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Hehe, even folks on the dream plane are a little tired of hearing about JC and MP . Dream teachers are awesome! You can get some pretty neat info from them. You can also always call this teacher back to ask more questions, likely after you have tried and worked with what he did show you.

Other; It isn't that I 'don't know', but at the same time I do it because it is who I am. I started young with dream and shamanic work (not that I called it that or understood it as that at the time). Then I spent years ignoring it all. But somethings just don't leave you alone. It doesn't matter how many different directions you go in, its like a maze that keeps leading you to the same place despite the routes taken. My first esoteric teacher looked at me when we first met, and smiled, when I enquired they told me what they saw of a past life/lives of mine. So on the one hand I don't feel I have a choice. It is, er inevitable Best,

A couple nights ago, I had a dream I was travelling through the far east (might have been Indonesia), looking for a specific artifact/statue in the shops. I entered a small bookstore owned by a crooked, wrinkly old man who was dressed pretty modern, in a hand tailored navy suit. He looked really old, easily over 100), but his presence felt young and familiar. I was asking for some help with the item I was searching for, which he couldn't help with. Somehow the conversation led to me asking whether he meditates. He said with a gentle accent as he pointed out the window "I meditate everyday at night with the moon shining fully in the garden here", He went on to say that he brings in the Qi with his breath(which I could actually see as a white light while he was explaining) entering at the lowest point on the sternum (between the heart and solar plexus chakra I think?), dripping down a thin cord - the same bright white colour - to the LDT, which looked like a bowl with a semipermeable skin on top, where the energy settles. I then told him about JC, the limited info I had on the first few levels, and how it's SUPER secretive. His eyes opened wide, waved his hand and laughed "very complicated! very complicated! too much! too much!", like you would to a child trying to explain something they didn't properly understand themselves. Does the method above ring a bell with anyone? It's most likely a meaningless dream, but I thought I'd share it anyway since it's rare for me to remember any details from my dreams. I kinda miss the old dude

You use relics to make Amitra. THE PROTECTORS By His Eminence Shenpen Dawa Rinpoche The first protector I will speak about is Shenpa. Shenpa is very important for His Holiness’ swift rebirth, because he is the main protector of the Nyingma lineage. Shenpa is the main guardian for all of our practices: Troma, Phurba, etc. He is one of the divine protectors that Guru Rinpoche entrusted the terma teachings with, and basically he controls most of the terma teachings. An interesting thing about Shenpa is that my father met him several times. I’ll tell you about one incident. Normally, Shenpa was in very close contact with my father all the time, and really served him. It was very difficult for us to even see Shenpa’s face, because he was very wrathful, and he doesn’t show his face as easily as other dharmapalas do. Shenpa is very conservative. Also, it isn’t easy to call on Shenpa to do things, but he could manifest to Rinpoche in person. Shenpa was the one who brought my mother and father together. Shenpa had gone to my mother’s father in person. My maternal grandfather was a military commander named Shig Go Tey. He was governor of the province called Shig Go Tey, which is very large. My grandfather was also the 13th Dalai Lama’s personal cabinet advisor. He was an aristocrat, but at the same time he was also a minor terton, connected with Guru Rinpoche’s teachings. He would always carry a phurba in his chuba. At one time my grandfather was looking for a particular text in the area of Lhasa when Shenpa appeared to him in person. He told him that the text could be found with Dudjom Rinpoche, who was in Lhasa at the time. My maternal grandfather had never heard of Dudjom Rinpoche. Shenpa told him where Dudjom Rinpoche was staying and said, “Send your daughter to request the text.” Before he left, he told him, “I have a present for you.” He gave him a bow and arrow, then walked away from the room and disappeared. My grandfather was so caught up with talking to Shenpa that he forgot that he was in his inner chamber, which was inaccessible to anyone. The chambers are constructed in such a way that the inner chamber is private, and there is an outer chamber where servants guard the inner chamber so that no one enters. Immediately after Shenpa left he realized that there was no way for this person to enter, and he thought, “How did this person get into my inner chamber?” He rushed out to where his servants were guarding him and asked them where was the man who had just given him the bow and arrow. The servants said there was no such person, that they had been there the whole time and hadn’t let anyone in. That night my grandfather had a very positive indication that he would meet Dudjom Rinpoche and receive teachings from him. That same night, Shenpa went to Dudjom Rinpoche and told him, “I am going to get the consort for you, so tomorrow morning, let whoever comes in to see you. Set up an auspicious offering on the table, and tomorrow a person will come who will be your future wife.” Most of Dudjom Rinpoche’s servants at that time were monks, so the next day Rinpoche told them, “If anyone comes today, no matter who they are, I want to see them. A woman will come to see me so don’t stop her from seeing me.” Later that day Rinpoche met my mother. After that, Dudjom Rinpoche went to my mother’s house and asked my grandfather for her. It was at that time that my grandfather showed Rinpoche the gift that Shenpa had given him, because he felt that the person who had given it to him was a protector. Rinpoche recognized that the bow and arrow was the same bow and arrow that he had placed in his monastery for the protectors. Shenpa had taken the bow and arrow all the way to Lhasa to give to my grandfather. My grandfather then became Rinpoche’s disciple. Shenpa is a wisdom being with very high realization. My name, “Shenpen,” means “benefactor of others,” but “Shenpa” means “the hunter” –he hunts for human life. The reason we pray to Shenpa is because he was in such close contact with Rinpoche. Shenpa gives tremendous blessing and protection to students who are in retreat, and for all practitioners of the Tersar lineage. Shenpa vowed that he would continue to benefit people until the next Buddha comes so that the Tersar lineage, its protectors and blessings wouldn’t be lost. So this is a direct prediction and prophecy of Shenpa. Shenpa came to my father many times like this to help him. Once, when Rinpoche was traveling from one part of Tibet to another –a dangerous thing to do since there are bandits everywhere — he wasn’t able to get where he wanted to by nightfall. My father, mother, and three or four servants, that’s all the people who were in the group, got stuck on a hill. Suddenly they looked up on the hill and saw 30 or 40 bandits. My mother was very worried. There were no other travelers in sight, and she thought they would all be robbed and killed by those bandits. Bandits do that kind of thing. They were completely desperate. The bandits were howling and making all kinds of noises and coming down the mountain when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, another band of 30 to 40 riders appeared and started riding up from the ravine below, carrying guns and bows and arrows. The bandits coming down from above were frightened and retreated because they were outnumbered. The group of riders from below then came up to Rinpoche, and the leader got off his horse asking him, “Oh ho, where are you traveling?” Rinpoche answered, “I am traveling to Lhasa. Where are you going?” He replied, “The next village.” Rinpoche thanked him for coming at just the right moment. The leader asked him, “Who are you?” Rinpoche replied, “Oh, I’m a padma guru, I’ve been recognized as Pedma Guru. My name is Dudjom Rinpoche.” Then the leader said, “I’ve heard a lot about you. Aren’t you the terton Gillay Terton’s reincarnation?” Rinpoche said, “Yes, I have been recognized as such.” So immediately the leader made prostrations to Rinpoche. Rinpoche asked him, “Do I know you?” The leader replied, “Yes, you know me, but it isn’t important for you to remember me at this moment, but I know you.” That person was Shenpa. Later that night, at 3:00 a.m. in the morning, Rinpoche had a dream. Shenpa appeared to him and said, ” I came to serve you. Forgive me if I fooled you. That was not my intention. You were traveling in a dangerous place, so I came to serve you. You have commanded me many times to come in times of need.” The next morning, when Rinpoche got up, he made a very elaborate offering to the dharmapalas to thank them for making the bandits go away. Now he was able to complete his journey safely. The chieftain, or Shenpa, had looked familiar to Rinpoche. He felt he had seen him before, but he couldn’t figure out where. He was completely disguised as a bandit, but when Rinpoche looked at his feet, he saw he was barefoot. People don’t ride barefoot, so it occurred to Rinpoche later on that that was a subtle sign of the protector. Shenpa serves Rinpoche’s disciples too. One time there was a disciple who went into retreat in Kongbo during the winter, and this disciple was completely cut off by snow and dying of starvation. Right in front of his retreat house someone dragged the body of a dead deer. The disciple was meditating inside when a voice said to him, “I’ve brought you food down there. Eat it.” When he went outside and looked, he saw the dead deer and brought it inside, and he was able to do another three months of retreat. Later on, Shenpa told Rinpoche, “One of your students was dying, so I took him deer meat.” The activity of the dharmapalas is incredible. Dharmapalas are wisdom beings that can help you attain realization. Needless to say, there are other protectors, like Trod Gyel Harmo, Tseringma, and other protectors and protectresses that protect the lineage, but Shenpa is the main protector of the Dudjom Tersar lineage. When Dudjom Lingpa discovered a certain terma, Shenpa was there to help him, taking the terma from the rock. Shenpa is committed to the Dudjom lineage and to whoever practices in the lineage. If a practitioner calls on him, he will be there to answer. This doesn’t mean he will answer all the small detailed things, but if there is crucial need, he will be there. So Shenpa practice is important. Then, along with this practice, you can add one more practice. It starts with: Kung Jo! Kung Tu Zang Mo Ying Gee Yum. This is the prayer for Mamo Ekadzati, Dorje Legpa and Ralchigma. Sometimes, if you do the Dam Cheen Chi Tor, then you can just recite the Ma Za Dor Sum. That would be great. If you make the dharmapala offerings, and do dharmapala practice like Ma Za Dor Sum or Shenpa practice, it is important to keep count of your repetitions. You can’t just say it two or three times and just leave it. Unfortunately, we have never done an intensive dharmapala practice together. When I practice, if I have time, sometimes I will recite one mala, but not less than 21 times. It’s very important to invoke them. What dharmapalas really are is our confidence. They support our confidence to be able to reach out and help others. In fact, if we lack confidence, dharmapalas have a way of subtly communicating with us to bring our confidence back. Confidence is the right way of respecting the teachings, the right way of benefiting people. That is the confidence it will bring up in us. In fact, dharmapala is the subtle communication of the Buddha in the sambhogakaya realm in which we have developed the fine perception of seeing them, so if you see the form of the dharmapala, you have also seen the form of the Buddha in the dharmakaya realm. Dharmapalas are the subtle communications between these two levels. Dharmapalas will manifest in an ordinary way because our understanding is ordinary, but when we purify our perception, they manifest in an extraordinary way. It depends on our perception. Dharmapalas are the real communication of a subtle body, and through them we can experience our subtle body in a way that we have never experienced before. Through the dharmapala, we can experience the subtle body immediately in our everyday situations. So these two practices, Shenpa and Ma Za Dor Sum, are important. The third dharmapala is optional, and it is that of my protectress, Kong Jhyo. When I was young she saved me many times from death. I was very naughty when I was young, and I gave my parents a lot of problems. My protectress, Kongsen Denma, came to me several times and saved me. I’ve seen her several times from childhood to adulthood, and whenever I have a problem, she always comes up. Rinpoche, my father, would always say: “Don’t forget to appease her, and don’t forget to always make offerings to her.” But in spite of that, I’ve always been more involved with protectors like Shenpa. Somehow, I never include her in my practice. It’s just recently that things have been pointing out that she is the real one I should be concerned with, so I have been taking more interest in doing her practice. She is my birth goddess. I was born in Kongbo, and she became my protectress. So this practice is optional. If you do do that practice, she will create more favorable circumstances for me to be able to come and help you all more fully. Also, she will create a situation where you will find time to practice as well. You have this practice, it starts with Kay Sha Shu Pa Ja Jung Pa Zon Zhu Sho Shu Kay Su Yidam ___ Tum Mo Che. I will give you all the oral transmissions straight away, so you’ll have that. Normally, when you are doing a tsog puja or a dharmapala practice as a group, it is good to do this practice of Kongsen Denma. It’s not something you have to do every day. It is good to do it collectively as a group. As I said, in my own experience, she has really come and helped me many times. Normally, as far as your daily practice goes, if you have a dharmapala initiation it is good to do the practice. Why? Because it opens your confidence. Also, your confidence is opened when you are able to relate to the sambhogakaya wisdom body of these deities. These dharmapalas are the protectors of the dharmakaya buddhas that are in the active field – not in the depth of meditation. Protectors are willing to show their divine form to you, and will show it to you in a way that you can relate to, but they remain behind because we are not subtle enough, and we don’t realize it, and we don’t evoke them enough. But somehow, when the time of need arises, these protectors and protectresses will come and help. In the Nyingma lineage, and in the whole buddhadharma, one of the most complex things to explain is the dharmapalas. The reason for this is because we must be spoken to on our individual levels of realization; otherwise, it becomes a gross fabrication of a very, very subtle complex. The explanation can also be very difficult and terrifying, because the dharmapalas arise from the vapors of our blood. There are so many levels of protectors: there are local palas, dharmapalas, wisdom protectors, there is a whole heirarchy of protectors. It is like a comprehensive government of dharmapalas. If you understand the dharmapala practice, you understand the working mind of the Buddhas. The dharmapalas are the main working force of all the Buddhas, because they communicate the process of our mind. If there is an enemy, what is the enemy? How should we view the enemy? If there is something harming us, how do we defeat it? It is important to do the dharmapala practice at the beginning and end of each empowerment or wang, and if you are doing a retreat, you must also begin and end with a dharmapala practice. There is no time that you can ever exclude these wisdom beings. The dharmapala initiation is called “Tsogmay Tsogthig” which means “empowerment giving you the life force of the protectors.” Once you have received the initiation, you must do the practice every day or they will harm you. It’s a commitment, a very serious contract. This empowerment will explain exactly what the protectors are, and how they dwell in our system and energize you. A general dharmapala practice you can do as a group, even if you haven’t had the initiation, is the Tsomig Tsogthig. It’s a special transmission which I don’t think is being given, unless you are a tulku or really committed to spending the rest of your life in practice. It is a very difficult and risky transmission to give, and it has a very heavy samaya. So those are the three dharmapala practices I recommend: Shenpa, the three deities, and Kongsen Denma. After that, if there are other protectors you wish to include, then include them, but these three are the root protectors in your practice. The “Dam Chen Chi Tor” practice contains the entire magnitude of the protectors, and is a complete protector prayer for all lineages. The Dam Chen Chi Tor is so complete that once you have finished it, you have fulfilled the samaya to all the lineages. All protectors for all practices come from there. Once you have done this, you can go to the other protector prayers to pay special respect to individual protectors. Whenever you pour a liquid as an offering to a protector, you must wear a scarf over your mouth so you don’t breathe into the protectors. The thing about the dharmapalas is that they are very disciplined wisdom Buddhas. They won’t accept any of your faults at all. They will discipline you. If, for example, you breathe into what you are pouring, they will slap you back, and in the same way, if your practice is done correctly and well, you will have a positive reaction back, straight away. It is good to offer red wine to the dharmapalas, but the best offering is whiskey. Whiskey is expensive, but when you make an offering to the dharmapalas, and to the wisdom Buddhas, you don’t want to be cheap, you should want to offer something good. If you cannot afford whiskey, drop down to wine, and if you cannot afford wine, then offer tea. If you cannot afford tea, what can I say? Along with the liquid that you offer in the dharmapala cup, you should also offer beef heart. The dharmapala offering is a symbol of activating the heart core. The chanting and beating of the drum that we do in the dharmapala practice vibrates the Buddha’s heart. From that heart vibration, our heart vibrates. So they vibrate together, which produces the energy that produces the different phenomena. Within the beef heart, all essences are together. If you can’ t afford heart , offer a small piece of meat. If you can’t afford heart or meat, then offer a biscuit, or a little rice. Basically, the offering should be whiskey, heart, the five kinds of meat, and at last one grain of rice. If you are doing a long practice, cut many pieces of meat, and continue to add heart and whiskey as if to say, “Please have, please have.” Now it is not just whiskey and meat, but it is nectar we are offering. This offering is a symbol of our heart being opened to the dharmapala and saying, “Have this.” If you have an enemy, the offering symbolizes their heart, as if you were saying, “Please subjugate my enemy.” When you say “subjugate” you don’t mean kill. Subjugate means you want them to see the wisdom of not harming you. It is a means to bring wisdom to that person. Many times, if someone seeks to harm you, and you are doing dharmapala ractice, that person will suddenly change their mind and decide not to hurt you. Why? Because the dharmapala changes their mind about the benefits of harming you. Normally, when we make our offering, the power of the five meats and the five nectars increases the offering in an infinite way, like space, but since we don’t have the meditative power to increase it the way it should be increased, if we add a little dudtsi or amrita inside the bottle of whiskey, because the dudtsi has been blessed by the power of meditation, the whiskey will have the strength of meditation. The amrita has the power to make your dharmapala practice successful. You must have either the power of the practice of relying on your yidam, your meditation, or the substance. The dudtsi contains all three powers, and alone can fulfill all three requirements. It is really powerful. I do that, by the way. You can feel the difference when you add dudtsi to the whiskey. The vibration in the room changes straight away. The protectors come. In the Nyingma lineage, the key to making dudtsi is knowing how to prepare the nectars. Dudtsi contains five gems, five meats, five nectars, and the relics of all the Buddhas and tertons. It also contains the combination of all the earth that Rinpoche has collected from different areas. When we make dudtsi, we combine relic upon relic, and concentrate it with the 21-day practice of day and night. The practice goes on for 21 days and nights, without interruption. It is an awesome, overwhelming process. The mantra must continue 24 hours a day. Herbs are mixed with the dudtsi, and all of these ingredients, these king medicines, are mixed together. Then the mixture is sealed all around. Bell and dorje are placed in different quarters to symbolize the blessing. The medicine that is prepared must be kept in a mandala, so a whole mandala must be prepared. It must be constantly attended to, with offering lamps and light. And with the practice of Dorje Sempa, Vajrsattva, Phurba, or Avalokitesvara, the lama empowers the medicine with his mind, again and again. It is an extremely complex process to prepare dudtsi. Throughout the practice tsog is offered. When His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche prepared it, in the end, as a symbolic thing, people would see rainbows coming out of the dudtsi. Rainbows would cross each other in the air in the room where he worked, and other things like that. Even with an ordinary lama, due to the strength of the blessings, the skull cup will boil over and radiate light on the ceiling. There are always miraculous signs when dudtsi is being prepared. Always. If you are sick, or have samaya contamination or anything like that, if you eat a little dudtsi it will purify your channels. Dudtsi is really to purify channels. If you add a little to the whiskey, it will make up for whatever you lack in reliance on yidam, meditation, or the power of the substance. When you practice alone, place the protector offering on your table, not the altar, so you can keep feeding it . Make the offering very carefully, and place a bumpa or water bowl here with a little saffron in it, and keep purifying the protector offering with the water as well. Also, you can turn the incense around the offering. You must be very diligent, very conscientious of what you are doing. It is very bad if any dirt gets into the offering. The offering receptacle must be washed thoroughly, and make sure your hands are washed too. If you sit down and touch the floor after washing your hands, you might think your hands are washed, but they aren’t. Be careful. The best way of disposing of a protector offering is in the river or ocean. It is also good to keep it in a high place where birds can eat it, like on a post, or in a tree, or put it on clean ground, blocked by a fence or stone, away from where you walk. If you are in retreat, you can collect it in a plastic garbage bag. Don’t give the remains to domesticated dogs, cats, or other animals that comprise your extended family. If they are other people’s animals, and strays, it’s not great but it is okay. It is okay for wild animals to consume the offerings. It is good to make the offering every day, especially toward the evening. Q. I don’t believe in the dharmapalas. Everything else about dharma makes sense, but dharmapalas don’t make sense to me. A. Everybody has a problem with the dharmapalas. They ask, “Who are they? I don’t believe in them.” And, my dear, I must say two things to you: First, just because you don’t visually see or understand something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Remember this one. Second, what you don’t see is your limitation, not an expansion of your awareness. The reason it is so hard to relate to the teaching of the dharmapalas is because this teaching is so very, very sophisticated. When you go through all the elaboration of the practice, through all the blood, guts, pus and everything spilling out, and you look at the various vapors that rise up, then you begin to understand. Understanding the dharmapala is really understanding how your blood and your heart beat relate to your practice. We say your heart is the drum of the dharmapala. The pumping of the blood is the offering to the protectors, and the beating of the heart is their drum. You must be brought up in the context of being with them, or having seen them or the local protectors. If you can’t see the local protectors, how can you hope to see the dharmapalas? If you can’t see your ancestors who have died on this land, how can you hope to see a local protector, let alone a dharmapala? The level of energy is very high, very subtle. Once your energy is very subtle, then you want to name the subtleness of the protectors. This is what you want to come to. For example, once, in His Holiness’ temple, a man named Pedma Longdu used to beat the dharmapala drum every evening and make offerings. He had made a commitment to His Holiness to perform this offering ritual, and it was his routine. One night he got drunk and didn’t make the offering. He went to sleep. In the middle of the night my mother woke up, maybe around 2:00 a.m., when the dharmapala drum began beating on its own. She woke up my father and asked him, “Did you ask for a special extension of the practice? What is going on?” Rinpoche just got up and smiled, and said, “It doesn’t matter. No, it doesn’t matter.” The drum beat the whole night, and all the people surrounding the temple could not sleep. The dharmapala had become very violent, hitting the drum, because the offering had not been put there. The next morning Rinpoche called Pema Longdu, who is now the head lama of the Buddha Monastery in Kaleekoh, and asked him, “Why didn’t you do the dharmapala practice last night?” The lama became arrogant and said, “If I miss one day’s practice, are they going to get so hungry?” The next day Pema Longdu was hit by a fever, becoming violently ill and almost losing his life. This was because he talked about the protectors as if they were hungry for an offering, and were so attached to that offering that they couldn’t go even one day without it. Right after he said that his blood started warming up. He couldn’t sleep all night, and his heart kept on beating, beating, beating. The next morning, he started vomiting blood. So Rinpoche told him to go straight away into the temple and make prostrations to the protectors, or they would take his life. The protectors can take your life force. It really is in their hands. Why? The life force we are talking about in the Chi Med Tsog Thig is the protector. There is nothing other than that. It wasn’t that the dharmapalas missed the offering. They just showed him that he had lost his discipline in the training of his mind. That is why the dharmapala showed its hand. It can be a very costly affair. Let me tell you another story about the dharmapalas. The reason my father, Dudjom Rinpoche, was never angry towards any particular person is because once he had a bad experience, and he vowed never to get angry again. I’ll explain what happened, but we should not talk about it to anyone. When Rinpoche was young, he had some financial difficulties, as all of us do have at one time or another. Rinpoche was sponsoring many things, and his finances weren’t so good. So he borrowed quite a large sum from these three brothers, because Rinpoche was always borrowing money. He was going to pay it back, but in Tibet it is horrible to borrow money because the interest is so high. You cannot believe it. After one or two years, if you can’t repay a loan, your interest is four or five times the amount you borrowed. Rinpoche couldn’t pay the loan back the first year. He had started building a monastery and just couldn’t pay it. So in the second or third year one of the brothers became very angry. Rinpoche said, “Please wait. I think my situation will soon be a little bit better.” Rinpoche was already making payments, but he had borrowed quite a large amount of money. One day Rinpoche was teaching, and in those days lamas would teach very casually, sitting in front of the house in the garden letting people come and go as they wanted, when all of a sudden this brother turns up and says, “Give me the money right now.” Rinpoche said, “I don’t have it.” So the brother said, “Then what you need is a whack,” and he grabbed Rinpoche by the throat and dragged him out. Now all of his disciples were warriors, because as you know Tibetans are fighters, so his disciples were dragging their swords out, and Rinpoche was screaming, “Don’t touch him, don’t touch him.” Everyone there had a knife and gun and were prepared to kill this brother straight away, but Rinpoche stopped them. So the angry brother kicked him two or three times, and Rinpcohe felt really bad, but he said, “He’s right. It is his money that I haven’t been able to give him. It is true.” Early one morning, before the dawn light, Rinpoche was doing his practice around 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. In the middle of his practice, someone came in and put something on the table in front of him, and made a big noise in the dark. So Rinpoche goes looking for a torch — batteries were brought from Lhasa, and from there they came from China, so who could afford them? — finds it, and lighting it he finds a fresh head cut off, with the brains intact. He immediately realizes that it is the head of the brother who grabbed him by the neck. The protector could not bear to see him humiliated, so he lopped that person’s head off and brought it to Rinpoche. From that time on Rinpoche swore never to feel any emotion, or show any emotion. He had been thinking, “Why did that man treat me so badly?” He deserved it, but not in this way. Two days later, another brother went completely crazy and stabbed himself. Soon afterward, the third brother was riding his horse and fell. Once a protector gets angry, he won’t stop until he cuts the entire family line. You might ask, “What logic is there in hurting family members?”, but I’m trying to tell you it goes beyond logic. So immediately, Rinpoche had to stop this, because it was spreading to the other family members. So he told the parents and relatives to come to the monastery and do prostrations in the temple and ask for forgiveness. Rinpoche accepted their petitions for forgiveness, then it was cut. It didn’t get the father and mother, but next it would have been the uncles. The wisdom mind of the dharmapalas is such that when people are cut, they are also liberated. Don’t forget this. It is not that they are suffering. The dharmapalas have the right to take the life force away. The life force we are talking about is a vitality which is in the grasp of the dharmapalas. The truth is contained in this awareness. It is very difficult to understand at this moment, but the more you do dharmapala practice, the more you will be able to see many things you did not see before. Rinpoche felt very bad that he showed a little emotion, because he felt that it was that emotion which transformed into the activity of the dharmapalas. It doesn’t make sense to say the dharmapalas felt anger, because they are the wisdom deities, and are beyond anger. But when you violate a holy body, the dharmapala is sworn to protect that, so they will come into action. Regarding the lamas who are being killed in Tibet, as I said, the dharmapalas are sworn to protect the body of divine truth –not outside, but inside. Physically speaking, these lamas still have to go through the same experiences of birth, old age, sickness and death, just like anyone else. They have chosen to go through these challenges, which is why they are called bodhisattva. Bodhisattva means accepting the challenge to come back into samsara and go through the same poisons and training, again and again. But innerly they will perceive their sickness differently. They will stay in the dharmakaya perception, and when they die, they will dissolve into light. It is only because our perception is impure that we see them suffering in an outer way. That is the difference. Now that you have been given the explanation of the dharmapalas, if you don’t have respect for that explanation, then you are in serious trouble. Then you won’t practice as you should. If you haven’t had enough explanation, and you do the practice a little wrong, that is a little okay, but once you’ve had the explanation, and you do it any other way, then you break your commitment. What is more, there is the difficult matter of all the levels of the protectors, arising from intangibility, from that which is unseen. It is very complex. I’ve seen thousands of examples of what the protectors can do. When you do their practices, you will find your confidence. As you move toward realization, the thing you will lack is the protectors. That is when the protectors arise. What we have not understood so far is the strength of the blood, the strength of the heart, and the strength of the flesh. This means we haven’t really understood the dharmapalas at all. If you practice consistently, then the dharmapalas have to reveal themselves to you. Their qualities will reveal in the depth of you — in the breath, in the blood vapor, in the nerve vapor — and you will be able to see them for the first time. Then you will begin to understand what is called “the unhindered action of the Buddhas.” Right now, the closest you will come to seeing the perfect enlightened mind of the Buddhas is from the point of view of the protectors. It is very complex. You need to do a one month retreat of the dharmapala before you can realize, through the beat of the drum, just whose heart it is that is beating. The drum beat is not your heartbeat, it is the heartbeat of the dharmapalas. And when you begin to understand that, fear begins to rise, because without beating the drum, the drum is still beating. Then more fear will arise. That is how you go about looking for the protectors. If you see the protectors, you might just faint. Sometimes, the life force will just run away. When you pray for protection, you probably think you are praying to be protected from something, but though it is isn’t written, what you are really praying for is the protection of the dharmapalas. The dharmapala is the manifestation of the wisdom activity of the Buddhas. Suppose you are doing practice and someone wants to kill you, but you are saved. Who saved you? It was the dharmapalas. The bridge between the intellect and the wisdom mind is the dharmapalas. The dharmapalas are implicit in all dharma practices. Only through the dharmapalas do you explicitly bring up the full range and magnitude of the activity of the Buddhas. You practice with wishful thought, but when you do dharmapala practice, that wishful thought translates into action. Every time something happens to you that brings a change or realization in your life, or gives you strength to live again, that is the activity of the dharmapalas. It is not just happening by accident; it is the movement of the dharmapala. The heartbeat is the heartbeat of the dharmapala. For example, sometimes they manifest as a person, blocking you from going a certain way, and later on you see that someone going that way was hit by a car, or they go into another person’s mind and block you so you will be safe, or physically manifest so that you are saved. These are all common activities of the dharmapala. They push you from this to that until you make the auspicious connection. It just depends on how you understand it. Non-physical things which happen to you, which are good for you, are also the dharmapala. If you think the person or situation that was good for you, and continue to practice, someday the dharmapala will come and say, “Yes, I did that for you. I gave you that situation a long time ago.” That is the way it is. The dharmapalas can be violent, but they can be peaceful too. They can be a butterfly, they can be warmth, they can be anything. They don’t have to be just one particular form. The activity aspect is dharmapala. To tell the truth, even for myself:, the complexity of the dharmapalas is such that sometimes I say to myself, “What am I doing?” When you practice, you will understand, but when you don’t, then it is difficult. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve seen them or not, if you continue to do your protector practices, different situations will arise from that. Somehow, what I always see is the wrathful. When I was small I couldn’t sleep. When I grew up I was constantly seeing the movement of the dharmapala. I remember my father saying, “Ah, these are things practitioners wish to see but can’t. These are your protectors.” At that time I couldn’t understand what these protectors were, though in my depth I could. They had three eyes, six eyes, and I couldn’t relate to them. And the words they spoke weren’t words a small kid could understand like, “I love you.” Instead they would say, “Give me your heart. I want to eat you,” or something like that. Those were their exact words, and I was only five or six years old. I couldn’t sleep. I would see their translucent bodies, and they would come and grab me. In the daytime, I couldn’t play either. My eldest sister would never play with me because I would see these things, and when I would point them out to her, she would see the same things. And my servants, the young men who were looking after me, none of them would take responsibility for me at night. That is how bad it was. In the daytime, I would be playing a game like hide and seek, and sometimes I would be running and all of a sudden I would fall into a gigantic lap. When I would look up I would see this horrible face, and then I’d faint. Most of my childhood was spent in either a fainting or unconscious state. I’ve always been like that. I had a difficult life as a kid. My mother and father would sleep together and put me in the middle between them, and as soon as they fell asleep, someone would shake me. I’m not joking. The protector would shake me so I would wake up, and then I would see on the ceiling this deity with three heads, tongue rolled up, guts hanging out, one hand holding a knife, saying, “Come, come, I want to just cut your neck.” It helped that Rinpoche told me it was good that I had these protectors, and that they were the wisdom deities. As a child I could relate to something nice, but seeing something like that just scared the hell out of me. I couldn’t understand why they would do that, why they would frighten me. And later in my life, I didn’t understand why they didn’t have the wisdom to know I was just a child. Rinpoche would be doing a tsog, and I would look inside the tsog offering and see a whole host of non-existent people. Sometimes they would bring dead people to Rinpoche for his blessing. I would see that person walk in, sit down and observe. I saw many things that terrified me. My mother would fight with my father, saying, “If this continues a long time, you will have no son left.” It was true. Anything that moved, I was frightened. She wanted him to seal off my mind so I wouldn’t see these visions. Rinpoche had a way of sealing this vision off, totally. My father said no, we must leave it as it is, that it was really beneficial for me. I couldn’t understand how it was beneficial. But later, after a big fight with my mother, he sealed it. Rinpoche called me in to him and said, “It is very unfortunate what I am going to do, but I am going to seal your vision completely.” I was maybe seven or eight years old. There was an altar set up with some nectar on it. He told me to put it on my eyes. So I put it on my eyes and forehead, and he said, “From today on, I’ve sealed this one.” Truly speaking, after that I never saw them again. I could feel them move for another year, but the vision aspect was gone. Now I think it was a great mistake. My mother should have listened to Rinpoche, because he was talking from his wisdom mind. I’m sure I wouldn’t have died, but I was so happy when my mother requested that. Believe me, my servants couldn’t bear to be with me. At night they wouldn’t go out with me, because just like with my sister, if I pointed the dharmapalas out, they would see them too. I would be sitting in a room, and the door curtains would start moving, and something would catch my eye and I would see this gigantic finger saying, “Come, come. ” I wouldn’t want to look at it, so I’d tell my sister, “there, there,” and she would see the same gigantic finger saying, “Come, come,” and then she’d start screaming. It is no wonder I had no one to play with. If it had been a dream, I would have understood it as a dream, but it wasn’t a dream. I really saw it. I couldn’t hide in any corner. The only time I felt secure that nothing was going to come was when I would sit right next to my father or mother when they were doing things. Even then, when I looked around, I would see things, but they wouldn’t frighten me because my mother or father was there. Rinpoche told me that later on my vision would reopen on its own, but I think it was good for my health that he sealed it off; otherwise, I don’t know what would have happened to me. It was a terrible part of my life. So when you ask about the dharmapala, I’ve had the same kinds of questions, like why would they scare the hell out of me? If they had just showed themselves to me once, I would have said, ” I’ve had an experience,” but showing me again and again, daytime, evening, nighttime, whenever I played they were running after me, attacking me. And their words were not sweet or gentle, they were always, “I want to chop you,” or “I want to eat your heart.” The only gentle thing I’ve seen is Kongsen Denma, and she’s important to me. She always appears in the most beautiful form. One day I was playing outside in the field and suddenly this beautiful lady came and said, “I’ll take you to the main garden in Lhasa.” I said, “Yes, I want to go.” So I just held her hand and went. I saw everything in the lingka. I’d never been to the lingka before. I was lost for seven hours. My mother was worried , and she went to my father and he said, “No, no. There is nothing wrong with him. He’ll come back home. It looks alright.” During the seven hours I was lost, my memory was that I went to this lingka and had a nice time. I watched all the fish in the water. Then, all of a sudden, I was back in front of the gate, and a servant came and grabbed me and dragged me in, because all the servants were out looking for me. I didn’t know what had happened. I didn’t realize I had been gone for seven hours. It had seemed just a few minutes to me. The beautiful lady had said, “Go back. I’ll come and visit you again.” My mother asked me what happened, and where had I been, and who took me, so I told her. The lingka is a 1/2- day’s horse ride from my house. Rinpoche knew nothing was wrong. He could see everything was intact, that I hadn’t been taken by a demon or a spirit. Rinpoche said most probably it must have been one of his protectors. So she was the only elegant lady with all the ornaments saying, “come” with gentle words. The rest I’ve seen were all (he makes a grimace). That’s what I mean when I say dharmapalas.

Dogs are messengers of God. There are 40 references in The Bible or citations in Scripture to dogs. God's word is not accidental or happenstance. The writers God chose to communicate His message were inspired divinely to write what they wrote, as they wrote it. It is no accident there are 40 references in The Bible to dogs. Dogs are messengers of God in that "dog" specifically and purposefully was selected through divine inspiration to communicate the full measure of God through the context of the 40 Scriptural references or citations in The Bible. Whether Hebrew (kelev), Greek (kuōn), or Aramaic (kalbā), whether literal, metaphorical, or allegorical in syntax, in the context of communicating God's word, dogs are messengers of God. From Biblegateway, below are the 40 citations of dogs in The Bible. For the verse in textual context and the whole chapter of the respective book of The Bible, go to Biblegateway, enter "dog" in Keyword Search, and follow the links to the specific verse, the verse in textual context, and the verse in terms of the whole, respective book of The Bible. 1. Exodus 11:7 But among the Israelites not a dog will bark at any man or animal.' Then you will know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel. 2. Exodus 22:31 "You are to be my holy people. So do not eat the meat of an animal torn by wild beasts; throw it to the dogs. 3. Judges 7:5 So Gideon took the men down to the water. There the LORD told him, "Separate those who lap the water with their tongues like a dog from those who kneel down to drink." 4. 1 Samuel 17:43 He said to David, "Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?" And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 5. 1 Samuel 24:14 "Against whom has the king of Israel come out? Whom are you pursuing? A dead dog? A flea? 6. 2 Samuel 3:8 Abner was very angry because of what Ish-Bosheth said and he answered, "Am I a dog's head-on Judah's side? This very day I am loyal to the house of your father Saul and to his family and friends. I haven't handed you over to David. Yet now you accuse me of an offense involving this woman! 7. 2 Samuel 9:8 Mephibosheth bowed down and said, "What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?" 8. 2 Samuel 16:9 Then Abishai son of Zeruiah said to the king, "Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and cut off his head." 9. 1 Kings 14:11 Dogs will eat those belonging to Jeroboam who die in the city, and the birds of the air will feed on those who die in the country. The LORD has spoken!' 10. 1 Kings 16:4 Dogs will eat those belonging to Baasha who die in the city, and the birds of the air will feed on those who die in the country." 11. 1 Kings 21:19 Say to him, 'This is what the LORD says: Have you not murdered a man and seized his property?' Then say to him, 'This is what the LORD says: In the place where dogs licked up Naboth's blood, dogs will lick up your blood-yes, yours!' " 12. 1 Kings 21:23 "And also concerning Jezebel the LORD says: 'Dogs will devour Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.' 13. 1 Kings 21:24 "Dogs will eat those belonging to Ahab who die in the city, and the birds of the air will feed on those who die in the country." 14. 1 Kings 22:38 They washed the chariot at a pool in Samaria (where the prostitutes bathed), and the dogs licked up his blood, as the word of the LORD had declared. 15. 2 Kings 8:13 Hazael said, "How could your servant, a mere dog, accomplish such a feat?" "The LORD has shown me that you will become king of Aram," answered Elisha. 16. 2 Kings 9:10 As for Jezebel, dogs will devour her on the plot of ground at Jezreel, and no one will bury her.' " Then he opened the door and ran. 17. 2 Kings 9:36 They went back and told Jehu, who said, "This is the word of the LORD that he spoke through his servant Elijah the Tishbite: On the plot of ground at Jezreel dogs will devour Jezebel's flesh. 18. Job 18:11 Terrors startle him on every side and dog his every step. 19. Job 30:1 "But now they mock me, men younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to put with my sheep dogs. 20. Psalm 22:16 Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. 21. Psalm 22:20 Deliver my life from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs. 22. Psalm 59:6 They return at evening, snarling like dogs, and prowl about the city. 23. Psalm 59:14 They return at evening, snarling like dogs, and prowl about the city. 24. Psalm 68:23 that you may plunge your feet in the blood of your foes, while the tongues of your dogs have their share." 25. Proverbs 26:11 As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly. 26. Proverbs 26:17 Like one who seizes a dog by the ears is a passer-by who meddles in a quarrel not his own. 27. Ecclesiastes 9:4 Anyone who is among the living has hope -even a live dog is better off than a dead lion! 28. Isaiah 56:10 Israel's watchmen are blind, they all lack knowledge; they are all mute dogs, they cannot bark; they lie around and dream, they love to sleep. 29. Isaiah 56:11 They are dogs with mighty appetites; they never have enough. They are shepherds who lack understanding; they all turn to their own way, each seeks his own gain. 30. Isaiah 66:3 But whoever sacrifices a bull is like one who kills a man, and whoever offers a lamb, like one who breaks a dog's neck; whoever makes a grain offering is like one who presents pig's blood, and whoever burns memorial incense, like one who worships an idol. They have chosen their own ways, and their souls delight in their abominations; 31. Jeremiah 15:3 "I will send four kinds of destroyers against them," declares the LORD, "the sword to kill and the dogs to drag away and the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy. 32. Matthew 7:6 "Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces. 33. Matthew 15:26 He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." 34. Matthew 15:27 "Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." 35. Mark 7:27 "First let the children eat all they want," he told her, "for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." 36. Mark 7:28 "Yes, Lord," she replied, "but even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." 37. Luke 16:21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. 38. Philippians 3:2 Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. 39. 2 Peter 2:22 Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud." 40. Revelation 22:15 Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. Etymologically differentiated from the wolf (there are five references to "wolf" in The Bible), the domesticated dog is a messenger of God. http://voices.yahoo.com/dogs-bible-messengers-god-4139323.html

Most practitioners lucid dream though right? Or you probably mean all night every night sort of thing?

(source: http://indiagitasociety.org/uploads/Theory_of_Karma.pdf) Theory of Karma 1. What is Karma? Any action is Karma. An action can be physical, mental, or even verbal. Thinking is also an action. If you decide not to act it is also an action. 2. What are various types of Karma? Kriyaman karma- routine actions. Sanchit karma- accumulative actions. Prarabtha karma- ripe reaction (some call it luck ). How you decide to respond to these fruits is also an action. 3. What is good Karma? There is no such thing as “good” or “bad” in the theory of karma. Both bind you. A Good deed will have good consequences and bad deed will have painful results. 4. Why do good people seem to suffer more? Why do bad people appear luckier? The theory of karma is difficult to understand. “ Gahana karmno gati.” If you understand the theory, everything will make sense. Things happen as they should. 5. What is Nishkam Karma? Karma performed without selfishness is Nishkam karma (one without expection). Akarma is opposite of vikarma. Laziness is not Akarma. Few principles of Karma Theory 1. The karma theory has no exceptions. You cannot escape the consequences. The impact can be reduced or modified. How you respond to the “fruits” of your past action binds you to your next chain of Karma, modern science will interpret as genetic DNA decoding/genetic imprint, example: King Dasharatha and Shravana. 2. Experience of your level of pain/pleasure depends upon your Gunas- inner character. Three major gunas: Satvic (noble), Rajas (undeveloped), Tamas (evil), example: a doctor treats his patients differently. 3. The fruits of your action may bind you in your next birth. Reincarnation goes on until you break the chain or have paid for all your actions: good or bad. 4. You are free to initiate new karma but the result is not in your hand. If you are too anxious about the result, your karma will be less efficient. King manu says; Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha are the important goals of life. A: karmanye ave – adhikarastu. B: Ma faleshu kadachan. C: Ma karma fal hetu bhu. 5. Good deeds cannot wipe out bad deeds. Example: Yuthistir saying “ Narova kunjro va. “ 6. Declaration or bragging of the good work reduces its gain, and confession of the sins helps you reduce the impact. Example: King Yayati lost to Indra. Jesal was helped by Toral. 7. Inner thought or motive makes the differences. Exqmple: Shabari and Ram. Arjuna is reluctant to fight but Shri Krishna tells him to kill for good reason. 8. Goal of a wise man is to perform the work without binding himself. Yoga means to unite. Harmony between the inner self and the outer world reduces the conflicts. A balanced link between the mind, speech and action brings inner peace. Yogaha karmashu kaushalum. “ Skillful performance is yoga” 9. A yogi works but remains unattached. How does he do that? Certain Karma does not bind you. For Example: action performed as your duty. Work performed without any selfish motive. If a soldier kills during a war he is not a murderer. Karmayogi works for the sake of his duty. He does the best of what he can do without the selfish motive or anxiety of results. “Unattached “does not mean he does a second class job. He takes victory and defeat in a matured stride. 10. Gyan Yogi: Enlightened one has the spiritual wisdom in anything he does. He/she have fully realized God. All his actions are therefore part of his oneness with God. Hence the fruits or the chain of action does not bind him, e.g. crime and punishment in your dream disappear when you wake up. 11. Bhakti Yoga says if you submit all your actions to your love for God, all your actions are part of your worship. “Yat karosi yada nyasi .. Submit all your action to me, they will purify instantly.” 12. All methods of doing yoga (Karma, Gyana, Bhakti ) ultimately result in Moksha or Nirvana. This is the stage where you are free from all the debts of your actions and you are one with God. You need not to take birth again. Free from birth, death, pain, pleasure. Thus you can reach a state of divine joy forever. In summary, the theory of Karma provides a special insight in how you act and interact with your inner self and outer world. Your perceptions of the things make the difference. Karma does not mean that life has to be dull. In fact, the theory helps you work hard and solve your problem leading to more success and happiness. A Karma Yogi is like a good sportsman. He works hard at practice, plays the game with all his mind, body and heart. He tries to improve his skill in his game as he reaches a higher level. He enjoys the game but does not play just to win the game. In essence, he is a cool guy who does not get upset or unduly happy regardless of the outcome. He looks at the bigger picture and long range goal of his life. Blessings of 'Limitied but Good' Karma :wub: :wub: :wub:

With the same logic (I could sit on both sides of this debate lol) - prove you are now awake and not dreaming. Or, prove you actually exist, and are not just a random android in my dream.

Its a funny reality Harpur lists a set of strange occurances, different places, different people, he doesn't say, just they are different. When we read them they sound like a typical UFO encounter ... no it was a group of tribal people and they say it was a communication from their ancestors. Another scene ... oh that HAS to be about 60 years ago and sound like an Irish folk tale about the little people .... no its a UFO encounter ... and so on. Harpur has defined the experiences and explained them with his theory of Daimonic Reality ... note; not demonic reality! (I had to go back and correct that ??? hmmm ... spellcheck perhaps ?) He also gives an interesting take on the child services abduction cases ; people come around and say there is a report of child abuse and they are taking the children ... the parents nearly comply but don't do it, after they are gone they 'wake up' and report what happened ... they were in a near hypnotic state and nearly handed the kids over, no they didn't even ask to see ID. what did they look like? They cant remember. Then there is another case ... and another. O! there is aging out there, police and community are on alert ... then more and more reports 250 in one week ... obviously police realise its too many ... sometimes there are witnesses other times the report seems false ,,, are people imagining it now ... but by now some people have started doing it themselves; going to a house and saying I am from child protection and your child is in danger and I have to take them (some got caught, they couldn't really explain why they did it. That is an 'outbreak' of Daimonic reality. You might see a pixie, I might be with you and see it too (or not) maybe you can even catch it and put it in a cage ... will it be there in the morning ? No. will the cage be broken? No. Its all about the world of the lost soul as well (as soul was divorced from spirit in our culture long ago) A shaman deals in Daimonic Reality ... they can retrieve lost souls. Its like the dream world or the dreamtime ... its when the subjective unconscious forces break out into the objective world or the objective collective unconscious or the Anima Mundi effecting the physical world ... burns on UFO 'victims' or for the religious; stigmata. It is the otherword between the 'spiritual' world of the religionist and the physical world of the materialist that partakes of and effects both. It can be here and there at the same time and multiply and invert itself in reoccurring themes ( as quantum physics is discovering) ... and of course it is the world of myth ... where themes invert and transpose and play out the same scenarios until we MUST pay attention to soul. When it is suppressed further it mutates and can demand attention in 'monstrous' froms. yes it goes on and on ... like I do. But do check him out 'The Philosoper's Secret Fire - A history of the Imagination.' ' Daimonic Reality - A Field Guide to the Other World.' Mercurius - The Marriage of Heaven and Earth.' I am sure that ' the HGA' and 'HGA experience' are intimately connected with this world ... it might even be a form of ourselves that resides in that world concurrent with our existence in this one. Well I am not that bad ... as 'some' seem to be trying to make out Batman ? Another concept straight out of daimonic reality ! That's why he is so popular ... resonates.

Can we get back to the main line of reasoning? That everything is illusion? All philosophical and religious positions revolve around only 2 views: Existence and Nonexistence. However its all illusion, like a dream. Phenomena don't arise in the first place. Nagarjuna in ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' 21.12. states: "An existent does not arise from an existent; neither does an existent arise from a non-existent. A non-existent does not arise from a non-existent; neither does a non-existent arise from an existent." http://books.google.com/books?id=38WJRwP3nLgC&pg=PA297&dq=Mulamadhyamakakarika+of+Nagarjuna+An+existent+does+not+arise+from+an+existent;+neither+does+an+existent+arise+from+a+non-existent.&hl=en&sa=X&ei=fnGiUtuWMPPMsQSzkIDwCA&ved=0CDgQuwUwAQ#v=onepage&q=Mulamadhyamakakarika%20of%20Nagarjuna%20An%20existent%20does%20not%20arise%20from%20an%20existent%3B%20neither%20does%20an%20existent%20arise%20from%20a%20non-existent.&f=false Here are some quotations from 2 top books, Nagarjuna's Reason Sixty and Center of the Sunlit Sky: "Nagarjuna taught , "bereft of beginning, middle, and end," meaning that the world is free from creation, duration, and destruction." -Candrakirti "Once one asserts things, one will succumb to the view of seeing such by imagining their beginning, middle and end; hence that grasping at things is the cause of all views." -Candrakirti "the perfectly enlightened buddhas-proclaimed, "What is dependently created is uncreated." -Candrakirti "Likewise, here as well, the Lord Buddha’s pronouncement that "What is dependently created is objectively uncreated," is to counteract insistence on the objectivity of things." -Candrakirti "Since relativity is not objectively created, those who, through this reasoning, accept dependent things as resembling the moon in water and reflections in a mirror, understand them as neither objectively true nor false. Therefore, those who think thus regarding dependent things realize that what is dependently arisen cannot be substantially existent, since what is like a reflection is not real. If it were real, that would entail the absurdity that its transformation would be impossible. Yet neither is it unreal, since it manifests as real within the world." -Candrakirti Nagarjuna said "If I had any position, I thereby would be at fault. Since I have no position, I am not at fault at all." Aryadeva said "Against someone who has no thesis of “existence, nonexistence, or [both] existence and nonexistence,” it is not possible to level a charge, even if [this is tried] for a long time." "I do not say that entities do not exist, because I say that they originate in dependence. “So are you a realist then?” I am not, because I am just a proponent of dependent origination. “What sort of nature is it then that you [propound]?” I propound dependent origination. “What is the meaning of dependent origination?” It has the meaning of the lack of a nature and the meaning of nonarising through a nature [of its own]. It has the meaning of the origination of results with a nature similar to that of illusions, mirages, reflections, cities of scent-eaters, magical creations, and dreams. It has the meaning of emptiness and identitylessness." -Candrakirti Nagarjuna in Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 1.1. states: "Not from themselves, not from something other, Not from both, and not without a cause- At any place and any time, All entities lack arising." Buddhapālita comments (using consequentalist arguments which ultimately snowballs into Tibetan prasangika vs. svatantrika): "Entities do not arise from their own intrinsic nature, because their arising would be pointless and because they would arise endlessly. For entities that [already] exist as their own intrinsic nature, there is no need to arise again. If they were to arise despite existing [already], there would be no time when they do not arise; [but] that is also not asserted [by the Enumerators]. Candrakīrti, in ''Madhyamakāvatāra'' VI.14., comments: "If something were to originate in dependence on something other than it, Well, then utter darkness could spring from flames And everything could arise from everything, Because everything that does not produce [a specific result] is the same in being other [than it]." Candrakīrti, in the ''Prasannapadā'', comments: "Entities also do not arise from something other, because there is nothing other." Nagarjuna in ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' 1.3cd. states: "If an entity in itself does not exist, An entity other [than it] does not exist either." Candrakīrti, in the ''Prasannapadā'', comments: "Nor do entities arise from both [themselves and others], because this would entail [all] the flaws that were stated for both of these theses and because none of these [disproved possibilities] have the capacity to produce [entities]." Nagarjuna, in ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' VII.17., states: "If some nonarisen entity Existed somewhere, It might arise. However, since such does not exist, what would arise?" Nagarjuna, in ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' VII.19cd., states: "If something that lacks arising could arise, Just about anything could arise in this way."

All philosophical and religious positions revolve around only 2 views: Existence and Nonexistence. However its all illusion, like a dream. Phenomena don't arise in the first place. Nagarjuna in ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' 21.12. states: "An existent does not arise from an existent; neither does an existent arise from a non-existent. A non-existent does not arise from a non-existent; neither does a non-existent arise from an existent." http://books.google.com/books?id=38WJRwP3nLgC&pg=PA297&dq=Mulamadhyamakakarika+of+Nagarjuna+An+existent+does+not+arise+from+an+existent;+neither+does+an+existent+arise+from+a+non-existent.&hl=en&sa=X&ei=fnGiUtuWMPPMsQSzkIDwCA&ved=0CDgQuwUwAQ#v=onepage&q=Mulamadhyamakakarika%20of%20Nagarjuna%20An%20existent%20does%20not%20arise%20from%20an%20existent%3B%20neither%20does%20an%20existent%20arise%20from%20a%20non-existent.&f=false Here are some quotations from 2 top books, Nagarjuna's Reason Sixty and Center of the Sunlit Sky: "Nagarjuna taught , "bereft of beginning, middle, and end," meaning that the world is free from creation, duration, and destruction." -Candrakirti "Once one asserts things, one will succumb to the view of seeing such by imagining their beginning, middle and end; hence that grasping at things is the cause of all views." -Candrakirti "the perfectly enlightened buddhas-proclaimed, "What is dependently created is uncreated." -Candrakirti "Likewise, here as well, the Lord Buddha’s pronouncement that "What is dependently created is objectively uncreated," is to counteract insistence on the objectivity of things." -Candrakirti "Since relativity is not objectively created, those who, through this reasoning, accept dependent things as resembling the moon in water and reflections in a mirror, understand them as neither objectively true nor false. Therefore, those who think thus regarding dependent things realize that what is dependently arisen cannot be substantially existent, since what is like a reflection is not real. If it were real, that would entail the absurdity that its transformation would be impossible. Yet neither is it unreal, since it manifests as real within the world." -Candrakirti Nagarjuna said "If I had any position, I thereby would be at fault. Since I have no position, I am not at fault at all." Aryadeva said "Against someone who has no thesis of “existence, nonexistence, or [both] existence and nonexistence,” it is not possible to level a charge, even if [this is tried] for a long time." "I do not say that entities do not exist, because I say that they originate in dependence. “So are you a realist then?” I am not, because I am just a proponent of dependent origination. “What sort of nature is it then that you [propound]?” I propound dependent origination. “What is the meaning of dependent origination?” It has the meaning of the lack of a nature and the meaning of nonarising through a nature [of its own]. It has the meaning of the origination of results with a nature similar to that of illusions, mirages, reflections, cities of scent-eaters, magical creations, and dreams. It has the meaning of emptiness and identitylessness." -Candrakirti Nagarjuna in Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 1.1. states: "Not from themselves, not from something other, Not from both, and not without a cause- At any place and any time, All entities lack arising." Buddhapālita comments (using consequentalist arguments which ultimately snowballs into Tibetan prasangika vs. svatantrika): "Entities do not arise from their own intrinsic nature, because their arising would be pointless and because they would arise endlessly. For entities that [already] exist as their own intrinsic nature, there is no need to arise again. If they were to arise despite existing [already], there would be no time when they do not arise; [but] that is also not asserted [by the Enumerators]. Candrakīrti, in ''Madhyamakāvatāra'' VI.14., comments: "If something were to originate in dependence on something other than it, Well, then utter darkness could spring from flames And everything could arise from everything, Because everything that does not produce [a specific result] is the same in being other [than it]." Candrakīrti, in the ''Prasannapadā'', comments: "Entities also do not arise from something other, because there is nothing other." Nagarjuna in ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' 1.3cd. states: "If an entity in itself does not exist, An entity other [than it] does not exist either." Candrakīrti, in the ''Prasannapadā'', comments: "Nor do entities arise from both [themselves and others], because this would entail [all] the flaws that were stated for both of these theses and because none of these [disproved possibilities] have the capacity to produce [entities]." Nagarjuna, in ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' VII.17., states: "If some nonarisen entity Existed somewhere, It might arise. However, since such does not exist, what would arise?" Nagarjuna, in ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' VII.19cd., states: "If something that lacks arising could arise, Just about anything could arise in this way."

Children??? Please. The topic at hand is: "First off, this universe is completely equivalent with illusion, like a lucid dream. So to speak of a Creator is meaningless. "If you can't fathom that, think about this. There is an ad infinitum regression of cause and effect. Logically the Big Bang has causes, which in itself has causes, which in itself has causes etc. "There is no place for a Creator in an ad infinitum regression of cause and effect."

* Today I thought I would open up a much shorter, more traditional story. When I'm making a choice of which to put in this thread the principle decider for me is that the story should have, for some reason, stuck memorably in my mind for many years. The extract below most certainly fits that description. It's taken from "City of Lingering Splendour", a book by John Blofeld, who was my favourite author for quite a number of years during my Buddhist period. It is an account of the author’s early years spent living in Peking during the 1930s. Blofeld had arrived as a passenger on a tramp cargo ship after completing his degree at Cambridge, and was making his living by teaching English. All his school holiday time he used to travel around and explore China. The people he met in that pre-war, pre-Communism period were truly extraordinary. There were still many carry-overs from the days of the last emperor. The short, anecdotal story below describes one of his encounters during this period and is taken straight from the book, just the way Blofeld experienced it : {But first I’ll throw in a bit of biographical background information cobbled together from his obituary and the flyleaves of some of his books … for anyone who may, like myself, be interested in these things.} * * Biographical Details : Mr John Blofeld, who died in Bangkok on June 17, 1987 at the age of 74, was an Englishman who, after his education at Haileybury and Cambridge, spent almost twenty years in China. Speaking many different Chinese dialects and achieving a scholarly level of their written languages, he published authoritative books on Zen and Mahayana Buddhism; mystical and yogic Taoism; the Chinese deity' Kuan Yin; and a well-respected translation of the ancient Chinese classic, I Ching (Book of Change). His interest in the Far East began early, and was a far cry from the surface fascination with things oriental which has, in all ages, been fashionable in some circles. For Blofeld, many of the happiest years of his life were those spent in pre-war Peking at a time when that city still preserved much of its ancient way of life. He became intimate with all sorts of colourful people,…silk-clad scholars, Buddhist monks, Taoist sages, actors, courtesans, professors, students -- all of whom he describes against a background of fading splendour, with moving descriptions of a city which, in some ways, must have been among the loveliest in the history of the world. His knowledge of the language and mode of life enabled him to achieve a deep understanding of the Chinese people whom he loved and admired, and he subsequently devoted his life to the study of Buddhism and other Eastern traditions. During his early years in China Blofeld was extremely young and open-minded and his books above all absorb us because they provide vibrant pictures of a graceful wav of life which has perished from the earth. It is as though one familiar with Florence in the days of the Medicis or with Athens just before the conquest by Sparta had lived into the present age and given us eye-witness accounts of the pleasures he enjoyed. His earliest books are, above all, a record of many-coloured pleasures. * * John Blofeld wrote: The party that night was to be given by Professor Lee Wen-Liang, who, as Head of the Foreign Languages Department in the university where I was teaching, was my boss. An Oxford man belonging to a generation largely brought up in the traditional Chinese way of life, he was someone whose friendship I particularly valued because he knew so well how to interpret Chinese behaviour in terms which a 'Westerner like myself could understand. As the autumn evenings were still warm, Professor Lee had selected a small restaurant in the Pei Hai or North Sea Park, loveliest of all the former imperial pleasure-gardens within the city walls: and second only to Tzu Hsi's Summer Palace some miles out along the road to the Western Hills. If the night were fine and there were no wind, we should be able to sit out and enjoy our dinner close to the margin of the lake. Soon after dusk, and early enough to have plenty of time, to spare, I made my way through the south gate of the park and strolled across the graceful marble-topped bridge leading to the chorten-crowned island which rises steeply from the lake to a height of several hundred feet. Above me I could see the white chorten, a great bottle-shaped Tibetan-style pagoda, glimmering faintly against the starlit autumn sky; its pale radiance was only just perceptible, yet it drew my gaze like one of those half-seen figures haunting the darkness in lonely places which compel our furtive glances though we would prefer to turn our heads and hurry past. At the foot of the hill stood a tall pailou or triple archway of lacquered wood roofed with coloured tiles, but now its rainbow colours had been swallowed by the darkness; it loomed blackly against a flight of white stone steps from which an intricate network of steep pathways led by devious routes upwards to the chorten's base. Disdaining the steps, I chanced to follow a route that took me among pinnacles and fantastic caverns artfully fashioned from rocks carried there centuries ago from distant provinces to imitate the grotesque rock-formations famed by poets from China's southern regions. On reaching the top of the hill, I walked slowly round the chorten's base, trying to make out familiar objects now blurred and shadowy beneath the soft starlight. Adjoining the chorten to the south and facing out over the vast black contours of the Forbidden City stood a small temple with outer walls composed of thousands of porcelain tiles, each bearing a figure of the Buddha in bas relief; but these details were disappointingly lost in the darkness, for the moon which was to illumine our banquet had not yet risen; so I walked round to a small tea-house on the north side where, on hot afternoons, the Empress Tzu Hsi and her ladies had been wont to sit gazing over the water while eunuchs plied their jewelled peacock fans. The lake, stretching from the shore of the island almost to the northern boundary of the park, now gleamed oily black except at the margin where golden pools of light reflected the lamps along the .water's edge. At the farther end I could see a bright blur, of illumination coming from the Five Dragon Pavilion. These marvellously graceful buildings jutted into the lake at a point where, in the old days, the lacquered barges used to nose up to a flight of steps to disgorge their precious load of chattering ladies attended by obsequious eunuchs dressed only a little less gorgeously than themselves. While I was picturing the scene, an unknown voice said quietly : “In her day there was no electricity. The attendants carried lanterns of scarlet gauze.” I swung round startled. I had been so sure I was alone; the soft, almost feminine voice, emerging unexpectedly from the darkness and seeming like a continuation of my thoughts, was disturbing. “I beg your pardon ?” A shadowy figure, his face barely visible above a dark robe which blended indistinguishably with the night, was standing so close to me that I might have touched his hand. Perceiving he had startled me, he apologised and added: “I saw you gazing across at the pavilions by the landing-stage. They are beautiful, are they not ? But that yellowish light is out of place and garish - like so many things these days.” “Do you mean to say you were here then ?” He laughed, or rather tittered, musically, his voice so feminine that, could I have believed it possible in Peking to encounter a woman walking alone in a solitary place at night, I should certainly have taken him for one. (The Manchu-style gowns of men and women were, even when seen in daylight, not greatly dissimilar.) 'Yes, indeed I was here then. You are a foreigner, but you speak Chinese well. Doubtless you have heard of the T'ai Chien?' “The imperial eunuchs ? Of course. But they vanished long ago.” 'Long as a young man sees things; short enough to one well into the autumn of his life. I was already middle-aged when the Revolution dispersed us. Now I am sixty.' ''Were you with them long ? In the Imperial Household, I mean ?” “Not long. I was castrated in the seventh year of Kuang Hsu [1882], so I had only twenty-nine years in the Forbidden City. How quickly the time passed !” “Castrated by your own choice ?” “Why not ? It seemed a little thing to give up one pleasure for so many. My parents were poor, yet by suffering that small change I could be sure of an easy life in surroundings of beauty and magnificence; I could aspire to intimate companionship with lovely women unmarred by their fear or distrust of me. I could even hope for power and wealth of my own. With good fortune and diligence l might grow more rich and powerful than some of the greatest officials in the empire. How could I foresee the Revolution ? That was indeed a misfortune. I have sacrificed my virility and my hope of begetting children for a dream which, passing fleetingly, stopped short and can never return.” “And so now you come here sometimes in the darkness to recapture an echo of your dream ? But how do you live ?” “I manage well. I am a guide - not one of those so-called guides who live by inventing history for foreigners and by making commissions on things they purchase. I have not yet fallen to that. Discriminating Chinese gentlemen arriving from the provinces prefer to obtain their guides through the Palace Eunuchs' Mutual Prosperity Association. Often they have heard my name from their friends and are kind enough to ask specially for my services. I charge highly, for I am able to tell them many things they could scarcely learn from other sources. You must have heard of the Grand Eunuch Li Lien-Ying ? Of course! Well, I was one of his men and among those placed in charge of the Lord of Ten Thousand Years during all the time he lived in confinement after that occasion when he tried to circumvent the Old Buddha [the Dowager Empress].” After chatting with him longer, I asked if he and his fellow eunuchs were happy in their old age. “Happy ! How could that be ? We have no wives, no sons to bear us grandsons and sacrifice at our tombs. We manage to live. We are not often hungry. We dare not ask for happiness'' It was time for me to leave the island and hurry round to the other end of the lake where Professor Lee and his friends were expecting me. I parted from my sad companion, having found nothing encouraging to say to someone so irrevocably linked to a vanished epoch. Gradually the melancholy thoughts accompanying me on my walk along the ill-lighted east shore of the lake were dispersed by the rising moon, which gave added light to the cheerful scene awaiting me in front of the restaurant. Some lanterns and a round table had been set out near the water's edge, where the other nine members of the Party were already seated over saucers of melon-seeds and bowls of tea. * * .

Its an illusion. Like a dream. Like a mirage.

I'm happy to see that Tao Bums, originally Sean's spinoff from my Healing Tao USA forum, has flourished. I've decided to post some of my material here to give this part of the Tao community exposure to my approach of integrating qigong and neidangong, and my unique summer retreat program and China Dream Trips.

The universe is completely equivalent to an illusion; not "like an illusion". Everything is completely illusory, since phenomena never arise in the first place. This is a good summary of that reasoning: http://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=6185&start=220#p74244 Dream is just a metaphor which is present in Madhyamaka.

Hmnn, If you believe 1>, that the universe is like an illusion, then I don't see how its such a stretch to imagine a god. Also if its like a lucid dream, then who's dreaming? 2>I'm not sure how scientific ad infinitum regression is. Aren't you guessing/supposing its an infinitum regression? Without solid proof you're on ground as shaky as a theist with that argument.

My dream cabin would be like a Hobbit dwelling. Built into the side of a hill, cool in summer, cozy in winter, gardens around and above. Maybe a solar tunnel system to spread daylight inside. Central high efficiency fire place/stove. https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1414&bih=907&q=hobbit+house&oq=hobbit+house&gs_l=img.3..0l10.2522.4376.0.4609.12.12.0.0.0.0.307.1068.5j4j0j1.10.0....0...1ac.1.32.img..4.8.655.6AdOKR-GBXw#hl=en&q=inside%20hobbit%20house&revid=1883975333&tbm=isch&imgdii=_

Can't prove either argument...it's of little importance. BUT, we do have perception. That's all we have. So we create this perception...a dream or reality...both the same in the sense that all we can do it perceive and see images/have physical and emotional feelings.

First off, this universe is completely equivalent with illusion, like a lucid dream. So to speak of a Creator is meaningless. If you can't fathom that, think about this. There is an ad infinitum regression of cause and effect. Logically the Big Bang has causes, which in itself has causes, which in itself has causes etc. There is no place for a Creator in an ad infinitum regression of cause and effect.

Also, verse 29...I had a lucid dream of this when I was 14. I will never forget.

You are right that "making self-surrender the object of thought, one lays hold of concentration, one lays hold of single-pointedness of mind"- that's a quote from the Pali Canon attributed to Gautama (who was later called the Buddha). I'm a big fan of Rumi! As to whether awareness of the small, human, and humble nature of one's circumstance in this life can cause a person to become supernatural, or almost supernatural- I don't know. I've had that awareness a number of times, I think, and for me it passes without resulting in any noticeable change to my monster/non-monster status. Ha ha, if you know what I mean! Currently I'm convinced that monsters like Chino sensei, Kobun's master, appear supernatural because of their ability to fall upright into trance at every opportunity. My definition of trance is like that attributed to Milton Erickson in the Wikipedia post about him, where his induction of hypnosis in a subject during the course of a handshake is described: "This induction works because shaking hands is one of the actions learned and operated as a single "chunk" of behavior; tying shoelaces is another classic example. If the behavior is diverted or frozen midway, the person literally has no mental space for this - he is stopped in the middle of unconsciously executing a behavior that hasn't got a "middle". The mind responds by suspending itself in trance until either something happens to give a new direction, or it "snaps out". A skilled hypnotist can often use that momentary confusion and suspension of normal processes to induce trance quickly and easily." Erickson used self-hypnosis to overcome the pain he had everyday as a result of polio and other illnesses he had experienced; he said this about his use of hypnosis: "I go into trances so that I will be more sensitive to the intonations and inflections of my patients' speech. And to enable me to hear better, see better." He saw trance as an everyday occurrence: "The same situation is in evidence in everyday life, however, whenever attention is fixated with a question or an experience of the amazing, the unusual, or anything that holds a person's interest. At such moments people experience the common everyday trance; they tend to gaze off to the right or left, depending upon which cerebral hemisphere is most dominant (Baleen, 1969) and get that faraway or blank look. Their eyes may actually close, their bodies tend to become immobile (a form of catalepsy), certain reflexes (e.g., swallowing, respiration, etc.) may be suppressed, and they seem momentarily oblivious to their surroundings until they have completed their inner search on the unconscious level for the new idea, response, or frames of reference that will restabilize their general reality orientation. We hypothesize that in everyday life consciousness is in a continual state of flux between the general reality orientation and the momentary microdynamics of trance..." So I think the reason some masters appear to be monsters is that they are in touch with the dream-aspect of life through the induction of trance in themselves at every opportunity, which results in the sharpening of the senses that Erickson spoke of. In fact, they practice letting go of action and allowing the necessity of their circumstance move their bodies, a necessity which includes all the senses and even what is perceived in the senses but not necessarily manifest in consciousness. They are faster than the normal person, in a slow sort of way- ha ha!

yabyum wrote: ❤!! What is wonderful is that in finding that just this place is Reality, that it is the function of everyday situations and that this pivot having been on the verge of action in perpetuity both in terms of absolute and temporal—its Sameness is pristine incipience; whether we get involved or not. The scene changes and affects our relativebalance according to our attachment. What is so alien to most everyone is the notion of the mechanism within the critical juncture of every cycle. Cycles repeat because they are so by virtue of creation. This is the mechanism. This is because in talking about it, it seems like doing. There is no doing involved. It is a matter of seeing. The simple over-riding fact of life is that in not seeing is how we get dragged along by circumstances. So in seeing is the key to the enlightening mechanism of detaching from creation at the right time. Immortalists use the mechanism to their own advantage to return to the beginning of every cycle by incrementally seeing a bit of the essence inherent in all of creation. In following creation, one gets karma. In following Tao, one gets immortality. Seeing through phenomena without denying characteristics is how not to follow creation. There is no other way to follow Tao by virtue of seeing the essence of potential in everyday ordinary situations than by not going along with created karmic cycles. Seeing and karmic involvement are mutually exclusive. Though they are the same in terms of potential, yet one ordinarily follows the light of conscious awareness of life and death or one naturally follows it in reverse to arrive at its source of nonorigination. There is no other mechanism beyond the incipient manifest respiration of the Way, which is the alternation of yin and yang, whether it is seen or unseen in the course of affairs. Ordinary people go along, whereas enlightening beings go in reverse thereby to return to the source; at first incrementally, then, eventually, they return all at once. Otherwise there is a tendency for people to think of following Tao as a moralistic, passive, or even a preemptive avoidance strategy. It is beyond convention. It is already inside you, naturally to be discovered by those who will. How else would one enter into inconceivability than by entering the mystery of the Tao in reality? Tao is Mind. There is no other mind. There aren't two, let alone one. It is in willing to treat mundane situations as completely real adventures, where one consciously and honestly doesn't dare to presume upon one's conventional knowledge as ordinary people do habitually— thereby to speculate on their relative karmically saturated outcomes. One is already vulnerable to the consequences of events, aware or not. There are no innocent bystanders; no survivors. Using ordinary circumstances to practice authentic unknowing is a game of life and death— not in the morbid sense, but in the sense of self-refinement leading to arrival of harmonizing one's light in the Tao as well as harmonizing the light of awareness to the circumstantial events requiring our response. In buddhist terms, meeting the matter of life and death is not living one's life in vain by actually experiencing the Great Death, the Great Wonder of suddenly arriving at the selfless realization of essential nonorigination which is spoken in terms of the absolute. Regardless of relative or absolute, gradual or sudden, the reality of the matter of life and death is one, without before or after in perpetuity. I'm talking about right now, right here. This is the natural pivot of awareness of enlightening being, and no one knows why. Actually how "catching the Tao" comes to pass is in detaching from habitual psychological patterns, and their combined momentums. Eventually, after a long time, artificial momentum loses its kinetic (karmic) force, and in letting the world pass us by, the Tao's influence in our lives picks up our brave and lovely inner hitch-hiker who wouldn't dare dream of knowing how the next fresh breath will or won't come to pass in the next turn.

The Tao is when you are automatically and spontaneously living in the present moment without being subject with the limitations of the self and are functioning as awareness. You come you go, you are depleted and you are restored, you flow on upwards and then flow on downwards. You just keep on flowing without the thought of self like “I” did this and “I” did that, hey look at “me”, “me”, “me”. What I mean is when you need to eat you eat and witness this function without attachment with self. I do not eat but it eats all by its self. I do not walk, but it walks all by its self. I do not think, it thinks all by its self. I do not dream, it dreams all by its self. I do not see, it sees all by its self. I do not sleep, it sleeps all by its self. I do not die, it dies all by its self. Do we follow?

It often hits me as I lay down to sleep... that I'm being breathed, not breathing... that the same force that twists galaxies and forms black holes grows my fingernails and pumps my heart while I dream.