Armando

Simply going with the flow is excellent advice as long as the water is relatively calm. 😃

On 4/28/2019 at 8:54 PM, Aetherous said:

 

Is that truly a Tibetan Buddhist method? What Rinpoche taught you that?

Not saying it isn't...but definitely questioning.

I was told it is based on the Maithuna tradition. The idea being that you cannot reach Buddhahood leaving any aspect of your being out of the picture. Therefore, Tibetan Buddhism is a way of true self-integration.

And actually, I was more than just being told about what I mentioned. More like being taken to a place that took me a full three days to recover from afterwards. 😃

Forgive me for not sharing any further details at this time, though. I was told to treat those things with discretion. And again and again, I can see the wisdom in this... As those practises are not without danger without proper preparation and guidance.

And yes, there is much to explore without touching the more extreme realms of experience.

Any kind of exaggerated (addictive) behaviour can be damaging to someone's energy system. And yet on the higher levels of Tantric Buddhism, we sometimes teach to indulge in the 'poison' and to use this as an opportunity for gaining insight and awareness.

3 hours ago, ilumairen said:

 

Please clarify your differentiation here.

'Egoistic' in common usage is synonymous with selfish, self-indulgent, etc. So I used 'egotistic' instead, as I simply meant to say 'in reference to the ego'.

English is not my first language, and perhaps the two terms could actually be used interchangeably. However, I try to make subtle distinctions to the best of my ability, as I am aware that languages in general tend to be unprecise when it comes to matters of the mind and spirit - and sometimes their ambiguities and implied assumptions are tainting our perception of things.

3 hours ago, ilumairen said:

 

From different levels within themselves?

In my understanding, the 'voice' of intuitive guidance comes from the level of our own Buddhahood.

3 hours ago, ilumairen said:

Or are you suggesting that those talking to us are also no more than our own voices speaking to us?

 

 

That's not what I meant to say, but there is a very interesting thought in this: That what other people are telling us reflects what we are saying to ourselves on some level.

If that's what you thought I might be saying.

2 hours ago, ilumairen said:

 

The outside answers may not correlate with experience, and then the age old conundrum arises. Do you trust yourself or another, and if you don't trust yourself how can you trust the choosing of who to trust?

 

Messy stuff..

Things always tend to get messy as long as our awareness is restricted by the limits of the egotistic (NOT egoistic!) mind. We must penetrate beyond that in order to stably function from a level of undistorted and trustworthy inner information.

There is a learning process involved. At the end of the day, only experience will allow us to sort out the different voices that are constantly talking in and to us from different levels of self.

And even though there are no hard and fast rules, it is usually not the loudest voice that offers the best guidance.

Regular meditative practice goes a long way developing our sensitivity to deeper levels of self that are tuned into universal knowledge.

1 hour ago, ilumairen said:

 

Perhaps it would be simplest to suggest that the people who feel lacking in power will seek what they feel to be lacking?

I agree.

And there is a misconception among spiritually minded people that seeking or having power is a bad thing.

It is not, if the power is used with wisdom and compassion.

23 hours ago, silent thunder said:

Whatever you do in the pursuit of truth or reality takes you away from your own very natural state in which you always are. It’s not something you can acquire, attain or accomplish as a result of your effort. All that you do makes it impossible for what already is there to express itself. That is why I call this your natural state. You’re always in that state. What prevents what is there from expressing itself in its own way is the search. The search is always in the wrong direction, so all that you consider very profound, all that you consider sacred, is a contamination in that consciousness. You may not [Laughs] like the word contamination but all that you consider sacred, holy and profound is a contamination. There’s nothing that you can do, it’s not in your hands. This is something which I can’t give because you have it. It is ridiculous to ask for a thing which you already have. There isn’t anything to get from anybody. You have what I have. I say you are there.

 

UG Krishnamurti

Yes, this perspective (shared by Krishnamurti and others - e.g. Alan Watts comes to mind) has validity to it. Sometimes we are trying too hard to get somewhere really fast. Eventually, we tense up and thereby block the process. At times like these, it is good to remind ourselves that, indeed, we already are where we are hoping to go and that, in fact, we have always been there and will always be there.

This is true - essentially. However, it is also true that there are steps to be taken and levels of the self to be realised. And in this process of navigating the self, we may sometimes be going through stages that (even though a degree of acceptance is still key) we don't want to focus on too much, but rather direct our attention in a direction we want to go. And there can be validity to this too.

As far as I am concerned, no such concepts are always true and appropriate. They are tools to be used as we see fit - depending on where we are and where we are heading to (or not).

1 hour ago, GSmaster said:

Immortality in my perception is ageless body that can live on limitlessly.

 

You could still be killed or die in catastrophe.

 

Immortality after death is fraud, because soul of every being transists through life and death without any practice. This is worst case of selling air.

 

While I agree that something transits through every death regardless of whatever spiritual realisation you may or may not have attained, the question remains how much of what you recognise as your identity you can take with you to another plane. And some kind of "death" exists not on the physical level alone. At least that's the view of various traditions, including the Tibetan one. And that's why we dedicate ourselves to the creation of what we call the diamond body. Paradoxically, building it up leads to the shedding of some layers of self already while we are physically still alive!

1 minute ago, Spotless said:

 

The above was in reference to:

 

“Some speak of murder - but  a great many would say that no Being has been killed. Over half of the inhabitants on this planet would say that no Being has been killed - that a possible body for that Being was dis-allowed - but no murder took place”

 

How would this be different from killing a born child? Or an adult, for that matter?

Wouldn't it be logical to say that still no murder took place? That only a, well, actual body has been disallowed? Big deal... The soul just travelled on!

Where would you draw the line?

17 minutes ago, voidisyinyang said:

See the answer I just posted above - thanks

So the limit of tantra is described by Bill Bodri as per Master Nan, Huai-chin - tantra works as a catalyst and it does heal the body - as mutual female psychic orgasms. But this is NOT the same as just some Perv-Predator male sucking off energy doing deep breathing so he can ejaculate - that is the definition of pure evil and is a psychic black hole.

 

So with Tantra - you can have a mutual heart Yuan Qi awakening - as a electrogravitic or magnetogravitic astral bond - but it is still a lower yin qi spirit - since the Yuan Shen is via the Yuan Qi emptiness itself. So if there is separation from the female then there is strong sadness since the Compassion of tantra is the heart plus the lungs (as the Po Soul yang qi). So if the male does too much tantra then he burns out his yang qi energy and becomes a ghost immortal.

 

The female energy taken in - as I said - it's in my training manual. I will quote that.

Tricksters and Trancers: Bushmen Religion and Society

 

Oh wait - the quote is on my old blog...

 

Could you elaborate on the highlighted part, please?

Cause I feel what you have described may be part of what happened in the case I described in two previous posts:

6 minutes ago, Pilgrim said:

I have no idea what Tonglen is but am willing to learn.

That's a method from Tibetan Buddhism that can be used for healing and transforming any kind of difficult emotion.

I gave detailled instructions for it here:

It was one of the things that attracted to me to Buddhism in the first place that it doesn't teach us to run away from life's more difficult aspects, but to accept them and to use them as stepping stones towards greater awareness. As a matter of fact, Gautama's eyes were opened when he became aware of the darkness that surrounded him.

@Pilgrim Have you tried Tonglen for dealing with your sadness?

On 7.3.2019 at 9:42 PM, Everything said:

Your negative emotion is always highlighting a very specific energy, that is general to you, in terms of life and energy.

 

The guidance of your emotions, is such, that it always contains the answer unto itself.

 

Where there is an energy that is being summoned, and thus then contradicted, or resisted, at the same time, this discordance can be defined, in terms of emotions, in your current now life experience, always here and now, as your emotions are always an indication of your here and now energy, always perfectly indicating your energy in the here and now moment.

 

So let's say, you feel pain. That unto itself, is pointing you towards the energy motional essence, of that relief. "Relief" is a non-physical, energy motional, e-motional, idea. That is the general essence, foundational building blocks of the energy that you are seeking to align yourself with by virtue of your focusing your self, into the idea of relief, and what it is thus then for you, in ever expanding ALLOWED realisation that happens by virtue of your focusing on the idea or word of "relief."  this focusing, causes the expansion of thought, and flow of energy, throughout your physical vessel. The first evidence, is emotional, then manifestational. The core is a deliberate focus on relief, as a general energy grid that is allowed to expand.

 

The pain is not to be transformed, it is just pointing you towards the relief, reminding you of the relief that is available to you.

 

 

When you have a vague negative emotion of "loneliness" for example. You may not know what is the positive emotion of loneliness?

Because loneliness is not an energy motional state of being. It is a conditional event, that one terms to be lack of people, thus one cannot find the healing of the emotion due to this confusion. And the way to clarity, is easy.

 

You simply think about your emotion. Being loneliness, now let's say that that means that you want togetherness. But since that's not an emotion, you ask yourself this "Why do I want togetherness? Why does it feel better, and what about it feels better, and how does that feel?"

 

So you imagine being together with people in the way you prefer to be with people. And you see in your imaginion, reaching for a vision that feels good to you, of something you wish to experience. For example, being loved by someone. Or people caring about you, and being good to you. And you feel very good. Then you realise, oh I want togetherness because I want people to be good to me!

 

Continue this process asking yourself why you want it. Not asking yourself to justify your preference or desire, but why you want and enjoy the thing you do want. So not "Oh, because I am lonely." no... "Because I enjoy it when people love me! I love being loved."

 

Now you have the emotional clarity of the foundational, underlying energy motion grid that you're working here with. It is one of feeling "unloved and loved" rather than "loneliness and togetherness"  which would imply many unrelated conditional manifestations, where as unloved and loved, are at the core of your experience in such a case, which you discover by asking yourself why you want those things and why you don't want those things you do not want. Meaning, neglect, feels careless and feels unloved. And loved feels cared for and thus loved. As imagined by you, your own preference, as you are feeling your own envisioning of the life circumstances you envision for the purpose of feeling them.

I agree. It's good to be as objective as we can regarding our more difficult emotions, and that includes identifying and defining them correctly.

24 minutes ago, Lost in Translation said:

 

I want a peaceful world so I will bash my enemies over the head until they are nice to me.

 

Or...

 

I want a peaceful world so I will learn to be a peaceful man.

 

As a peacekeeper in Nepal I learned that being at peace myself was going a long way appeasing a potentially violent situation.

During the seven years in my monastery in Kathmandu, I was sleeping in a traditional 'meditation box', and usually for no more than four hours a night.

Living in Germany again, I no longer do that, but I am content with a simple mat on the floor. And I still don't sleep very much.

15 hours ago, Pilgrim said:

I agree with you. This is why I respect the lineages. Experience confirms the truth of what is. The amazing part to me is how shallow my wisdom is and how great the wisdom of those who have already been here  and reached the next evolution truly is.

Of course, I respect the lineages too. However, I encouraged you to share your personal experience because I knew this wouldn't touch upon any lineage questions. Your personal experience is yours alone. Where you should go from there is another matter entirely.

On 6.3.2019 at 9:20 PM, Pilgrim said:

This has been my experience of Tummo and without formal guidance it occurs to me that the work of Tummo is not being accomplished so I rarely engage in it. 

Nevertheless, it is interesting that you discovered these Tummo basics spontaneously by yourself during your practice. It is another example illustrating that the methods of Bön and Vajrayana are by no means something artificial and imposed on the practitioner, but that they draw on natural processes. An observation that I tend to highlight in my teaching; especially beginners in the west often find this insight helpful as they can be somewhat perplexed by some of the methods at first.

But you are quite right, it is better not to try taking your Tummo practice to the next level on your own, i.e. without personal instruction allowing you to do this safely.

On 3.3.2019 at 11:44 PM, InnerOuterBalance said:

 

^ This is the correct 3 channels path. Ida goes down to the perineum, Pingala to the belly button area. No need to worry about these though, just keep peeling layers. I don't believe in visualizations because it is us creating an illusion. If we experience the channel it is different but creating illusions and imagining these channels is us digging a hole for ourselves in my view.

On 4.3.2019 at 1:30 PM, rex said:

 

Just some thoughts on this:

 

• Lineage practices based on experience may use specific visualisations. Here efficacy over the centuries may trump intellectual doubt.
• The subtle body may be ideoplastic and adapt to the goal of practices, though I'm not saying one can make up any old nonsense.
• Visualisations may lead to spontaneity, the process and subtle body end up runnning things themselves without mental manipulation.

 

 

 

I agree with the latter view, overall. Visualisation can be an effective tool for us to communicate with and operate on the levels subtle energy, at least for the time being.

2 minutes ago, manitou said:

 

 

  I agree.  Many recovering ones go on to do incredible things.  It has to do with the 'fearless and thorough moral inventory' as described in Step 4 of the 12 steps.  Once this process of viewing ourselves (out of necessity!) begins, it continues throughout one's life.  When I first did that step, I made the assumption that I had every character defect I could think of, and then it was just a matter of figuring out to which degree it manifested within me.  Then there are remedies to remove it, or at least as much as we can at the time.  It also includes the humiliating process of making amends to those we had harmed.  As I see it now, after doing this in awareness for 38 years, the steps work as well as anything else to start the process toward self realization.

In fact, in Tantric Buddhism, there are practices of even amplifying a toxic behaviour temporarily as to really grasp its lesson. A way that is not without danger, obviously, and would best be done only under the guidance and supervision of a master, however, I observe that people will sometimes repeat destructive patterns of behaviour unwittingly until (as you indicated) they can take that next step on their journey, or else... Making you wonder if that is not what it was all aimed at in the first place.

On 3.3.2019 at 11:14 PM, Creation said:

I would be curious to know if this is combined in you practice with generation stage/illusory body yoga for you, or is practiced strictly as a manipulation of the drops.  I get the impression that different tantras do things differently, but I don't know any details.

So it may seem at first, but if you look on to completion stage, you may find that your earlier practice prepared you for what is to follow later.

For convenience, I will quote from Geshe Kelsang Gyatso: Essence of Vajrayana, p. 92 f.:

Quote

Completion stage meditation on tummo, or inner fire, causes the downward-voiding wind below our navel to reverse and flow up through the central channel, which in turn causes all our inner winds to gather into the central channel and dissolve into the life-supporting wind at our heart. This causes the white bodhichitta in our crown chakra to melt and descend through our central channel, giving rise to the four joys of serial and reverse order. The final joy, the mind of spontaneous great bliss, then mixes inseparably with emptiness and gradually abandons the two obstructions. When our mind is completely purified in this way we attain the three resultant bodies of a Buddha - the Truth Body, Enjoyment Body, and Emanation Body. Thus, these aspects of the charnel grounds teach us how to attain full enlightenment by training in the yogas of completion stage.

Doesn't this description remind you of something?

Even though Vajrayana comes with an immense variety of seemingly disparate methods, every so often, you will find that kind of interwovenness underlying it all - making it a comprehensive system.

On 3.3.2019 at 8:15 PM, Pilgrim said:

Yes I do. I can elaborate here or in private your choice. I do not hold back much but would not like to potentially step on lineage toes.

I don't see any problem with you sharing your personal experience in this regard. Rest assured, I wouldn't have suggested it in the first place, otherwise.

On 4.3.2019 at 4:55 PM, voidisyinyang said:

I would say MUSIC is the language of emotions - and we are immersed in music most of the time - shopping malls, grocery stores, in cars - even doctor's rooms now use music sometimes during surgery.

 

So if a person gets in an emotional funk - then music will change the emotions.

There is a great scene in a documentary on this

 

Yes, music has a great power to release and heal emotions. And chanting mantras can be seen as a variation of that.

It goes without saying that sometimes we need to dig deeper to get somewhere with our issues. But music, whether we are ourselves making it somehow or just listening to it, definitely should have a place in our cultivation. And I believe every traditional culture is using it that way.

On 4.3.2019 at 6:01 PM, manitou said:

 

 

Yes, I agree, that too is the trick.  We must remember that everything we have done has been part of our path - we wouldn't be what we are today unless we had gone through the very circumstances that may make us cringe today, LOL.  And, being a recovering alcoholic, I've got plenty to cringe about - but now the cringe turns to chuckles when I realize what a jerk I was....(Like for example when I was wearing a beautiful black gown on New Year Eve, but coming out of a blackout and finding myself kneeling on the floor barfing into a toilet in the men's room at some strange bowling alley - I had no idea how I got there---I mean things like this were not unusual at all).  All I can do now is give myself a break and laugh about it.

Thank you for sharing your experiences. As a matter of fact, some of the wisest and most caring individuals I have met in my life have been through similar things and worse...

Going out on a limb

Would this be an acceptable reply? This topic looks like an interesting game to play, but I am new on this forum and I am not sure if I am actually getting this right...

On 3.3.2019 at 6:23 PM, Armando said:

 

These are important issues...

 

Tantric Buddhism aims neither at repressing nor at prematurely releasing what can be seen as negative emotions. This is true at least on more advanced levels of practice. Rather, it teaches to accept those emotions as natural and to transform them eventually. The underlying understanding being that what is negative and destructive is just the distortion of something that is - essentially and potentially - positive and constructive.

On 4.3.2019 at 3:49 PM, Pilgrim said:

Expand more on this point please? 

On 4.3.2019 at 3:54 PM, Fa Xin said:

 

This caught my attention too.

 

I can't imagine something *actually* releasing until it's ready to go. 

 

If it goes and comes back, it was never released in the first place.

On 4.3.2019 at 4:14 PM, ilumairen said:

 

That's kinda the point.. there are many ways in which people can bypass and avoid issues - prematurely believing they have let something go. And even this aversion can become it's own seed.. ready to sprout when similar situations arise. 

Thank you for answering that so aptly for me, Ilumairen.

There is really not very much to add to this, except perhaps that there will always be those in any system of cultivation (including Buddhism) trying to use their meditative practices to escape from their issues. And while we all should certainly integrate ample opportunities for levity into our lives, at the end of the day, our practices can and should have helped us confront and make progress with our issues - which they have the potential for doing in so many ways, especially when we are talking about Tantric Buddhism.

There truly isn't much chance to release any issues before it is ready to be released anyway - but there are plenty of ways to trick ourselves into believing we got over them and have attained a higher level now, when there is still so much we once decided to tuck away in our basement.

Yet there comes a time when, in order for true progress to take place, we need to bring that stuff back to the light of day, so we can apply awareness and come to terms with it. In some cases, this may mean that we let it go for good at last, in others we may decide to even put it back on that shelf in our living room, at least for the time being.