Meditative Cessation as a Process of Cognitive Deconstruction
Nikāya Buddhism and Early Chan - A Different Meditative Paradigm - Grzegorz Polak
Grzegorz Polak [+]
Maria Curie Skłodowska University
Grzegorz Polak is Associate Professor in the Institute of Philosophy at the Maria Curie Skłodowska University in Lublin.
Description
Chapter four focuses on the philosophical implications of the idea of an apophatically described meditative state in the texts of both traditions in which the most basic elements constituting the world of our experience are absent or cease. It argues that the said state of cessation need not be understood as a form of insentience but rather as a cognitive deconstruction of our ordinary phenomenal consciousness through suspending various cognitive processes which mediate and shape our experience. Thus, such a meditative cessation may be paradoxically considered to be a form of direct cognition. Final part of the chapter explores the question of what it is like to be in such a state and the issue of its linguistic expressibility.