Tibetan_Ice

Hi, I have been studying the "Kunlun System" by Max Christensen. I've had the book for a couple weeks now. What I would like to know is this. Are there any experienced Kunlun practitioners out there where I can find out about how exactly to perform the One Breath? When I took the Kunlun Level 1 seminar, the type of breathing was just normal breathing but not letting it pause. You did not elongate the in or out breath, nor did you slow it down or change the cycle. Well, in that latest book "Kunlun System", Max talks about the One Breath. He says to just breathe gently and not have any pauses or gaps between the in and out breaths. What I would like to know, from a practiced Kunlun practioner who knows, the following: In the One Breath, do you slow down your breathing? Or are you just supposed to leave your breathing the same as normal, except you give a little push at the top and bottom of the breathing cycle so that there is no pause or gap? Is it ok to slow the breathing down and not have any gaps? For example, could you do a 9-0-9-0 breathing cycle? (9 for inhale, 0 is no pause, 9 for exhale etc) Breathing like that is very powerful and seems to balance and accumulate the energies very efficiently. Max says that breathing with no gaps builds up the Wu Chi. The reason I ask, is because in chapter 7 called "The Gold Flower Method of Maoshan", he activates the three dantiens with the help of a hand mudra and the One Breath. He says you can do 12, 24 or 36 counts of the One Breath at each dantien. Well, if you are just breathing normally, which for me is about 1 or 2 seconds in-breath, 1 or 2 seconds out-breath, then it goes by very quickly. So I started thinking that maybe the teacher that I took the Kunlun Level 1 seminar didn't give accurate instructions? I don't know.. I would really like to know the answers to the One Breath technique. Anyone out there know the answers or where I can find out? Greatly appreciated.. Thanks. TI P.S. It is so nice to also see that Max refers to the Heart Mind channel called the Katika channel many times throughout the book, and emphasizes the importance of developing and opening it up. He even explained that it is a "bliss plasma vapour" that fills the katika channel to the heart center. It is also interesting that he says that two microcosmic flows, water and fire, "provides a new element, the super-heated steam that is the gaseous state of water with high kinetic energy transferred from fire". And the "Gold Flower Method of the Maoshan" sounds very similar to tummo practice to me. So, perhaps in a roundabout way, Max is now combining the fire and water methods.. Also, since he recommends not mixing in Kundalini, Kundalini must not be the fire method, but something else.. Something to think about.

Hi Anderson, You are not familiar with Alan Wallace's teachings and his use of the term 'rigpa'. To Alan Wallace, rigpa is not simple awareness by the coarse mind, but that which is pristine awareness, which only arises after the substrate consciousness has receded into the substrate and then the substrate is broken through. This diferentiation is also clearly elucidated in the the terms "son clear light" and "mother clear light" or child rigpa and mother rigpa in other reputable teachings. For example, here is that specific diferentiation: So if you and others are saying the the Dzogchen transmission is that of the 'mother's lap', the mother clear light, I would be very surprised as that would imply that enlightenment can be transmitted from person to person, which is clearly not the case. I know exactly what Seeker of Tao is saying for I too have studied Alan Wallace extensively, and if you don't have shamatha, you ain't got nothing. And, here are some sources about the dependancy of realizing the Great Primordial Wisdom on the quiescence of the mind (shamatha): and this: So, SOT is not confusing anything, if anything when discussing rigpa, one should distinquish which types of rigpa one is talking about, or adopt a common terminology and agreement to definition so as to avoid these meaningless confrontations.

Hi Bob I do not want to obtain any worlds, there are so many, it is meaningless. I do not want to have my desires fulfilled because a desire fulfilled only breeds more desires. There is no end to it. If all desires were truly obtainable, then surely someone somewhere, having accomplished knowledge of the Self, would have had the desire that no sentient being ever suffer again in all the planes of existence. As you can see, there is still suffering. My last remark, is that Nisargadatta has a little more distinction between mind, self and ... from "I AM THAT": So hopefully that explains some ambiguities in terminology... TI

Alwaysoff, What is the reference for that quote from Dudjom Rinpoche? I could not find those exact words. Are you making this up? Do you think Dudjom Rinpoche met lots of 'ordinary people' when he was erroneously put in prison? Are you saying that you now have demons from associating with these 'ordinary people' here? LOL I thought it was the other way around.. Gee, it's so hard to tell if someone is possessed by a demon or evil spirit.. I mean, even the Sakya and Gelug traditions couldn't tell that they had been worshipping an evil spirit for the past 300 years.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorje_Shugden_Controversy Now, I realize that this topic is highly controversial, and I don't take sides because I don't know much about it, but it does serve as an example of the difficulty of determining whether you are worshipping the real thing or an evil demon, let alone declare that ordinary people cause demon possession. So, once again, you surpass my wildest expectations with your arrogancy and pomp. Such entertainment! PS. On another note, demons sometimes are referred to personal traits that propagate the hinderences, as I've seen Dudjom Rinpoche refer to them as such, but since you failed to distinguish, I see no point in pursuing that angle.

What do you call a hungry ghost that can never seem to get it right? A Booboodist.

What do you call a hungry ghost that likes to make people cry? A Boohoodist.

Jesus walks into a hotel, puts some nails on the counter and asks "Can you put me up for the night?"

What do you call a hungry ghost that likes to scare people? A Boodist.

And you speak for most Hindus? Ok, here is a bit about the Golden Body from Raja Yoga: from "Merging With Shiva" http://ebooks.gutenberg.us/HimalayanAcademy/SacredHinduLiterature/mws/mws_ch-48.html And, here is Ramana's recount of his rainbow body: http://www.mountainrunnerdoc.com/articles/article/2291157/130847.htm So there. TI

Ya, you're problaby right. I should have talked about birth defects instead. My first ex-wife had a previous 'fetal alcohol syndrome' daughter.

The benefits in wine are the nutrients and other components, not the alcohol. But, yes, people who drink seem to live longer than the sober people in the other vehicle that they crashed into. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunk_driving_in_the_United_States http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9870356/Thousands-of-women-die-from-breast-cancer-caused-by-drinking-research.html http://dougwead.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/get-drunk-live-longer/

Alwaysoff If the only criteria you have for being a 'valid religion' is that you have rainbow body, or that the legs were disappearing, think again. And thank you for pointing this out, for it surely serves to unite, not divide. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subtle_body So Buddhism isn't the only one with a 'rainbow body' or 'light body'. So let's begin.. Here is a recount of the light body (if you want to call it that). The hindus, are very familiar with it. There are all kinds of stories, and this one is from Yogananda Paramhansa Yogi: And here, he says this: Next, moving right along... Dissolving legs.. ? Gee, Kan San can dissolve his whole body, and there are pictures too! Kunlun. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.131731546897753.24177.131724956898412&type=3 Do you think they are lying? Do you still think that your argument is even valid? Thousands of people see Jesus every day. Do you think he is making the trek with his physical body? Gee, it must be ragged and torn up by now.. maybe he should take a helicopter or something, to protect his physical body.. Actually, this is kind of a waste of time. It seems that each religion/non-religion has their own rendition of the same phenomenon. Even taoists. I don't have to prove that, just expand your knowledge base a little and you will come to the same realization.

The purer the alcohol, the more deadly it is. It eats away at the cells' walls. This is what Samuel Sagan, a medical doctor, says about alcohol: from "Awakening the Third Eye" TI

Hi Dominicus Alcohol is bad for you. It destroys brain cells, espescially in the frontal lobes where the morals, ethics and self-consciousness lie. It causes cancer, one glass of alcohol a day causes breast cancer in some women. Most of my family, who drank, have died from cancer. Some were less than 30 yrs old. I haven't had a drink (nor any recreational drugs) for over 35 years now. I don't miss it at all. I'm in life for the real thing and I'm giving it my best shot. TI

Hi SoT I thought I should mention, that method that I posted from Alan Wallace which is 'settling the mind in the natural state', is not an instruction on how to become enlightened, nor how to break on through and realize the big rigpa (or mother clear light as is defined in the text called "Naked Awareness".) It is just a way of settling the ordinary coarse mind in it's natural state. It doesn't get you out of samsara. It is actually a very good practice. I have been doing it for months as a fun thing to do at the start of my meditation sessions. It is particularily effective and useful when you just can't seem to calm the mind down from too many thoughts bombarding the mind stream. It settles the mind (and body) very quickly. What I do is this: I start with my awareness in front of me, eyes closed, and then slowly move my awaress to the left, in a full-sweep circle around the body. I do this three times. The I go from the front and move my awareness to the right in a full circle (around the body, right, back, left then back to the front). I also do that three times. Then I point my awareness at the front and do a full sweep going up and over the top, around the back, around the bottom and then back to the front. I also do this three times. Then, I move my attention to all the points in the body, and then the psychic points (chakras, sushumna etc). Then, I make circle eights in front of my face, moving the attention around, down, up, around, down.. I do that with great care and make sure my eyes don't follow the movement. Then, the last thing I do is I take the awareness and shoot it straight from the last circle-eight back through the third eye into the 'me' that is watching. Makes a direct hit to the source of the subject, the watcher... This is very effective, believe me. Not only does it settle the mind, the body becomes very relaxed, the breathing is nice and calm, and that last part about shooting your awareness back at the watcher helps to get you deeper and closer to the source. (Actually, that is one of the techniques is very similar to one of the later meditations in Alan Wallace's Dzogchen retreat podcasts). One of the main things that I learned using this technique is that you can control your awareness. The other interesting thing is this: If you move your awareness around like I just explained, and you can see things through your closed eyes (using your third eye), and you expand your mental vision to go further and further, eventually you start to see the surrounding room, the neighborhood, the city, the earth, the galaxies... it expands. And, sometimes it seems that you have expanded your awareness because what you are looking at is so vivid and clear that it makes you think that you are actually viewing the real thing, just by expanding and moving your awareness around.. It also helps if you can 'love' the scene of the universe, the stars, the lights, the galaxies etc.. I know I do. Such awesome lights.. All in all it is a great technique. TI

Hi IS Some people here have missed the boat on what you have said. They were not able to distinguish between "a thought", a "multitude of thoughts" and the "thoughts of the conceptual mind", that is the proliferation of thoughts from feeding them energy by focusing on their content. I thought I would point this out, which is saying in essence, the same thing that you are saying, that thought is the dharmakhaya: (this is from the Ninth Karmapa, he agrees with you) TI

Hey Drew I have thought about this for a long time now. You keep saying that the right vagus nerve is the central channel. I now disagree. My reasons are as follows: 1) On several occasions you have said that the main aorta in the right side of the neck pulses when you activate the vagus nerve. Well, the central channel goes up the center of the neck, not on the right side of the neck. 2) The right vagus nerve ends in the bowels and is not connected to the tail bone. The central channel starts at the perineum and goes straight up, just in front of the spine. 3) You said the left vagus nerve goes down the left side of the neck and terminates at the heart. What you are describing may be the ida, and the right vagus nerve may be pingala, but they are not definately not the central channel. 4) If kundalini rises up the central channel, starting from the muladhara, and it's first step is piercing the granthi knot, where are the corresponding vagus nerves then? 5) If kundalini must pierce the three granthis knots in order to rise up the sushumna, then ordinary orgasm can't be taking the same path, because ordinary orgasm does not pierce the three granthis. Therefore, the channels must be different. http://www.swamij.com/kundalini-awakening-5.htm Now, I'm not vehement about this idea and I don't think we are going to really prove anything, because science can't prove that a central channel even exists, but it is an interesting theory that the vagus nerve is not the central channel, isn't it? TI

TI

Apech, I gave you the opportunity here to demonstrate what you suggest that everyone should practice: you said: "but it reflects poorly on those who allow this reaction to dominate. " And you are right. Your reaction to my hypothetical observation demonstrates that you yourself have allowed your reaction to dominate you. How can you recommend something to others that you are incapable of performing yourself? Then you say " when I was simply defending the right of another poster to speak and hold certain views." The right to speak and hold certain views on a public forum is a priviledge, not a right. There are forum rules, as you are well aware of. When you defend someone's right to speak but that person continually denigrates others' beliefs, misrepresents the opinions, insults people and aggrevates nearly everyone, you deserve some of that karma too, don't you? For example, here are some statements that Alwaysoff has made: http://thetaobums.com/topic/30749-bias-against-new-age/?p=461430 http://thetaobums.com/topic/30749-bias-against-new-age/?p=461436 http://thetaobums.com/topic/30749-bias-against-new-age/?p=461445 http://thetaobums.com/topic/30749-bias-against-new-age/?p=461524 He took the New Age path all the way to its conclusion. http://thetaobums.com/topic/30749-bias-against-new-age/?p=461667 http://thetaobums.com/topic/30749-bias-against-new-age/?p=461945 http://thetaobums.com/topic/26805-buddha-kept-silent-about-god/?p=400403 http://thetaobums.com/topic/26805-buddha-kept-silent-about-god/?p=403257 http://thetaobums.com/topic/28469-atheism-is-realist-buddhist-definition-just-like-theism/?p=435770 And then, for a history of Alwaysoff's ability to piss people off, try this: http://www.dharmawheel.net/search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&keywords=alwayson I think you get the picture. Two points: my comments pertaining to views and derogatory statements were not directed to you. I don't really care what you believe. I don't think you are malicious, arrogant, self-serving or promoting hatred or elitism. Being bound in heavy scholasticism, relying on books that scholars have written is counter to Buddhism. Why a pseudo scholar, with poor english, gets to lord their elitist dogma found in books over others in the Buddhist forum, the Vedanta forum and the General Discussion forum is beyond me. There is no way that Alwaysoff has practical knowledge of the numerous sources he quotes; he relies soley on what he has found in religious books, and which has been handed down for many generations. This contradicts the spirit of Buddha's teachings and is leading others away from the true spirit of Buddhism, isn't it?

Hey, listen. Perhaps you may have been abused when you were younger and you somehow identify with outright maliciousness, elitist attitudes and abuse as a marker of authority, I don't know, but I refuse to be a victim here. I have more self respect than that. When people say that Jesus did not exist, that Buddhism is the only way to gain liberation, that truth is limited to what only select historians/scholars have written and is the definitive source of the only true knowledge, that New Age is shit, etc. etc. etc. it not only demonstrates a definite lack of Buddhist behaviour, ethics and understanding but really pisses off and offends alot of people. How it is their fault for being pissed when someone tries to put down and destroy their religions or belief systems is beyond me. Remember, people judge you not on what you say, but on how you behave.

Hi Manitou I don't think it is the other side of the brain, for apparently, that is the subconscious and I've been there many times. It is full of thoughts/visions/images, thousands and thousands of them. This is something else. It is when all of the layers of consciousness collapse down into the heart, revealing omniscience... You know and are aware of absolutely everything (generic definition of the term)... which actually makes me wonder if Buddha really didn't know that that piece of pork was bad.. However, thank you very much for posting that post about Jesus' brother, about how Jesus told his brother that the "I AM" consciousness was within him. I've been reading the Nag Hammadi and I came accross this section, which I found very interesting: I suspect that this 'spark of knowing consciousness' is the same "I AM" that Nisargadatta talks about, the same "I AM" in the bible, the same source that Ramana speaks of, the very same source just to the right of the heart where the little 'me' lives. All the best. TI

That is the problem. Your simple definition is lacking. It says in your second quote that while "knowledge can refer to ordinary, worldly knowledge, in the Nyingma lineage it is the primary term designating the inherent wisdom within, the awakened state itself." This is a better definition as the Nyingma are known for Dzogchen. However, to say "rigpa = knowledge" lacks the proper elucidation of the proper meaning within the proper context. In the book "Stilling The Mind" by Alan Wallace, he defines rigpa as this: The aspect of pervading all of reality in his definition clarifies the whole aspect of 'breaking on through to the other side', which is how Alan has always described rigpa. This clarifies the idea for me that the Dzogchen transmission or introduction is not the transmission of enlightenment, nor is it the transmission of Buddhahood, for enlightenment and Buddhahood cannot be transmitted. Therefore, the transmission must be the pointing out of simple personal awareness, or perhaps, like you say "just simple knowledge", which explains the three forms of transmission: orally - spoken word, read - written word, mentally - mind transmission. In the sense that Alan Wallace defines rigpa, it would be easy to tell once you hit rigpa, because in essence your awareness would become omniscient, which is exactly what "Buddhahood Without Meditation" says is the goal.

Gee Alwaysoff, you are missing the points here. I'm not interested in a definition of 'rigpa' from a book about shamatha and vispassana, which is what you linked to, we are talking about Dzogchen here. "Buddhahood Without Meditation" is about pure Dzogchen, we are discussing Dzogchen. We are talking about what Dzogchen masters 'transmit' to their students or what Alan Wallace says to break on through to the other side into. Your generic term for rigpa here does not cut it.

Dominicus Thank you so much for posting that thread. It explains allot. Yes, the spot is just to the right of the physical heart! A few years ago, I was reading Ramana and although he says that the true heart is not the physical heart that if he were hard pressed to give a physical location for it, it would be just to the right of the physical heart. At that time, I just kind of casually focused at that spot while dropping everything else for a moment and a 'little me' popped up in that exact location. It was quite a surprise. It is so nice to read this interview and it has resonated very deeply with me. God Bless the both of you. Thank you TI

Then why do you have #1 in your signature?