--- In [email protected], Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Jan 14, 2007, at 1:50 PM, sparaig wrote: > > > --- In [email protected], Vaj <vajranatha@> wrote: > >> > >> On Jan 14, 2007, at 2:32 AM, sparaig wrote: > >> > >>> I question this conclusion,. however. If you can think, you can > >>> meditate. > >> > >> > >> Shouldn't that've read: > >> > >> If you can think, you *practice meditation* if you can *not > >> think*, you can meditate? > > > > Er, no. People go for years and decades (or their entire lives) > > without transcending, and yet > > they show much the same physiological changes in their brain. > > Er, yes. Of course you notice the same changes--they're still > cogitating a mantra! But they have failed in their meditation > practice. > > They require more skillful means.
It all depends on your definition for what meditation is. If you define it as encompassing all the stages of sitting and thinking, leading up to and including samadhi, then TM is meditation. If you define it as the periods of samadhi and weight the benefits as coming primarily from those periods, then some other techniques may provide a more "skillful means."
