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Candrakīrti, Jesus, Ken Wilber, mystical experience, New Testament, perennialism, religion, Robert Sharf, Wilhelm Halbfass
I’ve been wanting to refer on the blog to the article I recently wrote for the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice. Out of respect for the journal’s hardworking editors (and the law!), I will not post the article or its text on the site. But I’d like to give a summary of what I said there, so that blog readers without access to JITP will know what I’m talking about. The argument here is not as precise or careful as that in the article, and readers will need to find a copy of JITP 7(2) to get those details.
The article is above all a critique of Ken Wilber’s method in cross-cultural philosophy, a method that Wilber himself describes as a form of empiricism. (This is above all the method of the current Wilber-5; Wilber’s previous phases of thought strike me as significantly different in this regard.) Wilber recognizes that a philosophy which aspires to synthesis cannot include everything of every position. So he takes on a principle for what to include and what to leave out: he includes only experiences, and then only those experiences which have been brought about by social practices, of the form “if you want to do this, you must do this.” Forms of knowledge or belief that are derived from anything other than these enacted experiences, Wilber refers to pejoratively as “metaphysics” and dismisses.
The presumed payoff of this approach of Wilber’s is that it allows him to integrate both natural science and many different “religions” (or “great wisdom traditions”), on the grounds that this is how they all work. I’m not disputing this methodological approach as a characterization of natural science; it seems to me more or less right as far as it goes. The problem comes when addressing the premodern traditions that we refer to as “religions”. Wilber can take this approach because he claims repeatedly that the “core” or “essentials” of these traditions are constituted by replicable mystical experiences: one follows certain practices, such as prayer or meditation, and will then reliably achieve certain states of consciousness as a result. Wilber’s philosophy is then above all an attempt to integrate the knowledge of science with the knowledge derived from these states of consciousness.
The problem with this approach is simple: these replicable mystical experiences simply are not the core of the vast majority of traditions out there. To start with, most Buddhists – in history or today – have never meditated, even the monks. This goes even more so for other traditions, where mysticism of the structured sort Wilber describes is very much a minority approach. I think Wilber recognizes this much, and is claiming that the core or essentials of each tradition are not to be found among its majority, but its élite masters. While that’s a point one can reasonably make, it is important to remember what a strong claim it is: he is saying that the majority of practitioners in every tradition have missed the essentials – which is surely to say, missed the point – of their own tradition. If you’re going to make a claim that strong, you’d better have good evidence for it.
Unfortunately, Wilber’s evidence for this claim is not strong. He often drops the names of esteemed masters as examples of replicable mystical experience, such as Zhiyi (Chih-i), Buddhaghosa, and Śaṅkara. But as Robert Sharf and Wilhelm Halbfass have noted, the work of these thinkers contains no reference to their personal experiences; they claim instead that they draw on the authority of past tradition, just as the majority of their fellow adherents does. (Some great masters, most notably Candrakīrti, warn their readers not to depend on experience, which is unreliable.) For some teachers, including Jesus, Wilber takes a few quotes with little context and assumes without argument that they were derived from mystical experience. In Jesus’s case, he focuses especially on the claim in the Gospel of John that “I and the Father are One”. But neither the Gospels nor Wilber give us any evidence that Jesus derived this claim from a replicable mystical experience – as opposed to, say, deriving it from a past prophetic tradition (assuming he even said it at all, which the late provenance of John may cast into doubt).
Even these shaky claims of Wilber’s are drawn mainly from Christianity, Buddhism and Advaita Vedānta, traditions in which mystical experience has played a more prominent role than others. In Judaism and Confucianism, by comparison, there is precious little mystical experience to be found. One could count the Jewish prophets’ encounters with God (like the burning bush) as mystical experiences of a sort, but they come unbidden; they are certainly not enacted by replicable social practices. The mystical tradition of Kabbalah – one of the only elements of Judaism that Wilber refers to – is not only marginal to the Jewish mainstream, it is a later development.
The point of this criticism is to establish that replicable mystical experience is simply not the “core” or “essentials” of the premodern traditions. The view that it is, is a construct of the 19th-century quest for a “perennial philosophy” with perennial answers to the great questions. But while I have long agreed that there are perennial questions, I do not buy the claim that they have perennial answers, and certainly not that mystical experience supplies those answers universally. The perennial questions are perennially disputed, with answers going in multiple directions. In my view, a synthesis between different views needs to be found dialectically. One cannot put the traditions together by assuming that they are the same at their heart, whether in terms of mystical experience or anything else — for they aren’t. Instead, one must start with their differences as given, and take those differences as a starting point from which a mature and complex synthesis can be worked out. That’s harder, but as far as I can tell, it’s the only way to find a genuinely encompassing truth. And no empiricist method will get you there, not even one that incorporates mystical experiences alongside scientific ones.
1. Certainly, the issue of whether contemplative practices which lead to mystical experiences are the ONLY practices in a religious tradition is a trivial issue. A cursory look at the major religious traditions will show that they include a great deal more than these contemplative practices.
2. What then is the important issue in this context? It must be the issue of whether contemplative practices leading to mystical experiences and claims or beliefs which require appeals to such experiences constitute the “core” of these religious traditions.
3. What does it mean to claim that “contemplative practices leading to mystical experiences and claims or beliefs which require appeals to such experiences constitute the “core” of these religious traditions”?
It certainly means that these practices and experiences and claims or beliefs based on them are essential or indispensable to those religious traditions.
4. I have pointed out in earlier comments on this blog that “supernaturalism”, or set of beliefs on the supernatural, is the core of religious traditions.
The argument for this is simple:
Moral and ritualistic prescriptions, whose crucial importance to these religious traditions is obvious, are based on “supernaturalism”.
5. How do these traditions defend their “supernaturalist” core?
It is either by appeal to the authority of a text, or set of texts, and/or the appeal to the authority of the founder and/or central figures in the history of these traditions.
6. A simple question follows:
What constitutes, or makes, the authority of the texts, the founder, and the central figures in these religious traditions?
Indisputably, in the case of ALL of these traditions, it is the encounters with, or experiences of, the supernatural. In other words, mystical experience(s).
7. The “supernaturalist” core of Judaism obviously depends on the mystical encounters or experiences of Abraham, Moses, Job, and so on, with Yahweh.
The “supernaturalist” core of Islam obviously depends on the mystical encounters of Mohammed. The authoritativeness of the Koran depends on the authority of Mohammed and the authority of Mohammed is based, in the view of the Islamic traditions, on his mystical encounters with Gabriel, receptions of revelations from Allah, and so on.
The “supernaturalist” core of Christianity obviously depends on the authority of the Bible and Jesus. The authority of Jesus depends on his mystical encounters, e.g., with Satan, the exhibition of supernatural powers or miracles, the supernatural events of “immaculate conception” and resurrection, and on and on! His central declaration that “The kingdom of heaven is within you” can be understood ONLY in mystical or supernatural terms.
The “supernaturalist” core of Buddhism, e.g., reincarnation, nirvana, enlightenment, Bodhisattvas, after-death states and worlds, Gods, demons, “hungry ghost” and their “realms”, etc., clearly depends on the authority of texts replete with accounts of the “supernaturalist” core.
What makes those texts authoritative?
Certainly, at the very least, it is their status as repositories of veridical accounts of the Buddha’s life and teachings, and this, of course, implies that they have status as repositories of veridical accounts of the Buddha’s struggle for enlightenment, encounter with Mara, insight into supernatural realms and their beings, and so forth.
East Asian Buddhism, the Chan and Zen traditions of China and Japan, is based on accounts of, and appeals to, the enlightenment, and mystical experiences constitutive of it, of the masters.
Show me one East Asian Buddhist tradition bereft of such appeals to the enlightenment, and mysticla experiences constitutive of it, of the masters and I’ll arrange for an immediate transfer of $ 64 million in supernatural currency!!! LOL
8. Sankara’s appeal to the authority of the Sruti (e.g., in his commentary on Brahma-sutra 1.1.2) presupposes and, hence, logically requires, an appeal to the verdicality of the mystical experiences of the Rishis or seers who originally composed or “heard” the truths of the Sruti.
The word “Sruti” means “what is heard”. Now “what is heard” is always “what is heard by someone”.
Hence, the authoritativeness of “what is heard” logically depends on the authority of the person(s) who were the original recipients of the contents of “what is heard” or the revelations of Sruti.
The authority of the person(s), Rsis, who were the original recipients of “what is heard” depends on the belief that they had the mystical experiences (anubhava) which constitute direct knowledge of Brahman.
I have argued in a comment sometime ago on this blog that only a direct experience of Brahman is the means of knowledge (in contrast to having beliefs) of Brahman.
If the mere acquaintance with the Sruti’s declarations on Brahman were to constitute knowledge of Brahman, then every Chandala (outcaste) who has accidentally heard a Brahmin reciting the relevant portions of the Sruti should be deemed “a knower of Brahman”!
I am sure that the sagacious Sankara, given his penchant for avoiding Chandalas (recall the famous episode in which Sankara was rebuked by a Chandala who was asked to move aside and give way to the distinguished teacher who feared “pollution”) would shirk from embracing this implication!
Now, if the mere acquaintance with the Sruti’s declarations on Brahman is not sufficient for knowledge of Brahman, what is sufficient?
Clearly, it must be the direct experience (anubhava) of Brahman.
Hence, given that the knowledge of Brahman (supernaturalism) is the core of Advaita (and Dvaita and Visistadvaita traditions), and mystical experience or experience of Brahman is the only means of knowledge of Brahman, it follows that mystical experience is the core of Advaita and other traditions of “Vedanta”.
Q.E.D.
Some clarifications are in order:
1. The issue of whether the appeal to mystical experience as a means of knowledge of the supernatural is of crucial importance in religious traditions is logically independent of the issue of whether different religious traditions appeal to the same mystical experiences or experiences of the same supernatural “realities”.
2. My central argument can be put succinctly as follows:
A. “Supernaturalism” is the core of religious traditions.
B. The ultimate court of appeal for “supernaturalism” is mystical experience.
C. Therefore, the appeal to mystical experience is of central and crucial importance in religious traditions.
3. The affirmation of (2C) does not imply that one must accept “supernaturalism” and the “veridciality” of mystical experience.
In fact, the affirmation of (2C) is consistent with a denial of the credibility of religious traditions on the grounds that there is no evidence for “supernaturalism” (which constitutes their core), or on the grounds that that there is good evidence against “supernaturalism”, and that mystical experiences are not veridical.
4. Speaking of “synthesis”, I think that it would be fascinating if a coherent synthesis of naturalism and supernaturalism can be achieved.
The Indian mystic Aurobindo (1872 – 1950) attempted this synthesis, but I think his undertaking is marred by serious inconsistencies and claims undermined by evidence.
Naturally, these perils face any attempt to “synthesize” logically incompatible and mutually exclusive claims.
Amod:
About Shankara I would say that you are half right. Those in the Advaitic tradition down to the present are very keen on the samadhi state as leading to realisation. He himself counted it a mere state like any other holding that only knowledge could dispel ignorance.
B.S.B. II.i.10
Jews of the O.T. had a constant agonistic relationship with God. Mystical experience is interwoven in the narrative. But perhaps you have something else in mind, a narrower definition of what constitutes mystical experience?
Yes, as I note near the end above, the described encounters of Moses or the other Hebrew prophets with God are not mystical experiences in the sense that Wilber describes. This is even assuming the questionable point that these encounters reflect something that the prophets actually perceived themselves, as opposed to something that later tradition attributed to them in retrospect. Even if that’s the case, such experiences are not what Wilber needs them to be: replicable. Wilber wants to claim that “religion” can be treated like natural science because both have, as their core, experiences that a practitioner with sufficient training can replicate by following a set of injunctions. But nowhere in mainstream Judaism or in the Hebrew Bible is it claimed that one can come in oneself and see what Abraham or Moses saw. They did not come to God; God came to them. And so their experiences do not satisfy Wilber’s empiricist criterion for knowledge.
“132. Only those in whom this consciousness (of Brahman) being ever present grows into maturity, attain to the state of ever-existent Brahman; and not others who merely deal with words.”
Sankara, Aparokṣānubhūti
“Aparokṣānubhūti is a philosophical treatise (Prakaraṇa gratha) of Adi Shankaracharya. In this work, Adi Shankara discusses the identity of the individual Self and the universal Self through the direct experience of the highest Truth.
Aparokshanubhuti means non-indirect experience (aparoksha: non-indirect, anubhuti: experience), that means, ‘direct experience’ of the Truth.
According to Adi Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta philosophy, Brahman (or ‘the Absolute’) alone is real, and the world has no existence apart from Brahman.
In Aparokshanubhuti, Adi Shankara discusses the means and the path to directly experience Brahman as the ultimate Truth.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aparoksanubhuti
Thill:
Aparokshanabuti is a disputed text of Sankara’s. It is attributed to him but that makes my point that it is the followers of Sankara who promote the notion of samadhi as a portal to realisation and not Sankara himself. The Brahma Sutra Bhasya is a definite work of his and is accepted by all to be such. In the case of apparent contradiction it must take precedence as authoritative.
Amod:
The concept of ‘same’ experience if used by Wilber seems naive. How about same order of manifestation i.e. physical signs and wonders. All the great texts of mystical practice have a depiction of stages that the aspirant to moksha will pass through. They are typical rather than identical. Hasidic Judaism has an unmistakable mystical cast and their practices of reading, reflection and meditation on the Tetragrammaton are central.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_meditation
Michael:
1. Regardless of the status of Aparokṣānubhūti, it is beyond dispute that Sankara advocates the triad of Sravana (listening), Manana (discursive reflection), and Nididhyasana (meditation)as a means of preparation for knowledge of Brahman.
Nididhyasana must culminate in direct experience of Brahman (and it does not matter if “direct experience” in this context is understood in terms of an analogy with being aware of one’s own existence).
The Sruti (Mundaka Upanishad: 3.2.9) also declares that “He who knows the supreme Brahman becomes Brahman indeed”.
Hence, knowledge of Brahman is constituted by direct experience (Aparokṣānubhūti) of Brahman.
2. I argued in an earlier comment that it makes no sense to hold that someone who hears and understands the meaning of the Sruti’s declarations on Brahman can be deemed a “knower of Brahman”.
The Sruti itself says that Brahman cannot known through language, i.e., by mere understanding of descriptions of it, and reasoning.
(Most peculiar is Sankara’s persistent assumption that the appeal to Sruti is not a form of anumana or reasoning! But I will let this pass now.)
An understanding of Sankara’s hairsplitting distinctions and arguments based on them, e.g., in his Upadeśasāhasri, still does not entitle one to claim knowledge of Brahman. One may claim conviction or strong belief in the reality of Brahman as a result of a deep study of Upadeśasāhasri or his commentary on the Brahma Sutras, but this is not knowledge.
3. Thus, since knowledge of Brahman (supernaturalism) is the core of “Vedanta”, and this knowledge is not a function of merely knowing descriptions and arguments pertaining to Brahman, it follows that direct “perception” or experience must be the only means of knowledge of Brahman.
Hence, mystical experience, construed broadly as experiences pertaining to the supernatural or experiences whose descriptions involve references to the supernatural, is a sine qua non of “Vedanta”, including, of course, Advaita Vedanta.
This is perfectly consistent with Sankara’s emphasis that no action by oneself or another can yield knowledge of Brahman. It is also consistent with another of the Sruti’s declarations, that Brahman reveals itself to the person it chooses.
“Replicability” cannot be sole feature of mystical experiences for the obvious reason that there are plenty of other kinds of experiences which are replicable.
I doubt whether “replicability” is even an essential property of mystical experiences.
It is logically possible that there are mystical experiences which are unique and not replicable.
Further, it is quite plausible to think that in the history of mysticism we do have accounts of mystical experiences which suggest that those experiences were unique in some way. (The “all or nothing” fallacy must be avoided here. Some mystical experiences may be unique and others may be similar and replicated.)
So, what constitutes a mystical experience?
The mass of available accounts of mystical experiences overwhelmingly supports the thesis that they are experiences which pertain to the supernatural.
In other words, the descriptions of the vast majority of mystical experiences involve some reference to an encounter with the supernatural, an object, entity, or phenomena, or state of consciousness or being, which is not of the natural order.
I should also note here that there is a class of mystical experiences involve perceptions of some supernatural transfiguration of natural or physical objects or a “manifestation” of the supernatural in an natural or physical object.
Here is an account by Jacob Boehme (1575-1624) of a mystical experience which involved a perception of a “supernatural transfiguration” of a natural object or a “supernatural manifestation” in a natural object:
“Sitting one day in his room his eyes fell upon a burnished pewter dish, which reflected the sunshine with such marvellous splendor that he fell into an inward ecstasy, and it seemed to him as if he could now look into the principles and deepest foundations of things. He believed that it was only a fancy, and in order to banish it from his mind he went out upon the green. But here he remarked that he gazed into the very heart of things, the very herbs and grass, and that actual nature harmonized with what he had inwardly seen. He said nothing of this to anyone, but praised and thanked God in silence.”
http://www.bodysoulandspirit.net/mystical_experiences/read/notables/boehme.shtml
“…such experiences are not what Wilber needs them to be: replicable. Wilber wants to claim that “religion” can be treated like natural science because both have, as their core, experiences that a practitioner with sufficient training can replicate by following a set of injunctions.”
1. Does Wilber require that a mystical experience must be replicable in toto or in its entirety?
Why?
Why must experience X undergone by mystic A fail to count as a mystical experience merely because it does not replicate every property of experience Y undergone by mystic B?
If Wilber maintains that only some properties of an experience need to be replicable in order to count as a mystical experience, then which properties are these? Are they the “essential properties” of a mystical experience? How do we identify the essential properties of a mystical experience?
2. Many of the central experiences of mystics were not replicated in their own lives! Jacob Boehme’s mystical experience at the sight of burnished pewter dish was not replicated on any other occasion in his life.
The experience, on his account, led to some forms of novel insight or knowledge of supernatural reality, and, in this light, a different perspective of the natural order of things. Going by the accounts of mystics, this is usually the function of mystical experiences.
Hence, it makes sense that the crucial experiences are not replicated in the lives of the selfsame mystics. What would be the point of a duplication of Boehme’s experience at the sight of an illumined pewter dish in his own life? The experience had served its purpose.
The Indian mystic Ramana’s sudden “death experience” at the age of 16 led to a sudden insight that he was the Atman or the Self and not the body. Mission accomplished! No wonder that eh did not have that experience ever again in his life!
But what about others?
For instance, if X and Y are intense aspirants after self-knowledge or knowledge of ultimate reality, why must we expect that they should have the “same experience” with a pewter dish a la Boehme or go into a state marked by rigor mortis a la Ramana?
Why can’t self-knowledge or knowledge of ultimate reality come about by means of a diversity of experiences whose forms cannot be delineated or anticipated in advance and which are not replicable?
If there is a supernatural reality, ultimate reality, God, Brahman, the Void, or whatever, we can at least be certain that there are no formulas or recipes, no assembly-line sequence of “replicable experiences”, which will automatically give us knowledge of that reality.
3. I think that Wilber has succumbed to a misleading picture (which, as “Witters” has pointed out, is tantamount to succumbing to a false analogy) of a mystical experience (and preparatory contemplative practices) as some sort of a scientific experiment. Hence, all this obfuscating talk of “replication” as a requirement of mystical experience.
The simple truth here is that, unlike scientific or technological experiments, we cannot predict the outcomes of contemplative practices or whether any insight or transforming experience will occur as a result of those practices. At best, if pursued sincerely and diligently, we could say that they make one receptive or sensitive, but this is no guarantee of any insight into or experience of ultimate reality.
Here is an instructive example:
Ramakrishna was not successful in his early struggles to have a vision of the “Divine Mother”. One day, in desperation, he decided to seize the sword in the temple at Dakshineshwar and put an end to his life. As he was about to do it, he had a mystical experience completely different from what he was looking for:
“… houses, doors, temples and everything else vanished altogether; as if there was nothing anywhere! And what I saw was an infinite shoreless sea of light; a sea that was consciousness. However far and in whatever direction I looked, I saw shining waves, one after another, coming towards me.”
(The Gospel of Ramakrishna)
This was no vision of the Goddess Kali as depicted in Hindu mythology and in the Dakshineshwar temple.
And its occurrence was sudden.
Who would have thought that it would happen when he attempted suicide?
There is an exhaustion of effort or a giving up that seems to be required at certain stages of the spiritual path. For example, Milarepa was exhausted from tasks he was given and was on the verge of suicide before Marpa agreed to teach him. So, it is interesting but not surprising to hear a similar story with Ramakrishna.
The examples I gave of the mystical experiences of Ramakrishna and Boehme are both instances of sudden and surprising mystical experiences which occurred when they were not meditating or engaged in any spiritual practice. Their accounts of these experiences suggest that they did not even remotely anticipate that the experiences would take those forms.
Given the fact that the experiences of Ramakrishna and Boehme were “unbidden” and were not directly “enacted” by a replicable practice, what is the reasonable conclusion to draw?
Surely, the reasonable conclusion cannot be to deny that they were mystical experiences!
And this leaves us with the reasonable alternative: the criterion of “replicability” proffered by Wilber must be rejected.
The same inference extends to the examples of biblical figures such as Moses and Abraham. It is untenable to hold that accounts of visions of God, or of hearing the voice of God, or of encounters with Angels are not mystical experiences.
Rather, we must hold that the criterion or criteria of mystical experience which would require us to deny that those encounters were mystical experiences must be untenable.
This said, I think it is also plausible to argue that visions of God in the form of light, hearing the commands of God, visions of supernatural beings, are all undoubtedly replicable because they have been replicated in the lives of mystics in diverse theistic traditions.
This line of reasoning also compels us to acknowledge that the accounts of encounters with Yahweh in the lives of Moses, Abraham, Job, and so on are accounts of mystical experiences.
If there are compelling reasons to think that we must treat these accounts as accounts of mystical experiences, and it is undeniable that these accounts have a central place in the traditions of Judaism, it follows that, regardless of whether the practitioners would explicitly declare or assent to it, we must accept that mystical experiences have a central place in the traditions of Judaism.
P.S. Jewish mysticism was not a nineteenth century “construct”. It was alive and thriving in the Middle Ages.
“Replication” is not a word that I would necessarily use. However, the fact that a experience seems to arise unbidden is not the same as saying that the experience is random or as likely to occur with one person as another. Nor is it problematic that a mystical experience arises when a practitioner is sitting on a toilet as opposed to a meditation cushion.
I appreciate Thill that you are not saying that mystical experience is random — but what does it mean if it were to be observable, as you seem to acknowledge, that practitioners of a tradition are more likely to have mystical experiences than non-practitioners? Would it not mean that there is a connection that is passed along — whether it is lineage transmission in an Eastern context or, perhaps less portentiously, a process of mentoring and prayer practices in a Christian monastic context?
In the Eastern context, at least, progress is a process of uncovering as opposed to a process of creation. The analogy is to cleaning a mirror or to a sky becoming clear of clouds and revealing a sun that was always present. So, replication seems an odd word. Would you say that you “replicate” a lack of clouds?
Jim,
1. The history of mysticism shows that contemplative practices, and, more importantly, intensity of aspiration, are among the necessary conditions, but not sufficient ones, for mystical experiences. Hence, mystical experiences are not predictable on the basis of the evidence that someone has seriously undertaken contemplative practices.
2. What is “randomness”? If unpredictability, despite knowledge of initial and necessary conditions, is the criterion of randomness, then the randomness of an event is consistent with fact that there are necessary conditions for that event.
It follows that mystical experiences can be random even if there are necessary conditions for them!
It follows from this that mystical experiences are not necessarily replicable and are necessarily not replicable in terms of all of their specific properties or features.
3. The problem with the analogy of polishing a dirty mirror is that it suggests that one must have some mystical experiences as one progresses in polishing the mirror (of the mind) and in just the way a dirty mirror begins to reflect parts of the environment as it gets progressively cleaned, but is this necessarily true of contemplative practices?
I certainly agree with your first point, although I wouldn’t necessarily say that this applies to all traditions.
I am not sure that I understand your second point. I suppose that to assess whether something is random you need to establish the universe of possible occurrences in which randomness is measured. If you are correct that contemplative practices and intensity of aspiration are either necessary conditions or create a predisposition for mystical experience — and your universe is the general population some of whom practice and aspire and some of whom don’t — then mystical experience is not random.
If the relevant universe is a relevant population of conteplative practitioners who have an intensity of aspiration, then it should be possible to assess whether mystical experiences are random among this group. You would need to define the experience that you are seeking to “replicate” and then examine whether factors such as the guidance of an experienced teacher or the intensity of practice or the purity of motivation (whether practice is undertaken for personal gain or profit or for the benefit of others) affects the outcome.
Many clinical studies approve drugs for use based on an increase in beneficial outcomes across a population of patients. I expect that relatively few show replication of the same result in every patient.
The mirror is a traditional Buddhist analogy and may be used in other traditions as well. But I suspect that it may not apply across the board to all traditions. In any event, my point is that, at least in the Buddhist tradition, progress on the path is a process of subtraction (and realization) rather than addition (and achievement). An attempt to replicate something is an effort to fit or mold experience to a mental construct and misses the point. It may even create an obstacle on the path.