Barnaby

No problem. It's just that elsewhere, you said this: And this: And this: Now, if no one is actually prepared to be specific about the developments they have seen in themselves and their fellow students – and, eventually, how they compare to the developments of students of other systems/traditions – I propose that we stop asserting that any system is more effective than any other. Because there's no data. It's just a bunch of words with nothing to back them up. Like the self-congratulatory marketing promo that kicked this whole thing off in the first place. Absent any personal testimony of concrete developments or attainments, I personally am going to chalk all of this stuff down to wishful thinking. And for what it's worth, I would be perfectly happy to give an account of all the developments I experienced over the course of six year's daily "Daoist cultivation", for an average of 2 hours' training a daily, following the teachings of a well-known international teacher. But that teacher isn't under discussion here, so I don't know if anyone would be interested...

Why not? What's the problem?

Easter came early this year

There's a lot of mileage in Wuji Welcome!

Nice intro, JM, looking forward to more

Never say never

Judge for yourself...

That's what I've been told.

And curiously, we're all talking about students of Mark Rasmus...

I've got a mint copy of Nathan Brine's Taoist Alchemy of Wang Liping Volume 1 for sale. Please PM me if interested. Preference to buyers from continental Europe, eventually the UK...

There's monotheism for you

Initiated into the French Buddhist tradition, I see...

Mitchell is presenting this exchange as a "scoop". He seems to be moving into journalism. If so, he'd do well to observe one of that discipline's traditional precepts: triangulation. This is from Hershoff's LinkedIn page: Mindfulness takes you to a new place. We teach an accurate and powerful map to your inner landscape for empowering your Warrior, Ruler, Creator, Lover and Guru. A combination of visualization, color, sacred sound, 5-Element movements for true mindbody transformation; Based on ancient Tibetan and Indian energy healing and meditation sources, integrated with Western psychology and neuroscience. Author, speaker, holistic doctor and visionary, Asa is founder of the Human Code, a system of personal transformation and psychological change that encapsulations the knowledge and methods of self-growth that he has discovered and synthesized over the last 40 years of search and discovery. Now to me, this reads more like your average spiritual bricoleur than a tradition-based Vajrayana practitioner. As we know, Qi is a Chinese concept rooted in ancient Chinese tradition. How could it possibly be the "missing link" for a tradition that developed in medieval India? Similarly, how is saying "Nei Dan is kind of like Tummo" anything more than a priori justification and lazy thinking? Hershoff appears to have hitched his wagon to Mitchell at a recent Vajrayana conference in Bhutan, to which they had both been invited as keynote speakers (expenses paid?). He speaks with the zeal of the convert, at one point declaring how his life has changed since he "found Damo". Hershoff strikes me as an unreliable witness. There is no way that I'm taking his uncorroborated testimony as gospel on anything. I shall now be bowing out of this subject. I have more pressing concerns than generating buzz for someone else's marketing op

Welcome Philippa! And: do you have to do that, Nungali? I'm going to have to blow all this money on a plane ticket to Australia now...

I think we're talking at cross purposes. I think I have a rough idea of the kind of practices you're engaged in. I think you may have a rough idea of the kind of practices I'm currently engaged in. They're broadly similar, although certainly not identical. For me, visualisation has absolutely no role to play in those practices – outside of the most basic "Can you hold a red triangle in your mind with unwavering attention for 30 minutes"-style concentration exercise. But that statement of mine is specific to those practices of which I have working knowledge. There may be other practices – of which I am unaware – in which it plays a significant role. So I'm uncomfortable with blanket statements like "Never visualise". Or "If you use imagination, you'll get imaginary results" (even if I regard that to be true with respect to my current practices). Or "Vajrayana is shit because they use visualisation" (paraphrasing obvs). I'd like to comment on this too, if I may. And I'm not trying to be clever. It sounds like you're regretting that experience. And yet, that was your path. That was the path that led to the path you find yourself on now. That was the way in which Change manifested for you. Who's to say it might not turn out the same way for some other guy (or girl ) ?

I see. So as I understand it, you're saying that visualisation plays no part in your understanding of your cultivation practice. I understand that it does play a part in other cultivation practices, shared by millions over several centuries: Tantric ones, for instance. Would it not be less dogmatic to say: I do not believe visualisation to be an effective method in my practice?

Can we do a poll on whether cheating on your wife is a useful tool in meditation next? (Is this an all-male fraternity, by the way...?)

I’m agnostic. It’s not a technique I’ve been taught, and I have no experience with it.

And I've just read the original thread you quoted. Very helpful. Many thanks.

Awesome. Literally. Thanks for sharing.

Ha ha! Cheers Geof!

I'm not sure I follow exactly what you mean here – the body isn't really a component in my terms of reference for meditation (other than just stilling it). But I do think there are times when the practice is going to be complicated, challenging and painful. There have been times when I was freaked out for days over what emerged in one sit

Thanks, much appreciated. I see exactly what you mean. And that is part of what I was getting at. When what is being passed along is a mix-and-match, where does that leave the concept of lineage? I couldn't agree more. That's the thing I appreciate here. Whatever the initial subject of discussion, it's the ensuing conversation that leaves me with something I can learn from

You're a cynic, TT

Yep, absolutely. But just to be clear where I was going with this (and what I think TT was bouncing off of...), I was referring to the decentralized Asian lineages operating outside of an institutionalized religious framework.