koyanishi

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche did not create Shambhala Buddhism. That is the creation of his successor Miphan Rinpoche. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche taught Buddhism and he also did develop Shambhala teachings, which he called a secular system, that is more related to shamanism or Shinto than to Buddhism, on the basis of a vision(s) he received (not sure that can formally be termed terma). But he clearly taught these two as separate systems. It is Miphan Rinpoche who has mismashed this two systems into one religion and called it Shambhala Buddhism.

What? Yes, it appears that Konstantin Rudnev is a no good guru indeed, but it is extremely unlikely that he has anything to do with Trinley Thaye Dorje nor is Trinley Thaye Dorje a Shambhala Buddhist. I would not normally defend Shambhala Buddhism as I dislike it, but it is unfair to slander it using false associations.

Thank you for your informative post. However, I think it was more the mere resentment on Yusupov's part that motivated him to assassinate Rasputin. I think it was intense hatred. Hatred of a commoner that rubbed elbows and manipulated and slept with the aristocracy. Some have ascribed the motive for the assassination as being political, but I don't believe that. Rather this seems to be a case of simple but extreme class warfare.

Completely agree.

Oh pious one, you speak the truth - but I not going to.

Once, many years ago I happened to be in Benaras during Shivarati. I was in the company one Mata Darma Dasi and some fellow hippies. Mata Darma Dasi was a sadhu that lived in the burning ghats. We celebrated Shivarati by taking as many different intoxicants as we could. I started out the day by taking hashish, bangh, opium and some locally made hard liquor and continued taking them throughout the day. Then some time in the evening one fellow hippie offered my some datura seeds. I had no idea what that was, but my fellow hippie said that it would get you high. I asked how much to take. He said 25 seeds. Well, I had already being take some quantities of opium, liquor and hashish etc. so got tired of counting. Needless to say I had a very interesting "high" that completely overpowered all the other intoxicants I had been taking during the day. Here is Picture of Mata Dharma Dasi

If the thumb is in a different position then it is no longer apana mudra. There is a big difference between apana mudra and karana mudra. This tread started with the premise that the threatening mudra and the apana mudra are the same mudra. Everyone else seems to have followed the idea that they are variations of the same mudra. They are not.

I got a keris in a Boston antics store many years ago. It did not have a sheath but in the last few months I have had a sheath made for it. I like it a lot, but have not noticed any magical properties, except that I am mesmerized by it.

Yeah, the article certainly misses the point about meditation. Meditation uncovers a downside and thus in the process of uncovering it it eliminates it instead of covering it up as the article's title will have you believe. I don't think the article is about ethics at all. True there are many schools of meditation but the article was addressing Buddhist meditation specifically. All schools of Buddhist meditation start from the practice of shamata and it was from the point of view of shamatha meditation that I answered that article. Meditation can have practical effects if even practiced for as little as ten minutes a day. Of course you might be able to reach an advanced practice where you have "meditation in action".

Meditation relieves suffering not through escape but the opposite of that and that is an examination of the mind - and so I assume the escape artists that are the subject of that article are practicing something other than meditation.

I do practice shamata meditation and you don't read. That's not what the article is talking about. From the article That psychiatrist lives off of peoples "dark side" so of course its in his interest to publicize supposed ills of meditation. Meditation is not about denying a dark side or denying anything. It is the contrary of what that silly article says and it is simply becoming aware of the minds working. If you meditate and are suffering from the many supposed ills of meditation enumerated in that article then perhaps there is something wrong with your meditation technique. It is my experience and the experience of many others that the practice of meditation naturally leads one to become more sensitive to others and also to become less depressed quite unlike the subjects of that article - so I wonder where that psychiatrist dug those veteran meditators up.

Sorry, but I think its a bullsh*t article on meditation. If meditation has an object, the object is to observe the mind and thus magnifying awareness. Looks like these particular "mediators" use meditation as some sort of self-hypnosis to escape reality and not, as it should be, to pacify the mad monkey mind through the use of careful observation of the mind's workings.

That's why I stated that doctrinally the case could be made for the similarity between the two systems.

Doctrinally perhaps the case can be made that there is not much difference between Indian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism, but the Tibetan expression of Buddhism has so many differences from its Indian origin that the term Tibetan Buddhism is justified. For instance - there does not seem to have been the feudalistic hierarchical system of monasteries in India. Nor, it appears, were the anuttara tantras practiced within monastic walls in India. Nor did the Indians invent the idea of a series of reincarnated beings of great teachers. In fact the differences are so pronounced, that until the 1970's western scholars had difficulty accepting Tibetan Buddhism as being Buddhism at all. The exiled Tibetan Lamas had to constantly defend there version of Buddhism as being authentically Buddhist.

Tummo definitely is of Indian origin. Its called Chandali in Sanskrit. There are parts of the Indian Himalayas that are quite cold where Indian yogis would repair to for practice, but the practice of chandali also can be used to cool oneself in extreme heat. I have heard that the test for a Tibetan yogi's mastery of tummo is the see how many wet blankets that have been wrapped around his body he can dry outside in a cold winter day. And then once when I was in India, several decades ago, a Hindu sadhu showed me a picture of his accomplishment of chandali. The picture showed the sitting Sadhu in the middle of four fires. The fires looked to me to be no more that a foot away from him and they seemed to be about as high as his seated height. Anyone who has been in the plains of India in the summer will attest that it gets plenty hot there, but with the added heat from the fires, he should have been roasted alive. I think this test is supposed to be done at noon so that the yogi is considered to be surrounded by five fires, the sun being the 5th one.

OK. Thanks

You can refer to it as a higher state if you like, but you should also be aware that in the Tao heaven and earth, high and low are included. The Tao is not something above your head. You used aligned but 林愛偉 used the phrase "submit to a higher power" in post #306. I thought your chiming in here was in response to my argument against such a notion, hence I inserted a rebuttal to the notion of submitting to a higher power and not to your idea of aligning with the Tao.

To say that one practices self cultivation in Taoism to attain a higher state is, I think, an acceptable statement to make. I, however, prefer to say I practice self cultivation to be more at one with the Tao. Notions of high and low are unnecessary. But to say that in order to achieve realization one must subjugate oneself to a higher power sounds theistic and not very Taoist to me.

As long as you have the idea that there is something to be dropped you are merely spinning your wheels and hence have no insight. What? Notion of a higher power is theism however you want to sugar coat it; and I am atheist. True teachers do not ask the student to submit to them. The Buddha after all said "be a lamp onto yourselves". Also looking at the story of Tilopa and Naropa nowhere in that history is there a notion that Tilopa required Naropa to submit to him.

Submitting to a higher power is perhaps the essential definition of religion, but I have never heard of a person of Tao submitting to anything. "Meditation" does not have to have as object dropping of ego and can instead have no object but to clear the mind of thoughts that cloud insight. Also, I have never heard of any principle of Taoism making a distinction between the profane and the sacred - which is again a distinction made in religion.

Not me. The leader of a nation has as main burdens creating wealth, defending the nation and setting a moral standard (keep the law). Wealth creation and national defense are incompatible with being a monk. Then too, a monk is supposed to be a renunciate not a political leader.

There are many differences between Tibetan Vajrayana and the Indian Buddhist Tantric tradition. India did not have a system of reincarnated gurus/lamas for one. For another the anuttara level of tantra seems to have been practiced mostly by non monastics. And also one doesn't hear of monks in India wielding immense political power and running monastic holdings on a feudalistic basis.

Found very interesting discussions in the forum so I decided to join. I have been a practicing Tibetan Buddhist for some time and am very interested in Tai Chi.