Bindi

This seemed to me to be a fairly classic Buddhist view regarding emotions from one of our well respected Buddhist contributors: “Rather than analysing the feelings, which, btw, is such a limitless loop, would it not be better to investigate the 'who' behind the feelings? Like, for example, what is this entity that 'feels' all these things? Is this 'who' a substantial, self-existing 'thing'? Questions like these. I mean, you do know the ephemeral nature of feelings, and yet you seem to invest so much interest and attention to something that is so. Not saying you should not... im just wondering.” https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/39206-emotions-and-spirituality/?do=findComment&comment=644899

I currently see the subtle energy body as a circuit made of 3 separate substances, the first section (Ida) appears in us as emotion, the second section (Pingala) as mentation, and the third part (Sushumna) is the undeveloped part that still needs to be developed to complete the circuit, it’s nature doesn’t appear in us at all until it is worked with. For energy to flow in this circuit our emotional nature first needs to be flowing freely, so to me it is the absolute beginning of the spiritual path even though it isn’t spiritual as such. It’s the way to get to the spiritual though (Sushumna), and remains integral to the energy circuit.

Dissolving or softening the fixed world views around trauma would be the natural result of effective emotional/mental work with the trauma itself. If you’re saying the work that needs to be done is on the fixed world view itself I would disagree. Someone I know was threatened with a knife, and it took him weeks to get over the initial fear, and years to start coming to terms with the emotional damage. Exposure therapy would have been inappropriate. Same with rape scenarios, exposure to anything to do with rape would be inappropriate. Exposure therapy is good for various phobias, but it would be silly to call someone knifephobic or rapephobic. I do get annoyed about ungrounded spiritual platitudes, people’s beliefs that they have found some sort of spiritual space beyond the mind, ultimate truth assertions etc. Emotional work is the rightful coalface to be working on IMO, any philosophy that doesn’t make that clear does tend to annoy me, and I see these philosophies and methods that are at cross purposes with emotional work being trotted out endlessly on this site.

I thought he was saying there is suffering, so don’t get too attached to things in the first place because the attachment causes the suffering to happen, not the actual event. Absolutely, a mentally constructed coping mechanism is like a ship precariously balanced on a dry dock, feeling past trauma is the same ship falling into the water and sinking. Agreed this is what we are averse to, having to deal emotionally and intellectually with the sunken ship. I’ve been practicing not being averse to this sort of process for decades, and I still have resistance to allowing the feeling/thoughts. If this is indeed the basis of Buddhism I wouldn’t be against it, it sounds thoroughly sane to me.

Humans denying feelings yes, but not feeling them. To go with a fairly drastic example, let me insert “raped by a pedophile” in your emotional health scenario. ‘Let go of your aversion to being raped by a pedophile when you were young, it’s just an experience that happened in the past that you chose to have an aversion to, but remove the aversion and the rape becomes neutral.’ This is what nondual teachers are throwing at their followers, and it is extremely damaging to the psyche of those that have been abused. The theory fails in the face of actual abuse, but is peddled just the same. In genuine abuse scenarios, reducing aversion is inappropriate. Only good psychology is appropriate. We do not agree on this. Good psychology allows an emotional/mental complex to be processed and dissolved, freeing the person to feel a little more in the moment instead of stuck replaying the past, it has nothing to do with attachment or aversion. Reality is a very interesting topic. I would bet you have no idea of actual reality, yet you believe you understand reality in terms of the buddhas conclusions about it, just as people at one time believed the sun revolved around the earth. They would have sworn blind they understood reality, but that didn’t make their belief reality. Your faith in the buddhas intellectual take on reality is the basis of your own fixed idea of reality. Actual reality is still to be discerned.

“It was the late psychologist John Welwood who coined the term spiritual bypassing to describe what he saw in a Buddhist community. He describes it as the “tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.” In the practice of non-attachment, many Buddhists deny what they truly feel.” I’ve always thought the Buddha had a particularly intellectual solution to the problem of suffering that isn’t actually emotionally healthy. Same with nondual philosophy. I have come to believe that emotional health is the basis of a subtle energy circuit that is vital to clear for true spiritual growth. To me, a very good emotional therapy is a better start in the spiritual journey than a thousand spiritual practices currently available to seekers.

If you’re lucky, cos it means your still human and feeling

I think a ‘spiritual’ body, the neidan child, can be produced, it is referred to as clothed in gold and in a golden chamber in ‘The External Yellow Court’ scripture, though the method to produce it is almost certainly lost. From what I can gather the neidan child is the ‘spirit’ of the central channel, well worth developing if you can though you’ll have to find your own ways to do this.

The challenge IMO is to become truly ready to cease to be, and allow the roar to fully become.

Neither the absolute (as it is conceived of here) nor the relative views are true, perhaps both are partially correct at most.

I agree that it’s all about development of the subtle energy body, but to just throw multiple random techniques at it in the hope of developing the subtle energy body is likely to be as productive as giving a two year old multiple paint brushes and tubes of paint in the hope that they might produce true art. What needs to be detailed is exactly how to go about developing the subtle energy body, and that book is yet to be written.

Did Gopi Krishna recount any benefits from kundalini being released (in the long term)? I have come to the conclusion that waking and raising kundalini is the ultimate requirement, but how it’s done makes all the difference.

I agree with the notion of kundalini, but I don’t agree with - Waking the sleeping serpent by hitting it with a stick. A very masculine approach. Kundalini is female, beating the female element is no way to get her to do what you want. Creating a place that she wants to be is a more appropriate approach. IME she wants a cleared heart and a female polarity in the head, something like earth in the place of heaven, and heaven in the place of earth.

I found: “Women, with their two-fingered wisdom [i.e. stupid], have a difficult time [understanding what I teach].” – Gautama Buddha, Saṃyutta Nikāya 4 “It cannot happen that a woman may become a Tathāgata, a Sammsambuddha.” – Gautama Buddha, Aṅguttara Nikāya 3.14

Try this link https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38585/38585-pdf/38585-pdf.pdf

There is a numinous [mind] naturally residing within [有神自在身];One moment it goes, the next it comes,And no one is able to conceive of it.If you lose it you are inevitably disordered;If you attain it you are inevitably well ordered.Diligently clean out its lodging place [敬除其舍]And its vital essence will naturally arrive [精將自來]. The Neiye.

What if sex is an intrinsically required function for continuation of the species, and also creates the hormones for pair-bonding - if all of humanity finally overcame desire for sex there would be no more people. So the highest spiritual aim leads to the extinction of humanity. Logically that doesn’t really make sense, a species that self-destructs. Sex is normal, just like emotions and thoughts are normal, but humanity doesn’t always have a healthy relationship with these attributes of the self, so all sorts of odd ideas get floated that lead to the banning and minimisation of sex, the banning and minimisation of emotions, and the banning and minimisation of thoughts in an effort to solve the problems associated with them. Making thoughts, emotions and sexuality healthy is the alternative, and if one can manage that then this can allow a spiritual potential within to awaken and develop. Healthy spirituality.

Off topic, but I’d like to respond. I agree that the transcendent might always be present, but not that it is always established. I’m thinking in terms of the ‘Shakti spirit’ as the transcendent principle, it is always present but asleep and locked away. Waking it correctly and establishing it where it needs to be is the concrete task in the subtle sphere that all the philosophy in the world cannot contrive.

Agreed 🙂

I see thoughts and emotions that have been restored to their original flowing nature as in service to the transcendent consciousness once it is established.

But the cosmos is just so cosmic, personally I’d prefer a right relationship with myself down here on earth which leads to a right relationship with my true/original Self. And no doubt there will be a fairly great variety in which 5% of conversations we believe the ‘true essence of the Dao’ is contained.

I have a completely different view (as per usual I’m afraid), to me the thing that exists constantly that we are not aware of is actually the ‘Shakti spirit’ for want of a better word. To me this is the thing that is trapped starving and forgotten and alone. The work becomes finding the way to realise this and to release it from its ‘prison’, and bring it up to the upper dantian. Just my take on the subtle energy reality of ‘Original Mind’ as opposed to the emptiness or void that is usually posited as original mind.

To me there is a twofold mundane mind process, consisting of emotional and cognitive strands, that are entangled from issues and ultimately beyond issues needs to become fully complementary and fully engaged. Not analysing or engaging cognitively as in your model leaves half the work undone in your model IMO. Beyond these two is a third process that I don’t know much about yet.

Regarding relationships (and their relevance to spirituality/humanity) - Emotions themselves are seductive in a way, but I am thinking they’re a very unstable way to steer a relationship. Pure intellect/logic won’t steer a relationship either, if anything I think that would be worse. There’s a third way, hazy to me as yet, that is the right way to steer a relationship, in myspeak it’s related to the central channel energies being in charge. I’m not there yet, but getting closer. My ideal spirituality includes relationships, but ideally they should be conducted in the right way.

For me chaos is Yin - Dark and shadowy and child like, order is Yang - White and crisp and ordered, most likely a metaphor for the two ways in which our brain processes, and the challenge is to get that brain level of Yin and Yang, the two hemispheres, working together. Chaos benefits from order without losing its essence which remains dark and childlike, equally Order benefits from chaos and learns to be not so uptight.