Tibetan_Ice

For what it is worth, from The Three Pillars of Zen:

What type of meditation are you doing? Can you describe the steps, instructions?

When I was 16, I broadsided a smaller station wagon while riding my motorcycle. The crash occured in slow motion and "i" watched the whole event transpire from this huge open space about 50 feet away. I watched my body fly through the air and smash down on the pavement. I was just a point of view watching what looked like a scene from a video. i have been seeking an explanation ever since. I have managed to get back to that space a few times now, and I attribute that to "practices". However, there is a component of understanding how it works that I would like to master.

What purpose? For the realization of emptiness. From the Nang Jang: http://www.amazon.com/Buddhahood-Without-Meditation-Visionary-Refining/dp/1881847330

Actually, this Dzogchen instruction sounds very similar to "noting practice" to me. So, by simply knowing the thought, it is released. That is from the book called "the Great Secret of Mind". It is part of Longchenpa's instruction.

You said "Pranayama is clearly the moving of awareness along the spine". Unbelievable.. Eight years at AYP and that is what you've come up with? The definition of Pranayama is the restraint of prana. There is an integral relationship between mind and the breath (which contains prana). When the mind is active the flow of prana (breathing) speeds up. When the breath is active, the mind is active. When breathing slows, so does the mind. When the mind slows down (calms) the breathing slows down. When the mind stills, the breathing stops. Pranayama is "Controlling the mind by controlling the breathing". AYP does not teach any form of breath retention with what it calls 'pranayama' as Yogani believes that breath retention causes rebound overloads. But, you've just proven to me that AYP does not teach yoga, but something else. There is a principle that prana follows attention which is true. If you concentrate on a part of the body, you can affect it by heating it up. So, attention will direct prana. But, in classic yoga, pranayama is strict breath control with the purpose of controlling the mind. In classic yoga, you would start out with breathing patterns such as a 4-4-4-4 (inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 and then rest for 4) or the ones which eliminate the pause after the exhale could be 1-4-2, or 2-8-4 etc. There are various patterns. The patterns that Gurudeva (Raja yoga) (and other books on yoga recommend) is the 9-1-9-1 breathing pattern and the 4-4-4-4. In AYP, during spinal breathing, the moving of the attention up and down the spine while breathing is incidental. It is a beginner's practice to train in the preliminaries. As a matter of fact, I seriously doubt that anyone could manage to dissolve the left and right channels into the central channel by doing that form of spinal breathing. I did not succeed with that method until I started following a strict patterns of 9-1-9-1 breathing and even then I had to extend the periods 'holding of the breath in and out' until my lower navel area kicked in and released an energetic mixture of sorts whereupon I sent the mixture up the central channel. But I had to experiment with kumbhaka (holding the air in) and external kumbhaka (holding the air out) before I got to the point where I could mix the prana and apana and then take it up the central channel (sushumna). An equivalent (in Buddhism) to this is called 'vase breathing' in tummo. You inhale, you draw up the voiding enegies by gently pulling the lower abdomen and orifices upwards, swallow to mix in the vayu, pressurise the mixture, release the locks and then take that mixture up the central channel. They would never teach you something like at AYP, it is far too advanced and requires supervision and some kind of liability disclaimer. So you could spend years sending your attention up and down the spine with little or no effect. Let me guess, you never did experiment with shutting off your mind with pranayama, did you? Sounds like you did not want to risk upsetting your nervous system, by your statements..

So you agree that there are divisions in consciousness? Consciousness, subconsciousness, superconsciousness and subsuperconsciousness? Yes, everything you can perceive is a symbol, a concept, according to Wolff. In your analogy of the spider, in order to fear a spider one must first have had the concept or experience that spiders are to be feared implanted into the mind. A child without such an implant would not fear spiders. Everything that we perceive through the six senses is subject to conceptualization, a solidification and as such, is a representation of "conventional" reality, not the absolute reality. To deny the possibility that there is a reality beyond what the six senses can perceive is a limiting notion. It is a closed system, a finite state. It is the arbitrary drawing of a division where in fact no division exists. You said that "awareness is something you can move around". By this definition, you are contradicting your previous idea of unconscious awareness, because "moving around" implies some form of volitional motion, but there is no volition without consciousness. The doer and the watcher... In my definition, you can move attention around. You can fix your attention on an object, you can expand your attention or shrink your attention. However, awareness, in the mystical sense is solid, pervades everything and everywhere and does not move. When you move your attention around, you are in fact only becoming aware of the small area of awareness on which you are focused. In Dzogchen, there are the concepts of son clear light and mother clear light. Or, in my westernized understanding, son rigpa and mother rigpa. Small self and Self. Small closed system and big open system. Small watcher, big watcher. The main purpose of Dzogchen is to break through the limited son awareness into the mother awareness. You seem to be stuck in the son awareness and don't recognize that a mother awareness even exists.

First off the term "conscious awareness" implies that there is also an "unconscious awareness". Your term doesn't make sense. Secondly, any "subjective responses" are ccnceptIons, thus part of Wolff's closed system which consists of symbols, painted onto reality. Further, my definition of awareness is "Knowing" and nothing can attach itself to it. Awareness is a verb. So tell me, what exactly is being attached, and to what? And, then, what is doing the viewing?

Sorry, I'm not seeing what your point is or where this is going. It seems to be some kind of anti-practice commentary...

Sorry, could you please rephrase your sentence? Are you asking me what the difference is between maintaining root lock and releasing it?

Yes and sometimes practices have been customized and no longer provide the same effect. If someone says to keep the root lock throughout spinal breathing but all other teachings say to release it before starting the exhale, whom do you believe? And is it fair not to disclose the variation?

One thing that bothers me about AYP is that Yogani takes your posts, cherry picks the ones he wants, builds books out them and then sells them without any writers' compensation or acknowledgement of author's copyright infringement. Years later, after mentioning this to him, he decided to post a notice, but still does not share the 'profits' from those book sales with the posters.. Further, Yogani does not permit you to delete or edit your posts after a certain time limit (which he does not transparently reveal) and only recently added that rule change. So, if you feel that you have posted responses that are no longer what you believe, you cannot go back and delete them after a certain time period.

Sorry for not not exposing the causal link between my question and the topic at hand, I thought that anyone interested in concepts and enlightenment would be familiar with Franklin Merrell Wolff's philosophy. http://www.integralscience.org/wolffsheart.htm

Gee, Karl. My question was past tense. I wanted to know if you had ever read that book written by an academically trained philosopher and mathematician about his experiences and analysis of his enlightenment. It is not a book of practices. But I guess you have answered my question and a whole lot more...

Karl, have you ever read http://www.amazon.com/Franklin-Merrell-Wolffs-Experience-Philosophy-Transformation/dp/0791419649 ?

Found this today about pressure between the brows: http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/1191517

How would you know? Have you examined every snowflake that has ever existed and will exist? There must be billions of billions of billions... Define snowflake. How big does it have to be? I can conceive of a snowflake made up of so few atoms that identical matches could be easily replicated. Oh, I know.. You rely on statistical inference. Would not all snowflakes consisting of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen have exactly the same formation? And even if the formations varied based on position relative to each atom, the combinations are finite and thus capable of being duplicated. So you have uttered a falsehood, haven't you? On tv the other day it said that in all the infinite universes it is very likely that there is an exact duplicate of each person existing in an other universe. If that were true, then there would also be billions of billions of billions of identical snowflakes.

I think Karl might be an objectivist. He keeps harping about identity and denies the existence of anything that cannot be realized by the senses. Its a pretty warped philosophy and didn't amount to much. You can read about it here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand) Here is a taste:

You call mysticism imagination and then draw a line between it and "reality". Your definition of reality is deficient. The snake is not a snake nor is it a rope. It is a coil of poop. And running from things is not what Buddhism teaches. By detaching and facing emotions, pain or various phenomenon with insight (the proper view) we realize their impermanence and their lack of inherent existence. Even Eckart Tolle knows that... Either you master your mind or remain as the victim. The "we" you speak of does not include me and I wonder where you get the right to speak for all of humanity...

There is no way that you watched the video with pictures of footprints in stone in the time that I posted it and you responded with your post. You aren't even interested in opening your mind. When I was 15, I saw a ghost. Sorry, I did not take a picture of her. She had a long dress on, long hair and kind of floated. Later I learned that the place that I was staying in had been built over a graveyard.

Actually, I have proof of the psychic ability to view a person whom is scrying at you. Right here on the forum. The poster was called damagednotbroken. I saw his face during one of my meditation sessions and then described his head to him. He then posted his picture (which he later removed). I did take a picture of it and saved it.. My description was right on. The part that was interesting is that I became aware of a tunnel between him and I that had opened up, which I could look through any time I wanted, I closed the tunnel for numerous reasons, but the point remains... Although it is not a miracle, the experience defies logic and reason. http://thedaobums.com/topic/24351-i-hunger-for-more/?p=352085 Just because you do not have have these types of experiences does not give you the right to say that they are fiction. If you knew how to develope these abilities you could see for yourself. How do explain the footprints? Or the rainbow bodies? https://youtu.be/0yjM04PH56g"]https://youtu.be/0yjM04PH56g

See, that is the problem with logic. If Your base assumption is false, the your logical conclusion is also false.In this case, your base assumption that ego is a man's identity is erroneous. It may be seem correct to you as you believe it and have defined it, except for the fact that the mystical/spiritual ego does not die. Your assumption that body death also means death of the ego is false. If you wish to define death as the dropping off of the body and that the spirit/self/ego lives on then I would agree. However, your use of logic is a magic act which hides the fact that you have no realization of ego in the mystical sense. How do you explain reincarnation? It is not just a belief. There are many stories about Buddhist adepts whom have chosen their future births, stories about children whom can remember their previous lives. Do you discount them and ignore them? http://www.iisis.net/index.php?page=semkiw-ian-stevenson-reincarnation-past-lives-research There is a concept of the alaya vijinana in Buddhism, aka the substrate and the substrate consciousness. It is the storehouse of all the experiences, personality, individual traits and characteristics that a person accumulates during a lifetime. This storehouse continues from life to life. That is what reincarnates. That is why, once a person has mastered their mind and achieved great clarity, they can go back and remember previous lives. It is logical. It makes sense. In mystical terms, the death or dissolution of the ego/substrate would be called enlightenment, the end of dukkha, the end of rebirths.

Seeker, Thanks again for compiling the questions for Daniel Ingram. I appreciate it I've been listening to the fire retreat that I found through your links to Daniel's websites.. What a wonderful thing to do,.. To record logs and talks about the experiences.. Makes me feel right at home with all the talk about the experiences, especially the high def visions. Here: http://firekasina.org/category/audio/ If anyone is an advanced practitioner, I would recommend listening to these recordings. Thanks again.

What you describe is what I've noticed too... The background lightening up, and then when the bliss (ecstasy) starts, my attention is drawn to it automatically. But if you focus on the bliss directly, it goes away. So I go back to the breath.. And yes, it seems that the smaller the spot of concentration the better. Sounds like you have succeeded in attaining at least the first jhana:). Congratulations! Years ago when I first learned about Kenneth Folk and Daniel Ingram (and his ebook, which I read) I didn't know what to think. I thought that noting practice wouldn't really produce anything because the act of noting is stirring up the winds, keeping the mind active (not still). To me, this was counter to the sustained concentration that Patanjali's limbs of yoga talks about. Noting was similar to mantra repetition, TM style. How are you going to still the mind when you are constantly mentally reciting a mantra? Isn't the act of intending a new iteration of the mantra, activating it, releasing it etc all mental processes? And, like it says in "Mindfulness in Plain English" you are even supposed to keep the background (the subject or watcher still). So somehow I don't think noting is a good shamatha practice. It is a better vipassana practice. One time I was walking back to my car after meditating in the woods and I decided to try a style of noting (after learning that the first second in which you perceive an object is the time when your mind has not yet conceptualized (or grasped) the perception -Tolle). What I did was move my head every second, revealing a new scene of trees, leaves and greenery. I did this for about a 1/2 hour. That was fine. (I love the forest, trees and greenery). Anyway, about 1/2 an hour later I walked into a food store and the whole scene dissolved, like I had fainted standing up. I found myself in a huge open space, separate from my body. I had to fight a bit to get back to normal. Didn't know what had happened. So, I concluded that the new noting practice had precipitated that event. Noting seems to be a good way to keep the mind in a preconceptual state. I think noting is a valuable practice, especially if one is monitoring thoughts and trying to find the source of thoughts, or trying to discover the nature of thoughts (how they link together and build up, and carry you away. Also, the practice is very similar to a shamatha technique that Alan Wallace teaches about being a lighthouse of centered perception while the waves of thought come crashing by. But with Alan's technique you don't go hunting around for the thoughts. I also know that once you acknowledge a thought, it dissolves or goes away much quicker. The problem though with noting for me, is that I can get so deep to a place where there are hundreds if not thousands of thoughts whizzing by so quickly that it is just impossible to note them all. It looks like a large stream of rainbow fishes. Have you ever tried to count or note the number of fish in a large school as they dart on by? I think the value in noting is that it trains you to remain in the same stratus of mental consciousness instead of bobbing in and out from shallow to deeper. But at some point, I still think to hit jhana or absorptive contemplation you have to learn how to hold everything still instead of moving your attention around hunting down the next new thought. Also, noting is a good practice or part of the practice when you are trying to analyze dependent origination! I practice that allot during my breaks, I notice how, when a woman walks by, the eye sees the image. I notice where the eyes move and the thoughts that arise. I notice the start of desire and I notice the mind making affirmations and resolves.. Sometimes I even notice the start of physiological changes that accompany the thoughts. Dependent origination. I've also noticed the start of desire when seeing a television commercial. It is amazing that my mind seems to be a separate entity, a dog that I have to keep on a leash lest it run away barking after the latest stimuli. I think every practice has something to teach, a new perspective to reveal and has some form of value. There is also much to be said for sticking with one practice and becoming proficient in it, which often takes longer than just reaching the point of boredom.

Such is the state of a practiced therapist. You seem to be under the delusion that kindness and detachment are markers of truth.