Discussions

Ah, thank you, Doug. That is helpful and makes a lot of sense.

Yup, I agree on all counts, Doug. I just wanted to make the point we should consider our own expectations of our practice, what we think we'll get from meditation, and is it reasonable? Answer of course will change and adjust as we learn over time. There are no write answers, and I certainly am not going to define meditation:-) Just poking people to think about it.

Candol said

Dana re your post about reincarnation and rebirth. What would you think if you experienced past lives in your during meditation? You would then "have an opportunity to study" just as the buddha did.

Hint - Its sort of a trick question.

I mean do you think that the buddha did experience past lives in meditation or do you think someone made it up and added it into the story?

If you think the former, what do you think of it?
if the latter, is there any evidence of it?

Great questions, Candol, and I've had similar experiences so I can answer that. I had the experience several times during meditation of having out of body experiences. But, I discovered those experiences were actually semi-lucid dreams!

The experience was all in my head, a dream, but because I had been maintaining awareness so strongly, part of my brain fell asleep while part was still awake and mindful. I only realized this because I went completely lucid during one of those events, realizing I was in a dream. Then I woke up, in the way you usually wake up. It never happened after that.

In similar ways, but slightly different, I had metaphysical experience I now believe were hallucination driven by my beliefs. Our brains will go to great lengths to support our beliefs, including making stuff up and creating hallucinations. What triggered my suspicion about this was a talk I heard from Carl Sagan where he spoke of auditory hallucinations from missing his parents after they died.

So, to answer your question. I am highly, highly skeptical of people's personal experience. Not only because I saw through my own fabricated experiences, but there have been numerous studies on how unreliable human perception is. In fact, I'm watching a great dvd course on this now regarding critical thinking. I just wouldn't believe people if they say they remember past lives, especially if it happens under meditation where sleep can sneak in without you realizing it.

If Buddha really said he remembered past lives, I just don't believe he really did. He may be sincere, but no I don't believe memories. Memories are another interesting subject to me. I've read numerous books and studies that show our memories are highly unreliable.

In fact, I've had an experience of that too. I had what felt like a memory of being a rat. Weird I know. But it seemed so real, so different than my usual human experience. Again, I think it was fabricated by my mind because at the time I believed in rebirth. My mind dished up a "memory".

But even more than seeing through my own delusions and fabrications, I see clearly how we are processes, how thoughts create a feeling of self, how emotions arise and fall away. There is nothing to last beyond death. We need all our chemistry, our senses, and outside input to be what and who we are right now. That can't all get carried to the next life, and since memories are poor in this life, they certainly can't carry over reliably to the next life.

Interestingly the brain doesn't know the difference between dream, hallucination, and memory. This is why sometimes we think we told someone something when we didn't. Because we had imagined the conversation, the brain sees it as a memory.

I think, this is why the Buddha made such a big deal about the present moment. That is all you can trust, this second, right now. Once it's in the past, it becomes a memory, inaccurate at best.

Don't ever argue with anyone about how you remember the past. You're both wrong! As it turns out, every time you recall something, your brain changes it. Memories are not brought up from a written imprint the way computer info is. The brain literally has to recreate the memory, and it adds current emotional make up, subconscious changes, etc. And the more times you think about a memory the more it gets changed.

Therefore, we have the present moment to rely on, and that's it! Really if you look at memory from an evolutionary standpoint, we remember to learn, just short bits of info. Our memories were not designed to go down the memory lane of the past, but only for short term important information. It's amazing what we can learn and remember, but don't rely on it! Be present. That is the only place you can see events unfold as they are.