steve

It’s an interesting phenomenon. While there are clearly some teachers/figureheads who actively create a cult following, there also seems to be a collective tendency for students/followers to create a cult atmosphere even in the absence of a predatory leader.

When it comes to posting, I frequently choose to restore the space. I write long posts, revise them a few times, then think better of it and simply delete. Nothing beats the openness and unlimited potential of the empty space of my unposted posts. 😄

I get that. I'm asking what do you differently when you reach that point or are pushed beyond?

What do you mean by cutoff point? What is different before vs after that point?

Loved Sea Hunt! Made me become a diver.

I find martial arts training to be a wonderful way to cultivate self-discipline. Running and weightlifting are also good but nothing beats martial arts for me.

Love for the squats!

Staying connected and sensitive while protecting one's energy is possible when you recognize that energy needs to flow, needs to move through us, not get stuck in or held by us. The one who feels like they are trying to protect something is more of a problem than solution. Of course it is important to maintain mental, physical, and emotional health which are the foundation of our energetic potential but it's no accident that so many energetic practices are focused on clearing obstacles. If we want to optimize our power it does not lie in hoarding and trying to wield a finite amount but in opening and being responsive to the full flow of it. This is the principle of Wu Wei in a nutshell.

Or one might say different pokes…

Do you contend that nothing is real?

Some wonderful suggestions here. Contrary to a recent thread bemoaning the fall and end of DaoBums, I see a small but vibrant, engaged, and wise group of practitioners here that still have a lot to offer if one is ready to learn in so many different areas. A few things I'd like to add from my own practice. No matter how much we try to protect ourselves (energetically, mentally, even physically), we will inevitably bump up against people and situations that drain and threaten us. Even if we avoid them we will still have to face our own isolated selves, the greatest challenge! I think it's important to look not only at how to protect ourselves and our energy but how to do so in increasingly challenging circumstances so that we can engage as fully as possible in our lives and in the world and use our practices to grow and help others. The first step is to find the right practices that give us that sense of needed protection. Each of us has to be sensitive to our needs and find the right approach and I increasingly value the need for them to be comprehensive. The second step is to put in the time to master those practices, mastery simply meaning that they genuinely work for us, we can see tangible benefits. The next step is to gradually begin to challenge ourselves, face those people and situations we prefer to avoid, little by little, using our practices both in real time and on the cushion, before and after the fact, exercising them like our physical muscles. At some point I think it's critical to bring this approach to those closest and yet farthest from us - estranged family members and the like. It's very important at this stage to be able to observe ourselves objectively, noticing reactivity as it arises without getting too wrapped up in the analysis or explanations, staying very close to the feelings, the direct experience. Then engaging in our practices with those feelings being very fresh and alive. Fire is a good metaphor for developing this type of strength in our practices. At first we are like a small flame, a match, that needs to be protected from even a light breeze, and this stage can't be rushed or forced, we need to protect until our flame can withstand some pressure. As our flame grows, we can protect it less and it will stay lit as long as the wind is not too strong. At this stage we can get discouraged because progress can be slow. It can feel like one step forward, two steps back at time. Here it is so important to feel trust in our approach, that's what can carry us through. Eventually our flame can be so strong that even a gale just feeds it and makes it stronger, like a bonfire. This is the pinnacle of spiritual practice, IMO. Not that we find some sort of fairyland where nothing ever bothers us at all, rather that we feel what we feel, good and bad, and know how to make the most of every situation. So I think it's important to protect our energy when it needs protection but to maintain the mindset and intention that we will eventually not need much protection. In fact, we may discover that at some point we can be the protector for those who are more vulnerable. This can take the form of teaching or simply being that calm, compassionate, empathetic, even wrathful force when engaging with others.

I was simply offering Apech a little friendly kanchō In reality, I don't know that much about the provenance or detailed history of Bön vajrayana practices. The Bön pantheon of deities and icons are different that those of Buddhism, some dating back to the early shamanistic origins of Bön that predated the subsequent intermixing with Indian Buddhism in Tibet. Bön and Buddhism have cross-pollinated quite a bit in Tibet with each tradition having its own ideas about how all of that transpired. I'm not too concerned with all of that, just grateful that I found my way to the practices and that they've done so much for me.

I practice Vajrayana and it is 100% Bön.

Diligent practice The way to Carnegie Hall South from Central Park

Some great responses here.

In a way, we are always inside our own minds. I interpret it a bit differently. I guess it depends on how we define real. The experiences in the dark are extraordinarily vivid and compelling - sounds, visions, emotional reactivity, and yet there is nothing there but my own mind. Similar to dreaming. In the dream, there is no question about its reality, unless of course we are lucidly dreaming. For me it is more about the relationship between daily life experience and the mind.

One of the practices in dzogchen is spending time in a completely dark room, dark retreat. Visions develop and the practice is to stay in the nature of mind, recognizing that all appearances are generated by the mind. I wonder if anyone has had a vision of a black cat in the dark retreat. If you chase it, you fail! 🤣 I remember that because our trajectories were opposite, I got my foundation in Daoist meditation. Yes, dzogchen practice is done with open eyes. Open but not resting or focused on anything in particular, meditation without an object. Bear in mind that it is traditionally preceded by a practice called zhinè, meditation with an object. One spends weeks or months staring at the Tibetan letter A, until the mind has stabilized and a distinction can be clearly made between its content and its nature. So when the transition moves from practice with an object to practice without, one is already accustomed to practicing with the eyes open. I didn’t get the zhinè instruction until I’d already been practicing without an object for about a year due to the timing of when I met my teacher. It was a definite obstacle for a while to practice with eyes open but then the zhinè came more easily.

A good friend has been teaching tsa lung trul khor at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas for over 25 years as a part of their Integrative Health program. I spent a few years working with a therapist who used a variant of CBT known as ACT (Acceptance Commitment Therapy). It did not use meditation techniques much per se but did use principles and views that inform meditative philosophy and practice in a way that was very effective for me.

In the dzogchen tradition, the core practice is sometimes referred to as "non-meditation" for this reason. Occasionally, I see the word contemplation being used, which comes from the Latin verb contemplatio, referring more to the act of looking or observing rather than thinking or reflecting. Interestingly, as a native English speaker I've somehow come to associate contemplation more with thinking and meditation more with simply abiding or being. Not sure how that interchange came about.

I guess you could call it that. I don’t really have a name for it. I don’t generally do it as a formal practice, more when interacting with a person or when they come up in my mind for whatever reason. I don’t really try to generate love or kindness, rather I connect with the sense of openness in my heart and mind, and let that person be there, and allow any reactivity coming up in me to fade. When it fades, what generally is left is a sense of openness, warmth or kindness which is less forced and more spontaneous.

I think it's wonderful to have the idea and practice of feeling love for all beings but for me it's a bit artificial. Great idea but it's very easy to think of a being or two that's really hard to love, usually people very close to us like family. I focus instead on feeling some openness and warmth to whomever is sitting right in front of me. Second best is focusing on those people that are a little difficult to feel warm and close to. Then work on the harder ones, then the REALLY hard ones.... If I can manage to work through the hard ones, I'll go back to all beings. I know people who feel the love for ALL sentient beings but won't call their brother or mother or can't stand their spouse...

I can't claim it is true in a general sense, but it seems to be true for me. I interact with multiple familiar and unfamiliar people in my work on a daily basis. When I am able to maintain an attitude of gratitude, I see and feel distinct difference in the interaction. It's not unique to gratitude but also applicable to other states of open-heartedness, in my experience. I can see and feel the warmth in someone's body language, face, and demeanor and no doubt they feel mine. Mirror neurons have been extensively written about and seem involved in this effect. Some of what has been written may be hyperbolic but there is some solid evidence developing about the process.

It sounds paradoxical but the "letting go into unbounded awareness which is free of any reference point" is done in the manner of one-pointedness. One pointedness does not necessarily mean to focus on anything in particular, in this context it means to do something in a continuous and undistracted manner. One can be one-pointed while engaging in meditation both with or without an object.

Such a beautiful post! Thank you for sharing your process. If I may, I would suggest you consider connecting with a living teacher and engage in some body centered Daoist-related practice like taijiquan, qigong, baguazhang, xingyiquan, zhan zhuang, It sounds like you've been very much in your head and the Daoist path is so much more than that! Fine to continue your reading and study of course. It also needs to be experiential to really show its full potential, IMO. Really nice to hear you have found a home in yourself, good luck on your path.

In practice, I do not answer the question, I do not describe, define, or express anything at all. I simply be as I am, open to whatever is present in my authentic experience. When thoughts, feelings, and ideas about that, or anything else, come up, I leave them be just as they are. They can’t sustain themselves for very long and eventually self-liberate. This is, in fact, both the view and the practice. My teacher’s teacher would say something like, ‘look to the thought, without engagement it cannot sustain itself for very long, when it is gone what is left? It is clear and present, not unconscious because everything is fresh and vibrant and displayed there, but there is really nothing that can be said, it is an indescribable state, rest there.’ There’s a wonderful Bön pith teaching that comes from the 8th century master Tapihritsa called the Four Goodnesses. It describes briefly the view, meditation, conduct, and fruition of dzogchen; the view being the correct understanding of the essence of mind. It simply says, For the self-liberating, non-grasping view let go into unbounded awareness which is free of any point of reference. After practice, in order to teach and communicate, we can put labels on it and describe its characteristics but the teachings in my tradition call it unimputable, nothing we project onto it is it. The best we can do is use metaphor and simile to describe some of its characteristics and make up a name. These metaphors and similes are some of the most beautiful and poetic writings in the Bön canon and are wonderful pointers, but never it. Always best to simply connect nakedly, without words and concepts that can never do it justice.