[FairfieldLife] Re: ��Shallow preludesï¿½ï ¿½: TM, Breath Suspension and Transcendental Consciousness

[sparaig]

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <vajradh...@...> wrote:
>
> 87
> Problem Words: ��Pure Consciousness��; ��Being��; 
> ��Cosmic��
> 
> The question really is not to define the fact�for we cannot do that� 
> but to get at
> and experience it.
> Edward Carpenter (1844�1929)1
> 
> A word is a word. An experience is an experience. Both are different.
> S. Shigematsu
> 
> Kobori-Roshi advised me early to beware of words that had multiple  
> meanings.
> This chapter probes a few more of them.
> 
> The phrase ��pure consciousness�� continues to sow confusion more 
> than a
> decade after Forman pointed to its semantic pitfalls.2 When someone  
> employs the
> term today, it remains unclear whether its usage describes an early  
> moment, an
> intermediate step, or some ultimate stage among the several optional  
> varieties of
> consciousness.3
> 
> When I started to meditate in Kyoto, it took several weeks before I  
> stumbled
> into the early moments of thought-free awareness. That first episode  
> was a surprise
> to a neurologist. I never expected my awareness could rest lightly on  
> nothing!
> Later, when the quiet moments of open awareness had lasted longer, I  
> could
> realize that my physical sense of self had been dropping out  
> increasingly from the
> mental field.
> 
> Chang had written, back in 1959, that a ��stopping�� of the breath  
> (Chin.: chih
> shi) was a common, natural phenomenon that occurred during periods of  
> meditative
> absorption.4 TM investigators went on to conduct a detailed study of  
> these silent
> epochs of so-called pure consciousness that could occur during  
> meditation.
> 
> They confirmed that the episodes were often accompanied by a  
> suspension of respiration5
> (see chapter 20) [Z:93�99].
> 
> However, these particular ��pure�� moments which do recur during  
> meditation
> have thus far tended to be, in Forman�s word, ��rudimentary.��6 I  
> agree. Most
> are interpretable as ��shallow preludes�� to the much deeper states 
> of  
> the major
> absorptions [Z:99].
> 
> James H. Austin, MD; Zen-Brain Reflections
>

For which he can offer dozens of modern studies on advanced Zen
practioners who show just what he's talking about.


LOL.


L.