The method of meditation and the philosophical method

There is something to be said about books presenting a "basic method of meditation" such Ajahn Brahm's "Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond". Such books are part of marketing ploy to sell retreats organized by religious institutions (which serve ultimately as recruiting grounds for new monks and nuns). As such the methods described - which may have unquestionable value - are only suited to the specific conditions of the retreat. Such conditions are inaccessible to the vast majority of us. This includes those who have the luck of having access to to the seclusion and peace of nature for some limited amount of time, but certainly not for weeks - the time needed for such methods to be effective. These methods count on philosophical insight about consciousness manifesting on its own during the long periods of seclusion and silence, or they count on the guidance of a teacher. These methods in themselves fall under the category of  "samatha" rather than "vipassana", even if there are also "vipassana" -themed retreats. 

Hence the necessity of a "method of meditation"  which is still powerful and effective in the context of ordinary life in the world.  Such a method must be based strongly on introspective-philosophical psychology founded on phenomenological insight. A method of philosophical psychological analysis, introspection and insight which aims at liberation from both the "world" and the "self" whose starting point is the positivist neutral consideration of consciousness, the facts of consciousness, as they are in themselves, as manifest in their manifestation, without the screen of metaphysical reification or the habitual oblivion of their fundamental co-conditioning factors such as temporality or the underlying mental directedness in recollection and anticipation. It is in this spirit that much of what we have written should be read.

Another point concerns the difference between Western and Eastern art. It does seem to us indeed that in some schools and works of Eastern Art (specially traditional Japanese art inspired by Zen) have a very strong connection to the pure neutral phenomenological-philosophical insight discussed above. In some sense, there are schools of Eastern Art which manifest anatta and the holistic flux of a neutral phenomenological consciousness (for instance the traditional Shakuhachi)  which is rarely found in classical Western art (but we do find such for instance in more contemporary compositions such as Brian Eno or the Polish ambient band How to Disappear Completely).