konchog uma

since you clearly didnt read the post i am referring to, and i dont feel like digging back through this thread to reference it, i will only point out that stalin, mao, mussolini, and hitler were basically atheists (although it can be debated in hitler's case) and took the same view on religion as is posited in this threads original post and throughout. his holiness the dalai lama is not a dictator. he wasn't before he abdicated his political responsibilities and he isn't today. osho was a terrorist but not a dictator. you talking about political correctness is irony itself.

well pol pot was a fan of theravada buddhism, but mostly just to keep people pacified, not really as a practitioner.. i dont really practice buddhism as a religion, but some do, so i dont mind the confusion

every native culture i have ever heard of thanks their version of the creator or the planet for the food they eat. Those kids have their own lives to live.. you feeling sorry is just like their bad religious feelings.. dogma. whats the difference? and the reason people listen to their elders and their spiritual traditions is because nobody has the processing power in their brains to "think for themselves" about everything. Doesn't it ever seem stupid to you to throw away all the experience and advice of all these world traditions? Doesn't it ever seem like trying to reinvent the wheel? 970 posts saying next to nothing, and not one single answer to my point about fascist dictators and their atheist worldviews... telling

lol so how would you improve on tummo as practiced at present? lol well see i think you should just breath normally and put a thicker jacket on! BRILLIANT! thank you

too late tonight, will revisit when i have time thanks and blessings

ah, i forgot that was a trailer for a moment. hahaha im glad neat clips, but i have seen that footage in the yogis of tibet movie.. so maybe thats what youre thinking of? thanks for sharing!

your friend is fortunate! and i believe it about the breathing

interesting. that poor monk broke a five year vow of silence to talk to them and all that made it into the film was 3 sentences. have you seen this?

you can't link https addresses sime take the s out so its http then it'll work

http://news.harvard....8/09-tummo.html https://en.wikipedia...c_investigation "In the first experiment, in Upper Dharamsala (India), Benson et al. (1982)[full citation needed] found that these subjects exhibited the capacity to increase the temperature of their fingers and toes by as much as 8.3°C."

so your logic is that because the dalai lama travels, tummo doesnt work http://yourlogicalfa...com/false-cause halarious. https://www.youtube.com/user/wimhof1 http://www.icemanwimhof.com/en-home back to ignoring your posts, goodbye

you are certainly welcome, my own practice has benefitted greatly too! edit: hehe i am still in the clinging stages that article describes

why would the dalai lama be doing reverse or vase breathing in a public gathering? of course he was breathing normally, unfortunately that proves nothing. you don't know what he does when he practices in private, so there is no point in talking about who you've met in the context of a discussion about meditation practice. what IS relevant is that there are all kinds of breathing methods, and some of them, although not approved by GrandmasterP, are effective nonetheless! And it is those methods that we are talking about! Why dont you start a thread about ordinary breathing where we can talk about ordinary breathing if we so choose? And quit derailing this thread about VASE and REVERSE breathing with your unfounded criticisms. If you lived in the himalayas and practiced tummo, you wouldnt do it "quite normally" you would do it with reverse and vase breathing. And if you needed to stay warm on a frozen night then i guess we would all see how quickly you "needed to believe it". sheesh

CT, thanks for that article! TI, i am not sure that recognizing rigpa equals enlightenment. Perhaps resting in unstained awareness (rigpa) as a constant state could be said to be an enlightened state. I wouldn't contest that. But the pointing out happens so that we can recognize ripga initially and have a reference point to return to as we work with our mind (sem) and awareness (rigpa). It makes perfect sense to me that a realized master could transmit the state they were in to another person who was capable of handling it. Some people have received pointing out instructions and because of their capability and karma, achieved liberation right then and there. But by far, most people who receive pointing out instructions maintain the state for a little bit, and then lose it, returning to a state characterized by obscurations. That is my small understanding.

great link, thanks, i'd like to quote something from the section entitled "the life and teachings of adeu rinpoche" "[student] What are some of the stumbling blocks in the practice of rigpa? [Rinpoche]: The most common stumbling blocks to maintaining the continuity of rigpa are the temporary experiences of bliss, clarity and non-thought. Let’s take bliss as an example. This is when you are practicing and supposedly training in the natural state, but it has actually shifted into being a cozy state of shamatha where you feel extremely good. You get the feeling that, “I don’t want to spill the soup because if I move, may be I will ruin this state”. It feels very comfortable, very smooth, very clear, and undisturbed. Being in such a state is so enjoyable that you don’t even want to move a knee or arm, afraid that even the slightest movement will wreck that state. This is a sign that the mood of shamatha has saturated the state of rigpa and taken it over. If this happens, you should totally disown that state. Instead of clinging to the meditation like a precious possession, you should toss it away. There is a statement that the mountain boulder improves by falling. It falls from a great height, clashes with stone, and gets polished and purified. Likewise, rushing water becomes fresher and purer as it flows downstream. In the same way, the yogi’s meditation is improved by destruction; repeatedly destroying the meditation state improves it. The indication that one has slipped into shamatha is a sense of being attached or fascinated. Clinging, one goes astray. Rigpa is without clinging to anything whatsoever. It is wide open and clear whereas Shamatha doesn’t have the lucidity to it. In some of his songs Milarepa says that bliss, clarity and non-thought are like the dregs of the view and should be thrown away. In other songs, he says that bliss, clarity and non-thought are like the summit of the view. How are these two seemingly contradictory statements reconciled? In the first case, these are like the cozy mood of shamatha and so nothing more than a product of grasping mind. So of course such a state should be dispensed with and not clung to. However the natural state, the essence, itself is also blissful, clear and free of thought, yet these qualities cannot be dispensed with because they are intrinsic to the natural state. The difference is that at the stage of one-pointedness, one still clings to these temporary experiences; whereas in the next stage of Simplicity, they are recognized to be the characteristics of the natural state which is not only blissful, clear and free of thought, but also free of all clinging and grasping." i think it may have been along these sorts of lines that CT was operating when he said that there is no 'boom' or 'pop' in dzogchen. Everyone knows that peak experiences happen, and also that disappearing into the dharmadhatu in a wild light show is pretty 'boom' and 'pop'. But the idea that bliss, clarity, and non-thought are three obstacles to dzogchen progress keeps coming up in the teachings, and strikes me as very useful. at this beginning stage of my dzogchen studies i feel a little bit like a blind man feeling an elephant, but slowly a picture is emerging. The way it works with phenomena seems very tantric in that it uses whatever arises as an opportunity to manifest primordial awareness, but at the same time seems very non-tantric in that there is really nothing to be transformed, no transformation happening. Where tantric methods seek to work with the emotions to turn them into the wisdoms, dzogchen seeks to abide in the primordial state, from which vantage point the emotions are already expressions of the wisdom, and clearly so, no transformation need take place. Feel free anyone to correct me or comment on that, certainly not trying to profess, simply running an idea past you all, thinking out loud as it were

yes kindle edition indeed, thank you for pointing that out i have noticed while reading that book that Eric Pema Kunsang often translates "rigpa" into english as "awareness". yes a groovy mystery, get in the van guys *spoiler: its old garab dorje the mountain hermit, he's the one behind all those fingernails and bunches of hair! (zoinks)

Mipham Jampal Dorje (Mipham the scholar, considered to be a deity emanation of Manjushri) says this about rigpa and mind in his "The Lamp Which Dispels Darkness" which i found in Perfect Clarity on page 84 "The glorious Saraha said: Completely abandoning the thinker and what is thought of, Remain like a thought-free child This is the method of resting, and if you apply yourself to the guru's words and endeavor, when you have obtained the instruction that brings you face to face with knowing (rigpa)* the coemergent will dawn without a doubt. Thus dawns the self-existing wakefulness that is rigpa - the nature of your mind, which is primordially coemergent with your mind. This nature (dharmata) of all things (dharmas) is also the original and ultimate luminosity. This being so, settling in naturalness and sustaining the rigpa of recognizing one's natural face, the mind-essence or nature of mind, is an instruction that condenses a hundred vital points into one. Moreover, this is what you should sustain continuously." (* in this text, ripga is translated as "knowing," so as to follow simple explanations by Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche and Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche) so he talks about rigpa as "primordially coemergent with your mind" and being identified with mind-essence. just came across this and thought i would butt in yet again, since i am still feeling out the finer points of this terminology myself, and i find the conversation helpful. I hope this is not offensive to anyone!

its not because you think differently, its because you usually arent talking about what the thread is about, and its usually about nothing that interests me. i find it annoying, and rather than be annoyed, i just chose to ignore you. there are people i ignore because i think they are assholes, and for what its worth, you arent one of them. If i saw you in a teahouse i would have a cup with you, i just find that your posts tend to be almost entirely extraneous. i meant it when i said nothing personal.. i hope you dont take it that way

Just wanting to wish you all a happy winter solstice. Congratulations on surviving what may be the last great round of westerner hyperbole about the apocalypse (til they invent the next one.. will the world also end in 2020 according to Cayce? hmmm unsure), and congratulations on being a vibrant spiritual community, which is a rare thing in this world. I wish you each a happy day as the sun begins to ascend again. Thank you for making TTB what it is!

No idea ish, i have never even asked my lama about learning the inner yogas. I am just taking things one step at a time.. right now i am doing ngondro (preliminary practices) and after that there will be tantric vows and empowerments and after That, i can perhaps start talking to him about tummo and inner yogas. He is more of a mahamudra teacher anyway, so he might send me away to some other lama to learn that stuff, i have no idea. He teaches phowa (transference of consciousness at the time of death) to people who havent taken tantric vows though, and that is an inner yoga, but thats the only clue i have.

not to be recommended by whom? there are plenty of good techniques which involve breath control. Buddhism, daoism, and yoga are full of them. i don't think things are as black and white as your last statement indicates. you aren't actually a grandmaster are you? fyi i have you on ignore too (nothing personal you just talk too much) and so if i miss your posts or dont respond thats why

ive had the same experience with reverse breathing. Sometimes i apply the 3 locks too, which is also best done very gently. i have never tried vase breathing, because the cautions of the writers who describe it say that one should learn it from a master. Its obviously very powerful, and i respect that enough to stay away from it until properly initiated. I study under a Kagyu lama, but i have not progressed to the point where i could learn tummo yet. Maybe in a couple years..

CT didn't say that, Samten Gyatso did. Its very common for traditional Tibetan masters to insist that they have no attainments, even if their minds rest in the natural state all day. Even if they exist in a state of unimaginable purity and clarity, they will say "i have no attainments, i am just a beginner"... its very foreign to the western mind, which always seems to want to talk about attainments. sorry to butt in, i think its a point worth noting, hope it helps

most people that talk a lot don't say much. is vase breathing the same as is used in tummo? i have never really learned that or come across it before except in what i think is the tummo literature. Not sure if i am remembering correctly tho i don't really practice reverse breathing except when i am sick, which is almost never. i am not a big fan of controlling the breathing, except a tiny bit, to create a gap between inbreath and outbreath instead of a continuous flow. I find that helpful at times for stillness sake. Aside from that, and a few other exceptions, im like you ish, mostly into uncontrived methods of breathing during cultivation.

i'm from the suburbs. my parents were white middle class christians. i was homeschooled. city life intruiged me as a kid, i never liked the burbs or the white picket fence neurosis, but at least i was safe. no gangs, no guns, none of that. my hardness rating is -1