Seeker of Wisdom

I read The Power of Now a while back. OK, but a bit light. Definitely not a complete path. Many important ideas and methods of cultivation are lacking. Resting in the present is all well and good, but really that's just resting in the calm of the psyche. You won't break through to Tao that way. The exception could be someone who has achieved shamatha, and so is resting in the calm of the substrate consciousness, and continues probing in on present moment experience to the point of detaching from the substrate consciousness. Going further, I do not agree that we are awareness. 'I am awareness' implies that I don't exist when I sleep, so who wakes up? Labelling any aspect of a person as 'I' doesn't make sense. I am composed of interacting processes, none of them 'I' 'me' or 'mine'. Identity is just a concept applied to a bunch of processes for practical reasons, it's something to be seen through in cultivation. I think there's great value in Tolle's teaching. It's better than a lot of the fluff out there, but still in need of a good polish to be really useful. I get the feeling that Tolle had some experience - maybe a facsimile of the jhana of infinite consciousness, maybe a satori, IDK - and mistook it for enlightenment.

I have two concerns: one, did you forcibly lock out thought, constrict the mind? Two, since binaural beats are fairly new tech with next to no research on them, did they unbalance your brain activity? Inner quiet and lack of sexual craving are actually desirable from cultivation, but clearly this has happened in an unbalanced way for you. You haven't accessed the vividness, the freshness in deeper aspects of your mind that this would go along with, had it happened from years of steady development and unveiling. I suggest you try meditation again, with no binaurals, in small doses, closely following the teaching in The Attention Revolution by Alan Wallace. Emphasise relaxation with some mindfulness of breathing, then try practising resting the mind in its natural state. That should bring back some vividness and let the mind heal itself. A superb book for more detail on that second practice is Stilling the Mind, also by Alan Wallace, although you'll need a good grounding in Buddhist ideas to read that one. Also, some metta bhavana - cultivation of loving-kindness - may help bring back some positive emotion. So could cultivation of compassion and empathetic joy, but definitely don't cultivate equanimity right now. Instructions should be easy to find online. Hope this helps.

It's not actually necessary to go through all that jhanas, in my understanding. You don't even need to master the first one, although it definitely wouldn't hurt. What is necessary is access concentration, because that pacifies the 5 hindrances and makes the substrate consciousness accessible when awake and healthy. From pacifying the 5 hindrances, any realisations from vipashyana will be stable, with the full soteriological effect, and far easier to get in the first place. Penetrating through the psyche to the substrate consciousness is necessary before those of us who aren't extremely ripe from previous lives - the vast majority - can overturn the deepest seeds of craving and delusion in the substrate consciousness, unveiling realisation of Tao and Buddha-nature... realisation stable and clear enough to rest in non-meditation until complete enlightenment blooms. Which is what all this is about, right?

Hi, juliank. Here's my critique of AYP: http://thetaobums.com/topic/25632-a-review-of-ayp-from-an-ex-practitioner/ Some comments on spinal breathing: And Tibetan_Ice says: Fortunately, I never had real trouble with K. TI would be more help than me there, send him a PM and I'm sure he'd be happy to help. Regarding developing a more healthy routine of practices for the future, I suggest that you get The Attention Revolution by Alan Wallace. See if basic mindfulness of breathing helps - and even if you find you have to abstain from cultivating for a little while, that book will really develop your understanding of some aspects of cultivation.

You should put all those essays on a PDF eBook.

Oh. Just like Alan Wallace. Yet you don't care what he says.

What about 5 pounds of flax seed in a 6 pound bag? The mundane isn't less Tao than the transcendent.

No need to debate. Instead, just wait a few years and see which side has actually got anywhere (not that there's really anything to achieve) in their practice.

Even if you meditate 4 hours a day, there's still about 12 waking hours off the cushion. It's important to make all your activity compatible with cultivation. This doesn't necessarily mean living like a puritan. Be a little imaginative. For example, I listen to some metal bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Bullet for my Valentine... on the face of it, I'm stuffing my mind with violent impressions. But I make it kind of a wrathful deity thing, and segue this into cultivation. Mantras can generally be chanted in the back of your mind pretty much constantly. Vipashyana and the 4 immeasurables can be done while you're walking or travelling. You could do tonglen on coworkers, customers, random people you walk past. Toilet breaks - sit in a stall for a few more minutes for pranayama and meditation. It's possible to keep a peripheral awareness of your breath or your thoughts most of the time. Take advantage of opportunities to help people. Use problems as opportunities to develop patience.

In order for a path to lead to enlightenment, it must have particular characteristics: *Reducing attachment to things. *Increase virtue. *Develop the capacity for absolutely single pointed focus to be maintained effortlessly for hours with superhuman vividness (samadhi). *Unveil your non-conceptual wisdom, such that you realise all phenomena are dependently originated and lack an inherent nature. *Ultimately lead to realisation of Tao, the neither existent nor nonexistent inconceivable reality beyond all duality (including that of duality vs. non duality!) which all phenomena are expressions of. So, while I'm certainly not one of those prats who says 'only THIS one tradition is any good', I'm not someone who says 'all paths lead to the top of the mountain'. Some lead partway up, some lead all the way, some lead backwards. If you want to get to a particular goal, you need to really consider what you are doing and how it leads - or doesn't lead - to that goal. Everyone is doing something, even sitting still waiting to die is a deliberate choice. Not everyone is making progress to enlightenment, because not all choices lead there. Enlightenment is not a different thing for different people, it's full realisation of Tao and acting from it as a clear channel. So while different people will follow slightly different approaches to get there, surely the key themes must be identical?

Well, fortunately TI has already presented plenty of very clear quotes from masters like Padmasambhava, and also Alan Wallace who has learnt from people like the Dalai Lama, Gyatrul Rinpoche, etc and has transmission, stating that it's necessary to achieve shamatha with clear reasoning. Complaining that TI himself lacks transmission and a guru is ignoring the points he's quoting from people who more than meet that criteria. Look at the quotes from Padmasambhava, Alan Wallace, etc... and instead of jumping on statements that shamatha by itself isn't enough as proof that it isn't needed at all when the quote as a whole clearly states it is indispensable but must be followed by other practices, instead of making ad hominems, instead of all this ridiculous patronising childish shit... discuss like grown ups, and read the quotes in full, open to changing your mind, and make a considered response, without the kind of abrasive mocking tone that the Buddha would have came down on like a ton of bricks.

Read the whole of what Milarepa said, not one quote out of context. When you take a minute to read the whole song, it's very clear that Milarepa is saying the shepherd boy should achieve shamatha, and use that as a foundation for vipashyana. The 'they' referred to in the bit you've quoted is 'people who achieve shamatha and stop there, thinking they don't need vipashyana to uproot the mental afflictions now shamatha has made them dormant'. So, a bit more nuanced than 'shamatha causes you to be reborn as an animal'. Milarepa was using skilful means, telling Gampopa 'that shamatha and vipashyana you've got has nothing to do with your true nature', but telling someone else 'get shamatha and vipashyana in unison as a foundation for realising and expressing your true nature'.

Marshmallows are actually mined from the moon. The confectionary industry has spies everywhere. Careful who you tell OH GOD THEY'RE COMING tell... *crunch*... All is well. Haribo - kids and adults love it so!

IMO, it is better not to consider experiences too much, and definitely don't try to conceptualise them. Firstly, any experience that happens, then ceases, is by definition not the real nature of things. It may be an approximation, but if it temporary that means it is based on cause and effect - only another phenomenon. Reifying this experience makes it harder to go past it. Even an experience that persists isn't necessarily the top of the mountain, it could just be base camp! Secondly, lingering over an experience affects your practice. You hope or fear it happens again, so you aren't properly in the moment enjoying your practice for what it is. Thirdly, interesting experiences can make people feel they have something others don't. Connect this with my first reason, and this explains all the people who have some peak experience or a realisation and think they're enlightened. Finally, trying to conceptualise an experience will mean the richness of the pure experience is lost. Consider eating chocolate, then trying to explain what it tastes like. Um... sweet? So is honey. Rich? So is casserole. Labelling has its place in the real world, but in cultivation we should be able to use it as a tool, or drop it and be like a baby with what is really there.

If you don't approve of shamatha, just leave the thread. I can't make you follow my path, and you can't make me follow yours. I hope I'm wrong, because if I am then maybe you will attain rainbow body soon. If so, please teach me.

Consider the original audience. Here's Milarepa's song to the shepherd boy: This is pretty clear on shamatha and vipashyana brought together as necessary. Milarepa tells Gampopa, who already has this, to drop it and go higher. But he tells someone who doesn't have this attainment to go for it.

As for the aspect of calm abiding in your practice, however good all of this may be, it does not go beyond being a cause for rebirth in the higher realms of samsara." Shamatha alone is not liberation. Nobody claimed it was. But it's not a fetter because of that. Where does Milarepa say 'having good samadhi obscures buddhahood'? Are you saying Buddhas can have ADHD? It has a place, which is pacifying the 5 hindrances so that more advanced practice - vipashyana, vajrayana, dzogchen - can be fully effective. This is reiterated by Dudjom Lingpa, Dudjom Rinpoche, Padmasambhava, etc. If you want references, see previous posts in this thread. If you want to break fetters, then excitation, laxity, malice, afflictive doubt and craving are 5 big ones made dormant by the 5 jhana factors, from shamatha. Then you uproot them with vipashyana. Then, if you haven't done it already, you do ngondro. Then you do tekchod. Then you do togel. That's the classic Dzogchen sequence, for people who don't have the exceptional faculties to skip stages. These people are very rare.

I agree.

Which is exactly why he was ready for higher methods. Do you refuse to get in an elevator or use the stairs because you want to be in the penthouse?

Whoop! My copy of Stilling the Mind: Shamatha Teachings from Dudjom Lingpa's The Vajra Essence just arrived. So far I've only read the preface, and that was a meaty Dharma stew.

Therefore, a horny mindstream may be reborn a mammal. You've got cause and effect the wrong way around. And that mindstream may become less horny, and in its next birth not be reborn a mammal. Also, asexual people exist.

Perhaps do zhan zhuang visualising a wrathful deity, like Kali, hacking at the areas stressed by your zhan zhuang and removing negative qualities in the form of black sludge. Japa could easily be included there too. Although if you are aiming for samadhi, visualising a simple still image of a deity while sitting or lying down would be a more effective samadhi/bhakti package combo.

I've been doing 7 mins daily at around 100°, that 12 mins 90° was a real anomaly. I should have made clearer that normally I don't go that low or long. It'll be a while before I can do that sort of thing regularly. Anyway, hand/arm position alteration. Now I'm doing it like this: Apparently has more whole body effect than the dan tien focus of having fists by dan tien.

I've been doing horse stance. Generally I do about 7mins a bit higher than thighs parallel to the floor, and with thighs parallel to the floor only 1-2 mins. I have a long way to go.

What is the 'I' referring to? You're limiting awareness by processing it through a preconceived conceptual framework. Explore the possibility that awareness happens with no 'me' owning it. Try 'awareness illuminates'.