markern

Sounds good. You might benefit from some sort of practice that centers you in your belly (dan tien) and or grounds you in your feet and down into the earth. That will be important for keeping everything safe later on and avoid making you spacey and loose contact with life and earth. Especialy when the energy becomes realy powerfull that will be important. Most problems in spiritual practice comes from not being centered and not being rooted. Such practice can be just something physical like pilates for developing your ability to be centered in the abdomen or a simple meditation focused on the dan tien, for example visualising a small quietly burning flame in the dan tien, or a simple standing chi kung posture like embarcing the tree or one of the iron shirt postures (without necesarily adding the rest of the iron shirt practices). It does not have to be much, just 10 minutes 5 times a week or something just to keep you balanced. After energetic meditations it can also be very beneficial to just sit in open awareness or awareness of the breath for a while to let the fruits of the practice digest and integrate by itself for a while. In general I also think it is good for most people in the begining to do a period of bodyscanning (feel the hand, the shoulder, the belly, the leg, the left side of the body, the whole body etc. etc.) in order to properly balance the awareness in the body as a whole and to get realy connected to the body. Once this has been properly done it is usualy not necesary to practice it a lot to maintain the effects because you will do your other practices from that evenly distributed awareness. Such an even awareness also goes a long way in preventing any sort of energetic or personal imbalance. You might also try to find out as much as you can about how the meditation you practice is supposed to lead to enlightenment in the long run. Is it focused on raising kundalini? Is it only one part of a larger alchemical scheme that requires one to progress to different meditations after some time? Is it a form of insight meditation like Vipassana? Is it a practice solely focused on opening the heart and untying the knot in the heart but that does nothing for the other parts of the broad aproach that needs to be taken? Is it just a concentration practice that needs to be coupled with insight practice or alchemy? It is very important to figure out these things so that you know if your practice is the only needed, only temporary, beneficial but ultimately a dead end by itself etc. If you don`t know what insight practice is then google Daniel Ingram and read his free online book and you will be very well informed. Good Luck

Very interesting thread. This thread should be interesting to you: http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?showto...=tantra+teacher IN general I think most people are better of practicing retention of sperm than strict celibacy although a lot of care needs to be taken to transform the energy well. The advice in the thread I link to should go a long way with that. Practicing a system like KAP will also realy help you a lot, probably much more actualy. My meditation teacher who spent four years as a monk says that he gets more creativity and all of the other typical benefits from practicing retention then celibacy. However, with his training and preperation transforming the aroused sexual energy is quite easy and for beginners it will usualy be a challenge if the periods without emissions are long.

I think you will find this site very interesting: http://www.reuniting.info/ It has a lot of important things to say about sex and realtionships from a "tantric" prespective and how a diffrerent type of sex with a different type of orgasm makes all the difference. When they are talking of not having orgasms they are realy talking about a more quiet streaming type of orgasm though. For transforming sexual energy superbrainyoga is supposedly quite good. You could also do the five rites of tibet and add in the sixth rite which is not often taught because it is a very powerfull transmuter of sexual energy and as such only suitable for ceilbates. It is a realy wonderfull and powerfull sequence that balances all the chakras in a quite unique an qucik way while also opening the central channel which in itself is highly beneficial but furthermore prepares for the rising of the sexual energy up the centers. the first five open the channel and the sixth pushes your sexual energy into it.

These practices got YOU nowhere but has definitively gotten others somewhere. I know a buddhist monk that got stream entry (first enlightenment) but lost it again (not uncommon and his enlightenement was recognized by his teachers) but then got back to exactly the same place through Chias stuff.

Realy? Those who themselves have chosen or are drawn to celibacy are fond of claiming it to be the only way. The problem is it is provably wrong that it is the only way because of the large number of practioners, historicly and alive today, that have gone al the way without celibacy. In the Zen tradition it is normal to have a wife and kids among monks. In the indian and tibetan budhist tradition also. My own teacher studied with the two most highly respected tibetan dzogchen masters and at least one of them had a wife and children. You have to look far to find anyone more realized than this guy, although I am sure there are a few, and he is NOT celibate. Jack Konrfiled who himself is not celibate either interviewed around 50 well respected asian and western budhist meditation masters and teachers about sexuality. Only around 10-15 of theese were actualy celibate. From an energetic point of view celibacy is not the most efficient way to go either. The most efficient is without any doubt to have orgasms but practice retention of sperm and and transform the surpluss energy into higher forms of energy. Classical taoist texts claim this. My teacher who has spent 4 years as a celibate budhist monk confirms that for him celibacy is a lot more energicly beneficial than normal sex but multiorgasmic sex with retention is a lot more efficient then celibacy. An experiement done on worms also indicate the same. Some worms were geneticly modified so as to not be able to have ejaculations but still have orgasms. Then the researchers looked at how long the worms lived compared to those who were deprived of sex and those who were alowed to have sex. Those who had normal sex lived the shortest, those who were deprived of sex lived quite a bit longer than those with active sex lives and those who had multiorgasmic but nonejaculatory sex lived a good bit longer than the celibate ones. So if you want to save and build energy for spiritual purposes and transformation you are much better of with retention than celibacy. Being able to handle and transform the extra energy can be tricky for a lot of people especialy in the begining but can to a large extent be done very smoothly by fairly advanced practioners and to a more moderate degree by those with less experience. If you search arround in this forum you will find a lot of good info on how to go about this. Anyway there is not any principle difference between enjoying the beuty of a flower or a nice swim in the ocean and having an orgasm from an attatchement point of view. The question is not if you want or enjoy something or even what you actualy do as long as it does not hurt others or yourself but how attatched you are to your want or desire. The question is not wether you desire but wether you can let your desire flow freely through you. A lot of people confuse non-attatchement with DE-tatchment or indiference which is entirely different. Actualy in budhism indiferrence is considered the near enemy of non-attatchment because it is easy to confuse but completly wrong and unwholesome. It is the same as with the realtionship between pain and suffering. Enlightened people don`t suffer anymore but they do have pain, physicly and emotionaly, just as much as anyone else. Same thing with desire. They have as much desire as the next guy but they are not attatched to it. Shinzen young writes well about this in his articles on equanimity and pain vs suffering: http://shinzen.org/ It seems to me that the majority of western seekers, and a large part of asian teachers, have gotten this absolutely basic thing wrong. That is a tragedy.

I am strongly considering starting with a martial art called Kali Sicaran. It is a mix of filipino martial styles for close combat, wrestling, thai boxing and kali stick fighting. My question is what type of progress can one hope for in a couple of years if one practices only once a week. I practice Iyengar yoga 4-6 times a week so I just do not have time anymore. However that level of practice is giving me very, very good technical abilities and gets me in great shape so learning a martial art will be much easier for me, high kicks and understanding and executing the techniques will be so much easier for me now than a couple of years ago. I am doing this mostly just for fun but if a few years of practice could give me a decent ability to protect myself that would be great.

Thanks for the replies they were realy helpfull. Kali Sikaran is quite simple and straight forward with muy thai, filipino boxing and close combat and grapling as the core elements. So the movements are a lot more instinctual than kung fu etc. and so should get wired in a lot sooner. It also has a fair share of sparing. From people I have talked to that did sparing in muy thai they said that after six months they could easily kick the ass of anyone their own size that was not trained in martial arts just by not doing stupid stuff most people do in fights and that makes sense to me. Also Krav Maga insructors hae told me that they consider Kali Sikaran to be the next best thing for self defense after krav maga and very similar to it. I am also considering doing Krav Maga, muy thai or MMA for a while but thing I want to start with this.

At a later time I want to start some active work on building my dan tien and I am wondering how to go about that. I do a lot of Iyengar yoga and that takes care of the whole body in a very good way except not doing enough for strengthening the muscles in the dan tien and teaching you to move from the dan tien. To compensate I do 15 min of pilates each morning and that seems to fill the physical gap sufficiently. Iyengar also has a lot of restorative poses that are superb for relaxing the whole lower area and removing any constrictions that might be there so what I feel is lacking is something to strengthen the dan tien energeticly.Storing the energy in the dan tien with the secret smile seems to help and 10 minutes of standing like a tree as well but I feel I need more. I learnt some of Mantak Chias Dan Tien Chi kung and how to perform it a lot gentler than he teaches (the packing technique seems like it can create some problems unless done very gently) and that seemed to do a lot energeticaly and physucly but I feel that I need somethigng more gentle in the begining. So can anyone recomend me something that takes not much more than 15 minutes to strengthen the dan tien energetically? It could be qigong or meditation or breathing or whatever. At some point I will probably start doing the male deer excersise but are there other massage techniques I should consider for the dan tien?

I have a huge, huge problem with the fact that there are adverticements for scientology and for hypnotizing people without them being aware of it themselves on the Taobums site. It pops up from time to time. Scientology is a brutal cult that rips people of their money and puts them in debt. Just research a little bit on the net and you will find that out or yourself. I thin thetabums should not such things.

Most my friends are actualy atheists or at least agnostic and non of them are anywhere close to nihilism. Budhism woldnt have to be strange that way at all. You could just aspire to get enlightened and stay that way for as long as you live. I know of a bunch of people who both belive in enlightenment but no afterlife or that are agnostic and they are not nihilistic at all.

Go to dharmaoverground. There you have a bunch of expert vipassana people that can give you very very precise and efecient advice. You could also consider the mahasi sayadaw style of vipassana. Somewhat more gentle I think. And probably more effective since insight meditation society have experimented with teaching people both and say that get way more stream enterers with the mahasi style then goenkas. However the body scanning technique can probably have some beneficial psychological and grounding aspects that are not found to the same degree in the mahasi style. Since you say you experience a lot of extreeme emotions it might be better to only do shamatha/concentration practice for some time because it is very stabilising and good for dealing with your stuff wheras the insight meditation part can be a rough ride sometimes. Also I wonder if you are doing practices that adress the emotional volatility like healing sounds, inner smile, secret smile etc.

I dont remember were but I have read, in two or three good books on budhism, a dialogue between the buddha and a student were he adresses this by inquiring with the student how he would live his live if he knew reincarnation to be true and how he would live it if it were not. I dont belive in reincarnation and I am not a nihilist, that conection is meaningless.

So hatred of other religions is thus a required part of being a budhist?????? The Dalai Lama as the head of Tibetan Budhism should cary some weight and he is extreemly clear on this issue. Other religions should be respected and are valuable. . Spotless history ha ha. Tibetan monastaries were waging war against each others like crazy over the most minute details of dogma for centuries. Even during the Buddhas time some of his monastaries or groups of monks got into heated conflicts that the Buddha could not resolve and ended in the splitting up of monastic communities. If this Namdrol guy does not know this he speaks with no weihgt. If he does know then his statement makes him a lier. The Buddha was explicit on the fact that you did not need to belive in reincarnation to follow his teaching and that it did not impact how one lives ones life so I dont see what the fuzz is about. ESangha is the most unwelcoming forum I have ever attended.

I forgot about the whole thing but at 23 I started feeling something opening and then bliss and then I looked at the time and tought damn its started. After that half an hour of a very blissfull experience. Nice. Thank you.

I have not been locked out but i have had a lot of posts locked out. All those posts have been posts were I have criticized known abusive gurus like adi da, or when I mentioned a documentary that through film could document that Sai Baba did not manifest material objects as he does to impress his followers but took them out of his sleave in addition to presenting a dozen people acusing him of abusing them when they were children or teens, or when I argued against ayp linking to scientology sites because the church of scientology is so obviously an abusive cult. Yoganis argument is that such posts can stir arguments that can take away from spiritual discussion and the foloowers might have their feelings hurt. My argument is that if such people are not exposed several people who pass by the ayp forum will gravitate towards these people and end up suffering their abusive and completly sidetracking their spiritual development untill hopefully they leave these abusive false gurus. In the thread I wanted to post the documentation that Sai Baba was a fraud several people had been his followers and bowed and kissed his feet and others where considering learning from him. Because my post was censored Yogani made sure these people were not warned about the evidence that this guru is a fraud. That is grave responsibility. That has very real consequences for those whom yogani take the possibility of a warning away from. For all yoganis other excellent qualities this makes me litteraly sick to my stomach.

Intu-flow is supposed to be superb for joints

A friend of mine has a heart problem. I did not realy understand what kind of problem it was but at least it was serious enough in the long term and gave her some trouble breathing. THe problem surfaced after someone realy broke her heart badly. In general what practices are good for the heart and heart problems and what kind of safety issues might arise? I am afraid some practices esepcialy those working directly with th heart could make things worse. Even a practice that is helpfull long term I think might risk something bad happening just because strong procesess start happening in the heart. I am going to find out the exact condition but just wanted some general input. In general I think that ordinary breath based meditation would lay a good foundation and could heal a lot of the problem as the research I have seen on meditation and heart problems suggest it has a powerfull healing effect. Just general yoga and qigong would also be great. After a solid foundation in this that presumably improves the general condition inner smile and healing sounds working directly on the heart could be the next step. Because of the breathing problems some sort of breathing practices would seem good but I am cluesless to what would be beneficial and what could be risky. Anyway I will find out the exact condition in a day or to and get back to you about it.

Great insights combined with stuff I think he said just to anoy people and have fun. Still he wa basicly a complete psychopath and to a large degree lead people astray. Lots of good stuff came out of the osho community but also a lot of bad stuff and damaged people. Imagine if he had been a real spiritual master that actualy took care of his students and lead them somewhere that was actualy totaly wholesome instead of somewhat good and very bad at the same time.

I think of it like this: We do not know if the law of attraction works. If it does in fact work ir requires very strong mental signals being sent by you which means great mind power, which again means it would probably require similar meditative abilities as for quite powerfull siddhis. If this works in principle normal people just do not have strong enough energy and concentration to make this work. And even if normal people are capalble of making this work I don`t see much evidence at all that many actualy make it work. So using the law of attraction to attract women is at best something which might work but might very well not. Pickup skills on the other hand we KNOW can be learnt to the degree where you get the women you want. Even those that used to be completly "out of your league". Making the law of attraction work for you probably requires as much work on yourself as making pickup work. Since the law of attraction has a questinable ability to yield results whereas pickup skills has a 99% certainty of general success if one realy tries to learn it, the rational choice is pickup skills. at charismaarts.com you can learn pickup skills that are natural and does not require lying or misrepresenting you in any way or manipulating etc. etc. It will actualy help you be yourself more than before while also heloing you get the women you want.

Sounds good but add some basic breath based meditation, zazen, vipassana, taoist stilness whatever. That will harmonize a lot of things and digest the more active stuff you do, get you deep and build concentration and awareness that will make everything else so much easier. Also do something very grounding from early on and you will avoid trouble.

A friend wants to learn basic meditation so I want to find some good and simple instructions for shamatha/anapanasati/basic breath based concentrative meditation. I am thinking a page or three, just explaining the basics of attention to the breath and bringing attention back without frustration when distracted etc. I only have long books with instructions scattered all over the place and too much writing on topics that she would be uninterested in or just confused by. Does anyone no of such instructions online? Or have something they could email me? If so that would be awesome.

Thanks

Thanks guys. I know primordial qigong so I will see if it is something that resonates with her.

I can absolutely see the connection to the fire chakra but I think it is a lot more complex. Training what is called working memory, amount of information you can hold in your head for a short time realy helps with add: cogmed.com Any sort of meditation and focusing excercises and stuff that creates calm also helps a lot. So although I think just a lot of energy (fire energy) can be a large part of it, the ability to regulate attention and relaxation seems to me a huge part of it. A chineese doctor who claims to have made a herbal medicine that helps a lot says that imbalances of the kidneys are central. Rather than medication I think yoga, meditation, breathing excrecises, training working memory, diet, herbal medicines, aromatic oils for the skin, aromatic candles, feng shui, looking for enviornmental influences at home and in school, possibly physical bodywork, accupuncture/self accupressure/self massage, energetic healers, adapting the environment, talk therapy (quite succesfull in many cases with add) and last but not leat apreaciating the difference in personality of a person with add is what is needed. If you add all ore the most important of these elements the diagnosis would disapear in most people and those who keep it would be a lot more balanced but still more impulsive, driven etc. Accepting that this remaining difference can be a good thing and pursuing what this type of personality makes you excell in would be the way to go. Depending on how much of a problem there is conventional medication scan be used for some time. However, the last study I saw claimed that over a few years time pills are nor more effective than talk therapy.