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yugenphoenix

Quote from Mindfulness in Plain English

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I'm reading "Mindfulness in Plain English" for the first time and found and interesting quote I thought I might share for discussion.

"The purpose of mediation is to develop awareness. Learning to read minds is not the point. Levitation is not the goal. The goal is liberation. There is a link between psychic phenomena and mediation, but the relationship is somewhat complex. During early stages of the meditator's career, such phenomena may or may not arise. Some people may experience some intuitive understanding or memories from past lives; others do not. In any case, these are not regarded as well-developed and reliable psychic abilities. Nor should they be given undue importance. Such phenomena are in fact fairly dangerous to new meditators in that they are quite seductive. They can be an ego trap which can lure you right off the track. Your best approach is not to place any emphasis on these phenomena. If they come up, that's fine. If they don't, that's fine too. There is a point in the meditator's career where he may practice special exercises to develop psychic powers. But this occurs way down the line. After he has gained a very deep stage of Jhana, the meditator will be far enough advanced to work with such powers without the danger of their running out of control or taking over his life. He will then develop them strictly for the purpose of serivce to others. This state of affairs occurs in most cases only after decades of practice. Don't worry about it. Just concentrate on developing more and more awareness."

 

So what exactly are these "special exercises"? This is from the Vipassana tradition. I had no idea on an advanced level they practice to gain abilities and healing. Anyone familar with this? Also in general it makes me realize I need to just concentate on the basics for very long time before worrying about moving energy, etc. Bow.

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Yeah I sometimes get overwhelmed by all the crazy exercises I hear of people around here doing, and their practices, and all their knowledge of all this stuff. All that is great.

 

But I'm also listening to a good number of people who will say just what your quote says. You don't do this stuff to gain powers, and party tricks, and drug-like "peak" experiences. You do it because you want to achieve liberation, and hopefully once you have that "knowledge", use it to help others.

 

You can get into all the complicated stuff, but you can also just work on being the best person you can be, and doing simple meditations. Maybe you can achieve enlightenment without ever learning to cerebrally, intellectually grasp the concepts behind moving energy around. It maybe just happens naturally...

 

I sometimes feel that all this cultivation stuff is a very self-centered, selfish, ego-trip pursuit. Even with all the talk of ridding yourself of your ego.

 

What makes me feel differently about it is the idea that with cultivating myself, I'm building my ability to actually do things for other people and help other people. Not just some selfish "this world is pain and suffering, so get out of my way and leave me alone, because I'm not doing anything in this world except working to get myself the hell out of it".

Edited by i am

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