Apech

@Nungali and @steve on the internet, just a gentle reminder:

Simping is permitted.

That’s very poetic and nice. I shall have to stop being so prosaic and boring.

Turn Manhattan into an isle of joy.

What are heaven and earth energies?

I wonder if this is something to do with the duality of external vs. internal. Bliss as a thing is external - you seek it. So there is a definite you seeking a definite it, perhaps. Bliss as just the feeling of being free (joy being a better word perhaps) is internal - it isn't sought after it just is. If free means that you can, without inhibition or obstruction, assimilate any situation which arises and also respond to it, then this freedom would feel entirely without struggle or effort, save the necessary application of energy to whatever is needed in the moment. A system of practice is an effort to fix the way to a set of procedures or steps to be followed. In early training this is probably helpful. But at higher 'levels' any system has to be set aside or at least seen in perspective. I think it's ok to say 'I am a tantric buddhist' or whatever - until being so starts to blind you to say what @steve likes to call the unspeakable state. Just to clarify on the breathing thing we were discussing. I don't ever practice forced breath techniques because they are external. However when I practice with breath in a natural way, where my mind encounters certain energy nodes (such as the solar plexus or throat for instance) the breathing changes. I experience for instance a 'spongy' presence of the node (chakra or wotnot) which can be squeezed ... and as this happens naturally breath rhythm and also holding of breath will occur without any conscious effort to do so. It is these things that externally learned breathing practices try to emulate (unnecessarily in my belief).

I thought California was the unspeakable state ... or was it Florida?

I post this every year ... so why not ...

Hi, it isn’t really true that holding the breath or changing its rhythm is necessarily unnatural. For instance when lifting something heavy people will often spontaneously breath in a hold breath for exertion. The natural resting breath is evenly in and out but may change when say running or jumping. Also to relax one may alter the depth of breath. Or make the in breath long and the out breath short. I do agree though that forcing breath can be dangerous sometimes.

by aesthetic love I meant seeing beauty and being inspired by it (sometimes this beauty may be in the mundane or a facet of nature)

Hi CT, Firstly a disclaimer that everything I say is just my thoughts on the matter - so likely to be either wrong or slightly wrong. Mind-prana by which I believe you mean the citta-prana union would be something like what I would call sentient energy. I think you could say two things about this, one would be its desire for union with itself - which could be called love - and the other is its will to develop being expressed in ever and ever more miraculous ways - which could be called love. You could say bodhicitta instead and hence all practice based around aspiration, prayer, devotion and so on is this love. That's how I would see it. I think that in terms of the spiritual biology of the thing, the central channel appears in proto form when male and female energies combine (red and white) - or physically at conception - or immediately afterwards. Henceforth we become divided beings seeking union - having it to a certain extent preserved in utero but then split more at birth. I think that as in sadhana practice completion stage dissolving back into pristine emptiness is part of the path/practice - but that this is a way to experience emptiness so as to understand the basis. The true completion is when this emptiness and appearance are united and become 'not-two' and this is why yogic techniques and what I would call alchemy are necessary for full completion and not just the experience of space-like mind.

The way I would see it is that the channels in the subtle body are produced by the primary attributes of Mind, for instance the motivation of compassion/loving kindness by motion towards its goal, you could say motion of love within the Mind produces the central channel. This is the unconditional activity of Mind (or what I would call Spirit). Where this intersects the three Dan Tiens you get sexual love, emotive love and aesthetic love respectively as human motivational energies and so on. Further condensed these motions precipitate bio-energetic and physical organs. By alignment you end up with a 'three in one' being ... where the causal, subtle and gross aspects work together.

I probably should have explained that it is my own preference to use spirit instead of mind - this is because when the word mind is used in some contexts and systems they mean something much more than 'that which thinks' ... For me what is being spoken about is something like sentient energy or conscious energy - in that it has both the capacity for awareness and also action - it does or accomplishes everything. Spirit is more a term from Western thought, Hermeticism or Christian mysticism. But in Sanskrit there are a number of words which would be translated as mind such as jnana, vijnana, citta and manas. Citta is interesting because originally it was a Samkhya term for mind-substance, that is the very fine state of matter which has the capacity to take up form and then discharge it. Like a mental substrate or medium in which thoughts appear. It is not the same as Self although perhaps it is the most responsive level of substance which relates to the presence of observing consciousness. So when a Yogacara Buddhist says 'everything is mind' they are saying that fundamentally there is only that citta activity in the moment. In terms of the goal, immortality or realisation ... it is worth bearing in mind that the goal in Mahayana and particularly Vajrayana is complete Buddhahood and not the Arhat non-returning etc. So there is a substantial change in emphasis from having a realisation into which you merge - to becoming a Buddha which is essentially an undying being (whether or not manifest at the physical level). This buddha-hood can be described as threefold 'bodies' called kaya. Loosely speaking there is a physical manifestation called the nirmana-kaya, a subtle body manifestation called the sambhoga-kaya and the pure mind of a Buddha called the dharma-kaya. Certainly yogically and in mantra-yana most of the 'work' goes into the sambhoga-kaya subtle body.

Rainbow Body and Subtle Atomic Body In general, in traditions like the Sakyapa and other traditions, sometime people say, “Oh this is a rainbow body, that is a rainbow body.” Even some practitioners may have their physical bodies disappear and they consider this a rainbow body. But that is not a rainbow body. In the Dzogchen Teaching this is called lü dultren du tengpa (lus rdul phran du dengs pa). That means the physical body is entered into dultren, very, very, very tiny atoms, and we cannot see it. Someone is at a high level of the practice and they can reach the state of the dharmakaya. That is the reason it is becoming that kind of lü dultren du tengpa and rainbow means it is active, something concrete manifests. You see there is a painting of the Guru Padmasambhava and at the center of the Guru Padmasambhava there is a small thigle. From this thigle the lights of five colors come out, bigger and bigger, until the dimension of the Guru Padmasambhava has become filled with this light. Most people like this thanka, or painting, very much. This painting was originally painted by someone in the Sakyapa tradition. But whoever painted this has no knowledge of the rainbow body. The rainbow body isn’t like that. The rainbow body means our physical body, for example, our nose, our face, our front, everything is integrated with the five elements. Some people may have the capacity to see someone who has attained the rainbow body. The nature of our bodies, when they are truly integrated with the five colors or five elements in the rainbow body, appear in just the same way for these people as our bodies would appear in the physical or relative dimension. For example, the rainbow body of Guru Padmasambhava would appear to someone with sufficient capacity just as he is, and without his dimension being filled the five colors. So it is very important you should know that. Nobody knows if some one of you will realize the rainbow body. When the rainbow body manifests, only the hair and nails remain. Everything else disappears. ... So why then do the hair and nails remain? It is because these are the two aspects of our impure physical body. Hair is always growing. We are cutting it again and again, and still it is always growing. The impure aspect of our physical body is like that. It is the same with the finger and toenails. So this is the symbol of the impure. This is very important to understand. If you realize the rainbow body then you have no problems! Ok, now we finish and dedicate merits. Chögyal Namkhai Norbu

Which text do you mean?

Well sure I guess - but it is a good (probably the best) example of a coherent dualism - which is what I was trying to say to steve.

If you have a mind to understand it and a little time you could try Chapter 4 esp. pgs 235 onward of https://www.amazon.co.uk/Indian-Philosophy-Vol-Classic-Reprint/dp/0331896737/ref=sr_1_6?crid=AF1DXKWM4I7R&keywords=indian+philosophy+vol+2&sprefix=indian+philosophy+vol+2%2Caps%2C194&sr=8-6

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samkhya

'Object' means literally what is 'thrown out' and so to posit an objectively real world simply means that the products of activity do actually exist or that the substance from which they are made is real. Empirical experience backs up this belief because the objective world is reliable, in that things are stable within the field in which they operate. A chair does not suddenly become a motor car, air does not become earth and so on.