konchog uma

actually tantric practice is about sublimating lust, and is full of rules.

if you're smoking in my car i'll tell you to put that stinky shit out right now. but i wanted to reply to the OP, that i was just saying something in vmarco's thread in the pit about healthy sanghas about this. So heres a link a person who has realized the nature of illusion can point out illusion to others in a way that isn't ridiculous, and that a person who has gone beyond their own ego can reduce the egos of others skillfully. Most times the case is that someone who read in a book that everything is illusion is trying to tell you this without any realization of their own, or someone who is coming from a place of ego is calling you egotistical, but not always.

lol im with you marblehead if we were open to everythind we'd all be speaking german right now we'd all be neanderthals because homo sapiens would have been like "wow man thats a nice club you wanna hit me with that thing and have sex with my wife? oh yeah thats groovy baby youre a freak show me how you do it" its hard to deal with aggression but as they say someones gotta do it

i think that westerners lack the discipline to really ground themselves in the lower yanas, they want the tantra and the deity empowerments and the inner yogas and so on more than they want to walk the eightfold path or cultivate the paramitas. also, most people in vajrayana sanghas are (in my experience anyway) just doing the open practices, they aren't necessarily tantrikas and haven't taken vajrayana vows. They just read books on dzogchen and mahamudra and like to think that they are practicing very advanced stuff. lastly, anyone can cut down someone's ego. An angry idiot can insult someone and make them feel smaller than they did before, and then justify the toxicity of that situation with something like: "oh its good for them". But the skillful means of a genuine dharma practitioner usually go beyond just threatening the egos of their so called friends, and often involve kind and gentle words and the modeling of a good role for others to see. How does this person deal with ego? How do they deal with conflict and interpersonal issues? I see a lot of ego in the people who try to cut down others ego, like they don't like what they see in the mirror so they are trying to break it. Someone who has really conquered ego can accomplish the same goal with humor, with kindness, sometimes with silence, and in all sorts of ways. Those sorts of people are the ones that i admire.

interesting about optional hum and phat at the end.. i always wondered about that. Thanks!

some are, some aren't. Usually vajrayana attracts egomaniacs or prospective egomaniacs (who become egomaniacal thinking that they are practicing "the most advanced techniques")... Some sanghas are healthy but all sanghas are just groups of humans, who tend to be fundamentally deluded by the poisons. its hard to find a healthy sangha

lol yeah like if you say the mantra in tibetan you get no benefit right?... vajrasattva only responds to perfectly spoken sanskrit sorry tibet.. and everyone else i can't worry too much about that opinion.

In drikung kagyu, Vajrapani and Amitabha are open to everyone as well. And one doesn't need initiation to say the Vajrasattva 100 syllable mantra according to Berzin archives (im getting a 404 error or i would give you a link.. its on the vajrasattva mantra page), but when I received empowerment to do that practice, we learned things about it and visualizations and so on that assist so greatly that its like two radically different levels of the same practice. I don't know about one's sanskrit pronunciation having to be perfect.. mine isn't and my practice isn't useless. Sounds neurotic to me, just 2 cents

sure thing Jeff, i appreciate your attitude

from a certain pov, all words are nonsense, and every time nonconceptual practice comes up, i have observed jeff to take the approach of asking many questions which basically boil down to "so would you conceptualize it like This, or perhaps like That" and so on. I feel that grasping some kind of answer as truth will only get in the way of practice, in that it is fabricated by the intellect. That is what i am trying to offer. Not judgement of what anyone has realized, or trying to shut down the whole conversation at all, just not taking part in it myself as an expression of what i think is most helpful to realization : stopping the comparison, nominalization, and dualistic distinctions of the intellect, and just letting go and doing it.

i didn't call your questions nonsense. i said that what i would say to you would be nonsense. best luck w your practice.

no. Its just in response to the line of questioning. I can never tell what anyone has realized.

i understand the question. I even respect, to a point, the intention behind it. But all the paths you are trying to compare involve cutting through the veil of constant discursive thoughts and opening ones experience to direct connection with the present moment The freshness of that experience is, in my experience, dulled by trying to grasp it with the intellectual mind. The problem with the intellectual approach is: once you think you know something about something (like nonconceptual practice) the inquisitive nature of your mind is muted, and you think "oh i know this" instead of resting in appreciation for that fact that there is nothing to know intellectually (see the quote at the end of my posts). All the philosophy in the world is useless IMO unless it is the basis of a practice which propels one beyond the confines of philosophy. So really, no offense, i just would rather you got the transmission and practiced for yourself than try to verbalize a bunch of concepts and nonsense which are just going to impede your realization of a state that is nonconceptual, and dull your natural inquisitiveness with the delusion that you actually know anything definative.

A smooth flow of energy shouldn't feel intense in a constant way

You'll have to get the transmission and compare for yourself. I think you are constantly trying to intellectualize about what is essentially beyond concepts and based in practice and experience, I don't want to feed that by telling you anything no offense I'm just not going to get into these conversations with you.

Its not a kundalini transmission, it has more to do with mind and the nature of mind than with shakti. Yes have experienced shaktipat ( and 1 on 1 direct introduction though not in the context of the 4th abhisheka.) At any rate I am speaking from my own experience.

Not like shaktipat or anything high voltage. Also, I think its probably best if one studies and practices dzogchen (in light of my previous post)

Sounds to me like yourre working through a blockage

Sure. Nonconceptual meditation is universal, Buddhists don't have a trademark on it!

Its a transmission to practice dzogchen, but I wouldn't expect any specific state to arise except the one you're already in. The direct introduction of the natural state usually happens one on one in person. Last time I took part in a norbu WWT, my girlfriend came downstairs in the middle of it and got "zapped" in the forehead right when he was saying to visualize the A at the forehead, tho. She didn't do the chanting or preparations or anything just walked in and got a blast without even looking at the screen.

in a secret code i will tell you the way to hidden shambhala

to eat drink and shit or not to eat drink and shit that is the question

hehehe i did learn that nuclear weapons have rendered the words of dharma teachers obsolete though. Gems like that keep me coming back for the lolz! See the belly laughs are good for my diaphram and thereby increase the value of my meditation. thanks for setting a fine example, i think im done as well.

on my way to roam sold my car and bought a yak better gas mileage

thats just your interpretation. lol quantum physics sees the physical world as a sort of projection too so maybe you should decry that as well! I would suggest studying what youre trying to talk about with better sources than wikipedia. Good luck, and keep it unreal.