Apech

Hey I've found the ultimate self-help manual:

Yeah but what if you are just sitting and what you become aware of is some moron on internet saying something dumb????

Home is where my heart is, A glass jar, In the morgue. - Dead Poet.

OMG ten years - where did they go? Vaj and Marbles two of the greatest.

Thanks from me too, hope you are sticking around, best wishes to you.

She's called Clickbait I believe.

Its gone sorry if I offended - just a silly sense of humour.

Deleted for Oldbob.

Chucking this in here because the main sites discussed at Evora Portugal are quite near where I live and I have visited them:

Because we all love Graham Hancock ... especially Nungali does

I read somewhere, and I can't remember where, that the LDT in people moves according to latitude. I wish I could remember the details. But I was pondering the idea that the subtle body in humans varies with geography. I also wondered if this explains why some Eastern systems seem to lack bite with Westerners. One thing I pondered was the fact that Tibetans (and presumably others) would say that thinking takes place in the heart region while I am sure that every Westerner would say it was in the head. I have heard that some Eastern teachers are quite puzzled why the same systems that work in the East don't work in the West - and usually this is usually dismissed as Westerners being slightly fucked up emotionally. But maybe it is that we function slightly differently. Obviously there is some questions to be addressed here and also I am conscious that East-West is a 'subjective' dimension while North-South is polar. I'm not sure if subjective is the right word but it's obviously the case that there is no East point or West point except relative to where you are. They are of course more or less the same word ... Spanish/Portuguese Este and Oeste and the latter, if you take the 'o' as the definite article could mean 'the east' - hence 'East and the East' - which is amusing. Anyway I would be interested in discussing subtle body variations of any kind that might be important to us.

possibly nothing

'human' collective? why not all sentient beings collective, perhaps? and can you clarify what consciousness without awareness is?

Spuds

slam it

... you certainly are

hoover

Ah the Loppon from dharmawheel ... I don't mind him but he put me in my place a couple of times

https://www.facebook.com/djkhyentse yeah follow him.

You'd like him - anti imperialism (esp Brits) and pro Hindu ideas - follow him on FB and you'll see. https://www.facebook.com/djkhyentse

I still find his youtube talks very interesting, partly because they are so idiosyncratic ... but there is something too mercurial about him which challenges my having total confidence in him all the time. But I don't think there's any doubt that he has a good grasp of non-dualism.

When is a door not a door? When it's ajar.

Actually that's an important question. It is important to apply effort, for instance in study and practice, but in the final analysis accomplishment comes from the Dharmakaya itself which is already perfected. So probably the short answer is yes - you have to apply effort to be effortless.

He seems to enjoy some kind of high level trolling politically - I'm never sure how serious it is or how much is just him deliberately unsettling his western students as some kind of teaching point.

Yes I think this is the point - and also there are several 'lost in translation' difficulties. I think that Rinpoche is using 'mind' to mean that which knows via subject object division - probably 'manas' or 'citta' - and is distinguishing this from wisdom 'prajna' which literally is 'para' - 'jnana' and in this case means 'beyond knowing'. It's not really what we would mean by wisdom in English which is more about accumulated learning - but more the direct awareness of non-dual reality ... which is beyond knowing. Where knowing means to recognise something. You can have clarity of mind which would mean the unobstructed or defect free perception of a thing or an idea - which is still dualistic - there is still an observer and an observed. Or you can have Clarity where this dualistic distinction falls away leaving just the natural state. Just to complicate some Mahamudra texts say that 'ordinary mind is enlightened mind' ... but this is a subtle teaching and what they don't mean is that just what you ordinarily perceive is buddha-nature or some such ... but they do mean that there is nothing to be added or taken away from Buddha-nature, it is complete and does not require effort to fabricate.