So, while some aspects of what we know from neuroscience and modern medicine map pretty closely to some eastern practices, those practices are embedded in superstitious religions that are no different from their counterparts in other regions.
The real goal is to procreate. There is no soul or divinity or whatever. While we can say that yes to a degree the world as experienced by my brain is like the concept of Maya and the synthesis of my inputs into consciousness are my subjective reality, that's really it. You can't get from there to "the real goal is to see the perfection of things".
The practices of meditation, visualization, etc do have benefits but they don't have to be rooted in the mysticism that spawned them. In fact, that's one of the things I like about zen. it rejects those notions because of the way that people assign baggage to them and start to worship the baggage instead of doing "the thing".
So, while some aspects of what we know from neuroscience and modern medicine map pretty closely to some eastern practices, those practices are embedded in superstitious religions that are no different from their counterparts in other regions.
The real goal is to procreate. There is no soul or divinity or whatever. While we can say that yes to a degree the world as experienced by my brain is like the concept of Maya and the synthesis of my inputs into consciousness are my subjective reality, that's really it. You can't get from there to "the real goal is to see the perfection of things".
The practices of meditation, visualization, etc do have benefits but they don't have to be rooted in the mysticism that spawned them. In fact, that's one of the things I like about zen. it rejects those notions because of the way that people assign baggage to them and start to worship the baggage instead of doing "the thing".