What I'm discussing here is whether the Sutta quote you presented infact is mentioning the color kasinas as you have asserted here and before. Now you say that perception is being explained within the context of the kasinas. It is hard for me to think that you have carefully read the Sutta because it seems obvious that what is being explained is that when someone remembers a past life it is really the aggregates at play and one of the aggregates is perception and the explanation of what is perception is that it is what perceives and as examples of what it perceives are colors.....there is no talk about meditation or contemplation at all. It all stems from remembering past lives and how this is really the aggregates at play and an explanation of the five aggregates. I hope you can show me that I am in some way overlooking something. I don't mind being shown to be wrong so anyone out there who can show me how the Sutta in question is talking about the kasinas I would be glad to here it.mettafuture wrote:Yes I am.chownah wrote:It seems you are presenting this Sutta quote as an indication that kasinas are mentioned there.
Perception is being explained within the context of the kasinas.Upon reading the Sutta it seems obvious that the perceiving of colors it mentions has nothing to do with kasinas at all and is just an explanation of what 'perception' means.
The 5th kasina is blue, the 6th is yellow, the 7th is red, and the 8th is white.It seems that you consider any mention of color whatever to be a talk about kasinas. Is this your stance?....that any mention of color whatever is a talk about kasinas?
"And why do you call it 'perception'? Because it perceives, thus it is called 'perception.' What does it perceive? It perceives blue, it perceives yellow, it perceives red, it perceives white. Because it perceives, it is called perception."
No I won't explain it because it has nothing to do with the original topic of this discussion. If you'd like to discuss and debate the color kasinas, you should probably start a new thread. Personally, I only meditate on the first 4 kasinas (the elements), metta, and the breath.Can you explain the difference between kasina contemplation and self hypnosis if in fact you do see a difference?
It does seem that whenever any of the colors included as a katsina are mentioned that you interpret this to be a mention of the color kasinas.....sometimes a color is just a color......makes me wonder about your statistics about how many times this or that appear on the Suttas.
I'm still wondering about the difference between kasina contemplation and self hypnosis. Maybe some meditation are hesitant to teach a method for self hypnosis since many people have a bias against hypnosis...by dispelling the idea that kasina contemplation is self hypnosis you might encourage more people to teach it.....but perhaps they are the same....I don't know.
chownah