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Buddhism is a religion associated with a way of life and a culture. It's not something a businessman does on a "weekend retreat" as "mindfulness practice" to get back in the rat race refreshed.
There's no Buddhism in the West, but in name. Buddhism is a religion associated with a way of life and a culture. It's not something a businessman does on a "weekend retreat" as "mindfulness practice" to get back in the rat race refreshed.
There's no Buddhism in the West, but in name. Buddhism is a religion associated with a way of life and a culture. It's not something a businessman does on a "weekend retreat" as "mindfulness practice" to get back in the rat race refreshed.
It's definitely something a Thai business man would do though.
Sounds like jhana worked and they awoke, via a Kundalini awakening. It's a shame the teachers couldn't provide more support.
> Often in the silence and darkness of my room at night I found myself looking with dread at horribly disfigured faces and distorted forms bending and twisting into shapes, appearing and disappearing rapidly in the shining medium, eddying and swirling in and around me. They left me trembling with fear, unable to account for their presence. At times, though such occurrences were rare, I could perceive within the luminous mist a brighter radiance emanating from a luciferous, ethereal shape, with a hardly distinguishable face and figure, but nevertheless a presence, emitting a lustre so soft, enchanting, and soothing that on such occasions my mind overflowed with happiness and an indescribable divine peace filled every fibre of my being. Strangely enough, on every such occasion the memory of the primary vision, which occurred on the first day of the awakening, came vividly to me as if to hearten me in the midst of despondency with a fleeting glimpse of a supercondition towards which I was being painfully and inexorably drawn.
There's no Buddhism in the West, but in name. Buddhism is a religion associated with a way of life and a culture. It's not something a businessman does on a "weekend retreat" as "mindfulness practice" to get back in the rat race refreshed.
I certainly have met Buddhism pratictioners in the West that were deep into the way of life and culture.
Yeah, I'm sure that has nothing to do with psychotic breakdowns.
My most intense mindfulness experience was on a two-week silent retreat, in the woods, isolated from all of humanity. At the beginning, I met only the creatures of the forest and heard only the whispers of the trees. By the sixth day I was hallucinating gold and purple snakes slithering out of my belly onto the ground around me. By the eighth day I had visions of a cloud island vista with animals the world had never…