Zen

[Wells]

10 minutes ago, C T said:

You might well be right.

 

Yes, but where do you have this claim from? This sounds like a baseless rumor made up inside a certain sort of follower community for the psychological reason of self-assurence.

"Oh, I am seeing bright rainbow colors floating around you, that means that we both are near realizing rainbow body!"

 

[Mudfoot]

36 minutes ago, Wells said:

 

"Oh, I am seeing bright rainbow colors floating around you, that means 

 

... we have smoked some good shit. 

[C T]

1 hour ago, Wells said:

 

Yes, but where do you have this claim from? This sounds like a baseless rumor made up inside a certain sort of follower community for the psychological reason of self-assurence.

"Oh, I am seeing bright rainbow colors floating around you, that means that we both are near realizing rainbow body!"

 

 

Its pointless giving you sources cos you are one of those who only trust your own research and form rigid views around that. Its clear from your statement about it sounding like a rumour that you are not familiar with the basic approach towards the development of the 5 pathways mind towards the culmination of the Dzogchen View, where one's state becomes more refined from one pathway mind to the next, until enlightening nature is fully established. So, for example, someone on the stage of the third pathway mind will not be able to recognise the qualities that will be revealed in the fourth, and the fifth pathway mind wont appear until the fourth is stabilised. In this regard, its only logical that someone who may only have attained the second pathway mind not have the understanding and sight to see what's at the fifth pathway mind, and then, someone like yourself will cleverly deduce thats its just a made-up rumour and all that nonsense. Thats the point i made in the previous post. 

 

If you need to verify my proposal just do your own search on the works of Alex Berzin, but then again, you might not even regard him as a trustworthy source, knowing this general attitude of cynicism that you tend to have. 

Edited December 5, 2017 by C T

[Wells]

1 hour ago, C T said:

If you need to verify my proposal just do your own search on the works of Alex Berzin, but then again, you might not even regard him as a trustworthy source, knowing this general attitude of cynicism that you tend to have. 

 

Why always so passive-aggressive?

I actually think that Berzin is one of the better sources for theoretical dzogchen knowledge, but I am not sure if someone can understand and apply what he is talking about without having additional very good practical sources.

[C T]

17 minutes ago, Wells said:

 

Why always so passive-aggressive?

I actually think that Berzin is one of the better sources for theoretical dzogchen knowledge, but I am not sure if someone can understand and apply what he is talking about without having additional very good practical sources.

 

Im sorry if it came across as p/a, but really, i didn't feel that when i wrote the reply. I was perhaps wrongly interpreting your words all along. 

 

Im not sure what you mean by good practical sources, but in my limited understanding, its going to be a rough path without authentic guidance and lineage affiliation, or to put it in proper parlance, the taking of refuge has to be the entrance into the Dzogchen path, either Buddhist or Bon. 

 

 

 

Btw, have you come across this excerpt before from the Berzin Archives?

 

"With the ceasing of dumbfoundedness, our alaya for habits becomes effulgent rigpa – that is, rigpa in its aspect of actively giving rise to cognitive appearances (mental holograms) and actively cognizing them, with the former more prominent. But we need to go even deeper than that. Staying focused with the simultaneously arising, abiding, and ceasing of microseconds of the pure appearances of effulgent rigpa, we need to recognize essence rigpa. This is rigpa in its aspect of being the “open space” or “cognitive sphere” that allows for the arising of appearances and the cognizing of them, with the latter more prominent. When we recognize and stay focused with this, we attain break-through, a seeing path of mind (path of seeing), the third of the five pathway minds on the way to enlightenment."

[Wells]

1 hour ago, C T said:

Im sorry if it came across as p/a, but really, i didn't feel that when i wrote the reply. I was perhaps wrongly interpreting your words all along. 

 

I am sorry, I probably just wrongly percepted what I was expecting.

 

Quote

Im not sure what you mean by good practical sources, but in my limited understanding, its going to be a rough path without authentic guidance and lineage affiliation, or to put it in proper parlance, the taking of refuge has to be the entrance into the Dzogchen path, either Buddhist or Bon. 

 

I surely agree with you there.

 

Quote

Btw, have you come across this excerpt before from the Berzin Archives?

 

"With the ceasing of dumbfoundedness, our alaya for habits becomes effulgent rigpa – that is, rigpa in its aspect of actively giving rise to cognitive appearances (mental holograms) and actively cognizing them, with the former more prominent. But we need to go even deeper than that. Staying focused with the simultaneously arising, abiding, and ceasing of microseconds of the pure appearances of effulgent rigpa, we need to recognize essence rigpa. This is rigpa in its aspect of being the “open space” or “cognitive sphere” that allows for the arising of appearances and the cognizing of them, with the latter more prominent. When we recognize and stay focused with this, we attain break-through, a seeing path of mind (path of seeing), the third of the five pathway minds on the way to enlightenment."

 

Yes, I read the article of him with that excerpt years ago and in my opinion that's a very good description of what dzogchen is all about in a nut-shell.

 

Edited December 5, 2017 by Wells

[Gunther]

4 hours ago, Mudfoot said:

... we have smoked some good shit. 

Aye, smartass question: who is the smoker???😀😀

[Gunther]

1 hour ago, C T said:

 

Im sorry if it came across as p/a, but really, i didn't feel that when i wrote the reply. I was perhaps wrongly interpreting your words all along. 

 

Im not sure what you mean by good practical sources, but in my limited understanding, its going to be a rough path without authentic guidance and lineage affiliation, or to put it in proper parlance, the taking of refuge has to be the entrance into the Dzogchen path, either Buddhist or Bon. 

 

 

 

Btw, have you come across this excerpt before from the Berzin Archives?

 

"With the ceasing of dumbfoundedness, our alaya for habits becomes effulgent rigpa – that is, rigpa in its aspect of actively giving rise to cognitive appearances (mental holograms) and actively cognizing them, with the former more prominent. But we need to go even deeper than that. Staying focused with the simultaneously arising, abiding, and ceasing of microseconds of the pure appearances of effulgent rigpa, we need to recognize essence rigpa. This is rigpa in its aspect of being the “open space” or “cognitive sphere” that allows for the arising of appearances and the cognizing of them, with the latter more prominent. When we recognize and stay focused with this, we attain break-through, a seeing path of mind (path of seeing), the third of the five pathway minds on the way to enlightenment."

In the state of unlimited, eternal self luminous space (rigpa) all is floating by. Including rainbow bodies, mummies, Bodhisattvas, god's, spirits, views and opinions. Fair play Milarepa plucking flowers in the sky

[Mark Foote]

13 hours ago, Wells said:

 

The established definitions of the different sorts of rainbow body allow a pretty reliable classification.

 

What do you mean with "personal experience"? If I have achieved rainbow body?

 

I was hoping you could tell me why this teaching resonates with you, preferably with some kind of example drawn from your life.

 

Granted, the teachings are many and various, yet I think it's important to acknowledge some propensity for followers of faith to create texts and teachings that confuse myth with science, as the years pass.  Gautama said to take nothing on faith, in his final days, and I believe in that approach.  At the same time, I'm aware that there's a great deal that cannot readily be explained on the basis of science, and I delight in stories like those I am reading now of Native Americans who seemed privy to advice and counsel from another world.

 

The stories I am reading are very straight-forward, mostly about healers, and the prophecies they received and the illnesses they cured. 

Maybe these Tibetan teachings are along those lines.  I certainly enjoyed Alexandra David-Neel's account of magic and mystery in Tibet, and there's clearly a long, non-Buddhist history of spiritual practices in Tibet, as well as a Buddhist history.  I'm just looking to avoid discussing angels dancing on the heads of pins, when the OP asked for help with sitting cross-legged.

[Gunther]

★★ Chan Life : Living Daily Life with Ordinary Mind & Grateful Mind
____________________________________________

◆ Both favorable and unfavorable circumstances are causes and conditions of enhancement; Chan/Zen practitioners should treat them with ordinary mind and grateful mind. 

▲ An ordinary mind is a mind of non-abiding awareness ― the function of prajna wisdom arises without abiding in anything; which is not knowledge, views, or experiences, but a living attitude that transcends the self-centeredness.  Therefore, to treat favorable and unfavorable circumstances with ordinary mind of utmost freedom and liberation is to have Chan life of true peace, harmony, altruism, and happiness. 

▲ In fact, Chan/Zen practitioners should view everything in the world with mind of gratitude. We should be grateful to those who favor positive circumstances to us as well as those who create unfavorable circumstances for us. We are grateful to the former people because they provide us opportunities to deepen our mind-training; we are grateful to the latter people because dealing with adversity make us earnest and persevering practitioners.  When we have a genuine mind of gratitude to all beings without discrimination and attachment, our self-centeredness will take a full rest. 

🙏❤🙏💛🙏💜🙏

_____________________________________________

[Wells]

.

Edited January 29, 2018 by Wells

[zafrogzen]

2 hours ago, Wells said:

I want a solution to this dilemma. What I want is a state of freedom from all those conditions and a content that will last forever and if I achieve this, I will help the beings around me who are in the same situation as I am now, but without realizing it, to become free of it all as well.

 

So, does this entail sitting meditation (zazen)?

[Wells]

1 hour ago, zafrogzen said:

So, does this entail sitting meditation (zazen)?

 

 This entails sitting meditation.

[Mark Foote]

Like to thank Wells, Zafrogzen, CT and Gunther.

 

On Bodhidharma's one sandal left behind, I do believe that was the only way for someone to see an individual with only one sandal proceeding out of China, and for the rest of us to know by that individual's report that Bodhidharma did not die at Shaolin Temple.

 

I sympathize with you, Wells, on your dissatisfaction with the material and your desire to escape suffering, perhaps for the benefit of all beings.

 

For me, the science is Gautama's.  The way I understand it, the four truths are only relevant when suffering exists.  Lots of folks interpret the four truths to mean all of life is suffering, but I believe it is the recognition, "suffering exists", that keys the second, third, and fourth truths. 

 

Second truth, the origin of suffering is in ignorance, and from ignorance habitual action or volitive action, and from such action consciousness and the chain of dependencies down to grasping after self in the five groups.

 

Third truth, with the cessation of ignorance is the cessation of the whole chain, including grasping after self in the five groups.

 

Fourth truth, not going to help me much in its original statement, but this does:

(Anyone)…knowing and seeing eye as it really is, knowing and seeing material shapes… visual consciousness… impact on the eye as it really is, and knowing, seeing as it really is the experience, whether pleasant, painful, or neither painful nor pleasant, that arises conditioned by impact on the eye, is not attached to the eye nor to material shapes nor to visual consciousness nor to impact on the eye; and that experience, whether pleasant, painful, or neither painful nor pleasant, that arises conditioned by impact on the eye—neither to that is (such a one) attached. …(Such a one’s) physical anxieties decrease, and mental anxieties decrease, and bodily torments… and mental torments… and bodily fevers decrease, and mental fevers decrease. (Such a one) experiences happiness of body and happiness of mind. (repeated for ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind).

Whatever is the view of what really is, that for (such a one) is right view; whatever is aspiration for what really is, that for (such a one) is right aspiration; whatever is endeavour for what really is, that is for (such a one) right endeavour; whatever is mindfulness of what really is, that is for (such a one) right mindfulness; whatever is concentration on what really is, that is for (such a one) right concentration. And (such a one’s) past acts of body, acts of speech, and mode of livelihood have been well purified.

(Majjhima-Nikaya, Pali Text Society volume 3 pg 337-338, ©Pali Text Society)

No, I don't much experience sense object, sense organ, consciousness, impact, and feeling the way Gautama described it, but I do take something from what he said about the nature of the path.

Gunther quoted " An ordinary mind is a mind of non-abiding awareness".  My ability to sit has improved since I discovered that this is not a dualism, the reference is not to awareness and its object, but simply to the location of awareness.  The eyes play tricks, resetting the location of awareness with the thinking mind, but as Ayres asserted the coordinating sense is equalibrioception (the vestibulars).  

As far as sitting cross-legged, I return now to something like this, as a necessity of breath at about 30 minutes:

Awareness of the forward and backward motion wherever consciousness takes place and relaxation of the activity of the body in awareness stretches the ligaments and fascia of the ilio-sacral joints, between the sacrum and the pelvis. Similarly, awareness of the side-to-side motion wherever consciousness takes place and relaxation of the activity of the body in awareness stretches the ligaments and fascia between the sacrum and the sit-bones on either side. Likewise, awareness of the turn left, turn right wherever consciousness takes place and relaxation of the activity of the body in awareness stretches the ligaments and fascia between the sacrum and the lower front sides of the pelvis, left and right.

 

The stretches initiate activity in the muscle groups of the legs, activity that returns to the pelvis to initiate stretch and activity in support of the spine and the skull.

 

 

 

 

 

It's all I can do to just breath, at about 35, but it makes me happy.

 

"To unfurl the red flag of victory over your head, whirl the twin swords behind your ears—if not for a discriminating eye and a familiar hand, how could anyone be able to succeed?"

 

(emphasis mine; from "The Blue Cliff Record", translation by T. and J.C. Cleary, case 37 pg 274)

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 7, 2017 by Mark Foote