Fruit of the Contemplative Life
Fruit of the contemplative life: => Ecstatic Buddhism => : follinge@gmail.com February 15, 2016, 06:23:05 PM
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This morning, I was reading the Wikipedia page for Noble Silence, and it seems lacking to say the least.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Silence
Noble silence has been defined as Buddha's refusal to answer any of the 14 "unanswerable" questions.
I did some of my own research, and it seems that a better definition is actually related to jhana:
But what is noble silence?' Then the thought occurred to me, 'There is the case where a monk, with the stilling of directed thoughts & evaluations, [1] enters & remains in the second jhāna: rapture & pleasure born of concentration, unification of awareness free from directed thought & evaluation — internal assurance. This is called noble silence.'"
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn21/sn21.001.than.html
This seems to be pretty cut and dry.
However, I thought this might be an interesting topic of discussion here; I might learn something.
I'm fixing the wikipedia page now.
I'm not going to revert the change, but I will add the second definition on jhana.
(I'm username: ItalianRake on wikipedia, btw.)
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This is a good topic for our discussion. I have traditionally heard noble silence used in the sense of keeping silent, especially at a meditation retreat. I had not heard it in the sense of 14 "unanswerable" questions. I had not considered it in reference to jhana, but I like the idea. Although I am not fond of Tan Jeff's translations.