Todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte takes us into the blissful realm of Priti from a talk on the spiral path by Sangharakshita. and#8220;Priti: The Intensity of Raptureand#8221; is a selected Dharmabyte from the talk and#8220;The Stages of the Spiritual Pathand#8221; given in 1966 as part of the series and#8220;Introducing Buddhism.and#8221;
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Priti: The Intensity of Rapture
[Music] Dharma Bites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for real life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, come and join us at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. Thank you, and happy listening. [Music] So Petey is technically classified as being of five different kinds. There's a lesser thrill, as it's called. The lesser thrill of rapture is the sort which makes us aware the hairs of the body stand on end, as when you're really deeply moved by something. Then the momentary rapture, as it's called, the momentary Petey, is that which comes just like a flesh of lightning. It's so overwhelming that one can bear to experience it just for an instant. It sort of touches one and almost reduces one to ashes as is when it's gone. You can't stand more on than that. It just comes and goes. And then there's what's called the flooding rapture. The rapture is just sort of floods in upon you, and this is compared to the waves on the seashore, sort of coming in and filling a cave on the seashore. So in that way, the rapture, as it were floods in, especially when one is practicing meditation, and one feels a lot of carried away by it. Then there's what's called the old pervading rapture, in which one feels just like a balloon, as it were so light, so buoyant, almost as it were lifted up. And lastly, there comes what's called the transporting, pretty or transporting rapture, which is said actually to cause levitation. Now, I know I've mentioned this incident before, but I see that there are some who haven't been here before. They might be interested by it. People often ask about levitation. It's a rather minor interest in Buddhism. But Buddhists do believe that it can take place, and they believe that it takes place when the pre-tea, the interest in enthusiasm, joy or rapture, even ecstasy becomes so intense that the physical body is actually lifted up by them. And this happens especially in connection with certain breathing exercises. As I remember, that not so many years ago, I happened to be passing through a place called Kharagpur in India. Kharagpur is a very big railway junction, and I'd gone there from Kharagatta for a couple of hours to give a lecture. And the lecture was given about 11 o'clock at night. That's the practice in those parts. I like to have good late lectures. And I was waiting for the one o'clock morning train to carry me back to Kharagatta. So I was waiting on this station platform, and then about, I think, about 200 people there with me. And we just got talking to pass the time until the train arrived. As so often happens in India, of course, the train was late. So, while I was there with these people, they brought forward a certain individual. A very ordinary-looking man in order to Indian dress, and they said, "This man has got a problem." So I of course thought, "Well, maybe his wife has run away, or maybe his son hasn't passed any examination." So they said, "No, the trouble is that he levitates." So I said, "Do you mean that he literally levitates?" So they said, "Yes." He said, "Here's a Kabirapanti." Kabirapanti means someone following the sect founded by Kabir, the great medieval Hindu kammuslim yogi. So apparently every morning, he was practicing certain breathing exercises, and as a result of these breathing exercises, he would just float up a few inches or a few feet above the ground. So I said to these people a little suspiciously, I said, "Has anyone seen this?" So they said, "Oh, yes, we've all seen it every day." So they said, "This man just can't control it, and he wants to meditate, but this levitation gets in the way." He'd like to stop it, but he can't. As soon as he does his breathing exercises, it just happens. He just starts growing up into the air. So what should he do? How should he stop? This is what the question one might be after any time in India. So I said, "According to Buddhism, levitation is brought about by excess of pre-T, that is rapture ecstasy." So what we'll must do is to cultivate the mental factor of equanimity or tranquillate or picture. If one does that, they'll be sort of counterbalancing false to the pre-T, and the levitation will not occur. Now I never went back to a colour court again, and I never have hoped whether the treatment or the prescription was successful, but let us hope that it was. I remind that incidentally, though we're on the subject of another little story, I remember about ten years ago, or maybe a little less, in Kaling Pong, up in the Himalayas, I was entertaining to lunch. An American couple, he offers wrote a book about his experiences, called The Racist Edge, and a Tibetan lama. A rather distinguished one who was the head lama of the Tevianci Gumpa on Monastery in Second, and he was a friend of mine. A man of about 45 who had arrived in the area fairly recently. So in the course of the lunch, and it's rather interesting that the lama himself didn't understand in the English, in the course of lunch, the Americans said rather skeptically, the rather knowing sort of smile, said to the lama through the translator, "I suppose you haven't heard of anyone who can levitate." So the lama said rather modestly, "Yes," he said, "In fact, I do a little myself." So the two Americans nearly fell off their chairs. They said, "You can do it yourself." He said, "Yes." He said, "I don't think I could do it just now." He said, "But if I'm alone in the jungle in a secluded monastery, if I spent about six months there meditating, then I can do this at the end of that period." And I have met a number of Tibetans of this type who have rather seen it or who have practiced it. So this is all said to be due in Buddhism to what we call pretty or excessive pretty or rapture. When the bliss or the rapture, which one experiences, especially in meditation, becomes so intense, that the body is quite literally lifted up. Now one finds the goals records of this sort of thing not only in Buddhist literature and Buddhist life, but even in the lives of some comparatively recent Christian mystics. But Buddhists will say this isn't a very important phenomenon or experience. We've only got through the fourth stage of the path. This is a mundane experience, essentially. If it occurs one shouldn't bother about it or shouldn't be particularly exhilarated about it, it just means that one is accumulated pretty within one of sufficient intensity to produce this particular psychophysical effect. Now all these experiences are pretty, whether the lesser thrill of the momentary rapture or the flooding rapture or the transporting rapture, these are all psychophysical. That is to say they're all experienced in the body, that's to say in the nervous system, as well as in the mind. They're not just mental, they're physical also, they're psychophysical. The whole organism is involved. Now what is this pretty, what is this pretty, this rapture or ecstasy? We can go into that a little also. We can say in modern language, in modern terminology, that the pretty, the rapture, the ecstasy comes about as a result of the release of energy due to resolution of what we would call nowadays complexes. That is, within one, there are sort of little blockages of energy. Energy as it were short circuiting itself, locked up. So in the cause of one's religious life, in the cause of one's spiritual life, especially when one practices meditation, these get resolved, especially through the practice of awareness. One digs down, as it were, one uncovers certain depth within one's soul. All these little complexes are resolved, these blockages are removed, and the energy locked up in them is released, and this surges up, and it's due to this upsurge of energy within one's self. Felt throughout the entire nervous system, as well as in the mind, that one experiences pretty, this psychophysical rapture or ecstasy. So this is the process, so far. These are the stages of the path so far. Independence upon suffering arises faith. Independence upon faith arises satisfaction and delight. Independence upon that satisfaction and delight, as it becomes more and more intense, that arises the pretty, the psychophysical, rapture, or ecstasy of varying degrees. 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