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On Meditation, Mystical Experience and the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness

Buddhist meditational experience of nature's independent non-duality has parallels in mystical experiences of "unity" in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. But while such states are undoubtedly blissful, dwelling in their powerful intensity is also dangerous. Egoism and subjectivism too often deafen those who have such experiences to the nature world around them. Imagination too easily spins out ignorant tales and orthodoxies, too uncritically fancies that the world's winds blow on the self, that leaves fall at the self's feet for a reason, that people are watching. A mind risks real ignorance for the sometimes paltry prize of an imagination enriched by such mystical experience cut off from the particularities of the world. This is why reason must come to the aid of mystics to help them avoid...the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.

Ingram, Paul O. (1999). On the Wings of a Blue Heron. Cross Currents, 49, 218-219.

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