Jetsun

Becoming a nun/monk and going into long retreat away from life can just be another form of escape, I expect for a lot of people it is running away, but it all depends on the individual

I wouldn't say that Top Gear is unspiritual exactly, it is basically a few friends having a laugh and joking around and going to some amazing places in the process, when it comes down to it those are some of the best things about life

If you examine the fundamental nature of our basic awareness it already unconditionally allows and embraces everything.

In terms of vegetarianism in spiritual literature I have read a variety of view points, in some Tibetan paths meat is required at certain points of the path in order to create the tantric drops in the body. The Dalai Lama and many Tibetans are meat eaters and it doesn't interfere in their spiritual progress. While Ramana Maharshi stressed the importance of the sattvic diet which includes no meat to create a sattvic mind which aids self enquiry towards awakening. Gurdjieff said that if you have two communities or two countries living side by side and one of them is vegetarian and the other eats meat the meat eating community would inevitably end up dominating and controlling the vegetarian one. Make of that what you will, I am not so much against eating meat but I am most against battery farming and such inhumane practises firstly because of the cruelty but also they are starting to find that it affects the genetics of the birds so that they are being born weak and lacking muscle and health, so long term it makes no sense in any way.

I don't think I would give up fish, you need the fish oils for the brain also, but you do have to be careful not to eat it every day or you might get mercury poisoning.

We have tried to keep one Mo Pai thread not in the pit so anyone new can come see what the deal is without starting the cycle all over again. This is probably the best Mo Pai thread in the history of the forum which says it all really, so this one stays for now.

I was a vegetarian for many years when I was younger and I regret it to a certain extent, I was lacking in Iron and some b vitamins during the vital stage in the growth of my nervous system. You have to eat a lot of green vegetables to get enough of those vits and as a child/teenager that isn't going to happen easily and vitamin supplements are garbage, there is research coming out that supplements can even cause damage long term and certainly aren't an adequate replacement for dietary sources. I am trying to become more veggie again now I'm an adult though, not that I buy into all the veggie propaganda who try to make out that an animals life is on the same level as a human, is a mosquito or a bugs life on the same level and value as a humans? Of course not, there is a gradation in nature, yet I personally wouldn't like to kill most things by hand myself just for lunch so it is a bit hypocritical to eat that which I wouldn't personally kill.

It is easy in the sense that it doesn't require effort to recognise, rather we continuously put in great effort to obscure the recognition of it. It is obvious in the sense that it is right under your nose, one analogy is of the man who walks the entire planet to try to find the earth, if he looked down then what he was searching for was obvious all along.

Yeah lazy was me having a bit of a joke, if it can be realised directly without much pain and struggle it is the height of wisdom and efficiency. I agree most will need repeated instruction to allay doubts while also what I found personally very instructive was just to be repeatedly in the presence of those who have realised and rested there for significant lengths of time, then you can recognise the truth of what they are pointing out, if you recognise the ease and flow in their being it helps you to gain confidence in the direction which is being taken, because just resting and letting go into what is is counter intuitive to the part of mind which has been conditioned its whole life to strive and work to manipulate life into the way it thinks it should be.

What are the difficulties of a fish in the sea trying to find water. You could strive with every ounce of your energy for your entire life to find the natural state trying every spiritual method ever created by man and seemingly not get anywhere , but when you finally collapse out of exhaustion and failure then you will seem to find it because then you stop seeking for that which you never lost. That is one route to go which many must take, but those who are lazy can go to a teacher who can point it out straight away, its right there under your nose all along, the problem isn't that it is too difficult to find or there are barriers you need to overcome the problem is that it is too simple and obvious that we miss it.

In what regard did you work on it? I'm surprised I haven't heard more about it so far, its getting rave reviews and winning many awards yet isn't very well known yet

I just saw one of the most enlightened movies I have seen in ages which is called "Her" with Joaquin Phoenix http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/ definitely worth a watch, it also doubles up as a great film for those who aren't so much into the enlightening part of it.

The Lama system was pretty successful at what it set out to do, which was to preserve spiritual progress and teachings over many lifetimes and generations. Most Tibetan and the Dzogchen systems grew up in that climate so if you want to enter those systems you pretty much have to commit to them in the way they were preserved: through Lamaism. There are plenty of other systems and non Tibetan Buddhist lineages which don't rely on the Lama approach, so if you can't commit to that way of doing things then just go another route.The Rainbow Body is unique to Dzogchen but the Rainbow Body is just the particular manifestation of a particular set of practises, there are other ways to enlightenment, it isn't a matter of getting a Rainbow Body or nothing like that is the only way, the Dalai Lama says the same thing that there are many ways.

Its probably a form of manipulation to control the populace out of fear, when you have lots of feuding states and clans who regularly butcher each other having some sort of belief in severe consequence of action could be useful to pacify a country, maybe even compassionate belief to introduce at that time. The problem is when such beliefs outlive their usefulness.

How does Bagua heal Karmic related issues?

Interesting read, thanks.

My three are 1 - It means you as a separate individual will never be special or superior to others 2 - You get absolutely nothing out of enlightenment 3 - You can't get enlightened, you can't bring you with you, there is no having your cake and eating it

Yeah, the problem being that unless it is a lived experience worked through over time it becomes just another mind idea or concept. Like Master Nan says most of us invert cause and effect, so we hear a teaching and think we have immediately got it before we have deeply experienced and embodied it in our lives.

Yeah, it is very easy to turn all of this into an ego strategy. It's taken me about 10 years and I still forget or lose contact with the truth of it most of the time and end up in old futile patterns of indulging or resisting life, especially when in relationship with other people. Like the Chinese finger trap the more you struggle the more stuck you get Initially when I got into spirituality I thought all the great spiritual masters can conquered all their demons, got rid of all of their problems and mastered all aspects of their being, yet now I see that all the masters did was come into acceptance of all that stuff, stopped indulging in it and stopped resisting it or trying to get rid of it. Coming back to the initial post about mental fog, Bruce Frantzis has whole chapters in some of his books about Mental Fog and dissolving it using his Taoist Water Method Meditation method, he says sometimes such dissociation can come from pre-natal or birth experiences of shock and overwhelming trauma which means you feel you have to leave the nervous system into dissociation from the body to survive. The shamanic might call healing that split Soul Retrieval. I tried the Water Method for similar problem for many months, but for me it didn't work, which is why I think coming into acceptance of it may be the better course than trying to remove it.

That has been my lesson also. Our ego wants perfection and for us to be our imaginary ideal self so when we get problems in life and personal issues we do all we can to try to get rid of them. After many years of trying to improve ourselves and make ourselves feel better the inevitable conclusion is that it doesn't work, it is just a futile exercise in resisting what exists. Then if we relax around our issues and allow them to be as they are without trying to get rid of them it can be seen that those issues which we previously despised are in fact the exact things which are leading us to reality, to real spiritual life, then we start to feel grateful towards them, everything is completely switched around 180 degrees.

Its like a form of cultivation and self discipline in itself, don't peak at the hate site, don't get sucked into the vitriol there, don't keep feeding it attention and reaction which is what keeps it alive, don't get involved with your own side of the dynamic, aggghhhh its like a bad habit, but starved of energy and attention it will inevitably die.

Nope, but it used to be known as the place most of the career criminals in the UK went to retire, otherwise known as the Costa Del Crime. It was an example to highlight the folly of judging a whole nation of people by the area where their criminals are known to congregate, in response to vmarco.

In the model I work in the acupuncture channels are just one level of channel in your body, there are all sorts of other channels and other blockages than meridian blockages. There are nadis, divine lines, Jin Shin pathways and nodes, psychic and karmic channels and knots and all sorts of conditioning held in different areas and levels of the body like the tissues, genetics, fascia which may not automatically be released through clearing the acupuncture meridians. I have been taught that even if you clear all of this out completely whether you awaken is still down to grace or divine will, there is nothing you can actually do to make it happen, which is why it happens to some people who have never done a days energy work in their lives; yet doing all of this energetic stuff is like preparing for an interview and making yourself the best candidate for it to happen, it makes it more likely but it still not any sort of guarantee for anything except improved health.

If your intention is not to generalise against all Russians then why is your post relevant at all? If you met all the thousands of British ex-pats in the Costa Del Sol Spain all you would find were criminals and people obsessed with money and sex and not a single one interested in spirituality, yet they don't mirror British society as a whole in any way.

Well most of the Western students who have learned Dzogchen for a long time haven't died yet, so you will have to be patient before drawing too many conclusions. "Western Buddhism" is still pretty much an experiment though, in Tibet their whole society was pretty much geared up for supporting practitioners which isn't true today, while using Skype transmissions and such is new and it is hard to gauge how much of a success it all is, a cursory glance at Buddhist internet forums it does all look like a load of intellectualism and people subverting the teachings to promote their own egotism. But as people have repeatedly pointed out the natural state of mind isn't an achievement, it is already present.