Sunya

hahahah i love glenn's sense of humor

Glenn's bones?/ woahhhhh!!!!!!! cool sounds like a crazy interesting time. really makes me want to attend a seminar. maybe someday anything happening over the summer? maybe I can come down.. or at least do long distance seminar. in person would be so much better of course. after our conversation last night i was thinking about coupling powerful energy techniques with my stillness meditation, i think it will be a good combo. but only if i learn from someone who knows the deal, enough books! where in Florida are you btw?

thank you for your responses Mr Semple, its great to have you here to answer our questions with such a straight forward, blunt demeanor. i like your style since you plan on tackling the whole semen issue, I was really wondering about seminal retention. I know in your books you write that after the energy was awakened, you could not ejaculate and would get terrible headaches and weakness. but how about before the awakening? In SOGF I think its recommended to do 90 or 100 days of no loss, something like that. I don't see an y mention of this in your books (i could've missed it... just like how I assumed your goal was just health related ). Have you, through your own experience and that of your students, gained any insight into whether or not retention is beneficial,or even necessary, Pre awakening. thank you Mikael

I humbly second those questions. I was thinking on similar lines..it seems to me that the goal of this text is enlightenment (i've only have the Cleary ver). with all due respect to Mr Semple, i've read both books, and it seems that what he is talking about is a purification, a goal more health related than anything.

homosexual.. straight.. whats the difference? both are seeking pleasure through sexual stimulation. i don't see a difference.

Cheers. So i guess this is the part where we all go off and find a master and get to it..

Amen. Puberty is my path to enlightenment.

I got this too, Cleary's was very Buddhist and in line with Insight, bare awareness technique. trying to find the Self. while Wilhelm's (and Semple's) seems to be more energetic. i think an important question here is are the goals the same?

I am 23 and can not grow a beard. this realization has been haunting me for years, knowing the truth that to be a sage a beard is required. My life dream of living on a mountain like Pai Mei in Kill Bill 2 is shattered. any student that climbs the mountain and sees a beardless sage, will only see a false prophet.

E-sngMwWIv8 aUuRIcWuYGo apparently this guy is a fraud. I DISAGREE

found a thread on remembering past lives on E Sangha, a Buddhist forum. so i'm going to quote some good posts from there. hope they don't mind..

happy happy

seems like an interesting talk. thanks for sharing

thanks for your reply could you cite a source for that? I have Best and Worst Spiritual Paths by Bodri and Nan and they say the complete opposite.

the same syllable does not mean its the same thing. they are two completely different concepts, two completely different realizations. rigpa is the natural state of mind... and mind is individual! there is no such thing as an all encompassing intelligence in buddhism, they just don't align. i'm speaking from things i've read (dzogchen is a subject widely published these days) and talked to a bunch of highly realized practitioners. like i said, i'm still trying to decide whether to pursue this path or stick to something more simple like Zen. all the visualizations (preliminaries to Dzogchen) are a bit tedious.. and btw -- the whole non-conceptual thing is tricky because thats the main difference between vajrayana and chan/zen. vajrayana requires a grounding in madyamaka philosophy and understanding, there is conceptual understanding necessirary to realize the non-conceptual (kind of ironic and strange i think)

I thought Sufism arose from Muslim contact with Hinduism/Buddhism. guess I was wrong. no scholar has written about this link between Vajrayana and Iraq. Padmasambhava brought Vajrayana (and Dzogchen) from Oddiyana, a kindom in India. although Bons argue that a separate Dzogchen lineage already existed in Bon, Vajrayana is Indian. i'm still thinking about whether I want to initiate into Vajrayana, i have a master living very close to me of Mahamudra and dzogchen (driking kagyu), before taking empowerments and taking on practice requirements I want to fully analyze the paths. Zen interests me too Dzogchen is all about the pointing out instructions. did you get that? what happened?

yes, but that is just ngondro. preliminary practices for purification i've never heard of that. interesting,, where is your source? i'm going to post a message from my friend, i think he'll be cool with it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamyan these?? i couldn't find any others. they aren't older than Shakyamuni

did remembering your past lives help you to realize things about yourself in this life, where certain ideas/habits came from.. aspects of yourself that you maybe even weren't aware of ?

i agree, ive heard from others not to dwell on these matters, and myself understand how dwelling on the past can become a problem, and a burden. attaching to what already happened and not moving on, not moving forward. i am pretty damn curious though where this mindstream was before Mikael was born. i understand that for most, these memories come up randomly. is that how it happened to you guys that remember them? was it through meditation or some event triggered the memories?

btw Santi you said you practiced Dzogchen.. did you learn Thodgal or Trekcho practices? i'm trying to figure out how similiar the actual practice of Dzogchen is to Chan... its hard to find a Dzogchen practitioner that will be open about the practices though, and not indoctrinated into the common Tibetan view of Dzogchen being the highest..spiritual..practice...EVER. lol an interesting post from someone on E Sangha -- "Non-duality is realized on the first bodhisattva bhumi. Omniscience is attained upon Buddhahood. In between these two states are the eradication of affliction, and the eradication of all obstacles to omniscience. Omniscience is the dharmakaya. The total integration of the person 24/7 into the stage of non-duality first realized at bhumi number one. As long as you keep trying to force Buddhis path schemes into the path scheme of the Yoga sutra, you will not understand it."

http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/200...-vis-hindu.html Madhyamika Buddhism Vis-a-vis Hindu Vedanta (A Paradigm Shift) Ācārya Dharma Vajra (Sridhar SJB Rana) it's all well and nice to appreciate all paths, I do. but the methods are different, and philosophy, ESPECIALLY vs Buddhism. which is complete non-theistic, the experience of these methods can be debated, i tend to be idealistic and think they most religions are fingers pointing to the moon. but all i'm saying is that you can't call yourself a Buddhist and a Muslim, or a Buddhist and a Christian, because the methods and views contradict each other. completely different vehicles, trying to ride both is unnecessary and pointless in my opinon

well, Compassion is only side of the coin for Buddhism, the other is Wisdom.. wisdom of the truth of emptiness. the wisdom that knocks down any theistic notion. Non duality leaves no room for worshiper and worshipee. but Buddhist non-duality is different, even from Advaita. as there is no real essence, just emptiness. No universal intelligence.. just cause and effect. there is no being both, you may appreciate buddhism for its emphasis on compassion, and that's totally cool. but you can't call yourself a buddhist unless you understand what emptiness is all about... which would also mean understanding why Buddhism apposes any form of Theism. or any idea of Oneness. the goals are different two. the conceptualizing in Islam for example, gives youa n idea of what God is like, and that a God exists in the first place, as separate from the Self (furthermore giving the Self an existence, a Soul) all of this conceptualizing is like fog in the windshield. 'not emptying the cup' as you like to say Santi. that's just how it is in the Buddhist sense. the goals are different, emptiness isn't universal.

i think its a bit impossible to be a Muslim and a Buddhist at the same time. not that I want to get into a pissing contest between which religion is better, but the two are diametrically opposed to each other.

the IRS is a social construction, of course they have to use time, another social construction. read my earlier post again. theres no need to prove my ancestors existence because I exist myself. thats proof enough. the proof of Lao Zi's existence, or knowing his birthday, will not change the meaning of Tao Te Ching. so i consider this trivial