Monday, May 3, 2010

"The Rapture" in Buddhist meditation

(Soundlessdawn) Everything in the universe vibrates and oscillates; therefore, the connecting link between all forms of energy is vibration, sympathetic harmony, and resonance. Dr. Dan Burisch, David Wilcock (aka, Edgar Cayce), and others have discovered that a simple quartz crystal, electricity, and water are all the ingredients needed to create a medium for spontaneous DNA to appear in the vacuum.

"Rapture" in Meditation

In Buddhist terminology, rapture (piti) refers to a meditative state. It is a blissful feeling in the body also called enthusiasm, joy, happiness, and pleasurable interest in the object of meditation. Its onset is based on virtue and persistent application of the mind in an effort to concentrate during meditation.

It is a mental factor accompanying virtue and concentration (samadhi). It is also classified in the Abhidharma as a construct or mental formation. In the sutras, it is often linked in a compound word with "gladness" or "happiness" -- sukha, namely, the opposite of dukkha (suffering). Some Western translations have wrongly taken it to be a synonym for these two terms.

Rapture, however, is not a feeling or sensation; it does not belong to the feeling (vedanā) group. Nevertheless, psychologically it may be described as "joyful interest" in the object of meditation. Its pleasantness, serenity, and escalating energy lead one to be more interested in practice, to resist distractions, and to quick progress. As such it may be associated with wholesome, unwholesome, or neutral states of consciousness.

A high degree of rapture is characteristic of certain stages of meditative concentration present in the first two absorptions (jhāna) as well as in insight (vipassanā) practice. In the former it appears as one of the Factors of Absorption and is strongest in the second absorption. Five degrees of intensity in meditative rapture are described in Path of Purification (IV. 94ff). Most importantly, piti is one of the Factors of Enlightenment (bojjhaṅga).

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