Search the Community

You are drifting off into empty speculation. That's a very old joke. And indeed - I cannot proof that all kind of exotic ideas like we are living in a simulation, the world is a dream, we are continually fooled by devils, etc. are not true. But the only reasonable conclusion one can draw from that is that we cannot be absolutely sure about the world or even about ourselves. The old sceptics hundreds of years before Christ already knew that. But your life goes on, and apparently you keep using your computer as if there actually exists people who appear as Bums on this forum, so in practice you don't even take your own illusion-speculation seriously yourself. And that's OK because there is no reasonable way to take those speculations serious, except that is as warnings against pretensions of absolute knowledge.

Because if you go along with the flow then you make no exercise of your free will, you are just dragged along by the river. This is the situation for most humans and creatures on the planet. No judgement of it. Free will is very rare, it means you have the ability to do something of your own, at will, you can make yourself do whatever you wish whenever you wish it. And the way to develop it is step by step by doing things that are not easy. If they were easy the would not require free will. Of course such things are of no interest to most people whose main goal is to be the biggest slob possible. Of course the human population tells themselves how wonderful they are and dream of being George Clooney at the same time, whilst wiping chocolate cake off their face lying horizontal in front of Netflix !!!!

Saying free will categorically does not exist seems like a fallacy? A regular dream state is an example of awareness that lacks free will. Awareness is present, but intent is not, and interaction with the environment is clearly driven from the outside. In a waking state intent follows the awareness, and is either driven consciously (will shapes the intent) or externally (intent chases or tries to avoid objects of perception). Conceptualized thought stream does not stem from the will. It's easy to prove - just make we just make an arm go up or down. We have control of the process. Now, if we intend to cease the conceptual thinking for a minute or two, we might not succeed.The conclusion is that the thinking mind is not quite in our control, despite the identification we might hold with "our own thoughts". There is also very practical problem with that approach -- the conceptual mind is very limited in what it knows how to do. Most of day to day operations go beyond words -- we don't use the conceptual mind to remember, to write, to visualize, to drive, to tie shoelaces, or to draw, or move around, or play musical instruments. In fact, in most cases when we go somewhere, it is inclined to go the other way, dragging the awareness away with it. So, we could say that free will is present when intent and awareness are unified, and there is no excessive lust of result. Observing that no free will exists has merit, because this is not something that people usually have a grasp of, or free will it is identified with following the conceptual mind (that one likes categorizing and compartmentalizing, so the person gets obsessed with being somehow distinct from others and feeling personally achieved and distinguished). Even without recruiting karmic principles, it's enough to keep guys running in circles for a good while. And of we reject free will, then there is of course, no need to talk about destiny, since it's now all destiny, and there are no actual decisions, and we are all just lumbering automatons. Just my mishmash of some Crowley and Buddhist stuff, nothing too new or scientific.

The game of being has a 'time-out' box where beings enter not to be... the dreamless dream. Not-being involves accepting 'what is not' as being and holding "what is" as not being. 'Dualistic' notions of not-being reflect being within the dream. At all time Beings being none-beings remain within the not-being being unaware of being until the moment that what is impossible becomes possible and the impassable passage be passed. At any time a being can choose to wake up from the dreamless dream though thats impossible for a none-being to accomplish, for those who think they can't do it will not do it even if they could do it. For those who know, I have little to add for those who do NOT know I will say: - the man who refuses to see, and wishes not to see, sees without seeing where as the blind man, sees without seeing Some see 'seeing without seeing' as the key to see and to not see some know the elephant as the elephant! - "A ray of light suffices to enlighten and disintegrate darkness". Lies just disintegrate in the presence of the truth... and those who know and recognize the truth can experience all the possibilities and realities with a single thought (feeling understanding act) though they do not have to experience it all to know it all. I would like each and everyone to know the truth and be enlighten... and keep on watering the plants and chopping wood... What would you like be? Can a finite temporary experience include it all while also transcending the finite temporary experience? The enlightened know from experience the singular valid answer... believers know the stories told until they experience a singular transcendental enlightenment instant ... of course there are all sort of storytellers with all sort of captivating lines and all sort of motives... which do you seek to cultivate and contemplate.

Saying that everything is possible also puts a limit on the "universal infinite intelligence", because that rules out the case that in our world not everything is possible. But I have learned my lesson by now. Dream on, brother...

Don't know who the Pop brothers/sisters are. but it never hurts to sing. good for you. As far as negative entities goes, when I was very young, I use to have reoccurring nightmares of being chased by the wolf man, Dracula, and Frankenstein. Think I was 6 or 7. one night all three of them were after me, and I somehow realized it was a dream , one of the first lucid dreams i ever remembered, and climbed a stone wall, and turned around and ask, "hay, why are you guys chasing me"? They stopped in there tracks and just looked at each other and then at me, like "we don't have a clue why we are chasing you"... So I jumped off the wall, and said, 'so lets just be friends". so we all shook hands and decided to stop fucking with each other and let us all be. never had another nightmare about them. My point in this was, the old saying, "That which we resist persist" - we all have dark travelers, and while singing is a way to open the heart, we cannot stuff them away, we have to bring them to the light of day, see what we need to see. Most dark things feed off our fear, our insecurities. Laughing is also good, as long as we keep open, fearless. good luck

I just cannot see it as anything other than a mental process. When I say "other than" I do not mean that to sound flippant, far from it! I have no idea what practice I am supposed to progress in. I am aware of techniques that somewhat loosen consciousness and leaves yourself open to suggestibility. When I dream there are characters in my dream that seem to act beyond my control, during certain conscious episodes there are been independant voices in my head. Trance? So I should probably dance around and chant? I've done that. It was extremely uplifting. I've also practiced meditation, but admit my heart just wasn't in it - although I found it also to be a pleasant experience. Maybe I expereince "entities" all the timeand I just simply view them as extentions of myself into the supposed reality we call reality? When I see people talking about chatting to Satan I know for certain they are chatting to themselves, because Satan is a fiction made by man. I do believe there is something that current culture adapts to these processes. I am inclined towards Jungian archetypes as being the reason for belief in these kind of entities. This is not to dismiss the whole thing as useless nonsense because they are powerful things that can help you to understand yourself and alter yourself for better or worse.

Ohhh ... I can tell you how the salt water and the fresh water got divided .... loong before Those pesky newcomer Babylonians ! You see, back in the dreamtime ... no, not that dream time, the other dream ..... Wallaby, goanna and bush cockroach decided to have a ceremony, they sent bush cockroach off to find some ochre , he came back, mixed it up and made some nice paint. "Now paint me" said Wallaby and bush cockroach did. Did a good job too ! The wallaby painted lizard and he did a good job too. They stood there admiring each other. But cockroach said "Hey ! What about me? No one has painted me!" So lizard , "Ohhh all right then " But he didnt do it very good . And cockroach (as they say nowadays ) got pissed off. Actually he he got so pissed off that he started pissing ..... and pissing ... and pissing and he pissed here and he pissed there and he pissed everywhere ! " HEY! What are you doing ? "said goanna - and he pissed on him. "Stop that!" said wallaby and he pissed on her too ! And then he started pissing in their goanna's water "Hey ! Dont do that! You will turn the water salty! " Wallaby grabbed her paperbark dilly bag full of water and stuck it her pouch But he kept pissing in and then he pissed all over the camp site and the bushes and the tress and then he pissed in the creek and all the water ... and it all turned salty . "Now look what you have done, " said wallaby, "You turned all the water salty.... except for my bit !" and she hopped away with it. Thats why, there is still a lot of fresh water around, but most of water now is salty { Acknowledgements to the Gamalanga Milingimbi }

Hello Steve, Proper meditation in general clears the mind of the dross of ignorance and for some can dismantle false beliefs of ego separation so that one sees clearly and realizes Ultimate Reality and the interconnectedness of all life--i.e., that man and the Universe are one. Psychic awareness obviously expands when such cosmic consciousness is attained. Regular practice of Flying Phoenix Meditations certainly increases or actualizes one's psychic potential and in some persons, refines intelligence. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, during one lesson during the first or second year of training, GM Doo Wai had each of us students practice Flying Phoenix and other Bok Fu Pai Meditations for one hour, then divided us into two groups and instructed us to remotely reach each other with a distance separating one group from the other by approx. 14 miles. As a result of successfully trying to read what one of my classmates was doing and thinking and him me, that evening we both had dreams--except that each of us dreamt in the mode or format that the other person normally dreamed in. And we each had the dream content that the other person normally would have had--given the nature of their work and profession and personal/family life. In other words, the meditations somehow caused us to "switch" both dream content and dream form or format with one another. And we were also able to interpret each other's dreams--and tie them directly to waking events and circumstances-- almost instantly because were we also lucid during those dreams. So, YES, practice of Bok Fu Pai Meditations--including Flying Phoenix Meditations--does expand consciousness and cultivates psychic ability or "powers" to higher levels and in very unusual and profound ways. Enjoy your growing prescience and clear vision, and please continue to inform the thread of your non-ordinary experiences having to do with synchronicity. Best, Sifu Terry

Yes, that's the problem... lucid dreaming, and is lucid dreaming an OBE, anytime a lucid dream started, as in I became conscious in a dream it then returned me to my body and tripped the vibration/separation state creating the full experience. But my focus was to create that state and not stay within a lucid dream state. Consciousness is divisible, and the level of consciousness within a lucid dream is far less stark than an OBE, although a level is still there. I wouldn't call lucid dreaming an OBE, it can help lead to it, but it still retains a dreamlike quality that an actual OBE doesn't. Meditation can bypass the need for an OBE, somewhat similar to either going to Africa or simply watching it on TV. Once a person has through a practiced state of meditation reached that level they don't need to leave their body, it's all there and can be viewed. More similar to remote viewing, the practice of one can often lead to the other.

I think this phenomenon is somewhat related to the practice of tögel and also related to sleep yoga. Tögel is a Dzogchen practice which helps us recognize that all experience arises from the mind. The practice involves resting in the nature of mind (non-dual meditative state) and using a variety of methods to allow the mind to spontaneously generate experience, be they visual, auditory, and so on. Common methods of practice include prolonged sequestration in total darkness (in our tradition it is a 7 week dark retreat), gazing at the open sky, gazing "at" the sun (not directly!).It may be a little different than resting in the afterglow of sleep as I think in that context we may experience a mixture of waking awareness and dream awareness. Have you practiced or trained in sleep yoga? In our tradition, it involves exploring the boundary between waking and sleeping awareness and cultivating the ability to consciously navigate the transition. Ultimately we can experience total awareness in deep, dreamless sleep. At very skillful levels the practitioner is said to be able to remain fully aware through the entire transition from waking to dreamless sleep.

I think these beings are tricksters in a way only because they wanted me to penetrate the illusions. Here is another example....heheheheh... In this dream, I was taking a shower, while there was a group of young ladies sitting on the bathroom floor. While I was supposedly naked and taking a shower. They didn't mind my presence or I didn't mind theirs. I was doing my thing. Then, I realized that I still have my clothes on. I tried to take them off but the more I tried, there was always one more layer of cloth on me. I then looked at the bathroom floor, I saw about a dozen of pieces of clothing. I then realized that this wasn't real. I stopped trying to remove my cloth now and just taking my shower as it was. Strangely, the bottom half of me was completely naked. Then, I laid down in my bathtub and noticed that I was still half naked and I saw myself being submerged with clear water. So this dream has certain cleansing element in it. At least, the bottom half of me was being cleansed while the upper part is still under some illusions. Or some thin layer of a fake identity.

Early on in my path, I didn't follow any specific path because the kundalini energy rising experience was so spontaneous. However, this spontaneity didn't last for more than 30 days. Unfortunately, my mind was preoccupied with the daily issues of, well, life. I actually spent more than a decade of not caring about my experience and just trying to live a normal life while trying to resolve my past life karma. About 5 years ago, I went back to this experience and to try to understand the purpose of my life. I then have to study and to read up on various means to meditate. I was a newbie totally. The more I read and the more I can infer what I read with my own personal experiences, I gained a lot of insights and the understanding of the entire Taoist and Buddhist cosmology. However, I didn't get attracted to the Hindu Yoga because I dislike all the deity connotation associated with Hindu Yoga. I am Chinese and so I would prefer something more practical and straight forward. Hehehehe... At first, I simply focused on chakras meditation. Just meditating on my 7 chakras, from bottom up. I could tell things were happening because I was getting strange bodily sensations at the lower chakras at night. During my meditation, I would see faces of animals. Every time I saw these faces, I freaked out a bit. On the hearing side, I would hear a very low frequency vibration throughout the entire day. The sound of the vibration sounds like a car engine running while you are inside the car driving. Eventually, I worked my way up to my crown chakras in few months. Yes, getting different bodily sensations as well, with my chest, heart, and my head. The chakras frequency was getting higher now and multiple. Dreams were becoming more lucid. Right now, I used the skeleton meditation briefly as means to calm my mind. I then focus either on my LDT or the heart chakras. At the beginning I focused on my breath. Since I couldn't even hear myself breathing now because the sound of the chakras vibration is so strong, I don't count breaths anymore. I just sit in a half lotus position. Close my eyes and letting myself sinking in and to become overwhelmed by the sound of silence, the sound of my own chakras vibrating. If I do this at night before bed, nimitta light would not arise during the meditation. Sometimes it does but the intensity is very weak. Now, during sleep and in dreams and early morning, however, the nimitta light would shine extremely brightly...usually within 20 minutes in my morning meditation. In dreams, the nimitta light tends to manifest as "light and dream imagery" as well. I can't explain it. What I means is that I would be dreaming something and in the dream I would see the nimitta light. Then, I would become aware of this light and I would find myself awakened from my sleep...while this nimitta light is still shinning brightly. Sometimes, I would go back to sleep while concentrating on this light and this light would manifest as another dreams. So, in a way, the nimitta light serves as a bridge between my waking reality and the my dreaming reality. Now, once I woke up in the morning, almost 99% of the time I can meditate and the nimitta light would appear within 20 minutes. What Jhana level I am at? Can't say since I was never told by a qualified person of what Jhana level I am at. I know it is not the first because my Samadhi and Jhana experience years ago is so much different than now. I am still getting all the signs but the sensations aren't that overwhelming. And I am not losing myself in these bliss sensations.

Is that a riddle? To be honest, I am not sure what it meant, I thought I did..But I was wrong. I did a search for dream interpretation and found that it meant spiritual evolution, but then somewhere else it said bad fortunes? "To dream of seeing a monk, foretells dissensions in the family and unpleasant journeyings." "To see a monk in your dream signifies devotion, faith, and spiritual enlightenment." See? Isn't that the most confusing shit ever? By the way that is from two totally different websites!

So you really have not studied the book Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and IMmortality have you? That's o.k. Others reading my posts to you might actually study the book. haha. Dream on though!

Hi. I'm forming the earliest stage, prior to full development. Don't know anything and have no idea(s). I'm from America. ********** When I was younger I was told that this song had a profound spiritual significance: Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream. Amusingly, the same people who taught me this truth then proceeded to blindfold me, cut off my hands, fill my body with drugs and poison, put me on a boat with a giant hole, fill the boat with fireworks and chickens, attach a jet engine to the rear of the boat, point the boat upstream towards the rapids, pour gasoline on the entire structure, set it on fire, and send me merrily on my way. ********** The stream and the dream led me here for now.

Timely that this thread was recently bumped. Next week I leave for a retreat with Rinpoche marking the 5th in a 5 year cycle of teachings on the Zhangzhung Nyengyud, one of the 3 Bön Dzogchen lineages. The retreat I referred to in 2013 at the beginning of this thread was my first with Rinpoche and was a precursor to the 5 year cycle that culminates next week. I'm not sure if the dream and sleep practices originated in the shamanic tradition or not but it would certainly make sense. I do know they are drawn from three primary sources - Ma Gyud (Mother Tantra), Zhangzhung Nyengyud (Oral Transmission of Zhangzhung), and Shardza Rinpoche (a very famous teacher from the early 20th century). I think you would find a lot of similarity between your Zen practice and the core practice Rinpoche teaches - Dzogchen. There are differences but the fundamental guidance is to 'leave everything just as it is.' Dzogchen literally means 'great perfection' referring to the idea that everything is fine just as it is, nothing is needed, nothing is out of place, nothing to be done but to be. While it sounds simple, the truth of it is quite elusive as you know doubt know as a Soto Zen practitioner. Nice to have you here Zen Pig. Warm regards

Same here. While my background is soto zen, later modified because I wanted to see why I was having lucid dreams and found Tibetan dream and sleep yoga, (which, if I am not wrong is from the Bon shamanic tradition) , I don't know of do much other than the above mentioned as far as Tibetan Buddhism goes. But from what I have seen, so far, there comes a time when we have to stop reading and talking, (like I am doing right now)LOL and just sit, or practice. that seems to be where the rubber meets the road.

You know, you can wait all your life, and dream about living it. Or you can live your dreams.

You are speaking for yourself, right now. It is only when you insist that you have not been speaking for yourself, that you create the experience for yourself of not speaking for yourself. But that is not a real reality that actually exists, beyond the idea itself, as a thoughtform, as every thought that has ever been thought still exists. But these thought forms, they don't come from your Source. That is what I am talking about, when I speak of your greater Self, and your ability to align your thought and thinking with your greater being. You are not becoming less you, BUT MORE YOU, WHO YOU TRUELY REALLY ARE NOW. TRUTH! I am not talking about another! You, YOU YOU YOU! WHO YOU REALLY ARE! RIGHT NOW! That is why it is so valuable for people to meditate. Because then they can finally allow themselves to let go of their thought, and develop the clarity. And then they can look back at what they have been saying, in your case written, and how it has been contradicting yourself, for absolutely no other reason than an imagined one! "I am capable of speaking for myself, if and when I choose." And then suddenly, due to the nature of clarity that is begotten by meditation, and emotional clarity aswell, one can look back at these words and suddenly see how they make absolutely no sense at all! "Wait a minute!" you would be saying then. "I have always been talking for myself. No one can ever talk for me! That is not even physically possible! That is hilarious. That does not even exist." You begin to realise the absurdity of repeating old thought in the mode of unconscious habbitual mode repetitive dreaming. And then you wake up. And you say, hello. I am awake now. Good morning. And talk about all the things you truely came here into this physical reality to talk about. You, not some misty ghost in the sky who is trying to manipulate you. YOU YOU YOU, your own energy. Your own breath. The one who is so deeply inhereted in who it is you really are, it is forever closer to you than your own skin. And this is the one who you are that you love, unconditionally. And if you don't, again, you are not facing yourself. But faced away from it. And it does not cause or create any awareness or anything, except thoughtforms. That only point you in the direction of greater and greater unconsciousness. About your request for impressing. There is no such thing as insertion in this physical universe. However, you can create the illusionary experience of there being insertion, and trust me, NOTHING IS MORE REAL THAN THE EXPERIENCE! And then you realise, finally, that you have been creating these experiences of other people "impressing" on you. But they happen through you! You create them! You buy in to them and you give them ALL OF YOUR POWER! and you MAKE THEM USE YOUR POWER AGAINST YOU! And I say, wake up. And let go of the need to create further dreaming. Look how deep you already are in the dream of creation. There is no further reaching. You are on the leading edge of all of creation. Be proud of yourself. And claim who it is you truely really are and always have been. Your trueself, is always fully available to you here and now, where your highest and greatest truth always is! Waiting for you, to finally allowing yourself to face it. In your self validating ability to feel your way towards that greatest truty of who it is you truely really already are and always have been, by virtue of the feeling of absolute bliss as you allow yourself to awaken into who it is you truely already really always have been and always will be.

When 'somebody' uses that many 'quotes' in their 'writing', I think there "might' be a bit of a 'screw' loose. But it 'might' be a good 'topic' for 'General' 'Discussion'. In a broad sense, when you look at the fact that 99.99% of the measurable content of an atom is space, it logically flows that we are 99.99 percent space as well. I dunno. Are we actually here, or are we a dream on the backdrop of consciousness? Plato must have sat in a cave for many hours thinking about the shadows of people cast on the wall. I like the fact that you're an independent thinker. You'll find plenty of those here. Welcome.

In pure thought-free awareness, which is understandably difficult to sustain at times, there are no thoughts and hence no objects. At that point, one can shift attention from one aspect of one's nature to the other just as a lucid dreamer can shift perspectives between that of the dream-object and that of the dreamer. One discovers how to live metaphorically in "two worlds" (virtually) simultaneously. These are great points in a great dialogue, rideforever ! Feel free to share more.

The idea that "I" will manifest my desires .... is totally contradictory to the teachings of the major teachers on this planet who say that you must struggle and fight and study and practice and only then will you transform your own self into the real being. Manifesting things is about what you have, or the experiences you have. Spirituality is about what you are, and becoming your true self. Clearly the manifesting people are just self-centered emotional gratifiers who have very low intelligence and sincerity. They have heard that realisation is a bliss, and so they wish to gain that bliss without doing any work for it. Whether the universe gives you something or not, is not the point .... spirituality speaking. How will it profit you to own the whole world when you have no idea who you are and live in a fake dream of pleasures. A human being is complex on the inside with many parts, conscious, subconscious, older, newer, awake, asleep, physical emotional intellectual spriitual, relative and absolute. So many parts, and for most it's just a disastrous dump site. And so when they try to manifest something .... who inside them is manifesting ? One part of them wants A, another part of them wants B, another part of them want C .... no wonder they don't "get what they want". Getting what you want is a result of being a whole integrated spiritual being, which is a long journey requiring much struggle and work. And the conditions of life here with alternating joy and pain are what we need. Destiny is again something outside of you, what will I get in the future. It is not a spiritual question. spiritual question is how can I bring myself into existence.

Ah ha! Yes dream interpretation that can be very useful to get guidance from the unconscious mind etc. I listen to this sometimes when I can't sleep and I do feel energised the next day:

Sifu Terry Thank you so much for your opinions and tentative interpretation of the events that night. Very interesting, and thought provoking. I have no way of knowing for sure, what happened. The 'waking' dream, as I would call it, was a very powerful experience. It has stayed with me, ever since, as if it just happened. I can clearly remember the teacher's face. Every detail. Interestingly, I rarely remember a dream. Its as if I go completely 'off line" as soon as I close my eyes. I would remember a dream perhaps once a year. So this was a completely different thing. What was most profound, i think, from my perspective, was the quality and feel of the golden light. It wasn't just light. The room was thick with a feeling of peace and serenity. It was as if I could touch, even hold the light, like a warm blanket. The light was tangible, as a 'thing', rather than just light. If pushed, and upon reflection, it was as if the light was consciousness itself, as if the light was the message. The secret being hidden in plain sight ? Anyway, its something for me to think about, meditate on, and reflect on, over the next few months and years, whenever it comes to my mind, or whenever seems appropriate, and perhaps it will eventually make sense, or its significance or otherwise will become apparent. In the meantime, I do think it was as a result of my FP work. Agreed. Monk Holding Peach feels unique to me. I experimented, a few days ago, with 45 minutes, just in MHP, to see how the energy developed, and then relaxed again. I do get the folding forward at the waste, I don't go as far as having my back parallel with the ground, but it can be quite powerful and dramatic. It always feels good, though ! Currently, of all the meditations on the first three DVDs, MHP is the one I feel most attached to. I get something different from each of them, but MHP is currently the most sublime. So misleadingly simple, yet profound. The secret is often revealed at the start ? Although perhaps that would be MGM, or is it MGM, MHP and MHP together, working on all three Dantiens, that is the key ? Or maybe thats completely wrong. i'll get back to you after thirty years of practice, and maybe i'll understand a little more ! Thank you.