> And that's as far as I'll go with that line of conversation.

Can you point us to somewhere that will fill in the blanks?

I honestly can't tell if your general take on this approach is positive or negative. If it's negative, I'd rather have a heads-up of some kind.

It's positive. I like it.

Some people do have acid flashbacks etc. ... others have described the situation as an “attention pull-up bar,” you try to hold yourself “up” (ie focused), eventually “your arms give” (ie your attention wanders), you “rest” a second (ie acknowledge it), then “pull yourself up” again (ie return to the object of meditation).

I was a lay Tibetan Buddhist for several years, sometimes you do focus on one point, or a statue of a Buddha, or on your breathing... the sort of static/repetitive things where you might trigger the psychedelic effects. You can fast-chant Avalokiteshwara’s mantra[1] and Green Tara’s mantra[2] and Vajrasattva’s short mantra[3], but you would also have more dynamic meditations and longer mantras: Vajrasattva’s full mantra[4] is a whole song; so are the Praises of Tara; a full visualization of Green Tara has multiple colors and seed syllables and signs and stages until you visualize her blossoming out of a Lotus and shining green light through you, blasting all your your darknesses away.

That last one is not so typical, but like tonglen practice, where you breathe in the darkness of the world and breathe out pureness and goodness, is more active and very common.

[1] the familiar Om mani padme hum, which fast-chanted sounds like “hummo-mani-pemde” over and over

[2] there are different skin colors of Tara, Green Tara is invoked with Om Tare tuttare ture svaha and fast chanted it sounds like “zohm-tare-t'tare-ture” repeated.

[3] his short mantra is just his name, Om Vajrasattva hum. There's also a Japanese tradition of some monk dancing down the street sing-chanting an Amitabha mantra like that, Namu Amita butsu, Namu Amita Butsu.

[4] It's known as the 100-syllable mantra, I think? I occasionally look back on my time and say “well was I really a Tibetan Buddhist if I wasn't a monk and didn't keep with it?” and then the Vajrasattva mantra will come back to mind and it's like “Yeah if that's one of the things I have memorized then I definitely count.”

My grip on reality is so tight that I can't fathom anything you'd be unwilling to speak about.

I've had several conversations about that stuff and they always go downhill fast.

(Case in point, the other guy in this thread is already insinuating that I'm diddling demons or somesuch. That's what makyo means)

I’ll guess astral projection, praying mantis like aliens, greys, past lives, etc.

And my own theory is that there are multiple ways to tap into human collective subconscious and that is the source of the shared experiences people report. We have to remember other mammals can be born and minutes later walk. Many animals have incredibly intricate instincts that are encoded in their DNA. It seems very obvious we do too but we aren’t consciously aware of most of them. When we alter our state of consciousness with various techniques the hidden collective subconscious bursts through.

Just my opinion and influenced by Jung obviously.

From reading the wiki page I take it to mean hallucinations which one gives greater importance to than they should. Which is sort of similar to what you were describing, I don't think they meant offense.

Then you're perfect for a technique called 'noting', which accelerates results.

Thanks, it sounds a little like zazen, but with makyo being the goal.

Makyo? Seriously?

It sounds like the only difference between makyo and what you've experienced is whether you think it's 'real' or not...but I don't have a whole lot of detail to go on here, either. I'm not judging the 'realness', I'm just saying that two similar methods are producing similar results. At least subjectively.

Sounds more like Jhana to me.