Li Tongxuan's 佛光觀 is based on Ch. 9 of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra and entails a dissolving of "self" into the light emanating from the Buddha. This was a practice utilized at several of the monasteries where I trained in Taiwan and Japan where it influenced Shingon. I still use it!
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Replying to @ericlinuskaplan
Have you done visualization-based meditation? Simplest approach: invoke the imagery of light-beams emanating from the Buddha, illuminating the cosmos (described in detail in Avataṃsaka Sūtra Ch. 9) and let your"self," empty of substance, porous, merge/dissolve into the light.
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Replying to @NoaidiX
where should I imagine the radiant Buddha as being? In front of me? Inside me?
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Replying to @ericlinuskaplan
In the instructions I've received and in the way I've practiced it, the Buddha is situated in the sky, but any position is hypothetically workable. I might try some alternatives this evening, now that you've mentioned it.
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Replying to @NoaidiX
so it's sort of a two character meditation -- there's me and a Buddha? And as I do it, the Buddha's light suffuses me and I disappear?
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Replying to @ericlinuskaplan
Yes, that's it! In actuality, the practice reveals (in my experience, at least) that there is no Buddha (as a concrete entity) nor self (as a concrete entity) — they are like undifferentiated "light" that momentarily coalesces into forms only to dissolve once more.
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Replying to @NoaidiX
So as a nuts and bolts question. Would you say set a time for twenty minutes or so, and just resolve to follow this visualization? Or...?
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Replying to @ericlinuskaplan
Either sounds good. I don't use a timer, but if it's helpful or you have other plans, then twenty minutes or so would be about right. If you don't mind losing track of time, then resolving to follow the visualization for however long it pans out is how I approach it.
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