Armando

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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).

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!

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?

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:

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?

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.

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.