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Check out this website for helpful mantra info http://www.wildmind.org/mantras

In my main practice, which is the Dudjom Tersar Ngondro, there's a series of mantras to be chanted - to open the practice, maintain the core, and then to end with long life dedications. This the Tibetans refer to as 'good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good at the end'. Having said this, i do have a couple of mantras which i find to be incredibly efficacious in terms of maintaining an even connection with the 3 jewels. One is Guru Rinpoche's 12 syllable mantra and the other is the 100 syllable Vajrasattva mantra. These two mantras are imbued with great effectiveness for removing all kinds of obstacles, both mundane and otherwise.

Are you being harassed?

Just recently started to try supplementing with an alcohol-free tincture of Chaga mushrooms. Too early to note any effect yet.

Soaking them overnight -yes, but i just do it at room temp. Sometimes i just sprinkle them generously, without soaking, on rice just after its cooked, or on salads, scrambled eggs, etc. In many places its made into a sweet paste and used as an offering on the altar. The gods like it too

Ageing, sickness, and death; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair; all forms of dis-ease, dissatisfaction, and discontent depend on birth; so don't be reborn into anything at all, not even your next thought — just let things be, for without your emotional investment in them, all things will be spontaneously and blissfully liberated in the very instant of their first arising. ~ Paramito Ladakh ~

Roots i use/consume regularly are fresh ginger, turmeric, coriander, galanggal - for soups, stews, broths, stir fries, curries.

Sorry, no experience with any of them

CoQ10. Flax oil (ground your own from seeds). Fish oil from trusted source Lots of anti-oxidants because the brain generates lots of free radicals, in fact more per gram of tissue than any other organ For natural brain-boosting foods, try increasing intake of brocolli, kale, squash & pumpkin ps. Forgot to mention Black sesame seeds!! Do some research on this. Its really a super health booster.

Many people who come to this website are searching for an awakening or trying hard to become enlightened. Stories abound about who is and isn't awake and how so-and-so went from being an ordinary person to being no self at all. We love to imagine that "enlightenment" or "awakening" is some magical event that will permanently erase all our problems and leave us forever after living in a state of bliss. We love to believe in the mythology of Perfect People. If we believe that someone else is enlightened, will we then believe that anything and everything that person says is true? Are we looking for an authority figure who can give us all the right answers…or a Magical Guru who will gaze into our eyes, zap us energetically, and leave us utterly transformed…or maybe some Divine Parent figure who will love us unconditionally? What are we really looking for? And what do we imagine will happen to us or change in us so that we can finally know with confidence and certainty that we have reached the goal, that we are now enlightened? Is enlightenment a destination or an acquisition? Is it a special state of consciousness? Is it some secret knowledge about how the universe works? What is it? It's very helpful to remember that “enlightenment” and “awakening” are both words. They are sounds, vibrations, symbols that get used in many different ways. Some say enlightenment is the absence of suffering, some say it is the absence of non-functional thinking, some say it is the end of identification with the thinking mind, some say it is the death of the ego or the dissolution of the separate self, some say it is the absence of any sense of agency or the falling away of the belief that we are the author of the thoughts and actions that arise. Some say it is the realization of Oneness, others describe it as the merging of difference and unity. Some compare enlightenment to lucid dreaming in the waking state and say that it is the abiding realization that all of consciousness is a dream-like appearance, including the entire movie of waking life and the whole spiritual search and the one who is searching. Some say enlightenment or awakening is an energetic shift, some call it a felt-sense, others say it is about seeing clearly, some describe it as an understanding or an apperception, some say it is the embodiment or actualization of the truth, others insist it is always already the case and is never not here. Some imagine enlightenment to be a state of perpetual bliss, while others say it includes and transcends every state. Some insist that awakening manifests only as “positive” or saintly behavior, while others insist you can be enlightened and still be an alcoholic, a womanizer, an embezzler, someone prone to angry outbursts, or even a child molester. Some say enlightenment happens suddenly and irrevocably at a particular time on a particular day—that it is a permanent, decisive, final shift from which there is no going back. Others describe it as a gradual unfolding, like a photograph slowly appearing in the developing tray, or like getting gradually wet while walking in a mist, or like a puddle slowly evaporating or an ice cube gradually melting until nothing is left. Some say that enlightenment comes and goes, others insist that it only happens Now, some say that nothing ever happens, some say that anything that comes will go, and that enlightenment is simply the recognition of the impersonal wholeness in which the bodymind and the world and all such happenings appear, and some insist that enlightenment is the realization that there is no one to get enlightened and no such thing as enlightenment. Some distinguish between “enlightenment,” “awakening,” “liberation,” “kensho,” “satori,” “mukti,” and host of other terms, while others use all these words more or less synonymously and interchangeably. Who has it right? Who is really enlightened and how do we know? Are there “enlightened people” whose every moment is entirely free from suffering, or from delusion, or from the sense of separation and encapsulation, or from the sense of agency and authorship, or from all egoic thoughts and behaviors? Are there “unenlightened people” whose every moment is totally consumed by these delusions and sufferings? Or is this very idea of “enlightened people” and “unenlightened people” (or of solid, discrete, persisting “people” of any kind) perhaps an example of unenlightened (or deluded) thinking? Who (or what) is it, exactly, that would be enlightened or unenlightened? We talk glibly about enlightenment without really knowing what we're even talking about. We seek it without ever stopping to really examine closely what it is we think we're seeking. Could the sense that something is lacking here and now, and the notion that there is somebody who needs to be transformed, be the very illusions that awakening wakes up from? I would not say that I am enlightened, nor would I say that I am not enlightened. I don't find any solid, persisting, independent entity here to be one way or the other. Here / Now is ever-changing, ever-present, and all-inclusive. Sometimes there are clear skies and sometimes it is cloudy and overcast. Sometimes there is the movie of waking life and sometimes there is the nothingness of deep sleep. There is no owner of these various experiences – none of them are personal – all of them come and go. Even the thought-sense-idea of being a separate individual comes and goes. Boundless unicity includes both enlightenment and delusion. Enlightenment sees unicity even in diversity; delusion imagines separation. Enlightenment is the unconditional love and awareness that welcomes delusion; delusion fights delusion and is always seeking enlightenment somewhere else. Delusion imagines that enlightenment is “out there” somewhere in the future; enlightenment recognizes that enlightenment is only here and now. Enlightenment includes both the relative and the absolute—the world of apparent multiplicity and the seamless unicity that includes it all, the symbolic map-world drawn by thought and the living reality of sensing and awaring that never holds still, the undeniable sense of being a particular person and the equally undeniable sense (once it has been noticed) of being boundless awareness. Truth isn’t one-sided. Nothing is left out. Enlightenment recognizes that polarities arise together as inseparable wholes, whereas delusion imagines that one half can and should triumph over the other half. Delusion fixates dualistically on one side of these conceptual polarities and tries to ignore, eliminate or deny the other side. Enlightenment doesn't fixate anywhere or get stuck in any view. (Dogmatic nondualism, stuck in the absolute, is a form of delusion). Thinking in terms of “permanently enlightened people” just might be the biggest and most widespread delusion. Enlightenment might be described as the falling away of this entire misconception, leaving only what is always already Here / Now. And this is not a personal achievement, for it is the recognition that no such owner or author of experience actually exists. The whole subject of enlightenment is very tricky because it signifies both a shift and no shift at all (the gateless gate). When enlightenment arrives, it is realized that it was never not here. When we think that we are not enlightened, we usually imagine that enlightenment is something big and flashy—a huge experience or a permanent state of consciousness. Clearly, many shifts in perception and many different states of consciousness are possible. The sun comes out on a cloudy day, you drink a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, you make love with someone, you stand before the ocean, you sit in silence for seven days, your child dies in a car crash, you go through menopause – endless shifts and endlessly different states and experiences. Is there something that is equally present in every different experience, like the ocean in every wave? Some might say that enlightenment is the recognition of the timeless eternity Here / Now, the stateless state, the placeless place, the boundless and seamless Totality that belongs to no one—the realization that all these shifts and ever-changing experiences are the movement of One living reality, that they have no owner, that they are all equally empty of substance, solidity, permanence, inherent reality or enduring form. And importantly, this realization isn't "something" that "somebody" attains at a certain moment in time and then "has" forever after. It is the falling away NOW (not yesterday or someday or forever after) of that very illusion of "something" and "somebody" and "forever after." Any discussion of what happens "after enlightenment" is as misconceived as talking about what happens "after Now." Here / Now (this boundlessness) is equally present in the expanded and impersonal experience of spacious openness and in the contracted experience of apparently being a separate person. There is no way to avoid boundless unicity, for it is all there is, and it is always 100% present Here / Now. It is what Here / Now is. Even the denial of it is nothing other than this same unbound emptiness (Here / Now) showing up as denial. But it often seems that there is "me" trapped in delusion, in need of liberation, and it is this "divine hypnosis" (as one teacher aptly calls it) that prompts the search for enlightenment. Enlightenment is simply the recognition that the problem and the one who seems to have it are both imaginary. And even to name this recognition or call it something ("enlightenment") immediately reifies it, and is thus inherently misleading. It suggests that enlightenment is something that can be pinned down: a permanent state of consciousness, a finish-line that somebody crosses, a personal attainment--and yet, what the word truly points to is nothing of the sort. All experiences, including any experience of awakening or enlightenment, are within the dream-like appearance that I often call the movie of waking life. Within the context of this movie, relatively speaking, we can certainly say that Ramana Maharshi was an enlightened sage and that Adolph Hitler was a deluded madman. But enlightenment sees Ramana and Hitler as two notional abstractions, two sides of a single coin, different in appearance but inseparable and completely interdependent, each empty of any inherent or objective reality. Enlightenment is not about “me” getting from one side of the imaginary coin to the other side and then staying there forever. That is delusion. Enlightenment is not some kind of personal perfection, but rather, enlightenment is the absence of the one who cares about being enlightened. Enlightenment can appear gradual or sudden only in the story, where it seems (in retrospect) that there was either a shift that unfolded slowly over time or else a sudden and decisive event with a totally different before and after. But neither of these conceptual abstractions after-the-fact really captures this to which words such as “enlightenment” or “awakening” are pointing. There is no “someone” who is evaporating or disappearing or getting clearer, no "someone" who is enlightened or not enlightened – this “someone” is always only a mirage – an optical illusion produced by thoughts, sensations, memory and imagination. No separate, persisting "someone" ever really forms to be enlightened or unenlightened or to evaporate or transform. And in that realization, the shifting experiences in the movie of waking life no longer seem personally owned, and they no longer seem to mean something "about me." The search for enlightenment falls away. There is simply life as it is, the ever-changing, ever-present living reality of Here / Now. When we're no longer seeking something else, the aliveness and depth of the present moment becomes more vivid and more obvious: the sounds of rain and traffic, the rise and fall of breathing, the smell of coffee, the gratuitous beauty of a flower, the horror and sorrow of a bombing attack, the thoughts and stories that appear and disappear, the awareness beholding it all. We realize that the thought-sense-story of separation and encapsulation is only another momentary face of emptiness. No one is actually trapped in delusion, and delusion has no real substance or inherent reality. When the mirage of being a separate somebody encapsulated in a bodymind seems real, we long for a way out. But the one who seems to be trapped is always only a mirage. The manifestation will always include both light and dark, expansion and contraction – ever-changing weather. Polarities go together. In resisting and struggling to escape from suffering and delusion, we confirm the apparent reality of both the imaginary problem and the one who seems to have this problem. The popular notion that there are “permanently enlightened people” who are totally beyond all suffering and delusion only fuels the imaginary treadmill of dissatisfaction and seeking. This ever-present, ever-changing, boundlessness is not something that “I” can possess or experience or lack. Boundlessness is the ever-present openness that includes contraction, the wholeness that includes division, the oneness that includes multiplicity, the absolute that includes the relative, the seamless totality that includes the sense of being a separate person, the enlightenment that includes delusion. Without the mud, there is no lotus. There's a well-known old Zen story about the pathless path to enlightenment, otherwise known as the pathless path from Here to Here. The story says that before I took up Zen, there were mountains and valleys. And then after I began the practice of Zen, there were no mountains and no valleys. And then with enlightenment, there are mountains and valleys. So is the first stage identical to the last? You can't say yes, and you can't say no. The first “stage” is ordinary relative consciousness – the world as we think it is, a collection of separate things, including “me” who is supposedly encapsulated “in here” in this separate bodymind, looking out an external world that is “out there.” The second “stage” of no mountains and valleys is the initial awakening – the discovery that there is no actual boundary between “in here” and “out there,” that everything is one inseparable and seamless whole, that there is no “me.” This is the realization of what is the same (or equally present) in every different experience. It is the discovery of the Absolute, the ever-present, ever-changing, formlessness or emptiness or no-thing-ness or interdependent origination of everything. But this is still not enlightenment, although it is often mistaken for enlightenment, and many people get "stuck in the absolute" for awhile along the way. But in clinging to the absolute, there is still a subtle dualism. With true enlightenment, there are mountains and valleys again. Good and evil are aspects of one inseparable whole and we can discern a difference between them. There is only the timeless, ever-present Now and there is history, evolution, and planning for the future. I am boundless awareness and I am Joan. Both sides of the coin are true. Zen masters have called this "leaping clear of the many and the One" or “the merging of difference and unity.” It is clearly seen that mountains and valleys are “not one, not two.” There is no need to grasp life with a concept, and in fact, it is realized that life is ungraspable. We can use concepts, but we don't mistake them for the reality they describe. There is no longer a need to push away the experience of being Joan or to make sure that “I” am continually identified as “impersonal awareness” and not as the character in the story. There is no separate “I” to be identified as either one, for the True “I” is everything and no-thing. There is no longer an effort to attain or maintain any particular experiential state of consciousness, and the weather is no longer given meaning or taken personally. These "stages" are only pointers, of course, to a "journey" that can't really be divided up, and that doesn't actually occur in time. These "stages" don't necessarily happen in a linear way, and usually, there is a circling or spiraling around between them. So take the story lightly. Many teachers are in love with the idea that they are enlightened, and they love to tell the story of their "enlightenment event" again and again. We hear about their walk across the park or the magical moment in their kitchen or at a bus stop when their self dropped away forever. Enlightenment is portrayed as a personal achievement, a permanent state. But any such experience is only a moment in a dream. Yes, in the dream-like movie of waking life, some characters do report sudden and dramatic transformations, and yes, some characters are undeniably clearer and freer of delusion than most, and in a conventional sense, it is functionally useful to recognize and discern such differences. If we're looking for a teacher, not everyone is equally qualified. But at a deeper level, if we look more closely, we will find that there is no one to be permanently enlightened or permanently deluded. There is no one who is a caterpillar in one moment and then a butterfly in the next. There is no caterpillar and no butterfly. There is only unbroken unicity from which no-thing stands apart. A true teacher will not be endlessly tooting their own horn and encouraging you to idolize or idealize them, but rather, they will be deflecting all your attempts to make them special and put them up on pedestals. A true teacher is not afraid to acknowledge their humanness, their fallibility, and their imperfections. A true teacher is always still a student, open to new discoveries. A true teacher pulls every rug you try to stand on out from under you -- they don't keep handing you more and more rugs. Enlightenment has no beginning and no ending. It is not a state you enter or leave. There is no finish line in waking up. It is always Now. And there is no end to this unfolding discovery and Self-realization. Even after the thought-sense of separation and individual agency has been seen through, it can (and probably will) reappear. Even after the rope is clearly seen to be a rope and not a snake, it can—in another moment—be mistaken again for a snake, and when that happens, the body responds automatically with fear, contraction and recoil. The snake is never real, but it can momentarily seem real. Does there come a time when this mistake has been so fully exposed that it can never again occur in any way, ever? For whom does this question and this concern arise? Is there someone who makes this mistake and who longs to stop being a fool? Isn’t it only from the perspective of the mirage-like "me" that it seems to matter whether or not "I" mistake a rope for a snake? We don't know what the next moment may bring. In any given moment, the mirage of separation may occur. But what can perhaps fall away is the need for this never to happen again. If boundlessness is momentarily forgotten and overlaid with a sense of “me” as a separate somebody, who cares? Who is not enlightened? Find this one! There are certainly many characters in the movie of waking life who experience or manifest more or less stormy weather – more or less anger, more or less depression or anxiety, more or less compulsive or addictive behavior, more or less upset. Such differences may have little to do with enlightenment and everything to do with genetics, neurochemistry, brain function, hormone levels, past trauma, sleep apnea and a host of yet undiscovered variables that go into the infinite conditioning of nature and nurture. Some bodyminds have stormier weather just as some cities have stormier weather. It's not personal. When I look for where this person called “Joan Tollifson” begins and ends, I find no beginning and no ending. When I try to grasp or pin down this “person,” I find only continuous change. So what exactly is this supposed entity who would be permanently enlightened or unenlightened? Sometimes teachers speak as boundless unicity, as the One Self, as the impersonal presence to which we all refer when we say "I Am," and sometimes teachers speak as apparent individuals. When Ramana was dying, he told his followers, "I am always here, where could I go?" He wasn't speaking as the apparent individual, who was obviously dying, but rather as the One Self (Here/Now) that is ever-present. Sometimes when a teacher says "I," they refer to this One Self. Other times when a teacher says "I," they refer to the person. "I" as boundless unicity have no problem with anything, but "I" as Joan have opinions and preferences about all kinds of things. Needless to say, using the word "I" in these different ways can easily create confusion and misunderstanding. A teacher, speaking as unicity, may say something like, “Enlightenment is always present” or “enlightenment is permanent,” pointing to boundlessness, the ever-present Here / Now that never comes or goes. But such statements are easily misunderstood to mean that the teacher as a person is always in some special expanded state of consciousness, or that the person is completely and permanently beyond delusion. In the dream-like movie of waking life, Joan is no longer seeking enlightenment, but there seems to be a natural interest here in clarifying confusion, seeing through delusion, and being awake. There is no longer the sense that “being aware” or “being in the Now” is some task that "I" must do. It's very clear that all experiences and states of consciousness, by their very nature, come and go. A sense of separation can still arise—feeling angry or defensive, worried or hurt. That kind of self-contraction can certainly still arise. It happens out of infinite causes and conditions. It isn't personal even when it sometimes feels like it is. A natural interest in seeing through this self-contraction also seems to arise here, and that inquiry and exploration can take various forms. All of that also happens out of infinite causes and conditions. No one is doing any of it. There is no owner, no author, no separate and persisting somebody to whom all of this is happening or not happening—not because "enlightened people" have transcended or eliminated all of that, but because all of that never existed in the first place! The separate self is never anything but a mirage. Life is one whole undivided movement. Being enlightened is not about being perfect and special and having all the answers. It is about recognizing the perfection in imperfection and abiding in the open not-knowing that is our true nature. The only reality is Here/Now, the infinite and eternal present moment. There is no end to this boundlessness, and no end to this unfolding Self-realization or awakening. Rather than trying to figure out if you are enlightened or if someone else is enlightened, rather than idealizing people or putting them up on pedestals and turning them into infallible authorities, rather than comparing yourself to others or trying to duplicate anyone else's supposed enlightenment experience, I would suggest investigating what it is you are looking for, and whether it is actually absent here and now, and exactly who or what would find it, possess it or lack it. You may find that nothing is missing, nothing is broken, nothing is needed. There is simply this, just as it is. And if you find yourself feeling a sense of discomfort, lack or unease, perhaps in that moment, you might ask yourself, is this sense of discomfort, lack or unease really a problem? Is anything really broken? And if you are about to go off in search of enlightenment or love or happiness or freedom, perhaps in that moment, the question will arise, what exactly am I seeking? And where and when do I expect to find it? From Joan Tollifson's Outpourings/The Simplicity of What Is If you appreciated this article, please drop Joan a line to let her know. Cheers.

Well said, Liminal Luke. You said: Wisdom has to be both practical and all-inclusive. For it to be thus, both relative and absolute positions have to be condensed into one to avoid being stuck in either one. As its stated in the Hsin-hsin Ming, "If the mind makes no discrimination, the ten thousand things are as they are, of single essence."

As I see it, there isn’t so much to do. Just be ordinary — put on your robes, eat your food, and pass the time doing nothing. Perhaps on some level there is a shared commonality between neo-advaita and Chan Buddhism according to Linji Yixuan, founder of the Linji School (quoted above), yet Linji Yixuan has a fierce reputation for vigorous hitting and shouting at students as a means to cut through and remove the defects of conceptual grasping.

And how would you present your view instead? Not that it matters very much, but I did not see that conclusion being drawn.

does it really matter if Miss Tollifson is self-realized or not? For me, she wrote a rather insightful piece on her understanding of what enlightenment is and is not from her pov, and i thought it was a good one hence my sharing with the bums here. There is no need to scrutinize the messenger because for all you know, if one were to meet Miss Tollifson now, her views might have evolved (or not) - not that it actually matters much either way. Even though she may have more to add or perhaps subtract from this particular perspective, and it wont be any more surprising in the least if she does add or take something away, nonetheless, there is a certain truth in her words relative to the subject she was addressing. I was more interested in that, more so than her authority. In fact, i have stopped needing to ask for validation of authority because quite often its a silly yardstick anyway. So much huckstering on the interweb.

sometimes i get the feeling/awareness that I die a small death at the end of each out-breath, and with the slow, conscious drawing in of the in-breath, i am often filled with gratitude and amazement. Some day, there will only be the one final out-breath, and thats it... probably a new gob-smacking adventure awaits.

Anyone tried crispy, pan-fried garlic as a garnish on steamed or wok-tossed bok choi, mustard greens or spinach drizzled with a few drops of soy sauce and sesame oil? Really really brings the flavour to another level.

not worth the effort squinting at the morning sun Portishead rescued

For those who cannot entertain the thought of consuming raw garlic could try supplementing with MSM

Its obvious that some sort of sinister movement is taking place in Europe, auguring for change that will likely lead to mass destabilisation and if not, at least to mass nervousness due to the sheer momentum that can be felt but cannot be seen nor corrective measures securely implemented. Its too early to say with conviction which sector is directly responsible for this because the motive has yet to be clearly established. The puzzle seems to have pieces hidden in plain sight.

I wouldn't hesitate for a second to engage with you... in any coloured robe, or none at all, whichever takes your fancy

The Hungry Ghost realm happens to be a Buddhist concept as well, Taomeow. But very often it is explained in the following way, although not exclusively so: Metaphorically used to describe the extremities of craving, and also alludes to beings who are susceptible to addictive disorders, or those who have yet to develop a natural understanding of the virtues of contentment, and therefore remain under the control of negative emotions associated with this particular realm/state of existence.

If anyone can completely renew the thinking that there is a self that enlightens, they would cease suffering in an instant.