Let's assume for a moment that knowing what is on an another person's mind, i.e. "mind-reading" is possible.

Now, "knowing what is on an another mind" can have multiple meanings.

It can be in a very literal/traditional sense, when a person can know exact word by word content of each individual thought of another person when in their proximity...

...or in a more general/pragmatic sense, when one - by knowing another person very well and paying full attention to them - can read them and know them so well that one can guess their mind states, emotions, future behavior, etc. with high likelyhood.

...or something in between...or beyond...

Reports of this skill in traditional literature are many. Furthermore, some contemporary pragmatic meditators believe or just assume that this skill is achievable with proper training.

For example, Bill Hamilton writes

"One of my teachers, Dipa Ma Barua, was trained to develop psychic powers by Munindra while she was at the Mahasi Sayadaw monastery in Burma. Munindra had a BOOK which described the methods to develop all the standard psychic powers. After Dipa Ma had attained the third level of enlightenment, he instructed her to develop all the powers in the book. She very quickly was able to master and demonstrate all of them."

• Could somebody offer and educated guess what book given to Dipa Ma was? Alternatively point out where in the traditional writings this ability and training of it is described in (some) depth?
• Could somebody point out some contemporary pragmatic writings concerning mind-reading and it's training?

Cheers

Jano

oh to see the suffering mind of an unawakened cow! ha, no thanks, mine is enough.

however, i might be interested in defence against these dark arts.

I dont know the books but my experience with this is empathy related. Picking up someone's feeling may be easier than thought due to energy. Maybe try that avenue.
Sometimes it feels like the air gets sucked out of the room when I ask someone a question they dont want to be honest about. Sometimes I feel the grief of family members walking past a hospital room to the point that it chokes me up. Sometimes I can feel grief of the planet over the Amazon burning.
Am I experiencing empathy or being empathic? Delusional? Idk but it is fun sometimes. Try going to a dramatic movie and tuning into the crowd for practice. I wouldn't give it anymore weight than any other non-visual non-spoken communication if any at all.

The wikipedia article on Dipa Ma says that she studied the Visuddhimagga. You can google it and legally download a free copy of the 2010 edition. You may also want to take a look at Pa Auk Sayadaw's Knowing and Seeing (also a free download), which describes the same meditations and Shaila Catherine's longer book Wisdom Wide and Deep, which gives more detailed instructions on those techniques.

If you don't have a teacher, the next best thing is to work with a close friend. Try to read each other's mind. 

One way is to ask them to go into another room and draw a picture. Then try to draw the picture yourself without looking at what they drew.

https://www.sacred-texts.com/psi/mrad/index.htm


I have some experience learning psychic development in the context of spirit  communication. I wrote about it here:
http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/psi_experience

There is a lot I could say about the subject of psychic development in general but not specifically about telepathy (mind reading).
Let me know if you are interested and I can post more information.

The standard method from those books, of which you should add the very helpful Vimuttimagga, Chapter IX, page 220:

1) Go on a kasina retreat using the fire or light kasina, which are basically interchangeable.
2) Get your concentration strong.
3) With resolutions, learn to see the colors associated with your feelings, emotions, and mind states.
4) With practice, one can start to learn to see the colors associated with one's inner experience.
5) Extending this outside of one's body, and when highly concentrated, one can learn to see the colors associated with the inner experience of others.

These simple instructions are how it is done, but there is the organic, temporal, work aspect of actually doing it.

Good luck! ;)

Daniel

The fact you’re describing it with colours associated with inner experience seems to suggest that this can be done with other sensory phenomena - shapes, particular images (archetypes?), sounds, words, physical sensations spring to mind.

Any experience of this? Sounds like it would take a lot of work.

The problem is that you could do it in retreat. In that environment maybe is useful for a teacher or whatever, but it is very difficult to have that kind of abilties in daily life.