Creation

This reminded me of something Mark Griffin said: "This is actually one of the things that people find difficult about Shaktipat: Because Shaktipat is grace and it's tough love all the way, it will tend to go to those darkest places first and produce challenges inside the life that bring up some of the most difficult pain. And they go 'Wait a minute, I mean, I'm supposed to feel worse?' And it it's hard to explain, because even when you do they go 'I don't know...'" Any path that emphsizes lineage transmission or utilizes guru yoga or guru devotion etc. operates on this principle. But there is no free lunch: your ability to actualize the lineage vibration/information in yourself will be limited and must be developed with practice. Mark Griffin mentioned that the Guru (that is, a true guru who can transmit enlightenment directly) is only limited by the student's capcity to recieve; If the enlightned state was forced into a person before they were ready they would get fried.

Ah, you use classy porn! That clears up the last of the seeming contradictions about your posts. Thank you for sharing your path with us. I, for one, am glad to have read what you have written.

I agree with you on this. But it seemed to me that people who objected to oodjee's practice were only objecting to the use of porn. So I though it would be useful to separate the discussion into two issues: 1. The use of porn 2. Everything else. Quite honestly I am much more interested in discussing 2, knowing all too well about the pitfalls of pornography.

I wonder how people's reactions would be different if OP had said he spent an hour every day meditating in the presence of a live couple having loving, conscious, and passionate sex. There is a precedent for that type of thing in left hand Taoist and Tantric circles. Using porn seems to me to just be a sort of shortcut to do the same type of thing. Suboptimal, yes, but Taoist sex cults are in short supply. What interests me about your description of your practices is the notion that you have created a sort of pathway to use intense, primal energies as fuel to dissolve blocks. I have always intuitively felt this should be possible. Would you be willing to go into more detail about the progression of practices and skill development you went through to accomplish this? I also wonder if, having established this pathway, you have sought a way to get the same benefit without using porn. I personally would be worried about my ability to interact with a real live woman getting warped through such a routine.

Great to hear Trunk! That DVD has moved up on my cultivation wish list, maybe even to the top. What psoas work are you referring to in particular?

Let's see, the drop at the crown melts, and drips down the central channel, all the way to the bottom. Or so I'm told.

Sifu Lamb can work over distance, communicating through Skype. Though in one testimonial it was mentioned it was so bad the client had to come to her in person. Re entities affecting thoughts: Some very interesting case studies are on http://easterninternalarts.com/ under "Testimonials".

If anyone will passing through St. Louis, Kansas City, or Columbia Missouri on the way to this workshop and would be willing to give me a ride, please let me know. Thanks.

Sorry, I did not make an attempt to articulate clearly what I meant, instead opting to piggyback off of your term "side". Here is such attempt: I get a sense of lightness, freedom, space, carefreeness, non-contraction behind the words in Namdrol's posts that was not there before. Like a person taking off heavy suit of armor and proceeding to dance. It has little to do with the linguistic content of what he is saying.

Thanks for extracting some of the cream from that very long thread AdamantineClearLight. Also, it is quite wonderful to see you around here. My heart leapt with joy when I learned of Namdrol/Malcom's new outlook on his blog. I have not been so glad about something I read on the internet for a long time. I must say, the fist statement in your original post is quite an overstatement. Perhaps "Most people familiar with with Buddhist discussion boards" rather than "Most people familiar with Buddhism". But he is indeed a very influential figure in the internet Buddhist scene. Even though he did not post here, it seemed to me that many of the "Buddha Bums" on this forum were greatly influenced by his views and opinions and way posting/arguing. I personally felt an intense aversion to everything polemical that he wrote. Yet despite this aversion, I sensed a very deep realization in him. To see it blossom in this way is so wonderful. Please do not think of it in terms of "sides". To do so would be to completely miss the point, which is that Namdrol is not takings sides anymore. Many people posting in this thread are doing nothing but taking sides, which strikes me as being like taking a dump in a flower garden.

Oh really? Really really? Which month? Because I have a similar difficulty as OP. I have been working on releasing my diaphragm for quite some time, but man it is quite some task.

Hi Tony. Nice to see you around. How are you using the tourmaline? Are you wearing it, and if so, how? Do you have any recommendations for where to buy it? I have been trying to work on my own shield, but I do want to give tourmaline a try. Thanks, Tyler

Hi BlueMonk91. Welcome to the forum. It is very admirable that you wish to be loving in spite of all the difficulties you have faced and still face. But if you are anything like me, you have a lot of less savory emotions bottled up inside you and you are expending a lot of energy to keep them bottled up in order to be loving. Because of this, continuing to focus on exclusively on the "positive" side, love, will keep much of your energy trapped which, ironically enough, will prevent you from being able to full love. So perhaps consider finding a practice that will help you feel, accept, express, and release your emotional energies. Even (actually, especially) emotions that you don't want to feel. You may find that after allowing yourself to feel, say, angry at a person, you have more "space" inside yourself to feel love for them.

I am particularly attracted to combination Kagyu-Nyingma teachings like those of Tsele Natsok Rangdrol, Karma Chagme, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche and his sons, and Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. anamatva, it sounds like you are already studying the works of some of these masters, but just the mahamudra side of the coin at this point?

Would you share your experience on the relationship between the pre/post heaven qi distinction and jingdonggong?

I doubt it was different in Hindu Tantra. But have not been able to find good much good information on their history. My point was historically speaking it is a recent development. But by recently I mean 1000 years or so. The Aghori sect has not been around that long, no? I'm sure all three traditions have had groups practicing dual cultivation + retention in the past thousand years. Do you happen to know what Abhinavagupta taught on this matter? Would you still say this if they were practicing a method to gain energy from ejaculation like you describe in your thread "Ejaculation, Body armouring & Retention"?

An different viewpoint is that historically, sexual activity + complete retention is a recent development. In China, teachings on the use of sex supposedly go back to the Yellow Emperor. These teachings already existed in the Han Dynasty (e.g. Mawangdui tombs). They speak of the benefits of sex, prolonging intercourse, and reducing ejaculation, but not complete retention. When the first organized religious Taoist sect, the Way of the Celestial Masters, started, they made use of sexual rituals, but again no emphasis on complete retention. They later banned these practices. As for Alchemical Taoism, the Northern School did have a strict retention policy, but they did not utilize dual cultivation; it was a strictly monastic order. In Buddhism it was similar. The Buddhist Tantras which contained sexual practices most definitely utilized ejaculation. They were left handed, breaking the taboos of stuffy renunciates, i.e. "If ejaculation is taboo for monks, let's ejaculate!" Only the very last Buddhist Tantra, Kalachakra, emphasizes complete retention. So naturally, that was the model adopted by the monastic Tantrikas in Tibet.

Comprehensive can mean a lot of things. Comprehensive explanations of "how it all works"? Would you want the translations of the writings of ancient masters, or teachings from modern Lamas geared toward Westerners? Comprehensive coverage of the history and/or philosophy of Dzogchen? Comprehensive on the Buddhist path, culminating in Dzogchen? There seem to be books with all of these focuses. But if you want comprehensive instructions on practical techniques, there isn't a lot out there.

The thing about the guided meditations is that many of the instructions he gives are things that only very advanced meditators can do. But they are quite inspiring to listen to and to try to practice along with, as long as you know from the get go that you may not be able to follow very far. Mark says the foundation for everything is meditating on the breath. There are good free podcasts on this, like "Gravity and the Breath." His emphasis on gravity in meditation is very satisfying to the Taoist in me. Did you know Mark was also a student of Tai Chi while studying with his siddha gurus? He also emphasizes the focusing on the sound of the breath, aka the soham or hamsa mantra or ajapa japa, and the space between the breaths. In terms of techniques employed beyond meditating on the breath, two that he often mentions are pratyahara (shutting off the senses) and guru yoga (connecting to the lineage energy through the crown). I really like the "Guru Radar" guided meditation, which is for guru yoga. Pratyahara is too advanced for me right now, but if you want to get a feel for it, there are actually several very interesting and informative podcasts on it, complete with practical instructions, but they are not on the Hard Light site for some reason. You can find them here: http://homepage.mac.com/zorgon11/podcasts/podcast1.xml (Pratyahara Kunda 1-5 and Condensed Pratyahara Meditation 1-2)

I would agree to this. Thought nowadays "religion" for many conjures up images of things which are quite far genuine expression of spirituality. I often point out the good in religion here, that religions do contain germs of truth and are part of our heritage. This is because I believe strongly that it is impossible to escape the past, and trying to cut ourselves from things in our past we don't like will not solve our problems. I find the modern need to deconstruct everything about ourselves to be neurotic, and it's antitheses the "True Believer", as you mention, is not any better. So I am trying to find the place of balance, the perspective that allows resolution and healing to take place.

I think that people exert a force on institutions and institutions exert a force on people. And institutions (e.g. political and economic institutions) exert forces on each other. So I don't like pointing to one type of institution and saying "Here is the problem, just get rid of this institution and everything will be better" because that institution is part of a web of causality. I guess you could I have an ecological view of the situation. That said, an institution can have a problem and needs to change! Certainly it can. I think lessening the emphasis on celibacy in religions that still have that is a step in the right direction. But in doing so, I think it is important to find new expression for the same underlying principles of proper use of sexuality. When people say things like "Oh, those monks just need to get laid" I always roll my eyes. I think it is somewhat unfortunate that many times the people who change things are just dissatisfied with the situation and thus can't see both sides. Because then the pendulum just swings in the opposite direction. And then a faction arises to counter it, emphasizing sexual purity just like in the old days, etc. etc. I am presently unsympathetic to this viewpoint, or rather I would say the extent to which it is true is merely a reflection of what is rotten in people. Maybe it is a definitional disagreement? I think religion arises out of a combination of the spiritual and social impulses in humans. Doing things together and doing spiritual things are both natural things for humans, so religion is quite a natural human activity. The form it takes will depend on the groups' level of spiritual development (some religions are only nominally spiritual ) and the cultural template on which the expressions are based. And then, in turn, religion becomes a vehicle for transplanting culture, as history shows. I suppose Mr. Hitchens would deny that "spiritual things" is a valid category, but I assume you do not.

I am quite glad it didn't get coverage. I think the last think KR needs is for people to try to make him a poster child for something. Or rather something else, since being the reincarnation of someone who was considered a living Buddha made him a poster child the day he was recognized. Did you come across his break dancing in your research?