konchog uma

spoiler is just [ spoiler ] and then [ /spoiler ] without the spaces between the brackets and the command theres a menu option for it too, hidden in the special BBCodes (3rd icon over at the top of the text box) but its easier to just type it out for me. so you would do it like this: [ spoiler ] [ media ] http://www.youtube.com/video [ /media ] [ /spoiler ] (again without the spaces)

no its hard to take terma history as actual, like i said, your point is taken. i didnt have a lot of time earlier and so didnt read the whole section you linked to my appologies

yes. perhaps thats why the dates are so spotty. point taken. thanks.

Can you provide a date of Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche's birth or death? I can't find one.

according to Lopon Tenzin Namdak bon has a 17,000 year history of oral tradition and transmission. Hard to find dates for Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche but i think he predated Shakyamuni Buddha.

very interesting stories, thank you everyone for sharing... when i was a child in america, i imagined monks in saffron and yellow robes, looking tibetan, before i knew the difference between different kinds of monks. The images i would conjure of monks while sitting in my room are still very clear in my memory. when i was 14 i wondered what monks did when they meditated, so i sat down and closed my eyes with my legs crossed. I remember sitting there until i was unable to imagine the room or recreate the scene in my minds eye. There i was floating free in space with no reference points. I was hooked! when i was 16 i learned to lucid dream, and read the DDJ for the first time, and a mess of other books like carlos castendeda series and basic buddhism books when i was 18 i was meditating 2 or 3 hours a day, getting up sitting a little going to work coming home sitting a lot eating showering going to bed. It was very unstructured and uninformed, but i was unwinding myself and making progress. I had a spiritual sickness that year and woke from it a fundamentally different person. I consider castendeda to be fraudulent but the experience i had bears remarkable similarity to don juan's description of one who loses their human form to remain just a human mold. Who can say... when i was 19, after studying taiji and kungfu under a daoist for a few years i went travelling, a self styled wandering daoist, living out of a backpack with a bedroll. I saw much of the united states and had a merry time until i was hit by a car at 20. That experience was accompanied by a near death experience which was directly out of the Bardo Thodol (the so called "tibetan book of the dead"... it actually translates as "the inbetween state which liberates upon contact") which i hadn't read yet. when i was 21, having been changed by the NDE, i was having an incredibly hard time healing from a bilateral tibia fibula fracture, and trying to figure out why i could not go back to being the "worldly" (lol) person i was before my NDE. I read the bardo thodol and realized that there was a map for the territory i had stumbled into, and beyond. when i was 22 i took refuge in buddhism under Ontul Rinpoche, a Drikung Kagyu and Yangzab (drikung dzogchen) Tibetan Buddhist lineage holder, and started sitting with a local Drikung Kagyu sangha every chance i got. I started taking my dharma seriously and while the years between then and 30 were characterized by vacillation between heavy involvement in sangha and my own solo exploration sans group, i continued to make progress when i was 30 i doubled down again, met my ninja teacher, and, inspired to become "invisible", started cutting out the inessential things and people that were holding back my spiritual progress. when i was 34 i joined TTB and started posting (i don't usually post much if at all on forums) and learned, among other things, that the NDE had wakened my kundalini... so i started working with that energy with the help of the kuji-in my ninja teacher had showed me, and with shaking practice now at 36 i feel i have a firm foundation in meditation and and building an ever-firmer foundation in philosophy (which i neglected to study for a long time, being turned off by academic approaches to spiritual practice, and preferring to just sit). hope that wasn't too long i left a lot out

tori amos and maynard james keenan Muhammed My Friend

sushumna moves up and down, simultaneously and continuously as muktananda taught there are a series of smaller and smaller channels inside sushumna, which increase in the subtlety of the energy transmitted as they decrease in size, down to an extraordinarily small channel which is just void, according to goswami (layayoga) but none of them move downward specifically, its just that the sushumna isn't limited to up or down , its both

ah i see. glad you clarified. perhaps robust energy, the kind that is cultivated by qigong and esoteric energy practices, makes one attractive to the opposite sex. i'm not really sure about yang qi (kundalini) although that makes sense too

i told my gf about the research that says that many women like "bad boys" and if their boyfriends are nice to them, open doors for them, etc, they get bored and start chasing bad boys. She laughed and asked if i had been reading pick up artist material and will i still be shoveling the snow off the walk in the mornings? lol then she reminded me that most people (both sexes) are confused and don't know what they want anyway, which throws a wrench in all sociological research about attraction and relationships. She assured me that she, and the more emotionally balanced women she knows or works with, appreciate kindness, gentleness, honesty, and even chivalry to a point. And definitely appreciate not having to go outside at dark thirty in the morning to shovel snow. In my own opinion, calm is sexy, confident is sexy, but the most sexy thing of all is being able to actually sexually satisfy your partner (and then some). I've known ugly guys that sleep with lots of women because word of their abilities to give pleasure gets spread around the bar or the block or wherever. And i think that when people have good knowledge of the psychology and anatomy of the opposite sex, when they can relax and enjoy the moment of introduction in the same way that they are relaxed in the moment of coition, that brings about a natural confidence which is attractive without artifice. just 2c from a bum

invisible ink is the best of mediums to convey my heart

according to lopon malcolm, the specific practices of dzogchen and mahamudra should not be discussed with those who have not received initiation or empowerment. He didn't say that mentioning them was forbidden, he said that talking about practices we have received is forbidden. (he also said that the four yogas are okay to discuss).

sure. My teacher who is in Nepal right now had a monastery education and is more traditional, so he might say something different. I look forward to his email but no idea how long that will take

the teacher who did respond to my questions added that traditionally in tibet dzogchen was secret, and that at the time of sri simha's transmission to vairocana it was illegal in oddiyana and was practiced in total secrecy. He said that since the destruction of traditional tibetan culture and the transfer to the west of vajrayana/dzogchen it has become more open, hence public webcasts of introductory transmission and other more mainstream appearance of dzogchen. He said that tantric vows did not apply to it, that it is not considered a form of tantra. He said the most important thing is whether a person is saying things about dzogchen in order to learn in a humble way, or whether they are fostering the false refuge of ego by acting like a dzogchenpa when they are not. He repeated that it is not forbidden to mention dzogchen in public or on the internet. He said in his experience, the more sincere a practitioner is, the less they talk about it. my other teacher still hasnt responded, but can speak from the point of view of mahamudra. When he gets back to me i will let you know.

but sometimes we wake within a fantastic dream to fly among birds

i tried to start one but it never took off i remember i had just invented ground lamb and eggs over kim chee and i wanted to spread the news!! lol

its not spin its called context. He says not to talk about teachings that one has received. Thats obvious. He doesnt say that its inappropriate to talk about them in every possible context. but thanks i'll stick to the advice of my teachers. My one did say it would be best to keep it minimal but in the case of writing on a forum to ask about books to read or teachers to study under, its not a violation of samaya. He said thogal is secret and other parts of ati yoga are secret, but that dzogchen has outer inner and secret aspects. Having outer aspects, it is not forbidden to mention dzogchen. He still advised to be careful not to talk about it in an attempt to make on seem like an advanced practitioner or boost ones ego in other ways that lack merit. My other teacher is in nepal so i'll have to wait for email response. thank you for sharing the words of dzongsar khyentse rinpoche, i find them to be helpful. I'll let you know what my other teacher says

wow that was actually right speech for the entire duration of a post thanks

in one post you say that everyone who talks about it just leaves secret stuff out, and then in the next you say you don't talk about it. but the quote you cite says dont talk about instructions you have received, or "hang the words from your mouth" which in the context of the article means dont talk about it to boost your own ego or show off like youre some kind of higher practitioner. lol confusing. i will ask my teachers. thanks tho ???

just wanted to post a link to the kuji-in wikipedia page, which got a major boost to the introduction of its article, much of which deals with the daoist origins of kuji-in i found it fascinating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuji-in

yeah i can't afford DGS teachings. i like that clip tho

i don't need to read the whole reply again, thank you though. You can cite your personal opinions, and i will cite the teachings which talk about different capacities, and in the end, time will tell who is correct. I am not interested in discussing it further. The vedic swastika rotates widdershins. The one you posted is a nazi swastika that rotates deosil. The carry opposite meanings. So thats the confusion.

no not kidding, just relatively new to the study of both. my question was, is it inappropriate to talk about dzogchen in public as a student? what about the mass of activity of dzogchen community on dharmawheel and other sites? and other talk of it. What about sincere students who have questions and don't want to pester their teachers... it dzongar khentse says keep it to yourself, is that just his opinion? Can you clarify the appropriate and inappropriate times to talk about dzogchen and mahamudra?

im confused by the swastika imagery. daoraindao, it is said in the teachings that there are higher, ordinary, and lower capacities... it doesn't have anything to do with fascism, its just that some people, due to karmic reasons, have a greater capacity for wakefulness. some rare people receive initiation from a teacher and never leave the state of awakenment thereafter. All they need is the grace of the lama. Thats the very highest capacity. Some people practice shamatha for ten years and still can't completely calm their mind because their obscurations are too great. its not obscene to make these distinctions, they exist. a housefly is not an elephant, and its okay to say that some creatures are small and some are large. No biggie. Thats nature. Not everyone has the same capacity.

dzongar khentse says we shouldn't talk about dzogchen or mahamudra in a way that feeds our egos, but they are not secret in the same way that tantric practices are secret are they? if i ask a question to other dzogchen students in order to dispel confusion or gain understanding, is that also seen as inappropriate?