Creation

How about constant back and forth bickering between the usual suspects, in most every thread? Constantly trying to one-up and correct each other, and "win" the argument? Pages and pages that are a complete waste of time to those not caught up in that particular drama?

This. For all the Buddhists here, I want to say what I posted was not to berate anyone, but was said out of a genuine concern about the state of discussions of something I hold very dear and sacred.

I think a big issue is people playing "Dharma Police": feeling like they have the obligation as Buddhists to correct others, that it is a service to the Dharma to go tell everyone else how wrong they are. Something very curious that happens is when these people have some realization under their belt, so they are not doing this from place of emotional reactivity, but a kind of mental rigidity. Also, a tricky thing is that in discussions of Vajrayana and Dzogchen, those on the path are sworn to secrecy, so they cannot discuss the details of their own practice or experience. It seems to me that in a situation where the parties in the discussion can't share openly and freely with each other they are more likely to engage in closed minded reiteration of the party line, intellectual nit picking, etc., simply by default.

Hey Dominicus, it's nice to see you here again. Someone recently shared here your thread on ATS about meeting the master in India. As to your question about pressing certain points aiding enlightenment, I have heard this is indeed done in Dzogchen. Here is an excerpt from a teaching of Chogyal Namkhai Norbu: "Then at the end of the Song of the Vajra there are ten syllables: Sasa riri lili ii mimi which represent ten energy points in our physical body. In the Vajrayana in general, in the Chakrasamvara or sometimes also in the Hevajra tantra, some of these energy waves are explained. For example, that is why when we see the figure of Milarepa he is seated like this. [Rinpoche sits with a raised arm] Some painters don’t understand what it means and the figure has his hand in a kind of military salute, or sometimes closer to the ear. Some teachers do not know what the real sense is and say that Milarepa is listening to all sentient beings. Some people also believe that. But that is not the reason, because if Milarepa had the potentiality to hear all sentient beings he wouldn’t have to put his hand like this [up close to his ear]. This is what you do if you don’t have the capacity to hear very well, so how can you hear all sentient beings with many differences, different dimensions etc. Milarepa is controlling an energy wave. We have an energy wave here and when we control this energy wave we can get into the state of emptiness easily. For that reason Milarepa is in this position in order to control this wave. His hand is in this position in order to fnd this energy point, otherwise you cannot fnd it. Sometimes in yangti practices or in the Dzogchen longde we use a tsulshing [meditation stick] for maintaining the state of our body better. On the top of this stick there is a moon shape so that we can control both of these energy waves. Many vajrayana teachings explain how you should find these waves precisely because sometimes when you touch these points you can feel some nerves beating and if you press them for a long time it may block your circulation and create problems. It is not the energy wave that is beating. So for example when you put your first finger in this place at the front of your ear and put your hand like this, in this position you can find the energy point straight away. When you press that you can find the experience of emptiness easily. Milarepa used that position when he was doing practice, but because they did not know that principle precisely they made paintings of him in a slightly different way. We not only have points of emptiness. As well as the four energy points of emptiness on the right and left side, we have four points of clarity and two for having more sensation, which are all connected with specific teachings in the upadesa. When we learn these types of practices we can discover what the points are and use them. It is not that we only use the points for pleasure. It is not like that. So these are examples of how the Song of the Vajra is connected with these points.

I'd like to recommend Kurt Leland's book "The Multidimensional Human: Practices for Psychic Development and Astral Projection". The material derives from the Theosophical idea of multiple planes and bodies, the Seth Material idea of inner senses, and the author's years of experience. He gives a lot of exercises for developing the inner senses (existential, kinesthetic, relational, etc.) neccessary for having a functional vehicle out of body, none of which require that you can already astral project. And they are helpful for spiritual development in general, independent of their potential usefulness for astral projection.

silent thunder, I think I might need to learn some similar lessons. Thank you for sharing.

Hi Tibetan_Ice. This is the view of a school of Buddhist philosophy, namely Yogacara aka "Mind Only". Many Dzogchen ideas have a precedent in Yogacara. The analogy of a crystal for the nature of mind and the arising of ignorance first apears in the foundational sutra for Yogacara. Seeing everything as a the display of the mind is characteristic of Yogacara, and they use light as a metaphor for cognition. The idea of consciousness operating in the mode of enlightenment or delusion based on if it recognizes the true nature of things or not, and spiritual training being about making the switch was also first clearly expounded out in the Yogacara school. FYI, the question of grasping and perception without grasping that you started a thread about is analyzed in detail in Yogacara with the idea of the transformations of consciousness and the three self-natures. The conclusion of late Indian Buddhism that was transferred into Tibet is that in so far as Yogacara reifies the mind it is not a faultless view, and needs to be supplemented by Madhyamaka. In particular, this is the opinion of the "omniscient" scholar-yogis of the Nyingma school: Rongzompa, Longchenpa, and Jigme Lingpa. There is a minority view though, the "Shentong" view, that actually Yogacara and Madhyamaka, properly understood, are pointing to the same thing, because the enlightened mind is beyond concepts so cannot be refuted by Madhyamaka dialectics like conventional phenomena can. I'm still learning about these things, but this is my present understanding.

Over how long a period of time? There have been some recent improvements, but I think this this place went through a steady decline throughout 2010-2012 from which it never recovered. This was characterized by the steady drift away of many regulars, and a marked decrease in posting from the ones that stayed. I suffer from a "good old days" complex about this place, which perhaps makes me see the old crowd with rose colored glasses prevents me from seeing the virtues of the people who took their place. But I think that many who have been here for 5 or more years know there was a certain atmosphere here that is gone now. Just what was that atmosphere? Aetherous' described it in his posts. There was a really wonderful post by hagar a little while back that perfectly encapsulated it for me, but I have lost track of it and don't remember exactly what he said. For me, it was that so many of the regulars had such a passion for experimentation and open sharing. People were trying everything under the sun (I mean everything) and sharing about it here, and people were dialoguing about it, taking it up themselves, reporting back, etc. And the different personalities and perspectives and backgrounds of the different posters all contributed to all these different topics. I always got a special joy out of sean's and freeform's posts in this regard. The teachers that did show up would participate in the open sharing: they would engage with everyone as just another practitioner on the path. Vajrasattva in particular shared mind blowing stuff about his practices and teachers so freely, also Ya Mu, Dao Zhen, and Lin Aiwei shared a lot of cool stories and information. They weren't coming here like "I'm a teacher", but just sharing their expertise with everyone and it was understood that if anyone was interested in learning from them that was available. Vajrasattva and Dao Zhen are long gone; Ya Mu and Lin left for a while and don't post as much now that they are back. There is more: it's not just that the "personality" of the place doesn't fit my fancy, but the collective energy has taken a palpable turn for the worse. My reaction to the collective energy here is much more guarded and less open and enthusiastic. It feels less safe to put my energy here by posting than it used to. If I can sense this, certainly any high level teacher will also. So if you value the quality of this place, ask yourself "What kind of energy am I contributing to this place?" What I mean by collective energy at any given time is as sort of total energy behind the recent posts and the general energy that frequent posters and lurkers are bringing when they are on the site. As the number of people who are hostile, closed minded, and stuck in their head, and unreceptive increases here, and especially if such people are the most frequent posters, the less likely it is that high level practitioners will come here. Case in point, when Lin came back, it only took a week or two before he only posted in his PPF. thetaoiseasy did the same thing IIRC.

There is a very experienced kriyaban on the AYP forum. His thread (where he posts as kriyawit and later Experientialknowing) here: http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12849 is a very enlightening read. He recommends Swami Nityananda Giri's book over the books mentioned in the OP, as you can read here: http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=13604 Thanks for bringing this topic up.

The three have different characters. Chan and Zen are doctrinally identical, but there are practical differences and differences in the overall "feel". For example, in China, both Chan and Pure Land chanting are practiced by Chan monks, whereas in Japan Zen and the Pure Land schools were rivals and didn't mix practices. As for the differences with Taoism, I would sum up the major difference as being that in Taoism health, healing, longevity, magical prowess, sexual prowess, martial prowess, etc. are held to be valid pursuits for a person, whereas in Chan and Zen the goal of all practices is enlightenment, period. A side note, my first contact with Chan was was the travel memoir "Bones of the Master", which I recommend highly.

Thanks, your personal understanding was what I was hoping to hear. Any more you would like to share or any links you would like to post would be appreciated.

Hi Enishi. I have seen all sorts of claims about scalar waves/forces. I tried to investigate these claims but couldn't make any progress because because they are not phrased in the mathematical language I am used to, where scalar and vector have certain mathematical meanings, satisfy certain types of equations, etc. Could you explain mind when you say scalar force, vector force, and why scalar forces are the right way to describe these phenomena? Also, I noticed you contrasted "scalar resonance" with "linear vector force", rather than "scalar resonance" with "vector resonance" or "scalar force" with "vector force". Also "linear vector force" instead of "vector force". Would you explain these terms? Also, I want to say that I especially like NotVoids posts in this thread.

Ha, so I did.

Well, in Semde, sems often means nature of mind rather than just mind, as often explained by Namkhai Norbu. A pertinent example is the word Semde itself not referring to mind but nature of mind. Also, the famous "Luminous, monks, is the mind [cittam], and it is defiled by incoming defilements." is a use of citta that explicitly states it's nature is undefiled. I am having trouble understanding what your position is. You say "mind" and "consciousness" are not synonymous. Presumably mind would translate citta and consciousness would translate vijnana. But you also say citta, like vijnana, is defiled, which as far as I can tell would make citta and vijnana synonymous. What am I missing?

Just for clarity, there are three Sanskrit words that could be translated mind or consciousness: citta, manas, and vijnana. In Mahayana, vijnana is defiled, as you point out, and manas is a subcategory of vijnana, but citta does not necessarily carry the connotation of being defiled, especially when bodhicitta is implied by citta. I checked and you are right about bodicitta being left untranslated in certain parts of "Supreme Source", so maybe I was wrong. But as explained in the commentary, the Tibetan for bodhicitta is changchubsem, literally "Pure, perfect mind" (from which "pure and total consciousness" is not much of a stretch), and Bodhicitta is the key technical term used for the enlightened mind in Semde. But I don't know Tibetan so I can't say anything with authority. I think the "leave technical terms untranslated" philosophy is useful, but there are those who frown upon it. And from a technical standpoint, bodhicitta has three or four different meanings depending upon context. As I said above, the Tibetan translation of bodhicitta literally means pure and perfect mind.

The term being translated as "pure and total consciousness" in the "All Creating King" is "bodhicitta". This is the primary term for the enlightened state in Dzogchen Semde. Something to watch out for is the presentation in Semde is different from Mennagde, for example Mennagde focuses on distinguishing sems and rigpa. Someone more knowledgeable than me can correct me if I am wrong.

SoT, AEN's and Thusness' writings are an incredible treasure. AEN used to post here as xabir2005. And as it says on the header of his blog, he also has a facebook group and a forum. All great resources.

How do you rectify this with the fact that Namkhai Norbu's favored illustration of the nature of mind is the mirror?

Thanks right back at ya. It enjoyed hearing your thoughts in more detail. P.S. I think a culture's fantasies are very telling.

This is actually cathartic for me: getting all these ideas that have been bouncing around in my head out into the open, so that in actual social settings I can just be in the moment. I appreciate having the space to do this. To continue the process, I would like to give an outline of what I thought was useful and valuable from the dating/seduction advice I have consumed. Doing these things will make you a better person and facilitate better relationships will all people, success with women is an afterthought. That's why I think it is so valuable. It's personal development disguised as dating advice. I present it as an alternative to the "be a douchebag" paradigm. 1. The basic idea: Authentic Interaction -Authentic implies "agenda fee" - being in the moment, not trying to get validation or a particular outcome -Also implies not contrived and done from a place of integrity within yourself, unlike most pick up advice 1.a. Be yourself -Often fails because people are too afraid or ashamed to really be themselves, especially around attractive members of the opposite sex -Also fails because you are totally lame, which leads us to 1.b. Bring value to the interaction -Work on yourself to be a high quality person. There are external factors that people perceive as valuable like money, looks, etc. Then there are internal factors like confidence, passion, and knowing how to make the people around you feel good 2. Self-work for fulfilling interactions 2a. Get in touch with yourself, with your experience in the present moment. What are you feeling in the moment? What do you want share with the person you are interacting with in the moment? 2.b. Get in touch with emotion -Do the work on yourself to learn to feel emotions, to release stagnant negative emotions (shame, fear, low self-esteem, etc. are big for interactions with the opposite sex) and cultivate positive emotions (relaxed confidence, assertive confidence, happiness, playfulness, arousal, etc.) 2.c. Get in touch with how emotion expresses physically -Four types of non-verbal communication: Body language, eye contact, facial expression, vocal tonality -Practice communicating confidence, playfulness, arousal etc. through your body, eyes, face, and vocal tone 2.d. Become aware of your beliefs about and emotional reactions toward being social, talking to people, having relationships with people, attractive women, having sex, etc. Any negative emotional reactions or beliefs about these subjects will be obstacles to fulfilling interactions. Do the necessary work to release such negativity. 3. Actual Interactions 3.a. There are 3 levels attraction takes places on: social, personal, sexual -Skipping social or personal and only focusing on sexual will make you seem like a creep, unless you are in a highly sexualized environment. Skipping sexual will get you in the friend-zone 3.b. You want your emotions which are coming through your non-verbal communication to communicate: -Relaxed confidence, happiness, playfulness for social attraction -Genuine interest and curiosity, wonder, appreciation, etc. for personal attraction -Unapologetic desire and arousal for sexual attraction -In keeping with the authentic interaction philosophy, none of this should be contrived. Try to find these things within yourself instead of faking them to follow a script. 3.c. Being aware of the physical and emotional in the moment not only gets you in touch with yourself, but allows you to get in touch with her. -For seduction in particular, you can determine what she is receptive to by paying attention to her non-verbal reactions. If she is verbally saying "No" but her non-verbal communication is saying "Yes", consider not giving up. Of course, always be respectful, but if a woman is interested underneath the facade she may be putting up for a number of reasons, she will appreciate if you can see past it and are willing to pursue. 3.d. Two other relevant things are what you are actually saying and physical escalation (touching, kissing, etc.) -For conversation, get curious about her and use the little bits of information she says to find new topics, especially if they seem to have an emotional charge to them (if she mentions her childhood home and has a certain look in her eye, ask her about her childhood home). If there is a point of connection with you, mention it (e.g. "Ooooh, I grew up in a house just like that!"). -For both always be paying attention to where where she is saying "yes" and "no", by which I primarily mean non-verbal signals. Pay attention to those signals! And there are signals other than yes and no: If she is saying "not right now" dial it back a notch and continue, and if she neutral (neither yes nor no) don't be afraid to go for it.

C T, perhaps your emphasis on adoration is cultural? I've heard that Chinese soap operas depict the female protagonists as constantly receiving adoration from multiple gorgeous men, because that is indeed the fantasy of Chinese women. Whereas you don't see adoration depicted so much in American media as "every woman's fantasy". So these things vary from culture to culture. Regardless, have you ever had the experience of someone you didn't want to be around trying to suck up to you all the time? It is really irritating. Have you ever had the experience of someone trying to suck up to you who was obviously only interested in you because they desperately wanted something from you? It feels icky. In my observation of the 20 something dating scene in America, guys who try to adore women into bed are making these two mistakes. Hence the success of the "don't be so nice" advice some are propounding. So "adoring done right" would involve these guys first establishing themselves as someone whose adoration she would value, and giving "agenda free" adoration rather than "Please have sex with me" adoration. But in American culture adoration, though perhaps appreciated when well given, does not necessarily open a woman to a man's sexual advances, especially if she has many options. Well, as I define it, adoration isn't itself sexual. Perhaps for you adoration of a woman always has a sexual undercurrent. But this might be another cultural difference: In America men who were raised to adore women are typically also raised to not allow themselves to bring sexuality into their interactions. Deep down they want things to get sexual, but they are afraid or ashamed of brining sexuality into the interaction, so it never happens. They get terribly frustrated because they were taught to adore women but they never get sexual fulfllment by doing so. This leads to misogyny in one of two forms: 1. Giving up in frustration, deciding women are terrible, stupid, etc. 2. Deciding that they will just be an ass hole to women, because it actually gets them laid

It's funny that 6 breaths per minute is considered low frequency. Well, let's see, according to Bruce Frantzis the first milestone in meditation is 2 breaths per minute, which then translates to 6 per minute when not meditating or consciously regulating the breath. Though in my case, I can maintain 2 breaths per minute when regulating the breath but that hasn't translated to 6 per minute when not regulating the breath.

baxx44, I am glad you understood my meaning. One exception though: I am fixated on sex. It's kind of hard not to be. Like I said, I'm trying to carve out my own path to sexual fulfillment. And I am still very much a beginner on the path. After all, I don't plan on remaining a virgin forever. Slopps, I do not identify with Agent Smith as a character. There is no Matrix "analogy". I just like that monolgue. It is the best expression of utter disgust I have seen on film. Also, I talk about being a 24 year old virgin because even though I have come to peace about it within myself, I am still painfully aware of the stigma attached to it, and I am practicing not being ashamed of it. So yes, there is still an issue there, but not the one you think. Yes I had similar issues to the ones you had, but I have chosen a different path than you, and not once have I condemned you for the path you've followed.

You sure are self satisfied Zhang. I no longer want to win that game. I no longer feel like being a 24 year old virgin is "losing the game". I realized that what I truly wanted was to carve out my own path toward sexual fulfillment, and not settle for someone else's idea of what should be done or how. By the way, I did learn the rules of the game. Believe me, I studied a great deal of dating and seduction advice. Even though I have chosen to remain still a virgin, in the past three months I have turned down a reasonably attractive girl who was all over me and been on a date with a fantastically attractive woman who was really in to me. And that's from the one social activity I participate in (swing dance), and I did nothing in particular to pursue them. I don't have game, but I am not completely clueless with women. I admit that this only happened because of what I studied. Here is something I found from my research, if you are interested: not all seduction teachers use the "be a douchebag" paradigm. There are other ways. It's great that you are happier using the douchebag paradigm and getting laid than not getting laid. But it makes me somewhat sad that you are telling everyone else to do the same thing. If you ever decide you want to know a different way, it's out there.

What have we done to create such a horribly sick society. I'm 24, and have felt sexual longings intensely from a very young age. Yet I remain a virgin, disgusted with this society, seemingly more with each passing day. When I got into personal development, I decided to take responsibility for my own situation and commit to doing the work of overcoming my own repressive upbringing, low self-esteem, fear of intimacy, etc. that I figured must be the cause of my being in one of the most reviled situations for a modern young man to be in: still being a virgin in your twenties. But now that I am years into this work I have come to the conclusion that it wasn't just me, it's them. It's this society, this zoo, this reality, whatever you want to call it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYL28a0LM_A By eroding all the old conventions about sex, marriage, and gender roles without having something sensible to take their place, the vaccuum has been filled with something horrible, a freakish monster borne of all the lower aspects of human nature. If you view things entirely from a primal ("lower chakra" to use new age jargon) standpoint, being nice is seen as weak, supplicating and needy, whearas not being nice signals non-neediness, confidence, and dominant. This kind of thing still shows up in some aspects of human interaction; I have just seen some examples in the world of Asian politics. Now, a man trying to have a one night stand with a woman who is willing to have one night stands with men is such a primal interaction. Being less nice translating to more success in such an endeavor is not new; Richard Feynman tells a story about this in "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman" which occurred in the 40s. Now, a long time ago was the "No sex until marriage paradigm", which gave way to the "No sex without love" or "No sex without commitment" paradigm (late 60s through 80s, perhaps?). In the 90s and especially 2000's it is the "Sex is primary, other stuff is secondary" paradigm, even if there are some residual notions of "I'll make him take me on a few dates first to not seem like a slut". What seems to be the case is in the "Sex is primary" paradigm, what triggers sexual attraction are those things that appeal to the more base, primal aspects of people, with other characteristics only becoming relevant after you've hooked up a few times and want to consider a more serious relationship. There are no "gates" to pass through on the way to sex that would filter out guys lacking higher qualities. Now part of me thinks, "Finally, humanity has stopped repressing their sexuality, now their are so many new opportunities for different kinds of human interactions that would not have been available even 50 years ago." But alas, there is a reason we tell children not to play with fire. People just shuffling along at the whim of their most base instincts is completely rotting this society from the inside out. Like Agent Smith, I can smell it and feel saturated by it and disgusted by it. It seems to me that way out is realizing that sexuality can involve the higher aspects of people without recourse to the old paradigms of sexual relationship. Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis: Primal paradigm of sex, Rule-Based paradigm of sex, Higher paradigm of sex. What our society has done is backslide from Rule-Based to Primal. Taoists and Tantrics figured out the higher paradigm thousands of years ago, but they had to operate in secret because most people weren't ready for it. Maybe they still aren't.