dwai

Experience itself is just what it is. Experience "not-itself" is intellectualizing an experience...descriptions, etc. Judgement can be suspended by not ascribing qualitative values to the experience after the fact. When you experience you don't assign a good or bad value to it...you just experience. The crap starts after the fact...always!

I have found that this (or other sticky things) in our mind is an unresolved "issue" (or series of issues) that need to be dissolved. I refer to Bruce Frantzis' work to help with a grounding in meditation techniques (among others) and I have been plagued by similar "things" and the best way to deal with them, I found is to simply sit and observe them...not judge, not blame myself, not try and force myself to "not" fixate on them but simply sit and observe them. Once we do that, it seems that they lose their power (since it is the fixation via feelings of self-recrimination, guilt, etc) that seem to give them their power. At the end of the day, sex is a very basic and primal instinct that we have and it is not healthy to repress these. But the right balance needs to be attained (not saying that I've been completely successful in it, but I'm trying and the technique I mentioned seems to work to a degree)...the important maxim being "Not too much...not too little". Good Luck...

I understand and acknowledge what you have posted Xabir. However, I sense an undertone of "Buddhism" offers the "Right view" which I just don't agree with. The "Right View" of Buddhism is congruent with the "right view" of Taoism or the "right view" of Advaita Vedanta (or actually Upanishadic teachings). The inference drawn from a Non-Dual experience is still rooted in very dualistic frameworks (the descriptive process) and that's why it is dubious at best to give "voice" to the "view". The Right View, in my humble opinion is the complete suspension of Judgement and complete immersion in experience itself. We can (and have here and in other fora) debate till the cows come home about "this and that" minute detail of "this or that" scripture. The crux of the matter is that these are simply dualistic intellectual exercises. A lot of what we perceive in "another" system is the baggage that we carry around related to our "preferred system". The important thing is to look beyond these systems and accept the experience itself at face value (or no value because no value can be ascribed to it)...there is only direct intuitive wisdom.

my teacher tells us that we should focus on seated meditation, going-in vs going-out type practices (even in your forms, the mental approach should be more inward as opposed to outward). We do a lot of prayer hands meditation in winter...

Corrections...we don't know how he talks. He does know how to serve up a storm in a forum post (or 10 or million)

you are so obsessed with seeing differences and standing out that you miss the crux of things. There is no substratum....there only is that one. Whether one chooses to call it emptiness or Tao or Brahman or Atman is completely irrelevant!

You make a lot of assumptions and not a single sentence you form is lucid. But I can see that you still haven't grasped what "emptiness" truly is. Emptiness IS Pure Objectless Consciousness... The Buddha didn't, neither did Nagarjuna make any stand vis-a-vis Alaya or otherwise. They (especially Nagarjuna) used prasanga to avoid that. And you keep tripping on the word "self". Pure Objectless Consciousness is not a "self" or a "Self"...it's not a "he" or a "she" but a that, it. It is called Atman and called Brahman but it's just a label...not a descriptive (like the Tao or Nirvana). It is called Atman because it is what remains after all others have been reduced to nothingness.

There are minor differences of categorization between Advaita and Shaiva traditions. My understanding on this matter is that Parasiva and Pure Objectless Consciousness are one and the same. Because Pure Objectless Consciousness IS beyond all categories (nama-rupa) and therefore Non-Dual absolute. Depending on whether one approaches from a Dvaita or Advaita perspective (even within the various Shaiva schools), the two are either separate (dvaita) or same (advaita). Thanks for sharing an excellent chart btw.

if you reject it because I asserted it then you are in fact re-asserting that which you reject

Why are infinite interconnected streams of endless consciousness better than one single pool of infinite consciousness?

be in that space between thoughts and slowly it will expand. That is the goal of any meditation...to expand and stabilize in the state of no-thoughts. That's when the true nature of Consciousness will reveal itself....there are things that you will just know (profound intuition).

First and foremost, Shankara was not a Shaivite...he was an Advaitin and he suggested that Non-Dual awareness is not for everyone and one might have to progress through stages to reach it (so he insisted that seekers take the Bhakti or Devotion path of complete surrender (total soong) if they were not intellectually inclined to follow jnana yoga) Secondly Buddhism posits Consciousness as an endless and begining-less stream and that there are infinite such streams connected together (indra's jeweled net?) -- this is called Alaya Vijnana. Shankara clearly showed (in his debates with Buddhists contemporary to him) that it doesn't make any sense to consider infinite such streams of consciousness but rather is better to consider this as a single infinite, endless and begining-less consciousness (which would then explain the Non-Dual experience best) The mind dependently with objects (as any object in consciousness is a thought and therefore constitute the mind). But mind and all objects are nothing but superimposition upon pure Consciousness.

I am saying that everything that dependently originates does so in conjunction with Consciousness...but even that is simply a superimposition of a framework (any framework that produces Name and Form or as it is called in Vedanta -- Nama Rupa) on that very Objectless Consciousness...there is no other....tad ekam (that Alone) I had written a short article on this, capturing my discussion on this matter with a friend (not complete but the idea is conveyed I think): http://www.medhajour...sophy/1015.html

This is just your ego's grasping at rejecting an identity

And they all depend on Consciousness

I wasn't refering to you being among those who "latch on". Your views on this matter resonate quite well with mine...

Very Vedantik...thanks for sharing!

I'm getting intense flashbacks of past "discussions" right here on TTB... DO is simply a tool to show that phenomena are empty of self-nature and self-existence. The two components of any dependent origination are the "object" and the "subject" Dig a little deeper and then we find that this "subject" exists...despite of objects not existing (ie no thoughts in meditation but subject still remains). This subject is pure consciousness (objectless). Those who latch onto DO and fixate on it as the "end-all be-all" are just deluding themselves, imho. This (delusion) stems from half-baked understanding of Buddhist teachings as well as theravada dogma.

hear hear

With energy rising up the central channel, I often feel a cold, ice-like (kind of like a mentholated coolness), especially in the regions that the energy has just traversed (so if I feel the energy in the T-1 vertebrae region, the sensation is in the entire column from the S through T2). This is distinctly different from the chi-flow that I get when doing Taiji or Qi Gong where the energy is more magnetic/vibrating and the physical effect of it is heat or warmth... What explanations do you have if you have felt that?

No, I'm just not asking an idiot to explain something far beyond his capabilities but directing the question towards someone with brains.

That's why the question was directed to a Taoist Master not a self-annointed Bodhisattva

er...the question WAS intended for Bruce Frantzis

My question for Bruce is that in his books he clearly refers to the Tao as being Universal Consciousness which we learn to re-acquaint ourselves with after we have dissolved the contents of the mind-stream (subsequent to dissolving blockages of both physical and mental levels). I would like to know from Bruce what message he has for those naysayers who claim that there is "Actually" no Universal Consciousness, and further claim that the biggest joke of the Universe is that everything is empty without substance, self-existence and self-nature and is therefore a nihilistic void!