Chronic wrote:... i heard that part of the Buddhas initiation for new aspirants was to have them sit watching burning corpses for days on end, i find that in this kind of contemplation it's like eventually something clicks and you no longer separate your own body from the skeleton/corpse you are observing, this can elicit an awakening to the deeper spiritual reality of awareness...
This type of meditation certainly does elicit an incredibly deep awakening.
Thirty years ago I had the privilege of spending several months with an elite, secret sect of Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka.
At one point in my "training", they had me sit in meditation, in a small hut, on massive doses of Owsley's LSD, with a pile of human skeletons laying in the corner of the hut & I was supposed to meditate on those bones....and I did that for 3 days straight (I could barely walk afterwards).
This training worked its magic.
At one point, I was dead. I was not me, I didn't even know what "I" or "me" was & didn't care. I was nothing & everything at the same time, except there was no time; all was infinite. Wherever "I" had gone, what was left was infinite.
I cannot begin to relate in words just how peaceful those moments were.
After that, I was no longer afraid of death.
Peace.
Freedom's so hard
When we are all bound by laws
Etched in the scheme of nature's own hand
Unseen by all those who fail
In their pursuit of fate