Jetsun

At a certain stage it is best to do nothing, I went to see this guy called Tony Parsons recently in London and he spends an hour telling you that there is absolutely nothing you can do to get enlightened or awakened. Through his teaching a number of students have actually had permanent shifts, but is his teaching useful for the vast majority of people? No I don't think so, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a true teaching, it is just a teaching helpful for a small number of people who are at a specific point. Whereas if you go to see someone like Adyashanti he advocates a lot of practice, the analogy I have heard him use is things like stillness meditation and self enquiry can bring you to the cliff edge, but when you are there there is nothing you can do to make yourself jump, the self protection survival drive is too strong, but if you keep bringing yourself to the edge again and again then you are more likely to get blown over the edge by a "strong wind".

As far as my experience goes thoughts just happen, if I sit here now I don't have any control or choice over what thoughts enter my awareness. Apparently at a very high level of mastery you can choose thought and emotion, some way for me to go to get there though.

My understanding is that you can produce energetic development through effort and practice,and this energetic development is helpful down the line to help cope with the influx of energy due to awakening. Also a certain amount of the samskaras can be cleared through correct discipline which is why there is always quite a high level of discipline involved in most traditional paths such as yogic and monkhood. Yet these things aren't necessarily a direct precursor for awakening, they may be helpful but there is no specific linear path where you do this and get this result. Rather as one of the people I went on retreat with recently said doing things like working on your energy body and issues is like doing all the little things you can to get a promotion at work, you do what you can to put yourself in the best position possible so you are a strong candidate, which increases your chances but is no guarantee, sometimes someone who has done no preparation or work at all will get it instead.

Maybe he retired from public life after treating George Bush snr and realising he made a terrible mistake keeping him alive That's some dedication getting the CIA documents about him though, well done

It is quite an interesting question as I doubt the caterpillar is gripped by fear and resistance when transforming into a butterfly, hardly anything ever seems to interfere with that process. But with us humans our resistance goes into overdrive when faced with foundational change, which I guess is a feature of the imagination which imagines all sorts of terrifying scenarios as to what would happen if they allowed change in; most animals don't have a developed enough frontal cortex to interfere with a natural process but we tend to think we know better than the wider intelligence of life.

That's weird he's become normal, I always assumed he had been locked away as a precious treasure of the Chinese Government.

If you want every point backed up with a reputable reference then you are at the wrong place, this is a forum not an academic discussion. Here you may have to put up with a respect a persons subjective opinions (shock: horror)

Its still about the intellect because it is the intellect of the psychoanalyst which interprets everything and tries to fit it in with all the theory they have learned, then through this intellectual analysis and deduction some sort of feedback is given which is supposed to help. But rarely it helps at all, when I looked myself I couldn't actually find anyone who had been helped through psychoanalysis and the psychoanalysts themselves generally seemed as insane as their clients, if not more. Modern types of psychotherapy have moved on from old Freudian psychoanalysis though, it is far more about the intimate relationship with the therapist and getting in touch with emotional content in the body, rather than trying to fit it all in and explain it with intellectual psychological theory. Psychoanalysis is old out dated methodology now, you have to give them credit for starting it all and building the foundation, but its the last thing I would recommend anyone who actually had psychological issues they need help with.

I wouldn't mix anything up with the instructions they give you, don't do any extra practices is my advice

Usually philosophy is confined within the realm of the intellect and most philosophers that I am aware of are so much up in their mind that they are often just using philosophy to avoid their emotions, avoid their body and avoid life. Many could probably do with some person centred psychotherapy. Spirituality can means all sorts of things also but to me it means a more holistic approach which goes beyond the intellectual realm more into the direct experiential investigative nature of things. But the philosophical aspects of paths like Buddhism and Taoism can be helpful in some ways, if not just as ways to keep the mind exercised and sharp, but can also create a kind of bait ans switch situation where you entice the intellect in with all these juicy concepts and ideas, and end up transcending the intellect altogether

I would say modern psychotherapy is still very much an art form, you can't impose any sort of strict guideline to the way you interact with a client, rather the more open and less rigid you are with the way you treat the person the more success you are likely to get. Psychology on the other hand is turning into more of a science with cognitive neuroscience and brain imaging and things like that. But even then the 'hard problem of consciousness' has not come anywhere near to being solved, scientists still have absolutely no idea how or even if the brain and body produce consciousness, it is a complete assumption that it does so. Therefore I wouldn't rely on psychology too much as the most primary fundamental ground of it which underpins it all is up for grabs, ie if you are not your mind/body and you are not defined your psychology then what you are may go far deeper than anything psychology can ever touch. In some ways psychology is just a way of rearranging the chairs on the deck of Titanic, it may make it nicer for a while but it is still going under. The deeper issues still remain,. Not that philosophy really helps here either, unless it can point you towards doing your own individual investigation in your own being around these issues. But in reality most philosophy usually prevents rather than enables you to do that by keeping you in the realm of mind rather than in the realm of experience. A lot of it is more like mental masturbation, the mind saying how clever and wonderful the mind is in its own circular world, until life bumps up against it inevitably shattering its conclusions.

Because we don't want enlightenment, we want to be the king of our own individual little Kingdom

EU are going to put caps on banker bonuses, so in Britain they can get 50 Mil $ as a reward for shafting us rather than 5

If the Dalai Lama was just into money he could have retired a long time ago, but instead despite being 80 years old he still travels the world and teaches every year. There is a lot of disinformation about the Dalai Lama out there, he is enemy number one to the Chinese government as he represents a different focus of loyalty for Tibetans, even though in reality he is probably one of their best friends as he is the main reason why the Tibetan population haven't turned violent against their oppressors. When he dies who knows what will happen there.

G.I. Gurdjieff Writing in the 1920's: "These two schools of the Islamic religion are called there 'Sunnism' and 'Shi'ism.' "It is interesting to note that the psychic hatred of each other formed in the beings belonging to these two independent branches of one and the same religion has now, on account of their frequent clashes, been completely transformed into organic hatred. "During recent centuries the beings of certain European communities have greatly contributed by their intrigues to this peculiar transformation of that strange being-function. "And they make use of these intrigues again and again to increase the animosity between the followers of these two independent schools of one and the same religion so that they should never unite, for if this were to happen there might soon be an end of those European communities. "The point is that nearly half of the three-brained beings there are followers of this Islamic teaching, and only as long as this hatred prevails among them will they constitute no serious threat of 'reciprocal destruction' to European communities. "And hence the power-possessors of certain 'freshly baked' communities that have accidentally arisen always rub their hands and rejoice when sparks fly between these Sunnis and Shi'ites, because they may then count on a long and secure existence for themselves." Over 125 killed and over 100 injured today in car bombings in Iraq, Shia bombing Sunnis http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-36696568

Yeah blame them, but also acknowledge the other causes.

I am not aware of any further step from the additional video, unless you mean the cutting through, but the cutting through is the way towards Rigpa rather than being Rigpa itself

Having watched the video my understanding of what Alan Walace means by Rigpa is that Ripga is awareness from the perspective of awareness. Not awareness of awareness, but awareness from the view of awareness, being awareness

I can only speak from my own experience, during a retreat last year I went to a deep place in meditation where there was nothing, entirely no self. My sense of self inevitably returned but it created quite a shock and threat to my system afterwards which reverberates even to today, and poses the existential question that if one minute it isn't there any more whether it actually exists in the first place

Well anatta or anatman (no self) is one of the principle pillars of Buddhism,one of the three right understandings about the three marks of existence, which is what distinguishes it from Hindu dharma. It isn't really an affirmation but a eradication.

Unification is just a fact, a scientific fact as well as a "spiritual", our bodies all come from the same earth and go back to it, we exchange atoms and energy, we exchange the same air with a symbiotic relationship with trees and plants, food passes through us to be used by other organisms, even our words and simple deeds have causal effects on others. In terms of the theory of dependent origination is it not just a big bundle of causes and effects bumping up against each other. It is only having a false sense of being a separate individual "I" that prevents us from recognising this obvious interdependence and union on this level which is right in our faces. The direction of Buddhas teaching is towards no self, but unification in a certain sense is a inevitable byproduct of that, not a merge but just a sharing of the same innate nature, space and interdepedence. Who owns Rigpa? can it be said to have barriers and limitations? can it be said that the Rigpa that you experience is a different Rigpa that I experience or even that the Buddha experienced? It can't, which is why when Suzuki Roshi was dying he could say to his students "don't worry, it is only the Buddha suffering", without any I it is all Buddha. As they often chant as part of the Heart Sutra in Japan "Buddha nature pervades the whole universe", our inner most essence is Buddha nature and Buddha nature is everywhere and everything, so that is the kind of unification I am talking about,not a kind of big psychological jelly merge

Even after you wake up you have to maintain the body with food and housing etc and play by the rules of the game of life. Unless you become a sadhu beggar or something like that.

Ok, but try telling that to your bank manager or landlord when they next come knocking

Although I can't deny what you say is true I am more of a fan of the two truths doctrine, that relative and absolute truths are both important, otherwise there is a risk of falling into nihilism

In what way is life an illusion?