forestofclarity

不二 in Chinese Chan is translated from advaya अद्वय in Sanskrit, which is a term of art meaning "not two." This has a number of meanings, most often referring to the "freedom from extremes" (most commonly, existence and non-existence or subject and object--- both stances taken by Buddhists who are listed as Zen Patriarchs, Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu). So you see, this is a term of art with very rich meaning.

From the Xin Xin Ming: 信心不二 Faith in mind is non‑dual. 不二信心 Non‑duality is faith in mind. Interesting to read this as "sincere mind is not two, not two is a sincere mind" in light of Hinton's comments. Richard Clark's translation: To live in this faith is the road to non-duality, Because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind

The two are not unrelated. The initial path(s) of the Bodhisattva are the path of accumulating merit and wisdom (Zen is a path for Bodhisattvas). This lays the foundation or groundwork for the path of seeing. Personally, I have found it helpful to return to these foundations again and again. But do as you please. I wish you well on the path.

Welcome to the forum!

I'm not sure what you're getting at. The physical manifestation of the living Christ on earth are now the Christians. But yes, Jesus did not follow a Zen-like transmission model.

From a general Buddhist point of view, there are many ways to practice. Some of the foundational ways include following the precepts, doing good deeds, cultivating kindness and compassion, reading scriptures, prayers for assistance, chanting mantras, etc. There are also other approaches, such as trusting in Amitabha, the Buddha of infinite light and reciting the name. Pureland is the easy path, and can be practiced instead or, or in addition to, Zen/Chan.

Well, the lineage isn't necessarily person to person, although there is sometimes claimed a transmission by laying on the of the hands that supposedly traces back to Jesus. The transmission is via Holy Spirit. Specifically, in the Bible there are three symbolic "baptisms": 1. The baptism of the flesh with water. This is the common "turning away" from the world, the flesh, and the devil that most Christians do; 2. The baptism of spirit and fire, with the aforementioned laying on of hands. This is when the Holy Spirit enters into a person and there may be flashy experiences and siddhi-type powers as set forth in Acts; and 3. The baptism of wisdom and cloud. A Christian version of the wisdom eye. If people think these are merely metaphors, well, feel free to think so.

Opinions on this forum are split about most things, and have been for the past 17 years or so I've been on here. I would highly recommend forming your own opinions.

Form inside a tradition, myth and traditional stereotypes rule. This is one reason is it good to look outside the tradition. These sorts of practices appear all over the place, especially in Maoshan. Visualization is also mentioned in the Chung and Lu text as a way to cultivate. By the time of the Book of Balance and Harmony, visualization has been demoted to a longevity practice (but not useless as often claimed). Looking at the history, there is a definite focus or shift from these practices to practices without them. This is easily seen researching the issue. I think that visualization is usually linked to magical purposes, which have a cost. I have found them to be eerily effective (and I'm sure many others as well) if practiced properly. The world may appear material, but is more appropriately described as a stable dream IMO. But people can adopt whatever conceptual belief structure best suits their practice. I can see that reading through Reid's book. There is a lot of similarity with Chan, which makes sense since Chan seems to have arisen in China even though the Chan teachings tend to be very grounded in Buddhism. It was not unusual in China or Japan to have the ruling elites favoring wise sages. Buddhists in China went from wandering monks to being sponsored by the ruling nobility, which meant there had to be a closer and often political relationship. The idea of the "national teacher" comes from this. Zongmi for example received very high honors and Huizhong was known to have taught Tang emperors. In Tibet, there was a huge conflict between Chinese and Tibetan masters about sudden and gradual enlightenment that was settled by a debate sponsored by King Trisong Detsen. Artistole taught Alexander the Great. But also keep in mind that rulers in all cultures would often check in with sages and diviners before making a major decision--- such as the Greeks consulting the oracles at Delphi. So I don't think it is necessarily unusual for a young noble to have sages as teachers, especially for a society that prized refinement as much as old China. It is fun to imagine that the ancient Chinese were actually more successful in creating the Chinese version of the philosopher-king. Reid's parallels between these texts and the DDJ and ZZ is very interesting. And the DDJ is confirmed to have been found in the burial places of Chinese nobility, so I don't think this is so fanciful. I had previously dismissed the idea that these were cultivation as opposed to political texts, but Reid has convinced me these aren't necessarily different which would explain why they are both. I think in some ways, the later texts such as Secret of the Golden Flower is a return to form. The same article outlines how later neidan authors began to incorporate this idea into their texts, along with ideas that Buddha, Zhao Zhao, Hui Neng and other famous masters were secretly neidanists. There are similar hermetic texts that claim Jesus, Moses, etc. were secretly esotericists, or sorcerers, or whatever. Absent specific evidence (and as far as I know, the evidence are the claims of Doaists who were competing with Chan for sponsorship), I place this along the level of traditional propoganda as the Chan masters claiming to have converted Lu Dongbin to Chan (although reading Secret of the Golden Flower, maybe they did ). It is not unusual in any culture for people to author texts or spread practices attributed to some earlier person, founding member, or famous figure (like the Shurangama Sutra, which is only found in Chinese with no evidence of having a Sanskrit forbearer, or numerous mystical Christian texts attributed to earlier key figures). There are some interesting qi type exercises that still survive in Rinzai Zen, however, so who knows.

Not sure what to make of this, so just thought I'd toss it out there. In my academic review of Chan/Daoist relations, I came across this interesting passage by Zhang Boduan, as an explanation for his verses composed upon Awakening to Reality: translated from Ziyang zhenren Wuzhen pian zhushu 紫陽真人悟真篇注疏, DZ 141, preface:16b–17a From: Portayals of Chan Buddhism in the Literature of Internal Alchemy by Joshua Capitanio

I thought this was a strong Q&A from Swami, especially the parts from 9:17 to 33:56 and 58:19 - 1:10. I feel as though his teaching is maturing with his age somehow. The prakasha-vimarsha distinction highlights an important point that had bothered me in certain presentations, but has not been so clearly raised. Basically, prakasha is fundamental awareness (which is self illuminating) and vimarsha is reflexive--- awareness of awareness (a posture of the mind). It is a subtle point, but it makes a difference since one is omnipresent and the other isn't.

Taking a skim at Robinette's Taoist Meditation, I see a lot of references to what later texts like what the Chung and Lu or the Book of Balance and Harmony might call the lower Daoist paths: reverting the semen to the brain, gathering and swallowing the spit, visualization deities in the body, and trying to create a external spirit body that can travel about and pick flowers. The later texts tend to go "Chan" to the extent that it is difficult for me to distinguish in many places Daoist and Chan materials. Of course, this is more Maoshan than possible other traditions such as what you're referring to in the next post. And if I think about it, the Nei Yeh would probably fit into that category as well. I should probably have a look at those again. Some of the scholars also say that the notion of lineage wasn't that important to Daoists until they saw the Chan Buddhists using it to obtain favor/resources. In the same article: Honestly, I think most lineage claims are mythical. I don't think every school traces back to Gautama as claimed, and if one is intellectually honest, there is a large difference between Sutta and Abhidharma based Buddhist practices (largely renunciant and confined to monks seeking to abdandon samsara for nirvana) and the later texts that focus on the essence of mind and seem very clearly influence by Vedic and Shaivite practices. In fact, the idea of lineage sounds very Vedic. It is entirely possible that the earlier methods did not survive to Boduan's time. It is also possible that Zhang Boduan was unable to access the living tradition at that point. But most of the modern neidan lineages seem to trace or include him in their lineage and the later texts seem to support this Daoist/Ming + Chan/Xing theory for modern neidan.

Personally, I wouldn't mix up Buddhism and Vedanta. Both of them present maps, or a raft, but don't confuse the map with the territory. Choose one that speaks to you personally more (or is more accessible) and go deeply into that one. Buddhism goes with not self as a strategy, while Vedanta goes with self. For example, if I tell you to make a right, or three lefts, you may end up in the same place. Flipping back and forth between self and no-self is a good way to remain struggling--- it's like going right, then left, then right, then left. Rest assured that muddle headed sectarianism aside, you can't really make a bad choice IMO.

No longer "Emaciated."

It appears that different traditions have manifested to connect with different sentient beings. In Buddhism, it is said that the Buddhas manifest numerous dharma gates, as many as there are sentient beings. Some go far as to note that dharma gates are ever present, in every moment. Including this one. One aspect of egoic mental habits is to drive out diversity and reduce everything to one thing--- the specific ego habit's thing, to be precise.

No.

What school was this one?

Many of us have taken his online courses. My body was able, with training, to stay submerged in high mountain lakes at very low temperatures for unsafe periods of time. It goes to show that demonstrable physical and mental mastery is meaningless if the heart is cold and cruel. I'm glad she is bringing this to light. It can be very hard and re-traumatizing for victims of abuse to expose themselves in this way.

My understanding is that they have no power, internet, or water. Very devastating.

I also strongly suspect that there is an underlying change to the physio-energetic nervous system that allows this sort of expansion to be more accessible, even if not as colorful in future iterations.

A lot of people talk about neidan and dan tian but it is not clear to me by what people mean by dan, 丹. So what do you all mean? It seems that definitions vary widely and that people sort of talk past each other on this issue. It seems fairly important. A few sample definitions are provided at Golden Elixir: https://www.goldenelixir.com/terms/jindan.html Note: I didn't ask "which one path is right, and how is every other path wrong" nor "who is right and who is an ignoramus in these arts." I'm curious as to what the different paths say.

Interesting point I've found: in some of the dharmic traditions, there is a distinction generally drawn between consciousness that is distorted by conditioning (vijnana) and that which is not (jnana or prajna-- jna is also related to the Latin gno- as in gnosis). So even if there isn't an express intention at the surface level, there is underlying conditioning that still has an impact on how the perceptual world is generated and perceived. Vijnana in classical Chinese is typically 識, which is the same part of shi shen or 識神, i.e. the acquired mind. Of course, Daoism makes a distinction between 識神 (shi shen) and 元神 (yuan shen).

Do you mean 識 for shi or some other character?

I'm sorry, but that doesn't sound objective at all. Your test is based on subjective feelings of your subjects. There are plenty of questions about how the test was conducted, whether the subjects were primed or led to a certain conclusion, the impact of other factors such as body heat, sound, etc. Again, I'm not saying that it didn't happen, I'm just saying this is not the type of "objective" evidence that is often demanded. It may be very convincing for you, but is unlikely to persuade others (unless they know and trust you). A more objective demonstration might be: some one with a tumor goes to a healer. Healer performs healing. The tumor vanishes. Western doctors are shocked. Not conclusive, but not relying on subjective perceptions either. The tumor is there or it isn't. Personally, I'm glad that people are seeing results on their spiritual path and this seems to be the case here. But if the implication is that if some one is decreasing their suffering and increasing their compassion but can't emit qi electric out of their fingers is somehow deficient seems a bit Hinayana to me. Similarly, if some one can emit qi out of their fingers, but doesn't exhibit the higher virtues of benevolence, etc. I don't know what qi emission proves. But that's just my opinion. In your pasted quote, it states:

Some one once posted here that they went to China and asked a master for a high level practice. The person was given the Amitabha mantra and told to repeat it. The poster, IIRC, was very excited about the practice. Then some one stepped in and "kindly" informed the poster that they were given a non-practice because they weren't good enough or special enough to warrant an high level practice. This is what I would call a small minded or Hinayana view. Compare to say, Master Xu Yun, who would give the Pureland practice out to many. When John Blofeld questioned him as to why he would give such an "inferior" practice as opposed to Zen, he says: This is a Mahayana view in my mind. Open to all people in all moments. Full story here: https://thebamboosea.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/a-conversation-with-hsu-yun-john-blofeld/ Not to say this isn't your experience, or that your experience isn't valid, but what is objective? Some people report that they've seen Zen Master Rama, aka Frederick Lenz, emit light and fly through the air. And most "tests" don't usually involve a skilled illusionist (see below). But the larger issue is this: given that the path you're talking about is only open to the "gifted few," how does this discussion help the vast majority of people that do not fit that definition?