Apech

Thank you - I wasn't trying to overly control the conversation - I suddenly felt the danger of becoming lost either in a sutra maze or in a dark Zen passageway muttering short poetic musings to pass the time while nervously looking for the way out. What I want to consider is that if reality is a continuum of buddha-nature (buddha-field or whatever) then where is the path? What is the path? And what does this mean for understanding method and goals, for instance. How many mantras does a complete idiot (like Trump or Jigme Linpa as forest suggested above) have to chant to realise Buddha Nature? What does this say about method itself? Why do we engage in methods (like 8 fold path)?

Indulge me , I wanted to talk about non-dual Buddhism and everyone is bringing their arhats to the table. Sandals, cloaks and hats at the door please!

If you need reasons to get there you will never arrive.

It’s like sweet rain falling after a long drought; Like encountering an old friend in a faraway, foreign land.

Sandals at the door, guys, this is a vajrayana thread. Here is a quote from (I think) the Hevajra Tantra: "If a superior practitioner only needs to say a mantra once to be awakened, and a middling practitioner takes 100,000 repetitions to awaken, and an inferior person 1,000,000 - then how many mantras must a complete idiot say?" Your answers please

Hi Steve and others, I have spent the last 20 years on the Kagyu Ngondro and I am only about 60% through them!!!! But I do know others who do them quite quickly - especially if they start when young (as a student for example). But I think completion or otherwise of 100,000 this or that is - well not quite irrelevant but maybe not crucial. If you start this or any other practice from a kind of bottom up approach then you might perceive progress as like climbing some stairs - where the goal is at the top and you measure yourself accordingly. But on the other hand if you start with a mahamudra approach then its more like affirming buddha-nature in a number of ways - a very simple practise might awaken you immediately. If you see what I mean.

Simpler is better. Actually I wasn't trying to complicate - just making notes of what I was thinking about - but of course as you make notes it tends to get more wordy.

Fair enough. Naked observation sounds a bit kinky tho'

Isn't the age of Capricorn after the Aquarian age i.e. in about 4000 AD.????

I'm mulling these ideas over so bear with me. Buddhists usually talk about the three kayas - or bodies of the Buddha - but in tantra they are more seen as aspects of reality. I kind of assume people know what they are but anyway: dharmakaya - the absolute nature of reality (?) sambhoghakaya - the enjoyment or communicative aspect of reality nirmanakaya - the manifestation of buddha-nature e.g. the appearance of Shakyamuni himself as a historical being. The way I see this is that when examining the nature of reality you can either look deeply into the essential nature of 'things' = dharmakaya ... this is also called pure perception and particularly in guruyoga sees buddha-nature in the lama but also all reality as a pure buddha-field. Sambhogakaya is to do with the unceasing play of form and inter-relation of form/function - like a kalaidoscopic display of the dynamic in the buddha-field, you could say rather like an unstoppable vibrational field of energy or something like that (although this begins to sound a little non-buddhist. The Nirmanakaya is the uncountable emanations of 'things' , thoughts and so on which emerge from this dynamic field. What in Daoism would be called the ten thousand things. So you look at the nature of reality - and see its essence =dharmakaya, see its display of inter-relating possibilities = sambhogakaya and the infinte complexity of manifest forms = nirmanakaya. Now, a mistake I think is sometimes made is to think all I am interested in is the absolute nature, the dharmakaya itself, but actually this is a kind of abstract way of thinking - as if you can separate out one kaya without the others. This is why they sometimes talk about the Svabhavakaya - which is the sum of all three. More later when I've thought this through a bit more. Please critique what I am saying if you so choose

Do you practise vajrayana Virtue?

Every single system I have come across or practiced had some kind of purification/protection element. Why? Because it's needed. The idea that it a good idea to drop all boundaries, screens, filters and just open yourself up to the bigness out there is actually a) crazy and b ) suspicious. Ok in some kind of absolute sense there is only the absolute anyway - but reality is onion skin layered and contains all possible modes of being. Again read the lives of saints/yogis and at some point they encounter demonic forces (even Jesus in the desert) - why should we think we are any different - and what kind of fool advises people they have never met apart from on the internet that it is only fear that holds you back from this. Suspicious - ask yourself - what would be the motivation for suggesting this????? I kind of agree - but don't you think we are in danger of chewing over a dead bone when there's no marrow left inside?

If you kettle pots does that make you pan sexual?

From 'The Path to Awakening' Sharma Rinpoche

penguins never lie

Is this what going light is like?

I've always believed in the maxim 'waste no time denying evil but steadfastly affirm the good' - not sure who said that by the way. If you meet an obstacle, temptation or threat of some kind - or even a side road to nowhere - then that is still in the bigger picture, the path. I never got into Jeff's thing at all , although I used to chat with him from time to time. He is quite an interesting fellow - who has some interesting abilities which I don't pretend to fully understand. For some people he seems to open up their practice to a whole new level - so called 'going light' - which appears to be some kind of access to visible fields of energy etc. Although Jeff always said he couldn't 'see' himself and indeed dismissed some of it as 'astral' - meaning, I think low level psychic stuff. His impact on people could be extreme - either for the 'good' (perceived) or 'bad'. Some, I know had some extremely troubling experiences after the briefest of contacts with him. For me - for a while even just chatting to him gave me a headache - but after a while this stopped. I found his energy was overly intense - and I always got the impression of a person who had been gifted enormous power but not with the wisdom or sensitivity to use it appropriately. Which is why I always kept him at arms length - especially as I began to hear from others strange stories about dodgy practices and so on. In fact it was his and the Light Group's reaction to criticism from those who had had bad experiences which was most telling - and the reaction was on occasion quite abusive - which does not denote a very high level of wisdom or kindness. In group/out group preference overriding general concern for the welfare of others is not a good sign. Among the 'Light Group' generally - I would say there was a lot of emotionality - which is why I suppose any criticism was greeted with hostility. I suspect that whatever practice they do opens them up considerably but doesn't always address their karmic content - I mean the kind of ground work we all have to do to cultivate a sound and balanced subtle body. Maybe Jeff offers a 'quick' way to some state which leaves people slightly unstable or exposed emotionally - I'm not sure. One thing that Jeff always pushed was the concept of 'no boundaries' - that is we are all just open to the infinite - and he derided any idea of psychic protection and the like. This may be where the parasitic infection comes in - since most systems accept the idea of needing to remove the effects of negative actions, illness and parasites/demons whatever you like to call them. If you are seriously going to accept that reality is an infinite field of energy/consciousness (or however you like to put it) then you have to accept that entities exist and need to be confronted (read lives of any great mystic/saint/yogi). It's naive to think other wise. People are free in my book to do, or try, whatever they want, always at their own risk. There is no spiritual nanny state - in the end we are all cultivators or to put it more dramatically warriors - and we need to do what we need to do and take the results on the chin - learn from it - dust ourselves off and move on. So no matter what you think of the Jeff issue - blame and regret is not the way. Just thank the universe for the lesson and keep on going.

Tell me where is Jeffrey bred, Or in the heart or in the head? How begot, how nourished? Reply, reply. It is engender’d in the eyes, With gazing fed; and Jeffrey dies In the cradle, where it lies. Let us all ring Jeffrey’s knell; I’ll begin it – Ding, dong, bell. Ding, dong, bell.

Anyone else watch this guys videos?

This says it all.

I use it occasionally - its handy and I think harmless - you have to be a bit careful with the interpretations though but I think its generally on the right lines.

This made you laugh?

Both I think would be a good test - I await the response of the resident psychics.

How would you prove it?