konchog uma

mark's got a 1-day shaktipat intensive happening on the 20th of October in the Pacific Palisades http://www.hardlight.org/calendar.html click info next to it for directions and to register and read a FAQ about meditation, decorum, and other stuff

hi everything, those are annoying, i know what you mean. I second spontaneous movement practice, jenny lamb's yigong dvd or max christensen's kunlun are good places to start. sifu jenny's dvd is like 40$ or something that like at www.easterninternalarts.com and i don't know how much you'd have to spend on kunlun.. i guess the new book is out so you could look that up on amazon or other sites i also second not trying, or action without effort. since you mentioned being able to control the breath... try forgetting control. meditate with abandon, just letting what arises spontaneously arise. i suggest not controlling anything, and noticing how much your abdominal muscles and diaphram are tightly controlled by your mind! its amazing to some people when they realize that they thought they were meditating but they hadn't "let go" yet at all. i am reminded of tilopas six nails, in which he advises naropa not to try to make anything happen but just sit and rest, sit and relax. oftentimes when one does this the blockages in the body release as spasms. truly annoying, but its those blocks releasing and it usually dies down after a while i had a hard time with deep states for years because as soon as i would start to enter one, my energy would jolt some blockage or another out of my body! aaargh kriyas i had a huge one from the middle of my heart this morning, and i actually feel a lot better now than i have in weeks (it was a biiig one) so i dont know if thats helpful except to say theres a downside and an upside to spontaneous movements good luck to you!

Thanks TI i have been slow to get into studying dzogchen. My lama at the dharma center in my city is actually an accomplished mahamudra practitioner (but he won't give mahamudra empowerments until after i have done my ngondro!) and i have been studying kagyu fivefold mahamudra practice with him a little bit... so i have chosen to focus my studies and practices on mahamudra and am only really learning about dzogchen peripherally if at all. I am reading Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche's Wild Awakening about the overlap between the two practices and how he reconciles them. I really like him, and perhaps that book will lead to more interest in dzogchen... but for now... I subscribed to Alan Wallace's podcasts, that looks like a lot of great stuff. Thank you for one more good lead, sometimes i guess you just gotta tell some people twice lol! as far as shaila catherine, its interesting because i just bought an eReader (sony reader) and i was looking at different ebooks online just in case my massive collection of PDFs wasnt going to keep me busy for ten years anyway, and that book (focused and fearless) was the first that came up in my search.. i almost bought it but decided against it. I'm gonna finish Ajahn Brahm's first is anapanasati the same thing as shamatha? i was just listening to mark griffin talk about dhyana states generated by deep shamatha, and i just assumed they were the same thing.. is that correct?

interesting info TI, i will be aware of that in my practice. Thank you! i don't think he's mentioned that yet, where i am in the book. thanks much! peace

cool stuff, i like the four ways of saying mantra but didn't read a whole lot of that file cause time is short thanks for sharing

meditate with mark griffin

sounds like om namah shivaya om -ajna na -root mah -sacral shi -navel va -heart ya -throat it tends to blast energy through the ida pingala and sushumna and generate the force to push through obstructions or maybe thats just me lol

i dunno ts, i really don't know enough about it to speculate. i do sit shamatha/vispassana every day at least 20 minutes to half an hour, and am pretty good at getting my mind to quiet down from its usual state of thinking, although pretty far from liberated lol. My nimitta jumped around a bit at first, which Brahm says is a sign that the mind needs more stillness and quiet. So i got that too, moving ahead to that point without really having what i needed in place. And it was dull, which he says is because my joy/happiness wasn't full and rich enough. So i still have some work to do with it...

the nimitta grew a lttle bit and came towards me and i got a little whiff of what was coming (trance absorption) and i got really shaken, and realized how much i have been holding on to technique and to my mind itself.. i kept saying "i give myself to this" until i kind of calmed down but by then i had lost the nimitta it did come back stronger and i got scared of letting go again... whew! a totally new dimension to my meditation... truly a blessing

there is more to you than your ego, your habits and conditions, and all that is dropped if you were to attain liberation there is something that remains which some call buddha-nature and others call Self and still others have other names for it doesn't project labels and feelings like the ego does, but it still recognizes itself.. it can perceive itself without fascinating itself with itself or fixating that is all i know about it in a nutshell lol

thanks creation, i found your explanations very helpful i like rime approach, sectarianism breeds prejudice on a subtle level. All lineages and branches and schools have SOMEthing to offer or they would be dust before now methinks. some days i think that one can't cross a river with their feet in two different boats, and some days i think that a comparison of different paths will yield something beyond the limitations of those paths, the root, which in tantric buddhism tends to be the direct experience of nowness, beyond mentalism and emotions about it. That seems to be the moon that all the fingers are pointing at, the light reflected in all the various bowls of water called sects. Once an aspirant gets past their own mind and emotions, do they really care which sect is entrenched in politics and who taught emptiness as mind and who taught it as matter or any of the million distinctions you can make. Urk its a headache for monks and a laughing stock for yogis and siddhas pack up my loincloths baby we're heading for the wilds

dc9 first, please drop all expectations about bliss. just forget them. second, begin to meditate, shamatha/vipassana, anapanasati, zuowang, zazen, just pick one and start doing it every day for a comfortable amount of time. if you research those and find them not to your liking, at least try mantra meditation. look up so'ham, or if ten bucks isnt too much to ask, download the mark griffin mp3 called prana - so'ham - four bodies then, third, while the meditation is changing your mind into something more conducive to bliss, save your money and go see mark griffin when you can for shaktipat. Since you live in the bay area, he's only a couple hours away. He is amazingly powerful, not some snake-oil salesman in robes but a shaktipat guru from a proven lineage. You'll probably have to experience meditating in his presence to believe it. I have streamed meetings and a shaktipat intensive online with him, and it is a blast of energy, as he calls it, a thunderbolt of awakening. then, since meditation has prepared you by giving you patience and discipline, you will need it to do the work that kundalini demands as it tears through your energy body and mind cleansing out what doesn't serve you and twisting you around until you actually develop the qualities to handle her. For someone like you its no picnic. I can't say this clearly enough, for what you want, there is no easy way, there is no pill, there is no smooth path to get from where you are right now into bliss states of kundalini ecstasy. You are chasing a dream IMO a fantasy that is held only by two kinds of people, those who read an article about kundalini and believe it before ever experiencing her - and siddhas who have dedicated themselves to their spiritual cultivation for years, with all the patience and diligence that they could possibly muster again good luck to you

clearly not

all the reviews are five star.. i don't have experience with her works, but i would also recommend the classic History and Practice of Magic by Paul Christian

exactly.forestofemptiness.. but it sounds like the original poster has his mind made up what he's going to do and is just looking for people to support his opinion rather than actually attempting to learn anything new. and no offense dc9 but it sounds like you know little about spiritual practice, kundalini, or shaktipat. I would recommend educating yourself. You are undoubtedly going to realize one day that there is no such thing as fruit without the labor of planting and harvest... no free and easy trip IME again good luck

only in the west... "dont you have like a pill or something i can take? what do you mean years of work?"

no mark griffin is the real deal, thats why i recommended him specifically. Yes supporting some teachers costs money. Looks shady? ummmm whatever man youre not going to listen to me anyway you just want the easy path and theres no such thing so you have no discipline and no desire to actually do the work on yourself but your mind is strong enough to see through cult programming. well fortunately i already said what i had to say thats helpful, so i can get back to what i was doing...

it took me a second to figure out who you were turtle shell... dc9, if you want shaktipat and you're in america, get it from mark griffin http://www.hardlight.org

When i was in San Francisco i heard a wonderful term for people who didn't want to buckle down and abide in the present moment, but were always chasing bliss or some sort of spiritual ecstasy. They are called "bliss ninnies" lol and i think that is the most fabulous name for them. Not that i have anything against bliss mind you, i'm fond of it, but if you think you're going to get shaktipat and then live in a state of orgasmic spiritual ecstasy, and everything about "you" will be better, you're in for a surprise. There is no escape from the discipline that is needed to subdue the wild mind and afflictive emotions. Even if you manage to attain a state of bliss, without the discipline and letting-go it takes to sustain that state, it will just be a fleeting tease, and all your later moments will probably be spent trying to return to that state, instead of living in the present moment, where reality really is (regardless of whether youre blissed out or not.) So don't be a bliss ninny. The very things you want to escape from into bliss, like discipline and responsibility, are the very things you will need in spades if you ever hope to tame your mind enough to sustain your bliss states, ironically. Shaktipat can cause years of tension and pain while you learn to work through your issues and live in the present moment, all before ever experiencing the bliss of kundalini in any kind of way like you are dreaming about.. the constant full body orgasmic bliss is something that people can achieve in jhana states and trance ecstasy, but tends not to be constant. I suggest meditation and yoga, discipline and regimen... and stay away from yogani and AYP lol... a search here for the posts by Tibetan_Ice about his experiences with them will reveal the other side of that coin. I have never heard of an actual easy way out, the closest i have heard to it is shaktipat, which can bring about an awful lot of work and misery. There was a post on this forum a while back from someone whose kundalini awoke and all he wanted to do was shut it off cause he kept having tension and kriyas!! he didn't like it at all. good luck

in answer, no. and this is interesting http://www.sahajacult.com/

sure thing sereneblue when i see honeybees nowadays, i am soooo happy!! it makes my day does "just label it" center around california prop. 37? i guess i could search.. i think i will edit: http://justlabelit.org/ , thanks SB

fyi when pesticides are sprayed on crops, 80% of that chemical bath ends up in the soil and massive doses end up in the tissue of the crops themselves. So its not something you can wash off in your kitchen sink. Its basically the choice between organic food and food saturated with neuro-toxins (almost all the active ingredients in pesticides fall into this category) no thanks

GM is basically being used not to solve world hunger and starvation but to make crops sterile (creating dependancy on the corporations each year for new seeds) and to make them resistant to pesticides, like monsanto's roundup Earth Open Source published a range of reports earlier this year showing that glyphosate, the active ingredient in round-up, has caused birth defects in lab animals in very small doses, and these fruits and vegetables are being made to withstand very large doses. glyphosate has also been associated with many other serious illnesses, and GM foods haven't lowered food prices or made food available to regions which need it in the least. Soybeans are now 16usd/lb, before GM they never rose above 8 if these corporations were using their technology to save people from hunger and starvation, i would be inclined to support their work. But instead its poison for profits, corporate greed at its worst. That is what india (and everyone concerned with GM ethics) is against, not the rights of scientists to tinker with genomes. So the hyperbole is that GMO will save the world.. lol well why do you suppose that all their seeds are sterile?

i dont drink coffee, but i used to. I felt better when i stopped, and only drink tea now. I don't think its doing anything bad to your body in moderation (<2cups/day) but it is a stimulant, and as such it tends to throw off the bodies natural rhythms. Caffeine is also habit-forming, which is one reason hardcore practitioners and yogis don't drink much but water and herbal teas. Unless you are really striving for purity, or drinking more than 32oz of the stuff per day, i wouldn't worry about it. And make sure to drink extra water, above the 64oz daily recommended if you are drinking coffee.

i think one of two things could be spontaneous telekinesis could be a spirit, a ghost, or worse was there any emotional discharge or strong emotional feeling at the time of the incident? all the times i have heard of telekinesis happening without the person trying to do it have been associated with such feelings. neat story, thanks for sharing