Vajrahridaya

Yes, your mistrust lies within your interpretation and the limits of your personally referenced experience only, not having anything inherently to do with Buddhism. What is meant by detached emotions, is merely referencing objective and birds-eye outlook, rather than getting all caught up in the muck of life, getting all angry and worked up, getting all defensive then offensive, getting all button pushed and what not. Buddhists realize deep connection with everything, thus deep compassion arises without attachment to limited self reference, thereby action can spring spontaneously from an expanded experience of life beyond the limitation of the 5 senses, without denying the 5 senses and their importance at the same time.

Dependent Origination explains that you are inherently attached to everything, but emptiness reveals that to reference the limited ideation, notion, and experience of the ego, is going to limit ones experience of everything to immediate locality attachment, i.e. I was born by these parents, went to this school and these are my friends and this is my experiential reference... period. I am this body! This is the kind of attachment that the Buddhist is learning to let go of, but at the same time, learning to attach to the entire cosmos! Otherwise why would a Bodhisattva take up the vow to realize liberation for the sake of all beings, referencing infinite regress? At the same time, a Bodhisattva trains in the view that beings do not inherently exist, only relatively exist, in order to not get caught up in other peoples "shit." You can't really help another out of a pit by jumping in with them. Well, ok, unless it's to offer a back to step on to boost the other out, then they in turn help you climb out by reaching out a hand, but why not just reach out a hand from above in the first place? But, then the person in the pit would have to recognize the hand and the hand would have to have a firm platform above to extend from... Anyway... I hope you get my meaning. Buddhism is far from Nihilistic or non-life-affirming, as it is a very life affirming path, just not within the construct of the merely mundane and limited view of the 5 senses as it is holistic and inclusive of the 5 senses, but transcendent simultaneously.

Well yes, if she's qualified to teach such things and people are open to receive them with proper instruction... then of course! Certain practices can be shared online, but things like Trul Khor cannot as these practices are way too nuanced and dangerous and have to be shared in person by a qualified master of the practice. That's all the high lama was saying I'm sure, not that they are selfish and hoarding, just careful.

I've definitely had my own experiences referencing the Akashic.

Apparently Buddhists were interpreting the collective sub-un-conscious long before both and postulating a conceptual theory as "alayavijnana". Roughly meaning, "storehouse consciousness" both individual and collective, to be experienced directly through meditation.

Awesome! I like Buddhist therapists.

Both are necessary in practicality. Like Nagarjunas "two truths" theory, but... still transcended by Dzogchens "one truth" that doesn't inherently exist theory, that's really "the liberated awareness experiencing."

Word to your Buddhanature! Very well put. (humbled)

Your take originates dependent upon your view and your view arises dependent upon your experience and your experience originates dependent upon your view, like a self enclosed loop. Oh, but you are!

Dependent origination means endless things, there is no beginning or ending. Both inter-dimensionally and linearly. There is no supreme "thing" that all things are dependent upon, which is the point of dependent origination. It neither subscribes to being, nor does it subscribe to non-being. It's more of the highlighted sentence above, which means there is no inherent self, just inter-relative "selves".

His take on the Buddhadharma is New Age rambling without insight or real scriptural context. He's actually more of a Kashmirian Shaivite than anything though, with his whole stages of consciousness theory.

Right, you're more open, less "self" fixated and more engaged with your environment. This releases tremendous energy for the senses, in a deeply uplifting and pleasurable fashion and makes every experience that touches the senses, more clear and vivid or even more visceral. Though one might go through stages where everything feels like an empty cloud! HAHA!

Actually, because the idea of a permenet self existing and self shining essence of all is exactly the type of conceptual fixation the Buddha debated against being conducive for liberation, I'll offer my help through correction. Even the non-conceptual can be a fixation. Thus Buddhas warning about the 4 formless jhanas and taking any one of them up as a permanent and self existing essence. I, philosophically speaking, don't have any conceptual fixations, because I have experiential understanding of dependent origination which makes this lack of fixation possible. The Buddhas view is the viewless view. To think I'm holding onto a conceptual fixation concerning my correction of fixated views that reflect one extreme or another of either Eternalism like you and Dwai for instance concerning the Buddhist texts, or Kates Nihilism concerning the views presented in Buddhist texts would be reflective of protecting your own fixated view.

That's BS. The Brahmins were part of the pre-Buddhist-existing caste system which the Buddha vehemently denied. Helen Blavastky wrote some cool things and also some totally made up farses. Also, what high lamas have to teach, one needs preperation for, as they are not concepts but cultivation methods that would be abused by those not ready for them. One has to go through stages and tests in order to get these really intense and often dangerous yogic methods. The Philosophies of the high lamas are all quite readily available. But, tantric techniques? They should be guarded and kept secret. Look at what happened to Hatha Yoga. The same type of secrecy exists in Chinese Taoist lineages regarding various techniques for cultivation. You don't teach someone how to do back flips before you teach him/her how to jump.

I've done a number of fasts and they were wonderful!

I've experienced this transcendence, and it can serve a purpose in context, but usually it's for the sake of reifing something or other within a positive kind of grasping. Look at Tibetan monks in caves who only eat dried barley and have to sit in full lotus for months on end, sleep sitting up with absolutely no light in a sealed cave. But it's contextualized with anatman and dependent origination, so even if the experience is the same, the interpretation is different as is the overall result for the most part, is going to be liberating from both higher and lower realms, when most theisms aim at fasting for the sake of higher realms or communing with the "cosmic deity of all."

There is a final and grandest insight and that's the insight that fully liberates endlessly. But it's ramifications and expressions are endless.

This is referencing the constant state of enlightenment and compassionate expression of a Buddha. Compassion, selflessness and loving kindness. This self he's asking people to cultivate is selfless.

I found that the more Anatta is realized, the more sensual and in touch with my senses I become. The more I realize dependent origination, the more joy I derive from my senses.

Vajrayana practices and philosophy incorperates all the senses in contemplation focusing more on renouncing ego rather than the senses. The Buddha saw the suffering of birth, sickness, old age, and death in a flood in one day as his father protected him from all these things his entire life for 30 years. So, when he left the palace for the first time, it was overwhelming to see that people get sick and even die! He had no idea about the reality of death. So he made a promise to all beings to find a way out of this suffering. Most people just accept the things in life and don't question thinking it's all inevitable and ireversable. He didn't think this.

I think your interpretation of Buddhism as non-life affirming is reflective in your misinterpretation of Anatta. You might like to study more Vajrayana if the Pali context seems too extreme in renunciation. Padmasambhava was a master of all the tantras, including the tantras of sex and embracing the pleasure of life. But hey! Taoism is awesome... have a safe trip.

Wilburs' still New Agey... that's my opinion, you shouldn't be hurt by it so much.

You sure take things personally.

I don't have any recommendations, but yea, the Akashic records are cool. Swami Muktananda talks about them and his experience of them in Play Of Consciousness.