Apech

I agree with you here. While it may be true that the diagrams of chakras are indicative for practitioners, chakras themselves are not mere mental pictures. How do you mean 'believing in granthis'? If you loosen the knots the energy flows and you develop. You could develop siddhis.

No I haven't. Is it good?

wow that is thrifty!

907 dollars! I don't think so

I understand what you are saying. Tummo is a completion stage practice of a tantric sadhana. It is one of six. If one were to attain temporary bliss and heat this would be a deluded version. Completely possible by moving prana through nadis and so on but entirely missing the point. So it would qualify as deluded kundalini. I think this may be the kind of thing that spontaneous kundalini experiences produce - along with strange visions and astral projection and so forth.

Is it our spiritual self which is in lifeless pieces or is it our experience that is fragmented and lifeless? Perhaps through a tendency to identify with the objects of consciousness rather than consciousness itself? In Tibetan Buddhism the story usually goes that such and such master is an abbot at a university and has mastered all the philosophical and meditational techniques and so on. But is one day visited by a hag (I use this word advisedly - check the etymology please moderators) who chides him and tells him to go off and seek a tantric master who will teach him (among other things Candali). And the Tummo/Candali is seen as an energy to liberate the mind which has beneficial side effects like keeping you warm in winter. The hag/vajrayogini figure personifies the firey energy which most importantly takes him beyond intellect and even 'normal' perception, its about, if you like working directly with energy, dancing with it etc.

Shamatha or similar type of practice (depending on system) is real practice and can even give rise to realisations and siddhis. But the point is that it is not taught in isolation to help relaxation. It is taught with view (on emptiness etc) and conduct - sila, precepts, and various vows and so on which serve to strengthen the subtle body and tranfer any realisation into action. This area, in Buddhism anyway (I don't know about Bon) is approach through lojong - mind training - which focuses on putting others first, developing paramitas and practices like metta and tonglen. You probably do end up feeling better about 'me' in some sense but mostly because there is less 'me' in the situation. Relationships take care of themselves as practice gains strength and one becomes more generous of spirit, patient and so on - and particularly as bodhicitta develops, Maybe I am being critical - but I feel there a huge dangers in stripping out the technique of meditation from its context as I illustrate above (I hope).

I think that one problem is that preliminaries - relax the body, calm the mind - are confused with the actual practice. If you read the lives of masters of any tradition they are filled with trials and tribulations, they are usually assaulted by demons at some stage and may go through stages of physical and mental illness. Their aspiration is high and their goal of enlightenment or immortality immeasurably profound. How this relates to: - time out from a busy schedule - feeling better about 'me' - improving relationships (!) and so on, beats me. The mindfulness movement is at worst a dangerous money making con - and at best just a way of getting short naps.

I am cursed with an English sense of humour.

The funny thing is ... my fingers hit the keys and these letters appear on the screen. The letters form into words and the words into sentences which reflect my thoughts. Some people with special powers can read between the lines of text deep into the darkness of my heart. Therein dwells sombre, unmerciful, unjust, brooding clouds of a malign storm of intent. The intent to educate, to teach, to indoctrinate my own savage world view on any passing Carlos whatsoever.

View it how you like.

I think she was talking to me Carlos ...

My field testing revealed that when I go to the supermarket wearing nothing but a face-mask it induces laughter and giggles, no matter how ironically I do it.

Laughter suppression mode is now in place.

No it isn't a common flu - the clue is in the word 'novel' corona virus - it is a new form which has unpredictable outcomes in those who are infected - this is why there is so much confusing and contradictory information about it.

As a cultivator who works with subtle energy and so on then I would say that your physical ability to cope with external pathogens is affected by your level of energy and purity. There are things that you can do to improve your likelihood of immunity - including normal health and diet. One thing I don't think has any wisdom is to dismiss real threats as a 'joke'. Unless you are being really clever and connecting the word 'joke' with its PIE origin *iok meaning 'word or utterance' and thereby connecting all entities as vibrational structures. Then you could ask yourself deep questions about what covid and corona actually means and what impact it is making on all levels of human life and society.

Herd immunity is the main mechanism where populations of at risk hosts defend against disease. It kicks in when the proportion of people in the population are sufficiently high that the rate of transmission reduces to such a low level that the disease is no longer epidemic. From Sweden where there were almost no lockdown measures - tho' I think they did ban large assemblies of people you can see how the level of new cases rises naturally to a plateau and then peaks and then dies away again. From the daily deaths data you can see that this falls away naturally, but slowly to almost zero. Compare the UK where there was a lockdown, the curve is dramatically flattened but then seems to continue on at a much lower flat rate but never go away. Similarly with the daily death rate. Antibodies are not the only immune reaction in the body and it may be that in many people T cells eliminate the virus without the need for generating an antibody response. Financial impact occurs because economies have global links - so if most countries lock down then an individual country which doesn't will still be impacted. But the fact remains that globally we cannot sustain much more lockdown without a very severe recession which directly and indirectly kill far more people than the virus.

The problem with this virus is that it is novel - and so its precise effects are not properly understood as yet. There are many people who get it and have little or very mild symptoms (I think about 80%) while others have severe symptoms and also immune system responses which attack their own organs. It has different levels of morbidity according to age and also ethnicity (which maybe be Vit D related or other genetic influence). Also the viral load is a factor - so health workers exposed to a lot of the virus have more severe illness and morbidity - which is why a lot of doctors and nurses died in the initial stages. We are not yet experiencing a second wave in the pure sense - rather the levels of lockdown and social distancing flattened the curve of the virus in many countries but when the restrictions were loosened (and also people went against them for instance in the BLM protests) the virus began to break out in clusters (e.g. care homes and work places) - and in some communities.. Also communities with very high density population and poor conditions provided a reservoir of infection. The usual patten is a rising peak which drops away and then flattens to a steady stream of cases per day - deaths lag slightly but follow the same pattern. A vaccine is an unlikely prospect in the near future (if ever) and so it would seem that we should maintain sensible social distancing precautions. However a severe lockdown will have such economic consequences that many will die from the resulting recession/depression to the world economy. So it is not reasonable to think that countries can maintain these measures for the long term. Which means we will have to live with the virus - and hopefully over time it will, as is often the case with infectious disease, adapt to the host (humans) and become less severe. At some point there will be sufficient people to form herd immunity which will prevent epidemic levels - but it is uncertain when that will occur. The levels of morbidity are higher than flu but not that much higher. So we should treat it with caution but not fear. It's not Ebola or the Black Death - but on the other hand it is serious and unpredictable enough to cause concern. What is not helping is the confused response of governments, the woeful activity of the WHO and the media who have spectacularly failed us in providing the kind of information we need.

Humour is cancelled.

Rules: no googling!!!!!! Answer the question and post another: Q. Who lived in the Orthanc?

Bad personal hygiene obviously.

Do what you want - it's a free world.

Longbottom Leaf or something like that.

Rosie Cotton If I drink a bottle of wine I get leg-o-less. I didn't know he had a last name though. 7?