Tibetan_Ice

Hi Ichigo, I think there are a few secrets, the first is to lead a low-keyed non stressful life, learn to detach and don't take yourself too seriously. The second secret is this. Draw a distinction between watching the breath and watching yourself watch the breath. What I mean is that when you watch the breath, you watch it so intently that your mind forms a mental image of the breath. That is called the counterpoint sign. Then, you meditate or focus on that. When you trace every aspect of the breath, the start of the inhale, the smooth in breath, the stopping of the in breath, the pause at the top of the in breath, then the start of the exhale, the smoothness and flow of each second of the out breath, the pause at the bottom, the wait for the next in breath, the mind forms a mental construction of the many different aspects and kind of joins them altogether. It is like the mind visualizes a cartoon image of the motion, the rise and fall, the pausing, the repeating. It is like the rise and fall of a cork bobbing in the ocean. Focus on that. Focus on the mental image your mind makes of the rise and fall. This picture that the mind makes is closer to the center of the head, where it "knows" the bobbing of the cork. Sustain the awareness. Put in some effort. Then, love it. The love that you send it will connect your heart to the breathing and enhance the interest and clarity of the mental representation of the breathing cycle that the mind has created. The love keeps you more interested, making it easier to focus and sustain your focus. There is a huge pool of awareness surrounding the heart. Wherever you direct your love, joy, happiness, this pool extends into it. This pool is clear, sparkly, super aware, blissful and silent. Learn to direct it through "loving" your breath. The heart is always looking at the breath. It needs to correspond its pumping with the differing cycles of the breath. If you breath fast, it needs to pump faster. If the breathing slows down, it may need to pump less. The heart tells the breath when to speed up and slow down. There is a natural connection between the heart and the breathing. You are in essence tying into that link.. It is natural. Then, the mental background in your mind's eye gets brighter, the mental image (counterpoint sign) gets clearer, crisper and more vivid and all of a sudden it becomes so real that it looks like a solid object. To me it looks like a cloud of white light. While this is going on, you also see a star, or a white sun, or a bright light in he background. Just ignore it and keep focusing on the counterpoint sign. At some point, the star will become so bright that it merges with the counterpoint sign. At that point, the rapture begins.. Does that help? Good luck! Please let us know how it goes.

Well that was a short 3 months... I hit first jhana again this afternoon. My morning meditation consisted of moving my attention around the room, with eyes closed, visualizing or seeing internally with the third eye, the details in the room, then outside the house, the whole city, then the universe. Slowly working on expanding my "knowing" and practising manipulating my attention. It is such a wonderful way to enter the natural state and let go of the tension. During the afternoon meditation it was very easy to trace the complete cycle of a breath. Also, I have been reviewing Ajahn Brahm's "Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond", picking up pointers. A very interesting one is this: So, I went back to loving my breath as I watched it. Within three breaths the nimitta was visible directly behind the counterpart sign. It resembled a little star. Within seconds, rapture appeared that lasted and lasted until I shut it down at the end of the session. Once I succeed at nailing down the technique and master the first jhana, I look forward to the higher jhanas where I can leave the rapture at will..

Hi ChiForce Thank you for taking the time to explain that. I too see a white star/sun many times during the night and sometimes through the day. If I am really relaxed and my mind is settled I usually see a whitish sun near the third eye, behind the eyebrows Sometimes it seems to light up the whole inside of my head. I didn't think that that was a nimitta because I wasn't formally performing breath meditation at the times, but I guess you could call it a nimitta in a generic kind of way, since "nimitta" means "sign". Only trouble is, when I do gazing practice, sometimes I will see a "moon" on the left and sometimes I see a "sun" on the right. Anyway, thanks for sharing.

From the wiki:

Hi ChiForce, My kundalini activated years ago too. I have done many practices and have had many experiences. I am currently trying to master the jhanas. What I am finding is that the kundalini energy appears to be very similar to jhanic rapture, but that in the first jhanic state, the rapture is smoother, not as intense as kundalini and does not cause any form of overload. With kundalini, I was often left in a state where my face and hands were burning, and I had other symptoms like perineum ache and the overall sensation that I had been electrocuted. So far, the first jhanic rapture is much sweeter, easier on the system and much more delightful. And I really like aspect that I can shut it down, it stops at the end of the session rather than continues on and on and on. I was wondering.. What method of meditation do you use for meditation? Breath meditation? Do you fix the attention at the sensation at the nostrils or are you more like Ajahn Brahms' method of just focusing on where the mind knows the cycle of the breath? There are so many variations of techniques that I was wondering which one you use. Also, it doesn't sound like you penetrate the nimitta, or want to? Is that correct? Recently I have penetrated the nimitta twice, but the result does not last long. Then, yesterday I was reading in the Abhidamma, that it is not supposed to last long, after penetrating the nimitta, or perhaps I am not reading this properly. So it would seem that "the thought consciousness lasts for one thought moment" means that it does not last very long, or perhaps it lasts as long as you sustain it? I'm trying to figure out how one can remain in ecstatic concentration as seems to be the experience for such a long time when the book says it lasts for one thought moment. My current understanding is that the ecstatic concentration is prolonged because the mind has been fixed at a specific level of concentration. Therefore, because there are other jhanic factors, when you penetrate the nimitta, you break through to the higher jhanas. I'm tying in the notion here that each jhana is a subtler form of consciousness, and to get to the subtler levels, you have to break through or drop the coarser levels. Have you hit the second jhana? Sorry for all the questions.

A Manual of Abhidhamma: under "The Realisation of Nibbana" on Page 84 as follows: Having thus gained a correct view of the real nature of his self, freed from the false notion of an identical substance of mind and matter, he attempts to investigate the cause of this “Ego-personality”. He realises that everything worldly, himself not excluded, is conditioned by causes past or present, and that this existence is due to past ignorance (avijjà), craving (taõhà), attachment (upàdàna), Kamma, and physical food (àhàra) of the present life. On account of these five causes this personality has arisen and as the past activities have conditioned the present, so the present will condition the future. Meditating thus, he transcends all doubts with regard to the past, present, and future (Kankhàvitaraõavisuddhi). Thereupon he contemplates that all conditioned things are transient (Anicca), subject to suffering (Dukkha), and devoid of an immortal soul (Anattà). Wherever he turns his eyes, he sees nought but these three characteristics standing out in bold relief. He realises that life is a mere flowing, a continuous undivided movement. Neither in a celestial plane nor on earth does he find any genuine happiness, for every form of pleasure is only a prelude to pain. What is transient is therefore subject to suffering and where change and sorrow prevail there cannot be a permanent ego.

Where is the self in all of this?

Are you saying that this link is mangled? http://www.buddhisttexts.org/uploads/6/3/3/1/6331706/_vajra_prajna_paramita_sutra.pdf#page208 Hmm. Perhaps the pdf was reformatted? The part on the eyes appears to be on page 177 now, not 208. http://www.buddhisttexts.org/uploads/6/3/3/1/6331706/_vajra_prajna_paramita_sutra.pdf#page177

Those texts were written by two different people. Is the "he" you are referring to Buddha? Commentaries can be misleading as they are interpretations.

Hi Drew, You said The book finally came and I read it. What an interesting book. Thanks for pointing it out!

Well, I just spent 45 minutes in the first jhana, in a state of rapture and joy. Unbelievable! I think this is the beautiful breath that Ajahn Brahm talks about. Focusing on the sensation of the breath as it passes by the nostrils. Remaining with the feeling of the sensation. Trying to feel if the breath is hot or cold. Sustaining the attention... It felt so good! What I noticed is that you can still think while this is going on. And Ajahn is right, it is easier to remain with the breath because of the pleasurable sensation. The mind doesn't want to wander. The most pleasure seemed to be at the in-breath at first, but later as the session developed, the out breath was becoming just as ecstatic. Some times I distracted myself on purpose because the sensations were becoming too strong. Not just rapture, but waves of tingles too, probably more from the joy. The thing I also noticed is that the flow through the nostrils was evenly balanced, that is, both nostrils and sinus cavities were clear and open. I think that that might make a difference. The other thing I noticed is that my arms and lower torso were dissociating from the body. A kind of numb, etheric sensation was spreading and growing. The white light nimitta appeared but I just ignored it. I spent the meditation just drinking up the rapture. The 45 minute session ended way too soon.

Thanks for that link. There is a whole series of ten videos there. One of the most interesting interviews I've seen in a long time.

Eckhart Tolle has some interesting advice about how to deal with the pain body and deep emotional issues. His method is to recognize, observe, put space in between, don't feed it energy and gradually watch it lose its potency. He didn't invent this method for it is a remedial process to address the hinderences that many Buddhists will refer to. But, it is an effective practice.

Well what a load of crap! It is so obvious that the writer of this pile of dung has no idea what the purpose of "meditation" is. Let's take a closer look. Spiritual growth is not growth at all, it is a removal of hinderences. It is not mastering your emotions nor is it being emotionally mature. The spirit does not need to master anything. It is already perfect, complete, loving, blissful, gigantic and wonderful. It is the conceptual mind (thoughts and emotions), which, born from ignorance and not knowing the spirit's true essence, is mistaken and mislead into thinking it has to become more, better than it is. It also seems like someone with no realizations, no miracles or powers is very quick to distort and downplay the fruits of enlightenment, doesn't it? What does that mean? Dictated by a person's native character? Does it refer to DNA, or breeding/genetics? How about the endless reincarnations that people have had and the karma that is carried forward from life to life? This isn't a realized person talking here, these are not the words of a mystic nor a realized being. This is someone trying to empathize with the common human in order to sell them a pile of dung. Everyone can identify with those statements, because everyone likes to blame their parents. In Buddhism you'll often hear the expression that everyone was once your mother, your father, your sister and your brother. So, if you are going to blame anyone for your own karma, blame yourself. I hate to break it to you, Adya, but the purpose of meditation is not to stop thinking nor is it to remain totally blank. The purpose of meditation, depending on which school you are studying, can be many things. In Buddhism, being totally blank is not a good thing. In dzogchen we do not try to stop our thoughts because that only produces more thoughts. We let the thoughts appear, display themselves and then dissolve away. As we progress, more and more thoughts arise and dissolve away, but we remain unaffected, not grasping at anything, emotions included. In Theravada Buddhism, training the mind to become one pointed is a method of keeping the hinderences at bay. Emotions like ill will, hatred, jealousy are hinderences because they pose a challenge to remaining one pointed. Other emotions like pride, egotism and arrogance are also hinderences. Successful meditation here gives us a taste of what it's like to be unburdened for a while. The longer you remain unburdened, the more it spills over into daily living. And, there are no spaces between thoughts. If you think there are, just go deeper. Thoughts are endless and infinite. It is the space that you put between "you" and your thoughts that matters for insight. Any serious meditator would tell you that there is a different way of knowing that does not involve thought at all. It is a direct "knowing", much faster than any thought, not bound by intellect or memories or learning. The door knob that connects us to that state is "intuition". If we are "meditating" and we find ourselves "reviewing our past actions" then we are not meditating properly. We are supposed to develop enough mindfulness to realize that we are no longer meditating, let the distraction go, relax and go back to the object of meditation. If a distraction recurs persistently, we should look at it straight on and keep hold of it until it dissolves. No grasping or feeding it more energy. But mostly, if you are meditating properly, as you go deeper and deeper the hinderences are kept at bay. The longer you keep the hinderences at bay, the more he mind relaxes and gains energy and power. If you are meditating correctly, your awareness increases, that is true, but your calmness and peacefulness also increase. Your ability to let go and let be also increases. Things like emotions and adverse conditions don't bother you as much. This is well known by successful meditators, myself included. Remember, you are training the mind not to grasp, not to be distracted, to remain unruffled when the big waves come. Adya is out in a limb here.. He should have talked about the effects of proper practice rather than focusing on the ill effects of erroneous practice. So let's recap what Adya has said. Meditation increases awareness, and due to the increase in awareness emotional problems seem bigger than they really are and this motivates us to solve these emotional problems. No mention of the purpose of meditation nor right practice. No mention that although you might solve your present life's past emotional disfigurements, you have had endless lives, all with their own emotional episodes, that presents endless emotional problems to solve. All those karmic seeds to ripen at their own time.. Better to understand your true nature and have those issues dissolve in the light of awareness all by themselves rather than lead people to believe that increased awareness makes your emotional disturbances bigger than they really are. Playing with energy and kundalini will exacerbate emotional turmoil. Don't play, be sincere. Other beings will come to your aid along the path. I think Adya is guilty of pushing wrong practice because he is trying to appeal to the uninformed, the gullible, the downtrodden because everyone can identify with emotional problems. What a salesman! Yes, master your emotions, master your energies, hone your willpower and overcome your blemishes. That is totally the wrong direction. Instead, learn to let go, quit grasping so much, seek a little less self and self importance. Try to understand the theory of dependent origination as taught by the Buddha and you might just realize that maybe the Buddha was right. Don't listen to Steve Gray. Someone should revoke his license to preach.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism

I sort of agree.... I've experienced that non-state seven times now, and the conceptual mind knows quite well what was occurring at the time. Its dissolution was not well received and once it regained a footing it tried many things to discount the events. Consider this, how does the dualistic conceptual mind know of nondualism in the first place? It learned about it after the fact, upon reflection, with no reference point. It was not the conceptual mind that became all things and knew it. It was something else, much much bigger...

Try this on for size... Non-duality can only appear when you are everything. That is the only time when there is no more individual identity. No more subject and object. They have become one.

So your definition of nonduality is that "you" are "seeing" the " formless"? That is not nonduality. There is still a subject there. Further, there are four material jhanas (rupa) and four immaterial jhanas (arupa). Realization of the immaterial jhanas does not produce enlightenment. Therefore, your statement that "when you are enlightened and can see beyond form into the formless" Is not right. You don't have to be enlightened to see the formless. And, formlessness is not the opposite of form, but the lack of form. Isn't the opposite of matter called antimatter? But I see what you are trying to say, you are trying to pretend that form and formlessness are opposites, like good and bad, or black and white... But that is a gross simplification, for something can be both good and bad at the same time or multiple proportions of combinations, and there can exist 59 shades of gray, which might look black but really aren't black. In order to define dualism and nondualism, you have to define the body of knowledge which birthed the terms, for each culture, teaching, school or discipline uses those terms to refer to something different. I would venture to say that in Buddhism, dualism refers specifically to "identity", as in subject and object. However, some forms of Buddhism refer to duality as the idea that there are two truths, one relative truth or reality, and one absolute truth or absolute reality. For a good time, look up nonduality in the wiki. There are so many meanings and different usages that it begs extra care and attention when using the term in a sentence. I'm starting to think that this discussion is an exercise in futility. When a guru or lama leaves his footprints in stone, is he not in the physical world? Does not emptiness trump any kind of duality or nonduality?

I challenge you to define duality or nonduality. There is no such thing. It is just a term that someone invented because their conceptual mind had no idea of string theory. Simply speaking, duality does not exist because upon close examination, there is no subject. If there is no subject, then how can the object exist? Thus, if duality does not truly exist, how can its counterpart exist? It is absurd. I don't pretend to know the mind of God... But if there was such a thing, I'm sure it would have the ability to destroy as well as create. The decision to destroy is based on judgement. Yet you say that something with infinite wisdom is incapable of judgement? Yes, karma has been used as a tool to control the masses, it doesn't invalidate karma. Many things have been used to control the masses... theat of force, advertising, laws, fear, religion ... So what? Your view that we are all actors on the stage and that nothing matters is extremist and faulty. If nothing truly matters why don't you put your hand on a red hot stove element? Would it hurt so good? Or hurt so bad? If we are all only actors, then that precludes any chance of enlightenment. Actors don't get enlightened do they? What is the part of the actor that wakes up? I get the impression that you are saying that that just isn't possible.... You say that as actors our actions are inconsequential. If that is the case, how can inconsequential actions produce true enlightenment? According to Buddha, it is all karma.. From "In The Buddha's Words". By Bhikkhu Bodhi:

Then how do explain the fact that most, if not all religions teach ethics and morals? They distinguish between good and bad. Does it work like this: you molest a child or murder someone and spirit, being incapable of sensing that these acts are wrong, returns the experience back to you many times over? I once read in a Buddhist book that a certain person was destined to two hundred lifetimes of being ruthlessly murdered because they themselves had murdered someone. Perhaps we have to define a difference between love and acceptance? It is possible to love yourself or someone else while at the same time not accepting your/their behaviors, isn't it? Is morality only a tool of the conceptual mind and spirit is beyond? Does not your heart cry out in despair as you twist the knife and watch the lifeblood drain away from your hapless victim? I think you are approaching a borderline that resembles some crazy form of nihilism...

Bindi, There are different kinds of bliss, and most are not permanent. The bliss in the lower material jhanas is ephemeral. It doesn't last. And, one should not strive to remain in that bliss, rapture, ecstasy for it prevents you from going to the next material jhana. By the time you hit the fourth jhana, you have abandoned directed thought, sustained thought and the rapture/ecstasy. The bliss of kundalini is more like sexual bliss. You can taste it, it is not hard to tell the difference. The Buddhists tend to view kundalini as a passing energetic phenomenon and don't pay much attention to it, nor do they cultivate is specifically. Buddhism is more about stilling the "winds" or dissolving the "winds" rather than stirring them up, for most of the "winds" are hinderences. I believe, yes, that primordial consciousness, the ground of all being is permanent bliss, but I wouldn't call it bliss. It is more like LOVE. Sacred Love. I can't prove it because I am not enlightened, but I have had experiences where this clear liquid like water gushed out from my heart and out of my eyes and I became everything (the grass, the trees, the park bench, everyone and everything. I believe that that was Samantabadhra, the primordial Buddha, primordial consciousness, the ground of all being. In Dzogchen, the primordial state is looked upon as being permanent bliss, if you want to take the translators' choice of words and defined contexts. See: http://www.amazon.com/Marvelous-Primordial-State-Elio-Guarisco/dp/8878341290/ref=pd_sxp_redirect In there it says that the primordial state is pure bliss, over and over and over again. The necessary component in all of this is the highest boddhicitta, from the heart source.... Pure awareness/love...

Hmmm. It depends on what you read... From Buddhahood Without Meditation: From The Yeshe Lama: Lama Chonam and Sangye Khandro From Golden letters: There is bliss in the three first jhanas a too.

I wish him well. I have read his discourses. http://www.wildmind.org/blogs/news/living-buddha-goenka-dead-at-90

Do not pull orgasmic energy from the head into the heart. It is dangerous and could cause heart attacks. The heart needs no coarse energy to disturb it. The heart radiates outwards, the light of a billion Suns, all on its own. Give it a try. You might like it.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca4/samma-samadhi/index.html