doc benway

Great teacher and great book! All I need to say about him is contained in my sig... The most concise, literary description of reality I have encountered. _/\_

Absolutely, particularly if they are lucid dreams. Bridging the gap between the sleeping dream and the waking dream is very helpful, IMO.

This is an interesting topic - what is taijiquan in combat? I don't have a definitive answer but can share a few thoughts. I think we would all agree we were watching combat taijiquan if we saw effective use of the principles of zhan nian lian sui bu diu and bu ding. I'm not seeing that in this fight to a meaningful degree. I think we would agree if we saw techniques like lü, ji, an, cai, zhou, and kao - not seeing that so much either. We would agree if we were seeing effective yielding and neutralization and also if we were able to see evidence of the subtle "ba da jin" like coiling, wave, revolving, and folding strengths, to mention a few. To me, those methods would be the definitive example of combat taijiquan application. I can't say that I'm clearly seeing any of that here. On the other hand, taijiquan training gives us a lot of physical, mental, and energetic advantage - fajin skill, balance, agility, speed, sensitivity. These are also developed by the other internal arts, and the external arts for that matter. My shifu taught both internal and external arts and the more advanced and accomplished practitioners converged in terms of their skill and effectiveness, rather than diverged. One of my training partners had studied the external arts for several years then moved to taijiquan. He then continued to train with his external buddies and within 6 months of taijiquan training they were shocked by how much more effective his rooting, balance, power, agility, and flexibility and become. My teacher used to always say that taijiquan training is the best for developing true power. So my opinion, FWIW, is that the fighter may have benefited enormously from taijiquan training and the benefits of that training are undoubtedly contributing to his success in this sparring match. On the other hand, if one were in combat, rather than sparring, and had a lot of skilled training in combat taijiquan, I believe it would look much different. Combat taijiquan is close quarters fighting characterized by zhan nian lian sui bu diu and bu ding as well as joint manipulation, take downs, grappling, elbows, and body strikes. At least that is what the classics would have us believe and that is how I was taught. Never used it in a real fight yet, however, and in a controlled sparring environment, like the videos above, there's not much opportunity to engage those sorts of techniques, IME.

We are all beings of compassion, we just get distracted soon after birth.

Very nice photo and posture!

Germans are always on time, even when they are in the wrong place, no?

I taught at a school for a long time. I'm currently independent although I maintain a good relationship with my previous school - I teach for fun now, it's not my primary occupation. I don't have much interest or need for associating with qigong or martial arts professional organizations at this time. And, unfortunately, my prior experience with such organizations in the US has been less than inspiring. Good for credentials, not much else.

Is awareness in you? Or are you in awareness?

Is awareness not manifest?

One thing I'd like to add is to remember that in any relationship, it is much more important to focus on yourself than the other, be that a person, spirit, or the earth itself. Continually look at things like what is my responsibility, what are my expectations, my motivation, my desire, and my needs? How accurate is my image of the other, how much of that is my own projection and expectation? And look at what it is that you have to offer to the relationship. In shamanic traditions, the offering is perhaps the most important aspect and take priority over the asking.

I like to make it clear in advance of expectations regarding lateness. Best if it can be avoided. Better to show up late than not at all. I ask students to be mindful and respectful of the class, warm themselves up as per the usual routine and join the class when ready.

In my current approach, when thinking about something(s) pulling energy away from 'me' and being concerned with 'my' vital essence, I focus on the 'me' and 'my' and how that is separate from those 10,000 things and how that is separate from that energy. When that identity feels less substantial, 'i' feel less separate and less loss of anything.

In our energetic practices, we develop familiarity with points, paths, and patterns of awareness of energetic forms. In a sense, we create them, we reify them, and we can work with them in a lot of useful ways. One very important effect of this work is focusing, strengthening, and refining of our power of attention and intention. In a relative sense we can bring this heightened sensitivity and refined power of intent and awareness to: opening to others, sharing with others, understanding and helping others, and connecting with others; just as we can use these powers of awareness to understand, accept, and connect with ourselves. This is the value and purpose of all of these practices, IMO. In an absolute sense, there is an opportunity to connect with ourselves and others at a much more fundamental level - the nature of ourselves, that which is uncreated and undestroyed, unaffected by all of the experiences and forms of our lives. At this level of connection, there is a very powerful and wonderful awakening of love, warmth, bliss that dwarfs any experience of love and kindness in our relative experience and is inseparable from that nature. It's always there but usually obscured. I think that all of our practices, whether Chinese, Tibetan, Hebrew, Christian,... are pointing to this nature, each in their own unique and beautiful way. If you have had a history of a stroke and a manic psychotic break, I would urge great caution with any of these practices and strongly suggest engaging the guidance of a qualified teacher or therapist. The practices themselves are generally safe but it is what we bring to the practices that can result in negative experiences and consequences.

It depends on you, your approach, your background, your level of insight into yourself, and your sensitivity. Developing relationships with the spirit world isn't too much different from developing relationships within our physical world. Intuition is valuable but I also think it important to have some guidance if you are new to the practice and to use some degree of healthy caution.

At a retreat this summer we had a banquet and folks were invited to share or perform. We helped the Tibetan monks to sing this as a round, it was fun.

The Tibetan dream yoga practices use a method like this. Before sleep, one takes inventory of the day and moves through each action and experience, not judging, not even looking to see how we could have done it better, but rather just looking. And, if possible, one looks from the perspective of the natural state and sees, at a fundamental level, how our waking life is a dream.

One of my favorite teachers, Anthony Demello, is a bit of a wrathful fellow. He advocates the same thing. When I truly see the side of me that is an ass, I don't get as reactive or defensive when others point that out. It's quite effective.

Absolute bodhicitta is synonymous with the nature of mind. I'm not sure it makes sense to speak of arousing it as much as relaxing into it once the obscurations have gone. When we speak of generating and arousing, I think we are referring to relative bodhicitta. Absolute bodhicitta is as it is and isn't something, isn't aroused or generated, it's already what we have always been. Probably just semantics but I think there's something of value in making that distinction, at least for my own understanding.

My pleasure If you didn't read Khandro Rinpoche's talk on the ngöndro yet, I'd highly recommend it. Really wonderful information there even if you have no interest in or plans to practice ngöndro.

There is more to the ngöndro than mantra and prostrations. In addition to the information provided by Anderson and CT, if you have a proclivity for Bön, you should read Opening the Door to Bön by Nyima Dakpa. It is an excellent introduction to the preliminaries needed for Bön dzogchen practice. Words of My Perfect Teacher provides an excellent discussion of this as well in the Nyingma tradition. Your quotation is describing advice for simply resting in the nature of mind. It is not referring to practicing the ngöndro. If you choose to try and develop mastery and stability in this without the benefit of practicing the ngöndro, that's fine and I wish you the best of luck. That doesn't change the fundamental components of the ngöndro, however. Other convenient resources describing the ngöndro and the role of refuge and generating bodhicitta - http://www.lotsawahouse.org/topics/ngondro/ - multiple excellent resources http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Ngöndro http://gyalshen.org/ngondro-preliminary/ I stumbled across a pdf of a Mindrolling introduction to the ngöndro online. It is marked as restricted so I'm not going to publish the link but here are a few brief quotes from it: "A “general” ngöndro is so-called because the preliminaries are not done just once in your life. The general ngöndro is done to prepare your body, speech, and mind to become a suitable vessel for the vajrayana teachings. The structure of these ngöndros is always the same. Taking refuge and generating bodhichitta are the first and second ngöndro practices, done together with prostrations. But beyond just “taking refuge” or “doing prostrations,” we are talking about actually recognizing and filling the mind with the pure qualities of the Buddha, dharma, and sangha. The bodhichitta practice then gives direction to the path of practice. In this way, the preliminaries should be seen as giving direction to your path of practice—a path grounded on the two essential qualities of devotion and bodhicitta. Where there is devotion, there is enlightenment. Where there is no devotion, there is no enlightenment. It’s as simple as that." Edit - The link to this document is on the Khandro Rinpoche website, so I'm happy to include it here - http://www.khandrorinpoche.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/MJKR-Introduction-to-Ngondro.pdf It's a wonderful introduction to the purpose and value of the ngöndro practices. Here is a brief overview of the Longchen Nyingtik Ngondro (Nyingma) from the ripga wiki: The Common or Outer Preliminaries Blessing the Speech Invoking the Lama Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind from SamsaraFree and Well-Favoured Human Birth Impermanence Karma: Cause and Effect The Suffering of Samsara Invoking the Lama's Compassion to Avoid Pitfalls on the Path The Uncommon or Inner Preliminaries Taking Refuge Generation of Bodhichitta: the Heart of the Awakened Mind Vajrasattva Purification The Trikaya Mandala Offering The Accumulation of the Kusulu: Chö Guru YogaVisualization Seven Line Prayer Seven Branches of Devotional Practice Maturing the Siddhi Invoking the Blessing The Lineage Prayer Receiving the Four Empowerments Dissolution Dedication Special Prayer of Aspiration

Sorry, but you're mistaken

I won't waste my time with most of your reply. But since you seem to have an interest in what Lama Yeshe has to say, he was a very strong advocate for the practice of bodhicitta and devotion. Guru yoga plays a central role in his tradition. You took one quotation out of context to support your position and ignored everything else - . I generally don't quote people much but since you thought it important for me to study Lama Yeshe's words, I'll share some from him and his organization. Here are a few quotes from the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive: "Guru Puja is the best, quickest path to achieve enlightenment, this was what enabled Milarepa to achieve enlightenment in one lifetime, and this is the quickest way for you to achieve enlightenment. This is the way countless others have achieved enlightenment in one brief lifetime." "Milarepa is one who has completed the whole spiritual path, achieved total control of the body and mind. Many of us are under the control of obscuring disturbing attitudes and under the control of the suffering body. But Milarepa overcame all of these by having total control of the extreme subtle wind and mind by having undisturbed strong and stable guru devotion, totally free forever from any mistakes towards his guru Marpa." "Lack of guru devotion is the heaviest obstacle to fully developing one’s own potential, which is to achieve full enlightenment for the sake of numberless sentient beings." "From guru devotion comes correctly devoting to the virtuous friend with thought and action, and everything comes from that." These and much more come from - http://www.lamayeshe.com/index.php?sect=article&id=340&chid=1290 More Lama Yeshe quotes - "Don’t bring your materialistic way of life to your Dharma practice. It doesn’t work. Before meditating, check and correct your motivation. If you do this, your meditation will become much easier and more worthwhile, and your right action will bring realizations. You don’t need to be hungry for realizations, grasping, “Oh, if I do this, will I get some fantastic realizations?” You don’t need expectation; realizations will come automatically. Once you’ve set your mind on the right path, realizations will come of their own accord." "Why are we bored, lonely and lazy? Because we don’t have the will to totally open our hearts to others. If you have the strength of will to totally open your heart to others, you will eliminate laziness, selfishness and loneliness." "Meditation is not on the level of the object, but on that of the subject. You are the business of your meditation." "A guru is a person who can really show you the true nature of your mind and who knows the perfect remedies for your psychological problems. Someone who doesn’t know his own mind can never know others’ minds and therefore cannot be a guru." "You must recognize that your real enemy, the thief who steals your happiness, is the inner thief, the one inside your mind, the one you have cherished since beginningless time. Therefore, make the strong determination to throw him out and to never let him back in." "It’s the foggy mind, the mind that’s attracted to an object [ed. in your case, ZOOM, the rainbow body] and paints a distorted projection onto it, that makes you suffer. That’s all. It’s really quite simple." "The essence of the guru is wisdom: the perfectly clear and radiant state of mind in which bliss and the realization of emptiness are inseparably unified." "Be blissful and enjoy your life; do not let yourself become obsessed with anything. Determine to use the rest of your life to benefit others as much as possible." "Our desires are not limited to the things we can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. Our mind runs after ideas as greedily as our tongue hungers for tastes." "We should train ourselves not to become engrossed in any of the thoughts continuously arising in our mind. Our consciousness is like a vast ocean with plenty of space for thoughts and emotions to swim about and we should not allow our attention to be distracted by any of them." "The purpose of meditation is not to reach nirvana and then disappear. If that was the case, it would better that you manifested as a flower!" I found these in a matter of a few minutes, no doubt much more there... I agree with you that having a healthy sense of drive and inspiration is very valuable in samsaric and spiritual life. The difference is the motivation (devotion and bodhicitta, not selfish, personal gain) as is adequately expressed in the quotes above.

Or the Virgin Mary in pancake batter. If folks need that sort of thing to help support them, it seems to me to be more a sign of disbelief and lack of certainty than a sign of confidence. Just my opinion.

I can't take credit for that - it is the standard practice in both Buddhist and Bön Dzogchen, dating back to the earliest known writings in each tradition. Actually not, I was sharing something I learned in retreat. That's quite clear, that is your intellect speaking. It does not want to acknowledge that it does not reign supreme. That approach will continue to reify itself and serve as an obstruction to meaningful spiritual progress. And that is your prerogative. In fact, they are specific practices and are an integral part of the Dzogchen ngondro. Of course they arise spontaneously when the mind and heart are not obstructed. That doesn't mean it is not useful to practice for those of us who still live in samsara. Certainly they go together as does everything and everyone in an absolute sense. In a relative sense they are unique and mutually supportive, but not equivalent. As I spend time practicing them in earnest, I see that the generation of devotion and the generation of bodhicitta are quite unique. Devotion is based on trust and gratitude. Bodhicitta is based on empathy . Some folks find trust easy and empathy hard, some the other way around. Both are essential... ...or not, at your discretion.

I wasn't suggesting anything - just offering information. Do you think the Tibetan children who have become monks and successful practitioners have never been told what is necessary in their practice? Wrong. You are completely mistaken here regarding motivation and talking about western failure - the Tibetans have extremely powerful devotion and bodhicitta, developed from childhood. That is the foundation of their success. Westerners struggle with that because of cultural bias and coming to the practices later in life so it is difficult for them to develop these key components as effectively. Your powerful intellect, as you describe it, is the enemy of successful Dzogchen practice - not an ally. The more intelligent practitioners often struggle more because of that. They are more successful in rationalizing desire and aversion and denying the truth about the practice because of the power of the ego and need to overcome that. The intellect is the primary tool of the ego, hence it is an obstacle in many ways.