Meditation questions

Synasta SG

Just curious, but has anyone practicing any kind of meditation experienced somehow being able to induce horripilation at will? It was as though when i was on a "roll", i was able to know and control feelings that i can't describe washing through my body but i am still not aware of the conditions for this to happen. Also sometimes when i meditate i can feel like my stomach is bloated or empty at times and is disturbing my practice.

An Eternal Now SG

What kind of feelings? Pleasant or unpleasant?

Synasta SG

I wouldn't say unpleasant but it isn't exactly pleasant either.

Urdhaytb SG

nobody here can really give you the right answer to your question because there is no one here who has fully mastered meditation. All are practitioners of meditation, some maybe a little more advanced than others but none has fully mastered.

An Eternal Now SG

What u experienced is a common phenomenon.

http://the-wanderling.com/jhana_factors.html

A) Khuddaka-piti—Minor rapture includes symptoms such as hairs standing on end (sometimes all over the body, sometimes only on the head) or tears flowing, sometimes in copious amounts. This form of piti occurs often but not for long durations. Some meditators will experience this form of piti only on rare occasions, others will experience it regularly, while some will not experience this form at all.

Urdhaytb SG

Like I said, none really can give you the rightful answer here, only a Master can. Someone who is a Master can actually enter into your experience and tell you what really happened on the inner planes of consciousness. If what you post is a hoax, the Master can also find out, but a practitoner won't know. A master would be someone who has attained full enlightenment.

An Eternal Now SG

In Buddhism, a fully enlightened being in the sense of omniscience, such a being would be Shakyamuni Buddha and there are not any such beings around. having psychic powers is a different thing, i personally know of many people who have mastery of supernatural powers, yet it is not the same as being omniscient. also, as i have explained before, gaining psychic powers and gaining liberation or enlightenment are two completely different things. there are many skilled in samadhi but are not enlightened yet they have great mastery of psychic powers. and as buddha clearly stated there exists people who are liberated yet do not have psychic powers. such people gained liberation solely on insight and did not train too much on samadhi. it just so happens that all the enlightened persons i personally met and know (say about four or five) have had mastery of psychic powers but it need not be the case.

it is true that there continue to be many highly enlightened practitioners who have realized anatta and sunyata and attained liberation, in this day. As for someone entering into your experience, there are those that are able to do it. i know of people even in this forum who was able to teach me in dreams, know my experiences and so on. But it is not exactly necessary for enlightenment or liberation and not ncessary to help others though it may be of limited help. Anyway what ts experienced is nothing crucial yet, just passing side effects. Various forms of rapture are very common in meditation. And his rapture is not the kind that belongs to the first jhana.

Weychin SG

Maybe, can you please share what sort of meditation are you practising?

And where did you pick the practice and under what conditions,eg. locality, emotional mindset, etc.?

Also, your physical state also affect meditation.

Horripilation means hair standing on end, and body rolling and shaking or even limbs shaking uncontrollably can be triggered by altered states of mind.

Urdhaytb SG

It's very very rare to encounter a fully living realised or enlightened Master with extraordinary powers in this world, so for those who have never meet such a Master in their lives, it is beyond their limited knowledge to comprehend how it is possible that such a being do exists. These Masters never use their given powers for their own self interests but only for the good of humanity. One such Masters was Jesus who can heal, but in spite of that, he never use it to free hiself from being crucified because that would have been against the higher Will.

There have been cases where some Masters had in fact gone beyond the height of nirvana. But they were not as well known as Buddha and they never claimed they did so as not to create any misunderstandings and conflicts because they have full respect fo Lord Buddha.

In the past, when the first man claimed that the earth is round and not flat, he was badly critisized as being mad. There are many things we have not encountered in life and just because we have never come across, does not mean they do not exists or impossible to exist.

If a blind man touch a big elephant, he will say the elephant is like this only and nothing else, for him that would be the highest and only truth he knows, but he dun realise that the Truth could much much bigger that what he knows.

An Eternal Now SG

In Buddhism there is no denying that there has been many who are enlightened (realized anatta, and sunyata) and liberated since Buddha, in fact, uncountable, even till this day and age. Supernatural powers is also a very common thing and is not even peculiar to enlightened beings. Many non-enlightened people have great mastery of psychic powers, needless to speak about enlightened being. As for healing, Jesus is by no means special - my Taiwanese teacher had a success rate of 80% at healing people's cancers, even the last stage cancers thought to be incurable can dissolve completely.

But omniscience* is something that only Buddha has, and as Buddha taught, only one Buddha can appear at any age - as long as his dharma remain unabated, there will not be a next Buddha. The next Buddha will be Maitreya Buddha who shall appear millions of years later.

*Omniscience ( /ɒmˈnɪsiəns/;^[1] omniscient point-of-view in writing) is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known about a character including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, etc.

Also, Buddhism does not speak about a higher will. Because we have realized Anatta and Sunyata, and Dependent Origination, we realize there is no ultimate Source or God to experience (the sense that one's ultimate nature is inseparable from an ultimate Source may indeed be the experience of mystics and contemplatives prior to realizing anatta and sunyata - I myself have gone through such a phase). There is no higher will of experiences, there is only karma, only dependent origination, a process happening without origin, source, controller, and agent.

lastime SG

It does happen depending on which system/style of meditation one practice and the physique/mind of the person.Putting aside the experience of those outside buddhist meditation no because im bias but because i dont have friends from other faith that are good meditators.Basically other than gaining wisdom,peace and concentration, the meditatior will experience 2 type of changes,the most common types will be experiencing changes in bodily feeling and feeling change to bodily shape/size and the last types will be those who start seeing visions.

The 1st type is the more common type and it is not a big problem if u get use to it unless you see side effects after the sitting which by right wont happen.Its common for such "occurence" to happen because by calming our mind and body,the 4 elements (earth,wind,water,fire)will also change and tune their self.body feeling heavy as if the body increase in density,hands or feet having cool rushes,stomach feeling bloated but in fact its the same,feeling the head is no longer there,feel that ones presence have expand and feel the room..etc etc

Nothing to worry about,Just note what happen and if it happen afew more times in the future you wont get the "wah" state of mind just knowing it happen and continue with your object of meditation.Just understand how it come and see how it goes,some thing interesting to encounter but just some desserts for your meditation not the main dish of your practice.

I seriously dont think you need some one who is fully mastered to encounter what you are facing since these are just the bits and pieces of the path one will face if one meditate often,enlightened masters wise or beyond nirvana i wont dare to comment because i myself is not "beyond" nirvana.

Last but not least which is the important part,find yourself a good master and learn from him.he will be able to guide you from there,aforum is a place to share but its just a place for extra opinion not for meditation guidance.