So perhaps Rinpoche's definition hit a mark, even if it was not a  literal, 
dictionary sanctioned translation of a Tibetan word.  
 
Ron Leifer

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