konchog uma

I looked online but couldn't find that one

many ppl don't consider buddhism a religion. many buddhists don't consider themselves religious.

where did you get that definition of religion?

Savages - Shut up - from Silence Yourself its been years since i listened to a single album for so long... completely amazing

maybe youre thinking of big mind in zen. thats not god. nor is buddha another jesus. radically different. many concepts overlap and many do not at all. most key concepts, from a pedantic point of view, do not.

this picture is very interesting, because the saffron and burgundy robes prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that HH is Buddhist and not Jewish. But he's actually talking to reptilian shapeshifters on that headpiece, so look out. (Buddhists call them nagas FYI!) Conclusive proof right there shabooya

This conversation is absurd. And there's no evidence that entheogens cause ppl to live longer. According to shamans I have talked to some are toxic like datura and some are very difficult to seperate from toxins, like woodrose. I'm not advocating anti-entheogen policy, but there's a lot more to the situation than just decriminalizing them. I have never heard of a society which used entheogens openly, they have always been restricted and controlled to an extent. With the lack of shamanically trained people inwestern culture, and the proliferation of self-centered indulgent lifestyles, and the general endemic disconnect from nature, I think its dangerous to decriminalize powerful plants at this point. Sad to say, but I believe people lack the inherent respect for nature necessary to use those plants without destructive effect. Since they can cut to the root of neurosis and generate insight, two dangerous things from a control-freak government POV, Its hard to imagine a radical policy change in the near future.

There are only 3 kinds of people in the world: people who are good at mathematics, and people that aren't.

its an interested question cat. "is "offence" a mechanism whereby 'something' is punctured and therefore contracts?" my immediate answer is that that 'something' is the ego. Then i had to check myself for not being able to talk about things in a universal framework, since ego means different things to different people, especially modern buddhists. So within the limitations of the concept of ego, i still think that's basically whats getting punctured, peoples self-concept and the ideas about ourselves that we have, and constantly need to reinforce via our thoughts, words, and actions. So thats pretty predictable coming from a buddhist, and i apologize for that, but then again, i am a buddhist because it makes a lot of sense to me, and embodies a language that allows me to deal with myself and my world effectively. So i think its actually the idea of the self and the insecurities that surround that for each of us, and that can be taken out of a buddhist context... we all have self-concept, regardless of the path we follow.

schroedinger's offense

vmarco was being vmarco. how anyone interprets that is their own trip. maybe someone else really appreciates vmarco for the same words i found offensive. i don't know if people need not take offense, i think perhaps people need to when they do. Its just a natural reaction to a situation if you have those kind of sensibilities. Another way of looking at it is that when the body, energy, and mind are cleansed of obstructions, things are perceived as the dance of the infinite, or the dao, or the vajra world, or whatever aldous huxley was trying to talk about. Pick your semantic framework. But until one can clear away their obstructions, which usually happens through practice and effort, maybe they need to get offended. Maybe that offense is a way of showing them what they need to work on, so really its a perfect part of their healing process. Maybe someone offensive is really that offended persons medicine. Thats why i say its all in how one chooses to look at the world and react to it. So in the end whether we say someone "is offensive" or "is acting in a way that is perceived to be offensive" or or that one is just "taking offense" etc etc i think this is all semantic. Interesting, and perhaps useful, but semantic. Beyond the semantics is an experience of life situations, even (and especially) offensive ones, which i am trying to illuminate (semantically!), one that revolves around taking obstacles as the path and cleansing the doors of our own perceptions via whatever practice we engage in, whether its sex and drugs, or tantric sadhana, or just meditation, or qigong, etc etc. I mean, thats why we're all here right? to talk about practice and the potential to cleanse our own obstacles?? to learn about such things and then go do them? Im only trying to suggest that if you're here to get offended by other peoples points of view, theres a bigger world out there. And that even if you aren't here to do that, but it happens anyway, you can work with that as square one of your practice, and follow that thread to unearth your own hidden issues and deal with them. this last bit to the royal "you", not to you personally cat.

it wasn't offense or non-offense until i took it one way or the other. it was offensive to me because i got offended, just like vmarco's comments above aren't because i'm not offended. My sensitivities aren't really the focus here, and if they are, they only prove the point that things aren't anything in and of themselves, its all how we chose to perceive and react. so im not saying ive never been offended lol. im saying it only pointed out my own potential to grow, not anything inherent in the situation itself.

its only offensive if you get offended lol. so to me a non-offensive world looks the same as the world that so many take issue with. i don't think that the world is the problem in other words. But if it is, you can always work towards attainments which will allow you to live in another world. It might be easier to cultivate acceptance of things as they are... but then again, it might not

i got up at 4:15 today and started to meditate, using the anapanasati teachings of Ajahn Brahm as i have been working with from his book Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond. I am just writing to report that the book is an excellent guide, and that i am achieving success in deeper states by practicing from it. I would like to thank Tibetan_Ice again for pointing it out to me, and I would like to thank Ajahn Brahm for writing it (just since its the internet and you never know who's reading this) i have been getting so much out of it. I am halfway through it so i can't say much, but just working with his progression of: breath w mantra (he recommends bud dha on in/out breaths but i use so ham) breath w silence stabilizing the "beautiful breath" a rarified soft gentle breath that one achieves in meditation achieving joy and happiness from resting in the beautiful breath going beyond even the sense of touch so that the breath becomes a mind object sitting perfectly still (i don't want to, and nearly can't move after the last stage anyway) the birth of the nimitta (a light which can act as the gateway to absorption states of jhana/dhyana) {thats as far as ive gone but its followed by} being absorbed into the nimitta or allowing the nimitta to absorb one and entering jhana after leaving jhana, using the conciousness generated to penetrate the mysteries of being feeling good all day long (ok im just guessing) his guidance has led me to incredible states of stillness, stabilization of slower breathing than i have ever experienced, realizing i have a dying blockage to feeling joy and happiness from the breath, stabilization of incredible stillness when i let the sense of touch fall away and just rest in mind awareness (its like the opposite of kriyas, like i got a shot of some strange drug that won't let me move) just sitting like a mountain.. unbelievable, and just this morning i saw my first nimitta - a fuzzy indigo blob of light that was too dull to really shine but nonetheless was my first foray into nimitta territory. So i want to recommend this book to everyone who is interested in deepening their anapanasati practice or working towards jhana states. I don't usually report meditation breakthroughs here, but this one came so easily from Ajahn Brahm's wonderful instructions, and is so profound, that i want to share it so that others experience this too! I will say i have almost 20 years of meditation experience to work with, and i'm not sure that everyone will have nimitta's halfway through the book so i don't want to give anyone distorted or false hope, if that needs to be said. But even if it takes you 20 years to accomplish (it won't.) it will be worth it. After a 2 hour sit this morning i am still full of bliss, tranquility, and compassion for idiot drivers and people downtown, and everyone for that matter. Things that would have shaken me from my center have happened to me today and it didn't even phase me.. I welcomed the opportunity to practice patience, and tried to do nice things for those who might have otherwise offended me! amazing

yeah sounds out of balance joy is great but don't attach, it'll pass

just thought i'd jump in and offer that the jhanas are conceptual while enlightenment is not. Also, the skandhas aren't poisoned or something we need to be free from. Shakyamuni and Guru Rinpoche had form, feelings, perceptions, intellect, and consciousness. They just didn't mistake them for an immortal self. one way of looking at enlightenment is that all that obscures the innate omniscient awareness has been cleared away, which is a very rare accomplishment... but i think that talking about enlightenment is sort of pointless. Its a nice carrot in front of your nose, but its a non-conceptual state of being, so one can experience it, but can't talk about it. Shakyamuni realized that as soon as he attained it. He vowed to stay silent in the forest because he knew words would only obscure the truth, but the deities petitioned him to teach, so he found a way. You can't understand it though.. in spite of all the literature lol

artist Portugal. The Man album Evil Friends another con to Google Play Music All Access, i emailed them about how their subscription fees get diverted to actually support artists, and they said they "didn't have that information" ahaha google not having information.. sure so there is no transparency like with last.fm and spotify, which pay on a per play basis, and have information available online about their rate of pay etc

"You see, at the beginning, we have to develop a very sharp, precise mind to see what we are. There is no other way of sharpening our intelligence. Pure intellectual speculation would not sharpen it at all, because there you have to introduce so much stuff that blunts, that overclouds. The only way to do it is just to leave intelligence as it is with the help of some technique. Then the intelligence begins to learn how to relax and wait and allow what takes place to reflect in it. The learning process becomes a reflection rather than creating things. So waiting and letting what arises reflect on the intelligence is the meditation practice. It is like letting a pond settle down so the true reflection can be seen. There are already so many mental activities going on constantly. Adding further mental activities does not sharpen the intelligence. The only way is just to let it develop, let it grow." from Glimpes of Abhidharma by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

You're welcome C T

from Glimpses of Abhidharma by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche as found in The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa vol. 2 page 274 Student: Would you explain what is meant by "ego game"? Rinpoche: I think that is what we have been discussing all along in this seminar. The basic notion of ego is the notion of survival, trying to maintain oneself as "I am", as an individual. Now, as we just said, there is a tendency for the coherency of that occasionally to break down. Therefore one needs to find all sorts of means of confirmation, of confirming a coherent, consistent me, a solid me. Sometimes, quite knowingly, ego has to play a game as though nothing had gone wrong with it. It pretends seeing through ego never happened, even though secretly it knows better. So ego trying to maintain itself leaves one in the strange position of trying to indoctrinate oneself oneself. This is a false pursuit, of course. But even knowing it is false does not particularly help, because ego says, "that's not the point. We have to go on trying to learn to survive, playing this survival game of grasping, using any situation available in the present moment as part of the survival technique." This involves a power game as well because at a certain stage the defense mechanisms you have set up become more powerful than you are. They become overwhelming. Then, when you become used to the overwhelming quality of the defense mechanisms, when for a moment, they are absent, you feel very insecure. That game of polarities goes on and on. On the whole, ego's game is played in terms of ignoring what is really happening in a situation. You constantly, quite subbornly want to see it from your point of view rather than seeing what really is happening there.

and the idea that the id is the primordial base of human experience contrasts the buddhist idea that wakefulness is the base.

Silence Yourself by Savages (album) on Google Play Music All Access, their new music subscription service (8$/mo if you start your trial month before june 30, 10$/mo afterward). the pros are numerous - listen to whole albums, a total of 20 million songs, unlimited skips, search other peoples public playlists (regularly updated lists of fresh new stuff by music heads), store up to 20,000 of your own songs in the google cloud.. the con is that its google, which is basically a huge data collection engine, so if you don't want the googlebot to know what you're listening to, well, don't do it lol

The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa (I'm on volume 2 of 8 at present) which is really totally amazing... he may have been the first Tibetan to understand and speak to the modern western mind... there is a freshness in his writing that cuts through neurosis and self-deceipt Dakini's Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism by Judith Simmer-Brown... kinda sholarly, but still full of heart.. just started so can't say much The Shambhala Principle by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche... conversations between the reincarnation of Mipham the Great and his father, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, interspersed with commentary on the modern world and what we can do to "create enlightened society"... very inspiring and very simply written. SMR is not pretentious. just finished Dzogchen Teachings by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, more excellent teachings by one of my favorite teachers and almost done with The Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen by Thrangu Rinpoche (translated by Lama Yeshe), which was helpful. The explanation of practice itself is extraordinarily brief and simple.. plain like water . The rest of it is full of other insight and helpful advice on how to integrate practice with life

Baba Ram Dass and Ralph Metzner, for modern famous examples i think its an interesting phrase "drug taking base" that you use.. because if drugs are the base of one's explorations, it seems that there is a real limitation and dangers there. If one is exploring the connection between mind/energy/body, aka the "spiritual path" then mind/energy/body itself would IMO make a better base than drugs for their progress. I have seen a lot of seekers from old sixties heads to young people in the evolver movement to the blather on reality sandwich and it all makes me think that very few people are using drugs effectively. It also makes me think that most of them think that it is Very effective because they are having insights and unlocking parts of themselves which they know no other way to explore. I will say that I have never heard of anyone who achieved either enlightenment or immortality by means of drugs, but a good many daoists did die of various poisoning in their attempts, and a good many more have died of internal complications brought on by intoxicants, i imagine. On a good note, I will say that one modern seeker who, IMO, has used drugs very wisely and effectively, is John C. Lilly. But he seems to be the exception and not the rule. I am not sure what sort of natural insight possesses him but he clearly isn't advocating the recreational or careless use of sacred substances. His approach is methodical and respectful, and while I wouldn't suggest that the average person try to follow his example, I would suggest that they read his books and learn from his experiences! Lastly, most of the shamans I know aren't that into drugs. A Cherokee shaman who I worked with extensively never once mentioned them, although he would smoke a cigar before sweat lodges. Now some shamans are peyote and ayahuasca etc and that is their medicine, but none of them are suggesting that people take it recreationally. They meet ceremonially in reverence, meditation, prayer, chanting and singing sacred ancient songs. Unless I have missed some posts, i think that very few people here on this thread have mentioned this. So I am assuming that most modern people just take these entheogens recreationally without any real connection to the sacred, except that their drug experiences are sacred to them lol. The base of shamanism is connection and oneness with the natural world, not drugs. That connection and oneness are there already as your inalienable state of being! lol i'm not sure anybody needs to hallucinate on intoxicants in order to experience this. btw flolofil, i'm not anti-drug although i think most people should be! hahah.. im glad you seem more open now to all sides of the discussion, as a onesided discussion about how awesome it is to trip doesn't seem as genuine and beneficial to me. I got into my practice because of a deep desire to alter my state of being and experience happiness and bliss. But the root of those things isn't external to me, that is my point. Not that "drugs are bad".

Well put