Mandrake

Thanks all, you are a treasury of information! What would be a responsible path to start working toward invocation? Does it require a developed enough subtle body to work? Seth: Would you care to elaborate. How in general - why - does this bliss well upp? Has it to do with spiritual practices or even mundane choices? Spotless: Awesome, thanks for the anecdotes about the cities! Mandrake

Thank you Seth: You bring valuable viewpoints and information. Definitely opened up my understanding. Mandrake

When my friend's brother committed suicide, it hit me hard how little we really care. The signs of the torment were there, but how many would be willing to significantly sacrifice their comfort and fecilities - to go through the valley - in order to bring a fellow human out of despair? I felt deep shame. Mandrake

A couple of points I would like to add: Do not interfere with your breathing. This is quite easily done in all meditations that build on (at least) stable visualizations. Problem is that you may not notice that you are disturbing your normal breathing pattern. Have a check now and then. Also, I've talked with Bill Bodri in the past about this meditation: the white skeleton meditation is not a feeling meditation; other traditions, such as the Daoist water meditation, may feel the bones, but in the WSM this is not the main technique. You can use all kinds of tricks in order to get a stable, and lustruous visualization of the skeleton, such as rotating lights, brushing lights, flashing, feeling etc. but in the end, you produce a complete skeleton in dazzling white light. When you increase stability, you will feel sensations and pranas moving and shifting, but do not cling or reject. The method brought you there and you should continuing focusing on the method. Regarding visualization: I started with just one bone, held it in a relaxed fashion. I used all time I could - watching movies, listening to music, subway etc. - for holding the visualization. Of course, formal practice also with sole focus on the meditation. As an aid, sometimes movies of bright lights, and of course, pictures of skeleton bones. At first, you just visualize in the same way as you would recall mentally your girl-/boyfriend, for example. In the beginning it may just be a quite vague shape, or even a shape of space. The longer you cultivate and train, the more the light will increase, the visualization abilities heighten, until you attain a samadhi on an unwavering picture of a skeleton. The more your channels open and your qi builds, the more dazzling you can imagine the bones. In the end it approaches the experience of an increadibly vivid lucid dream. It takes time, so patience. I was not a master at visualization either. And also, don't tense the eyes. Some people asked about why you start with the feet. Some excellent answers were given. I could add that Mark Griffin (hardlight) also mentions the importance of clearing the legs. It's only until that happens that you unleash the full power of the kundalini forces. Before that, you just have a trinkle flowing. There are tons of reasons, some doing with the complete opening (extremely, extremely hard to accomplish) of chakras in the chest requiring specific channels through the legs to have opened, there are karmic benefits and several others. I hope this may be of some help. Good luck to all you practitioners. Mandrake (edit: typo)

Regarding the famous orb and the vertebrae: Page 24 in "Twenty-Five Doors to Meditation (William Bodri & Lee Shu-Mei), says "The supreme 'Manjushri skeleton method' is another technique that tells us to especially visualize a point of light between the seventh and eighth thoracic vertebrae of the spine when doing the visualization."

Haha, they started with the marketing already! We are shooting the film. For preorders, send money to my paypal account ; D

Yes, that should be it. It's an addition made by Manjushri if I recall correctly. Thanks SJ! (Nevertheless, if you happen to have an extremely long waist, the Mandrake variety asks for a white orb between the 6th and 7th ;-D ) Cheers M

Haha, you guys crack me up! My lack of anatomical vocabulary must be as legendary as my waist : D I know where the point is, will check the books when I return home to see what they call it. Have a good day! Mandrake

What some absolutely vapid and irresponsible advice! Why not go back and play with your tv-games and your cartoons. Here we have an adult man suffering and you implicate that this is some mind game. WillingToListen: Giving advice is the cheapest thing in life, but you - and no other - will pay the price for listening to it, so beware. If you can find someone who has been there and returned, great! Other people will be well-meaning, in all respect, but the advice can be dangerously incomplete. As you yourself state: you want friends, a partner, job etc. This is part of being human; don't dehumanize yourself. We are constructed to socialize, to interact with others and balance hour energies that way. Perhaps maximum one in a thousand of of cultivators are developed, healthy and integrated enough to go extended periods alone; others just delude themselves, when they have interpersonal issues, phobias, and neuroses. There is so much that you can disguise as "spirituality". Your rage is part of your energies wanting to find a solution, and to act toward it. I can't offer you any cheap solutions, but I feel for you, and understand the anguish in your situation. May you be well man. Mandrake PS. I'll send you a PM. DS.

ChiForce: Cool that you've picked up the white skeleton meditation! It was the one that in my case led to a break through in qi development. I don't know from what source you've learned it so I'll speak from my experience and from the sources that I've learnt it from (Master Nan, and also a Theravadin variety). Where did you learn it? A couple of points: One should remember that this is a shamatha meditation. Thus, I strongly recommend that one gets some familiarity with the five hindrances and the five dhyana factors. Basically, build up stability, relaxation and clarity (pick up "The attention revolution" by Alan Wallace, since it explains this in an excellent way, or, listen to his podcasts to get the principles). At higher levels, you can hold the image of the skeleton for many hours, with unpresedented vividness, without your mind being perturbed or drawn to sloth. After you've offered your flesh and dissolved your skeleton, you have another phase, objectless awareness beyond mind and body, in which you can and are recommended to stay in (also in shamatha). This phase allows the body to integrate energies. As to energies: Since one is cultivating the earth element and the channels throughout the body, just hold the visualization. The qi knows what to do. If you try to direct it, you will just shunt the energy into already open channels where you have lots of sensations but you will not develop. Let the qi be and link up areas of undeveloped channels, and to transform your bones. If the qi needs to, it will work with your MCO. Your focal point is the whole skeleton, but if you want to, there is a point close to your navel, between your 6th and 7th lumbar (if I remember correctly), where you can visualize a glowing point of white light. It will help ignite a chakra that's connected to the method. Perhaps this is of some help. In any case, I wish you a lot of fun ChiForce! Mandrake

Drew: You miss the point. As somebody already wrote, the monks have their upkeep paid for; they don't need to fret over retirement, how they will take care of their children, survive the next five years etc. Bibles at hotels are paid for by donations, and so on. Writers, editors, translators et. al. need food on their tables. People paying for books is their water basket, their harvest for the winter. The book I'm translating is one I wish I had when I started on my path many years ago. However, I have better use of my time which saves me from a pauper-lifestyle, and am considering passing the information through word of mouth instead. Mandrake

How do you know this?

@S_J: But you would agree that the teachings will not preserve themselves? Buddhism historically has been adapted to cultures and times, and has survived. In what form do you think these teachings will best be preserved in this age? M

Simple Jack: I was thinking about for example the accomplishments in philosophy of law, the role of individuals contra the state, moral philosophies, philosophy of science etc. We have a sophistication here, that has done tremendously much in order to improve the states of both groups and individuals. Then, fallible tendencies can be found in people in the west and east, and in practice things may not reach their optimal expression. M

Thank you Taomeow for extrapolating. Intuitively, sometimes the universe feels like a information field with beings as information processing units. Either we add or shape in an efficient way as to create meaning or we are recycled. To be able to flow, to act, and not act has therefore implications that are both spiritual and moral. One identifies the cycles of different magnitude in one's life and searches for understanding of how to deal with one's resources inside these very cycles. Success would imply that one improves the universe and preserves one self; failure leads one to be marginalized. Hence, there is purpose in each and every moment in life. Would this rhyme with your understanding and experience? Yours, Mandrake

But we are not speaking about slaves here Drew; killing people is also illegal etc. I've worked as an editor and even translator of all kinds of books - spiritual included. One shouldn't expect that we only live by our writing - we need money and food too! At the moment I'm translating a book on meditation, but I seriously reconsider it. I could use the time better and get much more appreciation elsewhere. People are such cheapskates - especially "spiritual people" - and the last thing they want is to part with their money for things that they otherwise claim are invaluable. Mandrake

Taomeow, this perspective certainly rises interesting views on life. Would you have an idea of what happens to people who passively abuses their power, e.g. the creative person who doesn't finish the book? Mandrake

I actually wrote to the publisher a couple of years ago, pointing out that these books are in demand and command prices! Well, I guess the email got stuck in some doorblocker's computer. M

No it's not legal. Copyright is tied to the publisher, I'm afraid.

S_J: Quite much. At least you seem to acknowledge now that lamas can have varying degrees of knowledge and experience. A three year retreat does not in any way imply that one emerges a saint. All the best Mandrake

I read your reply, and I can't see how it answers what ralis pointed out.

There have been quite some strange offshoots in this thread. Somebody brough in communism, somebody chinese invasion of Tibet, exoneration of the old hierarchy since it succesfully preserved teachings (which the old catholic monasticism also did in a degree), others spoke about the value of gurus etc. Are people so fainthearted that they confuse criticism with downright dismissal of the imperfect concepts? I think this does major damage in the long run since the people who are capable of finding solutions will cloak the pressing spiritual issues relevant to this point in time. Nobody denies that we need realized people, high in virtue and with eminent pedagogical skills. Nobody denies that we need some kind of social institutions and framework for passing on both the skills and theories of cultivation as intact as possible. Nobody thinks that Tibet should be invaded etc. However, there should not be a naive reading and adaption of cultural ethos and behaviour, adopting an expression that was never natural for our own culture, and dismissing the sophistication and accomplishments of our own philosophies. Mandrake

Ralis: You raised a most important point that evidently eluded everyone. Mandrake

Simple_Jack: May I pose a counterquestion: Do you recommend people to put their experience before idealized narratives of how things should be?

We have to keep in mind that there has been quite opposition to teaching Dzogchen openly; to this CHNN can attest. One of the characteristics of abiding in rigpa is that compassion pours out like a vast ocean (Alan Wallace mentions this I think in his Dzogchen retreat, CHNN speaks about this often). We definitely need this in this age of individualism and suffering in loneness! Happily enough, it seems that we are seeing a more wide promulgation of beneficial and practical teachings. The lama/guru system isn't always comprehensive. An acquintance who has taken extensive teachings in tummo, told us how some lamas clearly had a very lacking understanding, but because of appearance they didn't want to ask others to fill it in. Pride definitely is there. Great teachers can be found in the most differing places and circumstances, and should definitely be sought out. One of the things we should consider is if this world really has time for unfounded secrecy and cultural ritualism. Mandrake Mandrake