On Jan 5, 2008, at 11:40 AM, curtisdeltablues wrote:
Thanks for weighing in Vaj, I know you have given this topic a lot of thought. Your example illustrates my point. I could relate each point to my own experiences in meditation. So an admitted cretin like me, who has never trained in what you might consider to be advanced meditation, feels equally at home with the language.
Could you give and example of the type of experience you're speaking of? And no, you're not a cretin!
So we are left with language that is so imprecise that I can lay claim to experiences that you surly must doubt that I have had, but are obvious me me from reading the description. So how can we determine if someone else's samadhi is the "real one"?
That's just it, the language of meditation and meditative experiences are very precise. But you do have to both learn the various experiences, how they're classified and experience for yourself what they mean. Most, if not all meditative experiences can be classified. Most have little value as a goal though. They're just "ornaments". Getting caught up in the ornaments of meditation could be like going to visit a friend and then ending up hanging out staring at the Christmas lights on their house without ever meeting your friends. It just doesn't make a lot of sense.
Now within a system the words are precise descriptions. But when communicating to someone outside the system it breaks down.
That's what's interesting about Contemplative Science is that it's beginning to establish vocabulary people can understand, agree upon, directly experience and train in. Not that that hasn't existed before, but most are in foreign languages like Sanskrit, Pali or Tibetan and are not often easily translatable.
This is no different than the dogmatic priesthood of science really: any speciality or branch of knowledge will have it's own unique terms and lingo (and a "priesthood" who uses that specialized lingo). If someone asked you how you played so well in concert and you replied "I just get my mojo goin'", they'd have no idea what you meant if they weren't familiar with voudoun terms used in the blues!
