goldisheavy

Yea, all extraordinary cognitions are naturally hard to believe. That's expected. That's why they're called extraordinary to indicate that fact from the POV of convention. However, someone whose mind has been released from self-imposed contraints may constantly experience what we could consider strange, but from the subjective POV of a released mind it becomes normal, and then our self-limited condition becomes the strange one and the one that's hard to believe. In other words, what is hard to believe depends on what you're used to and what you expect to happen.

The first sentence is a valid example of grasping. However, "balance" or clinging to the middle, is also grasping.

Nimittas are "signs" or "visions" in English. One should realize that these signs are individual based on one's propensities. Not everyone will see a light even if they meditate correctly.

Extraordinary cognition is any cognition that isn't considered normal or sane. For example, if you experience having 4 arms, that's one example. If your body vanishes and reappears, that's another. If your sense of time slows down such that people on the street hover endlessly in mid-step, that's another. If you stretch your human body like a piece of bubble gum until your head reaches the moon, that's another example. More examples: experiencing yourself as a group of people instead of as one person. Switching identities with people. Compressing or warping space, like if you can put a chair into your coat pocket. Etc. And so on. All the jhanas (meditative absorptions) are types of extraordinary cognition as well. The main thing to understand is that the mind isn't a thing and it's not created by a thing or a system of things (like the brain). The mind is a primordial capacity. Once you realize this, you can begin practicing going crazy in earnest. When you become completely insane, and yet you can still relate to sane people if you choose to do so, then you're liberated.

This is only the beginning. Eventually you should be able to manifest any appearance whatseover, and I count non-appearance as a special cognition, so still an appearance.

I've watched a few videos and already I stumbled on Jackson speaking of the brain as if the brain does something and is not merely an object of cognition in and of itself. Also Jackson seems to dwell on content vs. absence of content as the important distinction and I don't think that's necessarily the most important distinction to make. It's much better to introduce people to extraordinary cognition as an alternative to ordinary. This is different from turning off your TV.

Thinking that someone "out there" definitively experiences victimhood is also grasping. I'll agree that grasping is subtle, however.

I agree that this would be one example of grasping.

Having a high self-opinion is not what grasping is. Grasping is simply any form of judgement that is unconsciously committed to inflexibility and not sufficiently cognizant of infinite different perspectives. So grasping is something subtle. Grasping is a mode of cognition. It's not a character flaw or some such. Grasping is not something anyone could pass an objective value judgement about. I think that's really cool. Experimenting is essential. Without this kind of experimenting the person is very unlikely to realize what their own mind is really all about.

First, I am not criticizing your experience. In fact I like to think I never critize any experience per se. I like to think I criticize only framing. Maybe I do slip up from time to time. I'm talking about experiences on the margins of convention here and experiences beyond convention. Second, trying to separate mystical experiences into real and delusionally self-induced is a big mistake. All systems of judgement we may use are flimsy and they do not readily withstand the pressure of analysis. So if you were to assume your experience was some genuine sign, I'd be able to successfully question you such that if you follow my questions you'll have to admit you have no objective basis for judgement and it will come down to aesthetics, personal preference, etc. And this is important to understand because this is what is known as "the view." Without "the view" Dzogchen is just a bunch of exotic experiences that people have pretty often outside the Dzogchen circles. For example, migrane sufferers see lights often. Seeing lights is not a sign on its own. Not seeing lights is also not a sign of doing badly either, on its own. If you really want to assess your progress in Dzogchen, you should assess the freedom of mentation instead of this or that individual appearance. If you can instantly move between any conceivable state of mind A to any state of mind B, congrats, you are a realized being. If not, then you still don't have what they call "the rainbow body."

Separating experiences into real and fake is nothing more than engaging some arbitrary conceptual validation framework. If you're aware that's what you're doing when you are engaging a validation framework, that's fine. Otherwise you are merely an ordinary samsaric being, no matter how many lights you see at night.

Sorry I am late to the thread, and I don't feel like digging throug all of it, but who is this "Jackson" you keep talking about? Which videos? Can I have a link please?

All these "signs" are 100% unreliable. Also, visualization is not "fake" and "real" experiences are not "real" either.

We should also consider that perhaps we are not born into this realm at the same time the body emerges from the woman's womb. It's possible that some mindstreams literally take their place in this realm as functioning children, and then in that appearance they can learn of "past history" without personally having experienced this in a legitimate way because they weren't in this realm at all at that time. Let me give you an example of what I mean. When I dream I appear spontaneously in an adult human body most of the time (I'll ignore the exceptions here, because I've had a few weird dreams as well). Now, if I were to go around in the dream world and ask about my "past" and the past of the dream world, the dream characters will give coherent and believable answers. This doesn't mean I was actually subjectively there in the past of this dream world. However, if I decide to take the dream world seriously, I will need to accept (at least to some degree) some of the things dream characters tell me about myself and about the world. In this way I can acquire "personal past" which I may have never subjectively undergone. And this waking life is no different from a dream in that regard. It's possible to be in a pre-Earth realm and suddenly appear here as a 4 year old and lo, people will tell you how you were born, show you pictures, blah blah, tell you about world's history and so on. All this is basically an illusion if you take it literally, and most people do. I agree with some of your suspicions, but all possible modes of mentation are latent in the mind and it can't be any other way. So just as the refined state of mind you envision is latent in your mind, similarly, othering, labeling, and symbolic interaction with the others that have been othered is all latent in the mind as well. Everything the mind can learn is already internal to it in a latent form. Nothing truly foreign can ever enter the mind. The spells recoil when one is fully relaxed. To relax fully means to know what one's will really is. Once you know what your will is, you will know that you don't need to work yourself over to achieve anything at all. This then is called "spontaneous achievement." This is quite literally magic. When people enter this mode, they do not cognize in an ordinary way. To them other beings are not truly "other" and not "beings" either. The way such person sees oneself also changes. Such people don't see themselves as people. They see themselves as minds, and the mind is only a capacity to know, to experience and to will. Because of this, the mind can develop a weak or even a non-existent commitment to humanity, to the idea that one is a being who lives among beings, and all manner of conventional thinking. When such a mind then relaxes, something strange happens. Or let me put it this way. If you cast a spell on me and I find myself afflicted, the way it happens is that I am afflicting myself by participating with you in sharing some of your assumptions about myself. It means I am actually self-afflicted, and whatever you do from my POV is merely ornamental at the deepest level of insight. That's pretty much all cultures on this planet. If you do anything differently people will treat you differently. If you want broad social acceptance then you're hamstrung as a practitioner of the esoteric arts. Of course since most of us here have human backgrounds, we tend to crave validation from others, so please don't take it personally as if I am singling you out. I am not intending to single you out. In Daodejing there is a passage of being different from the norm and being OK with it (I'm dark, others are bright, etc.). Same in Zhuangzi (like the guy who didn't grieve at the funeral, for example).

I agree with this 95%. But I would make a slight distinction here. Everyone has the capacity to achieve what you call "Natural" state of mind. However, most people are unwilling instead of incapable. Why are most people unwilling? Because most people are invested in ways they don't want to forgo. At this point I could launch into a discussion of what these are, but I won't. Basically people maintain certain commitments voluntarily, even if often tacitly and therefore below the level of conscious awareness. But this still doesn't change the voluntary nature of all commitments, because once the person gets tired of the effects of what's called "ordinary" living, they will be naturally inclined to becoming explicitly aware of what was previously tacit. As they become aware they have a choice to relax conscious commitments either partially or completely, at will. Sometimes this relaxation process happens partially subconsciously too. In this case the person is tired of a commitment and starts relaxing it, all without being conscious that this is happening. So how the mind expresses itself can be very complex and hard to understand because there are many ways of expression and almost all the "rules" have exceptions to them.

You're joking, right? You don't seriously think our ancenstors were feeding on celestial ambrosia before they developed a penchant for crabs?

I'm just trying to use the right labels here. When I say "prehistoric" I am not passing a value judgment. I'm just trying to make a reference to the same type of living that other posters here referred to. I believe some of them said "Early Man" or something to that effect. And I chose "prehistoric" as a synonym never intending to pass judgement, but meaning to use it as just another word for "early." So, there is no need to get defensive yet. Wait until I go on the offensive first. I actually agree with many of the comments you made about our insane lifestyles and such. Wearing long beards and shaving are personal grooming preferences and such things are superficial. Wearing a long beard doesn't make you a "Natural Man," lol, that's patently ridiculous. But there is nothing wrong with a long beard if that's what floats your boat aesthetically speaking. Personally I dislike how the beard itches and I dislike when my mustache gets into my mouth. But I also dislike how my skin hurts after shaving. So I shave once in a while because of this and because I don't give a rats ass how my facial hair looks. And this has nothing to do with being natural. It's my personal grooming preference, nothing more. If people want to shave themselves, I don't have a problem with that. However, our society does many things I do have a very serious problem with and you mentioned some of those things. In any case, we should be careful about how we conceptualize the mind, because the mind is critical in Daoism. This is why we must avoid anti-intellectualism, but we should also be skeptical of accepted "rational" dogmas that keep flying around this forum, and never mind society which is even worse in this regard. For example, does the mind begin in a blank state at birth? This is a popular opinion. But it's wrong if you look into it, because you can see right away that all learning is a modification of expectations and you cannot modify a non-existent expectation. So it's obvious to anyone who contemplates that the mind is not born, ever. And there are many similar assumptions floating around. There are also many spiritual assumptions, so the physicalistic community is not the only community that's afflicted by spurious beliefs. When I read Daodejing, Zhuangzi, and Liezi, it's obvious to me that whoever wrote them was a very contemplative person. These documents were not written by unthinking anti-intellectual fools.

This is false. I was thinking without my parents aid when I was born. And I've never ever heard my parents think. I've heard them talk. But not think. I also think using images that don't exist in the real world. My parents didn't teach me that. When my parents would look at my human body, they didn't have to explain to me, "Son, when our eyes are angled this way, it means we're looking at your body." I think it's fair to say that I knew 95% of everything I needed to know when I was born and only learned the 5% specific to this realm.

Obviously who said this has no clue whatsoever. The point is that by the time standing pole benefits you more than the other forms of martial training is far in the future for most people. And this is why I said "maybe." I didn't say just drop it. I said, consider dropping it. If someone is new to fighting, they'll benefit far more from standard boxing and wrestling regimens than they will benefit from standing pole meditation. If you're near the top of your art, then going esoteric will put some edge on it. However, if you want to completely transcend normal reality, then learning how to fight is a waste of time entirely and perhaps standing pole meditation should be your first port of call.

A few of you replied with the "prehistoric man" idea. But prehistoric men were not naturalists and didn't believe in objective reality the same way we believe. Some prehistoric men could talk to plants (animism, which is common). Some believed the world was dreamt up (Australian aborigines). They had all kinds of wild ideas about phenomena and did not structure them as we do now. And this is as best we know. We can try to go even earlier than my examples, but then the evidence becomes scant and the speculation increases.

Who taught it?

Do fish fly through the clouds? The way each being dwells is unique to its nature if you go with a naturalist philosophy. It's normal and natural for human beings to seek warm shelter in the same way it's normal for a wolf to sleep without a heated shelter. Otherwise you must regard humans as inherently unnatural, which would be strange indeed. How do you know what the animals do? You don't share their subjective state. For all you know the inner life of the animals is much richer than you suspect. Observing the surface is not a way to learn anything. So are caves unnatural then? Because caves separate the space the same way huts do, but there are fewer of them around, so it's easier to just build an enclosure than to find a pre-existing one. But whether built by human hand or discovered as pre-existing, there is no functional difference between the two.

Oppose? What do you call learning to tolerate cold, heat, hunger? And then what do you call learning to use the power of one's own mind to change one's state from cold to warm, from hunger to content, from heat to coolness, etc? This is opposing. And most Daoist adepts have been doing just this opposing that you oppose. In fact, trying to slow down the flow of thought is also oppositional to nature. Thinking is natural for humans. To empty the mind of its concerns is completely unnatural and is oppositional. This is especially true of the concern for survival and bodily comfort. There is some truth in what you say. The mistake you make is that you fail to acknowledge oppositional aspect of most Daoists for one. And two, you don't realize that there are many ways to the same ultimate realization. Embracing the manifest appearance and relaxing into it only to go beyond it is definitely one possible consideration. The Daoists have been doing a little bit of everything. That's because mind training has multiple aspects, relaxation and concentration being an important continuum. When one resists the sensation one is practicing concentration. When one roams about at will, doing whatever pleases oneles, one is practicing relaxation. One should know how to relax deeply and how to concentrate deeply. At the ultimate relaxation there is ultimate acceptance without prejudice. At the ultimate concentration there is the manifestation of any form into apparent existence as if real.

It's important to understand what the various people mean by "nature" and "natural." In the most common sense it means "commonly experienced." So let me give some examples here. If the wind blows east to west, and the grass bends with the wind to the west, that is something that's commonly experienced. This then is called "natural." If the grass were to bend eastward, that would be very rare, and some would even say impossible, and would be regarded as "not natural" or "unnatural" or "supernatural" or "paranormal" and so on, and these words have different subtle shades of meaning unique to each one. Again, if the river flows in the same one direction when you check it on various days of the week over the course of some years, that's considered natural because it is what's expected, and it is commonly experienced. Then if while you were looking at the river it were to suddenly reverse its flow for 10 secibds or five minutes, that would be considered unnatural, supernatural, paranormal and so on. Now, bringing this closer to home, is adepthood commonly experienced? No. Is everyone expected to be a Daoist master? No. So in a sense, being a Daoist adept is not natural at all. It goes against expectations and it goes against the common patterns of experience. This is why it's important to understand that Daoists, while certainly always learning from nature, are not actually naturalists. It's not a goal of any Daoist adept to become "one with nature." Daoists routinely do uncommon things and behave and think in ways that would be regarded as insane by the current majority right now in this apparent Earth. And in fact, many of the Daoist adepts were regarded as insane even in their own time. This is because they constantly subverted expectations. So in this way they were not natural at all. And yet there is a sense in which what the Daoist sages do is natural, but it's not important to talk about it because people are very confused about the above. When no one is confused about the above, we can start to talk about the sense in which the Daoist sages do return to nature, but until that happens, we should stress that Daoists transcended nature rather than unite with it.

This is not how I understand it. When Daoists live in isolation they gradually learn to ignore heat, cold, hunger, sleepiness, etc. This isn't merging with nature. Daoists learn to transcend the patterns of experience we regard as "nature." While they don't resist instincts too extremely, they do resist them as part of their training. For example, many sages have been known to live in the winter without fire in their huts. That means they were not becoming one with nature. From our Western perspective to acknowledge nature is to also acknowledge your natural weakness, such as being cold in the winter, and then start a fire to warm up. So we don't think it's unnatural to be cold in the Winter, in other words. And yet Daoists cultivated a condition where they were no longer cold in the Winter. Or you can say they were becoming one with their inernal natures, which is not the same as the nature we consider external to ourselves. So Daoists realize they have, internally to themselves, fire, and coolness, moisture, and so on, and they didn't need the external nature to supply these for comfort.