freeform

I was happily nodding along in agreement - until I came to ‘seminar peddler’ 😂 I guess talking to people for money is tantamount to rape and abuse now… What about writing to people for money? I think it’s got to be worse, no? - it’s recorded down - so it’s infinitely scalable… abuse on a world scale vs seminar room scale. PS - I didn’t know Trungpa is still venerated! How do you know that he is?

It’s also not good for you as the past members of SOTG’s group. The more you think/talk/investigate/research about it, the more attachment it creates. Best to forget about it. Leave the whole matter alone - and fill your time with something completely different (and non esoteric). Any issues and traumas around it will fall away far easier the less ‘scar tissue’ you build around the whole thing. Move on. Maybe in time you’ll start on the cultivation path again… then when the time is right all your scars will fall away of their own accord - and you won’t even notice. That’s the best way to get over a trauma like this.

The issue with Frank Yang in my opinion is not that he’s completely deluded - it’s that he’s been completely misled… Which brings us back on topic - sort of. Daniel Ingram has dismissed classical descriptions of attainment - and instead put together his own descriptions of attainment. He drew from his own experience - and since he’s not an enlightened being, his experience is limited… so he mapped out accomplishments that get people to where he got - and he decided to call what he got ‘enlightenment’ (or 4th path). My guess is that Ingram would call the classical attainments as metaphorical. Is this what happens when people dismiss classical attainments? These arts get dumbed down to something like centerlessness and borderlessness? How about Sam Harris? He seems to have completely stripped the Dharma out of meditation and replaced it with Scientism… do people have much experience with Sam Harris? I’ve only listened to one interview a few years ago…

No sorry - that wouldn’t be appropriate at all. I’m absolutely no expert and I have very limited experience - so whatever I say will inevitably be wrong for some people who are in a vulnerable position.

Full Natty Aum Bro Yes - that’s one practice to smooth out the Yin-Yang balance… Another is working a step down with the 5 lights and 5 movements… Another is through humility (or Bhakti type practice).

I feel like he’s part of a very big group of people that are willingly led astray. ‘Willingly’ because this stuff sounds cool - and they really do get phenomena like they’ve been told - and that confirms everything… it’s all very new and exciting - and there are lots of others in the same situation… So I can’t blame them… it’s a similar scene to psychedelics… I can totally see myself falling into this tribe had I come across it when I was a teenager!

Oh I should also add - just because I found this rather difficult to come to terms with myself… You may also fruit positive karma - very positive wholesome states - love, connection, beauty - all that good stuff… but it’s still karma - and it will ensnare you back into the drama of life again if you’re not careful So many pitfalls at this stage! In fact many teachers recommend limiting interactions at this point simply to give yourself the opportunity to bring Yin and Yang back into some balance again.

I’ve had 4 different types of bright white light experience - each with a different causation… each with slightly different qualities. Not quite as simple as “It’s white light or it’s not” As a kid I had this friend that would press on her eyes with her palms because she enjoyed the colours followed by the blinding white light she could see as her eyeballs pressed against her optic nerve.

There’s a mechanic, yes… Yin and Yang - and the creation process from Wuji to Yuan Shen to Yin and Yang and so on. I kinda have to skirt around this I’m afraid. When you touch Spirit at the deepest level, you go through a similar process as being reborn… in that window of opportunity your karma begins to unravel… whereas before it would fruit according to circumstances, after such an event it no longer requires the same set of circumstances and so it fruits freely… At the same time - after such an experience you’re feeling very good - like you’ve experienced a connection to God - and it becomes easy to delude yourself that whatever karma fruits is a calling from God or something like that… So you might end up buying 365 Rolexes - one for each day of the year as an expression of the divine… or you might beat someone for disturbing your meditation - as an expression of the divine… or manipulate someone into a sexual relationship etc etc. It happens all the time. Sometimes people assume disgraced gurus were frauds - in many cases they were, but in some cases this is what happened to them… They touch the Divine and assume they’ve arrived - when in fact they’ve only just taken the first step.

I suspect that he’s possibly playing up for the camera a little. He’s talked about taking various psychedelics… Practices that seek to create mind bending phenomena + drugs + bipolar… it’s just not a great mix. But I’ve only heard part of an interview and some of that video above when Anshino posted it some time back. So although I can be pretty certain that he’s not enlightened, I can’t say much else though. I don’t mean to suggest that I know much about mental illness at all… I’ve just had experience of caring for some people with bipolar. It’s more of an internal energy mismanagement from my experience… although manic episodes can bring about delusional states - it’s not delusional states that bring about manic episodes… that’s what I mean by ‘not rooted in’. Bipolar people can be quite competent at life and will often appear to be exceptional at something or other during a manic period…

@dwai - Buddha Boy 👆🏻 (sounds like a Gen Z rapper )

I didn’t mean to suggest that he’s delusional as a result of bipolar. From a video I saw - he clearly does a lot of meditative practice! But bipolar can fuel these experiences during a manic stage - so perceptual shifts can take on much more significance and become a lot more intense experientially. Bipolar is not generally rooted in delusion like other mental health issues can be.

I’m absolutely not the person to ask about real Dharma 😅 For me the Daoist alchemical model is how I understand my own path… Aspects of Dharma inform that to some extent. From this perspective Roger’s (the guy who wrote this article) perceptual shift has been in the Shen… the manifest aspect of consciousness… what my teacher would call Mind (not Xin - heart-mind not Yuan Shen - original spirit)… It sounds a bit like one of the shifts that happen with upper Dantien work. But I’d have to ask questions to ascertain. Nothing he’s said (I also watched a video) suggests that he’s touched the Divine… (though I suspect he’d say there’s no soul there’s no spirit). So it’s all just Mind instead… however expanded that may be, if there’s no divine spark, no ‘pre-heaven’ aspect that radiates from within - then you technically couldn’t say that he’s even started the ‘spiritual path’ yet… (let alone gotten fully enlightened). I find his sort of talk really difficult to digest. To me it’s very disembodied and devoid of Spirit - so it makes me feel kinda queasy 😅 ——— And just as an aside… playing Devils Advocate… touching the Divine is only the start of the spiritual path! There’s a lot that can go wrong indeed! As evidenced by ‘Buddha Boy’. From what I’ve read of peoples experiences (seeing the 5 coloured lights emanating from him… spontaneous fires starting near him etc) - he gained genuine access to Spirit… but this is when karma starts to unravel - this is when the path really begins… having no teacher means he’s just playing out the unwholesome karmic unraveling at an accelerated rate. One of the big pitfalls - and sadly, despite being rather gifted - he’s fallen right into that trap.

Don’t get me wrong - I think it’s impressive stuff. I’m very much pro developing g physical strength and skill! What they’re doing is akin to the modern performance callisthenics movement in the west - like this sort of stuff: It’s super impressive and takes a lot of skill and dedication. But it’s not spiritual… and it has little to do with cultivation or working with Qi - even though that’s what they say.

Impressive acrobatic skill again. Still completely ‘external’ - done for show or for preserving tradition (not Wudang tradition)

All the bagua is external… all the ceremonial stuff is relatively modern and is not based on Nei Dan - which is what was traditionally practiced in Wudang.

Im familiar with the temple yes… Again - it’s the same situation - these physical feats - although they take great skill and discipline. But why do it? This sort of conditioning might be useful for a fighter… but is it better than taking blows in normal combative sparring? I believe it's for performance (that’s why the outfits) - to impress people - make money and create ‘cultural value’ for the CCP. It’s like going to visit the tribal people in northern Thailand - they dress up in traditional clothes, do traditional looking stuff in traditional looking huts - you take a few photos, give out some money - then they go to their real home, put on their real clothes and go about their real work.

The problem imo is when it comes to people like Frank Yang - who has bipolar disorder - but is encouraged to believe that during his manic episodes he’s experiencing enlightenment and during his depressive episodes it’s just a ‘dark night of the soul’. extensive meditative practice and mental health issues are a tricky combination that must be handled very carefully.

100 days should certainly be enough to feel something… I would say actually 21 days. If you can’t feel something ‘unusual’ happening internally in 21 days - then you’re probably practicing a dud system.

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Thanks for that - that made me spray my tea all over myself 😂

Thanks for the very helpful background on Ingram. I felt that he’s kinda at the centre of a lot of the Buddhist meditation scene in the west - but when you listen to him, there’s no Dharma at all… I found that interesting. I think that relates to the original question… because it seems that a group can come along and make a new model of the process of spiritual attainment - and as a result the classical descriptions of attainment are dropped and meditative phenomena adopted as the new milestones of progress. For me that’s such a shame… but I can see how coming across these things might open an avenue to genuine dharma for some. I wonder whether someone who considers themselves enlightened would be willing to question their assumption and see it from the classical perspective (where they’re probably on the first or second rung of an almost infinitely tall ladder).

What do people think of Ingram? I only recently came across him in the guru Viking podcast. He sure like his phenomena!

These guys are very fit, with good conditioning and clearly a high level of acrobatic skill… But Wudang has become a kind of theme park of ‘culture’… hence the fancy outfits - it’s kinda like the Shaolin monks that train for performance rather than for genuine spiritual cultivation… it’s for show. I’ve visited the place - I know people that were unfortunate enough to train there… Wudang historically was steeped in alchemical practice - these wushu style martial arts are a relatively new thing… an old dude sitting quietly doesn’t do much for tourism - acrobatic performances and great outfits do!

Monasteries IME tended to be even bigger mixed bags… many in a monastery are not really that interested in dharma… they’re there for many other reasons. There’s less delusion than in westerners, but it’s more like a high school with different cliques 😅 There are the geeky ones, the popular, outgoing ones, the troublemakers, the lazy ones, the political types etc etc… and of course there are also the ones who have a deep calling, a real talent, or that cultivator mindset - they’re definitely not the majority though! Different monasteries have different mixtures - but they’re often some cross-section of the local society.