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I wasn't meditating at the time: in fact I was in a high school field
interacting with model plane enthusiasts. That bright and sunny
Sunday morning Sep 1969 would have meant just another weekend
of harmless fun with those schoolboys but for a crucial difference:
I have vivid recollection of a most extraordinary brilliant, benign
stillness that lasted just a few seconds.
The encounter raised questions as well as answering some. Was I
hallucinating? Did I suffer from some sort of seizure? Or did I
stumble upon a prized experience that those Buddhist monks
had been going on and on about in their writings? Was that the
much vaunted Nirvana?
Nothing else has changed since. Like practically everyone else, I still
have to feed, clothe and keep in good order this miraculous body,
one with fingers that translate my thoughts into keystrokes that
shape words on the screen: words that you read and understand.
I still have cravings for new electronic toys: they subside when I pay
no attention to them, only to have them rise again. Life's ups and
downs still persist and so the "suffering" continues.
What do you think?
0
Comments
It is a common arising/happening
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenshō
here are some triggers
http://www.srds.co.uk/begin/mystical.htm#Triggers
Nirvana is basically the elimination of the fetters. So since there is craving then there is no nirvana because nirvana would be the cessation of craving.
It is certainly not the same as a temporary state of stillness, which is a shamatha state of calm-abiding. Nirvana can only be achieved when both calm-abiding, PLUS insight (by far the most crucial factor) into the nature of reality, are cultivated in tandem to uproot the defilements. Therefore Buddhist meditation is not about cultivation of stillness only, but more importantly the cultivation of wisdom and awareness.
Therefore vipassana/vipasyana meditation, or insight meditation, is aimed at contemplating and realizing impermanence/anicca, unsatisfactoriness/dukkha, non-self/no-self/anatta/anatman, and emptiness (of inherent existence) or shunyata... in real time experience. Meaning it is not a conceptual analysis but seeing these characteristics in moment to moment sensations. These insights lead to unbinding.
Taiyaki: that description does not sound anything close to a PCE.
lobster's links.
I need to be much more mindful about what goes on in my
head and how I go about posting here.