Astral Codex Ten

Kasina

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Kasina

Article

Kasina is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between October 31, 2022 and October 24, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “Kasina. I always go to Josikinz’s example where they had a friend who was having an out-of-body hallucination”; “In Buddhist terminology, a kasina is an object of meditation”; “DI: The dot is not at all advanced stages… If you wish to try this, choose a decent sized light source”. It most often appears alongside Daniel Ingram, Fire Kasina, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: October 31, 2022
  • Last seen: October 24, 2025

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Highlights From The Comments On Jhanas
October 31, 2022 · Original source
I've listened to a lot of [meditation expert] Daniel [Ingram’s] interviews, including one with Andres Emilsson, and I think it's likely that he took on supernatural views for similar reasons that Scott mentioned in his post Why Were Early Psychedelicists So Weird? I think, for some people, taking meditation too far is analogous to taking psychedelics too far - causing illogical belief updates (either overfitting or underfitting their world model). Worse still, Daniel has read texts on Fire Kasina which are filled with talk of magical powers (I believe these are authentic accounts of hallucinations), and has given himself dramatic hallucinations (pointing even more in the too-much-psychedelics direction) by doing Fire Kasina.
Inline links: Why Were Early Psychedelicists So Weird?
I have done both jhana and fire kasina, and can report them both as have real dramatic effects, but I interpret them in the same way I do psychedelic experiences: just more qualia, and in no way "spiritual". My hunch is that the spiritual feeling people have is a genetic thing, because I can't relate to it at all, even after very high doses of multiple hallucinatory drugs and many intense meditation experiences.
Daniel's favorite example of supernatural activity being proven real is when both him and his friend saw the same hallucination after multiple days straight of doing Fire Kasina. I always go to Josikinz's example where they had a friend who was having an out-of-body hallucination experience try to name a card, randomly drawn from a deck, that was placed on top of a shelf (out-of-sight from their friend). The friend's guess was incorrect.
Highlights From The Comments On Fatima
October 24, 2025 · Original source
[original post here] The Kasina Connection In the original post, I cited ambiguous later examples of sun miracles which didn’t seem to affect everyone equally and in some cases were unconnected (or barely connected) to religious phenomena, concluding that they must be some kind of very unusual illusion. My main hangup with this conclusion was the wild implausibility of an illusion that nobody had ever noticed before, outside of this one 1917 miracle and a few copycats, despite plenty of people staring at the sun throughout history for various (bad) reasons. Surely there must be somebody else, somewhere, discussing how if you stare at a bright light long enough it will spin and change color.
Inline links: original post here
Two commenters, Dave Moore and Anomony, bring up fire kasina practice.
Inline links: Dave Moore, Anomony
In Buddhist terminology, a kasina is an object of meditation. Meditation while staring at a bright light - traditionally a candle flame - is called “fire kasina”. You start by concentrating on the light; then, after it’s produced an afterimage on the retina, you switch to concentrating on the afterimage. According to Daniel Ingram’s Mastering The Core Teachings Of The Buddha:
Inline links: Mastering The Core Teachings Of The Buddha