konchog uma

shop at your local food co-op, or direct from an ethical farmer at a farmers market! buy organic meat!! most likely its lived a healthy happy life and met its death humanely, not like the poor suffering creatures in factory farms, but raised by people who are 100x more likely to care about it. so its better for you cause vibrationally it isn't toxic, and also its free of hormones, pharmaceuticals, and other nasty stuff! it wasn't raised on a diet of GMO corn in a cage 2 inches bigger than it!! etc etc etc whatever you choose to do, do it the best you can, with increasing amounts of mindfulness.. thats the short answer

if you did it with mindfulness and if it was a raw habanero!

amen to all that, except that there are a host of options between fluoridated toothpaste and baking soda i use auromere toothpaste, which i highly recommend.. neem and peelu and ayurvedic herbs galore.. makes my mouth soooo happy don't forget to floss

yeah i was talking about macro CO just abbreviated it to MCO. i guess if you sat in nirvanic state and thought about life for a while you would be likely to realize samsara, and since most buddhist realization is based on studying buddhist teachings, one would be even more likely to think in those terms. So i think, roughly, that you're probably right about nirvana bringing realization of samsara, yes. and the MacroCO and nirvana are definitely related, in that MCO is designed to enable freedom of mind, energy, and body, and nirvana is a word which can be used for that state of freedom. I think you're right that they are related.. i was only trying to elucidate the nature of the relationship as i perceived it. some people think macrocosmic orbit is the orbit which includes the thrusting and belt vessels, and goes also down the outside of the arms and legs and up the insides.. i learned all that as just microcosmic, so im glad you say that as long as its inside its micro.. thats in accord with how i learned it. Im sure there are different ways to talk about it, but i find it mildly annoying when there is different lexicon for the same things because thats confusing. I learned macro as bringing up earth energies through the bubbling well up to the dantian, and heavenly energies down from the bahui point at the top of the head, to nourish and support the bodies human energies. Then you let them meet in the dantian and balance, and just kind of respirate with heaven and earth, breathing out stagnant energy and breathing in fresh.. so i write all that because i am curious, is that your understanding of it? Just curious, don't mean to sidetrack the thread.

nirvana is a state of liberation, roughly speaking. Attachments, aversions, ignorance in all its forms, anger, etc, all these things are things that the mind and energies of people entrain to until they can let go of them, and the impulse within to fixate on them. Thats the 2 second definition. So nirvana is sort of yin to samsara's yang in that the mind of samsara is moving and active, always clinging and being dragged so to speak, while nirvana is still, not being affected. So i think in that way you can say nirvana is the yin of the two.. And while the MCO can remove obstructions of the energy that manifest mentally as attachments, i don't think it is the same.. MCO is a practice and nirvana is like a state of being so there isn't, in my mind, a direct correlation, even tho the MCO can be used as a technique to attain freedom over time. Realizing samsara is not necessarily realizing nirvana. To realize nirvana one must be free of conditioned mind and energies, and have let go of all the aforementioned poisons. So there is a little bit of difference between just realizing samsara, that things go round and round and we shouldn't attach etc, and actually realizing nirvana.

That is how i have learned it. There are a lot of schools of buddhism and a lot of opinions about philosophical matters like this though. i think it was nagarjuna who said "nirvana is samsara and samsara is nirvana", and some people take it to mean what i explained up there, and some people take it to mean that both are inherently empty, so in that way they are the same. There are probably other interpretations, since buddhists love to write those ... I guess i personally take it to mean both, but I have been taught a view of emptiness that doesn't mean "non-existant", it has more to do with the transitory nature of things and the dependently originated nature... so its not easy to understand or explain. But thats buddhism for you..

btw superpowers aren't whats going to change the course of life on earth, we don't need to generate siddhis and supernormal abilities... those can just feed the ego even more, and make people feel like they're actually important, when in the grand scheme of things they are not. Conscious decision making instead of robotic habitual behavior.. theres a supernormal ability that i would like to see everyone discover. Generosity.. theres a superpower. Compassion, lovingkindness, integrity, etc.. i would love to see more of these superpowers

me too but i have to eat a lot of chili the night before

yeah it makes a huge difference, thanks for bringing it up

in my own understanding, which others are more than welcome to disagree with, samsara doesn't break, or stop, or get negated by nirvana. Cyclical existance continues, but the attachments and aversions to things break, and stop. Taking things as having some kind of non-transitory reality stops, and so a being is liberated from the bonds of samsara, but samsara itself continues. So in that sense, someone can live "in samsara" and use it at every opportunity as a way to practice, or help other beings, etc. They don't have to live in some non-dual blissed out nirvanic state that is somehow seperate from cyclical existance, because everything moves in cycles, so how could you really do that?? In my view, the main difference is whether or not a person is attached to the phenomena that pass cyclically. If they are clinging, they will suffer. If they are just watching the passing parade, that can be quite enjoyable at times, and a person can see and utilize whatever they want.

pressure in your head is almost never a good thing. the short answer to your question is yes. that books is really nutty, i gave my copy to my teacher and he was like "jesus christ they published this?!" in other words its advanced stuff, not the kind of stuff that has ever been learned just from texts, but the kind of thing you need to learn directly from an awakened teacher. So maybe if you want to learn MCO, hmmmm i think the best book for learning it is Tao of Health Sex and Longevity by Daniel Reid, orrrrrr mayyyyybe Mantak Chia but i'll warn you against him too. I don't think you can go very wrong with inner smile and MCO but he teaches stuff you just shouldnt learn from books either. So there you go. Another good book to start with is Damo Mitchell's Daoist Neigong, and he advises a technique of MCO in which one just rotates the dan tian like a water wheel in order to move the qi through the governing and conception vessels. He says it also regulates qi in the other vessels without having to visualize them, and in your case, it would be a way of actualizing your orbit and opening your channels without having to focus on your head. Focusing on your belly would draw some of that pressure down over time. So I recommend that too. Best of luck, i hope a lot of people give you advice thats always confusing

i wondered what you russians were building in there

hehe the jokes are funny but i think its a pretty cool exercise chidragon. I kinda let my mind go and contemplated what it would be like to make sense of reality without the obstruction of other people's explanations. That alone was a really nice exercise, for which i thank you. I wondered first about the origin of reality, if such a thing can even be said to exist. My buddhist beginningless beginninglessness tells me it can't, but i wondered about beginnings.. if reality came before consciousness, or consciousness came before reality. I decided it was a chicken egg mystery and that i wouldn't know the answer by logical deduction. One could just as well proclaim that they arose simultaneously, a yinyang pair, and maybe some people would believe that. Some people will believe anything as long as it makes sense to their logical minds and someone authoritative says it in their religious voice! hahahah But just waking up on earth one day with amnesia, not remembering anything about anything, i pondered that. I realized that that is (without the actual amnesia) a wonderful zen state in which everything is fresh and new and full of infinite potential, not the infinite potential of entropy, but the infinite potential of the empty vessel; the mind that did not try to explain away everything so that it could nominalize phenomena and then, thinking it knew the name of something therefore it knew something about it. Which is basically what language does on a subtle insidious level that pervades our conscious process entirely until we realize that we might be dreaming, or characters in the divine dream, and all this might not even be what we cling to it being so tightly. So in my imagination i woke up in the grass and saw the sun and just thought it was beautiful and warm. Inevitably, i thought about the conversion of elements in a plasmic furnace, or about solar deities, or UV rays. But i realized that i would just say hello and maybe a prayer of thanks to it and move on to finding breakfast if i were truly amnesiac. I think the best thing i took from your exercise chidragon is the realization that the tabula rasa or "blank slate" is supreme.. the beginners mind of the zen master that doesnt grasp or reject, just acts spontaneously in accord with what it perceives. I am a firm believer that there is something going on here that science can't explain, and that the religions don't perceive, and the spiritual traditions perceive that they don't perceive everything, but they don't perceieve, well, what they don't perceive. So in my own soulbending (and ignorant, and arrogant) attempts to perceive the workings of this vast mystery for myself, i have only seen an unknowable dream, a phantasmagorical mirage of empty phenomenon, some of which are stable enough to be perceived as "real" by the untrained mind, and some of which shift mockingly in front of my face as though the spirit of the All would rather not be seen, and the act of perception inspires it to change into something unknown while the observer watches witlessly. In a sea of time so vast that even a big bang is just a flicker in the ocean of reality, and the end of a reality is no more significant than a dreamer waking up to realize it was just a dream, only to find themselves in another dream, ad infinitum... in a sea of time like that, what we are dealing with when we gaze at the I AM is beyond the comprehension of a silly mortal, a would be seer, basically a charlatan who clings to the idea that they can indeed understand the ultimate reality as if it conformed to ideas and logic.. :D so i have arrived at the conclusion time and time again that the best mind is the empty mind, and that we aren't designed to know or supposed to realize the unknowable and that which transcends realization. The most we can hope for in gazing at the I AM is that we be shocked into the awareness that I AM THAT and just let yourself die its for the best. Anyway if you read all that, i wish i could pin a gold star on your nose, for being so obliging. And chidragon, neat thoughts, thanks again for sharing

i love mark griffin's vids and talks. Something about his way is really soothing to me. I thank you for your advice, i will look into mark and hardlight a little more. Didn't know he was a student of chogyam trungpa or kalu, thats wonderful! I've been sitting and taking classes for a while now at the local shambhala sangha, and reading trungpa's commentary on the lojong slogans every day. I really appreciate him. Thanks for being aware of the lineage, it occured to me that that matters, and i'm glad to hear it echoed in your advice. Thanks and blessings

well said my friend

my girlfriend squats in an african tradition, putting the head down to elongate the spine, and rocking while she meditates. She loves it, i have to sheepishly admit i have never tried it

look out you're becoming a buddhist!

i'm glad that witch's book is effective, but i don't really want to build oodles and oodles of jing. not really fast anyway. My lady love and i have a nice balance now, and with her taking shatavari (hundred husbands herb) and me taking epimedium (horny goat weed) and ginseng, i don't really feel a need to go above and beyond the reasonably robust and seemingly very healthy level i am at right now. Thank you for the advice tho, it is always appreciated.

yes thanks chidragon! that story is inspiring, his heart was calm even though he was deformed. How many people do i see in a day who aren't deformed, but their hearts aren't calm?

i like legge's translation of the last paragraph better.

from Wandering On The Way: Taoist Tales and Parables by Victor Mair Sir Mulberry Door, Meng Sir Opposite, and Sir Lute Stretch were all three talking together. "Who can associate in non- association and cooperate in noncooperation? Who can ascend to heaven and wander with the mists, bounding through infinity, forgetting themselves in life forever and ever without end?" The three men looked at each other and smiled. Since there was no discord in their hearts, they became friends with each other . After an uneventful period of time, Sir Mulberry Door died. Before he was buried, Confucius heard about his death and sent Tzukung to participate in the funeral. When Tzukung ar- rived, he found one of them composing a tune and the other strumming on a lute. The song they sang along together wen t like this: Alas, Mulberry Door! Alas, Mulberry Door! You have already returned to the true, But we are still human, oh! Tzukung hurried in and said, "I make bold to ask whether it is in accord with the rites to sing in the presence of the corpse." The two men looked at each other and smiled, saying, "What does he know about the meaning of the rites?" Tzukung went back and reported to Confucius, ask- ing, "What kind of people are they? They cultivate nonbeing and put physical form beyond them. They sing in the presence of the corpse without the slightest change of expression. There's no way I can describe them. What kind of people are they?" "They are people who wander beyond the spatial world," said Confucius, "while I wander within it. Beyond and within are incompatible. It was uncouth of me to have sent you to mourn him. They're about to become companions of the Creator of Things, and wander in the unity of the vital breath that joins heaven and earth. They consider life as an attached cyst, an appended tumor, and death as the bursting of a boil, the draining of an abscess . Such being the case, what do they care about the priority of life and death? They lodge in a common body composed of diverse elements. They forget their inner organs and are oblivious of the senses. Over and over turns the seamless cycle of beginning and ending. Faraway they are, roaming beyond the dust and dirt of the mundane world, carefree in the karma of nonaction. So how can they be bothered with worldly rites, merely to look good in the eyes of ordinary people!" "Well, sir," asked Tzukung, "to which realm do you adhere?" "I am one of heaven's condemned," said Confucius. "Nev- ertheless, this is something we share in common." "I venture to ask their secret ;" said Tzukung. "Fish delight in water," said Confucius, "and man delights in the Way. Delighting in water, fish find adequate nourishment just by passing through their ponds. Delighting in the Way, man's life is stabilized without ado. Therefore, it is said, "Fish forget themselves in the rivers and lakes; men forget themselves in the arts of the Way." "I venture to ask about the oddball," said Tzukung. "The oddball may be odd to other men, but he is a pair with heaven. Therefore, it is said, "The villain in heaven is a gentleman among men; the gentleman among men is a villain in heaven."

thanks SB! that site is under construction, but it had some interesting info.. it related kundalini to greater kan and li, and to the shekinah (holy spirit), and like 7 other names from 7 other wisdom traditions. I joined that yahoogroup.. thanks a ton!!

you're probably right. I guess i got a little rattled by the power and intensity of the experience. I am less afraid for lack of a guru by the day. thanks heheh i like world in quotes, i'm not an escapist, this experience has only helped me deal with the world!

thank you!

Thank you SIME I feel so blessed, but i also know i have worked hard and persevered through untold struggles in order to make myself available to this gift. I also feel very strange about it, like some people probably read 25 books on it and live in ashrams and lust for it for so long, and i'm not even sure how difficult it is considered to achieve, but i feel like i watched one video and read one book, almost on accident, and knowing next to nothing about it, i just stumbled into it. Not like i haveN'T worked hard and persevered and all that.. but i still was (and still am!) marginally aware of it, intellectually speaking. I mean, i guess i thought it was a yogic accomplishment, for very experienced yogis only, or something. I dunno, im still kinda lost for words about it. I don't feel unworthy, but its pretty weird in a way i can't put my finger on. Maybe after all my struggles, it just feels weird to be the recipient of such an enormous blessing and stroke of good fortune!