[Aaron757]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share an interesting discovery I made yesterday.

In my Pali class we are reading a text called the Samanna-Phala-Sutta - the "discourse on the rewards of meditation", in which the Buddha convinces a skeptical king of the worth of the meditating renunciant's life by listing in ascending order all the wonderful results one gains from it. So the text is a very interesting catalogue of all the supernormal powers meditators may develop in the course of their practice, culminating in enlightenment.

The point that struck me yesterday as we were reading was a particular metaphor Buddha gives to convey the experience of the psychic ability known as "(para-) ceto-pariya-nana" - "the super-knowledge of encompassing others' minds". It is the same power known in the Yoga Sutras as "para-citta-nana" "knowledge of others' minds" and is a standard amongst the lists of powers that result from meditative attainment.

The metaphor he gives is of a mirror, in which one with this power sees a reflection - "an image before him." This metaphor has caused a lot of consternation among scholars because it's slightly anti-intuitive, and also because scholars tend not to have much personal experience of meditative attainments, I think But to someone with working experience of "empathy" as a psychic sensitivity, the metaphor really makes perfect sense: One looks into the "mirror" of *one's own mind* and sees the mental states of others. (The confusion comes from trying to get others to be the mirror one looks into. To support it they've re-interpreted sammukha-nimittam "the image before him" as "samukha-nimittam" "the image of one's own face"! In this reading, the metaphor just doesn't work.) But I'm sure every empath can attest to the consternating experience of looking into one's own mind and perceiving other people's mental states! The metaphor in its intended meaning captures the experience really precisely - when the mind becomes purified and clear, it begins to act like a mirror that "encompasses" other people's minds, a mirror in which one can see other people's mental states reflected.

So, empaths take heart - Buddha at least knows just how you feel

Best wishes,
Sean

[Dyerryjex]

Ha ha I knew there was a reason for that!

[paypaltoegold1]

seankerr123,

how difficult is your Pali class and what is its goal - "fluent" Pali?

I must say I begin to be fascinated by the abundance of terms in Pali for things we have no terms on our own. Maybe because we are afraid to construct them on our own in our own tongue like they did in Pali - or maybe because our natural tendency in the West for anything complex seems to put it in Latin, making it hard to understand in yet another language that is en vogue in scientific discourse but does little to foster most people's understanding.

Oliver

[Aaron757]

he he, I guess if you want to be generous you could say I'm going for fluency We have the president of PTS (Pali Text Society) here as visiting faculty this semester, so it's a good time to be ambitious.

Pali's got an amazing technical vocabulary for everything under the sun involving mind, meditation and getting from this side of the river to the other I think the main reason for its precision is that there were actual enlightened people making these words, and using them. It's amazing to get glimpses in the Pali canon of the way the vocabulary was formed. A lot of the key words were current in brahmanical ritual/religious discourse and were adopted by Buddha/Buddhists but used in completely new ways - virtually redefined.

The buddhist usages then became the standards and were re-adopted into pan-indian religious discouse. Yoga sutras is 90% Buddhist, in vocab and concept. So is Advaita Vedanta. There's no doubt there were tidal wave repercussions from the rise of Buddhism.

Poor Latin just missed the boat.

The "Buddhist Dictionary" is the handy reference for buddhist terms, by Nyanatiloka. It's available free online (the original is german "Buddhistisches Woerterbuch" by Verlag Christiani, his "christian" name i guess). In enlgish, Thanissaro bhikkhu has done an amazing job rendering pali experimentally into idiomatic english and some of it is brilliant (dukkha = stress!!) all online too at the accesstoinsight website.

The real perk of studying Pali texts in the original though is that a lot of them are literally saturated with enlightenment vibrations. Like when an empath gets a nasty email, the emotional blast is sometimes overwhelming. Pali texts I find are often remarkably filled with strong dhamma vibrations, presumably from whoever composed them. These texts may be considered anonymous, but they had real authors - many of whom must have been real beacons of light amongst humanity. And their touch is often times still there in the words they used.

[Aaron757]

ps, from the same text there are also some nice metaphors for OBE:

The passage goes:

When the meditator's mind is thus concentrated - purified, cleansed, clear, devoid of defilements, supple, workable, settled, and completely still - he inclines his mind, he directs his mind, towards the creation of the "mind-made body" (mano-maya kaya). Out of this body he creates another body: material, mind-made, possessed of all limbs and not lacking any faculty.

As if, O king, a man were to draw out a reed from its sheath. It would occur to him: "This is the sheath and this is the reed. The sheath is one thing and the reed is another, and from the sheath the reed has been drawn out."

It is as if, O king, a man were to draw out a sword from its sheath. It would occur to him: "This is the sword and this is the sheath. The sword is one thing and the sheath is another, and from the sheath the sword has been drawn out."

It is as if, O king, a man were to remove a snake from its slough. It would occur to him: "This is the snake and this is the slough. The snake is one thing and the slough is another, and from the slough the snake has been pulled out."

Thus it is, O king, that when a meditator's mind is thus concentrated - purified, cleansed, etc as 1st para.

Interestingly this is the first power that results after mastery of the 4th jhana (4th level of appana samadhi "absorption concentration" or "trance") and appears to be viewed as ability that comes automatically once your meditation reaches that level. It isn't totally clear, but it seems like the subsequent powers are also based on this one (flying, passing through walls, walking on water etc). "Material" here (rupi) means subtle matter.

[biannaruh]

I have always had an appetite for buddism, but it's hard to glean information from the internet. If there could be said to be a basis to buddism, would it be achieving nirvana. Does buddism teach anything of bodily (energy) sensations or is it all in the mind and thoughts? Btw thanks for the post and links, very informative.