Creation

The people I respect who are interested in authentic tummo have found Lama Glenn Mullin and Dr Nida to have the highest quality publicly available instruction.

Thanks for letting us drag things out of you here. Due to your postings over the years since your return, and reinforced by what I've learned from Damo, I've realized the way I was viewing sex was harmful. Yet I'm still somehow not quite sure how to view sex instead. For instance, for you say attachment to sexual pleasure takes you in the opposite directions of spirit, so why not be celibate if you are a cultivator? Is there some benefit to the cultivator, assuming some level of detachment has been reached, for instance like in the personal story you shared? Something like the potential for this: Could you say any more about the prerequisites, mechanism, and benefit of this, vs. celibacy? And for those of us who haven't been through a torturous retreat with a teacher who knows what they are doing to develop detachment from sensation, what hope do we have of making any progress?

I continue to look outside of Daoism for methods to do just this, in large part because the Longmen Daoists I'm familiar with don't talk about it (you, Damo, Nathan, WLP), but somehow I am certain of it's crucial importance. Here is finally some confirmation that it is important and a part of Longmen Daoism. Tibetan Buddhism, for instance, is much more up front about it.

Oh, right. Starting at 1:09:40

And yet, applying ting during loving sex in a committed relationship has some benefit to some aspect of one's overall being, no? Perhaps it won't help you move closer to spirit, but your lineage is not celibate, so it is seen that there is some benefit to such a partnership?

This is really solid. All the exotic stuff about special techniques positions or circulating energy or whatever are just so much chatter, but actually feeling, actually listening (what a sex expert I really like calls "listenting with your body"), that's a complete game changer, in so many things in life.

It's in the interview. What he does not say in the interview is that it is only for fueling meditative states. Not sure why that claim has popped up in this thread.

@freeform appreciate your nuanced perspective, as always. Did you notice he is also into Huna and NLP?

_/\_ Best wishes to you

Yeah, I know what you mean. I suppose I'm willing to give him a pass on calling it "deep meditation" because he's doing the YouTube game and know his target audience and how deep their experiences in sitting practice have been so far, and that is the benchmark for comparison. I also have reason to be confident he has experienced actual meditation by your definition, so it's not like he doesn't know there is something deeper. I saw a video where he explicitly discusses that the signs you are in "deep meditation" as he is calling it are nowhere near what it means to be in real samadhi.

@Shadow_self I'm puzzled by your response. Words do indeed have meanings. Kindly look up the term meditation in the dictionary. Let me know what it says. This is what you are comparing to to see how appropriate it is to translate a term for another language. Technical terms in the language the techniques were originally practiced in also have meanings. Sometimes different lineages use the same word differently. Kindly look up the eight limbs of Yoga and let me know what the highest limb is. (The video in the OP is a Hindu Yoga practitioner).

You appear to be insisting that your usage of the term meditation is the only valid one, or you have missed my point entirely. The point I am trying to make is that it really makes no difference if you want to call the destination meditation and the means mental training, vs calling the destination samadhi and the means meditation, as long as you are clear on what terms are being used how. Actually, I do have a bit of a preference: I don't particularly care for using meditation to mean the state you arrive at, given it's manifold uses in common parlance. I'd prefer to reserve the technical terms jhana/dhyana and samadhi (depending on the lineage) for that.

To be fair, what Knutson is sharing on YouTube is like his personal path notes of what he's found helpful, including all the stuff relating it to science. The actual methods of his lineage are not shared outside of one on one instruction with an authorized teacher. And his lineage does have a word for the state that eventually arises: samadhi. If he wants to call the training you do prior to samadhi "meditation", I really don't see the problem with that.

Thank you for reminding me about Knutson, I would like to check out what he's been offering in the years since I last thought of him.

Thank you for posting, I am also thinking of Norbu Rinpoche these past few days.

Not qualified to say, I'm afraid.

I've heard of methods like this - there was a discussion here of Wang Liping teaching something like this. I searched for it, but couldn't find it. But these methods go hand in hand with the main line of Daoist alchemy, in which you nourish and refine jing, qi, and shen. This gives the raw fuel needed to take such mental exercises to their highest level.

I would hazard a guess that this is related to the yellow court region of Daoist alchemy.

Somewhat counterintuitively to how people typically think of grounding activities to sink rising qi, weightlifting encourages the body to hold the qi high. So other forms of physical activity, could be better for your situation. As for Spring Forest quickly having the same negative effects as Kriya Yoga, this is quite sensible. One of the major mechanisms behind persistent qigong deviation is that if one wires the system some way through a regular practice, any time one does something even remotely similar, the energy will follow the path it is used to following. So, Spring Forest has a component of intending energy to go up the spine by intending the activation of using points in ascending order. This is so similar to certain aspects of Kriya that the energy would surely just do what it was accustomed to doing when you were practicing Kriya. Other than non-weightlifting forms of exercise and not doing anything remotely similar to Kriya (including Spring Forest), there are other standard suggestions like time in nature/contact with the Earth, having time where you take breaks from being mentally oriented, focusing benefiting others rather than yourself, heavier foods, and nourishing your yin (eg. getting sufficient and regular sleep, not being sexually indulgent especially if your sexuality has a strong mental component - stuff you probably know all about).

Out of curiosity I googled "Online Srividya course" and was shocked by how many I found. I'm glad to have this recommendation for investigating this beautiful tradition.

Since you mentioned the quality of instruction on subtle points, I did Frantzis' online programs for years and got a lot out of them, but I now study from Damo Mitchell's online program and haven't looked back.

No, just off the top of my head.

I think it's useful to be familiar with several definitions of enlightenment. 1. Samadhi model - Enlightenment is achieving the deepest possible state of meditative absorption, where mental activity has completely ceased. Called nirvikalpa samadhi in Yoga, and arupa jhana in Buddhism. The idea in Yoga is that if the body dies with the mind in this state the practitioner will be liberated from samsara. Buddhism disagrees that this is final liberation, but some branches of Buddhism still emphasize it as a part of the path. 2. Nondual awakening model - Enlightenment is a shift in perception where the fundamental categories through which experience is filtered are seen to be false and fall away to the extent that is possible while still being functional. Categories like time, space, self, other, etc. Emphasized in Advaita, and Zen. 3. The sage-in-flow model - Enlightenment is always being in perfect harmony with the flow of reality, all actions flowing from a connection to this higher principle. This is the Dao De Jing's perspective. 4. The taintless model - Enlightenment means anger, lust, and delusion are completely eliminated. You would not be afraid or angry by being tortured (or seeing another being tortured), nor would you feel desire if the most attractive person in the world tried to seduce you. This is what it means to be an Arhat in Buddhism (technically, a non-returner, the interested reader can investigate further). 5. The total realization model - Enlightenment means all levels of being from the physical to the most subtle are developed to a very high degree, for all practical purposes, as highly as they possibly can be developed. This means there are transformations to the very physical body, as well as all the siddhis that come from developing the higher bodies, in addition to including all of the above types of enlightenment. This is what is meant by "Buddhahood" in early Buddhist teachings.

Got one coming up! Going to make the most of it.