mystical/visionary/peak experiences

Taosaur

Taosaur

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Yeah, I'm prone to visions, so what?

Last night (NYE) I attempted to find and access any singularity that may or may not await us in 2012. It wasn't any organized meditation or vision quest, and it was an environment where one would be inclined to discount visions--dancing, drunk and high at a NYE rock concert. Nevertheless, I'm dancing and feeling the crowd, doing a kind of improvisational Tonglen, and it occurs to me that if there is a hard reboot coming in 2012, it ought to be accessible as a power source at this proximity. I had very minimal expectations, but the result of my little probe was like sticking my finger in a light socket--the whole room went super vivid, but more than that it was like this whole neighborhood of space-time was illuminated in a lightning flash before I withdrew.

I don't pretend to know what happened--maybe I just found my serotonin button, maybe I touched the singularity, maybe it was just a great party.

Anyone else have any visions, revelations, or satori to share with the class?
 
Taosaur said:
it was an environment where one would be inclined to discount visions--dancing, drunk and high at a NYE rock concert.

the result of my little probe was like sticking my finger in a light socket--the whole room went super vivid, but more than that it was like this whole neighborhood of space-time was illuminated in a lightning flash before I withdrew.
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LOL- I had to appreciate your honesty. Though intoxication, strong drum beats, and dancing aren't that far off from the way some shamans induce trance.

Can't say I ever tried meditating/etc. on 2012. I'm too jaded with all the Maya archaeologists I know to think it means anything. ;)

But I do have visions sometimes, and more frequently the sort of thing I think you are talking about, where the world suddenly becomes very... hard to describe. I guess your "vivid" and "illuminated" work just as well as anything I can think of. For me, it seems to come with sudden realizations of oneness and being able to sense the closeness of the Otherworld, God, etc. It's pretty distinctive when it happens, and the best metaphor I can think of is in the Wizard of Oz when everything goes from black and white to color.

I've had some very interesting and intense visions- some incredibly uplifting, some crushingly depressing or scary. I believe they all contain lessons or messages I'm meant to have. I wouldn't know where to start in describing them all, and most are fairly difficult to express anyway, and are rather lengthy to describe (a few have relatively detailed story lines and seemed to last for hours and hours).

As for last night, no visions for me. I was similarly imbibing alcohol, dancing, and listening to live rock music. LOL But no visions, just feeling good! My favorite is a strong bass line throbbing in your chest; I just love that feeling. I regularly seek out really loud rock or industrial music for that reason. :D
 
No visions here. I did, however, take an excellent poop that made me feel revived after.
Too many beans I think.:D
 
Dude! :eek: :rolleyes:

Ahem.... that completely threw out my train of thought.... :confused:

Actually I was considering posting somewhere about a vision-type-thang i had recently when I spotted your thread.

Recently I have gotten myself in a bit of a mess spiritually by thinking so much, and in an unstructured way, that I managed to work myself into a position where I wasn't sure what I believed anymore. It culminated one day when i felt the need to pray (doesn't happen to me very often) and I realised I had a belief in gods but none to pray to. :confused: This was then compounded when something someone wrote on a forum touched a nerve and I went into a complete spin about it.... In the midst of this I sent out a heartfelt mental plea to the Earth and, well, pretty much any deity who might be listening to let me know they were there and what the hell was going on.

That night as I drifted off to sleep I had a vision/dream. There was a pattern spread out over the floor and the gods were walking across it, the colours/essences of the pattern streaming up their legs. Their faces and forms shifted. My mind objected on the grounds that this wasn't reality, just a representation of it, and I was told that the reality is beyond perception but I needed some kind of representation of it so i could begin to understand it. The Earth Mother turned and smiled at me.

It was cool :) and it set me back in a place I can think from.
 
That was some handy vision--reminds me of a lucid dream I had once, though I don't recall being in any great quandary at the time.

Impqueen said:
It culminated one day when i felt the need to pray (doesn't happen to me very often) and I realised I had a belief in gods but none to pray to. :confused:
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I had a similar dilemma when I started Guru Yoga, where you basically summon and merge with a guru figure. I didn't know who/what to use. Padmasambhava, who is invoked by the Vajra Guru Mantra used in the practice, worked, but I didn't have a strong connection to that figure or Avalokiteshvara, of which he is an emanation, at the time. I picked up the practice from Sogyal Rinpoche's Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and he recommended using any figure that resonates with you--Jesus, Sakyamuni, Krishna, a living guru, or whoever. I went with an unnamed deity from my childhood that I called Big J--(my name), as in the noncorporeal force/entity of which I am one present incarnation, not a supreme-creator type deity, but a force that could intervene subtly on my behalf.

Abstract as it was, and difficult to visualize (I went with more or less a ball of multicolored light), I found very positive results by "going back to my roots" while adopting the new practice. These days I more or less fold Big J--- into Avalokiteshvara, Bodhisattva of Compassion, and visualize Padmasambhava when I do Guru Yoga.
 
Taosaur said:
I had a similar dilemma when I started Guru Yoga, where you basically summon and merge with a guru figure. I didn't know who/what to use. Padmasambhava, who is invoked by the Vajra Guru Mantra used in the practice, worked, but I didn't have a strong connection to that figure or Avalokiteshvara, of which he is an emanation, at the time. I picked up the practice from Sogyal Rinpoche's Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and he recommended using any figure that resonates with you--Jesus, Sakyamuni, Krishna, a living guru, or whoever. I went with an unnamed deity from my childhood that I called Big J--(my name), as in the noncorporeal force/entity of which I am one present incarnation, not a supreme-creator type deity, but a force that could intervene subtly on my behalf.

Abstract as it was, and difficult to visualize (I went with more or less a ball of multicolored light), I found very positive results by "going back to my roots" while adopting the new practice. These days I more or less fold Big J--- into Avalokiteshvara, Bodhisattva of Compassion, and visualize Padmasambhava when I do Guru Yoga.
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Sounds confusing - and hard to pronounce :p... Do you have a belief in individual and separate deities then? Does your guru figure have literal existence? Could you use a fictional character?
 
Impqueen said:
Sounds confusing - and hard to pronounce :p... Do you have a belief in individual and separate deities then? Does your guru figure have literal existence? Could you use a fictional character?
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I've never had a living guru, no, though I've met some accomplished Tibetan teachers. Padmasambhava is a highly mythologized historical figure and sort of the patron saint of Tibet, said to have first brought Buddhism to Tibet and to watch over the people still. Deities are a slippery notion in Vajrayana Buddhism--let's say they exist to the same extent you and I exist: somewhat, but not particularly.

As for fictional characters for Guru Yoga, I suppose it depends on the connection you have. I went with my childhood deity because it's the last "higher power" I viscerally believed in. Here's Sogyal Rinpoche's recommendation:

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying said:
I consider Padmasambhava as the embodiment of all my masters, and so when I merge my mind with him in Guru Yoga, all of them are included with him. You can, however, use any enlightened being, saint, or master from any religion or mystical tradition for whom you feel devotion, whether they are alive or not.
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Nick the Pilot said:
Taosaur,

I was just curious. In Vajrayana Buddhism, do you equate Avalokiteshvara with Kwan Yin?
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Wasn't familiar w/ Kwan Yin before, but according to Wikipedia it looks like they're related, but it's unclear how much Kwan Yin derives from Avalokiteshvara and how much from a Taoist immortal. One common Tibetan depiction of Avalokiteshvara, or Chenrezig in Tibetan, is a male figure with eleven faces and a thousand outstretched hands. It's said the bodhisattva reached the godly realms and vowed not to leave samsara until he had liberated all sentient beings of the six realms, so he descended into the hell realms and began climbing, liberating every creature he encountered. When he reached the heavens again, he looked down on the six realms and saw them still teeming with suffering beings, and in his effort to reach out to all of them, he shattered. The gods came to his aid, repairing him so that he had eleven heads to hear the cries of sentient beings, and one thousand arms to stretch out in aid.
 
Taosaur,

Since you are unfamiliar with Kwan-Yin, I thought I would give a quick synopsis on her.

According to my belief system, Avalokiteshvara has different aspects. The male aspect is called Kwan-Shai-Yin (or Kwan-Shi-Yin), and the female aspect is called Kwan-Yin. Kwan-Yin is a very important female deity in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism. Kwan-Yin is called The Goddess of Mercy in English and Kannon in Japanese. She is commonly depicted as a statue of a woman with a piled-high hairdo, wearing a hooded white robe, and pouring water from a vase.

Thousands of temples have been built in her honor, and hundreds of thousands of people pray to Kwan-Yin everyday.

Here are links to information on Kwan-Yin and some of her temples.

http://circle-of-light.com/Mantras/KuanYin.html

Richmond Buddhist Temple pictures from canada photos on webshots

Kwan Yin Buddhist Temple

Li Ka Shing Foundation

Sensoji (Asakusa Kannon Temple)

A Guide to Buddhist Statues

Kannon Bodhisattva (Bosatsu) - Goddess of Mercy, One Who Hears Prayers of the World, Japanese Buddhism Art History

Kannon - Goddess of Mercy -- Nationwide Pilgrimage in Japan

In my humble opinion, the Chinese and Japanese fascination with Kwan-Yin is identical to the Catholic fascination with the Virgin Mary.

---

Regarding the name Avalokiteshvara, you may be familiar with the Sanskrit entymology of the name. Some people translate the name Avalokiteshvara as the god or goddess which looks down upon us. I feel this is in error.

“ ... some eastern scholars maintain that the original term was Avalokita-svara, literally the looked-at-sound.... [There is no way] the past participle Avalokita (+ Iswara or + svara) [can] mean he who looks down or the down-looking: it has to be looked, seen, viewed, or observed.” (Man the Measure, p. 204)

I feel the translation of Avalokiteshvara as "Looked-at Sound" gives us a much better indication of the true metaphysical meaning of the word. (It is also related to the Christian concept of Christ being the Word. Sound = Word.)
 
Interesting, Nick. Probably the strongest female figure in Tibetan Buddhism is Green Tara, who I don't know a lot about but she's more of a protective figure.
 
lying in bed one night, i had the feeling of a diamond being pressed into my forehead, it was quite painful but eventually subsided. an eagle or some kind of bird of prey in a subtle spiritual form flew out from my third eye, there was a feeling of great speed and acute awareness. something, someone or my intuition told me to lie still, after a few minutes the spirit bird returned and entered my third eye. it(?) had brought back with it 3 beings i could see and a fourth who i was only aware of by impression, who was some form of mediator. the beings appeared as...i say wizards as i have no other point of reference, perhaps spiritual energy doctors might be closer. they split me into 3 and each one swished his hand through one of my subtler bodies "removing blocks". after a while they finished and disappeared. i had an amazing rush of energy up my spine that was both painful and liberating in some way.

on another occasion i came accross what i feel was my soul, it was half man from the waist upwards and half volcanoe. it was awesome and gigantic in proportion and the upper human part was on fire and in great turmoil and flailing its arms about. i looked intently at it and eventually it became aware of me, as this happened it began to calm down and then join with me to the extent that i could take the power and no more. soul retrieval?

during a meditative state i became aware of a single celled organism i could see in my minds eye. i could feel its total shock and surprise at being recognised or viewed. it attempted to show me its awarenes or join consciousness me, there was a feeling of pure nothingness that was blissfull but at the same time quite scary as i was loosing "me" so unfortunately i resisted.

ayahuasca.
 
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