Sandy raises a point that comes up a lot. When you write about “spiritual” versus “non-spiritual” people, our mind tends to immediately think in extremes – often helped by the extremeness we have experienced with those two classes of people!
It’s easy to think of “spiritual” implying all the good virtues – generosity, faithfulness, control of negative emotions, a reverence for life, etc., and “non-spirituality” as implying nothing but greed, cynicism, evil, immorality, etc. Certainly many people who label themselves “spiritual” claim they represent all that’s good and everybody else is evil.
But let’s step back a bit.
First, the way a person is conventionally labeled can sometimes be useful, especially when your dealing with general characteristics of large numbers of them. “Short people don’t make winning pro basketball players” is a useful generalization when you’re putting together a team, but not absolutely true. So some of the nastiest people may label themselves “spiritual” and fool others into buying into that label – we humans are good at deception – and some who call themselves “atheists” may be among the nicest people around.
Second, let’s remember that having a philosophy or belief system about the world that you derive the “spiritual” and “non-spiritual labels” from is an intriguing and often fun intellectual activity, to usually be engaged in when times are easy. But when you’re under stress and things get tough, intellectual philosophies may go out the window, without you even noticing, and you are run by instincts (psycho-biological programs built into the human bio-computer) and emotions. On the one hand, we have the saying from some general that there are no atheists in foxholes. On the other, many a person has gone from a sweet idea of a benevolent God to a “Fuck you, God, you don’t even exist, you phony!” attitude when a loved one dies of cancer or the like.
Indeed I’d argue that if we were good at self-observation, we would probably notice our position on “spiritual” vs “non-spiritual” changing many times per day with mood and circumstances.
Third, let’s also remember that there are many variations in the beliefs associated with words like “spiritual,” “materialist,” “atheist,” etc.
So in a group, general sense, then, when I’m talking about “spiritual” versus “non-spiritual” people or belief systems, I’m making generalizations that have to be modified in individual cases. If I say someone is a “materialist,” e.g., of the kind I discuss in The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal is Bringing Science and Spirit Together, I’m talking in general about people whose intellectual philosophy is that everything is made up of material objects, moved only by material forces, and that there’s no logical place to talk about “ideals,” “morals” or the like except as biological outcomes of mindless and purposeless physical forces operating over billions of years since the (meaningless, it just happened) Big Bang. If, as I discuss in the book, you truly believe this, then looking out for your material welfare is certainly the most sensible thing to do: it’s all you have, really. All those emotions, satisfactions, hopes, fear, loves, etc. are biological byproducts and are totally dependent on your physical well being.
If I describe someone as “spiritual” or spiritually inclined, on the other hand, I’m describing someone whose intellectual philosophy (and perhaps some deeper experiences) is that there is some other kind of real level of existence than the material, and the goals and values stemming from contact with this “higher” level are much more important than mere material ones. When Canadian physician R. M. Bucke, e.g., whose Cosmic Consciousness experience is described in The End of Materialism says
“Among other things he did not come to believe, he saw and knew that the Cosmos is not dead matter but a living Presence, that the soul of man is immortal, that the universe is so built and ordered that without any peradventure all things work together for the good of each and all, that the foundation principle of the world is what we call love and that the happiness of every one is in the long run absolutely certain…”
we may be deeply touched, especially if we think of ourselves as “spiritual.” If we are logically materialists, though, our only sensible conclusion is that Bucke experienced some sort of seizure where his brain malfunctioned, for the cosmos is dead, man has no soul, and the universe has no care whatsoever he we live or how our lives come out.
Dr. Alan Smith, whose Cosmic Consciousness experience is described later in the book, was an agnostic before his experience, now he’s quite spiritually inclined. That’s an illustration of what I briefly alluded to above, that our “philosophy” may be created by much more than intellectual speculation about life.
So a person may be an “atheist” and a very nice person – they can blame in on the human firmware, the biological instincts they inherited. Or a person may strive to be good because of what they believe and seek about the “spiritual.” Or a person may be good or bad as the result of enormous social and psychological pressures in their upbringing. Or, or, or….
Bottom line in my writing: I’d like to do a bit to make the world a little better place, I think generally (not exclusively) having “spiritual” values leads people in that direction more effectively than having just “material” values. My concern in The End of Materialism was to help people who have been denying their spiritual aspects because they think science had “proved” that spirituality was all nonsense. The next book, Explorations on the Spiritual Side, will be to share some ideas and reflections about getting on with developing our spiritual side in modern times….
Why is it such a good thing to develop spiritually? Waking up can really suck! And you can’t go back to sleep if you don’t like it, I’ve tried it and it doesn’t work that way. I don’t remember asking for this. I didn’t think to myself one day, “Gee, wouldn’t life be better if I started being more spiritually inclined?” I had experiences that I didn’t ask for, and then I tried looking for scientific answers to what was happening to me, and that didn’t work. So then I started looking for help.
I want help going back to the way I was before I started to see the spiritual aspects of the world around me. My counselor today said he couldn’t help me do that. He knows waking up sucks, but he says when you know there is more to life, you can’t just forget that. Once your perception has been shifted, there is no going back. In other words… I’m screwed.
I wasn’t a bad person when I thought science (or perhaps scientism) had all the good answers. So what use is suffering to cope with the weird stuff? Why can’t the universe go rattle someone else’s chain now? I’ve already had my turn.
Sorry, I made a typo. *Why can’t the universe go rattle someone else’s cage now?*
How much of the “suckiness” has to do with the experiences themselves, and how much has to do with having to face the hostility toward them in our culture (and the inconvenience that brings)?
I think what sucks is feeling like either you are crazy or everyone else is. Finding a way to be awake while living in a world full of zombies is a challenge. But really the biggest challenge is the fact that my universe just changed really drastically. It hurts to say goodbye to comfortable old beliefs.
“Finding a way to be awake while living in a world full of zombies is a challenge.”
Living in a world full of zombies is a problem every religious fundamentalist, political fanatic, and social or artistic snob has to deal with. It’s nothing special.
One of the characteristics of being awake in the Buddhist sense is humility.
Buddha treated everyone the same, with kindness and respect. This was particularly remarkable given the cast system in that culture. He treated the people in the lowest cast with the same kindness and respect he treated the people in the highest cast with.
Of course the standard for Buddhist awakening is pretty high. Most people have to renounce all material possessions except two robes and a begging bowl and meditate and practice minfulness all day for years and years in order to wake up.
How do you define being awake?
“I’d like to do a bit to make the world a little better place, I think generally (not exclusively) having “spiritual” values leads people in that direction more effectively than having just “material” values.”
I think people would behave better if they were more spiritual but, I’m not sure I agree that spirituality is really more effective than other philosophies. What spirituality does do well is prepare people for what happens after death so they can adapt to their new conditions more readily.
My view is that for the most part a person will learn from life’s experiences that being “nice” leads to happiness and being “bad” leads to unhappiness. You don’t have to believe in anything spiritual to learn this from life’s experiences. This is simply the law of karma: good actions have good consequences, bad actions have bad consequences.
It’s better to learn about the law of karma from experience rather than from a book or from a guru. In fact, it’s better to learn the benefits of goodness as an athiest because then it comes from your own understanding of natural law and not because you feel coerced by supernatural karma police.
I also think that as a society, sometimes we need unspiritual people. One spiritual belief is that in the afterlife you have a life review where you experience the consequences of your actions from other people’s perspective. It would be almost impossible for me to hold a position of responsibility where my decisions would affect large numbers of people. I’d be paralized with fear of what I was getting myself in for every time I had to make a decision. Add the possibility of karmic retribution in the afterlife or in subsequent incarnations and I’d become catatonic. (I sometimes wonder if they have karma insurance for souls who incarnate with the intention of becoming world leaders?)
“The next book, Explorations on the Spiritual Side, will be to share some ideas and reflections about getting on with developing our spiritual side in modern times….”
Ways to do this include:
Take up buddist style meditation.
Read all you can on topics of spirituality. Try to use critical thinking to assess the reliability of what you read.
Meet with other people who want to develop spiritually.
Find some type of volunteer work that is congenial and rewarding.
Add spiritual healing meditation to your daily meditation practice.
Add exercises that will develop psychic receptiveness to your daily meditation practice.
Hi Sandy,
You wrote: “Why is it such a good thing to develop spiritually?”
Everything is relative. It’s like ketchup, a little bit is good but too much will spoil your hamburger. It sounds like someone hit the bottom of the bottle too hard and completely emptied it out on your’s.
It’s no consolation but, as you know, lots of people have problems. Once you are incarnated it’s too late to pick and choose and we are all stuck with what we have.
“I’d like to do a bit to make the world a little better place, I think generally (not exclusively) having “spiritual” values leads people in that direction more effectively than having just “material” values.”
I think it would be helpful to your readers if you explained in more detail the mechanism by which the prevalence of spiritual knowledge would make the world a better place.
“Among other things he did not come to believe, he saw and knew that the Cosmos is not dead matter but a living Presence, that the soul of man is immortal, that the universe is so built and ordered that without any peradventure all things work together for the good of each and all, that the foundation principle of the world is what we call love and that the happiness of every one is in the long run absolutely certain…”
But for someone reading about but not experiencing an nde, by what mechanism or process of reasoning will knowledge of this change them or their behavior?
If I am immortal why shouldn’t I still be selfish through out eternity?
Some answers might be:
Karmic retribution
Higher levels in the afterlife are nicer but are only open to those who are more highly evolved.
“Third, let’s also remember that there are many variations in the beliefs associated with words like “spiritual,” “materialist,” “atheist,” etc.”
Right, in particular, there is a difference between
Economic materialism : “More money and more things make me happier and better than other people.”
versus
Scientific materialism : “I am no more than my material body.”
Some people might see these are related but they don’t have to be. You can believe in scientific materialism and still think extravagant wealth is ugly. So I think it would help readers if you explained why you think falsifying scientific materialism would lead people away from economic materialism.
Anonymous,
You are right that having a NDE is one way to become more spiritually inclined. But lots of people seem to be so inclined without having any really weird experiences. My counselor says he feels obliged to honor those sorts of experiences even though he has never had one himself. I do find that odd. So many of the people who have been trying to help me deal with my experiences just take these sorts of things on faith. I couldn’t do that. But maybe that’s why I don’t have to. I just wonder if being able to honor the experiences of others, which is kind of what Dr Tart does with his work, is a greater form of spiritual expression than a NDE where stuff just happens whether you want it to or not.
I can’t help but empathize with other people. I pick up stuff from people around me all the time because of the way I seem to be wired. So being nice or helpful to others makes my life better. It isn’t a matter of Karma at all. Recently, I spent time with someone who is clinically depressed. It was difficult to be around her because I felt so dark and everything hurt. I discovered that by sending light to her, I could make us both feel better. She actually got out of the house and had fun for the first time in a long time, which was great. But it might have just been my own need not to feel sad that made me find a way of helping her.
I don’t really think NDErs are here as examples of how to be more spiritual. But maybe our value lies in opening up people’s eyes to the possibilities. I kind of think that the people who are nice just because they want to be are the more spiritually advanced sorts of people. 🙂
“So being nice or helpful to others makes my life better. It isn’t a matter of Karma at all.”
I guess it depends on how you define karma. Being nice makes you happy. On the earth plane and in the spirit planes, dead or alive, good actions have good consequences. You can be spiritual or an atheist it is a law of nature that applies universally.
Most people would prefer to be among friends rather than surrounded by enemies. Most people can figure out that if you are nice you will have more friends and fewer enemies. You don’t need spirituality to explain that. This is also true on the earth plane and in the spirit world. The same natural laws apply in both places so simply saying knowledge of spirituality will make you nice, in my opinion, may be a fact, but it is not an explanation.
If you thought you would die at age 70 would finding out your life expectancy is 90 make you nice? If you were 69 and 11 months old when you found out you might be so happy that it would make you nice! But what if you were only twenty years old when you found out?
I do think that believing in spirituality will encourage people to be nice. I have my own opinions about why that is, based on my own experiences changing from an atheist to a Spiritualist, but I’m interested in what other people think, and I think it would be a helpful to his readers for Dr. Tart to include his opinions about it in his book.
My views about why belief in spirituality will make you nice is mainly because you come to believe that you are supposed to be nice to get ahead in the afterlife – that conditions in the afterlife depend on your actions in this life. This is just spiritual materialism.
If you are living in a materialist society where the prevalent ideal is to have more money than other people to prove your self-worth, then learning that there is an afterlife where being nice is prized more than being rich may encourage you to change your values.
Concepts like “we are all brothers and sisters” may make sense from a spiritual perspective and may be somewhat effective too.
However, what I think is most effective is for people to learn from direct experiences that being nice makes them happy, and you don’t need belief in spirituality to learn that.
People wonder, “if there is an afterlife why are there some many conflicting religions?” The answer is that those religions are not really as important as the priests say they are. You can learn what you need to from life despite religions not because of them.
Making the world a better place, doing good things, being nice, having the fruits of good karma or on the other hand complaining that awakening sucks for someone ….. let us be careful of entanglement in good-bad duality. Isn’t our samsaric reality a prison from which we have to escape in haste? Only GOOD and BETTERMENT I see the place for is helping someone to speed up. Preocupation with “good” tend to build golden cages and jacuzzis in our prisons. Why to expect or to hope for any rose gardens in Waking reality …. good and bad should be transcended there.
Someone recently brought to my attention the work of Anthony de Mello (http://awareness.tk/ ). I had to laugh when I heard him say that the first step to waking up is admitting that you don’t really want to. I guess I have that step pretty much down pat. He says the next step is being ready to understand and openly question all of your belief systems. You start to wonder if maybe you have the wrong ideas and need to change them. Oh crap! I may be waking up…
This whole idea of using meditation to help come to a greater understanding of things… that’s waking up, right? When people talk about seeing colors better and how they sense all these feelings, those things were there all along but meditation just makes you notice them.
Is psychic stuff like that too? Is it there all along, but you need to pay attention to it to experience it? And then once you have experienced it you can’t really forget that it is there. But it seems very odd that everyone around you can’t see things the way you do. So is becoming aware that everyone is psychic just another part of waking up? I wish other people could figure out that they are psychic too. The world would be easier on me if they did.
Waking up or enlightenment means different things in different philosophies.
There is a good discussion in the wikipedia entry for bodhi:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhi
Psychic stuff is different for different people. I don’t think auras are something every one sees but most people just don’t notice. I saw an aura once around a medium who was giving me a reading. I don’t know why I saw it then, but I have never seen one at any other time.
However I think other types of psychic impressions do occur to everyone but most people don’t recognize them as any different from their own thoughts. If everyone has a spirit guide then they must be able to be guided by spirits. I discuss this on my web site:
http://www.geocities.com/chs4o8pt/short_topics.html#short_topics_everyone_a_medium
There is a big range in psychic abilities among different people. Some people start giving readings to other people without any training while some people require training to give readings. Some people can only get a few glimpses of psychic perceptions by taking classes and some may only have a few spontaneous perceptions in ordinary life. Some people never recognize having psychic experiences at all.
My feeling is that people should recognize this range of abilities and if they are interested try to develop the ability they have understanding that it’s okay if you aren’t good enough to give readings. Using psi for personal use is very different than giving readings. To give a reading you have to get a lot of information in a short specific time. Working on your own, you can go at your own pace. You can get one piece of information a day or a week at the time when you are naturally receptive rather than when a sitter comes by. I describe a method of psychic development on my web site.
http://www.geocities.com/chs4o8pt/natural_mediumship.html
I should also say that I don’t think that there are any practical definitions for enlightenment or waking up and that they are not really useful terms to use except when talking about specific philosophies. I prefer terms like “psychic development” for someone developing psychic abilities and “spiritual awakening” for someone learning about spirituality. But I don’t think it is practical to discuss any end point to these processes as if you attain some state or status which you then can say that person is enlightened or awakened. Maybe it is possible but it is so rare that it is approximately true …. Except when some definitions trivialize the meaning of enlightenment. For example kensho is sometimes called enlightened but in my opinion that trivializes the meaning because kensho is not transformative.
One time the Great Zen Master came over from Asia to our Zen Center in the US. We were all very excited to hear the words of an Enlightened Master. He gave a talk where he explained why there are so many problems in the world today. It is because we are not vegetarians. There are so many souls of chickens, cows, pigs and fish that died to feed humans and there aren’t enough bodies of of chickens, cows, pigs, and fish for them to reincarnate into. Because of this, those animal souls have to reincarnate in other beings such as human beings. Unfortunately, they are not spiritually developed enough to handle being human. So, the reason there are so many problems in the world today, according to the Enlightened Master, is that we are really not humans. We are chickens, cows, pigs and fish stuck in human bodies and we are not ready handle being human beings.
When I heard this explanation I didn’t believe it. I hope no one reading this will believe it either. I don’t think we are really chickens, cows, pigs or fish. I think actual human souls are capable of creating all the problems in the world without getting help from our animal dinners.
I think a more likely explanation is that the Enlightened Master was wrong. Or maybe, being Enlightened is not all it’s cracked up to be.
@anonymous:
Or maybe, being Enlightened is not all it’s cracked up to be.
Yes indeed! We get pretty crazy when we think about Enlightened Beings!
Some reality there, but maybe enlightenment is a little like typing. Some people can type faster than 100 words per minute! Great when you need some typing done, not very useful for fixing the plumbing…. 😉
“Some reality there, but maybe enlightenment is a little like typing.”
If there were some understandable definition and a clear path to attaining it, it could be useful. I just don’t see any definitions that make any sense to me in a realistic or non trivial way.
There are two sides to the coin. It’s a mistake to believe any human teacher is infallible – you will get burned if you do. It’s not good for you or for the teacher because, on the other hand, it’s also a mistake to hold teachers to unrealistically high standards. They are people, they can teach what they know, but no one is perfect. My feeling is that the term enlightened or awakened just adds to the likelihood that someone will run into either of these problems.
Maybe if I met Buddha or Jesus in the flesh I would have a different opinion.
Some schools I think teach about enlightenment because it can inspire someone to meditate a lot which is good for the student. But I think sometimes they use it as a trick … like one form of Buddhism which teaches that if you say a certain chant sufficiently often you’ll get whatever you want for youself: a car, a house, money, etc. You start off materialistic and selfish and by chanting to get what you want, (chanting is a form of meditation), you find that it changes you. You ego diminishes, you become less materialistic etc. The promise of enlightenment can also be used as a nice trick, students want to get enlightenment for themselves, but it’s still a trick.
There’s an old saying:
If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.
Interpretations vary, here is one…
http://www.dailybuddhism.com/archives/670
I think something unique happened to Buddha which came to be described as awakening. I don’t think it was due to meditation alone because there were other people who meditated a lot and didn’t wake up. There must have been some understanding he got through his experiences in meditation which are described in “dependent origination”. But I don’t think we really understand what that is. You can study it in a scholarly fashion and study the meanings of the words in the original language but does anyone really know what those words relate to in the experience of meditation?
Buddha was right when he thought only a few people would understand his teaching. That kind of understanding is not likely to come to the average meditator. Eckhart Tolle claimes he thought everyone would get enlightenment by reading his book. They didn’t get it, so he wrote another book. It’s a nice business but awakening doesn’t work that way. Today with few if any qualified translators I’m not sure anyone really knows what happened to wake up Buddha or how to judge if someone else is awakened in the same way.
@anonymous:
I think something unique happened to Buddha which came to be described as awakening. I don’t think it was due to meditation alone because there were other people who meditated a lot and didn’t wake up.
I’m no Buddhist scholar, but Shinzen Young’s explanation appeals to me – which may say more about me than about Reality, but who knows….
Concentrative meditation had been perfected before the Buddha came along. As you got good at it, you got into more and more abstracted (from sensory reality) states, that felt really good. I think of it as a vacation from the heat and bugs! You could make a big deal about those abstracted, jhana states, but sooner or later you came out of them, and you were pretty much the same person who went in, you’d just had a vacation. Not bad in all that heat and bugginess!
The Buddha’s great breakthrough, according to Shinzen, is that you didn’t have to get more and more concentrated to experience bliss, once you’d got some basic skill in concentration (access concentration is, I believe, the term) you could use that concentration to explore what drove your mind. The resulting insights eventually allowed you to change your basic motivation and habits, and stop doing the things (creating karma) that led to all sorts of useless, avoidable suffering. This was vipassana, insight meditation.
Where it ultimately leads, I don’t know, but my own experience is that the more I understand my mind and have some ability at concentrating and staying equanimous about its manifestations, the more it stays in healthy modes and the more controllable it is in avoiding unhealthy modes. Bless Mr. Buddha, I like this insight (vipassana) meditation stuff!
This is way oversimplified, of course.
“The Buddha’s great breakthrough, according to Shinzen, is that you didn’t have to get more and more concentrated to experience bliss, once you’d got some basic skill in concentration (access concentration is, I believe, the term) you could use that concentration to explore what drove your mind. “
I found this reference that suggests vipassana wasn’t invented by Buddha:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipassanā
Maybe enlightenment was rediscovered too? Otherwise you have to attribute it to something other than vipassana. I think Buddha’s enlightenment must have come from seeing the truth of dependent origination from his experiences in meditation.
“Where it ultimately leads, I don’t know, but my own experience is that the more I understand my mind and have some ability at concentrating and staying equanimous about its manifestations, the more it stays in healthy modes and the more controllable it is in avoiding unhealthy modes. Bless Mr. Buddha, I like this insight (vipassana) meditation stuff!”
Concentration meditation has a lot of similar benefits to those you describe for vipassana but I don’t know if the long term results are perfectly identical. However you get a lot of understanding just from observing the impermanence of thoughts, emotions, and sensations and sense perceptions that arise as distractions while you are trying to concentrate. As your thoughts calm, sense perception become more apparent as distractions to concentration so to some extent concentration meditation evolves towards insight meditation even if you never heard of vipassana. This is may be why vipassana is one of India’s oldest types of meditation, it is the natural end-result of other types of meditation.
However Shinzen Young’s explanation appeals to me too because
vipassana does seem to be the practice most aligned with dependent origination. However, there are many practices suggested by Buddha.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kammatthana
Do you know if vipassana is (according to Buddhist doctrine)the only practice that leads directly to enlightenment? If it is, then it would seem that Young’s explanation is essentially correct.
Anyway, I guess my point in the comments I’ve left on the subject is that enlightenment like Buddha’s (whatever it was) isn’t something the average meditator should expect to achieve. However, many people can learn about spirituality and meditation and experience positive changes, but they shouldn’t get caught in the trap of egotistical thoughts of attainments or titles associated with enlightenment. Egoism is antithetical to enlightenment.
I have to go meditate now…I’m getting caught in the trap of talking (well, writing) about meditation instead of doing meditation…big mistake…
Sorry about the bad link above, the correct link is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipassana
@Dr. Charles T. Tart:
Maybe you can explain what I was doing wrong … but one of the problems I had with doing vipassana exclusively was that if I was experiencing an on going problem in life, then everyday when I sat down to meditate, I would focus on that feeling of being upset as the strongest sensation. Pretty soon I came expect that when I sat down to meditate I would be focusing on that sensation. As soon as I sat down I would remember that feeling. Remembering a feeling is a lot like really experiencing it. I found that what had happened was that I trained myself to feel bad because I expected to feel bad. I reinforced it by meditating on it.
By doing concentration meditation I would only become aware of sensations that were real because they would impinge on my concentration. Starting out the meditation session by focusing on my breath was like entertaining the assumption that everything was fine. When I found I was distracted by an emotion, that was like proving it was real and not imagined. I would notice what was distracting me and if it was an emotion I would notice the bodily sensations that accompany it. So for me the best form of meditation is a sort of combination of vipassana and concentration meditation.
I think there is a core of truth in this in that vipassana is closely aligned with dependent origination and so leads to the enlightenment that Buddha experienced.
However I have some objections:
There is a gap in this as process for modern people to get enlightenment because the cause and effect relationships in dependent origination do not seem to make logical sense to modern people so it is hard to see how one could really see the truth of it from one’s experiences in meditation. Vipassana may lead to beneficial changes but how can we know they are what woke up the Buddha?
I don’t agree that concentration meditation leads to being abstracted from reality or that it feels really good, or that you come out the same person who went in. It does temporarily calm the mind which is not perminent. Maybe that is what he meant. But as I wrote in a previous comment, I think concentration meditation is not totally distinct from vipassana and has many similarities and similar transformative consequences. Furthermore vipassana is a form of concentration meditation itself. You focus your attention on sensations and if you are distracted you refocus your attention and continue.
I don’t see concentration as a skill that you develop. It is an ability that arises as the mind calms down. If I were to apply the idea that you need a bit of concentration ability before doing vipassana I would say your daily practice of meditation should include a session of concentration meditation immediately before doing vipassna.
“I don’t agree that concentration meditation leads to being abstracted from reality or that it feels really good,”
Er…um…uh…okay. I’d prefer to say it leads to tranquility and detachment. I don’t see it as an escape from sense perceptions like heat and bugs, (that’s what you get from vipassana isn’t it?), but as a way to get the ranting obsessive blabbering in my head to shut up. In our fast paced materialistic society, many, many people would benefit from developing tranquility and detachment but maybe not everyone needs to, and yeah, they can be over done…
Once I phoned the Zen temple located out in the countryside where they were having the three months long retreats. I wanted to order something from their catalog but the guy who answered the phone was pretty spaced out from meditating all day for weeks on end. I had to tell him exactly what to write down so they would know what to send and where to send it and what credit card to charge it to. It was more like leaving a message on an answering machine than ordering from a mail order company.
But still it is probably obvious from my previous comments I don’t see vipassana and concentration as an either/or choice. I use both techniques and I see them not altogether different but overlapping to a large extent.
@anonymous:
But still it is probably obvious from my previous comments I don’t see vipassana and concentration as an either/or choice. I use both techniques and I see them not altogether different but overlapping to a large extent.
What I’ve said about meditation so far is a great over-simplification. As if there were “pure types.” The word “meditation” itself is applied to many different, often contradictory things.
I’ve argued for years that for scientific understanding, as well as personal understanding, saying someone “meditates” is of almost no value, given all the variations in meaning. To actually communicate much, you have to say that Person A, who has such and such long and short-term characteristics which guide her thought, is now attempting (how successful is she?) to control her mental processes in such-and-such (specify!) a manner, and a particular such-and-such is or is not happening, which is then reacted to in certain ways, etc. Yes, you can use concentrative techniques like vipassana and visa-versa, and all the time your not-so-conscious hopes, fears and expectations are modulating what actually happens….
From my scientist’s perspective, most of what is said about meditation is useless because it’s vague, confused description. You need to get your data straight to start a scientific process of understanding.
Nevertheless specific kinds of meditative processes may be quite useful for certain individuals at certain times.
Now if only we knew enough to be really specific…..
@anonymous:
Maybe enlightenment was rediscovered too?
Yes, we greatly oversimplify when we talk as if there is one thing called enlightenment. Maybe, maybe not. I certainly don’t know. That somebody makes the claim that what happened to him, his “enlightenment,” is the ultimate possible attainment for human beings….well that’s interesting data, but maybe he’s over-infatuated with what’s happened?
I think it’s closer to reality to say there’s a lot of interesting experiences people can have and changes that can occur. We may very much want some of them for ourselves, but let’s not close our minds to whatever else may be there….
I get confused about all the terminology. I’m not all that educated about meditative techniques, so I try to keep things pretty simple and figure out what works as I go along. There are days when I need the structure of listening to meditation instructions while I’m going through the process. That seems to be useful when I’m really scattered and having a hard time sitting still. Hearing a voice telling me what to do helps me stay on track. Looking at how my mind works when I’m in that sort of mood is actually pretty useful. It gives me something interesting to do other than just sit quietly.
At the other end of the spectrum are days when I can’t stand the noise of the ipod talking, and the best thing is to just find a quiet place to be very still in. That’s usually when I’m feeling way too sensitive with everything. The kind of days when I take in so much information that I get lost in all the noise. Instead of formal meditation, it seems better to just be quiet and focus on making light. Making light can make you feel really blissed out after a while, but it has a few other less desirable side effects. Anomalous stuff can happen if you get too happy.
Dr Tart,
Does anyone know what the light is that people sometimes see? I used to think it was all my imagination, but I’ve seen it affect things (like readings on equipment in the lab). People react to it, animals react to it and even my computer is sometimes affected by it… so what is it?
Hi Sandy,
Can you explain more about your question ? What type of light are you referring auras (light that you see around things)? Healing light (that you create by thinking of it)? Something else?
What effects on people and animals are you referring to?
Thanks
“This is way oversimplified, of course.”
The Wikipedia article on Jhana explains it in some detail.
The idea of access concentration came after Buddha. He taught his students to do vipassana from within the jhana state, it was Buddha’s innovation to combine concentration and vipassana.
Some people have a hard time with concentration meditation so it is fortunate that they can use vipassana with access concentration. Other people, like me, have difficulty with vipassana. My nervous system is too excitable. I need the tranquility and detachment that comes from concentration meditation or I can’t concentrate at all on vipassana.
According to wikipedia, the Jhana’s don’t lead to enlightenment. But I think the concentration meditation involved, noticing distractions, letting go of them and refocusing on the meditation is transformative and is somewhat like vipassana.
So vipassana is the sine qua non of Buddhist practice but i don’t think it is necessary to denigrate or discourage concentration meditation because some people need it to do vipassana.
I think you also have to consider what the benefits are for the average person. A truly dedicated practitioner might only be able to get freedom from suffering through vipassana but for the average person I don’t know how the benefits between vipassana and concentration meditation compare. Probably different people have different needs, and aptitudes. Some might be better off with vipassana others with concentration.
Anonymous,
I guess I mean all of the lights I see. I’m not always sure where one kind stops and another begins. When I was given instructions in psychic protection from a professional psychic, she said to fill up my own aura with the sort of light that can be used to heal. She said that it is good to get used to wearing your aura farther away from your body. You kind of fill it up with light and push it outwards a bit. Strangely enough, I find that when I do this, people tend to give me more space. They give me both physical space and psychic space. I don’t get as overwhelmed.
Animals like people who carry a lot of light with them. Even wild animals seem to be less afraid of people who are bright. My husband always jokes that nothing is afraid of me. I always have to step over bunnies along the trail in the park. I’ve also encountered quite a number of large animals like bears, moose and mountain lions in my travels, and I’m happy to say that I’ve never had a bad encounter with any of them either (not that I don’t have a healthy respect for keeping my distance whenever possible). I’ve corresponded with a number of psychics who report the same kind of experiences with animals.
People react to light as well. I’ve sent light to people who were feeling sad or unwell, and it does seem to make a difference. I don’t tell them about it, but they seem to know. My father-in-law has commented on how I seem to affect people, and he doesn’t know about how I am. Complete strangers often come up and tell me their problems, and they quite often say how much better they feel after talking with me. A friend of mine who died of cancer used to tell me that she forgot about her pain when I was around. I wish I could have given her more than just a little bit of relief, but I suppose at least that much was better than nothing. Maybe the effects are really small, but I think that they do appear to be real. And I’ve heard similar stories from people who are professional psychics, not just ordinary people like me.
“This is way oversimplified, of course.”
I found a very good explanation of how vipassana, samadi and jhana fit into the larger perspective of Buddha’s teaching:
One Tool Among Many
The Place of Vipassana in Buddhist Practice
by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/onetool.html
In
The Path of Concentration & Mindfulness
by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/concmind.html
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/concmind.html
The author explains how Buddhist theory gets applied in meditation.
Anonymous, are you OK? Sorry to go off topic, but your colors just aren’t YOU for some reason. Sorry if I’m over reacting.
Hi Sandy,
What do you think the change in colors mean (if it’s personal please tell me by e-mail).
The only unusual thing that I am aware of is I cut my finger, at 2 am Sunday morning. There was a lot of blood in the kitchen. Stupidly, I decided to use my finger as a backstop to keep the dull but serrated butter knife from flying away when it broke off the chunk of cheese I was trying to cut. I lost a deep gouge of skin from my finger, but a band aid seems to have taken care of it. I don’t think I need to go to the emergency room. It wasn’t too painful but it is very inconvenient trying to do everyday things while trying to protect the injury from getting bumped.
Thanks for your concern.
How are things with you?
Anonymous, I didn’t know what the change meant. I just saw a change. You seem more like you now. I’m the sort of person who faints at the sight of blood though, so what happened to you might have been enough to make a change in what I see. Oddly enough, I don’t usually notice individual colors on a message board. I hope your hand heals quickly.
I don’t think it was the sight of blood or the loss of blood. I donate blood every eight weeks. However, I felt pretty bad about doing something so stupid. I have a phobia of doing stupid things … and a vivid imagination. Maybe that was it.
I’m glad you’re OK now. I was upset when I saw the change in colors. I don’t know why, but I was.
I should have read this first:
http://health.yahoo.com/emergency-injury/cleaning-and-bandaging-a-wound/healthwise–tp22233spec.html
Stop the bleeding, clean the wound, apply antibiotic ointment (helps keep the bandage from sticking), then bandage.