I haven't thought about all this in a long time. But now when I think about my experience, restful alertness or suspension are the best terms because transcending implies activity. And there is no activity. Just pure potentiality of all kinds of activity: thinking, feeling, sensing. Definitely an emptiness full of pure potentiality.
On Tuesday, March 4, 2014 1:47 PM, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote: "Restful alertness" is a fine term, but there's not a thing wrong with "transcending." It's understood to mean transcending mental activity. Nobody uses it to mean transcending the Self. Xeno, I still really like Maharishi's phrase restful alertness and would describe that as an inner state of suspension between two somethings. Also liminal, meaning on the edge of something. But suspension describes my experience better. Ann used a great word to describe one result of meditation: BLANKING. This word does not have all the metaphysical implications that the word transcending does and might be more useful in a scientific context. The sense of self is always where 'you' are, regardless of 'state of consciousness', or what your mind appreciates as self, so transcending is a kind of misleading word. In other words, thought is 'transcended', but you do not, so saying you can transcend is ridiculous. I have experienced the first three of the states below (though not the drunkenness portion of anesthaesia). 1. deep sleep, a very dull sort of blanking 2. TC, during meditation, a more wakeful form of blanking (a small self-referral loop) 3. general anesthaesia (severe drunkenness might be considered a form of anesthaesia as well). This is the most blank one can get short of real death, with higher brain function neural networks pretty much in decoherence 4. temporary unconsciousness due to injury 5. reversible coma 6. irreversible coma - brain death while body is alive 7. death (though it has been shown mammalian brains goes into a hyper active state shortly before death if they are awake immediately before rather than in a coma etc.) I was wondering if anyone else had a word (or words) besides 'blanking' that might fill the bill for a replacement for 'transcending'? This might also be more applicable to other kinds of meditation such as mindfulness, where no effort is used, but the goal is not to become completely silent, that may or may not happen. The main point is to just be still, and experience what happens.
