Wikipedia Trails: from Jack Kornfield to Abhijna

I always find myself with weird Wikipedia trails so I am so excited that Dr. Gibbs has decided to add this as an extra credit assignment! I saw Jack Kornfield on one of the newsletters so I will start there!

1. Jack Kornfield. Jack Kornfield is an American author and teacher in the Theravada Buddhism tradition. He studied under the master Ajahn Chah and is one of the few meditation teachers who helped introduce meditation to the Western world. He also became a monk for a little while and I am assuming he left monkhood to teach others. I found it was interesting that he studied under Ajahn Chah too because one of my favorite monks, Ajahn Brahmavamso, was one of Ajahn Chah's disciples. I also have heard to different kinds of meditation but never really looked into what distinguishes them. ONWARDS~

Photo of Jack Kornfield. 

Obtained from Jack Kornfield's personal Twitter account. Source: Twitter.

2. Vipassana meditation. Meditation that is focused on the mindfulness of breathing and of thoughts, feelings and actions that are used to gain insight into reality. It looks like that the practice is different under the different major Buddhist traditions like Theravada and Mahayana but the underlying purpose is the same: to gain insight. The few times I was able to practice meditation, it was mostly to pay attention to the breath and nothing else. I would like to give this a try soon.

3. Deva. A deva in Buddhism (I am assuming it is pronounced like diva... I hope I don't offend anyone by doing so) is a non-human entity that has god-like characteristics but are not gods themselves. They are said to be more powerful, longer-lived, and happier than humans. I think it's interesting that they are invisible to the human eye. Would that make them similar to benevolent ghosts or just spirits in a sense?

4. Abhijna. This is the Sanskrit word for "knowing" and it is a type of power that the devas can have. There are 6 types of higher knowledge "powers": higher power (such as walking on water), divine ear, mind-penetrating knowledge, recalling one's past lives, seeing the future, and extinction of mental intoxicants. Through meditation, the first 5 listed powers are achievable and the sixth power is the ultimate attainment. These powers would be cool to have. Maybe I should practice meditation more seriously!