yabyum24

It's NEVER a good option. I've been through some very dark times but they always pass (although it doesn't feel like they ever will). You owe it to your future self to hang on in there and not lose hope. This will pass.

I like this.

I'm sorry to hear of your problems and I hope you find help you need. I just need to set one thing straight though, as misunderstanding this has caused the problem and causes problems for many more people. Actually, you didn't meditate - you artificially induced a state over which you had no control and, therefore, are clueless as to the result. There was a fair amount of stuff about Binaural Beats posted onto Buddhist boards a few years back and I was aware that some people out there were experimenting. I looked into it and listened to some tracks. Personally, I didn't like it at all and felt there was something "wrong" with the whole thing. It isn't meditation, just like doing drugs and spacing out isn't. People should never mess with this stuff, as you are a passive recipient of whatever comes as a result. If it's bad, you're stuck with some crap nobody has got a clue about. If it was fantastic, you're stuck longing to repeat the experience but never able to, and completely in the wrong frame of mind to enter the path. There's been some very good advice on this thread so far. I should look into following it, especially the stuff about finding someone who can train you in re-balancing your energy. I do Tai Chi and it's excellent but there are many other systems equally as good, yoga for one. Perhaps you should also look at learning how to meditate properly. If you develop calm abiding you will clear out all sorts of crap and you may get to the root of the problem. Good luck anyway. I wish you success and wellbeing. If you don't let it get to you and apply yourself, you will kick it into touch.

As there was some interest on this thread about how one can discover the ego via meditation, I thought I'd put my own experience of the topic here for people to try out if they so wish. It's not going to be a scholarly exposition, or comparative analysis (this would just add more junk to the heap). Just bare-bones stuff. If you are looking for juicy debate, esoteric doctrine or mind-blowing revelations, this isn't the place. So comments like "This is just such-and-such a practice" or "Such-and-such a teacher says..." are unnecessary. Please don't bother putting them up. Just take it or leave it. Any procedural questions are okay, and definitely any experiences you may gain through trying it out. Or if anyone else has done something similar. The first thing to understand is that ego does not want to be found - it really doesn't. What we intellectually understand as ego, is just a mental fabrication, un-findable with logic and reasoning. If you want to really 'get' it, you need to observantly wait for it to come to you - like a hunter. Have no expectations or prerequisites for the encounter and keep an open mind. Regard it as a game, or a kind of amusing but unimportant exercise. The key thing is to keep it 'light' and easy-going. Meditation, in many cases, is a matter for the mind. Perhaps we are aware of philosophies which imply that the body is somehow responsible for our suffering and that our 'higher' self is trapped within this encasement of 'weak' flesh. Well, this process is very different. It's perhaps best to view it like Tai Chi or yoga - it's every bit as much about the body as it is the mind. Buddha taught his disciples to bring their awareness to the breath. Not in a forceful, manipulative way, but just enough to be aware of it. Try it with your eyes closed, if you feel too distracted, or more open if you feel dopey. Look at how your breath feels. Find where it is located, where it contacts your body etc. It may be very different each time, so experiment. Sit comfortably - a chair is okay, as long as your back is straight. If your awareness wanders off, it's no big deal just bring it back and keep doing this. I dislike the words 'focus' and 'concentration' in the context of this practice. I know they mean different things to different people but for me they denote something a bit too harsh and tight. Don't do this kind of thing, it must be kept loose. Five or ten minutes a day, (or even twice a day if you have time), is enough but keep it going. Nothing remarkable should happen at first, but be patient, stick with it and watch carefully. Keeping a diary may help, as it makes you recall the process. Nothing you notice - even from the first session - is irrelevant.

Thanks for sharing that dmattwads. You've certainly highlighted something of crucial importance. All these thoughts are like supports designed to defend the fragile ego - a huge edifice - and an unsteady one at that. Metta is a great method to deal with it, as it just let's you go easy on yourself and it takes the 'poison' out of all the self-criticism etc. My path was initially samatha (with vipassana) and I found something very unexpected inside. Some kind of uneasy, roving darkness and mute force. Like a visceral shadow which did not want to be seen, so I turned my awareness upon it and things started to get very interesting indeed from that point onwards.

Well said. I've never seen this person but there are plenty like that out there. Mostly they have a kind of "none come to the father but through me" approach. In other words, unless you sign up to their 'vision', you can attain nothing. They don't clarify the path to inner light but they do accumulate a large following of desperate people.

I have found these books to be quite inspiring: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Teaching-Naropa/dp/1570621012/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1389693707&sr=8-2&keywords=tilopa+and+naropa http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yogas-Naropa-Tsongkhapas-Commentary-entitled/dp/1559392347/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1389693909&sr=8-3&keywords=yoga+of+naropa

Hi TI No idea there. The tantric component does seem oddly out of place, like an afterthought. The two systems are very different but are said to yield the same result, so I don't judge them in terms of intelligence etc. even if the text appears to. Both are good and consort practice is only an aid to tummo for some people and does not even need to be a flesh and blood woman. Tantra is a massive topic.

A beautiful Breton lullaby for Marblehead. Just to show I appreciate soft melodic stuff too.

I suspect that some of them prefer not to mention it.

You may well mock but we have trees to hug... ...it helps with the self-loathing.

Thanks for putting us right on that.

Absolutely right. I have seen some people seriously tormented by such a futile battle. The guilt it brings them just piles on "the failure" they dread.

This is very true. Meditation can lift you out of the ego-ownership lock-in for a brief moment to show you that there is this "space", that this space actually exists. Knowing this can subsequently inform your reactions out of meditation. Perhaps allowing us to see that we don't always have to react in the habitual way we have done thus far. But every morning really is a new morning in samsara, as you say.

Hi Jetsun, This refers to tantric yabyum practice with a consort (karmamudra). This is known as tantric mahamudra. Tilopa includes it at the end, along with the rest of the piece which is "essence mahamudra". Two different ways of attaining the same goal. The moving around of the bodhichitta, as mentioned in your quote is a highest yoga tantra teaching.

The essence of the most profound dharma is within Tilopa's teachings.

Not music but something to listen to (in an abstract kind of way). One of my favourite archery vids. Not too shocking for Marblehead

Perhaps you have heard of the Tibetan teachings on the Bardo. Essentially a similar (though not as bad) process happens as we fall asleep - essentially the gross energy dissolves into ever more subtle levels and then re-emerges in the dream state. What Silent Thunder is referring to, is a specific training which can maintain awareness of this process (and thus use it for meditative benefit). A dream is a perfect example of how the mind creates duality. The non-dual is divided into the subject and its objects. We can have all kinds of experiences but the entire process is only within our mind. If we realise this within the dream (lucid) it's a game-changer. So, there is a whole lot happening within this Holistic swamp. How useful it is to us depends on what we are able to get out of it.

I checked that one out and read the reviews. Got it on order. I looks like a very useful book and not just for the dream yoga. Thanks for the recommendation ST.

A mesmerizing scene from LOTR. Lady Arwen's flight from the ringwraiths:

Sorry, I'll put something more soothing up next time. It is quite powerful.

That could either be very scary, like sensory deprivation (like waking up inside a still sleeping body) or like a profound boundless samhadi (for which you don't need the surgery). Even the deepest meditative state though is still held within the clear light of awareness - no different in that regard from any mundane state. The same clear witnessing awareness which pervades your transient waking state enfolds within it everything you can ever experience.

That said, you can become aware of it. It's a bit like the eye of a hurricane - it's there in all the movement.

Not necessarily. All I need to do to become one myself is to fly to New York. Then I could be an alien, a legal alien, an Englishman in New York. mmm... perhaps there's a song in that somewhere?

It's like being unable to see the mirror due to all the distracting reflections arising within it.