Seeker of Wisdom

Dhammapada pdf trans Acharya Buddharakkita. http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/scrndhamma.pdf Nice two in one - the Platform Sutra with Hui-neng's Diamond Sutra commentary. http://www.amazon.com/The-Sutra-Hui-Neng-Shambhala-Editions/dp/1570623481 An excellent guide to shamatha. http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Attention-Revolution-Unlocking-Focused/dp/0861712765

Cool. I'll keep at it.

My post was a response to someone who was also sceptical about Chundi, but had been viewing the mantra only as an invocation-type thing where someone is actually asking Chundi for help, like theistic worship. I was just presenting my view, not stating categorically that Chundi doesn't exist or that there aren't ways of using the mantra considering Chundi to be an actual being other than as an invocation. If I end up knowing Chundi exists, I will update my understanding to something more like yours. That's really interesting. Has he said anything? How long had you been chanting for before this started happening? I've been trying to do it whenever I've not been focused on something else for about 16 months. Do you tend to see similar stuff often? Maybe my 3rd eye is just too clogged right now.

Well done SJ.

Hair is just dead keratin, the same stuff rhino horn is made from, so I don't think hair itself does anything. If keratin amplifies awareness, rhinos and narwhals would be sages, which I find hard to believe. However, someone who chooses to shave their hair off or keep it long as an expression of humility, lack of vanity, realising that you aren't your body, and dedication to cultivation may have heightened awareness because of that. There's probably also some role for the placebo effect.

Hi. Kundalini experiences can sound exciting, but the big picture is that they aren't access concentration/jhana or realisation. Kundalini helps with those, and will happen naturally at some point, but isn't a central factor. Someone with raised kundalini isn't necessarily enlightened, but an enlightened person will have raised kundalini. So best not to worry about it unless it starts happening. In my practice, I treat pranayama as a little seasoning for shamatha. It doesn't have to be one or the other. But if you only have time for one, then choose the beef, not the gravy. And don't try to do both simultaneously.

Sounds like a repressed memory situation. I would try to find a therapist doing psychoanalysis - for repressed memories, other stuff like CBT is less help - to fully dig up the memory, trusting them to guide me to bypass ego defences even if it seems they're just chatting. Also meditation. Then, once the memories are opened up, consider how best to deal with them. Failing that due to money or circumstances, I would go into it in meditation and try self-hypnosis.

It's exactly that that I was responding to. These sorts of texts must be approached from a Buddhist frame of reference to be understood as intended by the original writer/speaker. In Dzogchen, 'basis' means 'basis of conscious experience', not 'an ontological absolute to reality as a whole'. 'Source' similarly means 'source of conscious experience', not 'source of all things'. 'Fundamental nature' similarly means 'basic characteristic of experience', not 'ontological basis'. If you read statements in Dzogchen texts without understanding that: 1)Emptiness is one of the three aspects of the basis 2)The three aspects of the basis are of one taste and 3) It's about experience, not ontology; it is easy to misunderstand and think that Dzogchen treats consciousness as some ultimate essence, like Brahman in Vedanta. But Brahman in Vedanta and consciousness in Buddhism are completely different ideas. In Vedanta, it is an ontological absolute that exists from its own side unaffected by causes and conditions. In Buddhism, it is a D.O. empty aggregation like everything is, with the three aspects of the basis in the manner outlined above. Now, if you have the Vedanta POV that is fine by me. Different people take different routes. I have no interest at all in changing your mind about that. However, don't mix it up with the Buddhist POV by mistakenly superimposing the Vedanta view on top of the Buddhist one, from reading something as though the words are used the same way as in Vedanta with the same POV. That is like mixing chocolate and casserole. I like both, but not mushed together into confused sludge. When reading Buddhist stuff, interpret what you're reading from that viewpoint to understand what the speaker/writer meant.

There is no absolute consciousness in Buddhism, consciousness is dependently originated and compounded (eye, ear, etc). What is being referred to here is the innate luminosity of consciousness - which is the ground of experience, not an ontological basis - which has to be understood in tandem with emptiness. All experience is of one taste with the luminosity of consciousness, but that consciousness is a D.O. arregation. To exist is to be of one taste with sheer primordially pure vividness beyond conceptual elaboration, but that doesn't mean anything exists by itself substantially without causes, as that vividness is the hallmark of consciousness, which is empty and D.O'd

I don't think AEN or Thusness are trying to be insulting. They're not making personal judgements about anyone or their path. They're just pointing out that there are stages beyond Bernadette Roberts' attainment. It isn't possible for her to be simultaneously partway along and at the end, either she has gone as far as there is to go or she hasn't. The possibility that she hasn't ought to be addressed to help her and others keep going. If I got stuck at a particular experience or insight, I would be glad for someone to come along and help me see that there's still more to do, telling me what's up ahead and where. Just as I was glad near the end of my days in AYP to see your posts criticising it, and advocating shamatha.

http://www.box.net/shared/3verpiao63 This guy also has a blog called 'awakening to reality'. I haven't read much of that, but I've started reading his eBook and so far it's quite impressive. It's clearly based on experience, too. The way he handles Vedanta's 'I AM' realisation in unison with Buddhist realisations of anatta and shunyata is very intiquing. He presents Vedanta as emphasising the 'luminosity' aspect and Buddhism as emphasising the 'emptiness' aspect, but suggests that both them are necessary wings of awakening. Start with emptiness or luminosity, but in the end they join up with the realisation of all phenomena as dependently originated, empty, yet vivid. Also well reasoned criticism of ideas like 'just rest in the now' or 'you don't have to any practice because you are already That', which is going around a lot these days, based on understanding how deeply engrained delusional views are.

What is awareness without things to be aware of?

Shamatha: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Attention-Revolution-Unlocking-Focused/dp/0861712765/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392929075&sr=8-1&keywords=the+attention+revolution You're right, trying to stop thinking is absolutely stupid. However, the compulsive ideation that 99.999999% of people have isn't conducive to cultivation either. Thought is a tool. Like any tool, is it healthy if it is always stuck to your hand? Is it healthy if you can't pick it up when you want to use it? Shamatha is basically about gradually releasing the tendency of the attention to roam about or be dull. If anything, it is a letting go of effort. Something I'm starting to realise, although I'm still very much a novice, is that actually the mind is by nature stable and vivid. But that natural quality is blocked by clingings and effort, so shamatha, or something like it, is necessary to unlock what we've already got. Someone with access concentration has access to the substrate consciousness, as well as their mind. So their awareness is very expansive, and this vivid space is very conducive to real liberating insight and boundless compassion. Importantly, any insights gained are imprinted on the substrate consciousness, so they are permanent, and for the same reason boundless compassion can be effortless, uncontrived. Basically they're working on the root rather than fussing over leaves. Also, the chi will automatically clear up brilliantly, and countless globs of crap in the mind clear up in the process.

Enlightenment/control over my rebirths/freedom from the obscuration clouding my mind. Deeper satisfaction than the desire/stimulus/dopamine/new desire cycle gives. Being a better person.

Thunder_Gootch, you were the one who brought it up on this thread in the first place. Take your own advice, and stop perpetuating the derail of this thread yourself. TTB caters for people of varying views. You have to either accept that many of us will disagree with you, or leave and go to/start a mo pai forum. We've all seen the John Chang video, and read the quotes you keep reposting. Continuing to bash us over the head with them, as though we will suddenly agree that mo pai is the one true system after the 1001st view, is a waste of your time.

'Reaching' Tao? There is nothing to reach, and nothing to dissolve into, as we are functions of Tao ourselves. An Immortal just recognises Tao, and is in harmony with it. If Tao is emptiness, then that recognition and harmony is with emptiness, and all the motions of yin and yang are seen as taking place in emptiness. Like warps in space, they are qualities spun from the yarn of a complete lack of qualities. And the Immortal sees that in actuality, all action already was wu wei, because it is never anything over than the action of expansive void itself! And, if all things are spun from emptiness, doesn't that make emptiness itself, in an inconceivable way, substance? Thus, there is really no difference between your two suggestions of no-thing and nothing. Just the ramblings of a fool...

Milarepa's criticism of Gampopa's shamatha practice is a classic example of skilful means, considered in light of his advice to someone else with different faculties. Here's Milarepa's song to the shepherd boy: "Genyen, do X!" "Gampopa, stop wasting your time on X! Do Y!" And I like to think, a few years later: "Genyen, stop doing X, you silly bastard. Do Z."

Very helpful guide for practice.

It's always at least one of the aggregates relating to at least one of the others. You already understand how form, feeling, cognition and volition aren't self. Consciousness isn't self either, because it requires the other aggregates to arise and function. The understanding 'none of the aggregates are I or mine' arises when volition drives consciousness to inspect the other aggregates, and the interrelationships between them. With the experience of not finding a self, the cognition aggregate stops conceiving of one. So the cognition aggregate no longer conceives of self, and the consciousness aggregate is aware of this. Even in that experience, at least two aggregates are functioning dependently, not one central thing. The key is to keep noticing that the thing that does X isn't the same as the thing that does Y.

Interesting things WILL happen! But the most interesting and stable thing isn't a particular ostentatious breakthrough. It's looking back and realising that you're sailing with a smile through things that used to make you hulk out. It's being able to remember, understand and do things that most people can't, faster than the few who can, because your mindfulness is such that you just get on with it. It's discovering that people respect you, ask your opinions, ask how you are so happy all the time... and still being humble. Aside from in the wake of occasional 'WOW' moments - which will happen, and blow your mind - you will only notice your progress by looking back. We always consider how we are now to be normal, but how we are may be truly incredible compared to the way we were.

Try not to project theistic ideas of original sin, guilt and divine forgiveness onto Buddhism. We do what we feel is right. The Buddha didn't give endless lists of rules, he told people to discern what is skilful and what isn't for themselves. There are precepts, not commandments, all subject to one's own common sense, not rigid rules to blindly follow. In methods such as this 88 Buddhas thing, there is no expectation that anyone is listening, that anyone will help, that anyone will give advice, and there is certainly no idea of hoping someone else will forgive us. It is all symbolic. The 88 Buddhas just represent various qualities to be developed in ourselves. We regret our unskillful actions. I'm sure you do too, unless you're a sociopath. We regret the actions, rather than consider ourselves guilty of violating some standard. Because of that regret, we wish to change those negative habits. So we use methods such as this, or Vajrasattva practice, to acknowledge what we have done to a symbolic representation of our own Buddha-nature. Not to anyone external. This has nothing to do with forgiveness or guilt, it is just a tool for changing habits. Try not to respond in a reactionary manner to words like 'repentance', which may mean radically different things from theistic and Buddhist viewpoints. Take the time to understand what a tradition says before you criticise it. Criticism is welcome, but not strawmans.

Zen isn't standard sutrayana Mahayana, though. It's not tantric, but it does work by directly recognising unfabricated presence. Koans are basically Zen's version of tekchö. Read the Platform Sutra. It isn't Vajrayana, but it very clearly has a strong flavour of it, especially of Dzogchen.

Practice lineages require a teacher. The primary method of Zen is definitely not reading.

How's it working out for ya?

They read books, obviously, but not as a method of recognising unfabricated presence. Bodhidharma: They use pointing-out instruction in a master-student relationship (bokusan) and koans.