Search the Community

"... there is in fact an account of the First Schism which gives just such a date, namely the tradition of the Sammitya school recorded by Bhavya (Bhavaviveka) and the Tibetan historians (probably following him). This account places the event in B.C. 349.... On this occasion a monk, about whose name there are disagreements..., put forward five grounds, of which four concern the question of the nature of an arhant... and none have any direct bearing on the discipline. An assembly took place... and the majority, it would appear, voted in favour of these grounds. This majority constituted itself into the Mahasamgha.... The minority which rejected the grounds, and which apparently included a number of the most senior monks, refused to submit to this decision and constituted themselves into the School of the Elders, the Sthaviravada. ... We seem led to the conclusion that the two parties were less far apart than at first sight they appear to be, except on the first ground [that an arhant can be seduced by another person]. The Sthaviravada were categorical that an arhant was by nature beyond the reach of any possible seduction; the Mahasamgha allowed an arhant to be seduced in a dream. Between these opinions no compromise could be found.... No compromise having been reached, the two parties separated and became two schools of Buddhism. Afterwards they gradually came to disagree on several more grounds, partly through working out the implications of their positions. In particular the nature of the Buddha was reconsidered. In the Tripitaka he is not apparently distinguished from any other arhant, except that he had the exceptional genius necessary to discover the truths unaided whilst the others were helped by his guidance. The Sthaviravada remained closer to this conception, though gradually they attributed a higher status to the Buddha, eventually complete 'omniscience', especially in the more popular propaganda. The Mahasamgha, on the other hand, having relaxed or at least not made more stringent the conditions for an arhant, found it desirable to make a clear distinction in the case of the Buddha; he was a being of quite a different nature, far above other human beings or perhaps not really a human being at all. They thus began that transformation of the Buddha, and his doctrine, which led step by step to the Mahayana...." ("Indian Buddhism", A. K. Warder, Motilal Banarsidass 2nd ed p 217-218) At least as far as Warder could discover, the original Mahayanists split from the rest of the tradition because they believed an arahant could have a wet dream. I personally like the Bodhisattva vow in Mahayana Buddhism, the commitment to hold off personal enlightenment until all enter at once. The idea, as I understand it, is that the Bodhisattva will continue to suffer the consequences of desire for sensual pleasure, desire for becoming, and desire for not-becoming (ignorance) until all can be freed from these three cankers altogether. That allows for wet dreams and more, and justifies it as a great sacrifice on the part of the Bodhisattva. Yes, it's laughable, and yet I do better in an environment that encourages some freedom from the rules. I myself am only looking to realize Gautama's way of living more often, the mindfulness that he said was primarily his way of living in the rainy season (when presumably he did a lot of sitting)--the way of living that he described as "perfect in itself, and a pleasant way of living too" (SN 54.9, tr. Pali Text Society vol V p 285). As I wrote in my book (yes, I have a book!--should be in print again soon): Many people in the Buddhist community take enlightenment to be the goal of Buddhist practice. I would say that when a person consciously experiences automatic movement in the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation, finding a way of life that allows for such experience in the natural course of things becomes the more pressing concern. Gautama taught such a way of living, although I don’t believe that such a way of living is unique to Buddhism. (Appendix--A Way of Living)

There's very little truth in what the public has been led to believe about what's healthy. Also about what it is we're actually eating, drinking and smoking -- a lot of it is grossly falsified, depleted, and poisoned. "Feed the ancestors," meaning the ancestral make-up of your own body, which is one of the taoist culinary principles, can IMO serve one better -- try eating what generations of your ancestors ate before you, not the latest fad. Although a lot of our ancestors were starving, not fasting by choice but starving due to poverty and social upheavals and endless wars. Yet those of them who were well-to-do enough to eat "healthy" had access to the kinds and varieties of food we can only dream about. (My grandmother on my mother's side used to tell me what was eaten in her mother's home in the early 20th century and all I could do was salivate. On my father's side, however, the ancestors were very poor and lived through periods of starvation. My mother's side of the family were the longevity folks, not my father's side.)

and the reverse ..... me coaxing a chainsaw to start and run perfectly after everyone else could not .... and swore and cursed at it . I step in and '' Do you want me to do it for you ?'' amidst much eye raising and huffing , but not from my Indigenous teacher , he was laughing and - knowing me ' ' here we go ! ( meaning he is used to my 'antics' ) .... < pat pat > ''Awwwww ... poor little chainsaw, everyone being mean and abusing you, but I won;t I like you ! Good little chainsaw < pat pat > You will start for me won;t you . '' and the others are ''Fer Gawd's sake ... etc '' .... went first pull and ran like a dream

I grew up in a christian - Baptist family. Though I have never felt connected to the christian religion. I don't think it's a bad religion, I just feel my ideals and who I am would never be able to be christian. Like for example, my grandmother is always saying she hopes I accept Jesus died for my sins and that god exist. Whether god or Jesus exist or not, is debatable. And honestly, I won't say they don't exist, cuz you never know. What bothers me is him dying for my sins. Who gave him the right to die for my sins? If I have sins, flaws, or bad karma I will face it head on. I don't need a savior. By the way the word savior rubs me the wrong way too. I actually like the idea of facing my sins, bad karma, or whatever punishments I am do. In my ideaology I can learn something from the experience. But having some savior take my sins away, who asked for that. it's like denying me the right for self growth. I am not scared of suffer for a greater gain, I do worry about my will wavering though. As a kid, the first religion I was drawn to was witchcraft. I thought it was cool, which led to me doing embarassing things. Honestly, I was an embarassing kid in general, I don't know why I did half the things I did. I can't help thinking of the time I tried to seduce the neighborhood boys when i was 10yo, I was dancing on a old wooden chest to music like britney spears while twirling a training bra around my finger. Then my father walked in, I don't know what my father was coming to say to me when he opened the door. But my father took one look around my bedroom, then he stepped back, and closed the door. Man the way my father reacted and the look on his face, I could never get it out of my head. He had a look like he was honestly embaressed for me and the way he just exited the room like he saw nothing, nothing at all. It was like dad don't leave me like that! Like man I had to have been making a fool of myself. You can imagine how I was probably like when I got into witchcraft as a kid. Man, I one day came across a spell I wanted to try. So, I charged into my grandmothers living and loudly told her I was going to attempt to summon a snow storm, right then and their. I had originally thought my grandmother would think I was talking nonsense, that was my expected response. If my grandmother was like any other chrisitian in the world, I would have expected her to say thats the devils work. No, my grandma instead said, "You about lost your god damn mind! Not on my carpet you don't, take it outside!" When I look back to this I feel so embarassed of my behavior, but I kind of find it funny my grandmothers response was the same as the time I came home with my dog and we were both covered in mud from head to toe and I was thinking of crossing her carpet to head to the shower. She told me to jump the fence and hose off in the backyard. I first got into meditation at the end of my witchcraft interest. I had found what was claimed to be a spell, but later when I brought it up someone had said that it was reiki. It was a visualization exercise of imagining your feet become roots and they go deep into the earth, and you imagine the earth energy rises up from the roots. That was the first time I felt something work. I felt a sense of heavyness creaping up my body, and it felt like I was a statue in a way. I started felling heavy and stiff. but I could move fine, it just felt like i was getting a work out moving my limbs like they weight a ton suddenly. I started meditating not long after that, or what I think is meditation. I have just always followed my instincts on what felt right. I would listen to meditation music, just the vibrations. i never bothered listening to the ones where someone speak. I have had weird things happen when I meditated before. like once I was staying at my grandmothers house, and i decided to lay down and meditate. I don't like those sitting meditation positions, I always felt more relaxed just laying. Well, as I was laying down, um...I felt like my grandma called me. I didn't hear my grandma call me. Suddenly my body got up and I walked to my grandmother. And I mean my body got up and walked its self to my grandmother. I didn't walk myself to my grandmother, I remember being very confuse, one minute i am meditating the next minute my body is walking to my grandmother. when i was standing in front of my grandmother I felt in control of my body again, but I was reeling a bit trying to figure out what just happened. my grandmother the whole time I stood silently infront of her just sat their staring at me. It was really weird. I had told my grandmother it had felt like you had called me, although I know you didn't call me. My grandmother had then told me that she was actually just thinking of calling for me cuz she needed me for something, when I suddenly walked up to her. Honestly, I am not too shocked something weird happen between me and my grandmother. Honestly, weird things happen between us throughout my life. I once read that something that said their are different types of soul mates, and I am pretty sure and I have some kind of connection. She had even told me she felt a connection to me from the day I was born. This is how weird it is, I swear if I die tomorrow. The first person to know will be my grandmother, she will just know. I won't know how she will know, but she will just know. Sometimes this connection we have can get creepy. Once my phone was dead and I needed to call my grandmother to ask for something. I borrowed the quicktrip phone and called my grandmother. before I could say anything, my grandmother immediately answered, "[my name], what do you need?" I had to double check I was using a company phone and not my own, cuz it was like how in the hell did she know it was me calling? She ended up telling me before I called she heard my voice in her head and I sounded like I needed her. So she had simply concluded I was the one calling. Anyways, enough of our weird connection, its not really about meditation. I did later when I was 18yo go to a few reiki meetings, the two leaders of the events were husband and wife, and both were doctors. I don't recall too much about this time, and I only went to a few meetings. But I remember we all would take terns laying down and everyone else would work to remove negative energy from each other. I have to admit if I represented elements I lean towards fire, lightning, air, and wood. These are the elements I feel the strongest connection to, which is why elements like earth and water I come to find as soothing and grounding, cuz it feels like I get balanced out. My family says that when I am being short tempered they would push me to go take a shower, cuz they swear I came out of the shower a different person like I was more at peace. I didn't even realize looking back that that is why they would suddenly tell me to suddenly take a shower until they had told me that is why they sent me off, I thought they were just trying to get rid of me cuz they are too weak willed to clash heads with me. Joking, my family is anything but weak almost everyone is an alpha in my family. I like to joke that I crawled out of a lions den. My father would compare our family to the addams family, ill give dads answer credit our family is definetly something that is for sure. But anyway, I had tried imaging burning impurities and negative energy off of someone once. And they actually stopped me saying I was hurting them, which was one of my reiki attempts. I had spent most my time envisioning working with earth from then on, during the other reiki sessions. I do remember this one time I was laying down, and everyone was working to remove my negative energy and etc. And this one girl she had hovered her hand over my forehead. And for a minute I acually saw the color blue, it felt like I was in the middle of the ocean. And I mean in the ocean where I couldn't see the water surface nor could I see the bottom. It was like I was floating in the middle of the ocean, it was a really relaxing feeling. I had asked the girl what she did but she said she just moved her hand over my forehead head. She was the only one that made me kind of feel or see something. Although, I always felt afterwards like I could fly or glide over the ground. After ever reiki session I always felt so light and free, and giddy. I would usually be overwhelmed with giddiness. Man the more I recall my past reiki sessions the more I feel like going back. I haven't felt giddy about anything, that would be so nice. I remember one the girls saying I had thousands of butterflies ready to help remove all the emotional baggage, stress, and negative energy. And the doctor guy said I was a natural at reiki and I should actual take some training to become a reiki master. Now fast forward into a decade, to the current time. I have been recently dealing with hardships. My dog had passed away, and to me he was my first son. My grandparents are in their late 70s and early 80s. When it comes to family, the most important relatives are my grandparents. My father and I have grown apart, my brother is in a mental health institute, and my younger sisters are starting their own families. It feels like my family is falling apart, the glue is my grandparents and they are barely keeping the family functioning cuz they can be old and cranky. It's funny my grandfather is the old man that yells at kids to give off his lawn, I only learned that cuz my youngest sisters husband was once that kid that was yelled at to get off his lawn. I sometimes I feel conflicted about this, cuz I know keeping family together is important but I am not a social person. I be fine living in like a victorian mansion in the middle of a forest. Actually, I would really really like that, maybe own 10 dogs and have a few friends as room mates, and a butler. But anyway, the idea of keeping my family together feels draining just thinking about it. I am also not close to my cousins, or my aunts and uncle for they are a bit snobbish. It's funny, my half brothers uncle is actually a wealthy business man but he is a respectful upstanding man and is not snobbish. But my direct uncle and aunts think they are something special, when they arent rich or anything. So, in a way feels like I am about to loose my family, my grandparents, I just lost my dog, I nearly lost my father by a freak accident that no one knows how my father survived from. My fathers scull and half his face was smashed in. I am glad my father didn't die, is it weird though that my first thought when I heard was. Was that if my father ever has to die, that accident would have been the best way. He had saved his wife, my stepbrother, and another familys life, almost at the cost of us his own. My father is big on safety and protection, made me go to school with a bullet proof backpack through all of high school. He was a safety nut, he tried to prepare me and my siblings for everything, and I mean everything. You have no idea how many times I was pronounced dead cuz I failed my fathers survival expectations. Like he use to have midnight fire drills on school nights, i often died by fire cuz I didn't get out of bed fast enough. Just the idea of my father dying a hero just sounded fitting, totally something my dad would do. Anyways, all of this added up and I kind of went into survival mode. I guess I had mourned my dead dog, my fathers near death, my grandparents are currently dying, according to the doctor my grandma should be dead 5 years ago, my family is starting to drift apart or already is, and then I found myself mourning my own death. Man, I wasn't really living last year. I was so stressed out that my body was rebelling against me. I had eventually decided I was done suffering so I laid down. And I told my body to allow me to feel the pain, embrace the pain, and let it go. I laid their and I wasn't focused on anything. suddenly, I felt drawn to different body parts. A first it will feel like a muscle twitched, then that area would grow heavy, then I would feel pain that hurt so much I wanted to cry out. One after another I would start feeling things I didn't feel before. The most painful part was in my skull, it felt like someone was hammering a axe head into my skull. I am not even sure if this was proper meditation? all I did was lay down and told my body my intention, then i started feeling pain i didnt feel before? Was that pain always their like how did I not know it. It lasted about three hours and then I was super thirsty and tired. This experience had made me want to learn more about meditation? And energy work. I have for my whole life not put much effort into looking into these things, I usually just did what felt natural and what my instincts tell me to do. Or what my dreams tell me to do, I always have been able to remember my dreams and it has always been easy to understand the messages in my dreams. Like I think in a certain away, and certain items, people, or places usually represent something. Especially the people. I notice that people around me usually represent a pro and con in my dreams. If I dream about my grandmother she can represent great inner strength or she could represent my own insecurities in myself. If its a bad dream its my insecurities I need to work on, if its a good dream its about my inner strength. My grandma sometimes makes me feel insecure, but my grandma also to me seems like the strongest person I know. Though I am not the only one, cuz most people are intimidated by my grandmother. Usually people try to communicate through me to my grandmother, cuz she is too intimidating to most people. Any how I would like to learn more about meditation, reiki, energy work, and I curious to learn some insights on my past experiences that I didn't know of. I will say I have had cool things happen to in my childhood that I don't think has anything to do with meditation, like I was once able to see in the dark and I don't know what I do or how to do that again. Oh and I once was jumping of a trampoline and i jumped to high and flew off the trampoline. It had looked like I was going to bust my head, all I saw was the ground coming up fast. I had closed my eyes and felt nothing. I opened my eyes to find I was laying on my back. The angle of how I landed was weird though because If my head was facing the house, then it should have been face down. Or If my head was up it should have faced the direction of the trampoline. But i was face up and when I sat up I was facing the trampoline. I have no memory of landing or touching the ground at all. And I was kind of in shock and had sat up and checked out my limbs to make sure they weren't broke but I was perfectly fine, i didnt even have a bruise. When I looked up at my sister it was almost like reality resumed cuz my younger sister jumped off the trampoline screaming bloody murder for my parents and I had to get up and run after her and I had to repeatedly tell her I am fine. That day was just weird and I have no explanation for that day, I thought I was a goner and my sister thought I was too My familys only reaction to things like this, is I must have an army of angels. Even my friends wonder how I am alive, though my friends question this cuz I use to be very reckless with my life in my early twenties. My father even compared my recklessness with playing russian roulette with my life, my dad told me to stop messing around or one of these days I really will bite a bullet. I am not recklessness no more, my father might have spooken me a little on that.

Yoga nidra (also known as yogic sleep or sleep yoga, and not to be confused with dream yoga) is a state of conscious deep sleep. Through yoga nidra one can sleep 30 minutes to an hour and that would equate to 3 or 4 hours of regular sleep. Yoga nidra was not designed to replace regular sleep but since one can stay conscious through sleep onset this means that hypnagogic imagery can be experienced which in turn can lead to lucid dreaming and astral projection. Dream yoga on the other hand is a Tibetan practice with some of the goals being to awaken the consciousness within the dream state or astral travel. Dream yoga and yoga nidra are where the dream practices that sprung up in the west, otherwise known as lucid dreaming, have their roots. My question here is (as asked in the topic title) does the tao contain it's own practice of yoga nidra and dream yoga?