doc benway

Buddhism has the trinity of the three kayas - the enlightened body, speech, and mind (dharmakaya, sambhogakaya, and nirmianakaya)

Anything and anyone has the potential to introduce you to rigpa but no one, not even a Buddha, can give it to you. Each of us has to realize, ourselves. The value of a realized master is that they are more skillful and experienced at guiding people, different people need different approaches, and most importantly they can help to confirm or correct your own experience.

they're right to complain with haiku monopolized by Buddha's own Foote

the ducks take to shore in an undulating, a peal of homecoming.

I appreciate you sharing your process and understanding. It's been a while since I read the book, it was one of my earliest exposures to Buddhism, and you seem to capture the intent well. Mark's comments are also insightful and much appreciated. What I would like to add is that it was valuable for me at some point to begin investigating "who" is all of this referring to? Who is taking in influences? Who is doing the processing? Who is putting something back out? What does it mean to refer to energy as "mine?" How does this "who" relate to the bigger picture? These questions are not meant to be discursive and the answer is experiential rather than conceptual, hence the koan tradition. I don't recall where this fits in to Thay's method but such questions do naturally arise within the context of meditation once the inner chatter and endless fascination with the mind's content begins to settle and clear a bit. For me this investigation was a critical component of my own process.

@Nungali - your forum awaits you, enjoy!

Mod note - Indiken has been suspended for 30 days. His next infraction will result in a permanent vacation from the site. After further review by the mod team and admin the decision was made to make the ban permanent.

Another favorite of mine is Minha Alma (A Paz Que Eu Não Quero) by O Rappa This is a very special cover by Maria Rita. Another song that speaks to me by O Rappa - Tribunal de Rua And one more from Brazil - Tive Razão by the great Seu Jorge

Notice that these are all simply examples of the moving mind ruminating over things that may be in the future or have been in the past; projections, expectations, assumptions and so on. That does not need to be embraced. Look at what you are actually feeling here and now - in the body, the emotions, the sense of self. Who is it feeling these things? That is what you embrace, not the ideas, not the creation of the mind. I hope that distinction makes some sense. That sadness and the sense of me feeling that is what we can open to and embrace with kindness and care. And it will reverse itself. This is part of the meaning of impermanence. No matter how bad things are, they will get better… no matter how good things are, they’ll get worse. Take care of the one struggling with the extremes and the transition.

I think there is a naturalness and inevitability to what you describe. If you feel anything extreme there comes a time when that feeling subsides, it cannot sustain itself indefinitely. When you experience that release or change, the new feeling will naturally be in contrast to what came before. This is an explicit expression of yin/yang in our experience. I think a good way to deal with it is to embrace it, to allow ourselves to feel it fully. The more open we are to the extremes and especially the transition, the more we come to understand the nature of our experience and ourselves.

Wake up @Sleepy Bluejay! Your forum awaits you... Enjoy

This piece by Monteverdi has an inexplicable quality and beauty that touches my heart and raises my spirit. Lyrics translated from the Italian - Golden tresses, fairest treasure, you bind me in a thousand ways, whether you are coiled or loosened. Choice little white pearls, when you reveal the roses that you cover, you wound me. Lively stars that shine, so fair and alluring, when you laugh you slay me. Precious, seductive beloved lips of coral, when you speak you give me bliss. Oh fair bond that gives me joy! Oh sweet life's leave-taking! Oh this welcome wound of mine! Testi della canzone

I'm no expert but will share some thoughts. Other traditions have plenty to say about the after-life. Buddhists have a very useful paradigm but certainly not the only one. I don't personally look at such maps as some existential truth but rather as a perspective or a model rooted in culture, tradition, and many other variables. The realms described in Buddhist terminology do not only relate to our condition after death but are established by and experienced as an integral part of life. For me it is more valuable to relate to these realms as they are experienced in this very lifetime and how they affect my choices and actions; rather than imagine them as something distant that will be faced after death. At the time of death we lose the familiar way we experience ourselves completely. We lose the body, the elemental structure of our experience of reality, our sense perceptions, even our very sense of self. This completely unfamiliar and raw experience can be disorienting, jarring, and often terrifying. Our response to this profound change is rooted in our life experience and conditioning. I've gotten what I'm told is a small taste of this process through some of my training and related experiences. I think part of the reason the transition is presented in a way that sounds like a "hellish challenge" is to push people to take their practice more seriously so that when we are going through this extreme process of change we are familiar enough to fall back on our practices as a support and a guide. We have a tendency to towards procrastination and denial despite the certainty of our death and just like in any life and death circumstance, there can be an element of panic such that we forget our training and turn to whatever is most available and most familiar in our time of need. For those who follow the Bön and Buddhist paths, our response to the profound changes that occur at the time of death and our ability to recognize the nature of that experience determines if and how we are reborn so this becomes a very important consideration. The difficulty of this transition is largely related to unfamiliarity and resistance to change based on conditioned and habitual patterns and misidentification. The negativity we feel as we consider the end of our life is related to our mistaken identification with a sense of separateness that defines this current life. This situation is made by us - our minds, our emotions, our senses, and the patterns and consequences of our actions. The bardo practices are designed to support the recognition of our fundamental essence, a deeper truth of who and what we are, as we go through this process of transition. If we are able to recognize that essence and what is happening we are said to have a much better chance to influence our rebirth or the possibility of liberation during this transition. One way to look at the tendency of people to be reborn and cycle through samsara is that it gives us limitless life experiences and endless opportunities to be of benefit to both ourselves and others. What stinks is if we have an opportunity to make an impact on this process but waste it. I don't hold that anything I say is the right perspective or the only perspective, just my biased and personal perspective at the moment.

IMO santishi is the good stuff though it took a long time to understand that for me. The forms and weapons and 2 man sets are sexy and exciting but I think my deepest lessons and development came simply through standing. I suspect this experience motivated the founder of Yiquan: “In silence there must be movement, and in motion, there must be silence. A small movement is better than a big, no movement is better than a small, silence is all the movement's mother. In Movement you should be like a dragon or a tiger. In non Movement you should be like a Buddha. --Wang Xiangzhai PS - I suggest your review the 3 harmonies, inner and outer, and really express them in your practice

It is the Tibetan seed syllable HUNG. Depending on tradition, practice, and context there can be many different explanations and meanings. My intention in using it as an avatar is that it represents the essence of reality, primordial wisdom, opening of the heart/mind and the awakening of Bodhicitta.

@Summer San ti shi is a wonderful practice. I’ve let my xing yi training go except san ti. Here is an old thread you may want to read -

A wonderful image with a haunting blue by Odilon Redón

I love the Blue Madonna by Carlo Dulci for a tatoo

My favorite Dostoyevsky novel is Crime and Punishment. To be honest I’ve been in a reading slump lately.

One of my all time favs. Like reading an epic painting.

A novella by the same author - A Bride at Every Funeral and a Corpse at Every Wedding - very moving and beautifully written, and inexpensive

In my experience cannabis can be a support in some ways to finding deeper connections between things that may be hidden, to connect with repressed or suppressed emotional energy, to heighten physical sensation and experience in physical activities like zhan zhuang, taiji, qigong, running, and so forth. These are nothing more than my experiences, ymmv. On the other hand I also think she is a bit of a trickster. Sometimes those connections and experiences are exaggerated or misleading and only have significance due to the altered perception. She can also be very controlling for some, be aware of the possibility of psychological dependence. When it comes to specific methods, like Qi cultivation or tummo for example, there is a lot of specificity. and precision in the methodology so I would caution that the altered perception and processing can potentially be an obstacle or cause deviation. You may think you have made some major progress only to later find it was not as significant as you thought at the time. I agree with those who feel that each of us has to tread our own path and must explore different things along the way as we all need different things at different times and no one, including good teachers, have all the answers. On the other hand, when engaging in well defined, traditional paradigms, deviation from the time tested and proven formula is more likely to result in deviation when it comes to the outcome. If you are blazing your own trail through trial and error, mixing of paradigms, learning through books and videos, and so on then I don't think it is as much of an issue. Best wishes on your path.

Thank you @silent thunder And @Apech please be aware this is not permitted here.

I highly recommend: Original Tao: Inner Training (Nei-yeh) and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism by Harold Roth