Apech

Does anyone actually say 'I don't masturbate enough'?

The Two Truths is a Tibetan interpretive commentary on Nagarjuna's Madhyamika - I think mostly by Chandrakirti. I think if you google this subject you'll find a lot written on it. To put it in a nutshell so to speak - the two truths are 'absolute truth' and 'conventional truth' - which are both held to be true. Absolute truth in Madhyamika is that everything is empty (of self). Conventional truth is that the evidence of non-defective perception is true. So if you see a cup, there is a cup. So in the non-dual philosophy of Madhyamika you can have the position that the cup is not real and yet it is real. If you are looking for final settled certainty - this is not helpful - but if you are looking to shift your consciousness to another level it is helpful.

not wide stance

After years of striving the mystic sat beneath a great tree vowing to achieve final enlightenment. Finally his mind clear and calm his consciousness glows with omnipresent light. Standing to rejoice he hears two soft thuds on the ground at his feet. Stooping he sees the shriveled objects at his feet. Looking up he says : oh I didn’t realize it was a walnut tree.

no the cows round here tend to stay upright.

Those damn back sliding cow worshippers!

More likely to be an Egyptian influence.

This short section from Khonsu-mes illustrates the day part of the sun cycle (as distinct to the night time journey through the underworld). The figures at either extreme (left and right) represent the Eastern and Western horizons and have outstretched arms supporting the solar disk (aten). They define the boundaries of the day i.e. the 12 hours daylight part of the day, The East being the poiint of origin from which things arise and the West where they sink into embodiment and death. The sun itself is shown with a hawk head and solar disk on his head, walking (i.e. in motion) and is given the composite name of Ra-Hor-akhety (Gk. Re Hamarchis) which could be translated as the solar energy which is awareness between the horizons. He is being adored by two figures. Behind him is the god Heka (magic) wearing the 'peh' symbol of the hindquarters of a lion and in front is Ma'at the goddess of order and daughter of the sun. Next in hieroglyphs is written Djet a word for everlasting time. Then a seated figure with upraised arms named 'heh' which means eternity. Then a figure with a tally stick (for counting) on his head which is ren-pet meaning 'years'. This scene could be read something like this. The energy/awareness moves from the origin to the end (alpha to omega) powered by the field of magic power (heka) and produces order/structure (maat) in doing so. This occurs endlessly through beginningless serial time (djet) and in eternal cyclic time (heh) ... for ever and ever through the years.

I'm starting this thread because I'm looking for information - I'm not an expert in this. But I just want to distinguish what I'm asking about and what I'mm not. There are two areas I'm not really wanting to focus on, i.e.: 1. Lucid Dreaming and Dream Yoga - I think these have been covered elsewhere and I see them as particular techniques for achieving something (worldly or not). 2. Jungian or Freudian dream analysis - while I can see the advantage in understanding the content of dreams I find the intellectual constructs around dream interpretation unhelpful (even though you can get some clues from here). What I'm really interested in is unlocking the information and energy in dreams through feeling and using this specifically as a path. I know some on here do this and I wondered how they go about it. I've had a mixed history of success in this area - but mostly as a result of trying lucid dream techniques like dream diaries and so on. In the end I found this unhelpful - it seems to me that through dreams our 'minds' or possibly our spirit is telling us things about ourselves and our situation. Quite often I wake from a dream which seems significant - and that feeling stays for a short while but then, quite quickly afterwards I can't remember the dream at all or only parts of it. I wish I could recapture more information from the dream. I also have similar recurring dreams which seem to be about my state of health (or otherwise). Anyway I would be interested in what people have to say about this.

Sorry to confuse you - in this village and around it is the tradition on Nov 1st (All Souls Day) for the kids to knock on the door and shout 'santinhos' so that you give them sweets. We bought big bags of sweets but only three children actually came! So we have lots left over

Santinhos! Tenhas doces para mim? The way I was thinking was this. While Dream Yoga etc. concentrate on realising the dream state - that is the nature of mind as revealed in the state of dreaming - the actual content of dreams are information which we could use to unlock energy and also as a guide on what to concentrate on - or which direction to develop in. This does happen a little haphazardly in many traditions where the mystic has a dream which causes them to change their path - but you don't hear much about using it consistently as a main practice. I think potentially any dream, but particularly recurring or very luminous or vivid dreams can be important. I have had, at one time in my life, numerous precognitive dreams, very accurate and specific. These too seem to point to some kind of significance - although it may be simply they demonstrate a connections to non-linear time (which was an idea I was going to talk about in the Khonsu-mes thread but haven't got round to it yet).

can I murder my next door neighbours? Sometimes I would like to. But I have a feeling it would be wrong. And my neighbour is not hitler either.

But if you were to bear the ring of power would you not become what you hate?

Any discussion of the Dark Night of the Soul should, I think, start by reading the poem by St. John of the Cross - which will reveal it means almost the opposite of what people suppose it to mean: The Dark Night of the Soul BY ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS TRANSLATED BY DAVID LEWIS I. In a dark night, With anxious love inflamed, O, happy lot! Forth unobserved I went, My house being now at rest. II. In darkness and in safety, By the secret ladder, disguised, O, happy lot! In darkness and concealment, My house being now at rest. III. In that happy night, In secret, seen of none, Seeing nought myself, Without other light or guide Save that which in my heart was burning. IV. That light guided me More surely than the noonday sun To the place where He was waiting for me, Whom I knew well, And where none appeared. V. O, guiding night; O, night more lovely than the dawn; O, night that hast united The lover with His beloved, And changed her into her love. VI. On my flowery bosom, Kept whole for Him alone, There He reposed and slept; And I cherished Him, and the waving Of the cedars fanned Him. VII. As His hair floated in the breeze That from the turret blew, He struck me on the neck With His gentle hand, And all sensation left me. VIII. I continued in oblivion lost, My head was resting on my love; Lost to all things and myself, And, amid the lilies forgotten, Threw all my cares away.

@Summer is the OP.

Well Buddhism says it directly - this is samsara the world driven by desire, ignorance and hatred - except it is illusory (although I hate using that word). Christianity says we live in a fallen world - cast out of the garden - and we suffer because of it. Whatever God's purpose or plan is - we are not given to know but through suffering, like Jesus on the cross, we come closer to his love.

Positive.

interesting

Luckily cats are exempt.

Always questions.

I was an admittedly not completely strict vegetarian for a good number of years. Mostly due to the influence of my ex-wife and her cohorts. But for the last 10 years at least I have been eating meat - in fact since I went low carb to deal with my weight and blood sugar I have eaten a lot of meat. My feeling about it is - and this is completely non-scientific and unproven - that a meat diet is far more healthy provided its not junk food meat. My reason for thinking this is that I am convinced that meat contains a lot of complex molecules and substances which we need for good health. It's not just a protein gloop - which is why meat substitutes are unattractive. After all we evolved over millions of years to eat a mixed diet. So I am fairly certain of that conclusion. However of course, the ethical position of not wanting to harm or kill animals is to be admired. But just because it is ethical doesn't mean it is healthy. Also I find it hard to think that an ethical position which is so unnatural can be fundamentally true. Not doing harm means I think, don't be cruel. To kill an animal humanely, as a necessity, is not automatically cruel. After all people who still live as hunter gatherers have a very respectful and spiritual link with the animals they hunt. The other thing I noticed - and again this is not a scientific survey, but of the people I have known who are strict veggies/vegan - they all seem to suffer from imbalances, thyroid conditions, cancers, dementia in one case - they always seemed to think that the purity of their diets would protect them - but it didn't. Sadly as some of them, that I knew have died of cancers and so on.

Yep been there - it was nice.

There's a reference in this podcast to vajrayana groups micro dosing LSD !!! As far as I know this (apart from being a fifth precept infringement) would be a complete no-no. 1.33.00 time stamp. Someone commented on youtube about the stillness of Mizner compared to damo as if this is a sign of greater accomplishment ... I wonder what people think. Damo is naturally very fidgety in many of his vids I have noticed - and I get the impression in this discussion that he defers to Mizner quite a lot. I've given this tendency they have to circle back to vajrayana critiques and also to dismiss scholarship as an achievement over practical skills, some thought. Tibetan Buddhism is a very broad school and includes some people who do not practice at all (but still follow the precepts in daily life) in a spectrum to full time practitioners in caves who do nothing but practice. Lamas are made lamas sometimes for scholarship rather than meditative mastery - and occasionally for just being born into the right family (or even for having enough money!). In this sense like every other human activity there is corruption and decisions made for convenience rather than truth. This is a shame - especially for those of us who revere the Dharma. Monastic scholasticism became a virtue when Buddhism comprised a huge volume of texts and a number of variant philosophical views. In a sense it needed its librarians just to keep on top of the subject. But every form of Buddhism has this 'tension' between the scholastics and the wandering mystics - this is just how it is. As to visualisation this is a more important subject. Certainly it would be wrong to think that simply picturing mentally things like channels and drops is the actual practice. But it is well known that vajrayana sadhanas and so on involve a lot of sometimes complex visualisations - or to put it another way using the mind to visualise is a key component to vajrayana. One of the reasons for this is that marshalling mental energy or aligning the mind is important. In the same way that chanting or repeating mantras focusses certain aspects of the mind then so too do visualisations - and that mental energy can be expressed as both analytic thought and imaginative thought. For instance the difference between everyday interactions with the world and dreaming. Mind is a thorny subject because we tend to look at that small portion of it which is conscious thought - while properly understood mind is something like an infinite field of energy/awareness (continuum of buddha-nature) - so we might dismiss 'mind' as an interference if we conceive of it only in the small sense. I liked what they said about sila/bhavana ... i.e. sort your life out - this is a key to training in my understanding in that you need a life reasonably free of problems and drama before you can sit properly. Of course there's a balance and feedback since if you do sit daily then the probelms are more likely to resolve easily. Be interested in what other people think.

Firstly I am not sure this is about 'brains' as such - but then maybe it is. I cannot see how a mind can work without the visual (memories or whatever) so I am supposing that these people must have them but for some reason they just don't register with them consciously. They are young ... but you are ancient Learn as you go ... it's the best way.