Zen Moment

[Brickjectivity]

Nasty ol' hormones!

Your description reminds me of a passage from one of the Dune novels in which the Bene Gessarit witches can control their bodily functions down to the single cell.

 

[crossfire]

Your description reminds me of a passage from one of the Dune novels in which the Bene Gessarit witches can control their bodily functions down to the single cell.

I ain't there yet. I prefer my unconscious mind to take care of that stuff. It's a whole lot smarter than my conscious mind and much better equipped to handle that stuff.

 

[Brickjectivity]

I ain't there yet. I prefer my unconscious mind to take care of that stuff. It's a whole lot smarter than my conscious mind and much better equipped to handle that stuff.

When you were studying PMS signals did you find what you were trying to find out?

 

[crossfire]

When you were studying PMS signals did you find what you were trying to find out?

Well, yeah. Hormones are nasty and irritatingly persistent. You'd get testy too if you had little molecules continually buzzing whatever receptors they keep buzzing. You can notice it and understand why it is emotionally irritating, but you can't make it stop. Sorta like when Patrick Swayze kept singing "Henry The Eighth" to Whoopie Goldberg in the movie Ghost

 

[Sunstone]

Sure, and I wasn't being critical. Though there are a wide range of "spiritual" experiences, and they don't necessarily conform to the samadhi-type definition you provided.
It's about clarity. And about having an open mind to other people's "spiritual" experiences, which might be quite different to yours.

Good points. The test is entirely intended to help anyone who is interested in figuring out whether they themselves have had a certain sort of mystical experience, and it is useless to anyone but them in that way.

 

[SalixIncendium]

In a causal way of speaking, "yes", Meerkat. Usually "yes" will do. But sometimes, it can matter to answer your question with unusual precision and try to get the answer as precisely correct as words will allow. At that point, it becomes necessary to state something along the lines of, "It's not of description of samadhi, but a test for whether samadhi occurred at some specified past moment."

In either case, the test doesn't really describe samadhi more than to the least degree possible. The test is akin to asking someone, "Did you smell smoke yesterday?" Big difference between the smell of smoke and even smoke, let alone fire.

The test cannot detect something happening now. Only whether something happened before now.

For all it's inadequacies, it's a whole lot more reliable way of helping someone to figure out whether they have had an experience of samadhi than anything else I've seen or heard tried. It especially beasts trying to describe samadhi to someone, then, in effect, asking them whether they understood what you were talking about well enough to correctly answer the question. And it sure beats trying to explain the causes of samadhi to someone, then expecting them to figure out how the causes might have resulted in the experience they had.

You're right. I should have elaborated to be more specific as to what was being referred to as 'samadhi.' My reply was a bit lazy.

It is the state of being, not the test, that is referred to as samadhi. The test is just that; a test to determine if one has attained that state.