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Hello all, I know there are some folks here who read about Tibet, and other things more than I do. So I just have to ask. I had a dream a while back, at a time when I was focusing on external Iron Body conditioning (Pai Da Gung). I would do a couple of the postures/excercises I was taught for internal Iron Vest, the rub in a little jow, then whack myself, then more jow, and end with a little more standing. Well, I realized that whacking myself into 'Iron' would take forever, and likely be dangerous, as well as possibly futile. But during this time in which I realized what was wrong with my practice, I had a dream in which someone guided me, and showed me some things. Or at least I feel that someone--someone I've never met, was telling me what I needed to look for and do in order to acheive what I was looking for. Basically, in my dream, I was in a place outdoors and there was a man there- He looked like he was of Tibetan descent-with a black mustache and full head of hair. He was chanting--it made no sense, and didn't really seem to be any actual language--it sort of sounded like the way water sounds when you pour water into a half full bucket. It was like-'yodiyodi yodi odi yodl odi' like a sort of blabbering, but purposeful. It had a deep sound to it, and a slight but noticible reverberation. He held his hands in a configuration of sorts. He was communicating with me through his mind-without words. I was aware that he did not speak my language-english. He had me feel his solar plexus, which felt as hard as steel. He was telling me that in order to achieve the skills I was after with Iron Body and Iron Palm I would have to do serious internal work, refining my energy and mind. And that what I was doing was the wrong way, and would get me nowhere. He was wearing a medium toned brown long sleeve shirt and matching pants, no shoes. He then walked over to what resembled a charcoal pit made of stone-no charcoal in it though. It was about 4 feet long, 1&1/2-2 feet wide, and about the same depth. Going across it lengthwise was a central metal collumn, which had sharp spines coming out of it in all directions--they resembled huge thorns. He then hopped unto it with his bare feet, continued his chanting, and after taking a step or two in the huge spikes (each was probably 13 inches long or so) he assumed a horse stance and clasped his hands together in front of himself as if in prayer-eyes open, chanting. He was showing me his lightbody skills-which were rather unbelievable. Then the dream ended. Doe this mean anything to anyone? Have I been contacted by some master in Tibet? Was this my intuition and subconscious mind telling me I need to recconect with myself in order to regain the forgotten power of the mind? Did anything I described sound like something any of you have seen or heard of? Or was it just a cool dream? Thanks- N-

During a sleep yoga retreat a few years ago I asked this very question, if indeed someone has an experience of awareness during deep sleep how could there be memory of it in the total absence of any content or object of experience? The answer given was basically, through practice and direct experience I may one day have my question answered. I subsequently did have my question answered. My experience was much as you describe - no dream, no mental or physical activity, simply unbounded awareness blissfully aware of itself during sleep. Yet there was very clear memory of that experience upon awakening. How to label this? A type of dreamless dream? Awareness during deep sleep? Nirvakalpa samadhi? Since I practice in a Tibetan paradigm I go with a Tibetan label, the clear light of sleep. Here is a brief excerpt from my teacher’s book on the subject. https://voiceofclearlight.org/2016/june-2016/609-june-2016-distinctions-between-dream-and-sleep-yoga

I can't say I studied moral precepts too much, but I did practice certain ideas from different cultures prior to my entering the Abyss and forming my own sense of morality, which is as follows: I break things down into Good and Evil. Good is to aid, and Evil is to harm. Harming someone else's health, wealth or liberty is Evil. I don't have many rules on sexual activity, other than it needs to be consensual. I honor the age of 18 as the limit for sexual activity, though I think this is wrong of us. I don't have any objections to drugs and alcohol, except that for some drugs which are illegal, they support gun toting and violent people when bought, so don't do those. I don't think it is immoral to do drugs and alcohol. Even though I have come to a body of thought regarding morality, I think that in my past, when I broke these rules, I am paying for them now. I dream of violent things and am often stolen from in dreams. I also defecate in my dreams and sometimes it makes me pee the bed because I am dreaming so heavily of urinating that I start to do it in life. I don't really believe in the forgiveness of Sins, but it might be possible to reverse Karma, IDK. I'm sort of stuck with what I get for having been so lawless as a child.

In the sleep yoga practice of Tibet, a state of clarity in dreamless sleep is cultivated. It is clear and aware, in the absence of any content of dream, emotion, or thought. It is an unbounded and very stable experience. It is similar to resting in the Nature of Mind during waking and similar to recognizing dream as dream, but purer in the absence of all appearance or display. I hesitate to assign Hindu terms but this is a profound tantric training that is said to help one to recognize and liberate in the bardo and escape the cycle of rebirth.

I joined LMP back in Feb of 2018, back when it was free and open to anyone. I had come across it earlier in 2015 but was put off by it at the time by the weird vibes but by 2018 I wanted to try something different and it seemed like it would be an interesting experience where I could at least learn or become familiar with Neidan. I had some of the darkest moments of my life while signed up on the forums and so did two other people that I shared living space with. The techs definitely seemed to do something and I had some noticeable visions after getting started practicing them. I saw some weird stuff, cyborg like entities, imps, lizard-like beings and whatnot. I mentioned putting up wards on the forum and was told to definitely not do that, which I found odd because every other spiritual system I worked with stressed doing so while engaging with psychic/magick/spiritual work. In June or July of that year a member had apparently worked with some form of Buddhist or Hindu pantheon spirit and it had caused serious haywire to LMP and the new emerging school MFBH. People were having intense and weird psychic disturbances, getting seriously spooked and it caused quite a ruckus. I noted that I experienced the feeling of some form of dark/evil presence around me on the forum and feeling like I was being drained to which advanced members replied that it was the lack of their psychic egregore around me. I asked for further explanation and was told that newer members psychically fed-off(vamp'd) of advanced members, something that wasn't put out there directly to newer members and they didn't like talking about it as it was supposed to remain mostly secret to how the school worked. We were more or less encouraged to work with demonic forces but were dissuaded from working with other spirits, like Quan Yin or Vishnu, as they had their own egregore that would attack ours apparently. There was this one tech called, 'Black Egg' that probably should of been for more advanced members only but everyone was told they could do it as it would help re-stabilize our, 'hub.' After I preformed it I felt really weird, off and fuzzy for the rest of the day until I was watching a video by one of my favorite youtube creators and he included a Vishnu Sahasranamam(a long recited hymn to Vishnu) in the middle of the video. It, 'broke' the fuzzy and weird feeling that was on top of me and I felt a deep sense of psychic relief but later on in the day I felt like I was being chased or hunted by, 'something' and kept getting nudged by my intuition to go home and get off the road, as I was doing rideshare at the time. When I got back my GF noted that she felt like I was in danger or something bad was about to happen until I got back home to which she then experienced relief. On a night a week or two previous to this one I had come home late and got onto the forum and was sitting in the bed with her beside me asleep when all of a sudden she sat straight up in bed from a sleep paralysis nightmare and described how she saw me with horns coming out of my head while I was bellowing like an enraged animal. She had tried to get up to help me but a tall being who's face she couldn't see put her back onto the bed and then hands came up from the bed from all sides and wrapped around her to hold her down. She was legitimately freaked out. A month or so prior to this I was sharing a room with a buddy while we were working at the same place. One day he tells me at work that he had an intense, 'dream' where he got up to go into the kitchen and encountered a, 'Grey'(short thin beings with a large head and big black eyes) to which he started to freak out before blacking out. Him telling me this disturbed something in me and the night he told me it happened to him I had an instance where we went to sleep early in our respective beds after work and I woke up to him not being in his bed. I didn't hear him exit the room as I was right next to the door and a light sleeper and I didn't hear any sound of him in the kitchen or bathroom(it was a small apartment) but didn't think much of it and went back to bed only to wake up an hour later and see him in bed laying in the exact position he was in when we both passed out. I left the forum one night soon after the black egg incident and experienced an intense vision of SOTG without a mask, large horns and pure black eyes above and in front of me, very satanic like, taunting me while I was still awake and I just accepted that I may have messed with something I didn't understand and incited it to anger to which it then seemed to lose focus on me. I ended up rejoining the forum later on in Sept for what reason I couldn't really tell you other than I had left my GF and my friend went elsewhere so I was alone and have always been into real spiritual/psychic experience so I figured I would give it another shot. I had to go through MFBH as LMP was now closed to the public. Then a week or so later SOTG was really upset that no one was following protocol at MFBH (even though he created it as an introductory, experimental forum for people to feel it out for themselves) so he created a new forum, 'The Immortal Path' which required a monthly payment and I was one of the first members on there. TIP wasn't as dark as LMP but I still suffered from weird experiences to which my lack of participation was always blamed even though I read, practiced and posted as much as I could. I eventually left again the following year in April/May of 2019 as I was tired of the isolation I was experiencing by putting so much focus into the forum over having a normal life. I had some weird stuff follow me for a bit but I've collected a fair deal of intense spiritual experiences before coming to the forum so I was able to navigate through them without too much trouble. I had asked him before I left if he would give me 1-on-1 training if I could come to his personal residence by my own so I could gain a better understanding of his system via personal instruction but received a vague response which he basically said he couldn't at that time, which was one of the main reasons I left. I ended up joining one last time in March of 2021 and had noticed that most of the long-time advanced members had vanished and no one wanted to talk about it. I eventually asked around and was told in a hush-hush manner of what may have occurred but I still gave it another shot. I had visions of greys myself this time and other entities that disturbed my sleep which I chalked up to outside interference. I asked again about 1-on-1 training again and was again given a vague response again that basically implied that he didn't think he was able to do so at the time. Then the next day a member who had joined in late 2020 made a post about how no one should ask him about coming to his physical location otherwise they would be thought of as a Fed. That was the last draw for me as I was sick of spending so many hours reading, posting and trying to work things out on my own while my life went haywire around me. In person instruction is infinitely more valuable than over a forum and many teachers out there won't teach or instruct you until they've met with you personally so it was a big red flag for me. I had always been into the darker side of spiritual systems because I like to know whats out there but I definitely have my limits. Sotg was originally an enochian mage before he came into eastern alchemy and enochian can be a very dangerous system. He wrote many ebooks on it that are still available online, in one of them he mentions how the Angels told him, 'All other forms of magick besides our own is black magick' which I found very interesting because he was constantly messing with other magickal systems in the forum and it was always the darker ones. His first videos talk about how LMP would always be open and free to the public but changed his mind later on and locked it all up. The last time I signed up after all the advanced members were gone there was a definite and noticeable lack of energy in the place and all of their logs had been wiped, including my original log. So many hours and insights into people's personal practice had been either restricted outright or lost. I was told it was done so as not to put a drain on the forum.. The experience was like anything else, you definitely experienced some form of intense weirdness if you were on that forum long enough and trying out the techs. When he started TIP he did away with Stillness which was supposed to be included in equal parts to the amount of time you spent doing the techs when it was only LMP, his original forum and school. Too many Taoist texts talk about the importance of Stillness and so did one of the original members of LMP that many of us looked up to so I found it strange that he felt he could do away with it so easily and mentioned how he didn't really do Stillness much at all so we should be fine. There forums were always chaotic and you had to search things out which required too much time to sift through and become familiar with the system effectively. He never categorized them or boiled them down to main points of discussion which would have made things much easier to digest and freed up time to practice. He didn't follow through on a lot of what he said he would, had projects that he started that he would never finish and oversold everything he did like he was hawking wares on an NY street corner. I'm still really grateful for the experience overall but I can't imagine what people went through who never encountered high strangeness before experienced on the forums. If people got hurt it was always blamed on them and they were shunned from the forums like a leper. It seemed more like a chaotic would-be alchemy & magick circus than an actual school. There never seemed to be any definite point other than, 'Immortality' which was always vaguely ill-defined. One thing that really stood out to me was there was never a sense of deep peace that you experience when you read wisdom texts and we were never encouraged to read up on any wisdom or philosophical traditions which I think are PARAMOUNT to proper processing of spiritual experience. It was always more techs, more practice time, more energy, more rituals,.. More, more, MOAR! In the end, I feel that he violated his own principles that he set forth originally and seriously missed a few steps in the alchemical process from which he then became mentally unstable to a high degree. He had some very interesting insights and ideas about Neidan but I don't feel that it was worth all the trouble members went through to learn about them. I was deeply saddened to learn about what the female members went through and it upsets me to a great deal that I participated in his system with him doing psychically harmful stuff behind the scenes. His school was an example of exactly what NOT TO DO when attempting to practice Neidan and exactly WHAT to WATCH OUT FOR. There is much more I could talk about and add but I feel that this seals how I feel about Sotg and his system of alchemy. I feel like he was running some type of psychic pyramid/ponzi scheme in order to get newer members hooked and then would blame them when their results started getting stale or dried-up completely, thereby imploring them to commit further to him and feeding into his egregore for his own benefit over their own. I donated back when it was just LMP and was free because I thought it was so unique, before his new TIP forum came about which required monthly donations. So I just want to be clear that I was very supportive of him in the beginning and overlooked a lot of red flags because of my own reasons, mainly that I had a spirit of intrigue for it, which is a well known trap in many psychic or magick circles. I had a few very intense and beautiful experiences from initially practicing it but I've reached the conclusion that it was either from my own work as I had never put forth effort into any Neidan system before or it was from other advanced members that were propping up the psychic field of the school for people like myself to feed off of and into. They were too far apart and in-between though when weighed against all the chaos and error that was going on in the school. May everyone who participated in this dark theater heal and grow wise from their experience with it. I'm open to more discussion via DM if anyone wants to talk more in depth about these things or what they might have gone through. I highly recommend getting familiar with Quan Yin if you are still reeling from any ill effects that these experiences may have had on you. Thank you for keeping this open long enough for me to post this, I greatly appreciate being able to share this information and get it out there to others.

Conscious dreaming CANNOT be separated from its spiritual/esoteric component regardless of whether it's from a Buddhist or taoist background. Can it work without? Yes. But you will have very limiting and varying results and it will reach the point to which it'll make your attempts futile. Stephen LaBerge took the Tibetan foundational practices, stripped it out of its spirituality and added a few psychological tricks. His dream mask does not work and is a complete waste of time and money. One major component to successful dream practice is mindful awareness. This can be achieved through shikantaza or vippashyana meditation. Both spiritual practices. LaBerge's method relies on heavy and artificial forcing of awareness that has very limiting results in the end. By working on mindful awareness and getting it to the point that it's at an enlightened level then conscious dreaming becomes effortless. After you become proficient through practice effortless is the way it's meant to be. Dream practice is a yin practice. The yang element is nothing more than the expression of your will. Your intention. Intention is a very important element in dream practice. Have the intention to remember your dreams. Have the intention to become conscious in your dreams. Have the intention to recharge as you sleep consciously (taoist power napping and yoga nidra) and the intention to wake up at a certain time so that you reinforce remembering your nightly journeys. This is also a spiritual practice. Even more so when you make intentions by moving the energies in your body through the microcosmic orbit. As far as using ki is concerned, this is very important in the taoist dream practice because it elongates the window of opportunity to create an intention to dream consciously right before you zonk out. You're taking the narrow strip between waking consciousness and dream consciousness (call it a neutral force) and making it longer so that you have the opportunity to set your intention to dream, have the equivalent of 8 hours rest in just 4 or travel through energetic planes. The Tibetans like to visualize a lotus flower with a bright red/Orange flame burning in the middle. This flame is supposed to represent the light of awareness. I greatly admire the Tibetans and their visualization skills. They reach the point to which they can close their eyes and recreate the physical world in their visualizations in all 5 senses vividly. These advanced visualizations are done in the waking state and can be used to literally meditate yourself into a dream. Ironically the Tibetan practices are much more psychologically practical then the spiritually void and handicapped psychological tricks proposed by LaBerge and the western circus of "rational" thinkers. Even the taoist approach of lucid living (cultivation of awareness) is an infinitely more logical approach. The Taoist approach works with the energy body throughout the day and emphasizes qigong a lot more which is also more conducive to conscious dreaming. You don't need to wake up feeling punch drunk at 2:30 or 5:30 a.m. to write half a dozen boring dream journals, perform 500 different reality checks a day or work on ridiculous exercises like prospective memory. Forget about that. If the western psychological B.S. is going to be your main approach of becoming a proficient and skilled lucid dreamer you will find yourself very disappointed in the end. Again, the western techniques are very varying and super limiting. Very mentally taxing with very little reward for ALL your hard work and effort. If you're looking for sources I suggest getting anything put out by Tibetan or taoist dream practitioners. I think Tenzin Wangyal Rinponche gives courses online. On the taoist side I think Juan Li is the guy you wanna go to. Juan makes himself a little bit difficult to reach unfortunately. Michael Winn sells an audio course. Expensive and also frustrating because it's so long and disorganized and comes with so much filler. If you have the patience his can work also. The Attention Revolution by Alan Wallace emphasizes meditations such as shamatha and vippashyana. Both forms of meditation are firmly grounded in spiritual practices and very useful for conscious dreaming because they build concentration and mindful awareness. I personally think that zen style meditations are more practical because you simultaneously build both concentration and mindfulness in a balanced manner. It's also useful for learning to suspend your thoughts and controlling the monkey mind. Ironically the zen schools could care less about conscious dreaming.

Hi Jonathan, Thank you for your holiday greetings. You are most welcome to the benefits from refining your FP Qigong practice in the Sunday afternoon classes and the Wed. night (EST) intermediate classes on Zoom. I'm glad to hear that after getting a few corrections through the Zoom lessons that your Long Form meditation practice has been improved--by your own diligent efforts. Starting January 2 of the new year, the combined Tao Tan Pai 31 + Flying Phoenix Qigong course continues on Sundays from 4pm to 6pm EST on Zoom, and the Wed. night Intermediate class continues at 6pm to 8pm EST. As a teacher, I'm always trying to make my experience and knowledge of Qigong relatable to people through all cultural and historical contexts...and the carol about the Good King Wenceslas is a good example. For its telling of warming Qi left in footprints in the snow is typical of the residual energy or aura of a saint or Boddhisatva, whose bed if one were to sleep in after he/she slept, would imbue one with a healing- enlightening energy. Thus I do not doubt that the authentic relics of saints preserved by their disciples and later religions established upon them are indeed holy and imbued with spiritual power-- "power objects", as dubbed by Carlos Castaneda. My story: in 1994, after I used the futon that my best friend and mentor (a non-Chinese spiritualist and master healer) had slept in while staying with me in L.A., I experienced five days of nothing but multiple lucid dreams every single night. (e.g., dreams in which I had "pre-programmed" to visit friends in different parts of the country, dreams in which I met a close friend in the dreamstate after agreeing to do so beforehand, dreams in which I chose to halt at a certain point and then re-enter my physical body with my dream body, a dream in which I saw the illustrated artwork that I had commissioned a close friend of mine in San Francisco to do for a book cover, etc.) At any rate, in Buddhism, which heavily influenced the Tao Tan Pai tradition, heavy emphasis is placed on teaching others the Dharma, as reflected in the "vows of the Bodhisattva": The second set of vows is original to Zhiyi's corpus:[6] Sentient beings, limitless in number, I vow to ferry over. Passions (klesa) which are numberless, I vow to extinguish. The Dharma-gates without end (in number), I vow to know. The supreme Buddha Way, I vow to actualize. The first translation I read decades ago goes like this: No matter how innumerable the sentient beings, I vow to liberate them all. No matter how innumerable, I vow to extinguish all obscuring passions. I vow to find a thousand gates to the Law. I vow to actualize supreme Buddhahood. I look forward to working with you in the new year, so that you get closer mastering the Long Form Meditation and then start experiencing more of the FPCK's unique and wonderful healing Qi. Have a happy and safe new year celebration in Chile! Cheers, Sifu Terry www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html terencedunn.substack.com (for schedule of weekly 2-hour Zoom classes)

All I can say is that I look forward to listening and getting to know all of you.

So the appearance of rabbit marrow means that you have sorted out your inner emotions and thoughts. The images produced by the cerebral cortex also disappeared like steam. When you do this, the rabbit's medullary light will appear. What I mean by making it happen is after you let your consciousness sink, these visions appear and disappear, and then never appear again. Many people think that organizing thoughts and emotions in daily life is enough. But the real test comes after the consciousness sinks. When your consciousness sinks, the cerebral cortex begins to produce hallucinations, can you still maintain this awareness? After you reach this point, you will notice that your sleep changes. You stop dreaming. 所以兔髓的出現代表一個意義，就是你整理好你的內在情緒和思想了。那些大腦皮質層所產生的影像也如同蒸汽一樣消失了。 當你做到這一點之後，兔髓光才會出現。 我所說的做到這一點就是你讓你的意識下沉之後，這些幻境出現了又消失了，然後再也不會出現。 很多人以為在日常生活中做到思想和情緒的整理就夠了。 但是真正的考驗是在意識下沉之後。 當你的意識下沉之後，大腦皮質層開始產生幻境，你還能保持這樣的覺知嗎？ 當你達到這一點之後，你會發現你的睡眠改變了。 你不做夢了。 There is no dream in your sleep.

I read his book. His book was posted online in Taiwan. I am not talking about concentration, but samadhi ability. Have you never entered samadhi before? I am not a Buddhist. Of course, if you join a particular religion, you have to abide by the rules of that particular religion. But I didn't join Buddhism. Let’s wait until you really reach Arhatship, everything you say now is just dream talk. 我讀的是他的書。 他的書在台灣有人把它貼到網路上。 我講的不是專注力，而是三摩地能力。 你會不會從來沒有入三摩地過吧？ 我又不是佛教徒。 當然你加入了特定的宗教，你就要遵守特定宗教的規則。但是我沒有加入佛教。 等你真的達到阿羅漢再說吧，你現在所說的一切都是夢話。 I find you totally disbelieving that I can judge another person's samadhi. I also began to discover that you have absolutely no ability to cultivate. Because I have told you so much, you just need to actually practice, but you just refuse to practice. Like you, I would call it "talking but not practicing". You put yourself in a loop. You don't practice, so you can't understand the words of others who have practiced. Some practitioners tell you that after you practice, you will understand. But after you listen to it, you are still unwilling to practice. You just want to know how other people know. Others can only know it because they have practiced to a certain level. But if you haven't practiced to this level, you just can't know. It's that simple. 我發現你完全不相信我能夠判斷他人的三摩地能力。 我也開始發現你完全沒有修煉的能力。 因為我已經跟你說了這麼多，你就是需要實際上去修煉，但是你就是不肯修煉。 像你這種，我會稱為「光說不練」。 你讓自己陷入一種迴圈當中。 你不練，所以你看不懂別人有練的人的話。有練的人跟你說，你練了之後，你就會看得懂。但是你聽了之後，你還是不願意練。你只想知道別人是怎麼知道的。別人就是因為有練到某一個程度才能知道。但是你沒有練到這個程度，你就是不能知道。就這麼簡單。

I’m still trying to get a handle on this... Correct me if I’m wrong but it appears that Buddhism works more on the psychological level but Taoism seems to go past that and work with things on the energetic level. At least as a general rule with a few minor exceptions here and there. For example, the Tibetan dream yogas have a strong foundation on psychological work ranging from consistently conditioning the mind to see all of life as a dream, to setting mental intentions during specific times in a full wake cycle to remembering nightly dreams and setting up broken sleep rhythms to better the chances of becoming consciously aware in the dream state. The main induction technique is visualizing a lotus in the throat chakra (and some work with Lung/Prana). For me this is a very “fire” practice and it has a clear, structured, step by step framework on which one could work with. I’m finding it’s similar in yoga nidra where there’s a lot of passivity and “hand-holding” and you’re guided towards a mind-awake/body asleep state. I’ve been told that the training wheels come off once the person familiarizes themselves with their biology as they’re falling asleep. With Taoism on the other hand all the techniques for yogic sleep and conscious dreaming are purely based on energy work. If you have no energy sensitivity you can forget all about this. Another example is in Theravada Buddhism where anapanasati is more formulaic and logically laid out for you but in rinzai Zen I don’t think you’re expected to progress in any particular order in regards to the four tetrads. Zen as a whole is more of a method-less method when it comes to its teachings and doesn’t believe in having to explain things. For some odd reason this reminds me of classical music where one is expected to play everything perfectly off of sheet music whereas in jazz there’s more emphasis placed on ear training and improvisation. I’m sure there are many other examples but would I be correct in coming to this conclusion?

lucid dream is for something. It is not the being awake in a dream, it is a quality what shines and make the dream like a lucid dream, but it is at that moment when the dream ends and start dissolve rapidly. There are different things or points into what the dream dissolves. Could say there are different types of lucid dreams and eventually there isn't any of them because they dissolve. Lucid dream doesn't have inherent nature or exist somewhere. I don't practice for lucid drams, i follow path where lucid dream is one step. While the first thing i experienced was also the last one, there comes different "lucid dreams".

Forgot to mention I didn't pick any of the available options as my experience so far has shown esoterica to be a highly fluid and organic pathway, and therefore, I feel it unwise (for me, not anyone else) to box things up neatly because I have an old, reliable inbuilt habit mechanism that intelligently guides to maintain certain familiar structures that suit my fixations, and often even add layers to my neuroticism. We thrive on familiarity, most of us, don't we? It's comfortable. To do well as a cultivator or meditator is quite a feat. It demands a lot of courage and fortitude to dare enter into places where we know its par for the course to constantly have the rug pulled from under our feet. (Ideally, a trusted spiritual friend or mentor will be there to do the pulling). When we believe an attainment to be literal, that good mentor will throw a curve ball to shake certain deeply held comforters seen to take root. He or she will do the same when we hold to the other extreme view. Without a certain level of maturity, we may well think the issue centres around attainments per se when in fact, the crux of this awakening exercise is aimed at dissolving fixations, often manifesting as a belief in one thing vs a disbelief in another. Talk about dualistic tendencies.... I think a truly established, devoted practitioner knows, or at least have a feel that the nature of reality to be ephemeral and dream-like. How else could it be because fundamental reality is inseparable from potentiality. Isn't this potentiality the only worthwhile reason needed to make us hold fast, and come hell or high water, ride the spiritual windhorse bravely into the unknown? It wouldn't be as much fun if there actually was a real goalpost or destination. Or would it?

This is something that's been brewing in my mind for a while now. Can dreams create psychological scars like those of waking life traumas? I've been thinking a lot about dreams lately. I remember what my dreams used to be like when I was a little kid...they were often as terrifying as they were incredible. It wasn't all nightmare material, either. Some of them were terrifying because they were beyond my ability to process or understand. It's hard to even describe many of them...some held a semblance of coherent story or setting, others were so surreal that I can't even put words to them. Many left me feeling disturbed on a fundamental level. I sometimes wonder if the intensity of my dreams when I was a child had a significant impact on my psychological development growing up.

One night, when I was 15, I woke up and looked at my clock, it read 2:30. I fell back asleep, but woke up yet again, realizing I could only open my eyes; my whole body was unable to move. Hundreds of numbers and symbols begin to flash before me, on brownish, tan colored backdrop, non of it i could quite understand. I heard a couple voices, shifted my eyes to the right and saw two or three shadowed figures next to me. I seemed as though they didn't realize I was somewhat conscious, so i lay there still mesmerized by the numbers and symbols. I looked towards my clock and saw it was still 2:30, and finally fell back asleep. I'm not sure if it was just a dream, or if what i saw was true, but I woke up this morning thinking about it, and am very curious. If anyone here has knowledge on the subject, I would greatly appreciate it.

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ZOOM, you must have had quite an interesting experience. Everyone who's practicing something, anything, has reasons for doing it the way they're doing it. I don't bother with external validation of anything, even though I've had at least one shared experience where it wasn't just me. Why not? That's for two reasons. One, I know where I am stuck. I know where my mind refuses to move how I want it to move, and I also know why it refuses. So before I start parading in front of cameras and crowds, I am basically busy with mind training, and the thought of validation doesn't even enter my mind, because I see a severe internal limitation to my psychic functioning, and until that's gone, there is no point in validating anything. Two, there is an interesting class of thought experiments that conduces me to thinking validation is not important anyway. Let's not forget that Einstein's thought experiments have changed how we all think about physics today. I've always been impressed with this fact growing up, and I myself enjoyed the idea of thought experiments. And here's one thought experiment from that class of experiments: Let's imagine I have lived 70 years, and on my 70th year I've contracted a fatal disease. I am laying in a hospital. The docs gave me 1 more year to live. One night during sleep I am dreaming that I am someone else in some other place that is not even this Earth. I end up spending 300 years in that dream. Let's say I appear in the dream as a 20 year old, and go on to the age of 320. I sleep in the dream world and dream inside the dream (I've done this already, so this isn't even theoretical for me -- dreams within dreams are possible). I go to sleep every dream day and wake up to the same dream world every dream morning. Thus the dream appears to stretch for 300 years of time. Lots of events happen. I meet people. I make friends and enemies. I have a number of careers and adventures. And so on. Among other things in that dream I am able to demonstrate all kinds of strange abilities and everyone present in that dream can witness me demonstrating those abilities, and everything is confirmed to be genuine in the context of that dream. But as we all know, even 300 years pass in a flash. I wake up in the hospital. I am very disoriented. "What the hell is going on?" I am thinking. It takes me a few days to get my old memory back. Ah... so I was this aging human in this world... and I have 1 more year left to live. I see. Well, I take my meds, watch some hospital TV and get on with my hospital life. The year passes and I die. Now the questions: which environment was objective and which one was subjective? Why so? Is the 300 year long dream the objective one because it's longer?

It's important to head back to reality here. All parties create internal narratives and then those are fed to the public. It's as if they created a dream world in which things function in certain approximate ways that mirror some parts of reality but counterfeit others. Eventually these dreams get punctured and the stronger the dream is, the more disorienting reality is. Parties that are looking for why they failed, or won are recreating the narrative dream world. They think they can just alter things a bit and dream normality will be restored. So, when they lose they can remain in this self contained bubble. It's only when it is broken on the rocks of reality that they are faced with two options: recreate the dream from scratch, or accept they were dreaming and face reality. This is human day dreaming and it only works to the point the dream ends and then rationalisation begins. People want to avoid the truth, they always have, they live in a mystic dream from which they refuse to escape as long as it works for them. The problem is that it doesn't work for everyone and that's reality coming home. Our Labour Party is over and done. It no longer stands a chance at achieving election and that truth is beginning to dawn on it. At present we have a Conservative party riding high on the back of having no competition. The Conservatives are believing their own hype, but reality is waiting. The truth is that rulers don't actually do anything for anyone, it's an illusion, they create nothing, the more interventionist they are, the worse the people suffer. These politicians create dream bubbles amongst groups who buy into the dream narrative, but these groups are deluding themselves, as are the politicians that minister to them. There are certain facts of life. One is that no one can avoid reality, they can evade, but they cannot avoid the consequences of that evasion. The second is that to survive man must produce. The third is that it is mans mind, his faculty of reason that is his only tool of survival. Forth is that reason needs total freedom, complete Liberty to function at maximum effectiveness-that a gun to the head is not an argument. Fifth, that the right to ones own life, to the freedom to live it, to enjoy the fruits of that life and any happiness as a result of that life must be sanctified under a common law. Any attempt to apply force to any individual or group will cost everybody eventually.

Sorry - it looks like the conversation's moved on from the video in the OP but I just got around to watching it and found a few very interesting points. Over the video Dr. Nida and Dr. Baker highlighted various important components of Vajrayana which they felt were being ignored by the 'foreign'/lay population - Ngondro, Bodhichitta, visiting holy sites, etc. Empowerments are available in mass form online - even very powerful ones (the mentioned the Kalachakra empowerment given by highly qualified masters to millions by now) They differentiated between the visualisation aspects of Tummo, the breath control aspects and the Yoga/exercise aspects. Dr. Nida said the visualisation aspects were said to provide very subtle results and might take longer (though in the context he might have meant 'take longer to percieve', there was a slight language barrier) They talked about some difficulties with how Varajyana is being taught to the public - that maybe not everyone should need to practice the six yogas and should be given exercises according to their strengths (i.e. the host - Steve, mentioned his preference for physical work over dream work and Dr. Nida said it would be fine for him to focus on his strengths) There were some interesting points about Tummo which I didn't know i.e. how it's practiced according to the sun cycle (obtaining the 'spark' of sunrise, similarly to how I understand alchemy, but this could of course be unrelated) All in all, it seems like their new venture 'The Varja Path' is their attempt to distill the core of the Varajyana tradition in a way presentable to a modern lay audience. They had criticisms for both the overly academic/esoteric lectures given by specialists at the recent Bhutan conference (which were said to be largely unintelligible just because they were so specialized) as well as criticisms for modern teachers who shrug off tradition altogether and overly modernize the path. This approach was very interesting to me because as some of you know I'm studying the methods of teachers who take a similar approach to separate traditions. I wonder what developments this will have for Varajyana in the West. For the practitioners of the tradition - do these criticisms align with your own perception of the tradition as a whole? Is this venture indeed necessary?

Hi guys, I recently bought the book Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light. Great book by the way. Well I have a question about something that happened to me. Last night I was lying on my back visualizing a letter "A" on my heart chakra that was glowing white light. I felt my self going through depths of consciousness and I got to this one point to where my back arched and my chest puffed out. The more intense I visualized the white light glowing from my heart the more my chest would bring me upward and forward. I got to where the point to where my torso was arched and forward as much as it could go and then my body was shaking intensely. I am 100% sure this was physical and not like some astral body event as I could still feel my bed against my body. Can someone explain what was happening here?

If you could choose to meditate in any location on the planet.... the meditation spot of your dreams, deepest fantasy..hehe, but let's keep it platonic How about under the world's tallest tree? This ancient sage could definitely teach a thing or two about meditation edit: OR anywhere in the universe... I mean, who wouldn't want to meditate on the moon with a view like that? (hypothetically of course) edit2: let's spice it up...optional: how about anywhere in ANY fictional universe as well? *star wars nerd alert*: The beautiful grasslands of naboo? or perhaps the mysterious and ancient Massassi temple site in the deep forests of Yavin IV?

Renunciation of wealth, feeling of detachment and respect for a saint is the result of former merit and good fortune. He alone starts thinking of a sadhu. It is extraordinary to have such an intellect in the dream within a dream. To be conscious, to be fully on senses in spite of taking a doze of brandy shows that though money can bring demonic pride, he still is on his senses. This is his (true) good fortune. He is in a dream within a dream. But on account of his virtuous intellect, he went to a Guru and discriminated between the true and untrue. He got the experience that everything else is false and `I am Brahman [final reality]'. This means that he has woken up from one dream. When in this dream he deliberated again he came to the further conclusion that even saying `I am Brahman' is false -- the whole world and words are illusion. As a result he became tranquil by staying in his own blissful state. Truth was revealed. He fully realised `I am Brahman'. This condition means `I am fully awake'. Not only the delusion but also `I have experienced' vanished. For if one says that he has experienced the self it means that he has taken himself to be different from the self. The real test is when the self has no sense of self `I'. If the mango says, "I found myself sweet", then it is not a mango. If you say `you got an experience', that means your `I', ego is still there. The idea `I got an experience' is a delusion. The `I' in `I have become knowledgeable' or `I have become Brahman' is ego. The former `I' should disappear. Whatever was before naturally is Brahman. The thorn `I' has to be extracted; then you are through. When you become all pervading, you become Brahman. `I am Brahman', this ego comes, but it also disappears afterwards. It is `One' only and there is nothing else than that. To go beyond nothing is to be in Thoughtless Reality, Parabrahman. ~Siddharameshwar Maharaj

Here it is; Philosophically the question is not logically answerable. But I liked this little outline: X was Fated to have had a normal life. His Free Will caused him to kill . His Destiny will be prison for the rest of his life. Other snippets of conversation I liked (One is Nungali, another a retired professor of mathematics – he goes first): Free will applies to things we think we may be able to control; fate refers to things which we think are beyond our control Destiny is the sum of our choices but we imagine it in reverse - as is laid out for us already and we are heading to a defined destination (that’s why there seems a discrepancy when what we thought was, or might be destiny, changes by a choice of ourselves or others to interact with us … or others events; ‘happenstance’ - randomness exists. or some such foolish fantasy of the ego, which always tries to occupy center stage. Life is but a dream, but it doesn't necessarily go merrily along like the rowboat in the song. What we call reality is the dream of the Lord Vishnu, iconographically depicted as a Lotus growing out of Vishnu's naval as he sleeps. His dream is not only creative, but is impacted by other entities, such as Shiva and Kali, forces of change, transformation, destruction. If not for destruction, the dream bubble would become too full and burst; the Lotus would topple under its own weight; and all creation would vanish instantly. Meanwhile we (myself included, of course) muddle along with our puny egoistic fantasies of free will and fate and destiny and karma and our illusion of being an autonomous entity of some sort. Whatever happens is in no way dependent on whether one believes in free will or fate. These are just attitudes, no more, no less, just a result of linear thinking. Reality is not linear. In Relativity Theory (which is no longer just a theory) it can even be impossible to distinguish between past, present, and future, nor is it possible to synchronize two clocks in different locations in the universe, since it is impossible for communication to be instantaneous, and the speeds at which the hands of the clocks move are dependent on the relative velocities of the clocks. A Christian told me ; “God gives you free will so that you can learn and grow, but sometimes God comes in and says ‘Oh no that's just too screwed up’ and doesn't let it happen." That’s pretty strange then considering what this Christian God DOES allow ! Yes … well, randomness exists. I have come to some conclusions then; that life is rather random; that fate hinges on the actions of others, whom are in turn influenced by others yet again; that free will puts me to a great extent where I am; d) that my destiny is the sum of my choices; that my karma is to learn what I can from my choices, and the reactions of others to those choices - hopefully to thereby evolve and that there is, I still believe, an element of Mystery present, people seem to ‘bring things with them’ when they are born? Yes ... even genetics seem to 'rule' us more than we realised; the twin girls seperated at infancy, bought up totally different, half a planet apart had an identical hair flicking motion, the twin brothers a continent apart having identical sun spots on their skin. But still ... it IS an interesting question philosophical QUESTION , regardless of us unable to come to a conclusion; If I jump into the flooding river, I am bound to be swept away. If I do it 'mindfully' I may end up exactly where 'I' want to go. I liked the story of the dream of Vishnu but for me, in my land, it's the Rainbow Serpent's dream ... the' knack' is, knowing it IS a dream ... and one's PLACE in that dream. And here ego can be tricky … we cant it here , traditionally and culturally like we are used to … one’s place in the dreaming (the living world now projected from the dreamtime) , traditionally is outlined by law and strict adherence , throughout a myriad facets of life; social contacts, marriage, hunting and food, territory ways of making things .. all set out - with an evolving and improving factor but severely limited, primarily by ecology – relationship to land and place as an integral component of religion and spirituality. But now, in MANY places the land is broken … ‘Broken Song’ so that link is different, even if broken land is part of the dreaming it has changed the harmony between people and law. So there is now a searching for one’s place in the dream because it may not be culturally outlined for you anymore. Maybe that’s why they say ‘New Dreaming’. Now we have new culture; traditional culture/ multicultural/western/global. WE all cant ignore place and location anymore, one of the significant things Aboriginal culture has taught Anthropology is the primal importance of connection to location spiritually for healthy societies and cultures. Find our place in the dream , or be born into it and ‘know it’ … live it out , or find it. Maybe big snake likes a dream more where he hasn’t worked out the ending – ‘experimental theatre’ … and maybe like ‘God’, described in the Christian opinion above , he lets us work it out , but sometimes we get to gross and he takes over ‘Alright you guys …that’s going too far.’ Maybe like when our dreams are a bit much and choose to modify them … or ‘attend to them’? because they don’t want to go in the direction the dream is going? Well then, big snake has some weird dreams too . They weren’t that weird until we came along . Everything was regulated and that was how the dreaming was going. So what happened. I don’t know … something disturbed the dream. Worlds/dreams collided? All part of one dream? If I remember rightly, all the land form to the west ranges and north and south along them was formed by a fight between a giant rainbow serpent and a goanna …. Somehow started by a giant bush turkey going around digging up sacred sites. There’s some food for thought !

Lucid dreaming. "no longer being deluded about the dream" implies first, a moment of realization that terminates a false view about reality, and secondly this realization resulting in the effortless authentication of the 'suchness of seen, heard, sensed' without falsely projecting self/seer, objects, and so on, as per what Kalaka Sutta described. This actualization is the actualization of wisdom, and when all latent tendencies are completely removed (when not even the residual smell remains after the contents of the jug was removed), such a being can be called an arhant or a buddha, and such a being only perceives wisdom in day to day living, never any ignorance, sense of self, attachments, and so on "no longer being deluded about the dream" cannot be pinned down as an entity inside the appearance, or apart from the appearance. It is simply a description about our experience - ignorance is wrong-cognition and wisdom is correct-cognition (shall explain below). Wisdom is just a convention, but ultimately empty of any inherent existence that could be pinned down or located as a reality. Similar things can be said to anything else: weather cannot be pinned down inside or apart from the everchanging clouds, rain, wind, lightning, etc... Car cannot be pinned down inside or apart from the engine, door, [other components] etc... Self cannot be pinned down inside or apart from the constantly changing five aggregation... so on and so forth. Awareness also cannot be pinned down inside or apart from the six dependently originated consciousnesses. All are just conventional truths, ultimately empty - that means ultimately there is no wisdom, no ignorance, no awareness, no self, no car, no weather, no eye, no ear, no nose, no five skandhas, no nirvana, no samsara - Form is Emptiness. But this should always be clarified: emptiness does not deny form, no-awareness does not deny luminosity, no self does not deny witnessing consciousness, no object does not deny appearance, etc. This is why 'Emptiness is Form'. Can't deny appearances - but because of empty nature you cannot pinpoint something (a wisdom, an Awareness, a car, a self, a weather, a chariot) as the appearance, or apart from the appearance Anatta means there is no one, no agent, that is ignorant, that is realized, that is behind seeing, hearing, smelling, etc. So to presume "something" is behind something is already false. Realization is something akin to recognizing the dream as illusory (not delusional). When you recognize the dream, you don't wake up from the dream, you wake up from your delusions about the dream (as containing real substantial objects and a real substantial self) and you continue dreaming lucidly, able to manipulate the illusions. Wisdom is illusory - empty but not delusional. Ignorance is both illusory and delusional. In short, it is one thing to say that the thing you see is illusory - for example you can see an illusory thing - like a mirage. But its a whole different thing to be tricked by the mirage by taking the mirage as an actual thing - like you thought there is a real city at the far end, when actually its just a mirage. Mirage is illusory, being tricked is delusion. It does make sense conventionally as I just explained above (one is with delusion one is not). Ultimately, there is no distinction because emptiness is the nature of everything - from ignorance to wisdom, from hell to Buddhas. You think that to be deluded implies 'someone' being deluded. This is just an inference, similar to thinking that to hear something it requires a hearer, or to see something requires a seer. This is false. The Buddha says, I do not say "I see", "I hear", or even "I am ignorant" or "I am deluded". He says, based on such and such supporting conditions, such and such happens. He doesn't say 'I hear, I see, I awaken' but he says with such and such conditions comes awakening, seeing, hearing, etc. Because the nature of twofold emptiness is such that there are no independent/inherent self or objects, to hold the view that there are independent self/objects are delusional. So, there is correct cognition (wisdom), and false cognition (ignorance), even though both are equally empty. That means, the conventionally observed effects of wisdom (wisdom leads to liberation, clarity, etc etc) and ignorance (ignorance leads to the 12 links, leads to suffering, clinging, etc etc) cannot be denied. But even wisdom and ignorance is ultimately illusory. As an analogy: experiencing the dream as if the dream tiger is real and the dream self is real and as a result experiencing fear and suffering, is a sign of ignorance (false cognition of the dream). Experiencing the dream with the recognition that the dream is merely a thought-projection and therefore no real tiger or self and as a result experiencing no fear at all is a sign of wisdom (correct cognition of the dream). This is just an analogy, of course lucid dreaming is not the same as the realization of emptiness as the nature of reality but a mere recognition of a dream as a dream: dream here as the state opposed to waking, not the dream-like nature of everything. You see, I think the problem with you is that to you, 'true' means 'something real, something existing, something substantial' and 'false' means 'something illusory'. To me its the opposite. 'True' means 'empty of reality, substantiality, inherent, independent existence' whereas 'false' means 'something taken as real, substantial, inherent, etc' So you're basically saying: if things are empty, if wisdom is as empty as ignorance, how can wisdom be more true (as in being the 'correct way of cognition') than ignorance? Or how can ignorance be more false than wisdom? While my answer is that precisely because the nature of reality is empty, that wisdom (correct cognition) or truth does not require substantial reality but rather points to the lack of substantiality or graspable existence... and precisely because of empty nature, that ignorance means view of inherent/substantial reality - deluded, false cognition of reality... of course even ignorance is empty but with ignorance, you don't comprehend that. Not sure what you're getting at. And yes, ordinary world is just as illusory/empty as dream world. By the way, Diamond Sutra says a Bodhisattva who believes that there is a self saving a sentient being is not a true bodhisattva since he believes in a truly existing self and a truly existing sentient being. And yet, he should give rise to the intention to save sentient beings. Why so? If all sentient beings are illusory, why save them? The answer is simple: just because all things are illusory doesn't mean people realize it, and because they don't realize it, they are asleep, and suffering as a result. Compassion arises from no one to no one - simply a spontaneous response or reaction to the situation of samsara. So just because everything is illusory doesn't mean genuine compassion cannot arise, the genuine intention to save ourselves and others (even though there is no real self or other) from suffering and delusion.

Imagination, Illusion, and interior are three different states Imagination is to use the brain to imagine, use acquired consciousness, and use force to imagine Illusion is to enter a trance state, the brain does not use force, nor does it deliberately use the acquired consciousness, but it is an image produced in a way similar to a dream, which belongs to the illusion Inner scenes such as mandala are produced from second-yang-birth, and yin and yang must alternate to appear. This is the real inner scene 想像力，幻境，內景是三種不同的狀態 想像力是用大腦去想像，使用後天意識，用力去想像出來的 幻境是進入恍惚狀態，大腦並沒有用力，也沒有刻意使用後天意識，但是那是類似夢境的方式產生的影像，屬於幻境 像曼陀羅之類的內景是產生於陽生，必須陰陽交替才能出現，這才是真正的內景 Because the cultivation methods learned by Westerners do not alternate between yin and yang, almost no one can produce mandala Only those who have not followed the teacher to learn Taoism have the opportunity to produce a real mandala On the contrary, those who practice Taoism with their teachers will not be able to produce mandalas. Taoist mandalas are often called lotus flowers or flowers. 因為西方人所學習到的修煉方法都是沒有在陰陽之間交替的，所以幾乎沒什麼人能夠產生曼陀羅 只有那種沒有跟著老師學道家修煉的人，才有機會產生真正的曼陀羅 反而跟著老師學道家修煉的人，是產生不出來曼陀羅的。 道家的曼陀羅通常稱為蓮花或者花。