doc benway

Thank you for that. I agree with you that there are very strong parallels in Buddhism and Daoism. Plenty of differences for sure but, at the end of the day, both are describing what we label reality and our realm of experience. And when you get down to the core, they are saying the same thing - this existence is as it is and there is no need to worry about it. The teachings of dzogchen tell us that everything is spontaneously perfected and we need do nothing - leave everything as it is. It goes on to tell us that when we really connect with this truth at a deep level, we will always do the right thing naturally. It is no different from the Daoist teachings on wu wei, de, and ziran. Both are pointing to the fact that we are really nothing more than an orifice through which the universe (or the nature of mind) is self aware and does everything, including us. We simply need to figure out how to not get in its way... In my opinion, there is no best way to approach this stuff. There are infinite ways. The best is what seems like it makes the most sense to you at this moment in time, and that can change. I can't tell anyone but myself where to start. I will say this, many people talk about finding your own path and doing it all on your own. That didn't work so well for me. I do better with an established lineage and credible teacher. There are so many ways to approach this stuff and so many ways to waste time and effort. And life is short, very short! The benefits of the lineage and teacher are multiple - a foundation of trust, others have weeded out many of the distractions and non-productive detours, an opportunity to ask questions and get support from the master, an opportunity to compare notes with others on a similar path, and so forth. And it is much easier to find credible Buddhist (and Bönpo) teachers than Daoist in my experience. If I had to pick one book (and practice) to recommend it would Awakening the Luminous Mind by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche. He presents core dzogchen (trekchod) practices in the first half of the book in an extremely accessible way. I've never worked with more powerful practices in my life. And he has lots of free support resources available. It is not about the theory and concept, but about a very direct way to experience it. Good luck!

Space - the final frontier and the greatest of healers!

Dzogchen is a funny thing, full of contradictions and paradox. The perfecting part occurs before we reach the dzogchen teachings - it is a part of the personal work we do as we embrace the preliminary practices, the sutric practices, and the tantric practices. If we are fortunate enough to encounter and realize the dzogchen teachings, we see the world in a way in which there is no need to change anything. This is why all the dzogchen teachings basically say the same thing - leave everything alone, just let things be as they are. There are some other teachings depending on which lineage you follow - for example, some emphasize teachings that show us how to develop powerful visions and challenge us to remain in the nature of mind (the dzogchen view) in the presence of such visions. Dzogchenpas don't go chasing after rainbows like some of the folks you bump into online. Most (?all) of them, however, have taken bodhisattva vows and that type of enlightened activity becomes a spontaneous and natural manifestation of the dzogchen view. We do not start out as great masters because our ignorance gets in the way. There is plenty to be achieved until one truly realizes that there is nothing to be achieved. Then it's enough to sit and laugh and leave things as they are. Even then, one may continue on the bodhisattva path because, after all, as long as we're alive we tend to be driven to do things and nothing supports our practice and happiness, and that of those around us, more than helping others. Furthermore, a deep understanding of the dzogchen view leads to the natural manifestation of enlightened qualities. The practices certainly should and do exist, it is just that they are not helpful for everyone. It certainly can be. Many folks come to the teachings without adequate preparation and do not understand or realize the teachings. Some misunderstand the intent and the teachings can actually be counter-productive for those people. In these cases, self-defeating is an accurate description but it does not describe the teachings, which are themselves fine, it describes the person who comes to the teachings without proper guidance or preparation. Dzogchen is considered the most sophisticated, advanced, and elusive of all spiritual paths in Buddhism and Bön. It is no surprise that it is not easily understood. Much more surprising actually when someone truly gets it without years or decades of study and preparation. It's not all that different from opening a book of differential equations with no foundation in calculus and just not getting it. We're talking about very advanced subject matter that requires a solid foundation in the fundamentals. Not understanding doesn't mean that differential equations are ineffective or shouldn't exist, in fact, they are just as effective whether you get it or not. Same with dzogchen, the truth to which the teachings refer is as it is whether we get it or not.

There's an interesting phenomenon that occurs regarding that feeling of restfulness vs effort. If we are doing something we really enjoy and value, it is generally effortless and restful. When we are doing something we despise, even if it is much less demanding or strenuous, we tend to feel exhausted. So I think a part of that relates to how much resistance (aversion) we feel towards the task at hand.

I'm lately getting frequent server errors as well. Then it is an issue of having to reset cache data, sometimes that works and sometimes not.

In order of appearance: Castaneda Jiddu Krishnamurti - To Be Human Ramana Maharshi - Be As You Are Anthony DeMello - Awareness Dudjom Lingpa - Buddhahood Without Meditation Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche - Awakening the Luminous Mind Zhang Zhung Nyen Gyud - 21 Little Nails

I meant post #62 which I finally had time to read. I was on retreat for a bit and before that quite busy with work.

It depends a lot on where you learned the techniques in the first place and from whom. If you learned them from a master that has worked with you for a while, I'd hesitate to make any changes. Easier and "better" at the techniques can mean you have enhanced the technique but could also mean that you are depriving yourself of the benefit of working harder to master it. If you adopted the practices from books or video then all bets are off as they are already modified by virtue of trying to learn them second hand. Once one has mastered the basic principles through becoming skillful at multiple forms of qigong, then there is enough understanding to modify the techniques in accordance with the principles. If you've reached this point in your practice, you would not have to ask...

Since you mention vipassana, I'll address your question in those terms. I think it is important to develop a stable and skillful practice of shamatha prior to practicing vipassana for just this reason. Shamatha cultivates wisdom (the direct knowing of the empty nature of self). This direct experience of the empty nature protects against the pain you describe. If you are overly sensitive to the pain in yourself and others, it is because the insight of emptiness has not yet adequately developed. Vipassana cultivates the clarity, the awareness if you will, and this naturally leads to deeper sensitivity. The masters do things in a certain order for good reasons.

What a fabulous post! Thank you RT _/\_

Ni!

I've not encountered any more efficient and effectives practices than the inner refuge practices you can check out here. Good luck in your search.

My approach lately, for myself, has been to become aware of and connect with the space and stillness around the issues, the people, and within the one who needs to solve and change things. When the moment arrives to act, trust your values. Warm regards _/\_

Sure - the first important point is that my confidence in TWR and the Bön methods was already very strong before I started the dream yoga practices. I think that, in and of itself, is helpful. That confidence in the teacher and the method really helps drive the practice. It's easy for Tibetan children growing up in a monastery to have very powerful confidence, trust, and devotion in the teacher and the teachings, much more challenging for secular Westerners like me. But that is an important ingredient. I think it both fuels and maintains the degree of patience and persistence required to be successful but also somehow creates a bridge between our regular, waking mind and a deeper level of awareness. It is that deeper place where we begin to bridge the waking and sleeping dreams and also begin to connect with the archetypal figures that are difficult for Westerners to embrace - the deities, protectors, and so forth. It took me many months (nine or so, I think) of practice before having any success in lucid dreaming. I'd had occasional lucid dreams since childhood but I'm referring to those arising since starting the practice. The first major breakthrough occurred while I was attending a retreat (on a different topic). I can't say what exactly did it for me but I think it was a combination of the months of practice and the environment. The environment was very special - there was a very strong vibe of love, respect, and sacredness present for me. It's hard to describe but it was palpable. I think the sleep environment is VERY important as is our frame of mind upon going to sleep. I had three powerful lucid dreams in one night. I won't go into detail but the first seemed to be testing me, the second and third gave me an opportunity to make an important change in my life that I'd been struggling with. Since then the practice has been less stable than I'd like to admit. There are periods of time when lucidity occurs regularly and other times when it is elusive. My non-lucid dreams are always much more clear and detailed as well as mostly enjoyable and somehow nourishing. There was a time when I would struggle with insomnia and periodic night terrors and nightmares, that is an extreme rarity now. My success with lucidity in dreams seems to be related to a number of variables - my mood, how consistent I'm being with my practices (especially during the day), my state of mind at bedtime, my level of exhaustion, how mindful I'm being throughout the day, my use of mind-altering substances (and by that I mean just about anything, including things like caffeine and alcohol), use of computer, TV, and other distractions. There is also a fine line between taking the practices too seriously or too lightly. Too much seriousness, too much focus on the goal, too much concern with whether or not I'll be lucid is bad for the process. Rinpoche says this is one of the biggest hurdles for many Westerners to overcome because we're so goal driven. On the other hand, treating the process or the dreams themselves with disrespect or in a careless manner is equally problematic. It is good to develop a deep respect for the teachings and for the deeper level of awareness that serves as a bridge between waking and sleeping dreams. Once we do become lucid, what we do with that precious opportunity is also very important (eg do we squander it on pure entertainment or use it to cultivate skills that will serve our spiritual practice?). In the Tibetan tradition all of this is viewed as very sacred and precious and yet not too serious, meaning there is also a playfulness that is important - much like one feels they suddenly wake up and realize, this is a dream! You're much like me in that regard. I am a scientist by training and profession and often struggle with many of the concepts that are not easily and objectively observable. For my purposes, there simply are no satisfactory explanations that could pass scientific scrutiny to remove your doubt. At least, I've never heard any and I'm not able to present one. Certainly I have worked through these questions in my own mind with my own paradigm and can make a few general comments. A thorough discussion would take way too long. Thinking about channels and chakras - we are energetic beings by anyone's definition. We are beings full of motion and activity - from our blood flow, to our neural impulses, to our gut movement, to our muscles, the life and death of our individual cells, their inner activity. Even deeper, all matter is energetic. All of that's easy to understand. Next look at the chakras and what they represent, I'll talk about the Bön perspective (of which I'm NOT an expert, just an interested novice). First I'll say that I do not look at them (or meridians and channels) as discrete, observable physical structures. I look at them more as general trends and pathways that are highly (perhaps infinitely) flexible. There is a chakra at the crown of the head - this is associated with the brain and its activity. This is where we are considered to be closest to connecting with truth. It is related to awareness. No doubt there is energy centered in the head and brain, no doubt this is somehow connected to awareness, consciousness, and so on. That's easy for me to accept. Then there is the throat chakra - it relates to our ability to form speech, not only audible speech but the internal narrator. Then the heart chakra, then the gut, then the sexual organs. Each of these 'centers of energy' correspond to an important physical organ system filled with energetic activity and also each corresponds to a complex of emotional and psychological processes that we relate to these physical systems. These relationships seem to be somewhat archetypal and cross many geographic and cultural boundaries. When we practice, whether it is cleansing channels, guiding energy, clearing chakras, we are using our awareness and our intention to connect with areas that we normally ignore. That is to say we focus on things like emotional and psychological pain or repressed feelings, we focus on dysfunctional patterns of behavior that we generally aren't aware of, that sort of thing. For example, someone asks you a question and you react to them in very predictable ways based on prior experience, rank, station, perceived threat or influence, and all of that. And there are definite connections between certain types of processes and feelings and physical organ systems that are deeply embedded in our minds and in our language (eg I've got a hard-on for something, my heart is broken, that makes me sick to my stomach,...). So somewhere deep in our mind and language we connect physical and energetic phenomena in ways that have a deep effect on us. So I see these systems of practice as using whatever tools it can to help free us from the ties the bind us - the dysfunctional patterns, the automated responses, the repressed and suppressed psycho-emotional baggage, physical pain which represents psycho-emotional trauma, and on and on... The tools are things like awareness, focus, movement of the body and breath, sound, the very things that connect us to our environment - our awareness and sensory perception. I don't think of a chakra as some magical circle in my body. To me they are complex connections between my psycho-emotional "body" (for lack of a better word), my intellectual framework, my conditioned patterns, my cultural biases, my physical body and so on... This is what we are working on when we practice. We need to make these practices deeply personal for them to really be effective. It is not about believing in magic or in the drawings of an old Chinese or Tibetan for me. It is about actually living and personally experiencing the magic, like seeing a dysfunctional pattern of behavior that's resisted change for decades suddenly loosen and dissolve. The way I came to trust in the truth behind the practices was through spending time with the practices themselves and learning to let go of the intellect's demand for an explanation. I was lucky enough to have a teacher who explained absolutely nothing. He taught you what to do (Daoist cultivation) and you did it for a few weeks or months, came back, had a little chat, and got more to work on. Little or now theoretical framework or explanation. That was great for me as no theoretical explanation would have satisfied me. What did satisfy me was seeing the changes in my body and mind after a period of practice. The more I did the work, the more benefit I saw. Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche is similar as a teacher. He is not one to get bogged down in theory. He knows the Western mind well. He knows how unsatisfying most of the Eastern theories and explanations are to our ears (meaning skeptics like you and me). I think he also knows how distracting and counter-productive it can be to simply "believe" in something. If you simply believe, you don't have to do any work, and you also won't see any change. He emphasizes the practice itself and the very tangible effects they have on us. The proof is in the pudding as they say. That is the source of my "faith" - I put that in quotes because to a lot of people it's a dirty word. I use it more in the sense of trust and confidence based on direct experience, even in the absence of any scientific evidence or exploration. You put a certain amount of time into the practices, you see positive results, you dig deeper for longer, you grow even more. If they do not work for you, that is OK too - everyone needs something different at different times in their lives. If the warrior seed syllable practices are calling to you, I would suggest you follow that call. It is little things like that which can literally change our lives. If they are not a good fit, let go and move on. Life's too short to hang on to things that aren't working for us.

I can't speak to AYP as I know nothing about it. I don't know how the Bön practices compare to AYP. I think the most important thing is to think of what your objectives are and focus on tools that will help you achieve them. Also think about how important this is to you. I'd urge you to not give up on something easily because it seems complicated at first. That is just an indication of unfamiliarity. Don't short change yourself. If the practice looks promising, invest a little time and effort and see what comes of it. It's just like any skill - driving, riding a bicycle, addition... it take a little practice, then it's easy. I'll share that when I first looked at this dream yoga methods I was similarly put off. I read the book but didn't begin the practice right away as it seems terribly complicated. Later, I decided to push myself to try it and am very glad I did. It took a few weeks to get the hang of it but the payoff is a practice that you can make your own and can potentially enhance your life in important ways. Making changes that enhance our quality of life generally requires quite a bit of persistence and fortitude over time. These very qualities are cultivated by challenging ourselves to take the difficult road instead of the easy road. A few words about Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoches's practices. They are all traditional Tibetan practices that, for the most part, have been simplified for Western, non-monastic consumption. In general, they are easy to learn and integrate well with one another. The core elements are there so any of his practices can serve as a foundation for major transformation. The warrior seed syllable practices take a little time to learn but are actually quite simple once you get the hang of it. You simply start with one, get comfortable with the basic sound, posture, and so on. Then you can add complexity like chakra and color and so forth. Same thing with the supportive practices like the 9 breathings of purification and tsa lung exercises. Take it slow and enjoy the process, at the end of the day that's really all that matters. Good luck with whatever you choose.

This - worthless post due to a dramatic misunderstanding

First, without a frame of reference based in direct experience, it is difficult to relate to what you hear about techniques and programs and difficult to know how you will fit with them. Sort of like never having seen or played a guitar in person, I then decide to buy one online and ask folks which one is best on a guitar forum... Second, there is no way to tell whether your experience will be similar to that of others. We all have different needs and proclivities. They change over time. Others' experiences and results may or may not have much bearing on your own. Third, it is difficult to assess the validity and credibility of anonymous strangers online. Some folks may be experienced and knowledgeable with solid advice and recommendations, others may be quite the opposite. No way to tell and those with less experience often make very dogmatic and passionate comments and recommendations in order to sound more credible than they actually feel. You are in a difficult place and perhaps turning to a group like us here on the web is your only option. Use caution and common sense. One practice that is simple and profoundly beneficial is standing meditation, zhan zhuang. It is relatively easy to learn without a personal teacher. Here is a good book on the subject. Another marvelous practice that I recommend can be found in this book. It is more of a seated meditation approach and is very accessible to anyone. It's a core part of what I currently practice. Neither of these practices is overtly religious, which may be an important consideration where you live.

No, you log in to a forum, much like you do here. No need for Skype. There will be pre-recorded video teachings and guided meditations, homework in the form of formal meditation and informal application of the practices, and a support forum. In the support forum you will find wonderful people who are very mutually supportive and come from all over. People post questions and comments there for mutual discussion. Rinpoche pops in periodically and answers questions, gives some advice, and so forth. Everything is prerecorded so you work at your own pace. I attended a workshop on this subject last year and it was very powerful. I highly recommend it regardless of one's background or belief system.

PS - the other thing I think it is worth working on if you are new to Daoist arts and looking to start practicing on your own is standing meditation, zhan zhuang. This is a great introductory book on the subject. Standing alone, for a long enough time, will open you and prepare you for more advanced personal instruction whenever that comes to pass.

This is one of the better books in English I've come across: http://www.amazon.com/Original-Tao-Foundations-Mysticism-Translations/dp/0231115652

BES and all of my friends on this lovely thread: Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche is leading a free 3 week course that focuses on using our connection to the inner refuge as most profound source of healing. It is a marvelous practice and very accessible. Look for Healing from the Source on this page if you are interested: http://www.glidewing.com/workshops/

Rather than think it through, I would focus more on simply making the connection, experientially. It's all about the connection. Feel what it feels like inside the dan tian, with an awareness other than visual and spacial representation. Pay attention to the feeling that connects your attention with the inner space. The connection between body and mind feels different when we pay attention and becomes a fascinating journey in these practices. When it gets confusing, be more sensitive to what it feels like inside. Good luck!

The anniversary of the last Bönpo master to manifest jalu was a few days ago. E Ma Ho! https://ravencypresswood.com/

I apologize for saying it but I think Daoist neidan practices without a teacher are not worth the time. Particularly if your goal is "to see the path to the end, to become a 真人 and/or 天仙 and attain the Dao." Expend the time, money, and effort to get personal instruction, books and experimentation are not the way to do it.