Lucky7Strikes

Is soothing your mind really the point of your practice? Maintaining the state of a soothed mind? Wow. I call bullshit. There's a potential within ourselves we are exploring. It's not merely to cure our minds from its nonsense and obsessiveness, that's just a minor annoyance. Just drop the mind then it's not a problem. Why are you putting so much importance on whether or not the mind is soothed? Let it ramble away, it's not important. It's just a device for organizing things. All this we are doing here is about discovering what we intuit as a greater potential in life. We all sense something within us much greater than just physical birth and death don't we? Don't you? Because I do, like something within me is about to explode, like there's a whole part of me just waiting to be actualized. There's also this urge to understand life. Call it the pain of ignorance. Who/what am I? What am I capable of? What is all this? That's not just in my head. My entire being is defined by it being aware/alive, and it's function is to know its own self, not merely to soothe itself from linguistic turmoil. Being satisfied with just a soothed mind is like a a patient who comes out of the hospital and does nothing with his life because he is satisfied with his new health. BTW, aren't you a Buddhist? In Buddhism the goal is to liberate yourself from karmic rebirths. It's not a soothed mind. "dying to every transition" and "waken up afresh each time"...what does that even mean? So you die and hope to be awakened refreshed? Is this happening for you minute to minute second to second basis? Then your life must be very confusing dying and being reborn each second.

You brought him up and he happens to be Malcolm's teacher. Because once you've read and have seen videos of him you realize his knowledge is scholarly and transmitted from dreams. Meditating for years doesn't mean anything. His accomplishments are mainly lucid dreaming and staying in primordial state. For instance when he was ill, he just practiced mandarava hoping it would cure his physical illness. Apparently it did (maybe out of sheer luck who knows, the point is he wasn't even sure himself), but it's a little disappointing that a teacher this caliber can't choose to go whenever he wants? It's not about siddhis, it's about what he knows. I asked Xabir about this a few years ago and he said no Thusness doesn't have such knowledge. There is no reason to hide what one knows and doesn't know, it can be presented shrewdly. It's because practitioners seem to glorify them much more than who they really are or capable of.

I've been to two retreats with Chogyal Namkai Norbu and have been reading his works inside the community for a while now, and I must say I am very underwhelmed. His practice is mainly dream practice and much of his knowledge comes down from his lineage through dreams. He seems to simply rest in the state of what is deemed primordial nature as his karmic fruits just fall off, which is great in my opinion, but nothing of what I'd consider masterful knowledge. I've seen him answer questions and deal with daily problems other people come with, and there is nothing that indicates in depth wisdom. I'd consider him more of a scholar than anything else. To me, being in the primordial state or Thusness' spontaneous presence are just paths to untangle karmic ties. They're both mere paths. To take what they say as some ultimate characterization of reality would be faulty since neither has full mastery over their existences, only a glimpse into a pure way of experience. For instance, ask either teacher about karma, or the essences of the human body, or the after-life. Either the answers will be out of a book or they won't know too much besides how to enter into pure and immediate experience. Chogyal Namkai Norbu doesn't even seem that happy to be carrying on and seems to look at this whole affair as a burden laid upon him. But I guess it really depends on what the seeker is looking for.

IMO, this isn't a very good attitude. You're gambling on what might come at death. What if nothing comes? There needs to be an urgency about liberation. A now or never stance, a great intensity to it, as the Buddha did under the Bodhi tree when he decided never to leave until he was enlightened. Then it just becomes a question of when, not if.

Spirituality isn't an opinion about an experience. That's exactly what I was getting at. It shouldn't be an interpretation. It should be reality. And reality must be easily communicable and practically usable or you fall into endless delusional interpretations. Deepening you spirituality should be as tangible as learning to use a new organ you never knew you had before, not cryptic interpretation of had experiences with abstract language. And that's what's been going on in a lot of these debates. And I can't excuse myself from pushing this type of "practice" in the past either, but thetaobums used to be much more about techniques (I think it's gradually shifting back to that) and ways to extend your being rather than deciphering how reality is and is not.

There's another part to this. Intuitive knowing can be a delusional. Your direct knowing and another person's direct knowing can be very different. What is important is, what are you capable of? What are you able to do with what you know? For instance if you tell me that you are this awareness beyond the body, show me or tell me of your life outside of the body. Or if you say that the world is an illusion, show me how so you have shown yourself that, instead of just saying, "I directly know it is." Because that may just be self-hypnosis.

Very true. But for me it's been a good way to become initiated into ideas, no matter how crazy they may be, into how the world could be. D.O, Self, the mindstreams from eon to eon, life being a dream, everything being energy etc. I mean, since preschool we are educated to believe that there is certainty to the world, a routine to it, until we begin to slowly see more and more that not many people really know what the hell is going on or what they're doing and suddenly you want to hold on to new grounds, building another phantom structure. It's comforting to have a new ground, a new teacher, a new religion. But at a point you get tired of bullshitting since what you know is so completely abstract and limited, and you have nothing to show for it. Just abstractions, feelings, and beliefs (that may result in psychological shifts, but not necessary what's true). So until then I guess we just have to keep exploring through meditation and experimenting with our awareness and the world while being very honest with what we know and what we are capable of. Btw, I've been watching a lot of Sadhguru's stuff lately and find his teachings very refreshing. I hope you check him out someday.

@ Simple Jack I think you misunderstood my post. I said Dzogchen does not emphasize dependent origination. I guess it was a bit confusing since I wrote Emptiness/Dependent origination. Dependent origination as a teaching is primarily within the sutrayana traditions. There's no need in Dzogchen to say appearances are dependently originated or distinguish between afflicted dependent origination vs. non-afflicted dependent origination. In fact, it just adds unnecessary complication since one can use the understanding of dependent origination to come to the understanding of emptiness, but become entrapped in a limited view of causation, i.e. causation of the material world. So it's said in Mahayana that dependent origination and causation themselves are empty which can be needlessly confusing since logically it doesn't make sense. In Dzogchen the terms used put it as just the non-duality of emptiness and infinite potential. Btw, all that cosmology stuff is bullshit. It's just from a book. No one knows their reality.

So then, how come you think dependent origination is a fallacy? The absolutist stance that it is the only way to describe reality is the fallacy. Dependent Origination/Emptiness is primarily emphasized in Mahayana. It is so that the relative view is seen through in order to attain the ultimate view. The Vajryana and Dzogchen view stress the state of primordial purity in which emptiness (voice) is understood in unity with infinite potential for manifestation (body). Awareness of this and abiding in that state is rig pa (mind).

Cool. Where's Vajrahridaya?

I've been watching a lot of Sadhguru videos lately and have found them very refreshing. I like his sincerity and humor. I was thinking of trying the online program and since I have seen some of his videos on here (I think from Old Green mostly), I was wondering whether anyone has given it a go or has met Sadhguru. Care to share? Thanks.

Bump.

...I meant efforts at communication and discussion. Not life. You should try to cut back on grandiose statements. I'm pretty sure by now you are just another new age hack spouting fortune cookie aphorisms. Haha! "enjoy the ride and flow with it!" Come on, man. What's next "seize the day!!" People like you are abound in so many spiritual circles today so eager to put a concluding stamp on any experience of bliss...ayee

Now we are merely talking about opinions. Spirituality isn't an opinion. It's a science, in that it should be verifiable. There should be some truths to it. Else, all this discussion and efforts are completely meaningless. And I don't mean that in a good way.

It's dangerous because it limits your potential for true knowledge of reality because you are content in mere faith based vision of the world. But the danger part is that it spreads beliefs as if they are facts. People who come upon it, only seeing the structure valid, believe it is also real without investigating how that knowledge has come about. In this case, Everything admits its intuitive guess work. Well someone else may have a different intuitive guess work. So we have opposing beliefs with no foundation in reality besides, "I believe." This is basically why we have conflict in the world. What you think vs. what I think. So it's dangerous. Christians are not doing ok. They believe and other religions believe something else. So Christians create a lot of unnecessary conflict just as well as any other religious beliefs.

This is usually the response of fanatics, new-agers, and blind worshippers. I just know. It's a dangerous attitude to have.

In the post beforehand, you said people should drop trying to figure things out. That all this progressive ways are nonsense. Then you said to visit the ill and hold hands with them to understand death so you learn about priorities. And then somehow you become free. And now what you wrote here is not about death, but the conditions that lead to death. And that death is in fact ambiguous. And about people who experience death. I don't see any understanding here or freedom. It appears you know nothing about death (and not that I know anything either) itself to say the right way is to drop everything and stop figuring things out. Life? Death? According to you, what should we even know about it, since figuring things out is nonsense and only the dropping of everything is praiseworthy. It seems like you are glorifying ignorance. How many buddhist texts and writings have you read? How long have we been practicing? Yet when it comes to direct knowledge, we both know nothing. We rely on beliefs and scriptures and conjectures. To say drop everything, IMO, isn't much of a way to knowledge at all. We must be honest. Brutally honest as to what is belief and what is knowledge. I'm clearing my plate. There is way too much dust everywhere I've accumulated from years and years of others' words for me to see anything clearly.

Experiencing unconditional love does not mean you are the subconscious creator of reality...or any of what you wrote in the first post. So unrelated manifestations and experiencing multiple personalities and experiencing expansiveness means you are the witnessing of an effortless creator of your reality or that you were made in the image of the creator and yada yada? Downloads from imaginary people....ok... Sorry, you're not really helping your case here. I think you are not being honest with yourself as to what you know vs. what you believe.

How do you know that doing these things will make you enlightened? That they are a necessary precondition for enlightenment? If we believe in old tales, many people who led ordinary lives have become very spiritual. Actually I'd say that only after the enlightening experience they led hermetic lives. IMO, these conditions are just by products when someone really wants to become enlightened. He really wants it so he quits his job, leaves his family, lives in a hut so he can devote all his energies to it. But that's not what gets him enlightenment, it's just what happens when someone says, "hey I really want to be enlightened" a chooses a way to go about it. If you want to really do well on the LSAT test you can do the same thing. But you can also be in society and say, "hey I really want to be enlightened." But this man takes a slightly different way to exercise his efforts. One way is neither better than the other. It's just a matter of sincerity and dedication, not living in huts.

What do you precisely know about death?

What do you precisely know about death?

IMO, no one on this forum has this information because everyone is still figuring things out, as in I don't think anyone on this forum believes they are enlightened. People practice because they believe its the best way for them or the occasion has introduced them to that system. For instance, I practice Kunlun, but I can't tell you this is the quickest way. It's like asking a hiker whose never been to the peak or know truly the way there what the fastest way up is. If your friend is struggling from health problems maybe you can look into practices that focus on bodily health rather than knowledge. But that's a bit obvious. To know which body system best works your friend should just try qi gong, yoga, ayurveda, TCM, and so on. Lol, but this is also a bit obvious...haha I say obvious things!

Are you saying the words are intuitive guesses but the message is not? Then how are we supposed to know what your message is when there is this discord between your message and your words.... Otherwise, are you admitting that your ideas are indeed intuitive guesses and "creative guidance of the imagination?" Then you are caught up in fascination. Your vision of the world is then there merely as a support for why ever you chose that vision. You don't care about reality? Then what do you care about? Your imagination about reality? Because then it seems like you are justifying delusion. This type of approach to spirituality is detrimental to any true progress and inquiry and at the core of new-age movements, where one's desired fascinations triumph over reality and free fall interpretations become bloated as truths. If this isn't the case, please narrate to us certain experiences and/or rationality that have given rise to these observations.

And...how do you know this? Anyone can draw up a picturesque version and sound structure of existence. There are hundreds of these drawing out there. When you've gone through many, at least for me, the question isn't really what you believe and know, but the process that led you there. If you have no foundational basis in experience or abilities that are in accordance with what you wrote, and say it's just "intuition" or whatever, none of this is grounded in reality but conjecture. So be honest with yourself and attempt to do things that are consequently possible by this view of the universe. So if you say the world is your creation, devise an experiment to see whether this is true or not. If you say it's automatic and effortless, what makes it "your" creation anyway? Another thing is, I find it a bit suspicious that you seem too inspired by this view, which shows that you want this to be true, rather than focusing on whether it is true or not in the first place.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/us/mysterious-yoga-retreat-ends-in-a-grisly-death.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2