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Meditate for 3 minutes, have a break, relax, meditate for 3 minutes, have a break, relax, meditate for 3 minutes, have a break .. etc until your session is finished. You may find you actually start meditating spontaneously in the breaks, by which I mean your mind is relaxed, calm and slowed down. If you notice you're agitated or have many thoughts that's ok too - you're noticing and aware.

Because we have personal and cultural conditioning and veils of illusion and negative (as well as positive) patterns, I think that it does take effort to be truly natural (however that is defined). I suppose that after practicing a while it is then easier to be natural but it still takes mindfulness and awareness.

It looks a nice choice. Haven't read the book though it's from a reputable Buddhist publishing house and I like the author's Youtube videos. Going by the blurb, "Full of surprises, delightfully goofy humor, and entertaining stories that inspire, instruct, and illuminate", it looks a fun read and humour is always good; and we all need a sense of humour for when the honeymoon period of beginning practice is over and the kitchen sink phase begins.

Thanks for the review. This passage leapt out at me for its clarity when skimming through the preview: "Awakening the kundalini is reaching your innermost state of bliss and joy. The state is covered with ten layers - desire, anger, greed, attachment, ego, passion, jealously, hatred, fear and self-concern. As you elevate spiritually, you start shedding these layers. These avarana, layers, veil the true you."

If it's at all possible visit local practice groups to see what gels with you. Listen also to the part of you that feels inspired to enquire about dharma and see if you get any positive internal signals when surveying the different practice traditions available.

BBC News item: Rabbit hole leads to 'Knights Templar' cave Kudos to those that made the discovery - it takes some gumption to stick your head in some dark hole.

It's about 140 miles. Now that there has been a bit of publicity we'll have to join the queue

Psychic attack can come from energised thought forms attached to physical objects. Edward Bulwer-Lytton's story of a haunted house which affected people and animals very badly, like dying of terror, is a good fictional account, it's called The Haunted and the Haunter; or, the House and the Brain. It can be read in this anthology (page 31) or read as a pdf. There are good descriptions of what experiencing an attack may be like. The severity of symptoms varied depending on the spiritual integration and self-awareness of the individuals. The story ends with finding the energised object: "We found no more. Mr. J---- burnt the tablet and its anathema. He razed to the foundations the part of the building containing the secret room with the chamber over it. He had then the courage to inhabit the house himself for a month, and a quieter, better-conditioned house could not be found in all London. Subsequently he let it to advantage, and his tenant has made no complaints." The salient explanation is quoted here: "What is commonly called mesmerism could not do this; but there may be a power akin tomesmerism, and superior to it--the power that in the old days was calledMagic. That such a power may extend to all inanimate objects of matter Ido not say; but if so, it would not be against nature--it would be onlya rare power in nature which might be given to constitutions withcertain peculiarities, and cultivated by practice to an extraordinarydegree. That such a power might extend over the dead--that is, overcertain thoughts and memories that the dead may still retain--andcompel, not that which ought properly to be called the SOUL, and whichis far beyond human reach, but rather a phantom of what has been mostearth-stained on earth, to make itself apparent to our senses--is a veryancient though obsolete theory, upon which I will hazard no opinion. ButI do not conceive the power would be supernatural. Let me illustratewhat I mean from an experiment which Paracelsus describes as notdifficult, and which the author of the _Curiosities of Literature_ citesas credible:--A flower perishes; you burn it. Whatever were the elementsof that flower while it lived are gone, dispersed, you know not whither;you can never discover nor recollect them. But you can, by chemistry,out of the burnt dust of that flower, raise a spectrum of the flower,just as it seemed in life. It may be the same with the human being. Thesoul has as much escaped you as the essence or elements of the flower.Still you may make a spectrum of it."And this phantom, though in the popular superstition it is held to bethe soul of the departed, must not be confounded with the true soul; itis but eidolon of the dead form. Hence, like the best attested storiesof ghosts or spirits, the thing that most strikes us is the absence ofwhat we hold to be soul; that is, of superior emancipated intelligence.These apparitions come for little or no object--they seldom speak whenthey do come; if they speak, they utter no ideas above those of anordinary person on earth. American spirit-seers have published volumesof communications in prose and verse, which they assert to be given inthe names of the most illustrious dead--Shakespeare, Bacon--heaven knowswhom. Those communications, taking the best, are certainly not a whit ofhigher order than would be communications from living persons of fairtalent and education; they are wondrously inferior to what Bacon,Shakespeare, and Plato said and wrote when on earth. Nor, what is morenoticeable, do they ever contain an idea that was not on the earthbefore. Wonderful, therefore, as such phenomena may be (granting them tobe truthful), I see much that philosophy may question, nothing that itis incumbent on philosophy to deny, viz., nothing supernatural. They arebut ideas conveyed somehow or other (we have not yet discovered themeans) from one mortal brain to another. Whether, in so doing, tableswalk of their own accord, or fiend-like shapes appear in a magic circle,or bodyless hands rise and remove material objects, or a Thing ofDarkness, such as presented itself to me, freeze our blood--still am Ipersuaded that these are but agencies conveyed, as if by electric wires,to my own brain from the brain of another. In some constitutions thereis a natural chemistry, and these constitutions may produce chemicwonders--in others a natural fluid, call it electricity, and these mayproduce electric wonders."But the wonders differ from Normal Science in this--they are alikeobjectless, purposeless, puerile, frivolous. They lead on to no grandresults; and therefore the world does not heed, and true sages have notcultivated them. But sure I am, that of all I saw or heard, a man,human as myself, was the remote originator; and I believe unconsciouslyto himself as to the exact effects produced, for this reason: no twopersons, you say, have ever told you that they experienced exactly thesame thing. Well, observe, no two persons ever experience exactly thesame dream. If this were an ordinary imposture, the machinery would bearranged for results that would but little vary; if it were asupernatural agency permitted by the Almighty, it would surely be forsome definite end. These phenomena belong to neither class; mypersuasion is, that they originate in some brain now far distant; thatthat brain had no distinct volition in anything that occurred; that whatdoes occur reflects but its devious, motley, ever-shifting, half-formedthoughts; in short, that it has been but the dreams of such a brain putinto action and invested with a semi-substance. That this brain is ofimmense power, that it can set matter into movement, that it ismalignant and destructive, I believe; some material force must havekilled my dog; the same force might, for aught I know, have sufficed tokill myself, had I been as subjugated by terror as the dog--had myintellect or my spirit given me no countervailing resistance in mywill."There are more interesting details but I don't want to give too many spoilers.

Good question, sorry I lack the knowledge and experience to even attempt to answer this with any authority beyond reporting what I have encountered in books. Beyond cross-referencing written sources and academic debate, access to a tantric teacher and practice within a kula will probably be the only satisfactory way of knowing. Edit: punctuation

My previous post was from the point of view of Shaktism where the energies are the same and practice involves resolving apparent dualities in skilful embodied practice. In regards to where I personally stand, irrespective of citing others views, is that of course I don't know for sure but keep an open mind while blundering around.

This is just a general observation and not directed at Bindi in particular, isn't one of the main points of tantra that spiritual and sexual energy are one and the same?

This isn't exclusive to Daoism or Buddhism. There is the Vamachara in India: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vamachara

Gosh BluePhoenix sorry to read you've had such a hard time. Concerns about what is being dealt with within this process have been raised on old threads and rather then repeat what was written earlier here's the link: http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/13200-effects-of-external-warfare-against-inner-demons/#entry169473 Edit: tpyo

Dedication and persistence pays off ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-39073334

It's a nice passage though there will be varying explanations and interpretations of Void, Mind and Bodhi and different terminologies. One explanation is that void or emptiness is only half the story and that there are also infinite qualities that manifest through interdependence and karma. Deities, or to borrow the term from the passage, 'particular streams of liberating energy' manifest from emptiness in response to the needs of sentient beings.

The mind applying the dharma is seen as protection though there is also the view that there are actual beings who are dharma protectors too. It's all very well banging on about emptiness but the protectors as seen as real as you or I or the dharma teacher giving the teachings.

Some very interesting perspectives on mantra - thanks everyone. Since the terms Nirmanakaya, Sambogakaya and Dharmakaya have arisen, here is a perspective on the Secret Mantra Vehicle and the provenance of mantras within this approach: http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Secret_mantra

Great advice from OldWolf. ShaktiMama generously posted this: http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/12645-kundalini/page-4#entry164908

I've heard similar accounts from Buddhist sources. When this world system was forming beings had spiritual powers and lived off meditation and the power of the life force. As negative emotions grew stronger they lost their power of concentration and meditation and had to start eating food. As the food got coarser beings lost their luminosity.

A lovely wise sentiment which is relevant in this context.

Associating this with the devil, is well, the devil!

Mantras given publicly in the Sutras don't require formal transmission, though those not given out publicly, typically those from the vajrayana, do. I've been taught it's good to get transmission for the mantras found in Sutra too.

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How about an NLP reframe - interesting how an 11th century practice is modern and current in terms of it's application.