goldisheavy

UG doesn't have a simple teaching. He has many interesting insights and questions. To get a sense of what he's saying, you have to listen or read at least a few pages worth of stuff or 10 mins worth of spoken language. This is probably true with anything worth learning.

We disagree, no doubt about it. These stages appear meaningful only to beings with certain particular obscurations. There is no universal disease and there is no universal antidote. All antidotes are non-universal by their very nature. What is universal? It is the ultimate truth, however, the ultimate truth has no universal description. Descriptions of the universal truth are all antidotal (read: non-universal, non-ultimate, non-definitive) in their functions. The definitive universal truth is not something that can be presented, offered, or even taught to the person. It is innate and inescapable and it has no stages whatsoever within it. So there is no way stages can be universal.

You make a lot of good points. What you're saying just brings nuance to what I am saying, but it doesn't contradict it whatsoever. I'll give you a simple example. Working out. There is a group of people interested in getting fit. They could seek out a gymnastics teacher. Or they can just hit the bar and start learning. Did these guys pull their muscles more than they would with a gymnastics teacher? Maybe. I don't know. But I am pretty certain that if they wanted to go through a formal gymnastics system, many of them would lose motivation and never get anywhere. You might need to move across country for a good gym and gymnastics teacher. Pay lots of money. Etc... These obstacles might not be insurmountable, but are they necessary? I say no, they are not. The only necessary obstacle is sweat and tears. Gymnastics teachers are rare, but pull up bars are in ever park. By now many of these self-taught people are masters in their own right. My point is, you cannot afford to wait. You can't just sit there and wait for the stars to align. You have to grab the bull by the horns. Consider this too -- teachers are people too. Just because they have a system that's been passed down for generations, doesn't mean it's a good system. Don't we have many examples of generational nonsense by now? Does anyone still swallow mercury for medicinal purposes? Do you get leeches for headaches? Those systems were indisputable traditions at one time. Just because something is old doesn't mean automatically that it's good or right. It might be. But that's not automatic. You have to be a discerning consumer of tradition unless you just want to get brainwashed. What you are trying to learn is the next step from where you are. Since it starts right where you are, and since one step is not a huge deal, you can make that step by yourself. The only reason a teacher looks so impressive is because they made many of these steps. But if you take it one step at a time, and if you don't allow the perception of someone who's many steps ahead to overwhelm your psyche, you can do it by yourself. It being anything. Fermat was a lawyer by profession. But the world remembers him as one of the greatest mathematicians. There are many more examples. Teachers are not bad or wrong. However, being fixated on a human teacher is bad and wrong. Being fixated on one particular teacher is bad and wrong. Teachers are everywhere. The dog can teach you how to smell. The tree can teach you how to be patient. Clouds can teach you non-attachment. Just open your eyes. Your own body and mind are teachers. Sometimes you get lucky and a good teacher is available. In that case, take advantage of it. But if a good teacher is nowhere near, don't just procrastinate. Don't make up stories of hopelessness and uselessness. Go forward by yourself! That's what I am saying. Did your parents teach you how to see the clouds? They taught you what to call them, but did they teach you how to see them? Did your parents teach you that when a different person's eyes are oriented a certain way, it means the person is looking at you? You just knew that. There is a lot you "just know" like that. Some if it hurts your life. Some helps. And the wisdom to examine it and to find out how to lead a better life is one of the things that you "just know", whether you admit it or not. All it takes is the will to apply it. Many kids say things that are wiser than their age and wiser than their parents. Then the parents and the society un-teaches them that wisdom and instead instills our convention. Sometimes learning from a teacher is a step back. How do you know the teacher knows what he says he knows? Don't you have to know the subject matter yourself to be able to judge what the teacher claims to know?

Forest, we're getting to the point where I have no idea what I am talking about with you, so I'll try to be brief. Just a few comments. I have no idea what you want to know, if anything, so I have no idea what to say, and so it becomes just my own random self-expression without limits. Maybe it's nighttime and you cannot see the desert sand? I don't know. I guess you decide what your problem is. I can't say what it is for you. If you're happy with yourself, then you have no problem. I can also look for inconsistencies in your expression. But are those problematic or not? Again, I don't know. Ultimately you decide for yourself. Feeling constricted is different from actually being constricted. Having a nightmare is not the same thing as being attacked by monsters. Isness takes things too far from feeling. Not at all. Perception comes to us structured. When one contemplates, no time is wasted. It's very productive. Why? Because even though the structure is dynamic and even though the ultimate nature of the structure is that of an empty appearance, knowing what it is and how it plays out brings relative benefit. So thinking is very very useful depending on how you think, what topics you engage in, etc. After all, even the notion of usefulness is relative, it is always with regard to a certain aim. If you are aimless, there is neither usefulness nor uselessness for you. Even if you don't want to keep the structures it is good to know what you are changing. Thinking helps to feel that out. Right. Now, do you know how to make use of this in life? Can you make this understanding feed and heal you? That's the real trick, isn't it? I assume, because without assuming there is no experience, no knowledge, no true and no false. How much I assume cannot be measured. It cannot be said that I assume a lot or a little or a medium amount. You don't like my assumptions is what you're attempting to say. Don't pretend you've been able to measure my assumptions as an amount and then compare that to some other amount, like your amount or the average amount of assumptions made by some average person or whatever. Ah... you have no insight into volition. You need to contemplation volition. As it stands, you're seeing too clear a boundary between volitional and non-volitional phenomena, which indicates you haven't done your homework. You cannot control your control. In other words, there is no head on top of the head. When you control something, this controlling is spontaneous. It's not controlled by some another a yet higher level of control, is it? If it was, then what controls that control? If you really understood this, you'd stop seeing control as obviously as you do now. You'd be very unsure about what was controlled and what wasn't and what the difference between controlling and not-controlling was, if any. But since you see such clear and obvious differences, it means you haven't contemplated intent yet. Contemplation tends to smooth out the differences and increase one's mental flexibility. You should be able to talk about the same thing in many ways. If you can only talk about the same thing in one way, that's what a fixation is like.

I agree with a lot of what you say, but I will disagree with this. There is a class of people, whom upon hearing of the stages of realization will become hopelessly confused. Instead of being a good map, what will happen, is that these people will try to determine what stage they are at. But due to the quality of their insight, they won't be able to narrow themselves down to a stage. This part is actually good. Because if you think you're on a certain stage, your mind is too fixated. But the bad part is that, these same people don't have internalized authority yet, and crave external confirmation. Since external confirmation doesn't match their internal experience, there will be much confusion. So a well developed mind but also one that lacks confidence in its own omniscience is the kind of mind that cannot benefit whatsoever from hearing about the stages. The truth is that stages cannot be a map because the experience is too widely varied, too dynamic to be mapped out. Often the person experiences 3 stages at once, or goes through them in random order, or has no discernment of stages at all, etc. Of course, as a Buddhist you can ignore these people and call them retards, that's no problem. But for me, I don't like that approach. That's why I am not a Buddhist. To me Buddhism is too limited. It's got some good tools in its toolbox though, but not enough to make me worship it as a wholesale approach.

Let's look at this contemplatively. Suppose I can predict the result of some random event every time. Does this mean I lack the ability to experience randomness? Wouldn't this be a disability? In other words, is element of surprise something we want or not? And if we don't want to be surprised, can we absolutely eliminate the element of surprise to such an extent that even the potential for surprise is gone, making it impossible? It seems nothing can be eliminated to such an extreme, and therefore, at best, an element of surprise can be temporarily pushed aside, so to speak. But one cannot get rid of it entirely, because the potentials of experience always remain open. It seems that many of these so-called psychic abilities have a disability encoded into them. If you can turn it on and off, I can see how it can be an ability. But if it's always on, it sounds more like a disability to me. This brings us back to intention. Can we trick ourselves or not? If I want ice cream, can I trick myself into wanting peanuts? I don't think so. So if I want to be surprised, can I, on demand, want to not be surprised? Or vice versa? I don't think so.

You may or may not be able to help. I don't think there any any kind of scientific or step-by-step advice for this. I can't imagine how you can be completely unaffected either. Being in a relationship means to allow another person to impact you. If you're not willing to be somewhat molded by another person, you cannot be in a relationship. This doesn't mean another person determines what you are 100%, but it does mean you are being co-created by you and this other person, together. And the other person is also being co-created by that person and you. That's what it means to be in a relationship. From the point of view of someone who wants to be very independent, relationship is a big sacrifice, and if you're not ready for the sacrifice, you're not ready for a relationship. Of course someone who doesn't crave a lot of independence, it's not a sacrifice at all... for such one being alone might seem like a huge sacrifice. Try listening, and you may want to allow yourself to be moved a little. You don't have to get hysterical and you don't have to drown in her emotions, but if you allow yourself to taste her emotion at least a little, you can avoid the feeling of being cold and create rapport. When you have rapport, suggestions may start working. A single phrase spoken in rapport can take an effect over the coming days. It can be very powerful. You may not need to say a lot or give detailed analysis. Once the feelings cool down, you can attempt a more analytical approach, but it has to be fun. If your analysis is not fun, it will be rejected. No one wants to help themselves by means of drudgery. So the art is to present analysis in a way that's entertaining as well as insightful, especially if you're talking to someone who doesn't have a predilection for analytical thinking. Analysis works great for long-term, but in an emergency I don't know if it's the best approach. It's like weight lifting. If you need to lift 200 lbs right now and it's an emergency, you don't get a gym membership or just now begin doing some calisthenics as your answer. Having a gym membership and/or doing cals will help you 2 years from now, if another situation like that arises. That's how analysis works. Ultimately the person is responsible for their own destiny. You cannot force the person to become anything they don't want to become. The thing that helps the most in cases like this is patience or forbearance. It's willingness to suffer. If you're unwilling to suffer, she will feel how her problems are a huge burden on you and how you are emotionally discarding her as a mere inconvenient burden in order to maintain your own happiness. This will feel selfish to her. If she can feel that you're willing to dive into a pool of shit with her for her sake, at least temporarily, this will gain a lot of trust. You'll win her loyalty because then she'll know you're there for her through thick and thin and not just when the times are fun. To be able to love the person in their bad moments, without being overwhelmed by it, is strength. It's like emotional weight lifting. Ok, so this is a long way of saying, "I have no idea; you're on your own." Good luck!

When you go to a teacher, you have to play by the teacher's rules, and there is no reliable way to control teacher's behavior. Going to a teacher is implicitly saying, "I am stupider than you." If someone comes to me saying they are stupider than me, first, I am doubtful I can teach them what I know. To learn what I know you have to be either as smart as I am or smarter, but not stupider. So if someone approaches me for a teaching, right away there is doubt that I can teach that person anything, because I am being implicitly told that the person approaching me is stupider, not as capable, not as observant, lacks the same level of perseverance and so forth. It's kind of ironic that the kind of person who could learn best from a teacher is also the kind that won't go to a teacher. But the kind of person who can be hurt/brainwashed the most by the teacher, is precisely the kind that looks for one. That's how nature works. And we can't blame the teachers for this. Most of the blame goes to the lazy and faithless students. The lazy students who want the wisdom given to them on a silver platter, who want to be spared any danger and any difficulties on the path -- these fools deserve everything they have coming to them.

No problem. First, I will say that telling someone to "see and not see" is not a good way to instruct. So whoever talks in riddles like that is a bad teacher and you should avoid them. But that riddle has a point that can be explained. When we see, there is a very subtle impulse deep in our being to make seeing happen. To sort of bring the vision into your eye or into your being. "To see and not see" means, first, you let the vision spontaneously coalesce as it will, without mentally soliciting it. Secondly, it also means to look at things as if you don't know what you're looking at, to have a fresh perspective. People have mental habits. They look at something and think they know exactly what they are seeing. While this is normal and good for conventional living, in spiritual practice this creates a huge obstacle. So if you see without assuming anything, are you still seeing? How do you know you're seeing anything? So that's another meaning of "see and not see". But, like I said before, avoid any books or teachers that talk like that. They should be able to explain in an easy to understand language what they mean, without any idiotic riddles.

ralis, Generally I agree with what you say in your post. It's good that Vajra shares the practice the way he does. However, as others have pointed out, not all Tibetan Buddhists are bad/greedy. And there is also Bon, which, in my silly opinion, is as good as Buddhism in many ways and maybe even better in some ways. So, what do we do if energies get out of control? Good question. In my opinion one shouldn't do any energy practice until one's contemplation is strong. One should be very sensitive to the relationship between concepts, which govern intent, and manifestations. This sensitivity is what's developed in contemplation. After much reflection the person begins to understand how beliefs and ideas affect manifestation, in what measure, in what time, and in what flavor. And the person also gains a very healthy respect for the unknown and for the wildness of nature. Nature is at once wild and self-possessed/spontaneously disciplined. It's very hard to describe this in one or two sentences. The person has to contemplate a long time to understand the meaning of this. Once one's mind has been made more sensitive and sharpened by contemplation, the person has gained a set of eyes and can from then on see where they are going. And further, some degree of tolerance has been also developed, and then even if something unpredictable happens, it's not the end of the world. There will be forbearance and wisdom to deal with the issue in a creative, fun and constructive way. If someone is a stupid person who can't add 1+1 and who commits elementary logical fallacies left and right, such person should stay away from energy practice. It seems like energy practice is anti-intellectual and that you don't need any reasoning faculties to perform it well. Nothing can be further from the truth. Nature and concepts are one. If you can't deal well with the concepts, you cannot deal well with the nature either. If you listen/read how well-trained farmers talk, even though they had no formal education and even though their practice may look anti-intellectual, their language is simple, but the way they use it is very refined and very precise, and they don't make silly mistakes in logic either. Contemplation is not book study at all. Sometimes I get a feeling that no one really knows what contemplation is, like that people think it means to read a lot of books. We have, naturally, all the wisdom. It's there for anyone who is willing to unearth it. It's like all the strength is there for anyone willing to exercise. It's not a gift from above or from a Guru. Just do calisthenics every day. Humble silly stupid cals that everyone knows about. Do them and you'll get strong. Stupid strong. Contemplate and you'll get very wise. Stupid wise! So wise that you'll be like a retarded idiot because you'll go way beyond the ordinary understanding and conceptions. People need to have faith in their innate omniscience. If you are careful, and if you respect the mysteries, and have a little fire in your belly, so to speak, contemplate, meditate, gently and resolutely move forward and let nothing hold you back. You'll unlock everything and you won't have too many problems with energy getting out of control. With the right attitude self-study is not only safe, but it's infinitely faster and more effective for these reasons: 1. It's specific to you. 2. You're not subject to arbitrary whims of the teacher's fancy nor logistical difficulties (like money, travel, time, etc.) 3. It's direct. You go straight to the problem without taking detours and if in retrospect you think you did take a detour, you'll know it was a detour that was specific to you and necessary. On the other hand, a teacher can put you on an irrelevant detour that has nothing to do with your particulars, but has more to do with the particulars of the teacher. At least if you go on a detour, let it be your doing. Take responsibility. But, if you have the wrong attitude, then even if you have the best teacher you will hurt yourself, no doubt about it. So teacher doesn't make a huge difference. A teacher cannot restrain a determined fool. Many people have hurt themselves with great teachers. So how much does having a human teacher matter? Having a teacher can give one a sense of false safety. "My teacher knows what he's doing, I can do no wrong now." But if you're doing things yourself, you know you have to stand on your own two and be more responsible. You won't be having that false sense of safety. You'll know that if you screw up, you can't run to anyone. So you'll be vastly less reckless. Think of the SUV effect. People get into an SUV and feel safer. As a result they drive more recklessly, since they feel shielded. People in unsafe cars drive safer, because they don't have the shields.

If you can see the limitations, you can ultimately see how to overcome them as well. That's how cognizance works. How does awareness of a limit appear? When you feel some constriction it's a sense that you COULD move somewhere, but something is holding you back. So the part where you feel you COULD move somewhere is half the answer right there. The other half is to examine the nature of that which seems to hold you back. This involves a certain amount of testing and getting outside the comfort zone. What's the difference between an audio event and an experience of hearing? Can you describe it clearly? I agree. But go further. Even the feeling of having the perception, the havingness of perception, that's also perception. Let's go further. First of all, things outside perception are irrelevant. If something affects perception, it's not outside perception. So either it's relevant and we can perceive it, or it's not relevant and we cannot perceive it. Thus we can relieve ourselves of the worrying about things outside perception. We only need to consider perception and nothing else. This makes the scope realistic and manageable and less hypothetical and less speculative. When you consider something to be outside perception, you enter into a speculative realm in an extreme way. The process of adding is also perceived, isn't it? You do notice the adding right? That means it's also a perception. So if adding is a perception, how can you add something to perception? Adding is a perception. Adding is not something that's not perceived. I agree that nothing can be established, but even in your speculative line of thinking you are not careful. So you reach an agreeable to my mind conclusion via a disagreeable to my mind process. Since the process you use is not very refined, and since the process has not been aborted, it's only a matter of time before the faulty process yields an undesirable conclusion. Of course that's just my evaluation of it. You're missing a little bit of mindfulness. You're not aware of that adding is perception. What's not perception? Can you even discuss something that's not a perception? You'd be talking bullshit, right? You'd be talking about something you have no experience of. When the tiny child knows the difference, as you say, they have a habitual mind-energy. It's a mind habit. What people are not aware of, is that the perception of meaning is a habit. People think that meanings are inherent in the seemingly external objects of the seemingly external world. For example, if you see a tree, you think, that's definitely a tree, that's not a cow, no doubt about it. You don't see that this meaning is being made by your mind. You see that this meaning is somehow implied to you by the seemingly external world, and that you are innocent. You see yourself as purely passive innocent receptacle of meaning, and not as a creator, maintainer, destroyer and transformer of meaning. In reality, the process of perception is not purely passive. It's semi-passive and semi-active, for the lack of a better word. Really it cannot even be described in terms of passivity of activity at all. Meaning perception is definitely not passive. So when you see a cloud in the sky, you know the meaning. You know it might mean rain. You know it might mean thunder. It might mean blocking the light temporarily. It mean might beautiful sight. You're very familiar with those meanings. You can recognize those meanings effortlessly. And since you associate yourself with effort, and some of these meanings appear effortlessly, you think it must be that the meaning comes to you from outside, from the seemingly external world, and that you are seemingly apart from that world and cannot affect it directly via your intent. This is the knot you really have to investigate. Investigation involves contemplation, meditation AND performance of magic. You cannot fully understand phenomena until you make an attempt to, for example, transmute flesh into light, or lead into gold, or cold into heat, and succeed. That can be a tall order, but it's doable. A good place to start, is to learn to lucid dream and try all those things in your dreams first. See how it works. If your memory is not so good, write down what happened. Contemplate it thoroughly. Feel it as deeply as you can while you contemplate it. You can discover A LOT by attempting magic in your dreams. After you learn it in your dreams, and then you realize non-difference between dreaming and waking, you can do it in the waking experience too. When you master the playful appearance this way, when you become a dancer in illusion and not just a ghost of illusion who sits and watches the illusion like on TV... you have to dance in it freely, THEN you will have enough wisdom to equal Buddha's. There is no rush though. You can spend a few lifetimes just practicing sitting meditation without any magic. But at some point you will have to confront your reality-belief, and there is no way to confront it other than to propose a hypothesis: "reality is not how I think it is..." and test it wholeheartedly. That's what magic is. It's a test of a hypothesis that there is nothing beyond mind, that all is mind. The orthodox way of dealing with this is to say that you make no claims, but rather, you only refute the claims of your opponents who claim that there is stability. In other words, if someone proposes a definite and clear view of stable identities, you have all kinds of ways to criticize that view. You don't have to replace it with a better view, because you're a mystic and not a college professor who has to make the kids adhere to a convention as his job. Mystics have a very strange relationship with convention. Don't be an ass. I've done this before and yes, it's empty. Being hit and feeling pain is also empty. I've set myself on fire too. So stop trying to try to out-macho me. I am a bigger man than you and I can tear your head off and drink your blood, understand? My point is, if you want to get into whose dick is bigger contest, you won't learn anything and your days will be short and brutal. So don't offer empty challenges like that. A better approach is an analytical one. Invite me to continue the discussion instead of trying to play off my fear. How do you know I haven't mastered my fear? You will have a very rude surprise if you go around assuming everyone shares your fears and you try to challenge them on based on that assumption. If you want to discuss fear, that's great. But if you want to enact it -- watch out. Are you ready to die right now? Are you ready to be tortured and do you think it's fun? If yes, you're qualified to play that game. If no, then it's more respectable to stick to the analytical side rather than to the side of the wild dance, at least for now. Keep in mind that Lin Chi hit his master straight in the kisser after he got enlightened. He didn't hold back due to respect or deference or the old age of his master. I don't deny appearances. I only discuss the manner in which appearances appear. My goal is to bring more fun, more playfulness, more carefree enjoyment into life. I don't try to create a feeling of absolute certainty about some truth or other. Why "them"? I've done it to some extent. I won't claim to be the best at it, but I've done enough to not have to refer to "them" for authority.

UG has some very good insights, but he also has some extremely bad delusions as well. He's talking about the human body in very physicalist terms. He talks about the culture as if it exists outside the person. UG is a nihilist, in my opinion. Nihilism can be interesting for a short time. Nihilism can help to loosen up the knots of mind, but at the same time, nihilism is not really satisfactory for a good life. So, if you consume UG judiciously and carefully, there can be a lot of benefit. But if you just listen to UG uncritically, you can be brainwashed into a very limited form of nihilism. If someone has a transcript, I can respond more directly to UG's words. I don't feel up to transcribing UG's video myself.

That's awesome!

This person might be helped if he reflects on this: "To perceive and to not-perceive" is fundamentally the same process. Thus, when something fades, let it. Even if Arhatship fades, let it fade and abide in understanding that perception and aperception are only said to be different, but that no actual difference can be found if one tries to look for it. This will really take the worry away and one will not try to attain Arhatship after that any more. Other than that, I've looked through this "Thusness" person's blog and I really like it. He has lots and lots of good hints there. If someone reads it carefully, there will be much benefit. And I think it's very good that you link to it here on this forum. I also strongly agree with you that there is a maturation process involved. It's pretty much impossible to say what it is exactly and to split it into stages is more mental gymnastics than truth. Hearing about stages helps and encourages some people, but it confuses and discourages other people. So the teaching on the stages is not the highest quality teaching. Maturation does happen though. We are like bottles of wine, in some sense. But grapes are also tasty, let's not forget that. When we contemplate in the manner that you describe, xabir, something strange or maybe not so strange happens... It happens slowly over the years. Something very very deep changes, imperceptibly and yet distinctly and significantly, and yet, look again, and the change is only ornamental and not significant. Ahhh... the shimmer of awareness is truly inconceivable.

So it seems you somewhat agree with me, but you don't agree with me 100%. Let's look at what you're saying here. You are saying that there is a level of experience that's inherently true and inherently thus, and if only we can abandon our mental fabrications, we can perceive this true level directly. But what I am saying is that fabrications are not entirely fabricated, that even in the process of fabrication there is spontaneity. And I am also saying that even the ultimate truth is not entire true, because even in the process of complete and total self-realization, there is still nothing concrete that's realized, and ultimately, it cannot even be called "a realization" with absolute certainty. Maybe it's brain damage. Maybe not. What I am saying, in even simpler terms, is that there is no such thing as the completely true and completely "thus" or "it is thus and not any other way" level of experience at all. So the obscurations are, in a way, not really obscuring anything at all... obscurations are all there are in some sense. But why do we call them "obscurations" then? If you want to ask that, that's a good question. The reason we refer to some mental dynamics as obscurations is simply because they sometimes (not always and not necessarily!) unnecessarily limit the self-expression of life, of a person, of mind, of Mind, if you will. mind = Mind. person = universe. person = society and human = humanity. Society = one person. Universe = One Mind and One Mind = ordinary day to day mind of a deluded mortal. Those are not absolute equalities, but they are "equals in important aspects and different in ornamental aspects". So the intention here is to see them as the same, but not to fixate on that sameness to the point where the mind becomes dogmatic and starts to think, "oh yea, they are definitely the same, that's the absolute truth, nothing more can be said, etc. case closed." That would be somewhat like entering into an extreme, which can be too constricting for good life. So if you realize that there is nothing to see, nothing to find, no true experience to experience, no real perception to unveil, THEN you can relax. Then you understand the ultimate groundlessness of all perception. But if you think that under the layer of mentally fabricated experience there is a layer of "pure" experience, then you still don't understand that ALL experience is groundless. The Zen Koan that points to the same truth is, "The monk was walking along a market when he overheard this conversation: Customer: Dear butcher, which cut of meat do you think is the best? Butcher (offended): ALL my meat is "the best!" The monk becomes enlightened" That's the same thing in Zen terms. There is no pure experience. There is no dirty experience. We speak about mental fabrications, but we don't imply that there is something UNfabricated! Even fabrications themselves are spontaneous and are unfabricated. The process of concept-arising is itself not a concept! So concepts have non-conceptual nature and are 100% pure from the start. To reduce the suffering, instead of abandoning concepts, one simply smooths over the line between the concepts and the non-conceptual. Yes, I agree. But don't stop there. Empty the reality as well. Then empty the emptiness. I somewhat agree. If you change your mind about something, is it an exclusionary process? I hope not. I hope you're not saying that I cannot change my mind about anything or everything. On the other hand, can exclusion be done without a change in mind? And it's also to be Buddha or a Taoist Immortal. Yup. It's your innate "gift" that nobody gave you and that no one can take away from you. You are the Lord of that gift of yours and how you use it is your Lordship's say.

I've never seen my ego.

How do you like your corner? That's wrong. Perception is experience. What you're saying is circular and therefore logically invalid. Perception is not something other than experience, it's a synonym and means the same thing. For example, if I perceive having a flu and if I experience having a flu, that's the exact same thing I am describing. There is no difference whatsoever. Not at all. If you see the moon, what you have there is an unexamined experience which exists within the context of your beliefs. In other words, you have to know something about plates, you must have some beliefs about the sizes and how to compare them, etc... Once you begin to examine your perception of the moon, and try to establish what gives rise to that perception, or what makes the moon to be the moon and not a cow or a flower, you eventually realize that there is NOTHING that makes the moon inherently and permanently and reliably to be the moon. In fact, the moon CAN turn into a cow under the right conditions, and these conditions can turn out a lot more dynamic than you can imagine prior to investigating this whole process of experiencing/perceiving. So that's what is mean by saying "things are empty". It means there is nothing that's backing them up. When you see something, like say a car driving along a street, there is nothing that's backing up that perception. It's a spontaneously arisen perception and you have spontaneous trust in it, and it accords, spontaneously and inconceivably, with all your pre-existing beliefs about what is possible and what isn't, what is real and what isn't and how things work in the real world. But all that, together with your beliefs, etc...is not maintained or held in place by anything at all. That's what it means for it to be without basis. It means that if you want to change the car into a turnip, ultimately, when you become a highly self-realized being, you can accomplish that. From the point of view of a conventional, normal, average, mortal being on planet Earth, such being who can accomplish the inconceivable appearance would be considered insane or impossible. If you could examine the mind of a Buddha who can generate miracles such as spitting water mixed with fire from his chest, you'd conclude it was an insane person, because such mind is not fixated in any way. In other words, it lacks all the certainties that you currently enjoy. For example, you see the keyboard before you and you have no doubt whatsoever it is real and not just a perception. You think there is substance in that keyboard, that it's made of atoms and molecules and it works according to physics. All that is absolutely beyond doubt. A Buddha doesn't have that kind of fixation in mind. But Buddhas are not insane. Far from it. They are super-sane while our minds are somewhat insane. We have many self-sabotaging and self-limiting beliefs, beliefs that hurt us every day and cause us real disease and suffering. That's why we are insane. Buddha's don't have that problem because they've learn to trust their mind on one hand, while not trusting any appearance that arises therein on the other hand. In other words, attention goes from concrete to the abstract, from details to the whole. The trust goes toward the whole and the whole is inconceivable. It's only at the level of details that things appear conceivable. Nonetheless, without details there is no whole, and without the whole, no details, so you have to master the level of details too. It does matter in the relative sense. In the ultimate sense, nothing matters and everything is perfect as is. In the relative sense it helps to know that there is no ultimate basis behind any experience, because this is what opens you to wider possibilities and gives you more strength in life, more capacity to enjoy life, to have more fun, to take things less seriously, to perform magic from time to time, and to die gracefully without fear. So it does matter.

It's probably better to get trained in tummo from Tibetan Buddhists. That's how most people do it. Learning tummo from KAP is not the orthodox way to learn it. On the other hand, if you're open minded enough to go to Vajrasattva for tummo and not to the Tibetan Buddhists, where tummo actually comes from, then why don't you get even more open minded, and realize that you can learn tummo on your own? It's not that hard. But in general, when you're dealing with Gurus and teachers, you're at their mercy. That's how it works. If you don't like it, put your effort into something that's better and make the world and yourself a better place.

Not in this case. This is a special case. If an experience is without basis, it cannot be false. Something can only be false if some kind of truths can be confirmed about it, for sure. When experience is said to be without basis, it is implied that ultimately nothing can be confirmed or dis-confirmed about the experience. If you understand this thoroughly, it's obvious why clear true/false dichotomies only arise in those minds that do not comprehend the ultimate baselessness of phenomena, and do not tolerate the ultimate inconceivability of phenomena. If your head is bothering you, who or what is it that would enjoy having no head?

But don't stop there. Once you get the source, ask that source where they got their ideas too. When the source points to their own source, follow that up as well. Just keep going until you reach the true source. It's turtles all the way down.

First of all, there is no such thing as non-dual state. If there was, then this non-dual state, being distinct from the dual one, would still be dual, and therefore would be a deluded state. Instead, the word non-dual refers not to some experiential state, but rather to the nature of reality or to the nature of any and all experience, etc. Second, the reason it's good to ask "Who am I" is because you may have a lot of beliefs about who you are. You probably think you know very well who you are. Because of that, you also think you know what you're capable of. And you think you know what you're incapable of. In the process of seriously and honestly investigating who you are, you may discover that your beliefs about yourself were nothing more than baseless superstitions. This discovery may change what you are capable of doing and what you are capable of not-doing and what you are capable of enjoying. So it's very important. It's obvious why it's important, right? But if you're 100% happy and content right now, then don't waste your time. Just enjoy! Don't meditate.

This has a lot of wisdom in it. People focus on the materials too much. Like when people try to control their diet, they focus on the material they are ingesting. More focus should be on HOW you eat, in what frame of mind you eat, how much you eat in general, etc., than to what particular materials you consume. But in this convention most people are hard-core physicalists who believe in substance. So to those people, the kinds of substance they ingest is the most important thing, and since to a physicalist the mind is an illusion of the brain, how they eat, in what frame of mind they eat, is irrelevant. This is why people are so sick these days. You give an idiot the best food and they'll choke to death, get stomach ulcers, and have diarrhea non-stop. You give a contemplative meditator soup from pine needles, and they live 100 years. It's not the stuff. It's the mind that matters. Everything is pure.

Well... how about *big hugs* to you crazy explorer? It's hard... IT'S FUCKING HARD, but... BUT! You are the MAN. Seriously. If anyone can do it, you can. I can tell you a little story. I hope it makes you feel better. May you get better very soon. One time I was fooling around in the shower. I was playing with my lungs. What I did was I stopped my breath, and I was bending my body left and right and I was noticing how my lungs were "breathing themselves", or in other words, I felt there was an air flow from one lung into another, without the air flow at my mouth. So I was really amusing myself in this way, just flailing my body around and then SHAZAAAAAMMMMM!!!!! I felt like I was hit with a sledgehammer in the back. I dropped to the floor of the shower. I couldn't breathe out. I couldn't breathe in. I didn't think this level of pain was possible, but here it was. I couldn't bend down. I couldn't stand up. I couldn't move. I had to move. IT WAS FUCKING HELL. Yea... I fucked up my back. But that's not all. I didn't want my parents to know this! I was ashamed of myself. I thought that was a really stupid way to screw up my back and my parents would kill me if they found out. Sure, they'd help me too, but they'd give me endless lectures and shamings and whatnot, and all kinds of bullshit that I know I cannot endure. So not only was I in such pain that I couldn't sleep! I had to keep this shit hidden from my parents too! I had my hands full. I couldn't even bend my neck! Every time I would bend my neck even 1 degree, my spine would KILL ME. Oh, it was hell. Somehow I decided that I need to heal myself, pronto. So here's what I did. I went outside and suspended myself from my hands on a child's swing frame (it was shaped like this: /\ ) and I hung there, grasping the frame with my hands. I relaxed my back. I felt the spine bones becoming loose. Then I vigorously, maybe even somewhat violently twisted my legs left and right. My thinking was, whatever was in the wrong position had to have been put in the right position. AND??? I WAS IN PAIN... AAAAAA... But, I decided I healed myself. I decided that now this pain was no longer the original pain. It was the residual pain. Just like that. Call it faith. Call it stupidity. Call it what you want. But I felt deep inside I had the right to do this and that it would work for me. Second thing I did, was that I started jogging every day. Why? I decided that the Mother Earth would send healing vibrations through my feet up my spine and heal me. Why did I decide this and how? Who knows. But it felt right. I just listened to my instinct. So I started jogging every day, religiously. And I seriously started to feel better day by day. In about 2-3 weeks my spine was very well! So right now I can move my neck in every which way. I can bend backwards and gracefully put my hands on the floor with my feet still on the floor. I have zero back pain and have had zero back pain ever since that one time. Well, that's my story. I didn't go to the doctors and my parents still don't know this happened to me and I lived and interacted with them every day of this problem too. So not only did I heal it, or lived through the healing of it, but I hid it too or lived through the hiding of it, even if I couldn't fall asleep from pain or move my neck, somehow I managed all that.

Good stuff.

I like Gangaji. I think she's a good teacher, all in all. Better than your average bear. The video is 1 hour long though. Where was this when I was still searching? I won't listen to it today, but this would have been great when I was 23. So I will reply only to the text that's in your post. It's necessary to strive and to seek before finding that the nature of all activity is effortlessness, and the nature of all knowledge is like that of a mirage, vivid and believable, yet fleeting and without basis. Like the blind man seeing the sunrise, or like the deaf man hearing a great concerto, such is the nature of this world-body-mind appearance. In the process of seeking and exploring, a person develops more honesty and more sensitivity. It then becomes apparent that the seeking is not necessary. But to drop the seeking simply on the advice of anyone is an action that would lack the maturity and authenticity of the true, honest, well-earned dropping off the seeking. So seek away! Contemplate away! Meditate away! Energy practice away! Knock your socks off. Break a leg. Do it. And then do it again, but this time, hard-core. And then do it again. It will all unwind when the time is right and there is no need to even look forward to it. Just enjoy the process where you are at and have fun in life. PROTIP: Don't refer to your own ego as if it was something separate from you, like a little pet monkey in your pocket. That's just schizo. Integrate. Take responsibility. It's not my ego's fault. It's my fault. It's also my credit and my merit. It's my failure. It's my success. Take responsibility. Sure, what is it that's you? What do you think you are? That's a good question. But the answer to that question should not be a pet monkey that's in your possession. That still avoids the question of who owns the pet monkey. Hit your head with a stick.