Wilhelm

I think that's highly dependent on which Buddhist system you mean, right? Part of Bodhidharma's thing was teaching the Shaolin monks how to correctly use their body to deepen their meditative practice. I study Yi Jin Jing which is said to come from here. Then there's tantric Buddhism (the origins of which has been debated on this forum recently) which heavily engages the body. But yeah I know of traditions that try to go past it from the outset to, so I know what you're getting at. How Qigong cultivates the mind is (in my opinion) through the methods of the Yi Jin Jing - by enhancing the system of the body so its more prepared for meditation (simplified answer). Edit: Long answer here -

Since we are in the realm of speculation here, I had wondered about this sort of description accounting for the stories around Jesus' resurrection (i.e. he showed himself to the five hundred in Cor 15). Other similarities to rainbow body accounts like predicting the date of death etc. Off topic and highly speculative though

Sorry to bombard you with questions, sir. You were kind enough to answer and I'm afraid I'm taking advantage of that. Is it common, or acceptable, for lay practitioners to complete the foundations you mentioned through self-study - or will those teachers of energy work/the six yogas require your affiliation with a qualified center (who can supposedly confirm your completion of the foundations)? That makes sense in the context of how you described several lineages that fit under the name Vajrayana - nobody could be expected to know or teach all that. Do you share the video subjects' view on the importance of empowerment and pilgrimages (namely that they're important to the Vajrayana path). Also just realized I've been spelling it wrong until now 😬 sorry.

I'm just trying to be respectful of two teachers from a tradition I don't understand Even if it's a bit more formal than I'm used to, I don't mind calling them by the same title they use for themselves. How about you Barnaby? Has your recent explorations into Buddhism given you any insight into the state of Varjyana in the West?

That's a good example of someone who's about as publicly uninterested in money as I've seen. You probably remember at that point she laughed and said with clear distaste "I can't believe I'm one of those people with a website now!" That particular event is being held in Greece, which I expect has to do with adapting traditional teachings towards a Western audience (given Dr. Ian's background, I'm sure he chose the location very deliberately). For all they said about the importance of the Ngondro as a prerequisite, I wonder if their plan is to eventually teach it (or whether they're satisfied with the publicly available instructions).

After looking into the project a bit, I think I was mistaken about their intent. But I'm still also super curious about this, so maybe it would be more appropriate to rephrase it generally as opposed in relation to the Vajra Path: Is an accessible and reasonably authentic course in Varajyana Buddhism available in the West? Did the experienced practitioners here have to pull from several sources to obtain their training, or could they find masters who would give it all at once? Are these teachings easily discernable to Western audiences or did you find some of them to be overly esoteric? My initial impression was that The Vajra Path intended to be a start-to-finish education and course in the tradition (in reaction to the 'peacemeal' attending of workshops on disparate and often unrelated topics making the practitioner's path highly non-linear), but its possible that such a thing is too ambitious - from what little I know of Varajyana is that it's extremely comprehensive. Looking a bit into their initial offerings I might have been mistaken. The topics of the initial retreats were: EMBODYING THE FIVE WISDOM DĀKINĪS’, WITH YOGINĪ TSHERING CHODEN 'Eros, Ecstasy, & Elixirs’ Bardo Yoga So I think now their initiative instead has to do with providing high quality Varajyana instruction in a way that's accessible to a Western audience without sacrificing the authenticity of the tradition (which if I had read their own description I would have known before - my bad). Still though, I don't understand why they seem to be starting somewhere in the middle (but I'm definitely an overly-linear thinker) - my impression was that this was part of their criticism of Varajyana - the tradition isn't taught with a clear line of progression to Western audiences. Anyways, what do the people who actually know what they're talking about (not me) think of this?

Sorry - it looks like the conversation's moved on from the video in the OP but I just got around to watching it and found a few very interesting points. Over the video Dr. Nida and Dr. Baker highlighted various important components of Vajrayana which they felt were being ignored by the 'foreign'/lay population - Ngondro, Bodhichitta, visiting holy sites, etc. Empowerments are available in mass form online - even very powerful ones (the mentioned the Kalachakra empowerment given by highly qualified masters to millions by now) They differentiated between the visualisation aspects of Tummo, the breath control aspects and the Yoga/exercise aspects. Dr. Nida said the visualisation aspects were said to provide very subtle results and might take longer (though in the context he might have meant 'take longer to percieve', there was a slight language barrier) They talked about some difficulties with how Varajyana is being taught to the public - that maybe not everyone should need to practice the six yogas and should be given exercises according to their strengths (i.e. the host - Steve, mentioned his preference for physical work over dream work and Dr. Nida said it would be fine for him to focus on his strengths) There were some interesting points about Tummo which I didn't know i.e. how it's practiced according to the sun cycle (obtaining the 'spark' of sunrise, similarly to how I understand alchemy, but this could of course be unrelated) All in all, it seems like their new venture 'The Varja Path' is their attempt to distill the core of the Varajyana tradition in a way presentable to a modern lay audience. They had criticisms for both the overly academic/esoteric lectures given by specialists at the recent Bhutan conference (which were said to be largely unintelligible just because they were so specialized) as well as criticisms for modern teachers who shrug off tradition altogether and overly modernize the path. This approach was very interesting to me because as some of you know I'm studying the methods of teachers who take a similar approach to separate traditions. I wonder what developments this will have for Varajyana in the West. For the practitioners of the tradition - do these criticisms align with your own perception of the tradition as a whole? Is this venture indeed necessary?

Nothing too crazy for me, but I'm still early stages - some headaches, nausea, diarrhea and for the first couple years an uncontrollable need to faceplant every time I did standing practice haha. I hear it gets more severe later though (unless you get deviations early on which I didn't really experience) Edit: forgot about body changes - perpetually sore AF till I got my sea legs. Purging reactions - emotional releases and bruises and such. Various Zifagong reactions - basically did a sweet impression of the wacky inflatable arm flailing tube man

My bad thought it just premiered

edit: wrong thread

Edit: nvm, he's mentioned here. So I really don't know why he didn't mention Mark in the latest interview. Maybe he considers his Buddhist master more significant than the others. Added pictures for those who don't have Facebook.

That Rumsoaked fist link that came up earlier seems to conflict with the personal account of every person it identifies (except Rasmus himself, who as far as I know hasn't commented publicly on his time with Damo or Adam). It even listed Damo's dad as his Daoist teacher, when the opposite is true. Edit: Just realized this doesn't answer your question. Sorry about that. Anecdotally in the interview for this thread he said he never spent too much time with any single Taiji teacher.

As far as I know Adam teaches martial applications of Nei Gong - specifically the skills developed through his Taiji system like Fajin are based in what he calls nei gong. But its been years since I've trained in his system, so his use of the term may have evolved since then.

I apologize if I gave that impression during or after our talk. I recorded all the information in detail and have referred to it since. I think the disconnect might've just been context and application. If somebody tells me the secrets to the Universe in plain English but I don't have any way to apply or confirm the model, then it remains just a model for me - interesting for sure but not life-changing in and of itself. All I can do is continue to practice and see if what happens to me matches what happened to you.

Well said! More and more I'm letting myself get caught up in mixed intentions, passive aggression, and unsubstantiated opinions. Now I have a strong suspicion that this isn't reflective of my true character any more than it is anyone else's, so I'm gonna take a week off to try to get that in my head Probably gonna rewatch the interview in the meantime. I found hearing about the sort of intensity with which he approached his arts incredibly inspiring (never mind the story of his teacher. I can't remember hearing anything like that before). Less talk, more pursuit of Zhong Ding! Catch you guys next week.

All good, probably we're just coming at it from two different paradigms.

ahhhhh I wrote it but deleted it. Shadow_Self is defending the angle I was going to, so I'll just sit this one out (rude to have two people talking about the same thing at you) _/ \_

nvm. Two people talking to you at once lol

Yeah that's for sure. An issue a couple of people I trained with early on had was they were re-experiencing things as they passed out of their bodies, which just re-inforced the experience as opposed to losing the layer. This is one area where my relative insensitivity was super useful - if I had known what my body was letting go of I'm not sure if it'd have gone as smoothly. That's the same tightrope we've been discussing back and forth - whether to let things happen or influence them in some direction. I'll be interested to see what the guys you end up studying with do to deal with this problem

super creepy Edit: possibly even conspiratorial Edit2: I suspect the Illuminati™ are involved

These guys are obviously polarizing figures. Wouldn't it help the discussion to know exactly what level they're at? I think your first post already implied a personal attack, anyways, so if you didn't mean it as such it could clear that up too.

Yeah fair enough haha - I think I got the central idea across half decent though. Is Tummo what generates the 'fuel' for the more sublime practices in Varajyana?

Could you share what level they're at?

Thanks for fleshing that out. Varajyana is foreign to me and its nice to hear a nuanced perspective based in experience. I'd be interested to hear what you thought abouto Asa's criticisms if you get around to watching it (the central one being that he didn't see a method in the tradition that built the oomph needed to make many of higher level practices effective to a high degree). I had thought this was the purpose of Tummo, but tbh I know next to nothing about that either.

I thought the issue was that the practices Jim and Kostas taught weren't effective - copper wire to the butthole pooped away all the Qi