Rob, where does Wilber say "tsk, tsk, science misses the point of the big issues?" Where does he reject the idea that we should "value the transcendent moments as they come, not attempt to dissect them."

Did you read the article... or were you too busy building your own scarecrows?

Read Grace and Grit if you think Wilber has no heart.

Or maybe read anything longer than a three-page web interview before you rush to completely slag the man and his entire life work.

Or, you know, not...

Those experiences bear a strong family resemblance to many of the claims of mystics

You have to define "mystics" for me. They don't bear any resemblance to anything I experienced in ten years of zen and vipassana meditation, nor that of any practitioner I've ever met, or of any teacher I've ever had.

I can't imagine why I'd want to tell you your experiences were not "authentic." They obviously had a very real authenticity in your life, and may have been deeply meaningful. They definitely sound fun as hell.

They don't resemble in any way, though, the kind of non-dual experience of everyday reality that I've occasionally had in my practice, that my teachers describe, and that I presume Wilber refers to.

I don't dispute the "reality" or "authenticity" of what you experienced, and I'm not suggesting people who have direct perception of reality as a result of practice are better than people who go "trippin' balls" in the middle of the night.

I'm saying they're different experiences, as far as I can tell. I have meditated and I have fried, and to me they are pretty clearly different experiences.

I can't imagine how I could convince you of that using words. If that makes you right in your mind, and me wrong, so be it I guess.

I believe that my experiences are of the same sort as yours. Perhaps I would sound more persuasive if I used a lot of jargon.

I don't think so. I use the terms I use because I've spent a lot of time with people who practice what I practice. People who do the same things tend to evolve jargon terms like "non-dual" or "trippin' balls."

I think you would sound more persuasive if you described experiences I recognized from meditative practice. You haven't.

I guess where we differ is that you think I'm talking about some "wild, unusual" experience, while I see it as nothing of the sort. What I refer to in jargon as "non-duality" is just the best way I can think of to describe a very direct experience of the moment.

I'm a big fan of all sorts of wild and unusual experiences, as well as losing oneself in the beauty of nature or reading mind-expanding books. I do believe you can have glimmers of direct perception in those "flow" experiences Czikzhentmihalyi (sp?) writes about.

I'm talking about something inherent in direct perception, rather than some distortion or artifact of sensory awareness. And I haven't found a better way to foster that than meditative practice.

I can't tell you that what you've experienced isn't that - I'm no Master, and I haven't even met you. All I can say is that you haven't convinced me.

I don't think of direct experience as "special" experience. I think I understand your point, it just seems you are really really overdetermining something that is quite simple.

When i have been able to quiet my mind in practice so that I am not adding on judgments, descriptions, comparisons, preconceptions, etc. etc. what is left over is a very simple awareness.

When I breathe, I just breathe. The wind is just the wind. I'm just experiencing it.

Are you suggesting that I'm not just experiencing things, but rather somehow hallucinating that I am?

We're talking about stuff that, as you alluded to earlier, isn't well expressed in words. So I'm not trying to make things any murkier than they are, but there's limits to what I can communicate through a keyboard.

Direct experience isn't "no-experience," but I don't think of it as just a different kind of experience, if you will. I think that most of our lives we are in kind of a dream... thinking about the past, dreaming about the future, saying this is bad and this is good. That's your computer with its millions of colors.

Non-dual awareness is just the present instant, no more nor less. It's quite unremarkable, but for the fact that it's always there even though we seldom notice it. I gess that's why the best metaphor I can use is "waking up." It's not like I can suddenly tell the future or compute the millionth digit of pi or levitate. But I stop, even if for only a moment, being carried away on the stream of my thoughts. So in that way, I guess you can say it is indeed "unusual."

It's hard for philosophers to express what this kind of direct experiencing is like, and I'm no philosopher. It's not that looking at the millions of colors on your computer has no value... but it seems very different than, say, experiencing a sunset or the smile on your lover's face.

If this makes no sense, it's certainly because I'm expressing it poorly. And if you think it's a cop-out to say that you have to experience it to understand, perhaps you're right. This may have to be my best shot for now...

You should try reality some time -- its very enlightening.

That's exactly what I've been talking about, neither more nor less.

You seem convinced that everything we're talking about is bunk, but when anyone suggests you actually learn something about what you're scoffing at, you retreat into taunting and teasing.

It's awfully easy to sit back and take shots at other people's choices. I guess I'm curious why you've spent so much time on this comments thread doing it.