Seeker of Wisdom

Tbh I doubt it's kundalini, a lot of what people label kundalini just sounds like strong qi to me. Maybe you have qi stuck in your head? Try standing up, feet shoulder width apart, and relaxing as much as you can. Breathe slowly, and on each exhale slowly scan your body down from your head to a few yards into the ground.

That's really weird. I never understood what people meant when they said 'disconnected from the body' before. It reminds me when someone told me to feel my ear (don't remember the context). I said 'OK, feeling it' and they said 'no you aren't, touch it' and I insisted 'I'm feeling it right now!', thinking do you really have to use your hand to sense your OWN ear?. Related question - how long does it take most people these days to start actually feeling qi? I could feel it in my hands from a young age and didn't realise what it was until I got into cultivation. It wasn't a placebo, as I remember feeling it the first time completely randomly, as though a switch was thrown. I wasn't naturally spiritual at all, I'm not a naturally adept cultivator by any means. Yet sometimes I read something on cultivation saying 'you won't feel much at first...' and I'm confused - is the average person honestly so body-blind?

The difference between Brahman and Buddha-nature is that Brahman is considered to not be empty, but the absolute source and ground of all existence. Buddhism has no 'Sat', emptiness refers to the nature of all things as lacking 'Sat' or 'svabhava'. Buddha-nature means that the nature of the mind is primordially awake 'lhundrub/chit+ananda' as well as empty 'kadag/not sat'. Such is my understanding, anyway.

I remember hearing somewhere that gamma is regulated by theta. So maybe you enter theta, which leads to gamma, which leads to the lambda-epsilon thing.

If the ego makes a contrived decision to stop contriving, is that really better? You are trying to get to a state beyond the ego by not acting from the ego. If someone lacks gnosis they can't do that as their only reference point is ego, and they will be holding on to concepts of what the absence of ego is. If someone doesn't have actual gnosis, ALL decisions are contrived and tainted by ego. Both to conduct activity and to avoid activity. So if the choice is between a contrived decision which leads nowhere because it's a catch-22 and a contrived decision which leads to gnosis from which uncontrived non-meditation spontaneously outflows, the latter is better.

Again, I see what you're saying in a way. But based on what you are saying an enlightened person has no qualities different from an unenlightened one. Is every person you walk past on the street actually, practically enlightened, right now? I'm guessing not, and a key question is 'why aren't they enlightened?'. If it's because they are contriving things and they need to stop doing that, how can they stop contriving? Making the contrived decision 'I will not contrive anything anymore' is itself contrivance! Do you see the catch-22 with that? People can't just decide to drop the contrived crap. It has to happen out of gnosis, or it's just more contrivance, gold chain instead of rope. Deciding to take no action and apply no effort is very different from wu wei. Ignoring the relative in favour of the absolute is a big mistake. People can get to that gnosis through shamatha-vipashyana, through koan and zazen, and many other means. But non-meditation will only be real non-meditation rather than a pointless mind-game when it is from gnosis, rather than a contrived decision to not apply effort.

The internal crap can be calmed down by applying antidotes e.g. metta for hatred, it falls away entirely when insight takes away the delusion holding it up e.g. hatred relies on a view of self vs. other that the realisation of anatta takes away.

What you're saying is true on a high level, but not practical for a lot of people. There is a big difference between genuine gnosis of the natural state in which nothing needs to be altered, and prematurely stating 'nothing needs to be altered, so I won't cultivate any factors of enlightenment', which is a mind-game leading nowhere. As unenlightened people aren't actually exhibiting enlightened qualities, saying that those qualities are already full in the natural state doesn't help on a practical level - on the relative level, we DO definitely need to change our nature and cultivate qualities like samadhi. We shouldn't lose sight of the relative because of lofty absolute truths. I appreciate what you're trying to say, but for a lot of people telling them to avoid contrived practices is telling them to destroy the boat before they're actually on the other shore.

Sure. Vipashyana is essentially about looking at experience to recognise features like impermanence, etc. The aspects of experience commonly looked at can be grouped into four frames of reference (satipatthana): body, feelings, mind and something called'dhammas'. So if you are observing your breath to notice impermanence and such, that is a vipashyana technique of body contemplation (if you're simply concentrating on the breath without investigating its nature, that's shamatha). Another body contemplation technique is contemplation of anatomy, you go through your body noting all the bones, organs, etc, to realise that no part of the body is 'you' or 'yours', and apply that to the bodies of others to realise that their bodies aren't really attractive or repulsive, but just material objects like any other. Similarly you can break the body into elements by labeling tangible stuff 'earth', fluids 'water', body heat 'fire' and the air you're breathing 'air'. The charnal ground body contemplations involve visualising a/your own corpse in various states of decay to face up to your own mortality, really recognise impermanence. Contemplation of physical position and actions are meant to make you aware of the constant movement you're doing to show subtle impermanence and how the body isn't 'yours' because you can't absolutely control it. There's a lot of detail on all this stuff in Ven Analayo's book.

I think that text refers to more than just shamatha's benefits, as samadhi alone couldn't lead to point 10, ending - rather than just pacifying - mental effluents. The part specifically about the benefits of the four jhanas is those four paragraphs. The practices described seem to be body contemplations for vipashyana and mindfulness of breathing for shamatha, so the 10 benefits listed are coming from the union of shamatha and vipashyana, not just shamatha. So the 10 benefits are benefits of enlightenment, because enlightenment is gained with the union of shamatha and vipashyana. I think it's significant that mindfulness of breathing comes first in the list of practices. It's also interesting that point 7 is basically the 'contemplation of mind' practice from the satipatthana sutta, but here listed as a passive result of body contemplation rather than an active practice.

The jhanas happen from having developed 'access concentration', enough samadhi from shamatha to pacify the five hindrances (restlessness, laxity, sense craving, malice, doubt) to a high level. So that means other practices like vipashyana, cultivating bodhichitta, and tantra, will be much more effective. The jhanas in themselves aren't the point, but if someone with access concentration sits in jhana a bit to sharpen their tools before doing something else, they will get the full benefit of the practice because it will go much deeper. Without access concentration, the level of bodhichitta and wisdom that can be achieved is limited by the mind not being healthy and pliant enough. My view is if Shakyamuni had tried to cram Therevada, Mahayana and Vajrayana into a few decades of teaching in a time before everything could be neatly written and sent to a printing press, in the long run there would have been more confusion and less strongly established paths. Better to get a solid Therevada tradition laid to last for a long time, knowing that other things could grow from there from others taking the baton, eventually making a range of options for different kinds of people.

Good luck with that. Maybe you're one of the one-in-a-billion people able to undo all the obscurations in a sudden, apparently spontaneous release. Most people, though, need to heat the water over time with the three trainings (one of which is samadhi) to get to that instant of suddenly boiling. There's a reason both sudden and gradual teachings have been taught - so that people can follow the one matching their capacity. Telling people who need the gradual way to avoid jhanas because they might get distracted from the rest of the path is like telling someone to get to the penthouse without going through the lobby.

I think reality functions as a multiverse or something, where everything that exists is caused by prior things and this goes back infinitely. So no need for a God or first cause IMHO, which removes confusing questions.

A theory came to me earlier linking aspects of Buddhist shamatha and Taoist neigong. In some shamatha practices it is common for advanced practitioners to get a nimitta, a bright light seen in front of them, when highly focused. In 'Daoist Nei Gong', Damo Mitchell describes experiences of bright light during the conversion of qi to shen. So, could the nimitta be an experience of shen? If shen is particularly related to the mind, it makes sense that shamatha would affect shen a lot. I wonder to what extent the conversion of qi to shen itself leads to samadhi - though there's no way to tell, because the practice of neigong involves focusing so qi->shen and practising focus can't be looked at independently. Has anyone had both experiences and found they are different?

When the signal reaches the synapse it causes neurotransmitters to be released across the gap. When they get to the other end, they cause sodium ion channels to open there so the signal continues.

I think discussion here would be more productive if some people learnt to state their case with developed points made in a neutral tone, and, if the debate becomes an argument, to swallow their pride and say 'we'll agree to disagree'. So far as I'm aware, nobody here is in a position to take it upon themselves to teach people. Share ideas and debate, yes, but not correct others as though they are our students.

Clearly there is a personal issue involved here. You are projecting negative character traits on anyone who practices Buddhism, doing the very things you are railing against. If you can't learn to accept that many people actually find Buddhism useful and aren't fundies, there is a simple way to remove a lot of silly conflict - don't visit this subforum. It's that simple. If you find practice that is probably similar to your own anyway so very abhorrent, don't go into the room where people are talking about it.

Buddhism has more analytical philosophy than most paths. This can be a powerful tool to cut off false concepts, and then overcome attachment to views entirely, so there is only direct spacious realisation. Unfortunately, some people get attached to the logic and philosophy and treat it as absolute truth, which they feel obligated to proselytise to all the poor fools who aren't smart enough to get it. They must protect the logic, because to them it is the one true path and they have such a personal stake in it. They become elitist fundies dripping with scorn and arrogance, quoting scholars and texts because they can't do anything else. Not much can be done, only they can free themselves.

I'd recommend starting with Therevada - 'measureless mind' is a good resource and 'access to insight' has many articles and books. You said you wanted theory, not practice, but you will get an excellent theoretical understanding from 'Satipatthana - The Direct Path to Realisation' by Ven. Analayo. It's fairly psychological, especially later on. From there you can understand Mahayana theory. Here's a good article to start with for understanding emptiness, then you can read other stuff. 'The Sun of Wisdom' would probably be excellent for understanding this, though I've only read extracts myself. Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche's uttaratantra commentary will give you a good understanding of Buddha-nature, without reifying it which is important to get. I haven't read many Vajrayana books, but 'Stilling the Mind' by Alan Wallace is great. Aside from that, I think the 'Lessons in Buddhism' thread in my PPF should be a decent primer.

I'd like to change my name to 'Seeker of Wisdom', please.

Thanks Flo.

Cheers. Yeah, I'd like the login name and PPF changed too please.

For those who don't get what? What you're saying is not Buddhism, and it is dishonest to claim otherwise. I would not start a thread in my PPF claiming to be about Vedanta, and then go on to write about Buddhism. I don't get what your motivation is here. To not agree with Buddhist concepts and to explain why is absolutely fair enough. I have no interest at all in trying to convince you that anatta is true. I'm by no means joining the ranks of the fundies. But stop speaking for another tradition using your own voice as though you understand the tradition better than its own practitioners do. It's dishonest, arrogant and needlessly disrespectful. If you'd said "I don't agree with the Buddhist concept of anatta because... I would agree if it stated that there is no self, but there is the Self", that could have been the start of a productive exchange of ideas. But that's not what you did - you said " anatta means there's no self, but there is the Self", dishonestly presenting that as the Buddhist concept when you surely know full well that it is not. As 3bob saidsaid nicely:

New Agers have appropriated useful stuff, so some of the things they talk about have some validity, but they mix things up with BS and dumb it down. IMO just go for things that make sense and fit experience, and if those things happen to also be mentioned by New Agers it's generally best to learn about them from non-New Age sources.

The mind is full of crap. When it's under the surface we don't notice it. Then meditation stirs it up and we think "blimey! That wasn't there before." Do we want to face up to this stuff, or just leave it under the rug? You're doing well.