Creation

Isn't that a restricted book?

Just wanted to point out that this is still a problem. Clicking on a link to Tao Bums from a google search redirects to url4short [dot] info

I think rainbowvein got it right. I had to learn that other people's experiences, my ideas about my own experiences, and the ideas of others were all things that it did not benefit me to put stock in when it came to stillness movement. That's why I generally don't talk about it. In this case I thought I was in a unique position to say something someone might find useful. Now that I have done so, I'll take my leave.

One piece is doing things that I intuitively "know" to do. Perhaps you have some things like this? A big one for me is moving my awareness through different levels, especially combined with movement (intu-flow, rebounding, qigong moves, weights) and learning to just be with my experience, even pain and numbness. The other important piece is regular interactions with highly developed people with whom I feel a connection. Regular shaktipat from Mark Griffin has done me a great deal of good, and personal guidance from Mila Le aka Small Fur has been enormously helpful.

Well, I only said "fire" because Michael describes it as "lighting the fire". What I actually experienced (multiple times) was that immediately after a transmission, I would find it very easy to tune into the heavenly energy, dan tian, etc. But even if I practiced for hours a day, I would find that every time I sat down to practice, I would find it harder and harder to tune into that "signal", until eventually I could barely feel it, or even not feel it at all. If this has been the experience of other practitioners, I'd love to hear about it. It seemed to me that it was because of my "issues", but I'd be interested to hear otherwise. In my personal case, without a strong sense of the the signal, the parts of me that resist healing strongly interfere with my practice. This is what has been so troublesome for me. I always wondered if a distance class, being spread out over several weeks, would work better for me, but my finances are terrible right now, so...

I agree with you, but I'm not convinced that what you describe fully accounts for what I described happening to me, which quite frankly you don't know the details of.

Hi Jetsun. I don't have the subtlety of perception to give an exhaustive account of how the S-M transmissions I received played out in my traumatized and closed down system. But it always seemed to me that the fire Michael would light would not maintain itself in my system, even though I was practicing. After a week or two, it would cool down to embers. I guess embers was all my system could accept. Practicing stillness movement has been very beneficial for me, but as one piece of the healing puzzle. Without the other pieces I was terribly frustrated.

It takes two people to have an argument...

Actually, the same thing has been bugging me since this sub-forum's inception, but I didn't think it worth starting a thread over. Well, that and I couldn't think of a substantially better name. "Yoga, Vedanta, Tantra" was the best I could come up with, but it's a bit long At least it's not called the advaita sub-forum. I probably would have started a thread over that.

I'm not particularly interested in this discussion, but in the interest of clearing up confusion I would like to point out that it is the opinion of devotees of Shugden that Shugden practice is an indispensable part of Tsongkhapa's lineage, whereas the Dalai Lama and his followers do not believe this. Hence Shugden devotees believe the Dalai Lama is not being faithful to Tsongkhapa's tradition, while the Dalai Lama considers himself perfectly faithful to Tsongkhapa's tradition.

I would say that this is sound advice for someone who is encountering such things but is otherwise spiritually healthy. Because being spiritually healthy means an entity can't influence you unless you let it. If you put your hand in dirty water, your skin will protect you from germs, but it can still make you sick if you choose to drink it. So meditating on the illusory nature of the entity is a way to prevent it from influencing you. But if you have a hole in your aura, say from carrying intense repressed negative emotions, and you encounter a negative entity, it's like having a cut on the hand you put in the dirty water. So in this case, meditating on the illusory nature of the entity will not necessarily protect you any more than meditating on the illusory nature of germs will keep you from getting sick. If a person has a serious entity attachment, they will necessarily have some sort of weakness in their energy that is allowing that entity an entry point. A caveat is that you are realized enough that meditating on the illusory nature of all things strengthens your shen, it can protect you regardless, but in this case I would expect that this would also heal any holes in your aura. Having a brightly shining shen is the real defense against entities. This is my own understanding at least.

I suspect that this kind of rigidity is actually encouraged by the Tibetan monastic education system. What do you think about this?

Wonderful! They resonated enormously with me too. Pretty mindblowing stuff, about light channels and the non-necessity of deliberately manipulating the central channel. Very inspiring to practice, if nothing else. Mr. Peterson is definitely someone with realization and who has a refreshing willingness to speak straight about it. Now, would I practice guru yoga with his mindstream? No, I'll stick with authorized Dzogchen lamas for that. But I enjoy and benefit from his writing that are based on his experiences.

Ah, an endnote to "Dreaming Yourself Awake" has answered my question. He is faithful to the Dzogchen map which distinguishes alayavijnana, alaya/kungzhi, and gzhi/primordial ground, but he lumps alaya and alayavijnana together for simplicity's sake.

Interesting find TI. That fellow has posted many interesting things on his yahoo group. A cursory search for "clear light" brought up these: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DzogchenCourses/message/2144 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DzogchenCourses/message/2010 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DzogchenCourses/message/1080

Hello. Having wondered about these things and read much, here are some notes. Even Theravada acknowleges the distinction between pratyekabuddhas, shravaka arhats, and samyaksambuddhas. To be a samyaksambuddha is to be able to turn the wheel of dharma. In the Pali Cannon is the story that aeons ago the being who would become Shakyamuni Buddha made a vow before the samyaksambuddha of his time to become a samyaksambuddha himself, and spent aeons cultivating the ten perfections to this aim. http://www.accesstoi...i/wheel409.html Of course, this path is not emphasized in Theravada, and moreover it is said that the realization of a Buddha and an arhat is the same, only the capacity to help others is different. Among those that do emphasize the bodhisattva path (i.e. Mahayanists), there is quite a bewildering amount of literature containing many different stories about other beings who made such a vow (Avalokiteshvara, Amitabha, etc.), which inspired different ideas about what vows Mahayana-following humans should take. More radically different than Theravada is the notion that the realization of a Buddha is greater than that of an arhat, the former realizing twofold emptiness or the perfection of wisdom. These issues, and other ideas unique to Mahayana (e.g. Buddha nature) gave rise to many views on just what the relationship between arhats and bodhisattvas is. The conservative idea, as in Theravada, is that the Bodhisattva path is a choice, and a choice for very few courageous individuals at that. Related to this is the idea that the strength of a Bodhisattva's vows are what keeps him or her out of the stream that would inevitably lead to Nirvana once entered. At the other end of the specturm, there is the idea that Buddhahood is the where everyone ends up, and in particular that the Nirvana of an arhats is not everlasting, but eventually leads to the arousal of bodhicitta and entry into the bodhisattvayana. Both of these views had influence in China. But both agree that it takes many aeons to attain full Buddhahood. The big break that Chan made with the more orthodox branches of Chinese Buddhism was to say that the aeons of practicing the perfections to collect merit and wisdom were unnecessary, and that Buddhahood was right here, right now. Nichiren taught this also. From the Theravada/Early Buddhisnm view this is absurd: even if you could attain enlightenment in an instant, that does not qualify you to turn the wheel. Vajrayana follows the more traditional view, where the collections of merit and wisdom are still considered necessary, but the methods are said to reduce the time needed to do this down to as little as one lifetime (or less, if you believe some of the hagiographies of the mahasiddhas, but definitely not instantaneously). So, this question about vows. Wikipedia references "Words of my Perfect Teacher" that there are three types of Bodhisattva vow: The article goes on to say that Maitreya was said to practice with the second type of aspiration, and that Tsongkhapa taught that second and third were very noble, but only the first actually possible (this fits the Theravada view on the matter). I remember reading the vows of Hsuan Hua, and one was to postpone enlightenment until all of samsara is emptied, so one can't really say that such a thing is an entirely mistaken idea. Now, other traditions don't have all the same technical jargon about bodhicitta, nirvana, sunyata, etc. but they do have the notion of beings who do not have any need to come to this world for themselves, but do so out of compassion. Thinking about things in terms of the infinite possibilities of worlds and planes other than this one was a major perspective changer for me personally.

My guess is that your principal contention with him is the belief that Buddhism and Taoism essentially lead to the same goal, which his primary teacher also believed.

I have my guess as to what she is referring to...

Even though you didn't ask me, http://www.amazon.com/Daoist-Modern-Innovation-Republican-Monographs/dp/0674033094 http://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Sitting-Daoist-Approach-Healthy/dp/1602201285/

From what I understand of your posts, no it isn't. I see that you talk about vibrational rates and all that, but when you say "I have the keys of creation" etc. it seems to me that you are speaking from the platform of physical mind, and that is why you are frustrated. Deifying physical mind only brings frustration and misery, not the happiness that you seek. Relax into the higher mind instead of clinging to the physical mind's images and concepts. As far as I can tell, that is what Fu Yue is saying to you as well, but using the term Tao instead of higher mind. Another Bashar quote (I just discovered him, so this all at the forefront of my memory): "If you simply wish it with your physical mind, you may become frustrated when it doesn't happen in the timing you think it should. So I would relax the wishing and simply have more allowing, knowing that that's where you're going."

Probably just the presence of bodhicitta is enough. I just have some personal issues about "mass producing" bodhisattvas. From the way I see it at my current state of development, the Bodhisattvayana is such a massive commitment that I don't like the notion of making it required or expected of a spiritual aspirant to take bodhisattva vows, and there is no shame in cultivating and acting on the four immeasurables while here but taking your leave when you are qualified to do so, as in the Shravakayana. After reading up on this matter, I found that even in Indian Mahayana there were many views on the relationship between the vehicles. At the end of the day, maybe it is mostly just human convention and tradition, and isn't such a big deal from the perspective of many lifetimes and many worlds.

Another perspective is that achieving first bhumi is the minimal qualification to get that title. Seeing as bodhisattva means one who aspires to enlightenment, would that make someone who has taken the vow but not reached first bhumi one who aspires to be one who aspires to enlightenment? And while I'm in a teasing mood, I must say it's a good thing your avatar is the same or I would have no idea who you are.

I have been investigating ways to feel less closed down and dead inside. One thing that occurred to me relatively recently was the relevance of Mark Griffin speaking of the breath as a "spontaneously arising expression of the life force". So I decided to focus on the breath as just that, a spontaneously arising expression of the life force. I too realized just how much I was not-entirely-consciously controlling the breath, and got immediately results from relaxing this control. So this has become my default way to focus on the breath.

Jetsun, Thanks for posting! I enjoyed watching this. About Bruce not being "soft": It seems to me that the point of the water method is to let go of whatever is obstructing the spontaneous flow of your energy, and to do so in a way that is very gentle and unforced. But that does not necessarily mean that you will be gentle and unforceful after you have done so; that will depend on you personal energetic composition. For example, a fiery person can practice the water method and that would bring out their natural fieriness, but tempering any negative tendencies or imbalances that they may have accumulated. Re "ego": When I feel a person as "egotistical" in a negative or spiritually unwholesome way, it either feels like a defensiveness coming from insecurity (trying to protect their conception of themselves, their "rightness", their "OKness", etc.) or an offensiveness (is that the opposite of defensiveness?) that is trying to get a response from others people (wanting praise, adoration, respect, prestige, etc). I do not sense either of these from Bruce. There is a certain expressiveness, boisterousness even; he is not at all reserved or meek. I personally do not find this to be indicative of lack of development, but just who he is. Now, someone could certainly feel a personal incompatibility with this type of person that would make Bruce a bad choice for a teacher, but that is a separate issue.