Q: Do you usually start your students directly with insight meditation or with a concentration practice?
A: Most often they start with an insight practice. Sometimes, though, I will teach a concentration (jhana) practice first, especially if they have had past meditation experience or if their mind tends toward concentration easily. Eventually it is most important that everyone return to insight practice.
There is a discourse in the Pali scriptures in which the Buddha, while receiving some lay visitors, speaks to the point. He indicates the various natures of the monks sitting in groups in the grove before him:
See how those monks with tendency toward great wisdom are gathered with Sariputta, my wisest disciple. And there, how those who tend most toward powers are clustered with my great disciple MahaMoggallana. And those with a tendency toward monastic discipline are with Upali, the master of the Vinaya, while those in whom jhanic tendencies predominates…
So we see that from the time of the Buddha, teachers have allowed predisposition to help selecting the proper practice for meditators.
Living Dharma : Teachings of Twelve Buddhist Masters
Jack Kornfield
My notes:
We are more aware of Tibetan Buddhism and the richness of Thai and Burmese Buddhism is often forgotten… I say a prayer for the great Myanmar-monks tortured by the military Junta there.
Image: Thanks for the great photo.
