Seeker of Wisdom

Devotion has never been something I've focused on or thought I would have, but I've been finding myself having much more devotion and reverence for the Noble Ones, their teachings, advanced cultivators, and Buddha-nature. I wouldn't say I worship. Chanting mantras and prostrating sometimes is more a humility exercise for me, and a way to calm the mind, purify some chi, and focus my desire to uncover my OWN Buddha-nature. But I recognise the value of teachings as pointing ways to something vast and priceless which is latent within myself, and respect greatly beings who have uncovered it to any significant degree. Sometimes I am just in profound awe and great reverence to the great teachers and their teachings. It's not possible not to have some devotion really, while recognising the flaws of samsara and the ineffable awesome nature of Tao realisation to even the tiny extent I do. So wisdom and devotion really do go hand in hand... an idea that I used to scoff at.

Hey TI, I listened to the dzogchen one but only just found this shamatha one. I'll probably listen to the dzogchen talks again after this... so much great stuff!

I don't think they actually spin, I think they pump. Spinning chi around them would help open the surrounding channels. http://www.meditationexpert.com/yoga-kung-fu/y_chakras_and_kundalini.htm - keeping things in perspective. http://www.meditationexpert.com/yoga-kung-fu/y_5_things_to_know_about_chakras_and_kundalini.htm - some misconceptions. http://www.meditationexpert.com/comparative-religion/c_Song_of_Songs.html - when a chakra REALLY opens, in this case the heart chakra.

Chi and mind are linked, so opening channels would help the mind... but remember ultimately mind controls chi, so if you open something but a blocking mental factor is still there, it will close again eventually. Different people have different blocks relating to different places, though I'd expect all people to have the same key themes causing blocks in the same general areas. On the 'would we be similar or still very different' thing, I think there are many ways to express compassion, wisdom and so on. One may be very gentle, or a gruff 'tough-love' type, in either case equally saintly. A wise person could ask a lot of open rhetorical questions and give no answers, or make eloquent sarcastic speeches, or seem to be freaking crazy.

OK, I've said a lot here. Any more would probably just be repetition and wasted time, so I am done on this thread. Best of luck on your paths, everybody.

That's fine. I'm not too bothered whether people agree, so long as they thought about it. Best wishes.

Because it's a useful guide. It has a place, it shouldn't be entirely disregarded just because we can't get liberation by logic. If a logical argument is sound, it's sound and we should act in line with it. If logic proves something relevant to cultivation, surely as cultivators we should pay attention. Thinking has a place. It's a very helpful tool, I don't understand why people are afraid of it. Clinging to the intellect is a problem, but does that mean we shouldn't use our intellect? Isn't that cutting off our thumbs to cure a hangnail? How often do animals with nearly no intellect to cling to become Buddhas or Immortals? The real issue here is surely whose arguments are correct, and if so who should be cultivating differently, and how, for better progress.

Consciousness has no size, shape or location. It is not a thing of form. It connects to the brain not in terms of spatially hooking up the brain like a plug in a socket, but ontologically as matter and mind are expressions of Tao. That's another way of seeing yin and yang. Look up 'dialectical monism'. So this is why energy, brain and mind/consciousness connect and affect each other, IMO. It is not that they are actually plugged into each other, it is that they reflect each other as they come from the same source, like particles in quantum entanglement. This also fits neatly into karma and rebirth, suggesting the state of a person's mind-stream determines what brain/body it 'quantumly entangles' on to next after death. It also fits with the observations of neuroscience, without leading to the absurd materialist conclusion that an object can somehow produce a subject. Consciousness/awareness is NOT the Self/Tao. The Tao is the reality beyond consciousness and matter. I used to think consciousness was the Tao too, but one day I had a flash of insight and realised what I've been writing in this post. Then it was easy to see the logic. By definition, the Tao cannot be affected by any of the phenomena it produces. The waves don't make the ocean move. Consciousness is clearly affected by goings on in the brain and body. If consciousness is the Tao, why can its vividness be altered by meditation, drugs, tiredness and so on? It's been argued that this is the mind allowing more or less consciousness in or out, but how can Tao be something that 'moves' if it is the absolute? Tao is either recognised or not recognised. It is always there, beyond cause and effect, consciousness and matter, dualism and non-dualism, empty and substantial. Awareness, then, is not Suchness or Tao or whatever you want to call it. Consciousness is the subject, that which perceives, and awareness is the function of perception. Yes, awareness can't exist without something to be aware of. Otherwise, how would it be functioning? Just another reason consciousness is NOT Tao. It doesn't exist alone. Even in the jhana of infinite consciousness, there is an object - a faint trace of conceptual discrimination saying 'oh, it seems like there's only consciousness'. Wrong! There is form, sensation, conception, volition and consciousness, but no 'I' who owns them. They just revolve around and create the illusion of there being a substantial core there. As for nirvana, I would consider it a state of being. But trying to describe it is really a bit pointless. 'Mind like fire unbound' is a good attempt. Still just words though.

I'm guessing 'practice A' is supposed to be Buddhism and 'practice B' is supposed to be mo pai. Both are structured, both explained, both have clear milestones, both have a game plan... as I've said, the 9 stages of shamatha and the 9 jhanas, realisation of the 3 marks producing stream entry, dropping of various fetters to progress to once-return, non-return and arhatship, then the Bodhisattva bhumis, and Buddhahood. If that's not a clear game plan and milestones, well I don't know what is! I don't know much about mo pai, but you probably think it's so much more successful because their goals differ in difficulty, and you're measuring them based on physical transformation. I won't go on and on about realisation being a much better measure of success, because clearly that's something we simply won't agree on. However, if you define a path aimed at Buddhahood or Immortalhood as unsuccessful based on people rarely attaining it, that's an unreasonable measure. It's easier to physically transform than mentally transform, so of course a path like mo pai will have a higher number of practitioners reaching its goal in a given period than a path like Buddhism. What you are ignoring is the difference in goals, one is a high level of physical transformation and one is the summit of existence. What you are demanding of Buddhism is that it advances people from normal humans into the highest form of being in one life. Good luck! We aren't aiming for some siddhis or physical transformations, we are aiming for something absolutely inconceivable, mind like fire unbound, trikaya, we are aiming to become Buddhas or Immortals (same thing, don't mistake someone with a few siddhis as an Immortal) who would make every being in this galaxy combined look like an ant and a supernova like a damp squib. So if someone only becomes a Buddha/Immortal on the earth once in eons, don't take that as a problem with a path. Take it as a sign of the height of the mountain Buddhism, Taoism, and other fully valid paths leads up.

My deities are the Thusness shining in all expressions of existence from the lowest hell to the highest heaven, and the Buddha-nature able to bloom in all beings from the darkest demon to the brightest deva.

Eat. Drink. Breathe. Move. Think. Feel. Meditate. Talk. Sweat. Wash. Piss. Sleep. Work. Rest. Play. Watch. Listen. Read. Help.

If the goal is truth, the path has to include features leading to realisation of truth. If the goal isn't related to truth, that's not really a good goal for a cultivator. It's a detour from a road to heaven into hell, purgatory, earth or a holiday resort just below heaven. Why not go direct for heaven? Not all paths lead there. Sure, if someone travels 25,000 miles at a slight angle around the globe they can end up at their friend's house. That's a dumb way to do it, though. Why take an invalid path telling ourselves 'someday I will wind up on a valid path and be liberated', when we could just take a valid path now? You say that black magic is 'flawed and corrupted'. Ask yourself what good it lacks and what bad it includes, then. What makes it flawed, and wouldn't any path with those features also be flawed? Can you go on to think of some features a path must have to not be flawed? I try to distil the wisdom from all paths... but by definition, that means disregarding any ignorance within those paths.

I just GAVE you something structured and practical with clear goals, signposts and reasons. Twice. The 9 stages of shamatha are clearly delineated, especially in 'The Attention Revolution' by Alan Wallace. Just get the book and get started, honestly the material is priceless. You can easily find what stream-entry, once-return, non-return, arhatship and the Bodhisattva bhumis are, and their distinguishing features, on Google. And realisations are obviously something you know if you have or not. Physical transformation is NOT ENOUGH to end rebirth. Virtue is needed so you aren't holding yourself back. Samadhi is needed to build prajna and manipulate the mechanism behind rebirth. Prajna and Tao realisation is needed to get that mechanism absolutely mastered. Physical transformation happens naturally along the Way, but can be aided by chi practices. You CAN'T change the fundamental nature of the situation. Things will always lack fundamental essence, be dependently originated, be impermanent, and be unsatisfying. If you want to master rebirth, you need to see Reality clearly so you can control the root causes of rebirth. With chi development alone, maybe you can extend life significantly... but nothing escapes entropy. You WILL die, then just be tossed somewhere else without bringing any progress towards liberation into the next birth. With samadhi and some prajna, you can push the cogs of the machine from within. A little control, but you can reach few cogs and not fully master even them. If you get to stream-entry, though, you will get to arhatship within 7 or so births and not go back from there, so that attainment is a definite 'upward spiral' checkpoint. With full realisation, you have that machine's remote control.

I wouldn't worry too much about entities. Messed up people (unlike you) tend to attract negative beings. Serious cultivators may end up developing a positive interaction with devas and suchlike. So most people will never have anything noticeable to do with entities. They generally don't have much interaction with us, and vice versa. You share a neighbourhood with countless animals who barely if ever notice you, and likewise. Same with entities. "You cannot even serve men, and you ask me about serving spirits?" - Confucius.

In a moderately rich family in a poor country, so hopefully I'd take the chance to be very charitable but wouldn't get attached to ridiculous luxury. Also, I would have plenty of free time to cultivate from not needing to work too much, if I develop that characteristic enough in this life to continue with it in that one. And, no serious suffering troubling me, but witnessing it around me as a prompt to cultivate and another help in developing compassion.

There isn't one mechanical process which fits everyone. Different people need slightly different practices and will take different timescales due to variation in fetters, faculties and effort applied. I'll try to simplify a bit more: At all stages, develop virtue. First, achieve shamatha. Anapana is a good way. An excellent practical guide here is The Attention Revolution by Alan Wallace. It tells you all you need to know. (There are 9 stages, I've achieved the 3rd). Second, continue with shamatha to master the jhanas, but switch emphasis to prajna by practicing vipassana. Koan contemplation is a smart method because it's combined shamatha and vipassana. It's a very simple practice, just take a koan (Google for one) and focus on it, don't try to intellectual figure it out but throw all your doubt into the koan constantly until you get it in a flash of insight. Then switch to another koan. When you realise that all things are impermanent, unsatisfying and lacking selfhood, you are a stream-entrant. Just keep going until you fully realise the dependantly-originated empty nature of all things, which is arhatship. Third, notice that since there is no concept of things having substance, there is no need for the concept of emptiness, and let it go to realise that there is the Tao absolutely beyond all dualisms and concepts. Release all concepts as merely provisional guides, let go of forms, sensations, conceptions, volitions and consciousness. Then you can glimpse Tao, which is beyond all transformations of these phenomena. By this point your virtue should be building to the extent that you have bodhichitta, and are a bodhisattva cultivating for the sake of others rather than just your own freedom from samsara; and prajna is so deep that samsara and nirvana are really the same. Fourth, keep refining, releasing, realising. Now Tao has been glimpsed, you can practice Dzogchen non-meditation or similar to fully ripen perception of Tao, until all fetters drop away and you are a Buddha or Immortal, with mastery of rebirth. Virtue development is necessary because non-virtuous qualities are based in ignorance (ignoring for now the desire to be a good person for it's own sake), and trying to progress while acting and thinking backwardly doesn't get one very far. Shamatha development is necessary because it makes the mind-stream clear and stable enough for prajna to build and stabilise, and to perceive and control the factors behind rebirth to some extent (which is why arhats can take a long holiday from rebirth, but not escape). Prajna development is necessary because full mastery of rebirth requires realisation of Tao to erode the factors behind it to the extent that rebirth will be controlled fully. So virtue is like pulling up the anchor, shamatha is like hiring a crew and prajna is like raising the sails.

Is it that the world is actually created by the mind, or is it that there is an objective reality but our perception is subjective? I disagree with the former, because it begs the questions of what stimuli prompted our first thoughts, and how we managed to lose the ability to consciously mould reality as in a lucid dream, in the first place. JMHO. Issues like these are really things to realise at higher levels of cultivation, not to try to intellectually wrangle out, so I may well be wrong.

'Working Towards Enlightenment' and 'To Realise Enlightenment' by Master Nan are two must reads. They so clearly express what cultivation is ultimately about, transcending the skhandas, the real relationship between chi and cultivation, how any experiential realms created by the 8 consciousnesses - including apparent empty purity - are not Tao. They explain that disciplined practice is important in Zen - it's not just a mind-game where someone slaps you or you introspect a little and boom you're a Buddha, as a lot of people say - just like in all Buddhism. They cover dead tree Zen and misguided silent illumination Zen, various meditation methods, and the paramount importance of virtue - really transforming yourself, not just avoiding everything to meditate for your own sake - and more! These books explain so much and draw on texts and theory from Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism... free on scribd, but priceless.

Sometimes it is a valid comment, when something is genuinely obvious and someone is being genuinely thick or wilfully ignorant. Sometimes it's just 'be paranoid with me so I feel validated!' or 'you're too stupid to see the obvious but I don't want to explain in case you disprove it!', or both.

Porn has noticeable negative effects. Just to look at only one factor, the mind isn't adapted to seeing such a constant accessible stream of unrealistic sexual material. So many guys now are getting addicted to it; unable to get turned on in a real relationship with a real woman doing real sex; and watching more and more niche/extreme stuff to get the same buzz, until eventually they find themselves spending 10 hours a day watching midgets in leather get raped anally by Elmo from Sesame Street while sucking off Batman upside down.

There's a limit to how far someone can break free while the habit of being attached is still there. Without prajna and samadhi, someone trying to let go of consciousness ends up clinging to clarity. I acknowledge the sudden approach, but that approach itself states that it is for those with sharp faculties - in other words, achievement of shamatha, great qualities, and some level of realisation already developed. Practices still have to be used to dig out of the prison (initial glimpse of Tao). After that point, you can just let go and Tao is always in your perception (go through the tunnel) and you know what to do to get to Buddhahood (clear your name of the crime, so you can enter and leave the prison to help the prisoners through the tunnel while being free yourself).

MPG... The way to end rebirth is clear, if you look over the teachings fully. You just aren't seeing it, because you're looking for one practice which is enough on its own, when there are stages where the practice alters as you progress, and new insights introduced along the Way. The whole thing is 'how to escape rebirth', one part in isolation isn't the complete map. Here's a rough summary: Stage 1: Virtue + shamatha + wisdom -> jhana + chi development Stage 2: Vipassana -> prajna -> transcend clinging to a large extent + realise emptiness -> stream-entry -> once-return -> non-return -> arhatship + limited freedom from rebirth + greatly reduced clinging, delusion and ill-will Stage 3: More development of prajna and compassion -> realising there is Tao AND emptiness (to a deeper extent than possible before arhatship) + bodhichitta -> further prajna, samadhi and virtue development -> glimpse Tao + further reduce clinging, delusion and ill-will -> know what to do -> progress through bodhisattva bhumis -> fully develop realisation + chi + mind -> Buddhahood + freedom from rebirth.

I haven't, thanks. On the same lines: http://www.dlshq.org/download/jesus_teach.htm

If I had to choose one tradition only, it would be some form of Buddhism (probably Zen) because to me it's got all the necessary stuff in good detail and (IMHO!) has some key deep ideas that others aren't so clear on. But since I am free to develop my own understanding and blend of practices, I try to take good bits from everywhere. Taoism goes into more detail on chi than anything else, and that's fantastic. Someone wanting to do some work on their chi, or understand and deal with weird chi phenomena going on, would do well to look into Taoism. The idea of jing-chi-shen alone is brilliant. Confucianism is high class indeed when it comes to virtue. Theistic religions have some great points in that regard too. The Sermon on the Mount is excellent stuff, anyone who can really turn the other cheek is very noble in my eyes. Drawing on Confucianism, close to being a Junzi! Hinduism - who can deny the worth of yoga? Hermetics - don't know much about it, but this quote is decent: "As processions passing in the road cannot achieve anything themselves yet still obstruct others, so these men merely process through the universe, led by the pleasures of the body." You get the idea.

To clarify, I'm not anti-body or anti-chi, but I think obsessing over these things, treating them as part of your identity when they are just tools we have, is mistaken. Other people may have different goals in their cultivation - I won't say any more about that being wrong, because I was focused on astral projection when I first started, and I want to be a reasonable person while sharing my opinion - but I think we can agree that we can't take any path to get to any goal; and if the aim is Tao then I stick to my '5 factors' as necessary for a path aimed at Tao to be successful.