konchog uma

yes i probably qualify as "crazy" according to mainstream standards. and yes it looks fake to me. LOL i really don't want to talk about it tho. If people want to feed their minds with violence, thats their problem not mine.

lol the first ones always free and immortal, lol (that'll be 20 bucks) that sounds like the only wrestling i would watch. I bet it would be great to see those steroid addled morons try to figure out what to do if they were told they couldnt smash chairs over each others heads. you know that stuff is 100% scripted right? fake? just checking...

nicely said

This really resonates with me, and although my Mahamudra practice is in its infant stage, i thought i would share it since its been helpful to me. The most profound experiences i have had with mahamudra meditation have been preceded by reminding myself of the six words. the following is from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilopa#Six_Words_of_Advice) ----- Six Words of Advice Tilopa gave Naropa a teaching called the Six Words of Advice, the original Sanskrit or Bengali of which is not extant; the text has reached us in Tibetan translation. In Tibetan, the teaching is called gnad kyi gzer drug[4] – literally, “six nails of key points” – the aptness of which title becomes clear if one considers the meaning of the English idiomatic expression, “to hit the nail on the head.” ----- there is also a good explanation given at wikipedia's mahamudra page, but these are the six words Don’t recall ------ Don't dwell in the past Don’t imagine ----- Don't dwell in the future Don’t think ------- Don't dwell in the present Don’t examine ----- Don’t try to figure anything out Don’t control ----- Don’t try to make anything happen Rest -------------- Relax, right now, and rest in the self-liberating nature of ordinary mind

right. I'm reading tsele natsok rangdrol and i watched a series of dvd lectures by dzogchen ponlop rinpoche. I have looked at a book by surya das (natural radiance or natural perfection or something) but i haven't been studying dzogchen just to take things in order and not confuse myself. one thing at a time I am looking forward to learning about dzogchen though. Just hasnt happened yet lol The style of mahamudra also reminds me of (and this is what got me interested in it) lakshman joo's teaching in his vijnana bhairava about the upayas of meditation, the sambhavopaya, the highest means, which is basically formless and without technique or focus, be it breath or mind or otherwise. He says if you can't do that, then focus on a mantra or a point or your breathing, but only to try to move beyond it into formless sitting. Sambhavopaya is kind of like the "sitting and forgetting" of daoist zaowong. to quote swami lakshman joo "in kashmir shaivism, though the means may be many, the goal is only one - mystical absorption in the sambhava state, the same reality found in sambhavopaya. What is the sambhava state? The sambhava state is where the yogi becomes instantly established inn supreme consciousness. For the kashmir shaiva, all absorption in the reality of god consciousness is, in the end, the absorption of of the sambhava state, because in sambhavopaya, unlike saktopaya and anavopaya (medium and lesser degrees of technique), the yogi has nowhere to go. Instead, he only has to be in his own nature. This is real mystical absorption." So i started to study mahamudra since my foundation is in buddhism primarily and i can grasp all that pretty easily, but it seems to be that no matter what tradition you look to, the highest techniques of meditation are formless and without object of concentration to reinforce the subject/object duality... which i find awesome, because i love finding overlaps and shared techniques among systems that i love.

thank you C T, thats helpful i will check all those links out also feel free to talk about dzogchen. I am not attached to this thread staying on topic of mahamudra. i am just at the section of Lamp of Mahamudra that deals with essence or fruition mahamudra, as of yesterday. So when i have a firmer foundation in my understanding of mahamudra, i think i will also read some dzogchen material. There is a dzogchen group in my area, i would like to check them out too.

i think thats an important distinction TI, thanks for clarifying.

when i started to follow the 6 instructions of tilopa and began to sit in the mahamudra, i had similar experiences, not with death, but with my energies completely opening up as i just "let it be" and let go of attachment to sensations and meditation. Rushes and surges and bliss, the wildest bliss feelings, and waves of energy. But nothing like the experience you described per se. i haven't experienced nirvikalpa samadhi in any sustained way, that is to say, for more than five minutes at a time or so. If you have experienced layasamadhi and savikalpa samadhi and asamprajnata<sp> samadhi, your experiences might indeed be the onset of nirvikalpa samadhi. As i understand it (via ) that is the order of the unfolding of the progression towards nirvikalpa samadhi and the pure instinct state of sahajasamadhi sounds like an awesome experience. Keep letting go and letting it be

in your experience, does knowing more about dzogchen help with mahamudra and vice versa? i have heard teachers say they are the same thing with a different name... ?? i hear you about the double edged sword. "muahahaha now i know the secrets of the universe..." only leads to trouble but i am intrigued by the teachings and texts that the teachers are choosing to reveal now that tibetan culture is declining and the practices are spreading out in the west and beyond. that is, assuming that those factors have anything to do with why the texts in Flight of the Garuda are now openly published. I saw a demonstration of secret tibetan yoga (wow!) in a movie called "Yogis of Tibet", the full length version of which is available to watch on youtube. The filmmaker was saying that to show outsiders this yoga was unthinkable for centuries but now its on the interwebz for the world to see... weird thanks for the ngondro encouragement

lol that is a trademark fart in the face but thats what you get for eating at places like that if you ask me... that crap isnt fit for human consumption anyway. As one of my favorite lojong slogans says, "abandon poisonous food".

thanks for the recommendation . I looked at it and read some of the verses and prayers, but it didn't really call to me to purchase it. What do you like about it?

informer and ct: youre welcome! i love pith instructions! that is about as pith as it gets lol jconnor: book looks great, 30 years in retreat! wow i am reading: The Practice of Mahamudra by H.H. Drikung Kyabgon Chetsang Rinpoche (the present head of the drikung kagyu lineage) and two books which Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche recommended, Lamp of Mahamudra by Tsele Natsok Rangdrol, which is a short book about practice of mahamudra, and Mahamudra: The Moonlight by Dakpo Tashi Namgyal, which is a great big book about the philosophy of mahamudra. I am also in the process of ngondro (preliminaries) under the auspices of a drikung kagyu lama, and he is really qualified to teach mahamudra and to give empowerments and transmission. So i am pretty excited about that. But the mahamudra teachings aren't given until a student has completed their ngondro. He kind of gives transmission just by being in his presence tho, its awesome to sit and chant with him. Last night there was tantric deity practice (green tara) and at one point his voice got really weird and powerful and i felt a blast of energy from him which completely eradicated a knot deep in my heart!! I have been after that painful knot for so long i really can't remember, and today i feel totally better in the heart! lol i wasn't grumpy at people driving poorly on the way home from practice, i felt so happy to be free of that stupid knot. I hope that freedom stays with me lol

heheh the onion

i like that poem. but your question is hard to answer.. thats kind of like asking someone what chocolate tastes like, having never eaten it yourself. i mean i could tell you sweet and bitter etc like i can answer your question with "it feels wonderful!" but there is no real verbal matrix which can capture the feeling itself. Having been beaten and bullied a lot as a child, i can relate to your situation. I used to loathe myself and do a lot of things to perpetuate my problems without realizing that i was acting out those harmful patterns. Through spiritual practice and energetic work i have dispelled those negativities fairly thoroughly, and awakening my heart to self love was something that was a "before & after" thing... life became fundamentally different when i carried myself with self love and the heartfelt sense that i belonged right where i was. People reacted to me in a totally different way. Its like doors opened for me that had long been locked. Grass looked greener and brighter and birds sounded better. It sounds hokey but I am speaking literally. Building compassion and virtues like kindness and love, and dispelling energetic blockages, especially in the heart, will help you. You can build virtue with meditation practice (visualization or concentration) and you don't need to take refuge, or even self-identify as a buddhist. And you can dispel blockages with qigong, yoga, meditation, even martial arts or running (i've heard that sakyong mipham's book "running with the mind of meditation" is really really good). You can work with a yogic guru who can give you shaktipat to awaken your kundalini if you really want to clean house, emotional and psychologically speaking. You can fan the flames with your spiritual practice... I recommend mark griffin's Deepen Your Practice program, but you'll have to wait 6 months before getting shaktipat. There are other ways of going about if. If you look into it and it interests you, just ask, you'll probably get 10 different recommendations, just for confusions sake. The best thing to do is just practice what you are intuitively drawn to do in my opinion. Contemplate, if the idea of loving yourself is just a thought at first. Build that thought.. give it momentum and gravity and soon it will become an emotion. Nurture it and soon it will live in your heart in spite of what the fools that wander in samsara have to say about your life. Abandon the cruelty of the world for something better!

yeah the cymbals crashing at the end were a little weird great stuff

I don't know if this will strike you as helpful, but i think that everyone takes their cues on how to treat a person from that person themself. So with that in mind, i encourage you to love yourself, with or without logical or rational basis, or a reason to do so. Do it for its own sake if you have trouble finding logical support for such a position at first. Love yourself because you're the only self you've got and if you don't, others aren't as likely to. Love yourself without needing a reason to. Practice everyday, on the bus, walking, in your own time, taking breaks from reading, just generate love for yourself in your heart. Engaging in spiritual practice like meditation helps one to love themself. There is a buddhist meditation called Metta in which one generates lovingkindness in themself for themself, then for a loved one, then for a neutral person, then for a difficult person, then for all beings throughout the world(s) without exception. If done regularly (it only takes 5-10 minutes) it can really affect your ability to generate love! I suggest that you read a little more about it before you practice it. A web search will turn up some instructions and information. I hope that you can change the flow of events in your life to become more positive and loving! Bless you!

Ry Cooder and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt Meeting by the River Vishwa Mohan Bhatt talking a little about the Mohan Veena, an instrument that he invented by modifying a guitar

the divinity within us lies within the realm of what is human about us. our buddha nature is completely human about us. all the beauty, love, balance, bliss, and wisdom of all the teachings came out of human endeavor, and is also within that category. its refreshing to see you questioning things along this line, i am glad your mind has opened to a lesser degree of rigidity, and i hope you continue to awaken until you can clearly see that there is nothing inherently wrong with the human condition. Even thinking about it in dualistic terms of samsara and nirvana only obscure the true nature of reality, which is transcendental, one with itself, and empty and therefore free from blemish. All things rest in that nature for the time they are existant, including the things that comprise our humanness.

it has nothing to do with the times these days. People still use their personal power to do evil btw lol it might seem like i am acting holier than you, but that is mistaken. I simply have come across the advice of several masters and traditions, including my own, who advise that one not talk about their progress to others, or the results of their personal practice, or the nature of their inner experience and abilities. To talk about it with ones teacher is enough. I have also had the experience of making a breakthrough in meditation which sustained itself for a couple days until i told my girlfriend, out of love, not pride or arrogance or anything remotely like it, about my experience, at which point i was unable to achieve that state of being (still only have glimpses now) and my spiritual guidance told me unequivocally that it was because i spoke about it. So there's that. The theory is that ones progress is like a pressure cooker and in order to keep the integrity of it complete, one needs to keep it a secret from others. It is not about good and evil in a moral sense, as you assume. There is also the advice, as muktananda gives in his autobiography, "play of consciousness", that one simply shouldn't compare experiences with others because it is not their business and, as i tried to point out to you by means of questions in the previous post, does nobody any good ultimately. It is really just spiritual materialism, as chogyam trungpa put it, parading ones accomplishments around and saying "oh i see these color lights" or "i have this state of bliss when i sit in emptiness". Try to think of an answer to my questions, who is it helping to display ones inner accomplishments around? and conversely, who could be injured by thinking about a supremely personal and individual matter in comparative terms? Ones inner journey is ultimately theirs alone, like birth and death, it happens alone. Failure to respect the sanctity of the spiritual ascent is cautioned about by taoists, buddhists, yogis, shaivites, my own teacher (although he's a ninja and they're used to keeping everything secret) and everyone i have ever read a sincere and qualified exposition of progress on ones personal path from!! in spite of the conclusions you have jumped to, there isn't a shred of my being that believes i am holier than you. Such insinuations sour the tone of this conversation. Perhaps it could be said that by thinking you are privy to my inner workings you find yourself on some similar pedestal?!? but that is not the point. the point, that one is advised to secrecy about ones inner work, has been made, by others before me, and by me again now. Others on this site will attest to it, and i stand by it as a matter of personal experience. perhaps they haven't been given, or have failed to heed the advice mentioned above? are you trying to say that masters of this age and past ages are wrong because fools talk about their spiritual accomplishments on the internet? That seems like a flimsy argument. yes. in spite of whiny westerners and their insistence i think he should follow the guidance of his headmaster spirit and his deceased master and the line of his lineage. Any serious practitioner shares that responsibility to the lineage they belong to. understanding will take you so far, and then you will need practice to carry you the rest of the way. The practices are out there for all to see, and when one has sufficiently carried them out, and is ready for a teacher of a higher echelon, that teacher will appear in their lives. That is how it works. So mainstream daoism can take you far enough. It isn't the practices that are secret. Its the personal manifestations, the subjective and comparative part of that is warned against.

lol missed that part thanks for the clarification

quite so taomeow, thank you for the sanity

my practice has imbued me with the insight not to answer questions like that. so they are that effective. what good would it do you or anyone else to know that i can do above-average things with my life energy? or to know how far along i think i am? the path never ends, even mukta, liberation, or enlightenment is just the beginning of an unfathomably long journey. Not to speak of immortality, which of course is just that same thing. and how much good would it do me to engage in some kind of discussion about how awesome i am? none at all. "the wise wear jade in their bellies and rags on their outsides" not to cut you down, i understand you want to start an interesting and lively topic amongst practitioners, but i am still inclined to voice my opinion. Most extraordinary people with interesting answers keep their practice, their methods, their results, etc secret. And for good reason, both as a matter of historical example, and of common sense.

i totally agree, although i am short on time and didn't read those links i appreciate your brevity too

borrrrring

first i would make it rain kittens wait, first i would cover the ground with pillows then i would make it rain kittens super smart kittens to solve all those problems and actually change the world for the better