Listen - how would you feel having provided last minute drinks for the wedding party, healed some sick people, a picnic for 5000 guests, said some nice stuff about the meek and then they nail you to a cross - and not even a thank you! Cheers dad! Who'd blame him if next time he just sticks to carpentry?

My brother is exploring our family tree and got back to about 1820 - turns out I have Scottish, Irish, English and quite possibly German Jewish ancestors on my mothers side.

People may mock but being Jesus is a very tough job, not everyone is cut out for it.

@Radix, You seem agreeably eclectic and widely read - but you seem to have some self doubt in terms of practice - it is perfectly possible to 'get somewhere' without formal teachings or transmission. The Golden Flower is nice because it has confirmatory signs and experiences - my only reservation is the translations which do not seem completely reliable. Luk is good too. If you are in a place where you cannot get transmission or instruction then maybe take it as a sign that the universe has confidence in you

I think you can be happy and poor (in the sense of having few possessions) but you only have to look around to see that most poor people are miserable. In fact most people rich and poor are miserable. TM said in the human world the Dao is destroyed (paraphrased) and I guess this is the cause. You can call it capitalism (boo hiss) if you want - but I think its really the human world. We conspire for misery in the pursuit of happiness - something like that. We make misery and turn the world to shit because we don't make in accordance with the Dao.

I follow Karma Kagyu - aligned to the Sharma Karmapa (not the other one ). Where do you live that Skype is banned - can't you use a VPN? or Tor? I go in Dharmawheel a little bit - I find it very conformist and conventional.

Welcome Tim - look forward to your contributions.

Whose pressure is it valving?

Well, we've gone from TM on on the destruction of the Tao to some (pointless) memes in the space of one page.

I'm curious - what are you going to do for the guru-yoga stage? Don't answer if you don't care to of course.

@Radix Your 'long essay' is very clear and I understand a bit better where you are coming from. I doubt very much that any ritual or ceremony such as ngondro will get you anywhere if it is indeed just a ritual. The irony is that that I 'belong' to a Buddhist group which stresses the orthodox - while I myself am congenitally unable to practice things by wrote and without putting in a lot of effort to understand what I am doing and why. Hence why I said I'm doing ngondro very slowly (currently in a stop phase ). I am also very divergent in my interests and often wander off on the byways to study other systems like Daoism and even Hermeticism and Ancient Egypt. So I wasn't trying to promote some kind of conformity or adherence to gatekeeping but rather perhaps for seeing those same things from your own point of view and getting value from them. I wish you well and urge you, as you seem already to do, to be true to your own values because in the end that is what counts.

Could this be translated for non-US members?

Hi Radix, I think the translation of ngondro as 'preliminary' is a bit misleading even if it is technically accurate. I am studying Mahamudra and doing the Kagyu ngondro (incredibly slowly ). It is not the case that you have to complete the ngondro before doing mahamudra meditation. It is more that the ngondro create a kind of environment in which the practice can prosper, grow and bear fruit. It may be that you never finish - although obviously you should aim to - but the whole thing - ordinary preliminaries, extraordinary prelims, guru yoga, mahamudra are a kind of seamless vehicle which carries you forward and not a kind of series of tests or badges. I accept that you don't want all the trappings of Tibetan etiquette and culture - and I don't blame you, I'm not a big fan myself, but I kind of accept it as being there - but I think its important to say that there are a number of teachers around (depending on where you live of course) and what you should look for is someone (a teacher) with whom you feel a connection - to do that you really need to drop any preconditions about what you like and what you don't like - you can't change the dharma to what you want or accept if you see what I mean.

Hi Daren, If you search this forum you'll find plenty of discussion on this and related topics. Until you know exactly what you are doing I would strongly suggest you avoid this type of exercise - and when you do know what you are doing you will probably still not want to do it. If you can find a good teacher that is helpful - otherwise focus on healthy living and gentle meditation or qi gong.