I think if we limit the idea of meditation as being attentional training, we can say that it’s best to keep that as front and center in the practice, which means ignoring the fireworks at every opportunity. Meditation is more for many, so it’s not a blanket proscription.
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Ignoring the fireworks, AFAIK, is standard to most.
It's the approach to everything else that varies. Do you approach the Void, pull away from it, ignore it altogether, serenade it with songs...?
Do you call the Void a thing or do you just think about Nibannah or flow?
Etc.
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I boil it down to ‘has awareness w/out objects been recognized as the source of the experience of being’.
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Very Zen. But then, you could also just do Theravada/Vajrayana and do fucking magic. Not that I would recommend it, personally.
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Vajrayana, I personally doubt it. I know many people who are as on the mark from Theravada as anyone else can claim, with or without magic.
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I didn't say I believe in magic. I said people who practice it sometimes have powerful realizations akin to results from meditation.
When they don't go completely insane, that is.
Well, sometimes then, too.
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I don't "believe" in meditation either. It just happens to do some cool things, which seems reason enough to take it seriously.
I know meditators who claim things I have never experienced nor can substantiate that anyone else has experienced. I am skeptical of any such claim.
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But this also segues nicely into why I am skeptical of dismissive or proscriptive claims.
You haven't experienced A, B or C doing X, Y or Z? I hesitate to care.
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I don't mean to imply everything has the same ontological status, but there are so many times I experienced something A) someone said was impossible or B) someone said was irrelevant, that was fun or transformative.
So I don't believe those claims more than I do flying yogins.
Imagine if we went around telling everyone that certain training regimens don't work because they don't invariably produce olympic-class athletes.
It feels a lot like that, sometimes.
But conversely, people claim things that produce only cripples and fools are "powerful", too.
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In the 90s I experienced a series of states where I felt like I was helping the spirit of Sri Sarada Devi have the sexual experiences that were denied to her thru her marriage to Sri Ramakrishna. It was way fun and likely transformative, but definitely not something to be taught.
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