Tibetan_Ice

While the thread may be gone - 'sexcapades' shall remain one of my favourite words - and I shall be inserting it into every conversation I can manage as lustily as I can.

Just be sure to wear protection before inserting...

Hi Jeff,

 

Let me clarify that I wasn't specific as to what parts of T_I's posts I agree with, I just said that it does include some valid concerns.

 

Also, I object to his posting information given to another member for their personal use, not assuming that it would be passed on to T_I, who moreover reproduced it but inaccurately. I hope that the post has been hidden by a mod meanwhile on my request.

 

Even though I am of necessity treading a narrow line, my purpose here is to discuss the unfair treatment received by Wilfred and me after being critical about the observed ramifications of your work for certain people, and what the implications are for a forum based on spiritual liberalism - not to denigrate you and the people you work with.

 

Best,

Michael

If the information is inaccurate, then perhaps it wasn't about you? Or perhaps you could clarify what happened first hand so we aren't just pushing heresay?

MS,

 

I have to say that this comment of yours saddens me very much. I am not surprised that TI would stoop so low that he would post stuff where he would make comments (and try to drawn in) about my daughter based on some email discussion from maybe 8-10 years ago, but I am surprised that you would be supportive of it.

 

Yes, TI has read endless books, but the fact you see him as spiritually advanced and that I should follow his advice is also very puzzling to me. As you personally and directly know, I can easily demonstrate everything I have said. Additionally, I think it is fair to say that I have always attempted to explain in full detail all of the energetic happenings.

 

Best,

Jeff

It has been Seven years now since I have been practicing 2 hours a day, every day. I supplement my practices with reading.

When you say that you "attempted to explain in full detail all of the energetic happenings." perhaps you could explain to us what exactly you explain to a newbie when you ask them to feel the blonde's breasts and imagine having sexual intercourse with the blonde.

Did you call it "consort practice"? (A highly advanced Buddhist practice which first requires the realization of emptiness)

T_I,

 

Assuming that you include me with those "moderators":

 

Even though Jeff and I have interacted a number of times and hold one another in high regard, I am not his (or, for that matter, anybody else's) follower. And I never observed that he would have imposed himself on me or anybody else as a guru to be followed.

 

Having clarified this, I do not intend to further participate in the present discussion and will avoid being drawn into it. So you don't need to reply to me.

 

However, I will continue to read this thread - with the objective eye of a moderator.

Interestingly, I did not include you in "moderators".

I can see that taking your advice and not responding to your assumption has caused a weed to grow.

Further, my statement concerning getting what one deserves is not an ad hominem attack. It is a reference to karma.

I sincerely hope I get what I deserve.

There is no such thing as free speech. Every thing that comes out of your mouth costs something.

..

ok how about you prove he isnt...

The onus is on you to prove your statement.

Hmmm I wonder if there are other reports on here about max doing the samething.....

 

There is something to that if enough people report it that there maybe truth to it...

How about you prove your statement that Max is "attackng people with snake beings."

Did Max's snake being attack you?

TheLerner,

 

Kunlun is not bad itself but max is attackng people with snake beings.

 

We know what he did....and what he s doing

 

There was truth to what Mizu said.

Can you prove your statements? Otherwise it is known as slander. Why would Max attack people?

The quote I'm referring to was supposedly made by John Chang himself to describe precisely what mopai meditation is from a practical viewpoint.

He even says explicitly that you mustn't be aware of yourself to be in that form of meditation.

It looks to precise -as a description- to be a poor translation imho.

 

I don't want to act as MPG, but I gogleed it: it's page 81, magus of java.

 

 

I agree.

 

Also, it appears that this form of buddhist meditation was actually "re-invented" in recent times ( https://vividness.live/2011/07/07/theravada-reinvents-meditation/ ).

Interesting link, by the way. David should really read Dipa Ma and the Visudhimagga before throwing them into his scholarly analysis.

But it was amazing to read a very long discussion of most of my books.. What an interesting recent historical perspective.

Please, let's not turn this thread into another Mopai crash and burn.

(Not pointing at anyone, it's just that the word Mopai seems to be a grenade )

It's interestingly to notice that, according to the author Kosta Danaos, the Mopai method of cultivation is centred around a trance state at the threshold of sleep. According to the teacher in the video, this would be a bad worst method .

The video is about where the potential for awakening exists with relation to brain wave activity levels. From your statement about Mopai, it would seem that Mopai is something else, not a tool for awakening...

I know nothing about Mopai but I would guess from viewing the JC videos and the heated debates here on it (pun intended) that it is a form of energetic practice.

I played in a band in my younger years that was a Hawaiian act which included a hypnotist show. The hypnotist would hypnotize people, put them between two chairs (one to support the head, the other to support the feet), tell them their bodies were stiff like steel and then he would sit on them! The hypnotist weighed about 200 lbs! After, most people were ok but in a few cases some complained about pain.

The point is that it is possible to hypnotize people and have them perform superhuman feats so maybe Mopai is tapping into that aspect or some form of self hypnosis.

Self hypnosis has its value as Roger attested to in his post, but it seems to be on the other end of the scale concerning placement in brain wave activity with regards to realization/awakening/enlightenment.

Actually, according to Daskalos, the physical etheric double is super powerful and is capable of unimaginable feats. He supported learning how to manipulate it for the benefit of healing..

What is the purpose of your practice ? In AYP we were expected to have no purpose, it was to be done like cleaning teeth, but there was a promise of a freedom from suffering, the arrival of the witness. There were aspirations even when Yogani specifically said we should have no aspirations.

 

I changed my meditation by hallucinating the mantra rather than repeating it, instead I cultivated internal awareness, to watch my thoughts and this translated into every day life. I became acutely aware of how I was thinking not just what. This was the rise of the promised witness, but, beyond that it was interesting to be so consciously aware, unless my intention was to walk around in a state of introspective stupor, it was useless.

 

 

 

It is hard to realize that the content of thoughts is irrelevant at this point in the meditation. Did you notice that for each thought that was viewed it had its own witness (subject)?

You have called your watching of thoughts introspection, which is sort of correct, except that introspection is turning your attention back around to the witness or subject that is watching the object (thoughts).

Had you learned to view your thoughts dispassionately, like an old man watching someone else's children at play in the park, each thought and corresponding witness (subject) would have dissolved, leaving an open space of sheer luminous awareness. That space is not a subject, it is called rigpa in Dzogchen. If you train to remain in that space, you will attain buddhahood.

Here is the same topic but in different words by the Dalai Lama..

From https://www.amazon.com/Heart-Meditation-Discovering-Innermost-Awareness/dp/1559394536

THE VIEW, THE MULTITUDINOUS GREAT EXPANSE

 

The view of reality is the buddha nature beyond the proliferations of dualistic conceptuality. Both the Old Translation School and the New Translation Schools of Tibetan Buddhism speak of the view as the pristine wisdom of clear light, the matrix-of-One-Gone-to-Bliss. The pristine wisdom of clear light itself is not independent and inherently existent but is devoid of conceptual proliferations—an entity pure from the beginning with a spontaneous nature. This pure spontaneous matrix is the basis of appearance of cyclic existence and nirvana, and thus the view itself is the great expanse from which all the multiplications of phenomena dawn and into which all are withdrawn. Thus Patrul Rinpoche says, “The view is the multitudinous great expanse (Longchen Rabjam).”

 

In this way, he speaks of the view as “the multitudinous great expanse,” which is the meaning of the name of his indirect source-lama, Longchen Rabjam. The view to be meditated on is the naturally pure buddha nature called the “matrix-of-One-Gone-to-Bliss,” pervading the great vastness, or great expanse, the sphere of reality. The knowledge that all appearances of cyclic existence and nirvana are complete in this equal reality is the view itself—hence the multitudinous, infinite, great expanse, the vastness.

 

The view of the Great Completeness is said to be beyond mind, but with respect to how it is expressed in words, here “view” mainly refers not to what is viewed but to the viewing consciousness. Thus, it refers to “the viewing subject” not “the view as the object viewed.” Still, we must remember that such terms may not be relevant, since the view here is beyond mind, and “subject and object” are bound within the sphere of mind.

 

All phenomena are contained within the great sphere of innermost awareness, the basis from which all phenomena dawn—the foundation of appearance. From between foundation and appearance, innermost awareness is the foundation, and its vibration is appearance. This, called “All-good innermost awareness,” itself is the view, the multitudinous great expanse.

 

MEDITATION, LIGHT RAYS OF KNOWLEDGE AND EMPATHY

 

Having engendered this view, one spontaneously generates compassion for sentient beings who, due to ignorance, do not understand this perspective. Thus Patrul Rinpoche says, “The meditation is light rays of knowledge and empathy (Khyentse Oser).” “Light rays of knowledge and empathy” is the very meaning of Khyentse Oser’s name. Within the distinction between innermost awareness and the vibration of innermost awareness, the vibration of innermost awareness includes eight types of spontaneous appearance. One of these is all-pervasive compassion—light rays of knowledge and empathy, and from meditation on it, spontaneous factors of leapover, or spontaneous progress, emerge, whereas the multitudinous great expanse is the practice of breakthrough, essential purity.

 

Upon being introduced to the natural face of innermost awareness in its nakedness, if one is able to dwell in the expanse of innermost awareness by way of fundamental mindfulness, which is a natural innate mindfulness, these spontaneous factors emerge of themselves in meditation. “Nakedness” here means that the obstructive pollution by conceptuality has been removed—conceptuality being like clothing that has been taken off, leaving the naked body, bare awareness.

 

When experience of innermost awareness emerges, fundamental mindfulness comes along with it, fulfilling the practice of meditation, at which point the practitioner can conclusively decide that what is wanted, liberation, does not pass beyond the expanse of innermost awareness, and what is to be discarded, cyclic existence, does not pass beyond the vibration of innermost awareness. Thereby, both of these—good and bad, nirvana and cyclic existence, hopes and fears—all of these are conclusively seen as the sport, the vibration, and the effervescence of innermost awareness.

 

BEHAVIOR, THE SHOOT OF A VICTOR

 

As long as one remains without fluctuating from experience of this unhindered expanse of innermost awareness, no matter what behavior one enacts, it has a single character, like the taste of a single flavor. In this vein, Patrul Rinpoche says, “The behavior is the shoot of a Victor (Gyalwe Nyugu).” “Shoot of a Victor” is the very meaning of Gyalwe Nyugu’s name. Due to having a compassionate motivation and penetrating wisdom, you engage in altruistic behavior to help others; these altruistically motivated deeds infused with knowledge of reality are the shoot that turns into a buddha.

 

You need to bring forth the practice of innermost awareness in its own naked state and meditate within that. When you gain such an experiential view, it is not necessary to search for meditation or behavior outside of its scope. When you maintain practice from within the sphere of this view, it is said that

- The view is left as an unmovable mountain.

- Meditation is left as an ocean. No matter how many waves there are on the surface, the depths remain stable. When you have been introduced to, and have identified, innermost awareness in experience, then like sun and sunlight, fundamental mindfulness is engendered within it. At this time, you do not need mindfulness achieved from exertion or activity; mindfulness is innate.

- Behavior is left as appearance. When you have identified innermost awareness and have experienced this view, then from this perspective, whatever conceptions or objects appear, you do not follow after and get caught up in them but remain vividly within the context of innermost awareness such that it is not necessary to make distinctions between the types of behaviors that are to be adopted and those that are to be discarded, for you are beyond achieving and stopping, hoping and fearing.

 

If you as a practitioner are able to effectively practice this type of view, meditation, and behavior in the proper way, you have an opportunity to attain buddhahood in this lifetime; it will not be difficult. “For one who practices in this way, there is no hesitation about buddhahood in one life.”

 

 

Oh, and thanks for the comments about AYP. I find that I agree with them.

Therefore, the AYP deep meditation is also more like hypnosis, below the critical factor.

Very interesting..

Comments start at 59:00 about TM but the whole presentation is a good introduction to basic theory..

The main thing with extensions is related to there often being a single programmer involved. Will the software work in 10 years? Is there enough use of the software to expose security fixes? Will the programmer support maintenance releases after they've stopped updating and using the software.

 

For a small, single feature extension this isn't something to cause much concern. But when something integrates extensively into the main application, like this one seems to, there is potential for a lot to go wrong, especially as the years pass.

 

As ever, what is simple endures.

Gatito, you deleted my post.

You seem to think that only your opinion is valid.

My opinion is just as valid as yours.

 

 

We may long for wholeness, suggests Jon Kabat-Zinn, but the truth is that it is already here and already ours. The practice of mindfulness holds the possibility of not just a fleeting sense of contentment, but a true embracing of a deeper unity that envelops and permeates our lives. With Mindfulness for Beginners you are invited to learn how to transform your relationship to the way you think, feel, love, work, and play—and thereby awaken to and embody more completely who you really are.

Here, the teacher, scientist, and clinician who first demonstrated the benefits of mindfulness within mainstream Western medicine offers a book that you can use in three unique ways: as a collection of reflections and practices to be opened and explored at random; as an illuminating and engaging start-to-finish read; or as an unfolding “lesson- a-day” primer on mindfulness practice.

Beginning and advanced meditators alike will discover in these pages a valuable distillation of the key attitudes and essential practices that Jon Kabat-Zinn has found most useful with his students, including:

• Why heartfulness is synonymous with true mindfulness
• The value of coming back to our bodies and to our senses over and over again
• How our thoughts “self-liberate” when touched by awareness
• Moving beyond our “story” into direct experience
• Stabilizing our attention and presence amidst daily activities
• The three poisons that cause suffering—and their antidotes
• How mindfulness heals, even after the fact
• Reclaiming our wholeness, and more

The prescription for living a more mindful life seems simple enough: return your awareness again and again to whatever is going on. But if you’ve tried it, you know that here is where all the questions and challenges really begin. Mindfulness for Beginners provides welcome answers, insights, and instruction to help us make that shift, moment by moment, into a more spacious, clear, reliable, and loving connection with ourselves and the world.

Includes a complete CD with five guided mindfulness meditations by Jon Kabat-Zinn, selected from the audio program that inspired this book.

 

Source

A better book for beginners, one which Jon Kabat-Zinn (author of the book previously posted) calls a masterpiece is

Mindfulness In Plain English

https://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-Plain-English-20th-Anniversary-ebook/dp/B003XF1LKW

The purpose of meditation is not to concentrate on the breath, without interruption, forever. That by itself would be a useless goal. The purpose of meditation is not to achieve a perfectly still and serene mind. Although a lovely state, it doesn’t lead to liberation by itself. The purpose of meditation is to achieve uninterrupted mindfulness. Mindfulness, and only mindfulness, produces enlightenment.

 

...

 

When you first become aware of something, there is a fleeting instant of pure awareness just before you conceptualize the thing, before you identify it. That is a state of awareness. Ordinarily, this state is short-lived. It is that flashing split second just as you focus your eyes on the thing, just as you focus your mind on the thing, just before you objectify it, clamp down on it mentally, and segregate it from the rest of existence. It takes place just before you start thinking about it—before your mind says, “Oh, it’s a dog.” That flowing, soft-focused moment of pure awareness is mindfulness. In that brief flashing mind-moment you experience a thing as an un-thing. You experience a softly flowing moment of pure experience that is interlocked with the rest of reality, not separate from it. Mindfulness is very much like what you see with your peripheral vision as opposed to the hard focus of normal or central vision. Yet this moment of soft, unfocused, awareness contains a very deep sort of knowing that is lost as soon as you focus your mind and objectify the object into a thing. In the process of ordinary perception, the mindfulness step is so fleeting as to be unobservable. We have developed the habit of squandering our attention on all the remaining steps,...

 

 

I think the important thing here is that you are making a gratuitous assertion and asking why it is true.

Some of us don't accept your assertion, therefore it is meaningless to discuss why it is true.

The same thing goes for Max Christensen's practices.

Don't believe everything you hear or read, even among spiritual and energetic practitioners.

Could you please elaborate on your statement?

Not all breath meditation is about breathing, breathing into something tan tien, or manipulating the breath.

The reason the breath is used, as in Buddhist anapanasati, is because there is a connection between the breath and the movements in the mind (thought and thinking).

When the breathing stops, the movements stop.

When the movements stop, the breathing stops.

So, the breath is a great feedback loop.

The purpose of jhanic breath meditation is to become aware of these components of attention:

1) Directed attention

2) Sustained attention

3) That which watches whether or not the sustained attention has drifted off the target.

The next step is to train those three components.

Once you gain control over the three components of attention, that is when things start to happen.

You might/will experience great bliss, better than sex

You might see nimittas (mental mind objects or lights)

You might see inwardly with the third eye with tremendous clarity.

Two books which I have studied in depth are

https://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-Bliss-Beyond-Meditators-Handbook/dp/0861712757

And

https://www.amazon.com/Attention-Revolution-Unlocking-Power-Focused-ebook/dp/B003WJR60I

The thing that I will say about controlled (not passive watching) breath meditation is that there is a natural built in function that if you do it for a few minutes, will help clear thoughts and emotions out from the mind.

It is called the sighing exhale. If you've ever watched the tv show called BlueBloods, you would see that Tom Selleck, the chief of police, is a great practitioner of the sighing exhale. Whenever he hears of some disastrous event or some potentially frustrating situation, first he listens, then he takes a short inhale and then exhales. It is this exhale that clears the mind.

If you don't believe me, just watch yourself and your behaviors for the sighing exhale. Or watch other people during a conversation. Watch for that sighing exhale. It is a natural method of releasing a mental or emotional buildup.

Repeated over and over again for a few minutes will clear the mind. You will start to see white light in the mind's eye and a space will open up inside your head behind your eyes.

Just recently I found mention of that technique in a book called

"Roaring Silence" DISCOVERING THE MIND OF DZOGCHEN Ngakpa Chögyam & Khandro Déchen

It is not identical to the "sighing exhale" but it is darn close...and uses the same principles...

Here it is:

EXERCISE 4

Sit in a posture of comfort and alertness. Find the presence of your awareness only in your exhalation. Allow your inhalation merely to happen. Allow yourself to dissolve your experience into emptiness with each exhalation. If you find that you have drifted from presence, simply return to presence and remain. If thoughts arise, allow them to dissolve into emptiness with each exhalation. Try this for thirty minutes. See how it goes. If you are used to sitting for longer, sit for as long as you would usually sit. See how it goes.

 

 

Thanks for the info.

 

I had posted this link about the future of this forum, but I've not really looked into it to understand it... Do you see any value in this?

 

https://invisionpower.com/files/file/7264-group-collaboration-full/

Hi Dawei,

I had a quick look at the software and these would be my concerns:

0) the software does seem to be pretty slick and full of features..

1) I don't know what software it is written in (.net, c++, Basic., etc ) nor what kind of database it uses, (sql, sybase , SQL anywhere, access etc ) so I don't have any idea how it performs under a load nor how reliable the backend is. Their price may not include database server licensing..

2) the price is too cheap,

3) it seems that there is only one programmer, Kevin. What happens if he wins a lottery, gets hit by a bus or decides to find another job?

4) the release log seems to be that new releases are usually given every month, sometimes twice a month. Do you really want to patch TDB that often?

5) there is currently a bug with the snapons which they are trying to fix as well as some installation problems. I think they are short on beta testers and are using the public as Guinea pigs.

I would recommend finding a larger company to deal with.

My opinion after about 1/2 hr cursory exam..

If you don't get what this guy is saying, you are sunk.

 

"Meditation" is brainwashing. It is abdication of the mind, it is to give up on life.

"You are at war" every second of every day.

"Moral destruction" the principles meant to promote your survival

"Distorting reality" the basis on which you must develop principles.

 

The Mystics are here, they are real, they are intent on making men into cattle. You will have no say. Wake up and smell the evil, don't evade or remain ignorant.

I don't know how you can make statements like these and still be here at TDB.

Mystics are evil?

Are you here to save us Karl?

Are you here to demolish TDB?

Well,, thanks for the straight answers (finally).

You might enjoy this movie. I know I did..

This thread is jejune.

Simple things amuse simple minds.

If you are not amused then you have some work to be done.

I thought that was clear enough for most people.

 

Perhaps this is clearer?

Instead, you deleted your thread.

It appears from your latest responses that you deleted the thread simply because you could. Or perhaps you decided that you had violated your own moderation policy?

I had hoped that you could have overcome your passive aggressive attitude towards Buddhism, finished off the book and then explained to us the difference between Jaxchen and Dzogchen but instead we are left standing in a cloud of evasiveness.

What is Jaxchen you ask?

From http://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=23396

Wayfarer wrote:

This passage resonates with me:

 

the great danger is when you just leave naked knowing as an intellectual understanding, that “In Dzogchen there is no thing to meditate upon. There is no thing to view. There is nothing to carry out as an action.” That becomes a nihilistic concept and is completely detrimental to progress, because the final point of the teaching is conceptlessness, being beyond intellectual thinking. Yet, what has happened is that you have created an intellectual idea of Dzogchen and hold on to that idea very tightly. This is a major mistake but it can happen. So, it is very important to bring the instruction into personal experience through the oral guidance of a teacher. Otherwise, simply to have the idea: I am meditating on Dzogchen, is to completely miss the point.

 

 

Krodha wrote:

 

The definition of Jaxchen.

 

Wayfarer wrote:

 

That's an interesting word, would you care to elaborate?

 

 

Krodha wrote:

 

Some so-called "teachers" out there like Jax teach their students to relate to Dzogchen in the very manner that is being criticized by Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche.

 

Some people jokingly refer to his teachings as "Jaxchen" because he surely isn't teaching Dzogchen.

 

 

I know a teacher is best but I am after a book with real practical info in it.

I have the kundalini tantra book by Satyananda Saraswati and thought this was the real deal till I came across people mentioning some flaws in it.

any recomendations ?

What flaws were presented to you about this book?

You'll find my moderation policy here.

I didn't really expect a straight answer from you so nothing was lost.