Vajrahridaya

Wow Seth! What a great list. I'd like to read many of those books too.

I really liked Thich Nhat Hanh's books back in the day, though it's been a while.

Basic reading on the life of the Buddha:

I'd like to recommend, "Old Path, White Cloud." So sweet and a good rendition of the story of Buddhas life and teachings collected from the Pali, Sanskrit and Chinese sources. His style of writing is so engaging and heart warming.

Getting to know the Vajrayana/Dzogchen Masters:

I'd like to also recommend, "Blazing Splendor," which is the Autobiography of Tulku Orgen Rinpoche. One gets a nice view of the magic and mystery that is old Tibet.

Also, "Lord of the Dance," the autobiography of Chagdud Tulku. He's fun, less orthodox than Tulku Orgen, he's kind of a rebel type of Vajrayana Master.

Getting to know a bit about the traditions of Vajrayana and Dzogchen:

"Crystal and the Way of Light" by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche about Sutra, Tantra and Dzogchen, a nice short book that is deep and thick with content.

Getting to know the liberated perspective according to Vajrayana/Dzogchen:

"Old Man Basking in the Sun" written by Longchenpa, translated by Keith Dowman and forwarded by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche.

"Ornament of the State of Samantabhadra: Commentary on the All creating King of the Pure Perfect Presence of the Great Perfection of All Phenomena." Written by Khenpo Zhenphen Oser and translated into English by Jim Valby. This book I think a person should not read before getting quite firmly aquanted with Nagarjuna. As Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche say's that one should have a good internal mastery of Nagarjunas logic in order to understand Dzogchens dialectic.

Buddhist Cosmology within it's various Mahayana traditions:

"Myriad Worlds" - Buddhist cosmology in Abhidharma, Kalacakra and Dzogchen. by Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Taye, translated into English by the International Translation committe of Kunkhyab Choling.

is eternity even certain?

no certainty = clarity but once u see all there is and ever will be

I'm not sure which angle this question comes from. As in, that all pleasures we experience in meditation is temporary or that meditation is just another hobby, like bicycling, that can give momentary joy that is nonetheless transitory.

 

If it is the former, in my experience the pleasures of meditation have cumulative effect in our lives if we sustain efforts to continue the practice in day to day living and not just on the meditation cushion.

 

If it is the latter, we'd have no way of knowing until there is insight and ability to see and experience life beyond this body and the process after it dies. Until then, I guess we have to have faith in masters who have come before us and has told us of their visions and insights, and hope that they were not delusional or liars.

exactly, it is my hope as well they were not delusional or lying but what gets me is how will we ever know and what if they were, now what

so sure, i take in the beauty of the other post, enjoy it while it lasts but even that is just yet another passing beauty like an image in a cloud

once all the clouds are gone will there ever be anymore, i dont know how to stop thinking like this... have hope but have hope in what... eternity...

of course this is ms v once again

is only a temporary pleasure..?

sigh...

I am told that we can't go back. Something about my grandfather.

 

But I think you are right - the body wouldn't be able to handle the breaking down of its atoms.

 

So how do we detach our awareness from our body?

 

The only way I can thing of is to die.

 

Or we could get totally stoned. I've seen some of those creatures. (But I think that totally destroys the brain after a while.)

 

Oh well.

I agree, it does destroy the brain after a while if abused. There are much safer ways of detaching from the body and that is found through meditation. Sometimes experiences happen to people spontaneously though.

Yeah, I rely on science quite a bit myself.

 

It is my opinion that the 4th dimension is time/space. I'm working on a way to go back and start messing with your husband all over again. Hehehe.

 

hahahah, this is the real VH. Time travel, eh? Thus far, I think we can only do that in awareness, not in body. Progression is the way of process and the cosmos is a process.

Those of you who are saying that my wife should meditate! Yes!! Also, I've offered her many books, which she picks up, reads a bit of, and puts down. She needs answers I think which more than words can offer her. She needs some meditative depth added to her life.

Thanks for the answers by the way guys.

She might hijack my account and come back on again... who knows?

just to add, my father always reassures me that we are on the 3rd dimension and cant even begin to understand other dimensions and how i should not worry so maybe he is right and i sure as hell hope so. science seems to put me more at ease bc its not just ppl beliefs which carry no proof

thanks everyone for ur replies, very good insights

im just stuck on when there is nothing, there is always something, but once you dont have a brain, how can you even think of something when nothing is there, of course we cant think of nothing when we are alive and thats what scares me

maybe i just miss being a child bc everything seemed to make sense, even death, it wasnt even scary. i dont know what happened and i dont know why im now obsessed with death but i just cannot stop thinking about it

but thanks, a lot of the answers gave me some ease. if only someone could come back from being dead for a year or something. too bad the buddha himself cant just materialize right in front of me right now and answer my questions i just dont know when i will ever get it... where is the buddha now i ask, a popular answer i get is inside you but once im gone and all the ppl that ever knew me are gone, where is he now? what happens when there are no more humans? then what? sigh, what happens when there is no more anything. see, thats what scares me, where is the love when u die when u have nothing to experience it?

hi, this is not vaj, this is his wife

this has stumbled me for years and maybe i can get some clarity here

if we are like a computer - the hardware being our body and the software being our consciousness, how can software survive without the hard drive. i want to believe in something after death, but the more i think about it, the more i realize maybe we just die and sadly thats it. i know im going to die, my body and what went along with it - personality etc. but where is the proof that our soul lives on? i really want to believe we all have souls but sigh every year i get closer to the realization that we just die and thats the end. how can this be? and why? why cant we just live for all eternity? in essence not body of course

 

 

*heavy sigh*

 

I wish I had a karmic connection to a Lineage like this.

 

BTW - what is the difference between Dzogchen and Mahamudra? Do both need a transmitting teacher for one to get started in it?

Mahamudra is generally going to have more preliminaries, and more studies... generally, even though the outcome is said to be the same in both. Even in Dzogchen, different teachers teach differently. Some teach a more Mahamudra style Dzogchen. It really depends on the teacher how it's transmitted, but yes... for all Vajrayana practices you'll need transmission from realized lineage.

I think it depends upon the individual. Since there is no standard interpretation for Taoism, at least not to the degree as there is in Buddhism, there are those that seem to understand emptiness and inter-dependent origination through their own Taoist language and others which seem to reify one formless jhana or another just due to the nature of self clinging? So, some I would tentatively classify as monistic idealists, simply due to this very subtle tendency to cling to a high state of consciousness as a "self" of all, but others I would say have a subtler understanding that would be in alignment with Buddhist views.

I guess that's true, you don't have to study anything on Dzogchen, but you should certainly know what to do during the transmission. I suppose there could be some very rare exceptions to this, however IMO it's silly to expect that one is that exception. If it would be sufficient to simply listen and not do anything there would be no books on what to do during the transmission or frequent explanations of it before the transmission at various places.

Actually, when having such experiences like my wife has, it's even more paramount to do the study in order to contextualize the seemingly spontaneous occurrences in order to understand their deeper causes, effects and wisdoms.

She's very slow to study... Drives me crazy because she asks me questions all the time, when I'm doing other things and I give her books that she starts but never get's into. She prefers to hound me. She say's she prefers to learn in conversation. But, I tell her I'm not qualified to really teach Dzogchen like that. Anyway... yes... I agree that study is paramount, coupled with practice no matter what!

I just wanted to point out that not all nut's are hard to crack.

I'm sorry, but just by "attending" the worldwide transmission you don't get anything.

Not always true, it depends upon your sensitivity. My wife studied absolutely nothing on Dzogchen. But, when he gave the transmission, she experienced something very profound that changed her perception of things in a very profound way forever. He came into her dreams, spoke to her, had some visions of colors and lights, etc. etc. She was very freaked out at first, and almost scared she was loosing her mind, but I assured her that she was just finding her mind.

Anyway... what you experience during a World Wide transmission depends on your karmic connection to the lineage.

Very cool Hagar

 

I too have similar experiences. My early Shavite teachers told me that Light [white] is underlying everything, and taught me to send my 'feeling' out past all the other vibrations to that underlying light, and then to just breath and remain 'intuiting' the light behind everything. I found this practice so beneficial on so many levels.

 

Later when I began chigung It was very natural to do my form at this level, and yes, then I found that I could hold postures for a very long time when doing so from that state... And the body adjustments were powerful, And yes, unmindful activity would slowly disperse any good work I had done...

 

to me this plane of energy does feel like the underlying organising structure of the universe...

 

Blessings on your Path

"White" light is generally the light that is seen first by spiritual aspirants, well... according to Buddhist Tantra, it is the color of the water element and we are mostly water. It's not "useless", but very good to clean this as it has to do with the liver and kidneys, blood... that good stuff should be clean and powerful. It is a kind of an underlying element for Earth kind folks.

As I explained above,...thinking is IRREFUTABLY in the past,...IRREFUTABLY! Your thinking that it is not, does not change that changeless fact. No one, anywhere, can think in the present.

I don't feel he is talking about mere social conceptuality, as in the type of thinking that uses these communication symbols.

I think he's more thinking about the movement of mind illumination. It can travel distances without time being a constraint.

Remote viewing for example is faster than the speed of light.

I did read an academic theory that stated China got it's Kung Fu from India long before the advent of Buddhism, but China took it and ran with it, taking it to a degree never seen in India. Though supposedly in Eastern Tibet it's just as profound as it is in China and they used to exchange information on techniques, also long before Buddhism came to Tibet supposedly practiced by Bon Masters.

Vaj

 

How about translating the yogic terms into english for the ignorant. Otherwise I have to spend all day on wikipedia to understand what you are saying.

 

Maybe it would be a useful exercise for you too?

 

with respect

 

Craig

Sorry Craig,

I knew Tulku knew these words.

"You automatically go from anahata (heart chakra, center of chest) to ajna (3rd eye). You automatically experience the connection between the Sahasarara (crown chakra or energy center) and the Muladhara (tail chakra or the bottom chakra)."

There is also the Hridaya Chakra which is in the physical heart generally found after experiencing the crown chakra.

The deeper you go, the subtler pride is... the more one needs a master within lineage to guide one through such a subtle field of land mines.

 

Neither VJ nor anyone one else in this forum has ever encountered problems of my magnitude.

Uh oh... I see that pride of... "Oh... they won't understand"...

Ah yes.. the youth of first time experiencing.

 

No more outside searches. Only inner searches from now on.

No problem! Just be aware of pride and subconscious projection. As subtle they run, behind conscious interpretation.

It's nice when a physiological manifestation, outside of your own self creation, can reflect directly your own stage of meditation, in a way that is so clear as to be without any mistaken gestation.

Please excuse my inspiration for rhyme incorporation.

As I was doing this meditation, I realized the limitations of being centered in the heart, as is taught in many religions and metaphysical circles. Centering in the heart makes it more difficult to move energy up the spine because any issues we have about love could prevent the energy from going any higher than the heart chakra. This prevents us from activating the higher brain states.

 

Told ya all.. Thanks my Friend for the link..

This is why we connect to lineage. Which is what you really need and secretly want. Is to have that deep connection to a master that has already gone through the stages which you are longing to experience directly.

This is where fools are wrong about guidance from lineage. All you have to do is follow their practices handed down from master to master in unbroken lineage, known or unknown, and the progression of ones energy in deep states of meditation naturally bares fruit for you... as their merits help you along your way due to their vows. You automatically go from anahata to ajna. You automatically experience the connection between the Sahasarara and the Muladhara.

The Siddhas in your lineage guide you on subtler levels than the physical! Which is why one must be sure of what lineage one is getting into. You don't want to get all caught up in the egoism of a Master that had no guide, as well as those on here that disparage guides.

Yes Dwai...

"In Sanskrit they may be collectively referred to as śastravidyā or dhanurveda."

These are supposed to be very, very old, pre-historic from India. Including grappling, and weapons.

Wiki:

"Indian epics contain accounts of combat, both armed and bare-handed. The Mahabharata describes a prolonged battle between Arjuna and Karna using bows, swords, trees, rocks and fists. Another unarmed battle in the Mahabharata describes two combatants boxing with clenched fists and fighting with kicks, finger strikes, knee strikes and headbutts. Krishna Maharaja, whose battlefield exploits are alluded to in the Mahabharata, is credited with developing the sixteen principles of śastravidyā.

Many of the popular sports mentioned in the Vedas and the epics have their origins in military training, such as wrestling (maladvandva), chariot-racing (rathachalan), horse-riding (ashvarohana) boxing (musti yuddha) and archery (dhanurvidya). Competitions were held not just as a contest of the players' prowess but also as a means of finding a bridegroom. Arjuna, Rama and Siddhartha Gautama all won their consorts in such tournaments."

There is another south Indian form which cannot be accurately determined as to the dating it. Southern Kalaripayattu...

But what i am getting at is do we really i mean really have any concrete proof on religion as a history like way back in the day? Like the with the buddha and the tocharians and such. i speculate dont have any facts but could the buddha have been nordic and not indian? also with the buddha we just have stories to go on we dont have any facts to prove there really was a guy 500 years before christ that thought this way and such. feel free to prove me wrong i am open to new ideas.

Well... there are lots and lots of texts, and I mean lots and lots, as well as all the pillars erected by Ashoka in around 250's B.C. that have the sutras written on them. We supposedly have parts of his body too as relics. The disciples were also very meticulous about recording the Buddhas actions, like eating habits, where he went... there are so many documents.

Anyway... there is much more evidence concerning Buddhas existence than Jesus.