markern

Do you think the 4th jhana can be accessed while not on retreat or is that very rare?

So why did the Buddha do just that, put a number on it. It is self evident that every experience is unique and in a way not repeatable. But still for all practical purposes there is absolutely meaning in talking about repeating certain sates and experiences. With a state of one pointed concentration charachterized by rapture, light etc. etc. that is largely the same as last time and the hundred last times and that can be differentiated from a couple of closely related but different states, it is meaningfull to give this state a name and talk about "repeating it". Especialy if such a sate is usefull in certain ways. No one thinks that you are almost going back in time to the same exact experience. You are just making unecesary difficulties out of the limitiations that lie in language. I`m sorry but I find this about as usefull as someone interupting a very concstructive discussions about how to meditate well with bulshit like how can you achieve what you realy are etc. placed completly ut of context.

http://biologyofkundalini.com/article.php?story=VivalaVagus I figured you would like this drew since you are very int the vagus nerve. There is also a lot of other stuff about science and kundalini etc. on the ste that should be straight up your alley

Thanks for all the suggestions. This was exactly what I was loking for. Nw I just have to figure out what to choose.

I had a healing session over the phone yesterday with Jim Nance of Springforestqigong and it was hugely successful. I have had memoryproblems for almost a year that ahas made my studies almost impossible and it seems like he acutaly fixed that and a couple of other things in one go. I have felt very drained and foggy and dried out in mye head especialy the middle part and the right and left front. I have also had the same drained feeling in my perinium and genital area and to some extent througout the center of the body between these two points. I have also almost completly lost my sex drive and sexual energy altought the compulsion to jerk of hasen`t been reduced much. I thought therefore that my problem was drained sexual energy and have tried to reduce the ejaculation frequency. That seemed to almost help and has made me feel fantastic in general but have not touched upon this quality of being dried out and has not improved memory other than a little bit during certain energy outbursts I seem to have almost every day because of my "celibacy" so I figured it would just take a lot of time for the energy to rebuild. After a quick scan of my body Nance said the problem was actualy my middle energy center which he said was between my kidneys and pancreas. I think he meant the middle dan tien and or solar plexus chakra but will ask him about this during the next session. He started working in the solar plexus area and a bit other places as well. the energy was amazing. The second he started working I started seeing couloured energy beeming out (or in?) of me, especialy the solar plexus event hough I had my eyes open. The quality of energy felt fantastic and so clean and pure. Who knew going to the doctor could feel this good. Anyway after this most of the foggines disapeared and it seemd like some sort of energy went from my head and down into the body and some energy went from the body and up. It also seemed like my solar plexus started to change direction from going anticlockwise to clockwise. It seemed like this then started pulling energy on the left side of my body down and on the right side of my body up and it seemd to turn in my head and go down on the left side again. It felt like I realy needed this shift in energy. Once this happened my general awareness and way of being in my body changed and I think some aspect of my awareness that has seemed totaly fucked up and that has been ruining my meditations seems to be getting more right. All of this also seems to help in grounding me. It seems some sort of energy that needs to be down in my body has been in my head and something that needs to be in my head has been in my lower body. I am far from were I was mentaly before the problem started but the improvement was big enough for me to feel that the whole thing will solve itself with time and some more sessions. I am going to ask Nance about practices I can do myself to help but if anyone has ideas of how I can balance the solar plexus/midle tan tien I would apreciate that a lot. It seems like when I try to turn it clockwise all of the stuff above happens whereas turning the other way returns everything to as it was before. I would prefer though to just have some simple qigong rather then direct chakra meditation stuff as I am a bit scared of that after having felt some powerfull chakra activity in the past and I am uncertain if I can control it. What I need is balancing rather then opening and energizing I think.

I had three last week with Nance and anoher one yesterday with another lady from springforest because Nance was not available. Earlier in the day than he healing something realy shifted for the beter then the healing boosted my kidneys whcih also helped and then late last night something realy, realy shifted for the better. Thanks for the tip. Haven`t realy used pot much for the last decade or so. Private session Not a student, just heard about Master Lin on thetaobums and booked Nance as he was unavailable.

It seems you are doing a chakra meditation of some sort. For beginners especially without close contact with a teacher that can be rough. I would rather start wih a simple meditation focusing on breathing or a mantra. http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?showtopic=9719 This meditation, the secret smile, is both wonderfull in the benefits it brings in terms of becoming confident, hapy etc, but it is also a meditation that for various reasons makes other meditations safer and go more smoothly. Meditations to consider are shamatha followed by vipassana once concentration is strong enough, Bruce Frantsis water method/inner disolving, inner smile (michale winn/mantak chia) and zen. These are all rather gentle. A much more powerfull but still safe proach is KAP. For vipassana google daniel ingram and read his online book (free) and google shinzen young and read his stuff. Shinzen guides people in meditation on telephone or online. Michael Lomax has a system that seems realy good bu you would have to do a retreat to learn it I think altough I am not quite sure. AYP is also a good system and very powerfull but recomend anyone doing it also do additional grounding because what is included in the system is not enough in that regard in my opinion. Basic breathing (belly breath, full yogic breath, get the breath correct, slow deep, even and "free" as in not constricted and tight) as in the trhead on the secret smile is also imporant and you need to find some method to ground and root yourself (embracing the tree for example, tai chi also). Just basic bodyscanning is also great in the beginning (google 61 points). Are you doing anything to get the boy in good condition? I highly recomend you read a path with heart by jack kornfield.

I read parts of her book this summer. She talked about entering the Turiya state a couple of times. I understood it to be enlightenment srt of like first path. Is that correct? And do you think she actualy experienced it or just cnfused some jhana state with the real thing like that guy who wrote the article said he did with the contentment of the third jhana? I am also wondering if you could say a bit more about the Siddha yoga system. In vipassana you have a clear map of the consentration states and how to go from one to the other. You also have a clear understanding of how concentration practices differ from insight practice, what exactly it is that insight practice does that gets you enlightened and how the insight cycle unfolds from begining to end. Whenever I read about yogic systems it is almost always presented as raise the kundalini and then somehow get enlgitened or just do mantra practice and lots of yoga and pranayama and somehow get enligtened. There never seems to be any meaningfull teachings on insight practice other than the ocational hint here and there from a teacher if you get lucky. I can understand how advaita works because as I understand it it works sort of like zen or dzogchen like an insight practice. Advaita seems to give people some tools that do not just lead to concentrating on a mantra or playing with energy, but I just don`t get what hey are trying to do with the other practices. Rasing kundalini I get but just concentrating on a mantra etc. does not make sense to me. When I have asked people who follow yogic systems that seem quite like siddha yoga they look at me like I am a martian when I ask these questions, they have no idea what I am talking about. I have encountered people on the net thhough that know very well exactly what the stages of yogic concentrration states are and also how they categorise different states of enlightenment and I know a guy that has been mainly trained as a buddhist and said the instructions he got in raja yoga where almost identiccal to vipassana insight instructions so I know these things exist within yoga I just don`t get what the other people are doing. Also as far as I could tell the authot got crappy instructions for meditation. She kept at it for two years with a mantra that no one ever thaught her how to actualy use as in how to be aware of it and relate to other taughts and images and how to coordinate or not to coordinate it with the breath etc. just the very basics. As I recal the instructions for the soham mantra were aso non existent.

I just have to recomend everyone take a look at shinzens various articles on other related topics as well. I thnk they are incredibly good.

Cool I was under the belief that it was today but I realize now that it was yesterday. Damn

I have no clue what you are talking about but 666 as the ratio for physical creation seems to have a link to 666 as the devils number with the devil being connected to the physical. Is 666 the chapter in the bible that first writes about the devil?

Is it ok for non kap students to tune in and make a donation?

http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?showtopic=9719 There you have the secret smile. 10 min a day and it will do wonders for your pscyhe. It is designed to make you relaxed, confident, happy. loving and blissfull. Once mastered realy well it can be done much quicker just to get into the state. It also cleanses all the channels realy well, makes you fairly grounded and centered becasue of the whole body and dan tien aspects and it brings up a lot of your old stuff/trauma to be dealt with as you can see from what some people write here. I would realy consider cutting 10 min from the yoga for this one. At least try that for a week. Ah and Kava Kava, if you get some can I have any it is suposed to feel realy great but is ilegal in my country. As I understand it is banned several places but that is just because some people got liver damage from using it (probably in too large doses) together with alcohol. The ban will probably be lifted sometime in the future. I couldn`t recomend other specific herbs but I have seen a lot of research about herbs in general and as a rule they actualy work for what the traditional doctors say they do but usualy the effect is like 20-30% where the western meds have an effect of 40-80% (but the herbs are often good for you in other ways whereas there are realy, realy harsh and COMMON side effects to most western anxiety drugs, weight gain, memory loss, getting more depressed, getting addicted to it etc.) The way to make natural stuff work is to combine. A herb often fixes 20%, accupuncture another 20%, an aromatic oil 5%, diet everything from 5-100%, yoga, qigong and meditation takes the rest although is itself very often more than enough for a cure. Sudarshan kriya cures depression in 3 months in around 80% of the cases acording to six studies, meditation works as good as drugs sort term and better long term against anxiety etc.

As I mentioned I have great faith in the deer exercises. I also think it is a good idea to do some pc stuff just not an hour and prioritsed less then disolving tension, getting the energy flowing and relaxation and last but not least listening to and acting from whatever the lower centers says and feels like doing. Sex just won`t be what it is supposed to be whitout that last part. Betty Dodson is suposedly superb for helping women have thir first orgasms. She is a bit "clit-centric" in the "women can only get pleasure from the clitoris kind of way" which is bullshit but the necesary starting point for many. The a-spot although a bit tricky to find is often an even better starting button actualy. But clitoris then a-psot then the rest is probably the way to go for most. Google David shade deep spot and go to the first site that comes up wich should be a fastseduction site. There shade has v very ggod article on the a-spot/deep-spot. THe ability to feel the body as one unit, as one cell I think is very important in order to achieve orgasms because it realy helps a lot in turning of the brain and its tendencies to control and instead just be which in turn is vital for an orgasm to happen because it only happens when control is given up. The best two ways I know to achieve this is bodyscanning - feel the right leg, the left, feel the buttocks, the stomach the hands, tthe whole left side of the body the whole right side of the body, feel the whole body simultainiously etc. THe other method is tai chi. Currently I am learning mantak chias shortest tai chi from because it only takes 5-7 minutes to do and I need practice time for other stuff as well. Have you asked tao/santiago for something that can heat you and something that can help for the sexual isssues? Shinzen young has a couple of articles on his site that are superb in explaining these things. THe one on equanimity is superb. Without equanimity you are actualy clogging your expereince and feeling LESS sexual desire than you could. The escaping into life (I think it is called) is also good

I read somewhere about the Buddha sitting and enjoying a beutifull flower and realy soaking up its beuty, realy immersing himself in the enjoyment of the flower. THen he had to go do something else and he could release himself from it very easily because he was not attatched to it. In other words enjoy but be non-attatched. I can not see why anything that does not harm yourself or anyone else should be seen differently. THe same rule of enjoy but be non-attatched should apply. It is always the same mechanism of atatchemnt that is the problem. Sex is just like the flower there is not something especialy evil about enjoying it compared to the flower. I am sure many florists are more attatched to the beuty of flowers than to sex. Anyway you do not get non-attatched to sex by forgetting about the whole thing or running away from it. Then you just become indifferent. For the time being that is. The craving tends to show up later on, sometimes decades later, and with a vengance. Better to get non-attatched now and that you do by being mindfull of it when you feel desire and deceide not to act on it and when you feel desire and act on it and during the act. The thing that could make sex problematic despite of all of this is if it energetically somehow works against the process of reaching enlightenment a long the lines of eating at mcdonals everyday or depleting you in some other way wasting your Jing etc. But as Santi wrote in another thread: best way is ti MAKE LOVE for 3 to 6 hours as you do your kap training. that will get you "there" much faster. an hour of love making & sublimation "tantric style" aka kap 2 chakra pujas & Sex gung fu is like 8 hours of singular intense practice.

Why would one want to numb it?

Still one hour is a huuuge pelvic practice. For sexual healing I think realaxion and disolving tension is much more important in the begining than a hardcore muscular strengthening practice. The risk of creating a lot of more tension in the are is quite large I think. It is also important not to try to "force" the region to start acting the way one wants it to act through exercises but to open to its wishes and relax and be very patient. Often when there is sexual problems the upper centers have been allowed to rule and "bully" the lower center too much and the lower centers have contracted and given are "hidding" by turning the sexuality off. What is needed then is a lot of nurturing attention. Accupressure and massage to dissolve tension and get the energy in the area flowing I think is great. Belly breathing as well. The deer exercise, although including a pelvic contraction (one needs some pc work anyway), I also think is great because a lot of it is quite gentle energetic work that at least for me seems to do a lot of good. I would rather triple the female deer exercises or something than a do too much pc stuff. The pc exercises can also be done in ways that are more fun and more sensual sort of. I think that is important for preventing tension etc. because one is then not so mechanical and forcefull. By mastrbating with something inside (a jade egg, a vibrator etc.) one can get a lot of pleasure from pressing it during. A jade egg can be playfully moved around to ones own enjoyment etc. All of this is advice I am terrible at following myself by the way.

This did not make any sense to me either. I am a bit scientifically challenged I think. Can these drugs permanently damage the brain and if so what kind of damage?

As I mentioned in the thread on healing with Jim Nance my memory and my sex drive are almost completely gone and I see them as interconnected. I think the sex drive is largely due to imbalance coupled with too many ejaculations but also to being too numbed down and having too much "bodyarmour" in the genital region (as well as everywhere actualy as I have a lot of psychosomatic tensions but especial from the navel down). I have jsut started doing the male deer exercise and that seems perfect for me as well as pleasurable but I want to find something more to resensitize me. I have been doing a little testicle massage and testicle tapping from Chias book and like it and feel a good effect. What I a m looking for to add is some sort of systematic massage og the whole region preferably coupled with acupressure. A girl once did acupressure on my feet focusing on the genital region and it had a fantastic effect on circulation and dissolving tension. Something that focuses especially on the perinium and the penis itself seems to be what is most needed. Any other tips are also much apreciated. Thanks

Thanks to everyone for the advice:) I actualy had a couple in Tao garden a couple of years ago but the availability in Oslo is zero I think. The therapist said she had never met anyone as young as me in such a bad condition. But I have the tools to make it right so who cares.

I don`t realy understand this but are you saying one could do permanent damage to the brain?

Full yogic breath, freeing the flow of the breath, any meditation especialy mediating on the breath, inner smile, secret smile, healing sounds especialy kidney sound and possibly spleen sound and maybe lung sound. Various herbs have a proven effect against anxiety but it is milder than western drugs but does not do the same damage. Mindfulness meditation is proven to reduce anxiety a lot. acceptance and commitment therapy has a lot better results than any other therapy but is not researched thorougly enough for that conclusion to be absolutely certain but there is still about 30 studies that shows it is a lot more effective than anything else. It is based on meditation and the psychology of mindfulness. THis book is superb: http://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-Acceptan...t/dp/1572244992 Keep up the tai chi, it will work in the long run. Work on breathing and basic meditation. Add what apeals to you of inner smile, healing sounds, secret smile. Take a good chineese herb for anxiety. Drink chamomille tea and get a relaxing aromatic fragrance that you can have in your bedroom. This combo is guaranteed to work. If you can get massages, especialy abdominal massage that is also great. Cranio sacral therapy even better. If social interaction itself is the problem than there is a lot to learn in the pua community not just about pickup but general social skills: charismaarts.com you can also check out Troy Dizzon but charismaarts is best for general social skills

Double posted so I edited