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Not sure if it's comparable to this but I practice a method called turtle-crane breathing. My teacher told us it was a longevity practice.

There is an interesting Bönpo practice that is intended to actively exhaust the thinking mind so that it can release into stillness. You reflect on actions of the body, speech, and mind (each individually), taking enough time to really feel and pay attention to how much energy and effort have been expended over time, going as far back in memory as possible. Take as much time as necessary to get a sense of the shear magnitude of all of that expended effort and energy. When the experience reaches a peak and feels overwhelming, you simply let all of it go and rest in the stillness, silence, and spaciousness of the present moment, similar to the feeling of returning home from a long journey or exhausting day of work and settling into your favorite chair or bed and fully allowing body and mind to rest. It's a powerful technique.

Working with PPD's is tricky, especially on a Mac. I remember accidentally moving threads to the wrong PPD on more than one occasion. Thanks for your help.

Hi mods, I noticed that there are threads in my PPD that seem to have been moved there unintentionally. Not a problem for me but I thought you should know in case someone else is looking for their content. Attached is a screenshot of my current PPD front page. The only threads I created for my PPD are "Yungdrung Bön" and "Music." The others are not mine. Thanks

I decided to combine my meditation and martial arts practices for efficiency so I'm now studying Jackie Chan.

I always appreciate your clarity and candor! 🙏🏼

Ra phone

One very important, though subtle, difference is the presence of the one who is trying to get something, trying to realize something. The trying is effortful, it betrays a deep belief that we are not enough as we are and that something must be changed in us.. That sense of inadequacy is a formidable obstacle to the meaning and manifestation of enlightenment, in the dzogchen sense. The view of dzogchen, similar to that of Zen, is that enlightenment needs nothing to be added or taken away. This is also reflected in the practice, behavior, and ultimate fruition. The view is that we have everything we need already, we simply need to relax into the fullness. openness, and infinite potential that always is right here and right now. The Bönpos refer to the source of enlightenment as Kuntuzangpo which literally means all good, as in cannot be improved upon in any way.

I have no such bump. In the Tibetan practice of phowa, one trains to express one's consciousness through the central channel out the crown of the head. It's said that one sign of a successful practice is an opening developing at the crown leading to the central channel. At the end of a phowa retreat, the lama will stick a piece of kusha grass in that spot to make sure the practitioners have achieved success. I believe there is a comparable practice in Shaivism but not sure which particular branch. The mark of a successful Phowa is that after death, there is visible hair loss, a bump or some yellow liquid seeping around the vertex. These marks serve as proof of successful rebirth. If these symptoms are present, the subsequent guide for the practice of the intermediate state will no longer be needed. from Khenpo Tsultrim Lhodrö in The Handbook for Life's Journey

Useful to whom? It's certainly useful for therapists, often for their clients. I found psychotherapy to be very useful for me. I somewhat disagree with the statement that "self-cultivation of the mind can be considered as psychotherapy." Certainly cultivation of the mind can have benefits. In the right person with the right method and guidance, perhaps some mental dysfunction and illness can be improved but there is also risk of significant harm. Meaningful self-cultivation of the mind really needs to begin with a relatively healthy mind and ego as mentioned above. Cultivation methods can be destabilizing or counter-productive for someone who has a variety of mental issues such as poor reality testing, a fragile or poorly developed ego, repressed trauma, negative self-image, depressive tendency, personality disorders, and so forth. This can be the source of nihilistic crisis, aberrant energetics, depersonalization disorder, qi sickness, kundalini syndrome, psychotic break, even suicide. One of my favorite teachers, Anthony Demello, speaks to his experience of being both a psychotherapist and a spiritual guide for Catholic clergy in India. His message was, in part, that as a therapist his job was to ease pain and help create or restore a healthy sense of self. As a spiritual guide, his job was to push people to see the truth of their situation even when that truth was painful, challenging, or destabilizing. Ultimately his job as a spiritual guide was to break down the very sort of patterns that are often needed by people to maintain mental health in unhealthy situations and environments. As Jiddu Krishnamurti said, "it is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society." Yes, I don't disagree entirely but there's more to the story. I think it's also possible for therapy, in the right person and setting, to support the development of natural intimacy and relational processing once obstructing, dysfunctional patterns and reactivity are identified and addressed. The existence of psychotherapy, like many medical/surgical treatments and diagnoses, certainly is in part a dystopian byproduct of dysfunctional modern society. Some of that may be related to transactional hyper-individualism but perhaps, in Asia, to hyper-collectivism and related manipulation and abuse.

I did that for some time and found no negative effects. I suspect these Kum Nye exercises have nothing to do with Yungdrung Bön. I think the “Der Bön” attribution was to establish credibility, much like the Five Tibetans. For me, Kum Nye seemed to generate physical strength more than anything.

I had similar luck, one terrible professor each in physics, chemistry, and math, my three favorite disciplines. I guess they were valued by the university for their research but they failed miserably as teachers.

Yes, as I get older, I find sitting in the squat position to be wonderful for my hips and low back, promoting strength and flexibility. It's a position many of us in the West are unfamiliar and uncomfortable with, favoring always sitting in chairs.

I do daily squats and like the posture she described in her book. I think squats are magic. I don’t do the full series any longer.

Thank you for sharing. I've had similar experiences, some subtle and some overwhelmingly profound and intense. In the Bön tradition, spontaneous warmth is said to arise when our heart/mind is open, still, and quiet. This warmth, often called bliss, is unconditional, uncontrived, and is considered a sign of being connected to the source. The most profound experiences like this for me have occurred occasionally and unpredictably but after one particular experience, there has been a sense of deep empathy for all living creatures that is the new normal and informs my day to day experience. I found myself doing just this, trying to recreate or chase certain experiences that were either very pleasant or seemed important to the mind for my continued spiritual progress. It was important for me to discover and follow Forestofclarity's advice here to avoid alot of wasted effort and frustration.