"In very early history of meditation, people had very specific goals with their practice, namely self-transcendence and enlightenment." "Very specific goals," tells me that they had a goal as specific as, "solve for x in the equation, 10 = 5x." That's the gold standard for how specific a goal can get. Then you turn around and use words like... "self-transcendence: the act or capacity of transcending oneself" "transcendence: the quality or state of exceeding usual limits." So, in order to reach the gold standard of specificity for the goal in question, we have to take the words chosen by you, and answer the question, "What limits are we trying to exceed?" Are we trying to meditate to get faster at solving for x problems? Is there a speed limit on that? Are we meditating to stabilize the brain chemistry past a certain limit of stabilization. Then, there are various measurements for brain chemistry stability. One could be average time between intrusive thoughts or whatever. It makes it worse that these words are made more vague by mystical gurus and such. So, it seems to me that you made this call for specificity, then your answer is not specific at all. "...what if the practice doesn't reflect the hype?" But your answer on what the original meditators were doing was achieving, "self-transcendence," and, "enlightenment," which are very hype-like words today. I don't know if your intention in this video was to give us a method better than the rest of the hype train, because the communication here only shows more of the hype train and unspecific mystical guru stuff. You did mention that we should try our own methods rather than listen to gurus and teachers, but we are listening to you here, and I have to ask the question, by what method should we come up with ideas/techniques/etc to try in meditation? It seems like there is a protocol or system laying underneath your answer to me.
I hope I can be more clear here. Self transcendence and enlightenment are specific goals. It is possible to be free of the sensation of Self in a very precise way. And there are particular contemplative practices for this. That’s a lot of what this channel is geared towards at the moment :) I have a lot of videos on here that cover the topic in depth and intend to keep making them. If the detail you expected was missing in this particular video it’s probably because I had a different audience in mind. I consider that not everyone has the same approach to learning and sometimes it occurs better to me, to develop complex ideas later, when developing a more widely applicable and prior concept :) To answer the latter question: Meditation can be about examining the underlying nature of your consciousness. Can you find an underlying nature? And how would you need to meditate in order to find that? This can be a quicker path towards insight than following techniques we’ve learnt on line, for the sake of “meditating.” Honest, instinctual, moment by moment inquiry. (This approach doesn't work for everyone and systematic instructions may be more useful. But this worked well for me.)
"In very early history of meditation, people had very specific goals with their practice, namely self-transcendence and enlightenment."
"Very specific goals," tells me that they had a goal as specific as, "solve for x in the equation, 10 = 5x." That's the gold standard for how specific a goal can get. Then you turn around and use words like...
"self-transcendence: the act or capacity of transcending oneself"
"transcendence: the quality or state of exceeding usual limits."
So, in order to reach the gold standard of specificity for the goal in question, we have to take the words chosen by you, and answer the question, "What limits are we trying to exceed?" Are we trying to meditate to get faster at solving for x problems? Is there a speed limit on that? Are we meditating to stabilize the brain chemistry past a certain limit of stabilization. Then, there are various measurements for brain chemistry stability. One could be average time between intrusive thoughts or whatever.
It makes it worse that these words are made more vague by mystical gurus and such.
So, it seems to me that you made this call for specificity, then your answer is not specific at all.
"...what if the practice doesn't reflect the hype?"
But your answer on what the original meditators were doing was achieving, "self-transcendence," and, "enlightenment," which are very hype-like words today.
I don't know if your intention in this video was to give us a method better than the rest of the hype train, because the communication here only shows more of the hype train and unspecific mystical guru stuff.
You did mention that we should try our own methods rather than listen to gurus and teachers, but we are listening to you here, and I have to ask the question, by what method should we come up with ideas/techniques/etc to try in meditation? It seems like there is a protocol or system laying underneath your answer to me.
I hope I can be more clear here. Self transcendence and enlightenment are specific goals. It is possible to be free of the sensation of Self in a very precise way. And there are particular contemplative practices for this. That’s a lot of what this channel is geared towards at the moment :) I have a lot of videos on here that cover the topic in depth and intend to keep making them. If the detail you expected was missing in this particular video it’s probably because I had a different audience in mind. I consider that not everyone has the same approach to learning and sometimes it occurs better to me, to develop complex ideas later, when developing a more widely applicable and prior concept :)
To answer the latter question: Meditation can be about examining the underlying nature of your consciousness. Can you find an underlying nature? And how would you need to meditate in order to find that? This can be a quicker path towards insight than following techniques we’ve learnt on line, for the sake of “meditating.” Honest, instinctual, moment by moment inquiry. (This approach doesn't work for everyone and systematic instructions may be more useful. But this worked well for me.)