There’s a group of numbers between 0.38976 and 1.1. A given culture might decide to call those numbers A*-numbers. Another group might call the numbers between 0.35 and 1.2 B*-numbers.
I would say that both A* and B* were invented by the groups that use them. It’s unlikely that another group of people would come up with the same conceptualization even if they would investigate the same problem domain.
It seems to me likely that Kensho is similar. It’s a conceptual cluster that the Japanese use, but other traditions of meditations don’t use the same conceptual cluster.
Your conceptualization assumes that it would be good for a person who wants to learn something about meditative states to learn about how the Japanese conceptualize kensho and then try to work their way to the state. That approach conflicts with meditation paradigms that value “beginners mind”.
When I originally wrote kenshō I meant to ambiguously refer to both to the Japan-specific conceptual cluster itself and the underlying sector of the meditative map because both of them are orthogonal to the Western philosophical tradition.
I would be surprised if it wasn’t possible to experience a kenshō state (under a different name, marked off with different conceptual clusters) in the West using a non-Japanese meditative tradition recently adopted from someone else like India.
The difference between the Western tradition and Eastern traditions are often a bit exaggerated.
Within Western monasteries people engage in meditative practices. Historically, meditation wasn’t central in Buddhism either.
Most older spiritual tradition put a lot of value on secrecy and modern Buddhism and later New Agey thinking is more open to selling meditation courses to a wide public (both for money and for external recognition).
It’s quite different to work on learning an existing concept and to work on drawing conceptual boundaries yourself in a way that works for your context.
There’s a group of numbers between 0.38976 and 1.1. A given culture might decide to call those numbers A*-numbers. Another group might call the numbers between 0.35 and 1.2 B*-numbers.
I would say that both A* and B* were invented by the groups that use them. It’s unlikely that another group of people would come up with the same conceptualization even if they would investigate the same problem domain.
It seems to me likely that Kensho is similar. It’s a conceptual cluster that the Japanese use, but other traditions of meditations don’t use the same conceptual cluster.
Your conceptualization assumes that it would be good for a person who wants to learn something about meditative states to learn about how the Japanese conceptualize kensho and then try to work their way to the state. That approach conflicts with meditation paradigms that value “beginners mind”.
I understand better now what you mean.
When I originally wrote kenshō I meant to ambiguously refer to both to the Japan-specific conceptual cluster itself and the underlying sector of the meditative map because both of them are orthogonal to the Western philosophical tradition.
I would be surprised if it wasn’t possible to experience a kenshō state (under a different name, marked off with different conceptual clusters) in the West using a non-Japanese meditative tradition recently adopted from someone else like India.
The difference between the Western tradition and Eastern traditions are often a bit exaggerated.
Within Western monasteries people engage in meditative practices. Historically, meditation wasn’t central in Buddhism either.
Most older spiritual tradition put a lot of value on secrecy and modern Buddhism and later New Agey thinking is more open to selling meditation courses to a wide public (both for money and for external recognition).
It’s quite different to work on learning an existing concept and to work on drawing conceptual boundaries yourself in a way that works for your context.