Could any “enlightened” person self-immolate with apparent equanimity?
Concentration and enlightenment are different things. Concentration lets you self-immolate with apparent equanimity while concentrating. Enlightenment lets you self-immolate with equanimity while not concentrating.
There are degrees to awakening. Few are at that level of enlightenment or concentration.
Could you?
Right now? No. Absolutely not. The closest I’ve gotten are “I once touched a hot lid while cooking and didn’t feel pain-as-suffering” and “I ate some very spicy food and sat in a chair unable to do anything useful, but felt no suffering from to the experience”. (Both were automatic, requiring no concentration.)
If not, how far are you from being able to...
It’s important to distinguish stage of awakening from pure concentration ability. If you want to self-immolate, that may require more concentration than mere awakening. I’m just guessing here, though. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to self-immolate with equanimity—merely apparent or not—and have no intention to do so. In any case, my practice is more insight and integration focused. I’m not maxing out my concentration stat—at least right now.
...and is it possible for everybody to reach that state?
Theoretically? More-or-less. In practice, no. In any case, I feel questions like this about whether “everybody can” do something are too philosophically messy to give a definite answer to.
If you want to self-immolate, that may require more concentration than mere awakening. I’m just guessing here, though. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to self-immolate with equanimity—merely apparent or not—and have no intention to do so.
Neither do I, of course, it’s just that this is the most salient example available to me of a “superpower” that the meditation-adjacent cluster apparently can grant, without needing to rely on hard-to-verify reports about altered inner states. Most of my skepticism about this cluster is due to its serious practitioners never seeming to achieve impressive “worldly” feats at a noticeably higher rate than non-meditators do. The stuff about elimination of suffering is a bit too vague and wishy-washy for my taste, and I seem to be lucky enough to naturally have a temperament not particularly prone to suffering anyway.
In any case, I feel questions like this about whether “everybody can” do something are too philosophically messy to give a definite answer to.
Well, as a mildly curious outsider, my impression is that there are two major points of view on this—the traditional one is that enlightenment is far out of reach for mere mortals, you need to undergo many cycles of reincarnation and karma accumulation to even have a chance of sniffing it etc, whereas the modern perspective is that it’s in principle available to basically everybody in this life, given the right attitude and practice, which I gather is the one you agree with.
For what it’s worth, here’s a list of “powers” I got either after awakening or along the way to it:
the ability to see ultraviolet light (this is not exactly true, but things that reflect lots of UV light “glow” for me in a way other objects don’t (most noticeable with flowers))
a greatly increased ability to tolerate loud sounds, like at a concert or party (previously I found loudness mindbreakingly painful)
far fewer tension headaches and migraines
the ability to make myself do anything (no crippling fear)
cured me of boredom (I am literally never bored)
cured me of narcolepsy (I still dream a lot, but I no longer have sleep attacks)
cured me of OCD
greatly improved cognitive empathy
And surely more that I’ve forgotten. All of these are some version of either improved perception or better homeostatic regulation.
Some people report other “powers”. Other than occasional fantastical claims about levitation that I’ve never seen, they are mostly like mine, either improved perception or better regulation.
the ability to see ultraviolet light (this is not exactly true, but things that reflect lots of UV light “glow” for me in a way other objects don’t (most noticeable with flowers))
This is fascinating! Do you know of others who have gained this ability? Has anything been written about this (by you or anyone else)? This seems like something which should definitely be investigated seriously!
Yeah, I don’t know. I was also surprised when I first learned this was possible after I went looking for info when I noticed the glowing thing, but it’s the best explanation I have for what’s going on. My best guess is that what’s actually happening is that I’m noticing how things that reflect UV light are brighter than other things because they are reflecting more total light even if I’m mostly failing to see the UV light itself (or there’s something wrong with my lenses and meditation just made me able to notice what was already going on and I was previously ignoring?).
How did you connect the objects you see as glowing with UV light specifically? Couldn’t the glow be a hallucination or a perceptual rewiring like the persistent “breathing wallpaper” LSD users can start seeing, or some different physical property entirely? Can you see UV light emitted by machines that should be invisible like a person in the newscientist link claims he could after he got an artificial lens?
On leaving hospital, I decided I deserved a pint of bitter. Standing at the bar of my local pub, I noticed that their device for detecting counterfeit banknotes was emitting very bright bluish light. I mentioned this to the barman, who looked at me with a very quizzical expression but made no comment. I then realised that he couldn’t see the light: it was visible through my right eye alone.
Mostly because I first noticed the effect with objects I knew reflect a lot of UV light, like flowers, which gave me the idea, and then I did a little experiment and sure enough stuff that should reflect a lot of UV light glowed more than stuff that doesn’t.
As I say, I may be wrong to say I see UV light, and instead what’s happening is I see something that correlates with UV light. I didn’t have any devices that emit UV light only to test with. Just hasn’t been that important to me to test, since this is just a random thing of little consequence other than it’s a small example of a perceptual “power” I got from meditation, and if I’m wrong about the UV then it’s something else going on causing me to notice some other quality of light I was ignoring before.
I got a few of these powers too. Specifically “a greatly increased ability to tolerate loud sounds” and “greatly improved cognitive empathy”. I might have “cured me of boredom” too, but it hasn’t been long enough to be sure yet—and I don’t know if this ability would withstand much worse life circumstances like prison.
In addition to that subset of Gordon’s powers, my anxiety has lowered enough I stopped biting my fingernails after a lifetime of doing so. (An older genetic relative of mine who bites her nails and doesn’t meditate has not experienced this.) This nailbiting thing is very recent—it started only about a month ago—so there is a chance it’ll revert.
I’ve also just chilled out, in a way that makes me a better listener and causes other people to like me better. This one is recent too, but it’s so common among meditators I’m not worried about it sticking.
What’s your opinion on the “serious practitioners never seeming to achieve impressive ‘worldly’ feats at a noticeably higher rate than non-meditators do” issue? Some of the features you listed sure sound like they should be a big help with that, and yet the primary meditator stereotypes seem to still be the layabout hippie and the ethically dubious cult-leader guru.
There’s two people I know in meatspace that have been doing this stuff for decades and to whom I look up for inspiration and guidence. They’re super humble since they have no need to prove anything.
I’ve never seen them express the slightest stress or mental tension. Zuiko of them is an old woman who’s hands hurt and are failing due to arthritis and she seemed more concerned with just listening to me than talking about her problems. In fact, she barely mentions her health issues unless I specifically ask. I have a friend who didn’t even realize she was highly awakened until after I pointed it out to him.
To paraphrase Nick Cammarata: “If you want to be a billionaire, try getting enlightened first and then check to see how much you still care about becoming a billionaire.” This awakening stuff tends to disassemble the status-seeking and ladder climbing motivational systems that cause people to get famous. I’m a more empathetic dancer due to meditation, but I doubt that’ll make me world famous.
I’ve never seen them express the slightest stress or mental tension. Zuiko of them is an old woman who’s hands hurt and are failing due to arthritis and she seemed more concerned with just listening to me than talking about her problems.
Sounds like a(nother) good example of the downsides of lacking pain/stress.
This feels like a major sticking point, though. If it does dissipate, then the fact that meditation has a profound effect on your values in a way you likely wouldn’t endorse in advance seems like something its promoters should be upfront about.
If it doesn’t dissipate, then we’re back to the conundrum that the various significant improvements ostensibly acquired through meditation don’t appear to translate into unusual efficiency at accomplishing real-world tasks. Money is the unit of caring, after all, so becoming a billionaire is instrumentally convergent even to somebody free of status-seeking and ladder climbing motivational systems. Or, alternatively, becoming a prominent scientist that cures cancer seems like the sort of thing that can cause people to get famous.
Ah, I misunderstood your question about whether everybody can attain enlightenment. I take the modern perspective that most people can attain awakening, and there’s no such thing as reincarnation, since incorporeal souls are not real.
Concentration and enlightenment are different things. Concentration lets you self-immolate with apparent equanimity while concentrating. Enlightenment lets you self-immolate with equanimity while not concentrating.
There are degrees to awakening. Few are at that level of enlightenment or concentration.
Right now? No. Absolutely not. The closest I’ve gotten are “I once touched a hot lid while cooking and didn’t feel pain-as-suffering” and “I ate some very spicy food and sat in a chair unable to do anything useful, but felt no suffering from to the experience”. (Both were automatic, requiring no concentration.)
It’s important to distinguish stage of awakening from pure concentration ability. If you want to self-immolate, that may require more concentration than mere awakening. I’m just guessing here, though. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to self-immolate with equanimity—merely apparent or not—and have no intention to do so. In any case, my practice is more insight and integration focused. I’m not maxing out my concentration stat—at least right now.
Theoretically? More-or-less. In practice, no. In any case, I feel questions like this about whether “everybody can” do something are too philosophically messy to give a definite answer to.
Thank you for engaging!
Neither do I, of course, it’s just that this is the most salient example available to me of a “superpower” that the meditation-adjacent cluster apparently can grant, without needing to rely on hard-to-verify reports about altered inner states. Most of my skepticism about this cluster is due to its serious practitioners never seeming to achieve impressive “worldly” feats at a noticeably higher rate than non-meditators do. The stuff about elimination of suffering is a bit too vague and wishy-washy for my taste, and I seem to be lucky enough to naturally have a temperament not particularly prone to suffering anyway.
Well, as a mildly curious outsider, my impression is that there are two major points of view on this—the traditional one is that enlightenment is far out of reach for mere mortals, you need to undergo many cycles of reincarnation and karma accumulation to even have a chance of sniffing it etc, whereas the modern perspective is that it’s in principle available to basically everybody in this life, given the right attitude and practice, which I gather is the one you agree with.
For what it’s worth, here’s a list of “powers” I got either after awakening or along the way to it:
the ability to see ultraviolet light (this is not exactly true, but things that reflect lots of UV light “glow” for me in a way other objects don’t (most noticeable with flowers))
a greatly increased ability to tolerate loud sounds, like at a concert or party (previously I found loudness mindbreakingly painful)
far fewer tension headaches and migraines
the ability to make myself do anything (no crippling fear)
cured me of boredom (I am literally never bored)
cured me of narcolepsy (I still dream a lot, but I no longer have sleep attacks)
cured me of OCD
greatly improved cognitive empathy
And surely more that I’ve forgotten. All of these are some version of either improved perception or better homeostatic regulation.
Some people report other “powers”. Other than occasional fantastical claims about levitation that I’ve never seen, they are mostly like mine, either improved perception or better regulation.
This is fascinating! Do you know of others who have gained this ability? Has anything been written about this (by you or anyone else)? This seems like something which should definitely be investigated seriously!
Huh, apparently this is a thing. Retinas can see into UV, but UV light is normally filtered out by the lens.
Young adults can see UV light
Claude Monet got cataract surgery in his 80s and might have started seeing into UV with the filtering lens gone.
Medical article about cataract surgeries and UV protection
No idea how you could start seeing UV by rewiring your brain if your eyeballs still have the original lenses though.
Yeah, I don’t know. I was also surprised when I first learned this was possible after I went looking for info when I noticed the glowing thing, but it’s the best explanation I have for what’s going on. My best guess is that what’s actually happening is that I’m noticing how things that reflect UV light are brighter than other things because they are reflecting more total light even if I’m mostly failing to see the UV light itself (or there’s something wrong with my lenses and meditation just made me able to notice what was already going on and I was previously ignoring?).
How did you connect the objects you see as glowing with UV light specifically? Couldn’t the glow be a hallucination or a perceptual rewiring like the persistent “breathing wallpaper” LSD users can start seeing, or some different physical property entirely? Can you see UV light emitted by machines that should be invisible like a person in the newscientist link claims he could after he got an artificial lens?
Mostly because I first noticed the effect with objects I knew reflect a lot of UV light, like flowers, which gave me the idea, and then I did a little experiment and sure enough stuff that should reflect a lot of UV light glowed more than stuff that doesn’t.
As I say, I may be wrong to say I see UV light, and instead what’s happening is I see something that correlates with UV light. I didn’t have any devices that emit UV light only to test with. Just hasn’t been that important to me to test, since this is just a random thing of little consequence other than it’s a small example of a perceptual “power” I got from meditation, and if I’m wrong about the UV then it’s something else going on causing me to notice some other quality of light I was ignoring before.
I got a few of these powers too. Specifically “a greatly increased ability to tolerate loud sounds” and “greatly improved cognitive empathy”. I might have “cured me of boredom” too, but it hasn’t been long enough to be sure yet—and I don’t know if this ability would withstand much worse life circumstances like prison.
In addition to that subset of Gordon’s powers, my anxiety has lowered enough I stopped biting my fingernails after a lifetime of doing so. (An older genetic relative of mine who bites her nails and doesn’t meditate has not experienced this.) This nailbiting thing is very recent—it started only about a month ago—so there is a chance it’ll revert.
I’ve also just chilled out, in a way that makes me a better listener and causes other people to like me better. This one is recent too, but it’s so common among meditators I’m not worried about it sticking.
What’s your opinion on the “serious practitioners never seeming to achieve impressive ‘worldly’ feats at a noticeably higher rate than non-meditators do” issue? Some of the features you listed sure sound like they should be a big help with that, and yet the primary meditator stereotypes seem to still be the layabout hippie and the ethically dubious cult-leader guru.
There’s two people I know in meatspace that have been doing this stuff for decades and to whom I look up for inspiration and guidence. They’re super humble since they have no need to prove anything.
I’ve never seen them express the slightest stress or mental tension. Zuiko of them is an old woman who’s hands hurt and are failing due to arthritis and she seemed more concerned with just listening to me than talking about her problems. In fact, she barely mentions her health issues unless I specifically ask. I have a friend who didn’t even realize she was highly awakened until after I pointed it out to him.
To paraphrase Nick Cammarata: “If you want to be a billionaire, try getting enlightened first and then check to see how much you still care about becoming a billionaire.” This awakening stuff tends to disassemble the status-seeking and ladder climbing motivational systems that cause people to get famous. I’m a more empathetic dancer due to meditation, but I doubt that’ll make me world famous.
Sounds like a(nother) good example of the downsides of lacking pain/stress.
Ok, but does the desire to do the greatest good for the greatest number also dissipate?
I haven’t asked.
This feels like a major sticking point, though. If it does dissipate, then the fact that meditation has a profound effect on your values in a way you likely wouldn’t endorse in advance seems like something its promoters should be upfront about.
If it doesn’t dissipate, then we’re back to the conundrum that the various significant improvements ostensibly acquired through meditation don’t appear to translate into unusual efficiency at accomplishing real-world tasks. Money is the unit of caring, after all, so becoming a billionaire is instrumentally convergent even to somebody free of status-seeking and ladder climbing motivational systems. Or, alternatively, becoming a prominent scientist that cures cancer seems like the sort of thing that can cause people to get famous.
Ah, I misunderstood your question about whether everybody can attain enlightenment. I take the modern perspective that most people can attain awakening, and there’s no such thing as reincarnation, since incorporeal souls are not real.