Does this site welcome questions about personal meditation experiences? Such as the meaning of certain experiences etc?
3 Answers
Welcome to the site.
I think those questions are at least permitted if not welcomed: those questions are tagged personal-practice. The description of this tag says,
Questions containing or motivated by some aspect of personal experience. The experience can be during formal Buddhist practice or during everyday activity however the experience will be related to Buddhist practice or doctrine. The questions will necessarily have a subjective quality however the question or answers will contain references to Buddhist scripture, doctrine or an established teacher.
Beginners questions about personal experience (like "what does this experience mean?") tend to get (I'm not sure how to describe them) fairly "neutral" answers: maybe, most recently, like this one.
You'll probably get better answers if you specify what type of meditation you're practising.
Another type of question that can attract good answers is to ask some detail about "how to meditate?" (for example, most recently, like this one).
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Compared with other sites, this site is relatively liberal about what questions are permitted.– ChrisW ModCommented Sep 2, 2015 at 14:50
It's very hard to answer questions about personal practice in this format, and I've seen very few quality answers, nor was I able to give many myself. The answerer either has to know enough about questioner's personal history, or has to have watched the questioner's behavior for enough time. Sometimes if you are very specific with your question (instead of the common "what does this mean" and "what can I expect" questions) and your question pertains to experiences common to many practitioners, you may get a good answer.
Although, the site has no restriction on questions regarding personal experience, I would personally refrain from asking any such questions for the following reasons:
- If it is an experience that comes with advanced levels of serious meditation and is not very easily achievable, I will not be able to ask such a question in public forum without generating at least a hint of ego for having achieved this level.
- If the experience sounds attractive and pleasurable in the conventional sense, it may create anxiety in the minds of other meditators who have not experienced such a thing. They may start to crave for such an experience and therefore, I will be creating a hindrance to their practice.
- I cannot verify the credibility of the person answering my question in this forum and therefore would not rule out the chance of being misguided.
What I would generally do if facing any experience which bothers me or causes hindrance to my practice is:-
- Remember that all experiences are changing and ephemeral. By clinging to or paying attention to a particular experience, I'm again repeating what I otherwise do when not meditating and therefore, I'm defeating the purpose of meditation and hampering my progress.
- Use my breathing as the steering wheel to drive myself out of the overpowering situation. By focusing on the natural and normal breath, I can effectively divert my attention from the experience, yet not try to suppress it.
- Take guidance from an experienced teacher with credibility.