Re: Buddhist / Bardon

["David Yeh" <ldreamr@...>]

mj,

It has been my experience that Thought Control is exactly what you 
say vipassana is, "fully present attention on everything that arises 
in the mental field," with the aim to "see things as they are." It 
has been precisely my desire to treat the exercise as merely a 
stepping stone to greater deeds, a way of "producing specific changes 
through the use of effort and intention," that has given me great 
difficulty with this exercise that is, if anything, about thought 
observation and not control. Returning again and again to this 
exercise has taught me how to see things more clearly and with less 
attachment. I see no real difference between the techniques of 
Thought Control and vipassana other than the specification of an 
object of concentration in the latter; the apparent difference, I 
believe, is in presentation -- I think Bardon tended to describe end-
states without detailing as much the intervening territory or the 
process, whereas Buddhism is full of detailed instruction -- and more 
in overall philosophical emphasis, as you mentioned. Either way it 
seems very valuable to me and I can understand why it is one of the 
first things in Bardon's system and a primary practice of Buddhism.

David