Thank you, baquai.

Baquai mentions a point that I completely neglected. The claim that these tapes put you in the same mental state as a skilled meditator of several years is outrageous and stupid.

Everything can certainly boiled down to a brain state. Sure. Just like you can boil down someone to a two word description, like "nice guy" or "big jerk." These descriptions, however, are far from exhaustive and lack a whole lot of crucial information.

The state of a meditator is not just a "brain state." It is a state in his or her own brain, which contains an ongoing chemistry and bunches and bunches of neural-connections, dendritic whatsits, and glial thingamabobs. It's a big, honkin, complex mess of different stuff. It's unique and formed, partially, from hours and hours (if not years and years) of meditation.

Statements like "if you fly on a concord to location x or walk there, you still end up in location x" are patently absurd. The person who walks is different from the person who flies because of his experiences, time for reflection upon them, and blah blah blah. I am not exactly sure that I need to point this stuff out, but when people repeat Centerpointe advertising it makes me think that there are basic thoughts that they are putting aside because they just want the neato meditation CDs.

In fact, I am willing to bet that 20 minutes, 60 minutes, 540 hours of listening to awakening (funny, it should be called "Put your reason to sleep and hand over your money Levels 1, 2, 3, etc.") you will not be where someone who has meditated for 15 years is. Sorry.

During and after listening to the "Prepare to be screwed out of your money Prologue," I can say I was no where near where I was after like 2 months of zazen. No way.

Ok. I'm exhausted on this. I'll shut up for good.