Apech

I will have to go back and check what I said - but I'm pretty sure I argued that there was transmission and 'merging' of a kind. Forget Dharmawheel - I looked on there after Jeff gave me the link. You have to remember there are very many schools of buddhism which do not agree on what is going on - while they might agree on the general idea of enlightenment and so on. For instance Theravadans dismiss all of Mahayana and Vajrayana ( even more so) as fantasy. PS. the sanctified Malcolm (who I have a lot of respect for in many ways) is no longer on Dharmawheel.

I can't answer for the Bon practice quoted by Ilu but from my experience the Ngondro is about connecting to the 'deity' Vajradhara (in the case of Kagyu Buddhism). The difference between this and an empowerment sadhana is that with the Ngondro although there is an oral transmission (lung) of the text - the practice is something you develop yourself and does not rely on a 'wang' empowerment. In the guru yoga stage the idea is to receive blessings from the guru visualised as Vajradhara (Dorje Chang).

Sorry you feel that way - It's seemed like quite a jovial and interesting thread for me so far.

It’s just a discussion on guru and connecting/merging with divine beings with Apech and CT. Corrected that for you

If you mean egoic fear then being trusting can itself be a trap. For instance you want to improve yourself by a kind of abandon, thinking this means you have no inhibitions. Or you want to bargain with the Guru thinking this will gain you something, some kind of spiritual power. This not generally recommended. It is better to examine carefully until you build confidence out of experience. Everything else is a kind of avoidance. Or that's my view anyway.

I prefer the word confidence or certainty. Trust sounds a bit like blind faith.

I thought it was a good thread so far. Maybe we should go back to discussing Tantra and its relation to pleasure/desire - which was the original point as I recall.

Is this 'diving' Tantra? And why is it Rigpa?

But...BUT...shock horror - he had a row with his girlfriend - there was shouting!

But is Boris really a star?

Could you pour it over Jonesboy?

If you visit a lake when the sun is shining - perhaps at dawn - and you look at its surface you see a dazzling field of light, if you look into its depth you see a cool dark stillness - if you jump into the lake what is it then? Are there three different lakes? No. Which lake is real - the pool of light, the depths or the skinny dip? Sorry you'll have to excuse me I was having a Zen moment. In any case three different people can argue about the nature of the lake forever - and all can be right.

The great thing about Tantra is that it can involve all human faculties - as does yoga actually. Sutras as the name implies create a thread of meaning which supports practice - while Tantras (where the word tantra can have the meaning continuity) stress the continuum of the Mind or perhaps Buddha-nature. Actually if you absorb Dharma you don't have to worry much about the distinction between experience and thought - as the purpose is either to provoke thought - Hinayana sutra - or inspire the conditions for experiences - beyond that of course is that which is no longer an experience as such - a realisation. In Yoga there is Jnana Yoga which is valid path to liberation through study and understanding. In the moment of true realisations there is an understanding - a kind of coming together of ideas where joined to experience you see that 'oh that's what it meant!'

I think the Kunzhi Namshe is comparable but different to the Cittamatra alaya-vijnana (storehouse consciousness) which holds the seed of karmic actions - and is the basis of rebirth and memory of course. If instead of blackboard and chalk you were to say Mind and content (thought, feeling, perception) then you would also be able to say that not only the content is empty (of self) but also the Mind is empty. It's not that the blackboard is empty and the chalk exists (even if temporarily) - which would make the blackboard like the 'void' - empty of form but full of creative potential - the plenum - but Buddhism would say that the arising and ceasing of content is just movement in the natural state and is not other than the natural state, in the non-dual realisation the difference between the experiencer and the experience, subject / object is seen to be a mistake. The other confusing notion is of the primordial mind/state as if this is something beyond or transcending - or even worse some prior state of being which was before we became confused by our dualistic perceptions. So we get the idea that there is something pure and unsullied which is different to our natural mind. Thinking like this leads to abstraction - an abstract absolute pure and clean - which is currently contaminated. And while people talk this way - actually the natural state permanently and eternally encompasses all states without becoming contaminated. Because there is no contamination at all. Having said this in most systems you work in your confusion. So for instance in yoga 'yogas citti vritti nirodha' where yoga which means union with your true nature involves nirodha (cessation, evaporation) of vritti (disturbances) in citta (mind). So for the yogi to achieve the stillness with which comes samadhi the the thoughts and emotions and so on are allowed to evaporate back to being citta (self aware energy) itself. Most people say this is about stilling the mind, becoming calm but its more precise than that. It is saying if you observe the vritti they will, because they are nothing other than fluctuations in citta, self liberate to the natural state. And while there is effort involved in getting yourself to study and meditate this liberation is spontaneous and effortless.

Nice song. What I'm saying is not philosophical at all.

Is the chalk empty or not?

Well, I just feel that tantra does not abstract the symbol of a thing from a thing. Of course emptiness/bliss is not a dancing girl, but on the other hand the dancing girl is emptiness/bliss. If you see what I mean.

Maybe, a slightly abstract view though.

It's Tilopa not Talopa - not that it matters much given it's a transliteration from Sanskrit/Tibetan. The origin of Buddha-tantra is a little obscure but it does seem that Tantra emerged from the Kula/Kaula traditions which were clan lineages within families and then larger groups. It is likely but not proved that Daoist Neidan influenced the Buddha and Yoga-tantras in the development of the chakra and energy systems - there was quite a lot of influence between China and India which is not always recognised. Buddha-tantra practitioners would argue that the Buddha taught something like tantra and since he taught 84,000 dharmas and said himself these were like a handful of leaves compared to a forest there is no reason to doubt that he used every kind of practice to help those that sought liberation through him. So I think its not so much that the Buddhists and Bon added this to their tradition but that it was always there although hidden because of the 'transgressive' nature of some of the sex and ingestion of 'impure' substances and so on. The Mahasiddhas who lived in India from about 600 - 1300 AD explicitly taught these things - and this was the last cycle of development i.e. Vajrayana as Buddhism died out in India by about 1300 AD and was continued elsewhere particularly Tibet. Tantra isn't a about sex in the normal sense although it uses sexual imagery and indeed the Mahasiddhas saw 'emptiness' or sunyata as a naked 16 year old dancing girl and wrote love poems to her. Which kind of nails the argument that emptiness is some boring rational philosophical concept as it is often portrayed these days.

Dowloaded that thanks - but it will have to wait till I've waded my way through The Shaman and the Heresiarch.

Q: How spacious is your guru? A: Mine's very Rumi.

That's interesting I guess but what does it mean????

Who defined them as yin and yang ducts? I don't think the Neiye uses these terms does it? Can't we leave it simply that jing produces ducts/channels which qi flows along? Why complicate matters?