Hi Freauwaru,
Freawaru wrote:
The question is: do you want to think in terms of authority or in terms of expertism? An authority is a guru, a leader. An expert is someone you consult regarding a specific problem, may it be scriptural or meditative. There is no authority at all when you think in terms of expertism. And thus no leading astray.
Perhaps I didn't explain myself well.
If I see a question that I think I can answer from my experience, but I know has been written/spoken about by a teacher I trust I prefer to give a quotation from that teacher, and say "My experience is consistent with what X says here...". It's not a question of "authority". The point is that those teachers have explained the issues to thousands of students, so their explanation will tend to be better, and more general, than mine would be.
My impression from discussions with various teachers and friends is that practising in certain ways leads to
somewhat predictable results, at least on the level of my practise (I can't comment on the more advanced levels of insight discussed by ancient and modern teachers...). On a Goenka retreat it seems common to get that "dissolving" feeling that Goenka describes as "bhangha". With Mahasi-style retreat practice it seems common to observe the motion of one's feet or abdomen become discontinuous, like under a strobe light in the disco... So it seems to me to be sensible to point a questioner at general discussions of them, rather than just answer using one's own experience, since the
exact experiences do vary from person to person.
Mike