GrandmasterP

Not to be flippant here but, in light of a recent thread featuring necrotic malas etc, perhaps we could as well say " Putrify your intention". Not my bag but some meditators meditate on some pretty macabre topics in some less than salubrious places. Nary a burning ghat in India without one or more resident Sannyasin. One doubts that the Mr Jesus boosters would choose to have their guy associated with the wilder shores of our cultivations. There's a zen sangha in the UK led by serving Roman Catholic priests. ' Wild Goose Sangha UK' here... http://www.wildgoosesangha.org.uk/ Room for all. :-)

It's good to find signposts along any road. :-)

Ta. Scrub that Q then BKA. :-)

+1 Forestofemptiness. Sheng Yen's ' Method of No Method' is a super book.... http://www.amazon.co.uk/Method-No-method-Practice-Silent-Illumination/dp/1590305752/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397838332&sr=1-1&keywords=the+method+of+no+method

Two profitable things I've learnt along life's way. 1: Play poker with a guy who shares a name with a US city and you will lose. If Chicago Lou invites you to sit in.....don't! 2: No matter how excellent the purist MA player is, a skilled MMA player will kick her or his erse all round the dojo.

" Shit Happens. Live with it." ( Unofficial motto of the Society for Existential Analysis). Bad times and Good times are both just 'times' and we're in 'em, always. Resisting what 'is' wastes energy that could better be used for embracing, in order to engage with; what 'is'.

Nice post. The trouble we have if we have trouble is that for most of us there's nowhere much to meet up with likeminded folks on a regular basis. Churches tend to be open most Sundays and have some social activities on during the week too. Temple Buddhism is pretty social as well. Taoism though... Very little west of Suez and where it happens it tends to be encultured. There's one Longmen sect English- born Taoist priest working in the UK. That's it. The remainder tends towards martial arts- peripheral or academic interest and that sporadically.

Gary Nixon has this in a 2013 Paradoxica paper.... "As I worked through these traumas, I came to realize that I also needed to bring no judgment, acceptance, and choiceless awareness to one of the greatest fears itself: physical and psychological death of the self. Put in another way, this fear is the lust for survival. In our guts, we face a primal rudimentary need to survive as we face no self, and nonexistence (Adyashanti, 2008). Becoming aware of the primal grasping at survival, we can experience desperate panic attacks, in which the fear of no-self can be overwhelming. With an instinctual arm thrusting out from our bellies, we grasp at surviving at all costs. This is directly related to experiences of trauma. In trauma, we become overwhelmed with the fear of not existing and desperately grab onto some sense of self in the knot of our belly, as we defend against the oceanic abyss of potential self-annihilation. Deep in trauma is the fear of death and no-self. It is our gut instinct to preserve survival no matter what."

No dis intended but that skull looks like resin to me. I've got a resin QuanYin from China exactly that colour and patina. Is that 'Om Mani Padme Hum' round the jawbone?

You did well to get on that Woldingham Retreat.It was sold out almost before it went online here. Expect a lot will come over from USA for that then maybe make an extended holiday. What's the story with those silent retreats he does? Does he do a talk daily and everyone else keeps silent or can people ask him questions and such? Tony's a nice guy, we were Sannyas bros at Osho Medina before it all went bits up. He's never altered down the years hasn't Tony. One of life's true gentlemen. Zen is massive ( relatively) in the UK. Possibly more Zennists of one sort or another than any other flavours. Zen is mega in the UK MA scene. Everybody ends up a Throssel Hole Abbey at least once.

He's my great great - ever so great - granddad man. I prefer Yorkshire Tea and a pipeful of black shag to licking frogs though. Mediums... Shamans... Priests... Gurus.. Same job specification just different names on the variegated overalls. :-)

Samadhi's just the Sanskrit term denoting highly-concentrated meditation leading to some hard to describe kinda non-dual absorption. If we ditch the linguistic label and treat samadhi as that state of consciousness in which the meditator merges with the object of meditation then my ( unverifiable theory) call is that state was around in pre- Daoist animisms and informed whatever came afterwards. Shaman Ugg the caveman dude might well 'merge with the stars' in his contemplations thereof and so on down the years. Fair enough Ugg was as likely to get out of his tree by licking a psychedelic frog or some such as well. That's Shamen for ya! Not every spiritual dude enjoyed licking frogs though. Cultivation wise folks tend to adopt whatever works, stick their own label on it and then crack on that they invented it. We can't know where Samadhi started apart from who first used the label but sure as eggs is eggs.. What the label describes has been around as long as jobbing spiritual dudes first realised that teaching and related trades were pleasant indoor work with very little heavy lifting involved. Add in the fact that wherever some spiritual dude hangs out up her or his shingle, before very long there's a queue of folks outside the cave door looking for advice, guidance, healing, forgiveness, 'enlightenment' etc.. Plus everyone of them is bringing you a gift...Man that is sweet sweet work. Always been popular has 'guru- ing , shaman-ing and related 'woo' trades' and it always will be. Regular folks have a yearning after the numinous and some of us are just naturally lazy and ( maybe) a bit spiritual to boot. Symbiosis. Winner! :-)

My old buddy left us to take up a Prof- ship in Wales. Sweet sweet livin'. I thought we had it cushy until I found out what his job entailed. He reckons he was the best ( i.e. only Welsh speaking) candidate on the interview day. Lots of the smaller university colleges merged into something bigger. Lampeter was always big on Theology , wasn't' it a Church in Wales seminary at one stage? What degree did you take Cap?

That whole 'new name' schtick is a bit old really isn't it? I'm still called 'Premananto' whenever I decide to turn up to any of the Osho reunions. Mrs GMP rips it out of me whenever the invites arrive in the post addressed to 'Premananto ...My Last Name'. It means 'Love Infinite' to which Mrs GMP tends to retort..... " Yeah Right!". My surname is very Irish so I could as well be 'Premananto O'Toole' or very similar. Sounds a bit daft frankly. :-) Back in the day it was maybe a bit 'cool' to get a new name when you took Sannyas and I suppose any Guru named Nigel by his parents might want something a bit more mystical sounding to pull in the punters.

More or her papers free here courtesy of The Global Yangsheng Association.... http://www.gyahl.org/daoyin-yangsheng-livia-kohn-seminarandworkshop-2014/ One of the Welsh Universities Theology faculties has linked into Daoist research as sometimes happens if one of their PhD people is working in 'our' areas. Kohn's at Boston University ( I think) and possibly one of the external examiners for whoever's thesis is Daoism- directed.

Yep that can work well in a room and a good speaker will 'read' her or his audience.. Live is always different than recorded. One needs to have been there to call it. One of the things I do like about Adyashanti is that he wears a wedding ring and on his website are family snaps of him and Mrs Adyashanti doing 'normal' stuff. We went through a pretty dark time in Zen a while back as far as some residential and retreat situations were concerned. Indeed repercussions of those days are still around especially in the USA, abuses happened and are only now being owned to have happened. Nowadays the American Zen Teachers Association has an ethical code and safeguarding measures are in place. There has never been a whiff of scandal around Adyashanti as far as I know and that has to be good. I've not read much of his work, more 'about' his work plus what I have seen online. IMO the guy is Zen teacher and a good communicator of workable Zen praxes . We have Tony Parsons in Europe saying much the same things. Why the usual suspects on DW plus some in the wider Buddhist/ Zennist 'establishment' are a bit sniffy about these freelance guys beats me. Jealousy maybe? I reckon wise TI had the right attitude on that other Adyashanti thread.... "Tibetan_Ice, on 12 Jun 2013 - 05:22, said: Anyway, I have lost allot of time studying Adyashanti, and it is time I won't get back. I don't want to waste any more time on this topic. But hopefully my posts will serve as a caution sign and help others get onto a true path with less confusion from the teachings." Anybody interested in the guy can chat about him to our heart's content and those who don't especially like him can leave him alone by not joining in the chat.

Old Horse. May Day Morris Dancing Song. Always know it's summer at last when the Morris Men dance.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Imz277xuoow This one's good too. I've yet to hear the guy say anything I can't agree with. His long pauses though.... Those are a tad 'theatrical' IMO. Maybe different if you're actually there in the room but on camera it looks just a bit 'put on'. Good lad though and, until he went freelance; was well thought of in USA Zen circles by all accounts.

Adyashanti holds a valid Zen lineage. Unlike another teacher who has been mentioned here on TTB as being 'genuine' Dharmacharya just this week. Comments on A ( and that other guy) here... http://www.dharmawheel.net/search.php?keywords=Adyashanti

In a way though, whilst Apech's version really got to the bottom of the subject.... BKA's is politer.

Yep. Good call. I heard that's how they chose this latest Pope. :-)

The wise old owl, Sat in an oak. The more she heard.. The less she spoke. The less she spoke. The more she heard. She was indeed .. A wise old bird.

Inbred? ( Sorry) :-)

7: Which of your books would you say is the 'entry level' and what order would you recommend studying them in? 8: When are you next in the UK?

Always welcome. I have PM'd you our centre website. There's something on most days and evenings every week with free parking which is a bonus for Leicester city centre. Let me know when you're coming and I'll meet you there and make you a cuppa.