[Assungusa]

Hello Kaarine,

Thank you kindly for being so generous and sharing your knowledge with me. I already started reading the book and i think its quite impressive. The book seems to be emphasizing on the importance of practicing rather than reading:

" To establish mindfulness, to watch and wait, to examine in the manner described the suffering that comes to one-- this is very best way to penetrate to Buddha-Dhamma. It is infinitely better than learning it from the Tipitaka. Busily studying Dhamma in the Tipitaka from the linguistic or literary viewpoint is no way to come to know the true nature of things. Of course the Tipitaka is full of explanations as to the nature of things; but the trouble is that people listen to it in the manner of parrots or talking myna birds, repeating later what they have been able to memorize. They themselves are incapable of penetrating to the true nature of things. If instead they would do some introspection and discover for themselves the facts of mental life, find out firsthand the properties of the mental defilements, of suffering, of nature, in other words of all the things in which they are involved, they would then be able to penetrate to the real Buddha- Dhamma. Though a person may never have seen or even heard of the Tipitaka, if he carries out detailed investigation every time suffering arises and scorches his mind he can be said to be studying the Tipitaka directly, and far more correctly than people actually in the process of reading it."

However, there is something i ve read in the book and started worrying me which is the methodolgy Buddhism use to obtain knowledge. The buddha has already given us his conclusion regarding the true nature of things (reality) through the four noble truths and the three universal charachterstic and then he showed us the bath to exmine his claims. The problem with this methodolgy is that it puts the cart before the horse!!! The correct way is to make your research and then reach a answer (this is what the Buddha has done), not having the answer and then trying to prove it through research (what his followers have been trying to do).

So if i started studying and doing my own research on the true nature of things and then reach a conclusion that differs from the one the Buddha has given us then its ME who has to be wrong!!! have you ever considered that the Buddha himself might be wrong and that everything he experienced was mere hallucinations??!! (no offence or disrespect here but a genuine question)

To be honest with you being a skeptic and my lack of belief in anything did not make my life any easier!!!

Tomorrow first thing i will do is to look at the video provided by Aloka and the link provided by you to have a better understanding how to practice meditation.

Cheers