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I'm reminded of hexagram 22, which can be seen as the dynamic of grace.... or the dynamic of adornment. Illumination beneath the mountain - who can see it? No one, if it is hidden.... and yet... in those who choose the simple life, have little to speak for except their health.... and yet these people often radiate a happiness, a peace, a grace that can be felt even when not acknowledged. Perhaps the Quakers demonstrate this well. And when the mountain does not hide the fire.... the fire is not contained, not still and stable, not clearly illuminating.... it comes out from within, eager to show itself, to demonstrate its worth though embellishing, exaggerating, adorning the surface at the expense of the internal. Tom Brown Jr. has a book titled Grandfather, and I recall a dream beneath a tree where he followed his spirit guide on a journey up an old stream bed, with forest on either side. The forest on the right was twisted and stagnant, with trees and bushes growing against each other and struggling for light and water. The forest on the left felt peaceful and harmonious. The forest on the left had been inhabited long ago by the tribe of the spirit guide, and had been cultivated very delicately. When they needed to cut a branch for an arrow or bow, they would not take the most suitable branch for that purpose, but would take the branch that might end up struggling with others, that might be the weakest; they would take that which when removed would have the most harmonious result on the forest over time. When we understand how our actions manifest over time, we can choose to avoid actions that do not serve where we want to end up. If we want to be healthy and live a long, happy life, we might come to understand that a simple life without embellishment and unnecessary desires may actually have the best result, while many other choices merely spend the internal to indulge some desire that will only serve us temporarily. Of course everything is relative. We must all choose on our own.

Yes its good to talk about time, because its seems so natural to most people (including me) - I rarely question time I never read much of Eckhart Tolle, but still from the Buddhist point of view (the Madhyamika point of view) his statement is true but not for 100% because time is relatively appearing, dreamlike but appearing - and so is reincarnation also the idea of tomorrow is very workable, it makes alot of sense to have that concept. Reincarnation is workable in the same way (even if most beings don't remember past lives or see future lives, but then who knows how tomorrows tea will taste, I mean have the direct experience of tomorrows tea already now? or who can really recall for example what exactly they thought 5 minutes before they read this?) the continuity of concisousness is relatively true - like a dream is true or a mirage is true and also: as the buddha is unborn, how could the buddha cease (be extinct?) like the awakened one said: "my dreamlike form appeared to dreamlike beings to show them the dreamlike path to lead to dreamlike nirvana" or shantideva: (I quote the meaning not the exact words of the translation) "the bodhisattva is allowed only one illusion, namely that there is a result to the path" I have by the way no idea what all of this means but those indo tibetan teachings sure sound great to me

The animals James works with have been terribly abused. They are not just any wild animals that he chooses to pacify. Maybe watching him work with the abused horses would give you a better idea of what he is doing. He sits with the animals in what he calls "mindful regard," joining them, drawing them into a trusting space, totally beautiful, from my perspective. They become totally relaxed, both funny and awesome to watch. To me this is amazing respect for the animals and a beginning to heal the trials they have been through. Their responses to the work are beyond amazing. If you want to understand more what he is doing, look for "I Have a Dream- -- the interview" on youtube.

Hi all, (excuse my english - its my second language) this is my first personal contribution to the forum, I picked the Topic of Time because it is very interessting to me. Last year I had the great opportunity to receive teachings on Shantidevas "Bodhisattvacharyavatara" three times - two times with a focus on the 9th chapter, each of those teachings lasted for about a month, sometimes less. I would like to share one very interessting AhAAA moment I had while receiving these teaching (a little buddhist geeky intellectual orgasm). Madhyamika has a very beautiful way of dealing with time - for this school of thought when you say time you say reincarnation and when you say reincarnation you say time so I for one still believe in having a masala chai tomorrow in the morning - I still believe in Time. If I belive in Tomorrow - I unknowingly believe in reincarnation or a cuntinuum of conciousness Now for people who have tastes of meditation - Time is not such a fixed Idea anymore, because when one tastes Nowness Awereness (Keith Dowmans translation for Ye She) Time is seen to be a construct of the mind thats exactly what madhyamika is saying - reincarnation (time) is realtive truth, functional and important but realtive because why? The continuity of Consciousness is a mere imputation - an unborn phenomena (like all phenomena) that arises like a dream. If one starts to investigate no such thing like a continuity of mind exists -> ultimately the commentators on the ninth chapter of shantideavas classic (Khnepo Kunphel or Ju Mipham Rinpoche) use the analogy of the mala to talk about this: A mala is a compound phenomena, a collection made from 108 or 111 round stones or seeds or whatever and a string - each one of them doesnt constitute a mala and a collection of 108 "not malas" doesn't have the power to produce a real substantial mala. The beads themselves can be analysed down to its smallest particles that can be further divided into the 10 direction etc. they are shown in ultimate analyses to be like space its the same with our feeling of continuity of consciousness so Time and Reincarnation are just a figment or hallucination of our mind. I always had a problem with the Idea of reincarnation - I said to myself "Oh well its to keep us social good hearted animals - that doesn't hurt" - this explanations of my lamas (that I tried to share here in a much much shorter and easy to understand way) helped me alot in understanding basic buddhist nondualism and the conception of time/reincarnation in that light I hope its some food for thought

this means alot to me, and i have questioned if that is the path i should take right now. Mainly pursuing my dream of being a chinese medicine practicioner / healer. But the stages in my life seem to take me to learning the trade of tattoo art first. To learn independence. From there it will be a bridge to what ever else i hope to achieve since it will give me the money to pay for college and a place to live on my own. But as for studying towards something, this can be done outside of a university. And i have often thought that if only i directed this excess energy toward gaining knowledge consitently then it will find balance. But i find it hard to be consitant. But with your advice i will be more diciplined with it . Knowledge is a gateway to life experiences. I want to learn japanese so i can connect with japanese people. thats one gate way. And i will take out more of my books and dive further into my studies . thank you

TO ALL THETAOBUMS.COM SUBSCRIBERS, TAI CHI FOR HEALTH FOLLOWERS, AND FLYING PHOENIX CHI KUNG PRACTITIONERS: This new discussion thread dedicated to self-proclaimed "Tai Chi master" and "Zen master" david dorian ross--with the purpose of making him more infamous than he could ever dream of. It is posted as public service, for David Dorian Ross was instrumental in enabling the corrupt business practices of two large corporate purveyors of New Age lifestyle products (including Yoga and Tai Chi videos)--namely, Healing Arts Publishing, Inc. and its successor in interest, Gaiam, Inc.--that had both hired david dorian ross in 1998 and 1999, respectively, to make a bunch of "Chi For Beginners" videos, that were deceptively titled and packaged so as to circumvent an exclusivity provision in a contract that I had with both these companies. My Complaint against this breach of contract is memorialized in a lawsuit styled "Terence Dunn and Interarts Productions, Inc. vs. Gaiam, Inc., a Colorado Corporation, Gaiam Holdings, Inc., a Colorado Corporation, Steve P. and Elizabeth A. Adams Holdings, a California Corporation, Healing Arts Publishing, LLC, a California Limited Liability Company, Steven P. Adams, David Dorian Ross, and John Does 1-100, inclusively" that I filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in January 2000---- Case BC244453. All the video footage mounted on this Youtube Channel is of david dorian ross testifying under oath on August 1, 2001 in a deposition in San Francisco taken by my attorney, William Ford of the Ford Law Firm. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ25_amAVNCszW7r4vI0pRQ/videos In 2000, I sued Gaiam, Inc., et. al. for breach of contract, alleging that Gaiam instead of honoring the exclusivity provision in my Distribution Agreement that prohibited Gaiam from marketing any Tai Chi videos other than my Tai Chi for Health Yang Short Form and Tai Chi For Health Yang Long Form videos, Gaiam hired david dorian ross in 1999 to make three more "Chi" videos (Upper Body Chi, Lower Body Chi, and Energy Chi) after he made "A.M. Chi" for HAPI (CEO Steve Adams) in 1998, which, had Tai Chi as their principal subject matter but which Gaiam effectively disguised as "Qigong" programs by their titling ("Chi For Beginners") and descriptions of the video contents on the packaging, and which Gaiam then sold--in gross violation of the Distribution Agreement--to cannibalize my videos' dominant market share from 1999 through 2003--a market share that was quantified by Nielson Videoscan for those years as accounting for 35% of all barcoded DVD titles sold with the world "Chi" in their titles. The damages I claimed in the lawsuit as propounded by my damages expert, Consor Intellectual Asset Management, totaled approximately $2.4 million. Throughout David Dorian Ross's deposition lasting approximately 5 hours on August 1, 2001, he consistently testified under oath (and in detail) that four (4) "Chi For Beginners" videos distributed by Gaiam that he appears in ("A.M. Chi," "Energy Chi," "Upper Body Chi", and "Lower Body Chi") do not have Tai Chi as their subject matter because he did not have the "internal intent" to do Tai Chi (!!!)--despite the fact that: (A) he names the exercises on the videos using classical Tai Chi names that have no meaning in any other art or context and (B ) despite the fact that each of Ross's postures in question taken from video frames are visually identical to: (1) still photos of Tai Chi postures bearing the same Tai Chi names excerpted from ten popular Tai Chi books and to (2) still frames of my postures excerpted from my Tai Chi For Health DVDs. that were placed in front of him in side-by-side, frame-by-frame comparisons by my lawyer. However, Gaiam Inc.'s very own designated Tai Chi expert, Master Mao Xing Ni (son of Ni Hua Ching)--in a surprising turn during his deposition that flummox'd Gaiam's lawyers-- testified that the subject matter of 3 of the 4 ross videos (Energy Chi, Lower Body Chi, Upper Body Chi) was indeed Tai Chi-- thus flatly contradicting the bulk of ross's 5 hours of testimony under oath, making him out to be a determined and shameless liar. Attached here are Master Ni's notes on the subject matter of the Ross "Chi" videos: Thus fourteen years after david dorian ross's deposition, as a public service here and with a Youtube channel (link below) aptly named "Honey Badger Does Not Care; fajing your ass", I am now exposing this full day of blatant lying under oath that is obviously fundamental to his character and therefore also his manifested teaching persona, which I consider to be awful and unctuously disgusting in general. Based on my observation of his Tai Chi performances on video products over the past sixteen years (many here on Youtube), I consider Ross's skill level to be mediocre and nothing close to the "mastery" that he claims. That Ross has given himself the titles of "Tai Chi master" and "Zen master" as seen here is ludicrous-- --and are insults to the Tai Chi art, to Chinese martial arts culture, and to the 2,000 year old Chan Buddhist (Zen) tradition in particular. In my opinion, this self-proclaimed "master" of Tai Chi and Zen Buddhism, who is demonstrably capable of lying for almost five hours under oath and in front of a video camera, represents one of the most noxious and insidious viruses plaguing the world of unsuspecting, beginning-level enthusiasts in Tai Chi, Qigong, and meditative arts in general and of Zen Meditation and Zen practice in particular----especially given his temporal influence through the media, as he has been long promoted by Gaiam, Inc. as their Tai Chi poster boy. I believe that he is a danger as a retarding obstacle to the physical and spiritual progress of all unsuspecting beginning enthusiasts in Tai Chi and Qigong, and to practitioners of Zen Buddhism. There is an ancient Chinese maxim that extends beyond the realm of martial arts that says: "When the wrong man uses the right means, the right means work in the wrong way." It is my opinion that this self-proclaimed "Tai Chi and Zen master", David Dorian Ross, lends perfect creedence to this maxim. I therefore ask everyone who seeks and respects truth and is interested in the cultivation of physical, emotional, and spiritual health--i.e., the fruits of correct and ethical practice of authentic Chinese martial, yogic, healing and spiritual traditions, and all things the honorable in the Chinese martial arts to: (1) share the link to this discussion/expose´and (2) carefully consider the material presented in this thread and on this new Youtube channel, and then (3) BOYCOTT and advocate to others the BOYCOTTING of EVERYTHING and ANYTHING that this person has put his name to. Yours Truly, Sifu Terence Dunn (Kung Fu and Qigong master) my bona fides: http://www.taichimania.com/tdbio.html http://thedaobums.com/topic/12639-flying-phoenix-chi-kung/… https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ25_amAVNCszW7r4vI0pRQ/videos

SARAHA Behold! Yogis who abide in the immutable nature of nonduality possess not the least desire for accepting or rejecting. Since I neither hold nor discard anything, there is nothing I would tell you, my sons, to do. Just as the "holy grail" (mani) of the mind has no objective substantiality, so the conduct of a yogi is a life devoid of external trappings. Even though we talk of various ways of behaviour, the yogi acts directly out of his perception. And since that is not determined [by external rules or conditions], the yogis conduct is completely free and unconditioned. Like an innocent child, or a crazy person without premeditation, so one should act. Emaho! Mind is like a lotus, growing up out of the mud of Samsara! How ever many are the defilements, it remains unstained. Let food and drink, sensual pleasures, or the afflictions of mind and body, be just as they are. Whatever occurs, there is nothing to do or liberate. In the state of realization's spontaneous display of conduct, upon witnessing the suffering of worldly beings, tears of overwhelming compassion naturally flow forth. Taking on their suffering and giving in return one's own well-being, thus one engages in healing others for their sake. Examining what is, one finds that reality is free from the three constructs of subject, object and medium. Worldly existence is unreal; it is like a dream or a magical illusion. Free of attachment and aversion, the yogi experiences a pure joy devoid of sorrow, and acts like a master of illusion putting on a performance. Excerpt from: The Mahamudra Dohakosa

Hahahaha. I would love to have an ET buddy. That would be so cool. I'd want to ride a spaceship one time too. I hear yahyel is coming to Earth in my lifetime, so who knows. I'd buy a vacation to a spaceship if that was possible. Maybe in 2030 when we join the galactic alliance. I bet they have way cooler stuff then Alcohol, who knows. Maybe a conscious dream simulator. God knows how far ahead their technology is. I get all excited just thinking about it. My interest in et's goes through the roof. They much be so peaceful and loving, I'm sure. And wise too or playful, who knows what kinds of et's are out there. I bet all kinds. But these are just dreams and fantasies. God we've been alone on this planet for such a long time and the politics of now wont really allow for much ET contact. Everyone's always busy with their own lifes. Me too. It gets boring. But there are lots of fun people on this planet too. Maybe I should meet more people. Have more social contacts. I'm sure that I relate to human humor most of all. Whats better than to laugh with my fellow human beings. That's good enough. And ET's, well, maybe one day. I hope. Our technology is advanced en9ugh to go to outer space. So time for ET contact is emminent, I presume.

Lol, I'm so jealous. Can you actually see spirits? So cool. I kind of admire that. I've always wanted to see spirits, but I can't, to the point of believing the earth plane is locked out in the dark where no spirit lingers. Like a prison. Cause that's what earth feels like to me, like a prison. I feel like I must have done something wrong to be locked in here. However, if you say there are spirits here, then that's totally new to me. It kind of shakes my foundational believe system. I do remember a dream where I was a spirit in a room with a wife who's husband was murdered and in tears and I was trying to comfort her and send her love. It was the most vivid dream ever. Don't spirits ever get bored, not having a body? Like... you can't do anything! Unless being a spirit brings with it amazing emotions that feel good all of the time. That would be nice. Then I'd rather be a spirit. Not that I can... Just a thought. Back to boredom I go.

haha, yeah. I always wanna consume as much time as I can with each activity. Cause dream time is best time. Love sleeping.

You and God aren't separate. You are It. You are God manifesting this boredom. This too is part of life, it's just where you choose to be right now for some reason. You haven't always been bored, I'm guessing. You're looking for a Good Feeling, the green light. Maybe that green light means GO, in your dream. Maybe this means to get out of your head, if you are often in it, and go out and get your hands dirty, to actually plunge into the physical. I garden, that does it for me. We are pretty much hermits - and other than gardening and reading, there's not much we do any more. Looking for a Good Feeling is the part of duality that is counter productive, IMO. Embrace your ennui, see where it stems from - why you are reluctant to move out of it. There may be a fear lurking underneath - something from years ago - some advice your folks continued to give you, making you fearful of the unknown. Telling you to be careful all of the time, stuff like that. If there is something there, it is this dynamic that needs to be tweaked by taking action, even if you don't feel like taking action. Take it anyway and see what happens. Happiness isn't found by looking for good feelings. Rather, it's a by-product of the removal of the dross within us - the conditioning we receive from everyone from birth. If you truly want happiness, try becoming aware of the following within you: any desire to be first (in anything), any desire for more than you need, any judgment you may be making toward anyone in your life. Look at your selfishnesses, if you have any - and look at your opinions. When I first came to recover from my prior existence, I came to the conclusion that every conclusion I had ever come to was probably wrong. This was a humbling exercise, but it went a long way. I'm not one to recommend books, but I would do so here. Please give Eckhart Tolle a try. He has the most marvelous way of shifting all the responsibility onto ourselves, not feeling victimized by our feelings (although I don't get a sense that you're doing that - you're just being very, very honest). But if you don't change a dynamic within you that is 'choosing' ennui, it will not change. That green light is there - you just need to uncover it. Much love to you - and I wish you the very best. Thank you for sharing something that all of us struggle with from time to time. We just don't want it to become an attachment, a habit, a crystallized dynamic.

So I dreamed about this green light fun energy floating into a room full of people and everyone started laughing like hell. Does such a thing exist in real life and can we humans summon it? If say, by mind, we give our thought attention to it and eventually the thought grows in attraction power by steadily feeding it with more air time with our attention to it, focusing on green light fun energy, untill it starts manifesting in our real life experiences. I'd be glad to finally come into first hand contact with some humor in my life. I've had so little of it, and this thing really got me laughing in my dreams. It somehow showed me the comedic relationship of every particle in the universe. Nothing is more funny than that. To see the joke in all of it so much you just can't stop laughing. That is fun to me. So I call it green light fun energy. It was mostly green, but had some yellow to it too. Frankly I tried focusing on it all day, the first day I did this, my friend started coming to me and I manifest some kind of conversation with him where he wanted to introduce "Green Light" gaming to me, from Steam. Now atleast that means my mind has some power and influence to affect my point of attraction, but like my focus on green light energy, it was not a fun manifestation. The green light energy is meaningless unto itself. The imagination of it doesn't give me the jiggles. and I don't know how to imagine the fun part of it. Cause I'm bored, what do I know of fun? Not sure what to do about this. I'm stuck how to take this concept further. Perhaps there is no such thing as green light fun energy and my dream was just deceit. What is life boring, things like green light fun energy are too good to be true. But as one who likes Tao, I can live with nothing and it being enough for me. Even tho it is nothing. Maybe one day I will like the violence of this world and have fun with that instead. I think I can do that. Enjoy my own pain and suffering. If it's all a joke to God anyway, why can't it be a joke to me aswell? Hate allows me to enjoy common media entertainment where everything is violent. I can have fun with that instead and cheer for my wish that everyone in the movies ends up as badly as possible. But that doesn't always happen. Life is too boring. Even movies. So I always turn back to zero. Start from scratch. Live with nothing. Being empty from within. it's boring as hell. I probably wont escape this boredom with thoughts of something like green light fun energy that will never exist anyway. Life is too boring for those kind of things to be true. So now what? Nothing. Nothing is all I have. It's my everything. I live with it day and night. Meaningless is life and life is meaningless. Whatever meaning we give it surely comes right back at us. Like a mirror we are surrounded by reflections. If only I could understand where inside of my soul came the reflection of Green Light Fun Energy. How did it end up seeming so real? Perhaps it does exist out there somewhere deep within me, and I just have to find my way to acces this dormant gift. Besides, I dreamed the dream, it was my dream, and it was fun. It happened, and it was proof of it self. It is evident that I came into contact with green light fun energy, dream or not, and it affected me. If it can do that once, it can do that twice and infinite times more. Untill my last dying breath, I'd love to breath in this green light fun energy once again. I look forward to visiting it in my dreams again. I can summon it at will in my dream, just by thinking about it. I'm worried though that I will summon green light energy, without the fun part of it. But I can't say for sure. Life can be tough. We know. And there's nothing we can do about. God should be fixing it but he's being late with everything. Even god can be lazy. Perhaps god is bored like me. Atleast if that is true, I don't have to hate god, cause were in the same pit. Misery likes company. So lets be bored god, maybe if it's two of us, it's less bad. And perhaps there's a god beyond you who does know how to have some fun. Surely if we can have a god, then God can have a God. And he or she will teach him or her the lessons of fun. Or not? Let's count to three and find out. One... Two... Three... Having any fun? No... So not. Do you think that perhaps there is a benefit to this boredom? I want to say I believe something fun will eventually come to me, but I don't believe it. In the meanwhile, I'm enjoying writing this. But I'm running out of things to write... if that is even possible! Surely, the longer we continue this, the more boring it gets. I hope by the end of this, we will all be bored to such a degree that we can more easily grasp its true essence and contemplate what all of it truely means. Perhaps there is something good to boredom. Perhaps it has a hidden treasure of all kinds of miracles. The thing is, I always tried to move away from boredom and it never worked. I wonder what would happen if I would try to worsen my boredom, amplify it, perhaps that's how you make it go away? Obliviously obvious. The answer has been in front of my nose all of this time. But I had a flu, so I coulden't smell it. Good thing, cause this answer stinks. I'm gonna have to do a whole lot of nothing to feel more bored. Not that that is difficult, very easy actually. I already feel like I'm doing it. Just take any action and take away its meaning and it becomes inaction. Simple as that. This entire text has no meaning to it. There's my job, to fill it with pointless things that have no meaning. I'm very good at this job, perhaps I can earn some money with it. I'll write sequels of boredom and people who seek boredom will know where to find me and they'll get all of the boredom they want. I can write about meaningless things till my last dying breath. This whole world is filled with pointless and meaningless things. God bless all of it. Surely, there's some humor in that. Even without green light fun energy. Or not. Always count for the worsed. Because counting is fun. Or not. Always count for the worsed. Because counting is fun. Or not. Did I repeat myself? Am I messing with your mind? Don't worry, you wont get bored. There's nothing outside boredom to relate to it. It's all there is. It has no meaning aswell. Boredom is pointless and pointless is boring. It's a never ending cycle of suffering. That why violence is so fun, because there is variety in violence. It's not about who or when someone dies, it's about how. I'm of to watch some movies about violence. The same kind of suffering of boredom but with a diffrent twist. A very heavy twist and a snap, and blood. or ketchup. Atleast that is not boring. I never put ketchup on my face, it's something totally new. But I know if I do it, I'd end up bored again anyway. So who cares... it's all gods fault. I have no escape. Well, maybe sometimes I find some relief from boredom, like writing this. But this is the most boring thing I've ever done anyway. I can't believe my eyes. This is literally a boredom on the Tao Bum forums. Perhaps if I write more, the boredom will go away. So lets continue a while. There must be some answer in this empty brain of mine. Some way I can find my way out of this boredom, and I'm gonna find it. Hooray! Just for the fun of the quest and having something to do, so I don't have to tear my hairs appart from boredom seizures, thank god for that.

Well, I'm not a voice coach..and I have zero natural talent, haha. It took a lot of practice when I had that motivation as a teen. To be a good singer, or good with your voice in general, you have to be a good actor (really get into the role). Confidence is key, do not feel disheartened when you listen back a week later and don't feel the same about the work. Also, the genre you're expressing yourself through is a hard one to get serious about...as rap comes with a certain image to be portrayed. While working towards a dream is great, it's important that we find what we're more naturally inclined to. So finding your own style that suits your particular voice is crucial. Whereas it will be hard to go far in the hiphop world, I'd like to hear you using that unusual flow in some kind of spoken word. The emotion that youre putting into it will come out better this way (I feel). Don't let that stop you from rapping, but try to meet somewhere in the middle of rap and poetry..or a mix of both. As for the voice, it will relax and open with confidence and practice. Play around with different sounds and feel how they form via your throat/mouth/facial muscles. Find somewhere that youre able to blast it with 110% of your effort...until you literally have to stop because your chords are over strained. Even putting yourself into situations outside your comfort zone can help little by little...public speaking etc. Keep doing what youre doing. Write it, record it, perfect it...plan it thoroughly and above all BE in that moment with every word.

Precisely. We may be close to agreement now: the one thing you can know is that you experience something. You seem to be conscious. It can all be a dream, yet it would still be a dream that you are conscious of. Descartes arrived at the same conclusion 400 years ago. So what are all those things we experience, and can we ever be sure that they are absolutely real? No, we cannot. And equally we cannot be absolutely sure that they are unreal. So the only thing left to do, is to accept the mystery that reality is - and start living it.

"You understand that all phenomena are false, but this does not help anything. This understanding, that everything is dream-like, illusory, unreal and false should be assimilated in your being. Without taking it to heart it becomes mere platitude. This does not result in enlightenment. "If you think that appearance and emptiness are indivisible, you should be detached from appearances. Are you? If you think that buddhas and sentient beings are indivisible, you should honor and serve sentient beings to the same degree as you would the buddhas. Do you do that? If you think, 'I will have no karmic ripening even if I engage in the ten nonvirtues,' you should be able to accept the ten nonvirtuous actions of others directed towards yourself - even if you yourself are killed. Can you do that? If you think, 'Even if I were to engage in the ten virtues there would be no benefit,' you should not have any sense of joy when you are benefitted by others who are practicing the ten virtues - even if your own life is saved. Do you? Now, go again to a solitary place and let your body remain like a corpse, let your voice remain like that of a mute and let your mind remain like the sky." ~ anonymous

The OP does not want methods that emphasize lucid dreaming... Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche recently mentioned that he's thinking of writing a second volume related to dream and sleep yoga!

there is an excellent book by Tenzin Rinpoche called The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep

Actually, the crown chakra is contains way more than just "direct knowing" or higher intuition. The crown chakra looks like a bathing cap of petals. The petals are all pointing downwards. Each petal, (there are supposed to be 1008 of them..) contains its own siddhi. Direct knowing is just one of them. If you succeed in attaining a siddhi, that petal will point upwards. Up near the center of the head, closer to the top back inside the skull, there is a clear luminous space which can be seen internally after many hours of certain types of meditation, like visualizing a mantra while silently sounding it. This space is the source of all true intuitions. Beyond that space, about a foot above the head, there is a bright star. When knowledge comes from that space, it is always true. It is differerent from thought. It is much faster than thought. Bang, and you know something and you know that it is true. It came "from the top of your head". And, it is very hard to manipulate that space. You have to be "above" the normal thoughts that usually block or veil it. However, I wouldn't call that the third eye vision. When the third eye is open, not only can you see visions, faces and other planes, but if you close your eyes you can see the physical world through the third eye. The third eye resembles an orange red flaming peacock's feather and it sits what seems to be about 2 inches in front of the forehead from between the brows. When you look through it with normal eyes closed, people look like vaporous beings and most people have a large black flame emanating from their navel area. The crown is usually compared to the pineal gland and the third eye is sometimes compared to the pituitary gland. However, the whole third eye, when it is activated seems to be a structure that starts at the medulla area and progresses outwards past the center of the brows. Some say that it is the joining of the circuit between the pineal and the pituitary. That is what the Red Phoenix is supposed to connect (Kunlun). I did years of spinal breathing and even turned spinal breathing into a form of tummo, using the heated mixture (vase breathing) to perform spinal breathing (from the navel to the center of the eyebrows). It was Kunlun that opened up my third eye to the point where I could see the orange red peacock feather like eye beyond the forehead. It is really hard to open the third eye. For me it was a combination of all three practices... Butta shudi mantra, spinal breathing with heat and Kunlun. After a month or so, the novelty of being able to drive my car with eyes closed and the ability to see people as vaporous beings kind of wore off. Although it is very interesting, it doesn't make you enlightened. And there is nobody to talk to about it because I haven't found anyone who has had the same abilities and experiences. So, it can be confusing for most people. It is easy to visualize, to visualize and then jump into it like in a dream, or see faces and inner mind phenomenon and think it is the third eye. Maybe it is a partially open third eye. And there are so many mind functions that occur in roughly the same area of the skull. What is helpful is to spend allot of time watching the mind and learning the different traits of the phenomenon in order to distinguish between them.

"Why we do not see the reality and how everything simply Is ?" Lot of us do not live our daily lives with the realization that there is no true distinction between a dream and what we call commonly as "reality" in the mundane sense of the word. True reality of nature/mind contradicts the common usage of the word "reality" in current world, in this generation. When humanity is able to go about normal lives/daily actions, with the continual realization of (what we call commonly as) "reality" is simply an extension of dream, our thoughts (in their core/essence) are "dream-like" in nature, our thoughts have their root in our conditioning (as humans, as human minds) then humanity would live in a higher god-like state. The purpose of discussions in forums like these is to slowly/steadily elevate humanity to that evolution, to that higher divine state of society.

How does that work out for them ? It's a catch all isn't it. If you are dead then you don't know if things exist or don't exist. However, if you are stuck with life then real things happen. It's like a dream state. Not dissimilar from the matrix film idea - if you get killed in the matrix then you die because the body cannot live without the brain. In other words it's a real dream. As Morpheus said "what is real, it is your mind that makes it so". For all intents and purposes, somebody believing in dependent origination just has to do what the rest of us do until they expire. Kind of pointless.

You make jokes, but now I don't even believe that you know what one-pointed concentration is nor realize the implications of your declaration. If you could make your mind one-pointed for as long as you wanted, you would have accomplished all the jhanas, realized all the siddhis. If you could focus on awareness being aware of awareness (meditation without an object) for as long as you want, you would have accomplished what most people can only dream of accomplishing. There is something terribly wrong with what you say.

not sure if this is of use to anyone, but thought I would put it out there anyway. as some of you may have seen from my posts, i'm quite interested in the whole tonic herbs thing. have been experimenting with various combinations of herbs/tinctures before bed time and seem to have narrowed it down to a formula that works every time. obviously mileage may vary and you'll need a decent amount of waking lucidity/awareness (namely a meditation practice) as a starting point, as with any method of trying to bring on lucid dreams. nonetheless i've found this to be very effective. two tinctures: dragon herbs supreme shen - lead herb asparagus root http://www.dragonherbs.com/prodinfo.asp?number=015 dragon herbs purple reishi http://www.dragonherbs.com/prodinfo.asp?number=039 you'll want about 2:1 reishi to supreme shen. good amount is 1 and 0.5 droppers, ranging up to 2:1 full droppers. for some reason the purple reishi is much more effective at bringing on lucid dreams than the red type. take just before going to bed, happy dreaming!

No - though I suppose sometimes dream reflexes and things like that. "Head spinning" does not strike any cord - what is head spinning related to? Actually I do have some jerks here and there and I have had a whole host of strange things happen - not so much in the "head spinning" category: It once I felt like I was about 4 feet tall very much centered in my Lower Dan Tein. When doing Qi Gong i sometimes get a twitch in my head/neck area. Today my eyes were teary for no reason and my nose ran - I am not sure if this is what a cold now feels like or what. In general I feel very light - when I close my eyes to meditate or just to enjoy the moment lights often flash lightly. I walk around very large now - living more in an energy field and not the physical body field of energy though it is contained within it.

You don't have a clue, do you? Emotional bliss is an emotion. It is an obscuration, like thought. I wouldn't even call it bliss in the non dual sense. Imagine you are a jawbreaker. At the center of the jawbreaker lies a state of ultimate bliss and clarity and a spot where reality wraps back around and encompasses all. A kind of portal or doorway to ALL. When it opens, golden light subtly appears. You can't see the portal because there are these layers wrapped around the center of the jawbreaker preventing you from accessing the center. So you start to lick the jawbreaker. You practice various methods, like shamatha, vispassana, Bodhicitta, ethics, single pointed concentration, awareness of awareness, seeking the self, kundalini yoga, raja yoga, turning the attention around to the self, observing the mind, dream yoga, etc etc. Sometimes you break through and get a glimpse of the bliss and clarity at the center of the jawbreaker. You become everything, the trees, the grass, other people... There is great love, silence and a peculiar water-like luminescent quality to everything. Then it goes away and you resume your "normal state". When you practice single pointed concentration correctly, you succeed in punching a little hole through the layers of the jawbreaker and you get a glimpse, a taste. But it doesn't last long because you are still licking the jawbreaker and the sauce fills the hole back up. So, you keep at it. You keep doing practices. You augment your understanding by reading books. You test various hypotheses and record their effects. You study the known greats like Buddha, Ramana, Jesus, and try to understand what they have said. Gradually, like water dripping in a rock, you wear away more and more layers of he jawbreaker, getting closer to the center. You have more mind blowing experiences which confirm that you are on the right path. But you don't settle for the experiences because they are just signs along the way. You want to reach the center, to taste the clarity, bliss, love, truth of existence. If you hold one form in your mind, one thought or visualization, one object or point of attention and try to maintain that one point you will eventually succeed in attaining one-pointed concentration. What happens is that there are signs which present themselves along the way up to the point where you succeed. At first, there are many distractions. Thoughts and emotions arise. Sensations, itches or pain in the body. Distractions. But you keep focusing on your object. You practice over and over again. You learn that there is tendency in the mind to start something up and then release it. The release distracts you and you are no longer focused on the object of attention. Then you learn that you must direct your attention and then sustain your attention. You develope or recognize another component of attention that monitors whether or not the attention is on the object of meditation or not. You try very hard and keep at it. One day you succeed in holding your attention on the object for one minute without interruption. You notice that the periphery or background surrounding the object gets brighter, like someone turned on a light. The noticing of the brightness distracts and you lose the stream of attention. So, you try again, and again and again. Then you get to the point where the background brightens up but you maintain your stream of attention on the object. Then, the object starts to brighten up. You can see more detail. You become very interested and notice that your mental vision of the object is like brilliant clear high res definition. It distracts you and you lose it. So you try again. Eventually, you get to the point where the background brightens up, the object of concentration becomes brilliant (a mental representation in the mind and then you experience bliss, better than any orgasm you've ever experienced. You merge into the object and then bounce back out to your normal state. You get up from your meditation and you wonder what that was. You notice that everything is shiny and beautiful. You could stare at the colors in the rug forever. The effect lasts for a few hours and then dissipates. That was samadhi. When you are in it, the senses have shut off. You cannot feel your body. You are no longer aware of any distracting thoughts or emotions. The obscurations are being held at bay. It is only temporary, but it gives you an idea what the center of the jawbreaker might be like. So, you keep at, slowly melting each layer of the jawbreaker and then maybe one day... Karl, in your case, you should quit clenching the jawbreaker in your hand, put it in your mouth and start sucking on it. You won't be able to talk while you are sucking away, but then, that might be a good thing.

It wasn't experienced during actual physical death, therefore, it is an illusion. Why dream that when you know it is a dream ? You will create internal conflict. Isn't it your wish to wake up and be enlightened ? How can you when you allow the illusions you create to exist. If you simply wish not to face unpleasantness then I wish you well, that is entirely your choice, it is perhaps too much for you to cope with, but if you want to see reality then you must be brave. It is harsher to stop taking the mental pain killers, especially in the beginning, but you will be clearer and you will know the truth because you will never again allow anything but that truth to exist. That is purity of soul. That is action-less action. When there is no conflict, there is no false ego necessary to pretend to do those actions. I do no fear of death Manitou for there is nothing beyond it, but I certainly have a healthy fear of dying and I wish to keep it that way in order that I remember how to live life to the full and love endlessly.