XPost: alt.philosophy.taoism, alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.philosophy.zen   
   From: invalid@invalid.invalid   
      
   brian mitchell  wrote:   
   > Tang Huyen wrote:   
   >   
   >> From the above consideration, it instantly jumps to the eye that   
   >> Tibetan visualisation (which is really imagination) is flatly wrong,   
   >> from the Buddhist point of view, in that it preaches the   
   >> identification of the practitioner with the imagined entity or   
   >> non-entity. Of course, it is wrong to begin with to teach   
   >> visualisation to students with paranoia, as visualisation works   
   >> on the imagination and exacerbates the paranoia, in synergy,   
   >> so that paranoia makes the imagination stronger and the   
   >> imagination conversely makes paranoia stronger, recursively.   
   >> This is a self-reinforcing circle that traps the paranoid   
   >> practitioner of visualisation in an infinite feedback loop, leaving   
   >> no escape from itself.   
   >>   
   >> Such a practitioner is (presumably) ill-equipped to become   
   >> conscious of such a self-trap, therefore is unlikely to "wake up"   
   >> and say: "Aha, I've been a fool! My teacher has done me in!"   
   >   
   > I think you are being a tad unjust to both imagination and Tantric   
   > practice, the purpose of which, as I understand it, is, through   
   > consciously projecting oneself as having or being a particular form,   
   > to promote the realisation that the mind consciously projecting the   
   > imagined form is the same mind that is subconsciously projecting the   
   > world --or at least one's experience of the world as it appears.   
   >   
   > There is no mind without imagination; you can't have an imaginectomy,   
   > it would be like a tapestry with no design. The clue is in the name,   
   > the faculty of forming and projecting images, or representations. Why   
   > not put it to good use?   
   >   
   > If one were to adopt the proposition that all experience is a   
   > projection of mind, it would follow that the subconscious, or   
   > unconscious, is continually revealing itself through the forms   
   > presented to view. See the world, see oneself; everything one loves   
   > and hates, wants and rejects, paraded before one. No need to split   
   > apart into performer and auditor. Even if that is a few steps too far   
   > and one confines projection to no more than an overlay of attitude and   
   > belief, one might still read the contours of the subconscious through   
   > the tone and tenor of the felt world.   
   >   
   > Don't we all engage in Tantric ritual every time we post on Usenet?   
   >   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)