I don't know. I have heard arguments for and against both theories. But I do think that in past times experiences like these were regarded as a door to different realms indeed.Bubbabuddhist wrote:
Which makes me wonder--speculatively of course--are those entities really imaginary--or does the temporal lobe act as a "flashlight" enabling us to sometimes see the denizens of the other realms?
J
Difficult experience at Goenka retreat
Re: Difficult experience at Goenka retreat
Re: Difficult experience at Goenka retreat
Anyway...
time to get back on topic ladies and gentlemen!
kind regards
Ben
time to get back on topic ladies and gentlemen!
kind regards
Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global Relief • UNHCR
e: [email protected]..
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global Relief • UNHCR
e: [email protected]..
Re: Difficult experience at Goenka retreat
Hi Ben,Ben wrote:Anyway...
time to get back on topic ladies and gentlemen!
kind regards
Ben
thought we were. After all, body scan Goenka style techniques are like some hatha yoga exercises or "energy work" as Robert Bruce calls it. The Tibetans also call it "energy". It is well known that these techniques lead to astral projection and other "astral" phenomena as remote sight (third eye) and remote hearing (hearing things from near and afar) as well as seeing (hearing etc) beings of light and so on.
I would say it doesn't come as a surprise when the same techniques lead to the same experiences.
What surprises me more is that in the Visuddhimagga these experiences are linked to visual objects (kasina, nimitta) rather than to the tactile ones. In Hatha yoga (both Hindu as well as Tibetan) the tactile elements are often linked to colors (white, red, gold, etc). Is there a direct connection between the tactile and the visual? Or are all senses interconnected in this way, and some practitioners simply tend more to one sense and others to another?
Re: Difficult experience at Goenka retreat
Freawaru wrote: What surprises me more is that in the Visuddhimagga these experiences are linked to visual objects (kasina, nimitta) rather than to the tactile ones. In Hatha yoga (both Hindu as well as Tibetan) the tactile elements are often linked to colors (white, red, gold, etc). Is there a direct connection between the tactile and the visual? Or are all senses interconnected in this way, and some practitioners simply tend more to one sense and others to another?
meditate...
a time will come when you will know all that. Till then, there's no use making assumptions
Where knowledge ends, religion begins. - B. Disraeli
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