Tibetan_Ice

Alwaysoff, From Tenzin Wangyal himself.

Hi Alwaysoff Trolling again? Incapable of understanding Buddhist writings from the Western mentality? What exactly do you think that Dudjom Lingpa was doing when he "received these teachings in visionary dialog with fourteen enlightened beings, including Avalokiteshvara, Vajrapani, Lonchengpa, and Sahara" if he wasn't channeling? http://www.buddhismplace.com/page/dudjom-lingpa/73785581 Even Milarepa had visions in dreams and spirits (dead guys) appearing to him.. http://www.cosmicharmony.com/Av/Milarepa/Milarepa.htm Oh! Milarepa must have been new age! He was given lapis lazuli, a very popular new age gem!! There you have it. Milarepa was New Age! TI

Hi SG and Drew Well thank you very much for that link. That book actually says quite clearly that the vagus nerve is not the sushumna. ! Let's be clear here. Drew, that video by Tao Semko does not specifically state that the vagus nerve is the sushumna. He says that it is important to develop the vagus nerve because it is connect to major plexuses, like the heart, which the spinal path misses, and that it is important to develop the heart/emotions/compassion. He never explicitly states that the vagus nerve is the sushumna (which is the topic of my post). Kundalini can take any route it likes, just because kundalini goes one way does not mean that it took the sushumna. Now, what exactly does the book "The Mysterious Kundalini" say about the sushumna? The meaning of the terms "anterior and posterior" is quite different from 'left' and 'right'. Anterior means 'front'. Posterior means 'back'. So, although I am willing to concede that kundalini activity does stimulate the vagus nerve, and possibly the inverse is true too, the sushumna is not the vagus nerve, for, they have separate paths. http://www.scribd.com/doc/14382688/Mysterious-Kundalini TI

Be well.. I can see where you are coming from. You believe that drug induced states, which do considerable dammage to the mind/brain/body/etheric/astral took you to the real thing and so you incorporated that into your knowledge base of 'spiritual experience', while at the same time disregarding and putting down any authentic teachings from Buddha, Jesus or other known adepts. You are home grown and possibly inbred. You said, in another thread: http://thetaobums.com/topic/30836-were-youare-you-a-party-personclubber/?p=460119 So let me get this straight. You took 'natural substances' yearly in order to 'tear down the structures'. What exactly were those natural substances? I mean, cyanide is natural, isn't it? Apple seeds? You know, I knew many acid heads when I was younger. One had spectacular trips and not-so spectacular trips and ended up dying of a brain hemorrage when he was 24 yrs old. Another one blew his brains out with a shotgun while high on acid while listening to the Beatles Revolver.. Yup, I can see how drugs will take you to the "deeper regions of unexplored and even unforeseen/unimaginable consciousness/opportunity/potential". How do you even know that what you claim to be stillness is even stillness, and not big etheric/astral holes you dug into your being? Prove it to us. Describe the experience. What is your experience of stillness? Any energtics happening? Other beings or planes? Any siddhis? Prove to us you aren't just some home-grown inbred-spiritualist who is simply manifesting flashbacks. Show us some classic markers to show us you aren't just talking through the holes in your hat.

Hi MPG, Ok. I see where you are coming from now. Reality is already there, beliefs just influence the path that the dvd's laser beam takes. I could live with that... LOL. What I am interested in is how you forced your brainwaves to be the same as monks whom had meditated for 50,000+ hours. What was your technique? Did you write about your experience anywhere? TI

The most powerful person in the world is the one with the strongest heart.

Now how would you know that? Did you still your mind? Is calling me 'lacking in authenticity' part of your programming too? Are you sewing your healthy and holistic environment now?

Interesting hypothesis. Perhaps you create your reality by choosing where you send your awareness. Or, if you don't have control of your awareness, wherever your karma and environmental factors (and thoughts) take your awareness. Kind of sort of also reminds me of string theory. But getting back to belief.. You believe you exist, don't you? Then, why, does the pinnacle path to enlightenment based on the Dzogchen teachings of Dudjom Lingpa have as it's primary instruction the dropping of 'identity' (dag-dzin)? He says that grasping to the self is the cause of samsara: From Buddhahood Without Meditation - Dudjom Lingpa: I interepret this to mean that one should drop the belief that you exist, separately as an independant being in order to overcome samsara. So you see, on a very deep level, belief does play an integral part in holding us back.. TI

Hi TJL I think your statements are confusing and indicative that you don't have a clue. You ask where the Infinite Universes are and then you ask "Where are they when you still the mind?" ? ? ? If you knew how to still the mind, you would have become omniscient. Were you to experience omniscience, you would have realized that there are infinite universes, beings, planes etc. In your other post, you speak of clarity: http://thetaobums.com/topic/30749-bias-against-new-age/?p=460094 Clarity does not produce a 'holistic and healthy existence and environment'. Nisargadatta died of throat cancer. Buddha died from eating bad pork. And we all know how Jesus died. Or perhaps your kind of clarity is not the real thing? There are teachings, Buddhist teachings which talk about the illumined clarity of enlightenment. Your 'clarity' seems to have the purpose of rearranging samsara into a palatable dining experience whereas true clarity reveals that there is no difference between nirvana and samsara. It is fun posing as an enlightened being, isn't it? Throw out a few concepts like "still the mind" and "clarity" and before you know it you might even convince youreself of your own deceptions. Sorry to sound so blunt, but I dislike posers and deceivers, and I think you are just posing. From "Buddhahood Without Meditation" by Dudjom Lingpa: So, according to Dujom Lingpa, maker of 13 students whom all attained rainbow body, clarity knows no difference between samsara and nirvana. There is no reason to construct a "a holistic and healthy existence and environment". Therefore, well you can see where that takes you. And then, Dudjom Lingpa writes that attaining timeless awareness is attaining 'omniscience'. Do you even know what that means? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omniscience Omniscience /ɒmˈnɪʃəns/,[1] mainly in religion, is the capacity to know everything that there is to know. In particular, Hinduism and the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) believe that there is a divine being who is omniscient. An omniscient point-of-view, in writing, is to know everything that can be known about a character, including past history, thoughts, feelings, etc. In Latin, omnis means "all" and sciens means "knowing". Life is just a display, an illusion, a dream. Comprende'?

I have that book: Buddhahood Without Meditation. It is a simple and clear book. I love it too. Even learned what dag-dzin means! Identitylessness is part of the equation.

Hi TJL Let us scrutinize the belief and 'knowledge' that you hold as 'true'. You say that the "the Universal constant is change", or it is the old saying that "Nothing is permanent except change". If it were true that "Nothing is permanent except change" then the axiom that "Nothing is permanent except change" would itselft be subject to the same truth and therefore, would change. The snake bites its own tail. When that axiom changes, it might produce truths like "Some things are permanent and some things change". Or perhaps "All things are permanent". Is that enough of a change to support that false truth? Yet you say that "the Universal constant is change" is "accurate". Then, you claim that the "absence of change is stagnation, death..." I can think of a few things that are permanent: - The mathematical formula 1 + 1 = 2. It will never change. It is pure and permanent. - The Buddhists claim that we have an indestructible drop in the heart, which carries on from life to life. "Indestructible" in my vocabulary means that it is imutable, incapable of being destroyed or changed. - Many spiritual teachers proclaim that awareness/emptiness, the cognizant luminous 'space' that we are was never born and will never die. Is not something that is never born and will never die permanent? According to your belief system, "The Universe/Cosmos has not yet finished creating itself". How do you know this? If, as Buddhists proclaim, everything is empty because of dependant origination, and that everything derives from a dependancy, then that dependancy is the formula for realizing that the future is predictable. Everything, all events are just predictable logical progressions, including thoughts, feelings, sensations... What if everything was permanent, past, present, future and it is just us who are knowing the story, the dream in a sequential construct which makes it seem like it is moving and real, but in fact, all is already written in stone. Perhaps we are just needles on the phonograph record, resonating with whatever position in the groove we happen to be in, yet, the whole record has already been set. Something to think about. TI

Gee, I would like to know all that stuff too!

MPG, Well, no, you couldn't jump out of plane and land on your feet in one piece, still alive without a parachute or some other scheme (like 007, when he steals someone else's parachute on the way down). And I seriously doubt that you could believe that you wouldn't die, that you could just switch your mind to believe it. You aren't capable of that. You have too much karma and subconscious programming that is set, solified and dried. You're still very much on the surface. A belief that you wouldn't die if you jumped out of a plane with no parachute has to come from a very deep place of conviction, because just switching a thought from "I will die" to "I will not die" will not do it. However, Jesus, Buddha, Milarepa and other realized beings could jump off the plane and live to tell about it. Now why is that? I strongly suspect that they don't even have belief systems in their minds, it would be pure gnosis (knowledge derived while enlightened). A belief is a conglomerate of conceptual thought. What your conscious mind repeats to itself programs the subconscious. If you go around thinking and making the little voice in your head say "I am such an idiot", then the subconscious will manifest that. Go around repeating to youself "you make me sick" and you will become sick. The Huna religion, which I'm sure you did not read, is about how you must convince the lower self, through props and rituals before miraculous healings can take place. It is very similar to programming the subconscious mind, same principles, different terminology. If you want a pretty good rendition of how belief, the voice in the head, the subconscious and programming are influencing your current state, I would suggest reading this post by Dawg: http://thetaobums.com/topic/30012-a-path-to-enlightenment/ TI

Hi MPG Well if you can't get past the superficial empirical level at which you stuck, perhaps there is no point in talking to you. Sarcasm never goes over well in written words. Judging by your statement "What you believe about reality in no way affects how reality behaves or actually is." I guess you have never heard about the double slit electron experiment, where it is said that the very act of observing the path of the electron alters its path. We are inextricably bound to our realities, there is no separate reality from us. Pehaps one day science will ketchup. But to answer your question: "How does a realization help you change the situation you are in?" When you finally realize that you are dreaming you can do several things: You can wake up, or you can remain in the dream and start flying around, you can marvel at the clarity and brightness, you can walk through walls, you can make things appear, like flowers or scary animals, you come to realize that you are the creator in your dream and you can create anything you'd like. Life is a dream. Some people have woken up. They woke up by learning to unlock the secrets of the heart through the acquisition of knowledge and insight. TI

Hi MPG You are definately biased towards the term "new age" and your bias, based on the idea that belief is not all, is where the problem is arising. Belief is all. Mind is all. New Age is a distilation of age-old principles which has a solid foundation. For example, the only reason you can't walk through walls is because your belief system is stopping you. Your karma is stopping you. The principle of faking it until you make it is a valid one. Don't believe me? Watch this series of Buddhist videos and you will see that the first step to walking through walls is convincing yourself that you can do it. The principle is older than "New Age". http://thetaobums.com/topic/27432-yangti-visualisation-retreat-gyalwang-drukpa/ Further, if you were to examine the Huna religion, one of the oldest religions from Polynesia, you would see that the use of props and ritual is needed in order to convince the 'lower self' to communicate with the "higher self". If you can't convince the 'lower self" through concrete props and rituals, the healings won't happen. These are not New Age principles, but they were adopted by New Age.. http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Science-Behind-Miracles-ebook/dp/B005FM7O7K You said : "Reality doesn't work like that, never has and never will." Er, well, yes.. reality works exactly like that, and it doesn't stop acting like that just because you believe it doesn't. There is an interesting bit of text in the book called "The Ocean of Definitive Meaning" by the Ninth Karmapa. In it he says: http://www.amazon.com/Ninth-Karmapas-Ocean-Definitive-Meaning/dp/155939370X/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top The point here is that 'older' does not necessarily mean that it is 'better'. The refinement of principles by successive generations has led to some of the truths in the New Age ideologies too. If you want concrete real experience, find an authentic Reiki master to do a full body crystal layout on you. Experience it for yourself. Then try to tell me that it's a bunch of hooey.. Disclaimer: There are authentics and fakes in every religion/belief system/conglomerate of conceptual data. It is a waste of time to put a label on something and then dismiss the whole package, because you will be throwing out the nuggets of gold with the gravel. TI

Hi TL, The white blanket I use (first picture), which sits under everthing, is actually a pure woolen blanket. I also have a sheep's skin rug for my kunlun stool. (took a regular stool and cut down the legs to be just the right height.. ) I do have a zafu too, which came from Deepak Chopra's store (can you believe it?), but it makes my butt go numb and is too hard on the lower back.. TI

Hey Gatito Nice to hear from you! You'll have to let us know how it turns out. Note: The bottoms are actually 2 X 6's ( not 2 X 8). My mistake.. The 2 X 8's were a little too high. TI

Back then, I was sitting in half lotus.. TI

http://thetaobums.com/topic/30758-my-no-pain-meditation-seat/?p=458360 TI

Hi Drew, I had watched those videos a while back but I watched them again. Yup. He does say that one has to get the vagus nerves involved in order to 'not miss the heart'. I think the explanation is much too physical. When I was doing pranayama, a 9-3-9-3 breathing cycle, my body and mind would dissolve and I would find myself just hanging out in a huge open space that resembled outer space. There was nothing around except for the very faint glitter of what looked like stars in the very far background. And, when I looked at my body (what was left of it), it looked like the magnetic lines of a bar magnet. I think I was in the central channel. There was no evidence of any physicality at all, no body, no nerves, no spine.. just this 'jelly fish of light', which is what I had become. I spent about 1 week reaching that state during my meditations and then I quit the pranayama because I didn't see any point in just hanging there in outer-space. It was actually kind of boring and kind of hard to understand. However, I have a suggestion. Why don't you ask Jim Nance if the Vagus nerve is the sushumna? I would be curious to hear what he says about it. . TI

does smoking increase or decrease chi flow Why don't you ask Nisargadatta? (check his right hand in the picture at this link) http://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/Nisargadatta_My_Recollections.html

Hi M There is a direct connection between mind activity and breath. As the mind slows down, so does the breathing. What you are doing is some kind of energetic practice, not breath meditation. I have done meditations on the lower dantien and activated the flow from it to the perineum, and then up. It is not hard to do. But it is miles away from breath meditation. Focusing on the energetic centers stimulates them. The progression that Alan Wallace talks about is this: you can focus on the movement at the abdomen if the mind is very coarse and hard to control, because focusing on the lower abdomen is easier because of the movement and coarse body sensations that occur. If the mind is more stable, you can switch to focusing on the area just below the nostrils. The advantage with focusing on that part of the head is that there is no corresponding energy center there, so you won't stimulate anything. I've tried breath meditation while focusing on the third eye and the stimulation is just too great. The best place to focus is at the nostrils, or even just above the tip of the nose. However, the whole point is not focus on the physical sensations or the coarse movement of the breath. You have to transition from the sense stimulation to knowing the breath. You have to find and the switch to the "Mental knowing of the breath". You switch to the "mental representation of the breath". Doing so and locking into that causes the meditation to become a strictly mental phenomenon. It takes you into a finer area of consciousness and as you stay there, that is where the potential for the nimittas occurs. When you fixate on the mental representation of the breath, after a while, it becomes clearer and more pronounced, and you find that because you are now ignoring the 5 senses, they start to shut down. As the mind calms down, the breathing slows (it does not elongate). This indicates that there is less activity in the mind. Around that time is where the background starts to get brighter. Then, a very bright light will break through the background, that is the counterpart sign. That is what you ignore until that bright light becomes so bright and stable that you just can't ignore it anymore. Then, you focus on it and it will take you into jhanas. It will either explode or engulf you. So, there is a logical progression from coarse to finer and finer levels on awareness which occur and can be 'rested' in which only appear as the mind settles. If you stir up the winds by focusing on energy centers, the mind does not settle. Breath meditation is very very delicate. If I do sambhavi or tongue on palette, I don't see the nimittas. If I attempt a hand mudra, I don't see the nimittas. I have to do absolutely nothing except focus and watch. Even 'expectation' must be thrown out. Just focus and watch. It is that delicate. Think "Let everything go, even trying to control the breathing and just watch the breath and know it in a very small area and stay there". Another point. You should try to do breath meditation for at least one hour in one sitting. The major calmness usually starts to settle in after about 45 minutes, so 40 minutes falls just short. I never sit in lotus or easy posture any more because of the pain in the legs. I made myself a short meditation bench that lets me put my legs under the seat so there is absolutely no pressure on the legs, hence no pain. I can sit on that bench for 1 hour, twice a day, with absolutely no pain. I have sat on it for 2 consecutive hours with absolutely no pain! Pain is no longer a concern for me. And, I don't believe that sitting in full lotus or even easy posture is any kind of prerequisite for being succesfull in meditation, as I have been successful without the postures. If you are in to energetics, use the postures. If you want to calm the mind, sit pain-free. It's not a contest. Even Alan Wallace says you can do breath meditation lying down in savasana posture (corpse). TI

Oh, ok. He is neurotic. Within his instructions, controlling the breath and making the breath short or long is a training or experiement to help the mind recognize when the body is breathing long or short. I think that is overkill. In the book you linked to it says: Nagasena is not very clear, but he does state that controlling the breathing is an 'experiment' in order to help recognize the different types of breathing cycles. But he does say that the breath should be natural when mediting for real. Natural means uncontrolled. However, he does spend too much time on experimenting, and he shouldn't be pushing the idea that the breath should be longer naturally, when he defines 'longer' as up to 30 to 40 seconds for one breath. This is quite misleading. What happens to me is that as the mind stills the breathing slows down. The breath itself does not become longer, but slower and shallower, almost nonexistant. I must admit, the first time I experienced that pronounced change in the breathing pattern, I did lose my calm mind because it surprised me. But I got over the surprise real fast. It is just something you note. But it is not something that you have to train yourself to recognize. From Ajahn Chah: From Alan Wallace: Hope that helps..

Hi M Nowhere in any of the anapanasati or breath meditation manuals that I listed (Brahm, Alan Wallace, Shaila Catherine) does it say to control the breathing. You have misinterpreted. The very act of trying to shorten or lengthen the breathing is counter to stilling the mind. You cannot still the mind when you are in any way, shape or form trying to control the breathing, or trying to control anything for that matter, except to direct your awareness and rest it on the object of meditation. The Buddha's instruction is ""[1] Breathing in long, he discerns, 'I am breathing in long'; or breathing out long, he discerns, 'I am breathing out long.' [2] Or breathing in short, he discerns, 'I am breathing in short'; or breathing out short, he discerns, 'I am breathing out short.' The emphasis is on "knowing" the breath, not on making the breath short or long. It is the concsiousness/awareness that 'knows' which is the important factor. Even Alan Wallace says that it usually takes up to 6 months of regular practice before a meditator can watch the breath without controlling it. No control. Passive observation, resting in the 'knowing'. That is the goal. If you have an anapanasati manual that tells you to play with the breathing, I would love to read it so that I could warn people about the false instructions. (and I sure hope it is not a manual from Master Nan). Not sure why you are talking about masturbation now.. Sex and orgasm pale in comparison to the jhanas. I have very little interest in sex and orgasm, especially after experiencing prolonged jhanic rapture states.

As much as I don't want to spend allot of time educating anyone (especially you because I've spent too much time on you already), what you have noticed is the foundation of kundalini practice. You've noticed that sambhavi, kechari, and head back occur naturally during orgasm. And, if you had xray vision, you would also notice that the bandhas have been applied too (root lock, abdomen tension, perineal squeeze, sucking the lower abdominals inwards and up). Well, that is part of the practice of kundalini yoga. Kundalini yoga is replicating the body's pose when it orgasms and then trying to send chi/prana from the lower dantien, downwards and then upwards through the central channel while maintaining that pose in order to activate the orgasmic mechanism. Dissolve into the central channel. Some kundalini teachers are somewhat cautious, or fear that too much pressure from below could cause strokes or blood vessels popping in the head, so instead of putting the head back, they use jalandhara (chin lock) which helps to keep the extra pressure produced by tightening the lower body out of the head. The chin lock blocks the flow. However, you don't need to wilfully perform the locks and bandhas in order to accomplish this. You can just focus on the area just above the sinuses, one inch behind the center of the brows on the ajna chakra, and the body will perform all the bandhas and locks naturally along with the corresponding energy flows. One small point does it all. Press the button, hold and voila! But you have to be able to sustain your attention at that one single point until you reach samadhi and then it all happens naturally without forcing anything. So, your observation has its merits.. TI