2netis

Just curious about Lamb's Masters degree and where she is studying for the doctorate in religious studies - thinking it would give me a little context for her Buddhist, uhhhhhhh philosophy. I've recently been somewhat interested in her methods after following some helpful links at this site. I'd like to look into it a little bit more. I must admit I'm really curious about her almost strident insistence that Qigong energy work is NOT Non-Dual - ie, IS Dualistic. OK, no problem with that, never thought it was "non-dual." Then here and there I find her speaking of these different levels of "spiritual" work - some so spiritual, presumably non-dualistic, that they are not to be shared ever. Why is this puzzling - what is her context for any of this ? Sorry I'm so inquisitive.... Anyone? Thanks in advance.

never mind

You are way too kind and its an honor to just be here! Best wishes to all.

Thank you both - CowTao too - for your kind words. Nice to meet you. You know of course that one just gets out of the way of the words of our teachers so they might shine through! In any case I'm glad something here clicked for you. I'm honored to be here among so much skill and wisdom. The links you give to the HwaYen info is really great. You are reading my mind. I've been looking into the Flower Garland for some time now and not too much is available on it. This info is really welcome at this time! My fave book so far is the Garma Chang version: THE BUDDHIST TEACHING OF TOTALITY. Feel free to pm me if you want to share more! Sincere best wishes

Hi again Jet, Appreciate this...I was pretty sure I'd rowed this little boat right up into a dry ravine here ....;-) I had no idea about HHDL's pulling on beards but I've heard him speak a couple of times and there is a twinkle in his eye and voice that is irrepressible - even with all that he has to deal with. A remarkable man for sure. I re-read the BKF thing and it seems that much , maybe all, his exposure to Buddhism is academic. Not quite the best way to recognize the deep link to the Tao, it seems to me. I do know, and suspect that you also sense this, that many many Buddhists struggle with this emptiness idea...as an idea. I did so for some years until finally one day I read - for the 25th time - the Diamond Sutra. I quit looking at the part about "have the thought not based in anything" and for just a moment I heard the whole thing speak to me right through the chair and the sunlight I was sitting in. Uncanny! How could I ever ignore the world As It Is again? It IS the entry...the middle way...which emptiness wants. The whole thing, nothing hidden, nothing missing. Incredible! Absolutely everything! The TTC says: #2 (part) "Being and nonbeing arise together: hard and easy complete each other long and short shape each other .... The things of this world exist, they are; you cant refuse them." And then after that it became so obvious to me how intention, in the moment and certainly no where else, forms the next moment and the next. Actually, I'm quite convinced that this intention, in this very moment , changes karma - Buddhist Causes And Conditions Karma. I've even started writing a novel about exactly this. And....lots of humor in it too! For humor from a Buddhist, here is a Tendai monk - now a Zen something-or-other, in some wry, off color and definitely irreverent humor video clips. This teacher of Buddhism has an amazing depth. http://www.youtube.com/user/expandcontract#p/u/73/usFL7YstLnY Best wishes and thanks for ringing in.

Truly, truly. Embarrassed to say that my eyes are a bit wet reading this. Thank you so much for this. I agree because the starting point and the "ending" point is found to be the same point. Blockbuster thread in my eyes. Best wishes!

Well....then...this isn't so bad. maybe I made it after all?

I am just speechless. Thank you for posting this, because I'd never have known and you are really lucky to live so close to the source. Those silly Mayans indeed! Unfortunately this is a calendar conflict for me. I have an appointment out at Area 51 on the 21st. Do you think They'll take a raincheck? Oh sorry...a Soncheck? apologies... to any offended....well sort of.....

Many sincere thanks for your thoughts. For anyone who would like a bit more on this Buddhist “non-existence” idea, I offer this brief and entirely inadequate little bit of info: Buddhism grew out of Vedanta - or rather out of the Buddha's dissatisfaction with the priest's exclusive practices of the time in India. Advaita Vedanta is a later non-dual evolution of Vedanta. Buddha's teachings eventually trickled into China as primarily Mahayana Buddhism. They gained broad interest when Bodhidharma (possibly a mythical figure) brought both a martial arts form (he was a warrior prince from India) and highly evolved Buddhist meditation methods to China in about 500 CE. He became the first patriarch of Zen - at Shaolin. He has only one inheritor of the lineage bowl and robe but from there Chan Buddhism took off quite fast as it adapted to and merged with existing Taoist philosophy. This became Chan or a little later "Zen" in Japan. In some circles, Chan/Zen is an absolute heresy and is not even considered proper Buddhism. The original or Theravada Buddhists thought that one is responsible for ones own cessation of suffering (enlightenment) and for that one only. As the Mahayana got going it was recognized that the reality of enlightenment is not a personal thing at all. It also recognized that there is no difference or division between some enlightened world and this very one. Only the knowing it is so, that there is no difference, is the difference. This is an awakening which does not rest on the idea that life is an illusion to be seen through and which must be then totally discarded. Mahayana sees that This Is It. Just as it is. Mahayana finds that it is both the emptiness of all the form of life and the fullness of the forms of life, taken together, that actually describes awakening fully. THIS IS IT, AS IT IS and it is incredibly so. The Buddha said that it is like a dream, a phantom, lightening bolt and a bubble in the stream. And there is naught else! Nothing any more or less sacred or important or discoverable than what is right here right now! END OF SEARCH. There are several Mahayana sutras which are important to Chan Buddhists because they describe this in a kind of detail not readily found in the somewhat more symbolic language of the Tao-Te Ching. The understanding is present in the TTC but I find that the Taoists who intuitively understand this are somewhat less able to express it as so. (it's just my experience...) And also, many Buddhists are too often drowning in emptiness - thinking that every thing is empty, end of story, get over it. It is just not so when understood in the Mahayana. The Buddha himself warned about this - as nihilism. In this is way it is called the middle way between the extremes of nothingness and something-ness. It all looks the same – its just all in the understanding of what one is “looking at” and who is doing the looking . AS the Zen people say; "Nothing Hidden" Here's a few zen sayings which point to the truth of the Mahayana in which emptiness depends on form which depends on emptiness. A Taoist understanding if ever there was one! To stay with emptiness alone is no less dissatisfying than to stick with form alone. In learning this as a practice, the first thing is to try to see through form and understand why. When done, emptiness is recognized, and maybe, even the sense of a self that has found it may be disintegrating somewhat.....but don't stop there. An amazing realization is in ready to be uncovered – right in one's own pocket - or backyard - or the supermarket..... ---These quotes describe some understanding as the two come back together as the All That Is. “First there are mountains and rivers then there are no mountains and rivers then there mountains and rivers again.” ~Zen saying “If you understand, things are just as they are. If you do not understand, things are just as they are.” ~Zen saying ---On the practice of getting rid of something - such as form (the world) - which would employ the pursuit of something such as “emptiness”: "Make no effort to work or to renounce: all effort is bondage." ~Ramana Maharshi "If you seek the truth in some special way, you will gain a path. This is to lose the truth which is hidden in the path. If you seek truth without any special way of seeking, it is found as it really is.... and it is life itself. ~Meister Eckhart “Truth is a pathless land”. ~J Krishnamurti “Inside every human being there is an authentic person that has no position, rank, standing or path.” ~Chan Mster Linji So none of this leaves any place to stand or to hang on to – including non-existence. “ The Tao that can be spoken (or practiced) is not the Tao.” The Tao is not emptiness or non existence either This leaves what the original Chan masters sometimes offered as HuaTou dialogue as a method for understanding. Such dialogue is not complete without the acknowledgment of What Is also in the perceptions of consciousness, as form, as intrinsic complete IS-ness. This is “suchness” or “thussnes”. In Buddhism this understanding is outlined in the Mahayana Diamond Sutra and others. The Mahayana Buddhist vow is to “Save all sentient beings.” Obviously impossible. An yet there is a way to recognize what this means. It might be expressed as: If you do understand, then saving all sentient beings is impossible. If you don't understand, then saving all sentient beings is impossible. So...what is understood? It's not nearly so simple as just abiding in emptiness and, at the same time, is even easier and much more 'complete' that that. To take a stand in either emptiness or in form is to ascribe to a religion, path, a place to stand from which to make religious pronouncements of doctrine. To make the claim that Buddhism is a religion is to make a religious claim based in an unconscious religion - a common mistake. And yes I am sure there are much better ways of expressing this. If you know, then please point the way! Best wishes. Edited I just read some of the BKF interview and I was reminded of something that relates to this idea of the desirability of 'no place to stand'. My own satisfaction with Buddhist practice and study has been in the exposure of the trance like hypnosis we all are floating in until we wake up to it. Personally, I think it is absolutely important to recognize what that trance is and how it is induced - self or otherwise. (For a good look at transparently induced trance induction, check out Effie Chow videos on Youtube. She could teach Bandler and Grinder a thing or two. ) It is not always necessarily a bad thing, but one should have the choice. Constantly feeling compelled to choose one or another stance or ideology or philosophy - including 'Buddhism', because it is thought to be better than the previous one, is a never ending proposition and is actually like a ball and chain. No clue at all where he gets the idea that Buddhists are less interested in living the here and now. Maybe I just didn't understand what he said. Also was mildly amused at BKF's assessment of the lack of naturalness and humor in Buddhism. I'll grant him his experience, and Tentai is sometimes rather sternly serious, and yet the funniest most irreverent people I know are Zen priests, Buddhists in general and the very funniest is a Tendai monk. So sad this has been his experience with Buddhism because it certainly is not mine. I cannot compare to Taoist priests and even if I could, well, that would just be choosing a place to stand for a comparison that makes for more attachment or aversion. Respectfully.....

Oops, apologies, I see/read that you are looking for those who appreciate David Loy - specifically NON DUALITY, A STUDY..... What I offered were other non-dual resources.

There is a reason that you don't "think" so. Right or wrong is not quite the point as you tend your own mind. 16. Empty your mind of all thoughts. Let your heart be at peace. Watch the turmoil of beings, but contemplate their return. Each separate being in the universe returns to the common source. Returning to the source is serenity. If you don't realize the source, you stumble in confusion and sorrow. When you realize where you come from, you naturally become tolerant, disinterested, amused, kindhearted as a grandmother, dignified as a king. Immersed in the wonder of the Tao, you can deal with whatever life brings you, and when death comes, you are ready. Best wishes to you!

Definitely so. Visualization is visualization. Meditation is meditation. My own experience is that meditation can teach that visualization is what we are doing all the time anyway. Meditation can teach what the mind actually is and that, to me anyway, seems a first priority so that all other energy practices are in perspective. Certainly that state which we call "dreaming" is quite the visualization and if mind is better understood then dreams are not only clearer, but are not the cause of unwanted effects of this visualization. Ultimately it can be seen that daily life is a dream, a trance state, a visualization of the totality as well. When this is known, visualization is obviously recognized as a determining factor in what happens next - next being very soon or quite a long ways down the road. And finally, knowing this much, it is easier to keep track of all those little thoughts that run the mind as well as the big ones. This knowledge directly informs the phenomena of virtue and morality. It is also a major step to complete freedom. Good luck!

For what it is worth here, I was targeted by a conservative religious culture as an outsider from as far back I can remember. I had the audacity to think I was somehow just like Jesus when I was about 6 years old. Then I made the mistake of telling someone in my family about this and it was all downhill from there. That was many decades ago. Many. After some decades, I even went through a period of trying with real diligence to fit into some damn place of relative comfort...which of course did not work. I gave up on that and began to have satisfaction but not constant awareness of it. Finally after many years I came across a tradition where I recognized myself. In that tradition I soon came across the 10 Oxherding Pictures which showed the way back into society - any society at all actually and including the very one I was estranged from. It is going to take more of de-conditioning to accomplish the tenth picture at 100%. Well at least now I know what it means and have a sense of the implications. If you are interested, here is a link to the 10 Oxherding Pictures. From the link: "The twelfth century monk Guo-an Shi-yuan (also known as Kuo-an Shih-yuan or Kakuan Shien) revised and expanded upon the traditional Taoist story of the ox and the oxherd by creating a series of ten images and accompanying verses to simultaneously depict and narrate this well-known tale. Guo-an’s version subsequently became one of the most popular and enduring versions of the parable." http://www.exeas.org/resources/pdf/oxherding.pdf

Well, actually it is an opportunity, just like anything else in life. I know of a couple of instances of Tibetan monks who died sitting up in meditation after being critically beaten by the Chinese army. What would they have been responding to, in that meditation, and how would they have responded to it as they "died"? Could be exactly the same answer you are looking for? What's a little hard-on to the one who is actually doing the meditation? Stay with it, or it is not actually meditation.

Fabulous link! Right, unconsciously = iffy. Another way, consciously, that is probably less immediately accessible is deeply contemplating the (Buddhist) HuaYen Sutra - fractal to the max. It stimulates exactly these neuro transmitters and just happens to be grounded in the same tradition in the Qigong Emei tradition. (Samantrabhadra) I'm looking into exactly this! Thanks for this link very much. I always wondered about this...but then I am from the 60's... This is the shamanic link I look into.

Oh yes, I do think so too.

I just saw this thread and was curious. Good question....my 2 cents.... What do I do about getting older - at well over 60 now? What is there to do about it? I am not interested in getting younger. As they say in Buddhist circles: " I am of the nature to die". I am interested in the quality of life as I age. Quality, not quantity. I do some Qigong to counter the pain of aging. Breath works incredibly well. But I'll miss my Qigong every time when necessary if it is a choice between meditation or Qigong. Besides, I can do breath work anytime - in the line at the supermarket. Additionally I asked a Qigong teacher to give me some outlines on conscious, intentional, aware walking from , say, the car to the supermarket. In short, LIFE is what I do about getting older. Because I meditate, I understand without any hesitation at all that there is no difference between life and death - not any that counts anyway. I know what, not who, I am. I look at someone like Stephen Hawking and also each MWF look at a dear friend whom I know @ 88 yrs and who I'm teaching computer skills, Skype, even simple Qigong over Skype. The difference it has made in her emotional life is just astounding - and it is all her own doing, nothing "I" have done at all. If I do nothing else till the day I die, this alone will be enough. So I COULD think that age is an inconvenience. But I don't. Best wishes. Just another little thought... As I get older, I recognize how much I have lived conceptually. I practice non conceptually living more and more as I age. It is what I do about growing old. It is THE timeless practice. The concepts become clearer, are more easily revealed, as I age. Here is something from Bernie Glassman - Zen Master - who lives on the street with the homeless at times. He expresses what this means to me. If you know what a sesshin is, you will understand the comparison. He sees life as sesshin and I do agree - that is only what Zen ever teaches - the immediacy of life lived non-conceptually. Death is a concept. Eventually there is no difference between life, sesshin and death. From Bernie: "Sesshin also brings us to the immediacy of life. But the street does it very, very dramatically. Issues of eating, peeing, defecating, every aspect of our life is raw and right there." ....or as Basho once said: "fleas, lice a horse pissing near my pillow" Sunsets will do just as well, or snowflakes, or a child's small warm hand in mine......and so on... To me, this all is energy work.

Soooooo true, thank you.

About fear I find that fear (like anger or any other emotion) has an entirely physical component. Just sitting or standing or even moving mindfully with this physical aspect in unwavering attention is a beginning. A bit hard to do at first but it can actually be developed - there are some fears that can be called up usually. I did this for myself anyway and I'm betting it will work for anyone. Really investigate the energetic aspect as it is in the body and it tends to de-fuse it quickly. It separates the energy from the personal story and that is the most important thing for me. I recall that for the first few times it felt very strange but oddly satisfying - almost like a purification of some kind. The same one may come back again - even many times, but just repeat or stay with it. I get the personal story separated out and then pay very close attention to the energy of it in the body. There really is a personal story in it. If it is an emergency, then intuition with exceptional energy is there to work automatically for the duration and when "time" does return, the personal story creeps in. So I practice on anger, frustration and such as training for the emergency. Driving in traffic gives plenty opportunity for me! Additionally, I look directly at what the mind thinks about death - repeatedly in meditation - and watch the energy in the body. I've learned some things in this one especially. I recommend this practice without reservation. Surprises await! Reasoning this out has limited usefulness for me when angry or fearful. I just defuse it by actually embracing the nameless energy and studying it with some curiosity. After all, it is the energy of the impersonal cosmos. I don't engage the mind any more than necessary, exactly as in certain kinds of meditation. Mind is the enemy in the beginning here. Contemplation of certain Buddhist sutras - and I'm sure Taoist ones too - is very helpful a little later and if studied beforehand, they are accessible at the right time after the more immediate energy work. Best wishes

Fascinating concept, this banning reincarnation. I wonder if they know that, if it works, that it will disappear the entire ideology that has thought up the ban and which supports it. I'm staying tuned for sure. These are exciting times!

Yes it is an excellent resource when not taken literally. Actually it is not even possible to take the Tomas Cleary version of Secret of The Golden Flower literally. There are 2 versions/translations/interpretations and I personally much prefer the Clearly version.

This too.

Thanks for this!