Absent-mindedness Through the Lens of Indian Buddhism
States of distraction offer the closest corollary in our immediate experience to the non-conceptuality of a Buddha. Such states of distraction provide a window into non-conceptual experience—the bedrock of any coherent account of a Buddha’s experience. In this talk, I delve into Sanskrit Buddhist textual accounts of distraction in order to explore how these liminal cases of intense distraction, functioning as they do independent of any conceptual process, offer crucial glimpses into the possibility of meditatively cultivated non-conceptual experience.
Jeremy Manheim is currently pursuing a PhD in Asian Languages and Cultures at UW-Madison with a focus in Buddhist Philosophy. He also holds a BA in Religious Studies from UW and an MTS from Harvard Divinity. Jeremy previously spent several years studying at a Buddhist monastery in India before returning to Madison.