markern

But is there any sort of evidence for this in western medicine? If you lost half your life force than one should see very clearly and quickly that peopled started suffering and as far as I know that is not the case. Besides isen`t it a big difference between your physical kidney and your kideny chi on a deeper level?

My meditation teacher says that the person with the highest realisation in his opinion is not any of the masters he met as a tibetan monk for four years but a lady that does not teach formaly and lives in my city about 25 min walking distance from where I live. I much prefer this to wild searching in the mountains somewhere but I have never met her so I don`t know if I agree and I realy don`t have much to compare with or asses such a person by but if it is realy the case that she is the highest then it is kind of like master home delivery

I have noticed that a lot of cultivators sleep very little due to cultivation. How much do you sleep and do you feel it is enough? I need about 7 to feel fairly well rested I often manage on about 6 and a half but I would sleep about 8 if I could. In the future I hope to effortlessly get sleeptime down by 2-3 hours. That would revolutionize my life.

I have been doing tai chi the last couple of days and it has made my sleep wonderfull:) Big improvement

One feels all sorts of things all the time that does not tell you what to do. Feeling guilty when you should not feeling that you deserve to sleep with the hotie from work because sex with the wife is rare these days etc. These are not good reasons to act despite that one might feel these things and only think that following them are wrong. So in this regard it is not correct that youre feelings always nows best and should be listened to. What I think is realy meant by this is that you need to not just check what you are feeling in general but what you feel in your GUT. What do you specificly feel in the stomach area/dan tien area/navel. This is were the intuitiv feelings that know better than your brain manifest. Ones ordinary feelings can be everywhere in the body and what you are actualy listening to right now might just be more sort of "brainfeelings" than your intuition. Secondly, I also think there is a need for depth of listening. It is not only about listening to your got, but listening deeply and HONESTLY so that one can sort through surface level feelings and impulses and listen deeply. I also think that the heart needs to be involved somehow but not in isolation from the gut. Just my two norwegian kroner

I read varjahdiya saying that his teacher entered the jhanas when doing dream yoga and I have recently read that one can stay "awake"/aware not only during dreams but also dreamless sleep. Does meditating during sleep give the same benefits as during waking hours? Say that I have already mastered the first jhana awake could I then master the rest only through sleep practice and be able to enter them when awake? If so then that would be amazing because I could add about 7 hours of daily practice. Is it also possible, and if so not unhealthy, to do other stuff when awake in dreamless sleep, like say thinking through what my lecturer said in class that day and repeat french verbs or stuff like that. If so mylearning abilities would undergo a revolution. Just for fun I would then "write" an essay in my head and then write it down the next day. When awake I have sometimes more or less done that with speeches and op-ed pieces and it would be hilarious to have "written" essays in their entirety during sleep just as an experiment. I have noticed that practioners like Santiago and JA MU only sleep about three hours a day and I have seen others here that have cut sleep time by many hours because of cultivation. Is this safe and healthy? Is it like you just don`t sleep anymore if you practice this much or is it like you actually kinda feel like sleeping but if you do some extra rounds of qigong or spend half an hour in Damos Cave you can still manage well? I plan on doing KAP at some point in the future. What normaly happens to sleep time when you practice KAP over several years?

Dig your post. I also suspect something fundamentaly different might happen when one actualy leaves the human flesh. There is a very famous healer in Norway that has had about 80 000 clients with an incredible record of healings. He is a christian and has never done any sort of cultivation work. He said to someone that he thought demanded too much of herself that we are not suposed to be angles/saints while we are on earth but only in the afterlife. I think there might be some truth to that. Could you elaborate on what you said about getting a different view on the Buddha from the Pali Canon

I did

I am starting to believe stuff like this can actually happen. Gaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I am becoming a complete loonie just like all the nutcases in this thread (no offense).

http://www.ropeyoga.com/ Anyone tried this? Do you think it is good?

Cultivation, in addition to mostly being an extreemly beneficial activity by itself, is what most enhances my life during the rest of the day. The quality of life I have sometimes tasted, though not yet acquired permanently, surpasses what I previously imagined possible and what most people still think is possible. Cultivation is also the thing that makes me most effective in my studies, social interactions, in lovemaking, in sports etc. If you are learning math and anatomy being able to concentrate on your reading and remember it almost photographically is a good thing and meditation can do that for you. Reducing sleep and gaining energy to work an extra 6 hours a day is also a highly useful thing. And anyway you will get very healthy according to Harvard: Here is a summary of research findings cited at the Mind Body Medical Institute at Harvard Medical School (They recently changed the name to Benson-Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine. BHIMBM? Mind/Body Medical Institute clinical findings include: Chronic pain patients reduce their physician visits by 36%. The Clinical Journal of Pain, Volume 2, pages 305-310, 1991 There is approximately a 50% reduction in visits to a HMO after a relaxation-response based intervention which resulted in estimated significant cost savings. Behavioral Medicine, Volume 16, pages 165-173, 1990 Eighty percent of hypertensive patients have lowered blood pressure and decreased medications - 16% are able to discontinue all of their medications. These results lasted at least three years. Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation, Volume 9, pages 316-324, 1989 Open heart surgery patients have fewer post-operative complications. Behavioral Medicine, Volume 5, pages 111-117, 1989 One-hundred percent of insomnia patients reported improved sleep and 91% either eliminated or reduced sleeping medication use. The American Journal of Medicine, Volume 100, pages 212-216, 1996 Infertile women have a 42% conception rate, a 38% take-home baby rate, and decreased levels of depression, anxiety, and anger. Journal of American Medical Women's Association. Volume 54, pages 196-8, 1999 Women with severe PMS have a 57% reduction in physical and psychological symptoms. Obstetrics and Gynecology, Volume 75, pages 649-655, April, 1990 High school students exposed to a relaxation response-based curriculum had significantly increased their self-esteem. The Journal of Research and Development in Education, Volume 27, pages 226-231, 1994 Inner city middle school students improved grade score, work habits and cooperation and decreased absences. Journal of Research and Development in Education, Volume 33, pages 156-165, Spring 2000 You can read more about MBMI's approach to research here. The following list of research is interesting, and most of the results will probably be proven to some extent in the future, but right now this is a mixure of preliminary results and solid data. Greater Orderliness of Brain Functioning EEG coherence increases between and within the cerebral hemispheres during meditation. EEG coherence is quantitative index of the degree of long-range spatial ordering of the brain waves. In a new meditator, the EEG coherence increased during the period of meditation. In a person who had been meditating for 2 years, spreading of coherence occurred even before meditation began, spreading of coherence to high and lower frequencies about half way through the meditation period, and continuing high coherence even into the eyes-opened period after meditation. Psychosomatic Medicine 46: 267-276, 1984. Broader Comprehension and Improved Ability to Focus Field independence has been associated with a greater ability to assimilate and structure experience, greater organization of mind and cognitive clarity, improved memory, greater creative expression, and a stable internal frame of reference. The results show that practice of meditation techniques develop greater field independence. This improvement in meditators is remarkable because it was previously thought that these basic perceptual abilities do not improve beyond early adulthood. Perceptual Motor Skills 39: 1031-1034, 1974, and 62: 731-738, 1986. Increased Creativity This study used the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking to measure figural and verbal creativity in a control group and in a group that subsequently learned meditation. On the post test five months later, the meditation group scored significantly higher on figural originality and flexibility and on verbal fluency. Journal of Creative Behavior, 13: 169-190, 1979, and Dissertations Abstracts International, 38: 3372-3373, 1978. Deeper Level of Relaxation A comprehensive statistical "meta-analysis" was conducted that compared the findings of 31 physiological studies on meditation and on resting with eyes closed. (A meta-analysis is the preferred scientific procedure for drawing definitive conclusions from large bodies of research). The study evaluated three key indicators of relaxation and found that meditation provides a far deeper state of relaxation than does simple eyes-closed rest. The research showed that breath rate and plasma lactate decrease, the basal skin resistance increases, significantly more during meditation than during eyes-closed rest. Interestingly, immediately prior to the meditation sessions, meditating subjects had lower levels of breath rate, plasma lactate, spontaneous skin conductance, and heart rate than did the controls. This deeper level of relaxation before starting the practice suggests that reduced physiological stress through meditation is cumulative. American Psychologist, 42: 879-881, 1987. Improved Perception and Memory College students instructed in meditation displayed significant improvements in performance over a two-week period on a perceptual and short-term memory test involving the identification of familiar letter sequences presented rapidly. They were compared with subjects randomly assigned to a routine of twice-daily rest with eyes closed, and with subjects who made o change in their daily routine. Memory and Cognition, 10: 207-215, 1982. Development of Intelligence University students who regularly practiced meditation increased significantly in intelligences over a two-year period, compared to control subjects. The finding corroborates the results of two other studies showing increased IQ in meditation students. Personality and Individual Differences, 12:1105-1116, 1991, and Perceptual and Motor Skills, 62: 731-738, 1986. Natural Change in Breathing Subjects were measured for changes in breathing rate during the practice of meditation. Breath rate fell from 14 breaths per minute to about 11 breaths per minute, indicating meditation produces a state of rest and relaxation. The change in breath rate is natural, effortless, and comfortable. American Journal of Physiology, 22: 795-799, 1971. Decrease in Stress Hormone Plasma cortisol is a stress hormone. The study shows that plasma cortisol decreased during meditation, whereas it did not change significantly in controlled subjects during ordinary relaxation. Hormones and Behavior, 10: 54-60, 1978. Lower Blood Pressure In a clinical experiment with elderly African American (mean age 66) dwelling in an inner-city community, meditation was compared with the most widely used method of producing physiological relaxation. Subjects who had moderately elevated blood pressure levels were randomly assigned meditation, Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR), or usual care. Over a three-month interval, systolic and diastolic blood pressure dropped by 10.6 and 5.9 mm Hg, respectively, in the meditation group, and 4.0 and 2.1 mm Hg in the PMR group, with virtually no change in the usual care group. A second random assignment study with the elderly conducted at Harvard found similar blood pressure changes produced by meditation over three-months (11 mm Hg for systolic blood pressure). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57: 950-964, 1989. Reversal of Aging Process Biological age measures how old a person is physiologically. As a group, long-term meditators who had been practicing meditation for more than five years were physiologically twelve years younger than their chronological age, as measured by reduction of blood pressure, and better near-point version and auditory discrimination. Short-term meditators were physiologically five years younger than their chronological age. The study controlled for the effects of diet and exercise. International Journal of Neuroscience, 16: 53-58, 1982. Reduced Need for Medical Care A study of health insurance statistics on over 2,000 people practicing meditation over a five-year period found that meditators consistently had less than half the hospitalization than did other groups with comparable age, gender, profession, and insurance terms. The difference between the meditation and non-meditation groups increased in older-age brackets. In addition, the meditators had fewer incidents of illness in seventeen medical treatment categories, including 87% less hospitalization for heart disease and 55% less for cancer. The meditators consistently had more than 50% fewer doctor visits than did other groups. Psychosomatic Medicine, 49: 493-507, 1987. Cholesterol A longitudinal study showed that cholesterol levels significantly decreased through meditation in hypercholsteolemic patients, compared to matched controls, over an eleven-month period. Journal of Human Stress, 5: 24-27, 1979. Increased Self-Actualization Self-actualization refers to realizing more of one's inner potential, expressed in every area of life. A statistical meta-analysis of 42 independent studies indicated the effect of meditation on increasing self-actualization is markedly greater than that of other forms of relaxation. This analysis statistically controlled the length of treatment and quality of research design. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 6: 189-248, 1991. Increased Strength of Self-Concept One month after beginning meditation, subjects experienced an improved self-concept in comparison to before learning meditation. Meditation participants developed a more strongly defined self-concept and also came to perceive their "actual self" as significantly closer to their "ideal self." No similar changes were observed for matched controls. Journal of Psychology, 4: 206-218, 1976. Decreased Cigarette, Alcohol, and Drug Abuse A statistical meta-analysis of 198 independent treatment outcomes found that meditation produced a significantly larger reduction in tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug use than either standard substance abuse treatments (including counseling, pharmacological treatments, relaxation training, and Twelve-Step programs) or prevention programs (such as programs to counteract peer-pressure and promote personal development). This meta-analysis controlled for strength of study design and included both heavy and casual users. Whereas, the effects of conventional programs typically decrease sharply by three months, effects of meditation on total abstinence from tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug ranged from 50% to 89% over a 18 to 22 month period of study. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 11: 13-87, and International Journal of the Addictions, 26: 293-325, 1991. Increased Productivity In this study subjects practicing meditation showed significant improvements at work, compared with members of a control group. Job performance and job satisfaction increased while desire to change jobs decreased. People at every level of the organization benefited from practicing meditation. Academy of Management Journal, 17: 362-368, 1974. Improved Relations at Work This study found significant improvements in relations with supervisors and co-workers after an average of eleven months practicing meditation, in comparison to control subjects. And while meditators reported that they felt less anxiety about promotion (shown by reduced climb orientation), their fellow employees saw them as moving ahead quickly. People at every level of the organization benefited from practicing meditation. Academy of Management Journal, 17: 362-368, 1974. Increased Relaxation and Decreased Stress This three-month study of managers and employees who regularly practiced meditation in a Fortune 100 manufacturing company (Puritan-Bennett Corporation) and a smaller distribution-sales company in Philadelphia showed that meditation practitioners displayed more relaxed physiological functioning, greater reduction in anxiety, and reduced tension on the job, when compared to control subjects with similar job positions in the same companies. Anxiety, Stress and Coping International Journal, 6: 245-262, 1993. Improved Health and More Positive Health Habits In two companies that introduced meditation, managers and employees who regularly practiced meditation improved significantly in overall physical health, mental well-being, and vitality when compared to control subjects with similar jobs in the same companies. Meditation practitioners also reported significant reductions in health problems such as headaches and backaches, improved quality of sleep, and a significant reduction in the use of hard liquor and cigarettes, compared to personnel in the control groups. Anxiety, Stress and Coping International Journal, 6: 245-262, 1993.

I have written in an earlier thread that I am struggling with memory problems. This has gotten a bit better due to some healing sessions but there is still a long way to go. Some of it has clearly been connected to the solar plexus being out of balance because after healings focusing on the solar plexus and spleen I can feel a lot of fog leave my head and I get a bit clearer. I have also had some rounds of feeling my kidneys getting stronger and producing a certain type of energy that seems to boost my brain. However, after consulting JA MU which felt that deep fatigue was the core problem I have become convinced that that is also a huge part of the equation. I`d say that for the past 10+ years I have been pushing myself constantly under very hard conditions. After thinking this stuff through it seems like to me that more or less all my motivations for doing stuff has a big MUST in it I MUST do this or else... and chains of thought that end in disaster follow the must. There is very little room for balance in my thinking and through this I think I put myself under a lot of pressure. What I actualy have to do in a normal day is not that hard but the way I push myself and the perspective I have on things make my daily life very draining. So, I am trying to change this mindset, trying to get more rest and realxing on my free time and this weekend I am going to the mountains to relax. I feel drained in the head in the perinium and genital area and in the kidneys and my navel and drive is not as it used to be. It feels like I have used up most of my will power and "juice" by forcing myself and forcing concentration and effort out of my body. My question to you is what practices I should do to best address my fatigue. What I would most like to do is attend Ya Mus stilness/movement workshop but I am unable to do normal sitting meditation these days because energy rushes to my head and leaves me feeling sick no matter what I do so the owrkshop is out of hte question until I get grounded enough . The only thing that works is doing the secret smile with eyes open and without going to deeply within. My hunch is that just normal breath based meditation would do a lot to fix my problems and if not enough stillness movement could do the rest so getting grounded is a high priority in addition to doing stuff that helps my fatigue. Freeing the breath seems to help a lot because it takes me out of my chronically tense mode. Doing this is tricky because if I sit down and meditate on my breath energetic disaster follows and doing belly breathing in a structured way although less risky also often leads to energy going to the head. I have found that I can do very small sessions throughout the day and massage etc. to loosen the breath so that is a priority. My practice plan looks like this: Morning do ocean breathing 15 min (essential for relaxing me and builds energy in the dan tien and centers me there a bit and helps on breath release) 10 m embracing the tree to ground, 10 min secret smile, 7 min slapping my foot in a way that boosts the kidneys. During the day studying in the library I get one round of secret smile in the and a few smaller sessions of ocean breathing in the toilet. In the afternoon I do 10 min secret smile 10 min embracing the tree and 7 min of foot slapping. In the evening I do about 20 min of six healing sounds (this has stayed with me for many months now and has given me sooo much, including a feeling of balance unbeknown to me) I try to do male deer exercises whenever I feel up for it (recharges me) When I get a trampoline I will start rebounding int he mornings. I have ordered the unwinding the belly book to help with freeing the breath. Normally I would do pilates on many of my afternoons but these days I feel like just relaxing because of the fatigue. Not pushing myself seems more important than conventional exercise. Healing sounds, foot slapping, and secret smile I am going to stick with no matter what. Ocean breathing I can easily exchange for something that works better, grounding is essential for me so I can exchange embracing the tree for something that does this even better but I am happy with the way it is working. I can also use a bit more time in the morning and a bit more in the afternoon if I find something really good. I have cut my ejaculation frequency a lot. Last month between 8 and 11 days in between and no I am on day 16 and going for at least a month. Reducing ejaculation seems very helpfull, I have had some incredible surges of energy because of it. In a couple of weeks I will see an expert medical qigong practioner so she will give me some good qigong I am sure but all suggestions for changes in my daily program or other ways to fix this are very welcome.

Thanks to all for your advice. Just came back from the mountains and that helped a little bit. What I have done is postponed some of my classes in law school and that gives me more room for rest int he next 5-6 months. I still need to study though but I can cut back a couple of hours each day and much more importantly I don`t have the same pressure or feeling of crisis because of this adjustment. This has been the most relaxing thing so far. My new day will include a good bit more tai chi as I find it is THE thing that most relaxes me on the "frequency" where my obsessive MUST/HAVE TO/CRISIS thoughts come from. A massage for example does not help but tai chi works and I am learning mantaks shortest form which takes only 7 min so I will repeat that a bunch of times in the afternoon in addition to the other stuff. Tai chis also seems to ground me a lot so I get closer to being able to meditate again. Still I will have more free time to lay on the couch. I will also drop Pilates except when I really feel like it. I will not push myself to do it. Besides leaving more room for myself in the day and long term and so reducing pressure just relaxing just does not do it. I just can`t relax really. I saw that in the mountains. Changing my plans relaxed me 10 times more then being in the mountains doing nothing. This is also why I am increasing the tai chi because That kind of stuff is the only thing that relaxes me and helps me reduce obsessive thinking. YA MU is also going to teach me (online somehow) a restorative qigong form and I think that can help a lot. Thanks. Has KAP helped with that yet? Intereseting. I have the book and did it a little bit in Tao garden. I think though that my pilates is helping with the psoas although I am going to cut down on it now because pure rest feels more important. Savasana is a good idea. Thanks When both you and JA MU think rest is most important I guess I`d better listen:) I think you are mostly right but after reducing study time and reducing pressure I think my practice time is ok and actually the only other thing that helps I did not know that but although I have been practicing it for some years I have only had a consistent practice since after I started feeling drained. To sum up I feel much more relaxed and positive now and I have time to get this sorted out before it creates big practical problems for me. Thanks

I wrote this in another thread and it seems relevant to your obsessiveness with sexual stuff as it helps in getting a less forceful approach to multiples and all that: THe aneros seems to bring people a lot of very good multiples without any sort of strain or over doing (probably since it is only by relaxing that the aneros works). Apparently many people find that after having a lot of dry aneros multiples they just naturaly got the ability to have them during normal intercourse without doing anything with the pc muscles or orbit etc. just ether not doing anything or just doing it with the mind. Maybe using the aneros might help you tune in to the "right" way to have multiples. My theory is that a lot of people when they are having mutliples are having to yang style orgasms with too much tension and heat and restesness. That means the energy they retain is of a different quaity and I think that it is much harder to integrate well. If everything hapens in a relaxed and mindfull way with almost no effort to retain or stop anything but more of an expansion upwards, then the quality of energy is much better and few problems occur. The aneros seems to help a lot in getting you to that place. So to does a lot of practice of very slow very deep belly breathing. This is just me theory though and not something I have proper experience with. Also I have written more about it in this thread: http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?showto...&hl=teacher Aslo for success with women check out charismaarts.com and Troy Dizzon dating. They are both natural and "nice" styles of pickup taht will get you lots of chicks, make you much more sociable and confident and do so in a way that is not sinister or mechanical. Don`t make it a new obsession though.

Don`t know about TCm altough I would suspect the splenn is highly involved and overall balance is very important. All sorts of 5 element balancing practices should be good. However, the best OCD treatment IMO is mindfulness. It is the key to not getting sucked in and hijacked by your own thoughts. There has actually been some very promising studies done on mindfulness and OCD as far as I remember. Check out shinzen youngs stuff. Grounding! The more grounded I become the less thoughts I have in general and the less I get stuck in my head. I have also noticed that the better aligned my body is the smoother all sorts of emotional processes are and the less emotionally "clogged" I get. Stuff flows through me like it is supposed to and my emotions are a lot more balanced because of it. This is quite long term work thought because working on bodystructure takes time. Rolf Myers anatomy trains treatment for getting the fascia aligned I think is great for getting aligned. I have done 8 out of 12 sessions that are meant to get you fairly aligned and it has really worked well. After that I am going to get 12 sessions of cranio sacral therapy which is a treatment in the same traditions but that works on the spine, sacrum and cranium in stead of the whole body. This treatment is supposed to do a lot not only to balance you physically but to balance your chakras and especialy your fight or flight response, it gets you very relaxed but also in a mode were you are ready to act, it also disolves trauma. I know Santi and Tao has had this treatment and recommends it to others. Centering in the dan tien. The more centered I am, the less I obsess about thoughts and the more I just act intuitively. There are also cognitive therapy approaches that you can do by yourself or with a therapist but I am certain mindfulness based cognitive therapy and acceptance and commitment based therapy which are both mindfulness therapies are much better for OCD especially for someone who actually cultivates. To some up I would look at whether my practice is aimed mostly at balance as opposed to depth and strong energy etc. and then reorganize it to focus strongly on balance in all ways especialy stuff that realy works the 5 element balance. Healing sounds, fusion, five animals etc. If you work on healing sounds etc. focus on the quality of openess (towards new expereince, new tastes etc.) in the spleen (opnes is a virtue of the spleen. I would focus on mindfulness meditation (shamatha, Zazen etc.) and mindfulness in daily life. I would root more and focus more on being in and acting from the dan tien rather than building its power. I would work on physical alignment and I would look at my life in general and try to start making life choices that are more conducive towards balance. I would also see a TCM practioner and possibly get some herbs and acupuncture. Oh, and smile towards the obsessive thoughts. I am a bit obsessive myself actually and I have gotten a lot more balanced and less obsessive int he last couple of years. However, as you can see in this thread I still struggle with it in certain areas: http://www.thetaobums.com/Practice-tips-re...gue-t11680.html

With the standard of (dis)information people in china are used to it might not be suprising that he says that but we have a lot better information available and chineese brutality in Tibet is not difficult to verify.

Your perceived desire will actualy increase because mindfulness and equanimity allows you to feel it in its fullness. You will also feel the reward much more but the disapointment goes away more quickly altough it is still felt. IME when I have been able to be realy mindfull is that at first I feel bad feelings more because I take them in in their fulness. However, despite being felt stronger it does not realy bother me so much when I am mindful. It is more like there is pain than I am in pain. Also the bad feelings passes a lot more quickly than when I cling and attatch to them. When I am mindful of positive emotion they become much stronger and they stay longer unlike the negative feelings. As far as I understand this is "correct" experience according to budhist theory. As mentioned read shinzen youngs articles about escaping INTO life and about equanimity. They are in the articles section: http://www.shinzen.org/ My teacher, as far as I understand him at least, confirms this view and having been a budhist monk for four years he should know what the theory says.

Ok. But the karezza stuff does not require anything other than sitting still and breath and if you read the theory on oxytocin and dopamine you will see that this style of lovemaking can regenerate lost low through changing the chemistry of love. Anyway, best of luck to you in a difficult situation.

Budhist cosmology You got the basic planets, the moon an sun completly out of whack. This is undermines the authority of the budhist tradition in describing any other realms and such as well becasue the planets can be felt energeticly, why taosim placed them quite well I think ( but I don`t realy know much about it, they might also have been of in some regards). Why would I have any faith in budhisms teachings on the heavenly realms or the various hell relms etc. when you can`t get the easy ones right And what does that say about the all knowing tibetan budhists.

But we are talking about people who have a clear realization of no-self. Daniel Ingram, Jack Kornfield etc. The only meaningful way to settle this would probably be to bring the most highly realized Buddhist masters together with people from other traditions that have reached the end point of that tradition and have them feel each others energy and check each other out. As impossible to describe most enlightened beings find the enlightened state to be I find the cocksure Buddhist attitude questionable and probably more based in sociological reasons such as maintaining a distinction towards other religions. Bernadette Roberts got to the no-self state without trying to get there. She thought she was at the end. Contrary to what Xabir said last time around she did not get there because of faith in the Buddhas teaching or any meaningful knowledge about Buddhism at all. I checked. She got there completely accidentally. Thusness seems to agree on her no-self state which is probably why he has an interview of her on his blog so lets leave that part of it out. What now becomes interesting is two things. Firstly. Since she got there on a slump would not a lot of other people who practice in say taosim or yoga get there on a slump as well? Tolle got whatever level of realization he has (not sure what kind of realisation) on a complete slump just lying in bed being very depressed. These things happen ALL the time. I have read several descriptions of enlightenment by people who had no clue about Buddhist teachings and did not meditate and that seem to describe a no-self rather then a self (not that I think that necessarily means there is an actual difference). My own teacher says that the most realized teacher he has ever met is a woman that lives here in Oslo. I am not sure she ever meditated but at least what made her get where she was was a spiritual crisis nothing else and certainly not RIGHT VIEW in the Buddhist sense. My teacher was a monk for 4 years studying with the dalai lama (a bit) and two of the most senior Dzogchen teachers in the Tibetan tradition. He thinks her realisation surpass theirs and being the most sensible person I have ever met I can well imagine him being right about that. So if we can establish that proper Buddhist realisations happen fairly often without meaningful, if any, knowledge of the Buddhas teaching, and certainly without right view, and often sometimes without meditation, then that certainly means that practitioners of other traditions quite often HAS to slump into the no-self state. If that is the case and the no-self state could not by any means be described as a self or as the Tao etc. then there would regularly be people within these traditions breaking out and disagreeing with the philosophy of a self or the tao. However, there is not. This must then mean that despite realisations of no-self they find descriptions of the self or the tao to work just fine. Secondly. Bernadette Roberts has realised the no-self however, she still believes in GOD. Not in a physical god but still in the christian god in the mystical sense. Sicne the no.self state is supposed to rule out any belief in any sort of conception of god then we have an inconsistency. Either she is not in a no-self state because she holds an incompatible belief or the belief is not incompatible. Thusness who seems to be extremely clear about the Buddhist no-self being different from the advaitic self seems to approve of her no-self and I have a hard time seeing how anyone could argue she has just realised the advaita self the way she describes her experience as going from that exact state over to a no-self and how she talks about it etc.. So for Buddhists she represents a huge dilemma. I of course believe that her "Buddhist" realisation is compatible with her view of god and that you are being completely anal about the use of words for experiences and states that are not cut out to be described in words at all. If they were easy to describe in words people would get enlightened and think "oh, exactly as what I read about" while the reality is that everyone thinks it is completely different from what they thought and utterly impossible to describe. Thats it for me in this debate I just don`t have the patience for another endless Buddhism is best discussion. Enjoy yourself.

Number one for rekindling things would be getting the passion goind and I realy think David Shade could help with that. Even if his writings does not apeal to you he can teach you to hypnotize her to have wild orgasms on your command and how to give her orgasms by just talking (without hypnosis). A second important thing is that there are in fact lots of superb technical stuff out there that WILL make a huge difference to the quality of the sex. On the more sensual side you have superb sexual massages that give most people better sex and stronger orgasms than they ever had by other means. Google joseph kramer, new school of erotic touch, bodyelectric school and annie sprinkles super sexual massage. There are also taoist sexual massages out there that kick ass. The mentioned people have links to the taoist stuff as well I think. On the realy technical side finding and using BOTH the g-spot and the a-spot does a lot. Googel David Shade and the deep spot and you will find an article were he describes the location of the a-spot really well. There are also the taoist thrusting techniques shallow and deep (9 short thrusts and one deep or another number of shorts and then one deep), there is the screwing - you churn and screw with your dick in stead of just going in and out. If you google taoist thrusting techniques you will also find descriptions of a 9 great ways to vary your thrusts that are more sensual then just numbers. You also have the very technical one where you do 9 short, one long,8 short 2 long, 7 short 3 long and so on until you reach 1 short and 9 long and start all over. Google coital alignement technique/the cat position. It is a position that maximizes a womans chance of orgasm. But really, the best way to get your girl hot for you again is David Shade. But it does require becoming more of a "man" in the relationship and more dominant in bed. Believe me, done well, this works on 99% of women wether they knew they liked it before or not. It is sooooooo well tried out by so many men in the pua community. Women want masculinity and dominance as well as caring and romance in bed and if a woman says she does not have magnetism with you but with another man that is usually always were the problem lies. To get this to work requires being strong outside of bed in daily life and not let her lead you or push you over, it requires "being the man", being yang. And it requires being the man and being dominant in bed. I wrote a thread once in a sex forum and asked women if they wanted more dominance in bed from the man and all the women replied they would LOVE more of it. There was a huge thirst for it. It is exactly the thing that makes women really HOT. If you can combine that with also having days of more nurturing spiritual sex, exploring tatnra and karezza and doing sexual massages like the once I talked about you have got a winning combination. Even if you want to jump straight for the spiritual stuff I think you need to start at a more earth based animal attraction since you already got the partnership going and that does not work for the passion between the two of you.

Safe Held strong downward flowing warm sometimes trusting balanced I am rarely grounded so these are just glimpses

As normaly you run into the problem that if budhist that have the budhist realization can accept a description by a tradition such as taoism or vedanta as valid for their own experience (despite possibly prefering the budhist wording) then that proves that there is nothing inherent in the buddhist realization that makes such a use of words impossibly. Since there are in fact lots of such buddhists, several on dharmaovergorund for example, you have a simple proof that there is no actual difference between the realizations.

If you believe that there is a problem with radicalism within Islam at this particualt time but that this problem is not inherent in Islam then supporting the spread of sufism would reduce this radicalism and promote great human development amongst more people. If you think there is a problem with radicalism in Islam now and think it is inherent to Islam and so will always be problematic, suporting the spread of sufism would still help because sufis generaly do not care so much about the strict rules but rather that wich is within and would rather cultivate (which is why they are often not liked by the mainstream). If you believe that there is no problem with radical Islam today or just not any more problem with radical Islam then other radical movements then still suporting the spread of sufism would help because I think we can all agree that the Sufi aproach leads to focus on the important things and atcual development of the heart and other spiritualy beneficial qualities. Even the CIA has understood that Sufism is an antiodote to radical Islam and is considering suporting it in Pakistan to counter extreemism there if they have not begun already. So for all practical purposes lets do what we can individualy to suport the spread of sufism. That can be talking positively about sufism to anyone but especialy muslims of course, it could mean donating a RUmi book or a book about Sufi practices to your library or it could mean talking up sufism on a webforum.