Seeker of Wisdom

Wow, great posts. I'll try chanting the Zhunti mantra when in horse stance, direct the chi to the heart that way. Is there a version for opening the central channel?

Personally I like not fitting in one group. Makes me feel on my toes, free (and, obligated) to alter my beliefs when I realise I was wrong or come across a new idea. If someone asks what I believe, I'll just say 'more or less Buddhism' for a quick answer without a philosophy lecture LOL.

I've realised that the 'refinement' of the mantra in DM is actually moderate laxity, a weak awareness of the mantra. As vividness increases, the object of meditation should become super-sharp. In anapana for example, while the breath does refine, we focus more closely on it and so become more vividly aware of it, rather than begin to lose touch with it and 'rest in stillness', which is coarse laxity. If the mind seems empty, there are probably many mental functions going on which are just not being perceived.

The tendencies are carried over in the substrate consciousness. What is meant by anatman, is that there are all these aspects to a person, but no fundamental 'I' that owns them. There is mind, memories, personality, etc, but not any essence/soul that owns these things. There isn't a soul that the other parts of a person are based on, just interrelated processes. A soul would be like the nucleus to an atom. Now imagine that there's no nucleus, but each electron in the atom orbits each other electron. And see how all atoms rest in space - although each atom lacks a nucleus, everything is based in the Self. I hope that makes my view a bit clearer.

There is no soul, if by soul you mean some kind of essence to an individual. We are composed of the always shifting aggregates: form, sensation, conception, volition and consciousness. All is empty of a fundamental nature, save the essence of 'suchness' itself. If by 'soul', you mean something of a person that continues after bodily death then reincarnates, I do believe in that. But there is no separate 'I' to get in touch with it, nor is it an 'I'. It's just the substrate consciousness and a temporary chi body. Instead of 'I think, therefore I am', 'thinking happens'.

Reading The Platform Sutra has helped me realise another side to this mantra: chanting not to an external Zhunti, but to the qualities of Zhunti lying latent within my own mindstream, covered by the hindrances. This mantra is known for helping to unleash prajna, which is why it's advocated in Zen. Maybe chanting with this understanding will help that side of things, which is what I really care about, along with shamatha and virtue - the chi stuff is just (tasty) icing on the cake compared to that.

Science has given us a lot of knowledge and things. I have great respect for the field. Everyone should learn science as best they can. However, people themselves have not truly developed, only accepted an increasingly 'civilised' social contract. Real development is a matter of individuals meditating, introspecting, questioning their mental and physical/verbal habits and their deepest beliefs, seeking hard to see things and themselves as they TRULY are... and acting in a way based on that mindstream-gasm perspective.

A comment says: Aside from that, the constant technological stimulation is reducing attention spans and deep thinking. People are losing the ability to watch the clouds without fidgeting and pining for Temple Run. Multitasking and scanning articles train poor mental habits. However, I think if people combined our modern technology with a cultivation lifestyle (meditation, contemplation, introspection, a bit less materialism) we'd seriously benefit in many ways. I don't think genetics is the issue, it's just modern lifestyles that train bad mental habits. We can more than counteract this with cultivation. If it was up to me, all schools would teach shamatha, based on The Attention Revolution. The atheist writer Sam Harris meditates, so it can be done as a secular practice to benefit anybody regardless of their beliefs.

It looks like hardcore BS to me. I've seen that site before... IMHO, seems like he stumbled across some low jhana, misinterpreted it as enlightenment, and went a bit loco. If you want to clear yourself and progress towards enlightenment, try shamatha meditation as taught in 'The Attention Revolution' by Alan Wallace. I know I sound like an advert for that book lately. But honestly, it tells you all you need to really get down the path, without any fluffy or nonsensical or overly chi-obsessed diversions. This is a straightforward and logical path: Step one, achieve access concentration through shamatha. Step two, do insight practice until enlightenment. Be virtuous along the way, and maybe do just a few minutes of pranayama each day to speed things along. Mantras are good too.

I'm reading 'The Sutra of Hui-neng': a Thomas Cleary translation of The Platform Sutra, including Hui-neng's commentary on The Diamond Sutra.

I can feel a grain of clogged chi being pushed gently from the centre of the heart chakra, causing a very slight ache. I look forward to it finally clearing.

Try to fight them directly, and you lose instantly. You need to first accept them. Then gradually cultivate their opposites by introspection, shamatha, mantra, and trying to live virtuously. Still quite low on the ladder... but in this way, I am climbing higher. Jb's post above says it well.

That's what I'm saying to do, be mindful without reacting or judging to what's arising.

Slaughterhouse 5, by Kurt Vonnegut. Original, cynical, sometimes hilarious and very clever anti-war sci-fi book. You'll either hate it or go on a Vonnegut binge.

If you feel you can't handle what's happening, then you cut back. Otherwise you're fine. You just need to let these thoughts and emotions pass through without attachment or aversion. What's happening is that your neutral watching is releasing repressed material. Keep watching neutrally and the mind will heal itself. I strongly suggest reading 'the attention revolution' by Alan Wallace. It's very helpful and clear on the practice and stages of meditation.

GP, if that guy is enlightened as he said that as a child he had a sense of oneness outside time; whatever he's achieved is therefore down to previous lives of cultivation. It's easy for someone born like that, not remembering their past lives, to conclude that enlightenment is just dropping intellectualism. In a way it is, but removing eons-old hindrances takes practices, sadly. If enlightenment is so easy, where are the hordes of masters?

Two points: Firstly, experiences along the way are often mistaken for enlightenment. A very minor level of clarity can seem like enlightenment when compared with the obscured and restless minds of many. The jhana of infinite consciousness in particular is tricky, because it's so pure and great that many who reach it decide that pure awareness is the Self, and that they are enlightened. When (IMHO) pure awareness/subject and object are two empty principles, meaningful only as they relate to each other, and the real Self is the 'suchness' below subject and object. So we need to be very careful evaluating our own or other's progress, especially as regards enlightenment. Secondly, I doubt it's possible to jump from normal to enlightened just from walking in a park. In cases where it seems like this, it was probably not enlightenment (i.e. the above). Whether it was full enlightenment or just an experience, it would be due to the effect of previous practices bursting in a sudden insight. What we forget when hearing stories about a Zen master saying or doing something and the student suddenly getting it, is that it wouldn't have worked had the student not been a serious meditator for years and years. A whack with an oar is just what the guy from the story of the Boat Monk needed at that time and place... go around trying it and you'll just get sued! There are no shortcuts.

All sentient beings have differing levels of complexity, dysfunctions and qualities. A human is just a set of skhandas where the form skhanda is a pile of meat with human DNA.

Much of the trouble I think occurs where good ideas are taken out of context, misunderstood, simplified and packaged into slogans which are then accepted blindly. It's sad how sometimes the mistakes are so subtle, but that subtle error completely twists the original idea and takes the essence out of it. So many people within reach of the real deal but just not recognising it... It's much easier to just say 'we are all one' than to give a detailed explanation of how all things are based in the Self, yet are individual separate phenomena. Let alone linking it to a deep understanding of sunyata, anatman, the skhandas and so on to provide a fuller understanding of how various key insights fit together! It goes to show the truth of that story about the Zen master pouring tea for the Westerner until it overflowed. His point: you don't get true wisdom shoving in words. Although study and thought are great, on their own they can lead to intellectualisation which may be off where it counts. We need to cultivate our minds to just... get it. Real practices are critical. Most new agers are at least meditating a little, and that's great. It gives me hope that some will wake up.

That article was great. I used to be on a somewhat new-agey site. Here's two articles I wrote criticising their love-and-light bollocks: http://m.astralboobaby.net/site/webs_62765766/home?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.astralboobaby.net%2Fapps%2Fforums%2Ftopics%2Fshow%2F7774277&dm_package=1#0332 http://m.astralboobaby.net/site/webs_62765766/home?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.astralboobaby.net%2Fapps%2Fforums%2Ftopics%2Fshow%2F8039677-positivity-unhealthy-if-forced-in-excess&dm_package=1#1103 Also, new agers are very gullible and prone to pseudoscience. It's a real shame that people looking for something, well, REAL, can't separate the wheat from the chaff, and fall into fucking around with crystals and imaginary aliens - rather than true disciplined and meaningful shamatha, etc, stuff that actually leads out of samsara.

Read my signature. You won't get far fiddling with the form skhanda. It's mental hindrances that have caused our chi to be so clogged in the first place, so no matter how much chi work you do you need to let go of chi and meditate to open all the channels anyhow. Don't give yourself extra work, just progress through shamatha (read 'The Attention Revolution' by Alan Wallace), developing wisdom and virtue along the way. That's what matters. Chi purifies as a natural side-effect of having a balanced, clear, strong mind! If you want to speed things a little, do some simple chi work (such as nadi shodana pranayama) on the side, but don't attach to the body, and keep things in perspective.

Of all the studies and articles I've looked at claiming to show fluoride is bad, one or more of these has applied: +The study has never appeared in peer reviewed journals, so could just be made up (Google scholar is a good resource for spotting these). If you can only find it on anti-fluoride sites, ask why. +The study looks at doses of fluoride above what we would get in normal life. Yes, excess fluoride is bad. Nobody is claiming otherwise. Does that mean fluoride is poison, period? No. A subtler example of this is that other countries may use higher doses, making their results inapplicable to me or you. +The study is fully legit, but due to misunderstanding biology, the results are used to claim fluoride is bad when they don't actually show that. For example, one study showing that the pineal glands of gerbils calcify due to changing metabolic activity once appeared on an anti-fluoride site... the study itself never mentioned fluoride. +Fear-mongering. E.g. the classic 'Nazis used fluoride in the camps!' The Nazis used crazy massive doses, this is an unscientific attempt to make people fear something by linking it to actual genocidal madness. References to fluorine are also popular, as though because an element is poison all its compounds must be too. Iron oxide is not magnetic or breatheable... +Statistics with no reference to sources. I can claim that 9/10 lesbians are made straight by a photo of me - do you believe me? I doubt it's deliberate misinformation... just well-meaning people spreading rumours and Chinese whispers.

I've looked into this extensively. Fluoride - in the doses you'll get from water and toothpaste - has NOTHING to do with the pineal gland, which calcifies naturally as we age, and would do so with no ill effects even if we lived in an environment completely free of fluoride. I have looked at studies and more claiming to prove this anti-fluoride codswallop going around, and all of them either used doses of fluoride far outside the relevant range or completely misunderstood basic biology. Unfortunately, pseudoscience is very rife on the internet. It spreads like wildfire because people want to be critical (which is good!) but don't understand enough science to separate the wheat from the chaff. Even basic things like the difference between 'OMG poisonous run!' and 'harmful in this dose'. I hope I don't sound patronising or whatever. I just don't want you wasting money on expensive filters and worrying about a harmless intake of sodium fluoride because you heard some crap on the internet disguised as science and evidence.

Step 1: model yourself closely on me. Step 2: practice converting lesbians until step 1 is fully mastered.

An interesting experience someone reported: From http://wwwcine-man.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/spiritual-milestone.html?zx=785b6674fef4fc4b.