Armando

Simply going with the flow is excellent advice as long as the water is relatively calm. 😃

I was told it is based on the Maithuna tradition. The idea being that you cannot reach Buddhahood leaving any aspect of your being out of the picture. Therefore, Tibetan Buddhism is a way of true self-integration. And actually, I was more than just being told about what I mentioned. More like being taken to a place that took me a full three days to recover from afterwards. 😃 Forgive me for not sharing any further details at this time, though. I was told to treat those things with discretion. And again and again, I can see the wisdom in this... As those practises are not without danger without proper preparation and guidance. And yes, there is much to explore without touching the more extreme realms of experience.

Any kind of exaggerated (addictive) behaviour can be damaging to someone's energy system. And yet on the higher levels of Tantric Buddhism, we sometimes teach to indulge in the 'poison' and to use this as an opportunity for gaining insight and awareness.

'Egoistic' in common usage is synonymous with selfish, self-indulgent, etc. So I used 'egotistic' instead, as I simply meant to say 'in reference to the ego'. English is not my first language, and perhaps the two terms could actually be used interchangeably. However, I try to make subtle distinctions to the best of my ability, as I am aware that languages in general tend to be unprecise when it comes to matters of the mind and spirit - and sometimes their ambiguities and implied assumptions are tainting our perception of things. In my understanding, the 'voice' of intuitive guidance comes from the level of our own Buddhahood. That's not what I meant to say, but there is a very interesting thought in this: That what other people are telling us reflects what we are saying to ourselves on some level. If that's what you thought I might be saying.

Things always tend to get messy as long as our awareness is restricted by the limits of the egotistic (NOT egoistic!) mind. We must penetrate beyond that in order to stably function from a level of undistorted and trustworthy inner information. There is a learning process involved. At the end of the day, only experience will allow us to sort out the different voices that are constantly talking in and to us from different levels of self. And even though there are no hard and fast rules, it is usually not the loudest voice that offers the best guidance. Regular meditative practice goes a long way developing our sensitivity to deeper levels of self that are tuned into universal knowledge.

I agree. And there is a misconception among spiritually minded people that seeking or having power is a bad thing. It is not, if the power is used with wisdom and compassion.

Yes, this perspective (shared by Krishnamurti and others - e.g. Alan Watts comes to mind) has validity to it. Sometimes we are trying too hard to get somewhere really fast. Eventually, we tense up and thereby block the process. At times like these, it is good to remind ourselves that, indeed, we already are where we are hoping to go and that, in fact, we have always been there and will always be there. This is true - essentially. However, it is also true that there are steps to be taken and levels of the self to be realised. And in this process of navigating the self, we may sometimes be going through stages that (even though a degree of acceptance is still key) we don't want to focus on too much, but rather direct our attention in a direction we want to go. And there can be validity to this too. As far as I am concerned, no such concepts are always true and appropriate. They are tools to be used as we see fit - depending on where we are and where we are heading to (or not).

While I agree that something transits through every death regardless of whatever spiritual realisation you may or may not have attained, the question remains how much of what you recognise as your identity you can take with you to another plane. And some kind of "death" exists not on the physical level alone. At least that's the view of various traditions, including the Tibetan one. And that's why we dedicate ourselves to the creation of what we call the diamond body. Paradoxically, building it up leads to the shedding of some layers of self already while we are physically still alive!

How would this be different from killing a born child? Or an adult, for that matter? Wouldn't it be logical to say that still no murder took place? That only a, well, actual body has been disallowed? Big deal... The soul just travelled on! Where would you draw the line?

Could you elaborate on the highlighted part, please? Cause I feel what you have described may be part of what happened in the case I described in two previous posts:

That's a method from Tibetan Buddhism that can be used for healing and transforming any kind of difficult emotion. I gave detailled instructions for it here:

It was one of the things that attracted to me to Buddhism in the first place that it doesn't teach us to run away from life's more difficult aspects, but to accept them and to use them as stepping stones towards greater awareness. As a matter of fact, Gautama's eyes were opened when he became aware of the darkness that surrounded him. @Pilgrim Have you tried Tonglen for dealing with your sadness?

I agree. It's good to be as objective as we can regarding our more difficult emotions, and that includes identifying and defining them correctly.

Hello my friends, The crucial question of how to deal with destructive emotions that keep us from acting with wisdom, compassion and loving kindness has been raised in another thread. I take the liberty to quote some of the posts that particularly inspired me to start the current topic, including my own replies to them, as this may serve to highlight some of the complexities that are inevitably involved. Let me start by presenting a simple method from Tibetan Buddhism that I like very much and that I often practise myself. But most of all, I chose this particular method because, in its simplicity and beauty, it is something anybody can use anytime, whether they consider themselves Buddhists or not. And talking about that, by no means do we need to limit this discussion to Buddhist methods. Actually, I would love to hear also from people outside those traditions about what they are doing to deal with negativity they find in themselves and in others. That's why I chose to post this topic in General Discussion rather than in the Buddhist section. That said, I do hope specifically for my new Buddhist friends to chime in. Anyway, may I present now the so-called Tonglen cleansing method. This can be used whenever you encounter a negative emotion either in your environment or in yourself and you feel the urge to do something about it. Once this has been established, you turn your attention to all the other people in the world that are feeling that same emotion. Then you inhale slowly, and while doing so, you take all that negativity into your heart centre, carefully maintaining awareness. There in your heart centre, you visualise some kind of black hole absorbing that dark cloud of negativity (or whatever form you are giving it) completely. Hold your breath for a few seconds. Allow all negativity to be transformed in your heart centre! Now as you exhale, visualise and feel all this cleansed energy emanating from a star-like spot in your heart centre, right where the black hole used to be previously. Allow yourself to bathe in this energy and send it out to your environment and all those people that may benefit from it. If you try this simple exercise, I would love to hear back from you about your experiences. Armando

As a peacekeeper in Nepal I learned that being at peace myself was going a long way appeasing a potentially violent situation.

During the seven years in my monastery in Kathmandu, I was sleeping in a traditional 'meditation box', and usually for no more than four hours a night. Living in Germany again, I no longer do that, but I am content with a simple mat on the floor. And I still don't sleep very much.

Of course, I respect the lineages too. However, I encouraged you to share your personal experience because I knew this wouldn't touch upon any lineage questions. Your personal experience is yours alone. Where you should go from there is another matter entirely.

In Tibetan spiritual practice, for certain exercises, we visualise three light channels running vertically through our body. The central one connects the groin with the crown; the two lateral ones start at the nostrils and connect to the central channel in the navel area. The picture below should make this clear. Each channel has various attributes and connections: Right channel: Red, solar, male, fire, bile, snake, anger/ill will Central channel: Blue, neutral, wind, wind (as a "humour"), rooster, greed/attachment Left channel: White, lunar, water (and earth), phlegm, pig, delusion/confusion Some of you already familiar with this scheme may have learned it with some of the attributes reversed. That's because there are different schools of thought on this. However, I believe that the scheme presented here is the correct one. Not that it would matter too much in practice, where your intent generally outweighs the details of your visualisation anyway. In this topic, let's talk about that scheme and see what it can be used for.

Nevertheless, it is interesting that you discovered these Tummo basics spontaneously by yourself during your practice. It is another example illustrating that the methods of Bön and Vajrayana are by no means something artificial and imposed on the practitioner, but that they draw on natural processes. An observation that I tend to highlight in my teaching; especially beginners in the west often find this insight helpful as they can be somewhat perplexed by some of the methods at first. But you are quite right, it is better not to try taking your Tummo practice to the next level on your own, i.e. without personal instruction allowing you to do this safely.

I agree with the latter view, overall. Visualisation can be an effective tool for us to communicate with and operate on the levels subtle energy, at least for the time being.

In fact, in Tantric Buddhism, there are practices of even amplifying a toxic behaviour temporarily as to really grasp its lesson. A way that is not without danger, obviously, and would best be done only under the guidance and supervision of a master, however, I observe that people will sometimes repeat destructive patterns of behaviour unwittingly until (as you indicated) they can take that next step on their journey, or else... Making you wonder if that is not what it was all aimed at in the first place.

So it may seem at first, but if you look on to completion stage, you may find that your earlier practice prepared you for what is to follow later. For convenience, I will quote from Geshe Kelsang Gyatso: Essence of Vajrayana, p. 92 f.: Doesn't this description remind you of something? Even though Vajrayana comes with an immense variety of seemingly disparate methods, every so often, you will find that kind of interwovenness underlying it all - making it a comprehensive system.

I don't see any problem with you sharing your personal experience in this regard. Rest assured, I wouldn't have suggested it in the first place, otherwise.

Yes, music has a great power to release and heal emotions. And chanting mantras can be seen as a variation of that. It goes without saying that sometimes we need to dig deeper to get somewhere with our issues. But music, whether we are ourselves making it somehow or just listening to it, definitely should have a place in our cultivation. And I believe every traditional culture is using it that way.

Thank you for sharing your experiences. As a matter of fact, some of the wisest and most caring individuals I have met in my life have been through similar things and worse...