Yoda

Buddha taught that after meditation it's a good thing to offer all the merit of this meditation to all the sentient beings, visible and invisible, so they also can find peace and happiness. Along the same lines, if you give away your merit it magnifies the merit and, interestingly, "protects" it from being dissipated from negative impulses. That ties in with what Sean and S. Biel say about steaming and giving away the jing to prevent subsequent loss. -Yoda

I'd agree that there's something to this, but be careful on focusing on the external conditions as it can be dizzying. It's simpler and more empowering to focus on feeling better and better. As you raise your vibration, external conditions will evolve naturally.

My penis just tried tonglen and he loves it! Made him feel strong, compassionate, and sexy.

I really did read the book, and I just got the feeling that sitting was in the system, but not ground zero like standing. I was wondering about doing tonglen from the ltt. I've never heard it done like that, but using different centers might be interesting to explore. It might help my weiner to feel like a mighty bodhisattva which could be a totally cool ego trip to take. I could get a little red cape made for him. That'd be cool too!

1. Emptiness meditation. He says it is the most important practice. He reccomends 40 minutes in the morning and 40 minutes at night. Basically watch the breath, watch thoughts come and go, listen to all sounds etc. He says that? Sitting? I thought he was simply standing based plus misc add-ons

I asked Yogani for his take on tonglen: http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=772

Hey all, pm me if you want Yoda to place harrassing calls to your number. The other day I told Cam to fuck off for evolving and I told Sean that he and Lezlie are the Sid and Nancy of Taoism--so I'm very charming in person!

I just posted the tonglen question on ayp, I'm curious as to what they'd say about it.

try it and see. When I've used it, I've liked it, but that was awhile back. I don't use it consistently. But there's nothing better when you have a long term relationship with somebody that is getting negative and you just can't chuck them out of your life. Mentally bowing to them and writing down their positive aspects are the other good techniques, but tonglen is possibly the strongest. There's a tonglen website out there that focuses on Trungpa and Osho and a couple of other dudes with a side by side commentary of the original text. I'll post a link if I can find it. very easy to find: http://lojongmindtraining.com/ I'm sure it can make a good relationship even better, but I've never tried that. to quote Osho: And you will be surprised if you do it. The moment you take all the sufferings of the world inside you, they are no longer sufferings. The heart immediately transforms the energy. The heart is a transforming force: drink in misery, and it is transformed into blissfulness... then pour it out. Once you have learned that your heart can do this magic, this miracle, you would like to do it again and again. Try it. It is one of the most practical methods - simple, and it brings immediate results. Do it today, and see.

short and interesting: http://www.aypsite.org/T50.html Of course, it's a guy talking, but still useful. (I'm assuming Yogani is a guy, but on the web you never know! )

To boil my lesson learned in 2005 down to one sentence: too mugh high energy stuff esp. standing, sungazing, and retention overloaded me and made my life glitchy. As Yogani says, too much pranayama gives me bad luck. When synchronicity isn't on my side, I get pissed off and gradually go insane. So far, I've hit the brakes before insanity, but it's down the same track. I ran into this wall many times, but I finally figured out how to work with it. High energy shit is exciting, I yearn for it, but I need more meditation practice to contain the reaction.

how about "modified polyphasic sleeping" aka taking naps? That might be a good halfway strategy. I've tried napping before and I really liked it--it gave me two days for the price of one. Cool link too. About the amount of sleep one needs... Cam have you noticed any lessening of the desire to sleep during your 50+ days retention? Around that time, I go from 8 to 6 hours of sleep naturally until I start going mad after day 100.

When I first read Dr. Lin's material, I thought I was *way* too sexy for it. But now I must eat some humble pie. The more I play with my sacrum, the more I see its importance. It is quite possibly *the* keystone for mastering the MCO. Now that opening my orbit is an official goal for 2006, I'm finding that the up elevator is easy and the down elevator is doable (I can't 'feel' it yet, but the energy seems to make it down fine), it's just flowing the energy along the pelvic floor that's the big challenge. It turns out that the sacrum is the heat sink for the sexual center. The thing that I've learned from this forum and Dr. Lin is that tightening the butt muscles really does pull energy from the sex center and allow the sacrum to collect it. The more energy I'm dealing with, the more contraction plus closer to the tailbone contraction seems to be of benefit. Doing the Big Draw, I have the most luck with contracting the anus by itself. So I'm doing a fair amount of butt breathing and am paying attention to all the little tricks for spinal breathing from ayp.

I think that it's pretty natural and very healthy to swing back and forth from bliss to passion and back to bliss on any number of subjects including sexuality whether through the course of a day or a lifetime. When desire way outpaces bliss, that's when negativity and problems arise. When bliss outpaces desire, then you get bored. It's good to stay in balance and I think that the feeling of love is the sweetspot of that balance. I believe that the boredom is the challenge in our non-physical state and negativity is the challenge in the physical state, but going back and forth between the two is part of keeping a good balance.

congrats! Amazon.com has a good book publicity section, btw.

the whole conversation left a rather sour taste in my mouth, as I've not had this experience but I am "feeling" more sweet these days due to my recent rediscovery of meditation, so that's good.

too much pylos for me, though.

Here's a good one for opening the front channel. First touch your toes and hang there for a bit, then stand up and lean backwards, hands against the backs of the legs and look up and back with the head and eyes while the tongue is stretching to as far back on the roof of the mouth as possible. Look over both shoulders then do a vacuum breathe and you are ready to practice!

his head really is in the game!!!

Great thread, thanks! I love Barry's boosting of artistic merit over technical performance, but I agree that the feminine angel vs grunting brute is a bit extreme. Keep in mind that Barry is a generation or two preceding us and his philosophy is openly trolling. I think that the essential kernel of the article applies to any standard woman-man, man-man, woman-woman, person-farm animal, farm animal-ET, orientation that comes to mind. -Yoda

Please read this before you die: http://www.barrylong.org/statements/what-it-is-to-die.shtml Thank you.

Ian, Is that your review on amazon? Is that your real last name--you are a natural born taoist in that case. The book looks too emotionally intense for me. -Yoda

I'll check out that book.

Guy, Valuable thoughts, thanks for sharing! -Yoda

If I were *really* honest about the world and the people around me I would have nothing but the absolute, highest praises to sing and I would have a shitload of energy too. I would light up the night.