increased ability?

[LenaNight]

I dont know if its really possible, but I've found myself drawn to buddist beliefs, and have been trying chakra meditations and binuaral audio both and I've noticed my hearing is alot more sensitive then it ever was, I can hear things that no one else can hear but I know its real like when most recently I heard a thunderstorm half an hour before everyone else could hear it.

I like this, and would love to increase this ability, especially vision as my normal eye is pretty poor.. but is this just a placebo effect?

[SoulSail]

Maybe, maybe not. I've had the lightening thing happen once before, and once only.

Although exciting, such transcendental phenomenon, psychic activity, gifts, etc. are more of a bane to meditation, concentration, and insight as they relate to Buddhist meditation. Fact is, if you meditate for any time, this stuff comes all on its own. It's part of the package, but don't lose sight of the primary goal, unless developing these gifts IS your primary goal.

Make sense?


Soul

[SoulSail]

My last post sort of came out fumbly, so I'm copying from an earlier post I made on the subject from last December:

I was recently going through one of my all time favorite books on Tibetan yoga and meditation (The Five Tibetans: Five Dynamic Exercises for Health, Energy, and Personal Power) and came across this brilliant paragraph, which I clearly felt the need to share:

"A friend of mine was once at a long and intensive meditation retreat. Over the course of a few weeks he had many unusual and powerful experiences. He felt as though he were floating in space, as though he were as big as a planet, as though he could embrace all of creation. There were times when he drifted out of his body and other times when sensations of energy roared up his spine. He was very excited about the experiences he was having, so he went to the teacher who was leading the retreat and recounted everything that had happened to him. After my friend was done giving a detailed rundown of all that had transpired, the teacher looked at him with a warm and reassuring smile and said, 'Don’t worry, it will pass.' This is the full value of meditation experiences. They are like signs along a road. They are not the goal, just part of the scenery. They are interesting, but they are not what practice is about. It is only clear, pure mind that matters."

[ButterflyWoman]

Don’t worry, it will pass.

Indeed. I used to record a lot of these experiences, just for the sake of it (a journal is a record of a journey, after all), but it eventually dawned on me that while there's nothing wrong with noting and recording the scenery, that stuff is not the destination. It sounds absurdly obvious to me now, so obvious I'm almost embarrassed to write it down as if it's some kind of wisdom or something, but it's very easy to get all drawn in and entangled with the experiences, even to the point of getting off the road and wandering off into it.

Now, I'm not convinced that this is actually a problem. I mean, it IS about the journey, at least in part. There's no reason not to enjoy it, even visit with it for a while. But if you're actually intending to go somewhere, it pays to keep that in mind and keep going. Though, I'm not sure there really is a "destination", per se. Every time I get to where I think I'm "there", I find out that there's more, that a whole new chapter has opened up, that a whole new "destination" has become available and desirable... The rabbit hole is truly bottomless.

[LenaNight]

While I admit liking these experiences, I do still keep in mind my main goal is liberation. I have no desire to be a TV Psychic or something and making money off abilities in the least. If they go away thats fine too, my main thing is I want to be able to see, feel and hear the truth around me. If there are ghosts, I want to see them, if a storm is coming I want to know and so on.

Im very big on truth, even before becoming spiritual, so total awareness fits me well, but my main wish of this is just so i can always see the truth, I dont want things to be hidden from me.