What is the point of visualization?

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shanehanner
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What is the point of visualization?

Post by shanehanner »

What is the point of visualization? Particularly when practicing dream yoga, focusing on a white "A" at the throat area. What is the purpose of this? Is it solely to stay focused and present while falling to sleep?

Thank you everyone :-)
Saoshun
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Re: What is the point of visualization?

Post by Saoshun »

Imagine that you lick lemon - the saliva will flow more abundant. Visualization it's like third leg for people who do not have some kind mastery over energies so they must put their mind in certain states. Visualization is not needed if you can release for example saliva without any lemon image in mind. This is principle of visualization.
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shanehanner
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Re: What is the point of visualization?

Post by shanehanner »

Ive been asking this question for a while. Still looking for an answer :-/

Had any luck becoming lucid with it?
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conebeckham
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Re: What is the point of visualization?

Post by conebeckham »

Your specific question is not one that can really be answered on the internet....I think this Dream Yoga visualization is a pretty advanced practice. Visualization, in general, is an element of Vajrayana Buddhism. It's "point" is to use the mind, or the imagination, initially, as skilfull means. There's much more to say, but it's better to engage in the practice, I think, than to have a bunch of intellectual understandings about the role or purpose of such-and-such a technique.
དམ་པའི་དོན་ནི་ཤེས་རབ་ཆེ་བ་དང་།
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Like this, mistaken ideas of discriminating wisdom are clarified."
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whitedragon
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Re: What is the point of visualization?

Post by whitedragon »

The point of any visualization is to train the mind.
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gad rgyangs
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Re: What is the point of visualization?

Post by gad rgyangs »

shanehanner wrote:What is the point of visualization? Particularly when practicing dream yoga, focusing on a white "A" at the throat area. What is the purpose of this? Is it solely to stay focused and present while falling to sleep?

Thank you everyone :-)
you can visualize the white A in the heart, throat or forehead center: different chakras, different effects. Try them and see. but really its the location more than what you visualize there (if anything). putting your attention there activates & facilitates the energy flow.

in general, visualization of any kind develops the ability to "see" internally. This can be used to create something (like in vajrayana generation state practice) or, by leaving the sense ability open & receptive after it has been developed, to perceive disembodied beings, symbolic astral forms, and all kinds of stuff. Try it and see.
Thoroughly tame your own mind.
This is (possibly) the teaching of Buddha.

"I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind."
- Descartes, 2nd Meditation 25
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shanehanner
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Re: What is the point of visualization?

Post by shanehanner »

I see, that makes sense. Thank you :-)
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Re: What is the point of visualization?

Post by thigle »

shanehanner wrote:What is the point of visualization? Particularly when practicing dream yoga, focusing on a white "A" at the throat area. What is the purpose of this? Is it solely to stay focused and present while falling to sleep?
Task: Look on a white "A". Implement this task for a while. Recognice: To "practice" looking on a white "A" is not looking on a white "A". You need to understand the uncontrived difference and actual meaning of this task, then you are naturally able to implement this task actually, instead of "practicing" resp. "grasping" it again.
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Re: What is the point of visualization?

Post by Grigoris »

gad rgyangs wrote:you can visualize the white A in the heart, throat or forehead center: different chakras, different effects. Try them and see. but really its the location more than what you visualize there (if anything). putting your attention there activates & facilitates the energy flow.
Really? According to which teacher?
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
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Acala
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Re: What is the point of visualization?

Post by Acala »

Its atually quite simple.

Its the same point as mudra and mantra.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Vajras

https://books.google.com.tw/books?id=ha ... su&f=false

Its all about achieving unity (well...realizing unity) with the dharmakaya.
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gad rgyangs
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Re: What is the point of visualization?

Post by gad rgyangs »

Sherab Dorje wrote:
gad rgyangs wrote:you can visualize the white A in the heart, throat or forehead center: different chakras, different effects. Try them and see. but really its the location more than what you visualize there (if anything). putting your attention there activates & facilitates the energy flow.
Really? According to which teacher?
ChNNR. see his book on dream yoga.
Thoroughly tame your own mind.
This is (possibly) the teaching of Buddha.

"I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind."
- Descartes, 2nd Meditation 25
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Grigoris
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Re: What is the point of visualization?

Post by Grigoris »

gad rgyangs wrote:ChNNR. see his book on dream yoga.
Interesting.

In the teachings I have read, and others that I have received, specific syllables are used on specific points.

Either that or you do a certain type of guru yoga/yidam practice.
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
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gad rgyangs
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Re: What is the point of visualization?

Post by gad rgyangs »

Sherab Dorje wrote:
gad rgyangs wrote:ChNNR. see his book on dream yoga.
Interesting.

In the teachings I have read, and others that I have received, specific syllables are used on specific points.

Either that or you do a certain type of guru yoga/yidam practice.
he says that if you have trouble vidualizing the syllables you can just visualize a sphere of the same color. i recall him also saying that hearing the sound of the syllable is more important than the visuslization.
Thoroughly tame your own mind.
This is (possibly) the teaching of Buddha.

"I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind."
- Descartes, 2nd Meditation 25
Fortyeightvows
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Re: What is the point of visualization?

Post by Fortyeightvows »

" i recall him also saying that hearing the sound of the syllable is more important than the visuslization."

I have heard this from other teachers, saying that it is the sound that is sacred and for this reason it is acceptable to visualize the syllable in one's own language.
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Re: What is the point of visualization?

Post by Kaccāni »

Going back to the "point of visualization".

Imagine one really manages to transcend thinking. So "one" (or whatever notion of experience and what one may call it or not) is left sitting there, aware of thoughts. Or is as awareness. Thoughts go go go go go, but there is no you that is touched. But still, those thoughts go, according to conditioning and conscious experience. When one dreams, the conditioning fires, again and again (if one is not lucid). Thoughts occuring is natural.

So how to shape experience (what the mind is doing) without invoking logical thinking?

Right. Visualization. Consider it as "remembering images", just as emotional states can be remembered. Consider "loving kindness meditation" as remembering a feeling of loving kindness. They are handy tools in the box.

Best wishes
Dana
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Simon E.
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Re: What is the point of visualization?

Post by Simon E. »

Gwenn Dana wrote:Going back to the "point of visualization".

Imagine one really manages to transcend thinking. So "one" (or whatever notion of experience and what one may call it or not) is left sitting there, aware of thoughts. Or is as awareness. Thoughts go go go go go, but there is no you that is touched. But still, those thoughts go, according to conditioning and conscious experience. When one dreams, the conditioning fires, again and again (if one is not lucid). Thoughts occuring is natural.

So how to shape experience (what the mind is doing) without invoking logical thinking?

Right. Visualization. Consider it as "remembering images", just as emotional states can be remembered. Consider "loving kindness meditation" as remembering a feeling of loving kindness. They are handy tools in the box.

Best wishes
Dana
The OP is posited in the Mahamudra subforum...I see no connection between your reply and Mahamudra. Perhaps you could clarify ?
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Kaccāni
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Re: What is the point of visualization?

Post by Kaccāni »

Hello Simon,

the basic workings of the mind are the same in (most) human beings, no matter what practice they are applied to in particular. As such, the answer refers to visualization in general, and thus also holds true when applying visualization in the course of Mahamudra practice. The question was whether visualization only focuses attention (to sensations). My answer was that it also actively shapes the contents of your mind, without invoking logic.

Best wishes
Dana
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