Tantra...

[Jeff]

CT recently posted the following quote in his ongoing thread.  It makes some subtle and important points that I thought were worth discussing, and rather than distract from his quotes I decided to start a new thread...

 

The pleasure orientation is very important, very powerful, and very basic. If you are not pleasure-oriented, you can’t understand tantra. You have to be pleasure-oriented, because otherwise you are pain- and misery-oriented. But this is not a psychological trick of convincing yourself through positive thinking. It is an obvious, reasonable, and real thing. When you treat yourself well, you feel good. When you feel good, you dress yourself in good clothes and adorn yourself with beautiful ornaments. It is a very natural and basic way of relating to oneself.
 

The main qualities of tantra that come out here are basic trust and basic elegance. Elegance here means appreciating things as they are. Things as you are and things as they are. There is a sense of delight and of fearlessness. You are not fearful of dark corners. If there are any dark, mysterious corners, black and confusing, you override them with your glory, your sense of beauty, your sense of cleanness, your feeling of being regal. Because you can override fearfulness in this way, tantra is known as the king of all the yanas. You take an attitude of having perfectly complete and very rich basic sanity.

 

~ Chogyam Trungpa ~ 

 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

 

[freeform]

Meaningless drivel to me.

 

Does not represent tantra as far as I’m concerned - and it’s coming from a sex and power obsessed alcoholic

 

 

A great example of what happens when you mix spiritual cultivation with wanton pursuit of your base desires...

[Pilgrim]

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

CT recently posted the following quote in his ongoing thread.  It makes some subtle and important points that I thought were worth discussing, and rather than distract from his quotes I decided to start a new thread...

 

The pleasure orientation is very important, very powerful, and very basic. If you are not pleasure-oriented, you can’t understand tantra. You have to be pleasure-oriented, because otherwise you are pain- and misery-oriented. But this is not a psychological trick of convincing yourself through positive thinking. It is an obvious, reasonable, and real thing. When you treat yourself well, you feel good. When you feel good, you dress yourself in good clothes and adorn yourself with beautiful ornaments. It is a very natural and basic way of relating to oneself.
 

 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

 

It is exactly what I have been trying to tell people for years. On certain websites with certain made up systems of Yoga they avoid any experience like the plague with lofty words and nonsensical ideals. Oh but you will become attached to experiences. 

 

Oh really I say, How pathetic and cowardly. How Droll. Experiences come and you should enjoy them. Experiences go and when they do you can remember them with fondness.

 

Nothing lasts it is all temporary and temporary cannot be permanently attached to.

 

Take your ecstasies to the limit and beyond you will not get hooked what you will get is something quite different. You will not become like the drug addict ever craving the next fix that is absurd.

 

The Pleasure orientation is very important indeed how else will you ever bring your mind to 1 pointed absorption.

 

Through dent of will?  Your will shall break long before mind will become one pointed and absorbed.

 

By belief in setting up an inner resonance on the level of mind with Mantra alone? This will not work other than in a very shallow and weak way.

 

Through years of practice which are likely only to culminate is deluding oneself and never comprehending Spaciousness and emptiness which must be done experientially and not intellectually.

 

Tantra is not a path for the weak or those too preoccupied with silly ideas and it takes a degree of maturity and a degree of Purification of the Sushumna channel and the Chakras which are tantamount to what I am calling maturity because until you do it is all intellectual clap trap without meaning.

 

If a person can not feel Divine Vibration and Electrical sensation, cannot hear Divine Sound, Cannot see divine light which is all  a creation and after effect of the friction of purification then they have no hope of grasping the ecstasies of Tantra or the pleasure that takes one beyond mind and human limited experience of life.

 

So start with Purification of the Sushumna Channel and the Chakras and cleanse them of the traits that are keeping one down in the mirk and the mire.

 

Kriya Yoga is a form of Tantra. It starts with Global Purification of the Sushumna the Chakras and the Nadis. As time goes on the mind and emotions which are codependent on these Astral Structures to manifest in the material world and bond with an otherwise  dead animal to living power of God.

 

As time goes on the mind and the emotions change.

Edited June 17, 2019 by Pilgrim

[Aetherous]

I think Chogyam Trungpa was considered many to be legitimate and a good source of info, while simultaneously not being good in some other ways. I think this particular quote is legitimate in terms of Tibetan Buddhist theories, but can see how it can be viewed in a satiating base desires context.

Sometimes it's not good to "throw the baby out with the bathwater", and people who do bad things can have many good qualities. But also, other times you poison your water when using a dirty cup, and spiritual authority figures must be held to a high standard.

[Jeff]

6 minutes ago, Aetherous said:

I think Chogyam Trungpa was considered many to be legitimate and a good source of info, while simultaneously not being good in some other ways. I think this particular quote is legitimate in terms of Tibetan Buddhist theories, but can see how it can be viewed in a satiating base desires context.

Sometimes it's not good to "throw the baby out with the bathwater", and people who do bad things can have many good qualities. But also, other times you poison your water when using a dirty cup, and spiritual authority figures must be held to a high standard.

 

Yes, you raise a very good point.  Let's talk about the words and their meaning, and try not to get caught up in specific stories about an individual.

 

What does everyone think about this first part of the quote...

 

The pleasure orientation is very important, very powerful, and very basic. If you are not pleasure-oriented, you can’t understand tantra. You have to be pleasure-oriented, because otherwise you are pain- and misery-oriented.

 

 

[Stosh]

Does an ox care about the color of his yoke?

[Pilgrim]

2 hours ago, Jeff said:

The pleasure orientation is very important, very powerful, and very basic. If you are not pleasure-oriented, you can’t understand tantra.

 

This is correct as I have already responded earlier.  If people have a guilt association with pleasure as if it is somehow in opposition to whatever they conceive of as Spirituality then they will find Tantra intolerable from this very start.

 

3 hours ago, Jeff said:

You have to be pleasure-oriented, because otherwise you are pain- and misery-oriented.

I think the author is trying to make a point too strongly and do not agree if you are not oriented this way then you are automatically oriented to the opposite.

 

1 hour ago, Pilgrim said:

But this is not a psychological trick of convincing yourself through positive thinking. It is an obvious, reasonable, and real thing. When you treat yourself well, you feel good. When you feel good, you dress yourself in good clothes and adorn yourself with beautiful ornaments. It is a very natural and basic way of relating to oneself.

 

Yes and he is saying it must be experienced and experiential.

 

 

[Aetherous]

30 minutes ago, Jeff said:

What does everyone think about this first part of the quote...

 

The pleasure orientation is very important, very powerful, and very basic. If you are not pleasure-oriented, you can’t understand tantra. You have to be pleasure-oriented, because otherwise you are pain- and misery-oriented.

 

I think of it in terms of something I was taught, in an almost tantra context... There is clinging/grasping, and then there is openness. "Pain and misery oriented" reminded me of the clinging/grasping way of being. When we're enjoying things, we're open.

[Jeff]

35 minutes ago, Stosh said:

Does an ox care about the color of his yoke?

 

Is this about a yoke or more about the pleasure that comes with breaking free and having more room to move (in the moment)?

[Pilgrim]

5 minutes ago, Aetherous said:

 

I think of it in terms of something I was taught, in an almost tantra context... There is clinging/grasping, and then there is openness. "Pain and misery oriented" reminded me of the clinging/grasping way of being. When we're enjoying things, we're open.

I agree with this and will say he is also being more literal than people might think.

[Stosh]

12 minutes ago, Jeff said:

 

Is this about a yoke or more about the pleasure that comes with breaking free and having more room to move (in the moment)?

I figure the Daoist perception of ornament ,is that it ends up being a spiritual burden. 

Though we regularly opt for wealth and status , there is a hidden catch.

 

How many hours spent on Facebook? How many hours on grooming and shopping? How tied are we to the source of our current paycheck , perhaps dissuaded from following a passion ? Moving ? Etc.

 

Chuang chose to drag his ass around in the mud than be harnessed into self imposed setvitude, at court.

[Nungali]

3 hours ago, Jeff said:

CT recently posted the following quote in his ongoing thread.  It makes some subtle and important points that I thought were worth discussing, and rather than distract from his quotes I decided to start a new thread...

 

The pleasure orientation is very important, very powerful, and very basic. If you are not pleasure-oriented, you can’t understand tantra. You have to be pleasure-oriented, because otherwise you are pain- and misery-oriented. But this is not a psychological trick of convincing yourself through positive thinking. It is an obvious, reasonable, and real thing. When you treat yourself well, you feel good. When you feel good, you dress yourself in good clothes and adorn yourself with beautiful ornaments. It is a very natural and basic way of relating to oneself.
 

The main qualities of tantra that come out here are basic trust and basic elegance. Elegance here means appreciating things as they are. Things as you are and things as they are. There is a sense of delight and of fearlessness. You are not fearful of dark corners. If there are any dark, mysterious corners, black and confusing, you override them with your glory, your sense of beauty, your sense of cleanness, your feeling of being regal. Because you can override fearfulness in this way, tantra is known as the king of all the yanas. You take an attitude of having perfectly complete and very rich basic sanity.

 

~ Chogyam Trungpa ~ 

 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

 

 

I think it is a great piece of writing and I totally relate to it .

 

I dont think it is meant to be understood in the 'normal sense' and could be misunderstood though.   But , to me, there is a LOT of advanced stuff in it. It also seems to be a very strong representation of 'white  school'   magick / tantra .

 

 

 

A few things stood out ;

 

 

 

"

" The pleasure orientation is very important, very powerful, and very basic. If you are not pleasure-oriented, you can’t understand tantra. You have to be pleasure-oriented, because otherwise you are pain- and misery-oriented."

 

- On the surface , this seems simple but on a deeper level it is the simplified essential nature that separates the 'black' from the 'white' school.  The black school is life denialist; it believes in a 'fall from grace', that life and the material world is somehow lesser,  it is dualistic , unclean, unspiritual, that life is suffering, that we need redemption, often via sacrifice, and basically its all pain and misery .

 

White school accepts and celebrates life , life is a choice we made to express our own essential developing nature, its meant to be enjoyed and creative, it is a rising of the spirit , not a falling, the material world is not lesser than the spiritual world and may even be the same thing . It should be joy and the expression of love and joy.

 

I will start quoting from other 'white tantric' sources to compare;

 

"1: 13. I am above you and in you. My ecstasy is in yours. My joy is to see your joy."

 

" But this is not a psychological trick of convincing yourself through positive thinking. It is an obvious, reasonable, and real thing. "

Yes, this isnt  a simple  'affirmation', it is a real and lasting (even through tragedy )  conscious and unconscious 'mind set' that can take years (or in my case near 1/2 a lifetime ) to REALLY accomplish.  

 

" 1: 58. I give unimaginable joys on earth: certainty, not faith

 

 

When you treat yourself well, you feel good. When you feel good, you dress yourself in good clothes and adorn yourself with beautiful ornaments. It is a very natural and basic way of relating to oneself.

 

1:61   ". But to love me is better than all things: if under the night stars in the desert thou presently burnest mine incense before me, invoking me with a pure heart, ...ye shall wear rich jewels; ye shall exceed the nations of the earth in spendour & pride; but always in the love of me, and so shall ye come to my joy. I charge you earnestly to come before me in a single robe, and covered with a rich headdress..... Put on the wings, and arouse the coiled splendour within you: come unto me!
 

The main qualities of tantra that come out here are basic trust and basic elegance. Elegance here means appreciating things as they are. Things as you are and things as they are. There is a sense of delight and of fearlessness. You are not fearful of dark corners. If there are any dark, mysterious corners, black and confusing, you override them with your glory, your sense of beauty, your sense of cleanness, your feeling of being regal.

 

O LORD , deliver me from hell’s great fear and gloom

Loose thou my spirit from the larvæ of the tomb

I seek them in their dread abodes without affright:

On them will I impose my will, the law of light.

 

I bid the night conceive the glittering hemisphere.

Arise, O sun, arise! O moon, shine white and clear!

I seek them in their dread abodes without affright:

On them will I impose my will, the law of light.

 

Their faces and their shapes are terrible and strange.

These devils by my might to angels I will change.

These nameless horrors I address without affright:

On them will I impose my will, the law of light.

 

These are the phantoms pale of mine astonied view,

Yet none but I their blasted beauty can renew;

For to the abyss of hell I plunge without affright:

On them will I impose my will, the law of light.

 

 

 

 

Because you can override fearfulness in this way, tantra is known as the king of all the yanas. You take an attitude of having perfectly complete and very rich basic sanity.

 

( Thus guy knows what he is talking about !  ) 

 

[Nungali]

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

 

Yes, you raise a very good point.  Let's talk about the words and their meaning, and try not to get caught up in specific stories about an individual.

 

What does everyone think about this first part of the quote...

 

The pleasure orientation is very important, very powerful, and very basic. If you are not pleasure-oriented, you can’t understand tantra. You have to be pleasure-oriented, because otherwise you are pain- and misery-oriented.

 

 

 

We are here to 'feel'  to be the eyes and ears of the Universe /   God/dess   /   'Mother '  / Nature.

 

When I was heavily into Euro paganism we offered all experience to the Goddess,  The idea is the gods indwell us to partake of life / material existence.    Basically , the Gods like to fuck and feast      But they also enjoy experiencing our health, well being, abstinence and variety ... if one becomes 'boring' they depart.  And  debauch can be boring and unhealthy.

 

of course, life isnt all pleasure, and they want to experience all of life, so that is 'offered up ' too .  'Offering up ' pain and difficulty is a great way of processing it and easing it as you dont have to take it all on yourself .  And 'passing experience' on is also a great way to develop 'non attachment '  as well.  Attachment is boring   

 

Eventually, with these type of practices, all of life experience becomes 'orgastic' .

[Nungali]

40 minutes ago, Jeff said:

 

Is this about a yoke or more about the pleasure that comes with breaking free and having more room to move (in the moment)?

 

A yoke implies direction given by higher powers to the animal nature. In this case (tantra) I recommend NOT breaking free of the yoke

 

Unless you want to be free to be a pleasure / sex   junkie .

 

[mrpasserby]

'

[Fa Xin]

Thanks for the thread, and the great comments so far.

 

My interpretation of the first paragraph...

Living in the moment, one should derive pleasure from every activity.  With this, one could derive the greatest of fulfillment in "adorning oneself" - so putting on a pair of shoes.  One does not need anything else, except the simple act of getting dressed.  Living in this way, you "relate to yourself" because the inner and the outer are not separate.  It is using the physical world to stimulate feelings that will bring you inside, at the same time (as he says in the second paragraph), using that energy to "clear out the dark corners".  These corners are seldom touched by denying what is, literally, right in front of you.

 

 

 

[freeform]

9 hours ago, Jeff said:

Let's talk about the words and their meaning, and try not to get caught up in specific stories about an individual.

 

The words and their meaning have lead one to the specific end that I mentioned... Words are easily spoken. Conduct shows the true virtue of a person.

 

9 hours ago, Aetherous said:

spiritual authority figures must be held to a high standard.

 Precisely.

 

But ok - about the words... who here isn’t pleasure oriented already?

[rideforever]

Trungpa was bored by the mind-numbing institution of Buddhism, and got a bottle of whisky and screwed some students.

 

In India, Tantra was not so much different from asceticism, using aroused or pleasurable states for the cultivation of higher consciousness, as a tool.

 

Natural tantra is when you have faith in life and your human wishes inside life and flow with it, without any desire to get to a higher state of consciousness, but seeing this life as either good in itself, or naturally leading to higher consciousness.

 

Crowley tantra, is something like feeling every activity of human life having an underlying tingle of joy, the ecstacy of orgasm or pain, all pain or pleasure, is equally ecstatic from a certain perspective.

 

All these different paths represent humans not really understanding the problem.   You can't ever be what you are not, but you can develop your self, bringing into existence states of consciousness and so on.   Also, humans as they are, are fragmented so their problem is their fragmentation and that needs primary investment of time to fix.  Humans assume they need a higher consciousness to be fixed, but that may be a misunderstanding.

If you are able to receive a transmission of a state, and maintain it, then you suddenly have a beam of truth inside you, and on the basis of that can you transform yourself with this rock-solid fondation.   And that must include de-fragmentation.

As well as fragmentation, the human beings are deeply terrified, and their identity has become totally suffocated and ensnared by the flow of the unconscious mind that never stops.   They are mad.  Rushing around to do things, ascetic or tantric.

People talk about the "now", but do they actually experience the now ?   Or rather do they experience themselves at rest, and total rest?

I am not really sure what humans experience at all.

 

[freeform]

Tantra has nothing to do with the focus on pleasure... nothing to do with sex... It is the path of transformation through the use of 'substances' underlying states of consciousness. Alchemical Daoism is a Tantric path for example.

[Jeff]

1 hour ago, freeform said:

Tantra has nothing to do with the focus on pleasure... nothing to do with sex... It is the path of transformation through the use of 'substances' underlying states of consciousness. Alchemical Daoism is a Tantric path for example.

 

But in the early stages, the transformation can feel very pleasurable...

[rideforever]

I think humans really have little idea what they are doing, and human spirituality is really very poor.

The truth has not really been found, just a few little bits.

 

What is practical ?
One thing is actually live by any idea fully for a week and see what happens.   All this pretension talk about self and oneness and sutra and whatnot.  Our species is really a joke.

Best thing is a blue collar approach, doing.

Then another ridiculous thing is saying you don't exist which is the termination of any intelligence.

People use more intelligence paying their gas bill then they ever dare use on the path.

Nobody really knows anything, I don't think.

Just clinging on to something from the past.

They never really try any of these ideas or techniques, they are terrified.

They want to hide at the back of the dharma room and talk of immortal buddhas and bla bla.

But, only the unknown is your safety, everything else is a fake structure, trying to cling on.

And it's not practical.

Are you brave ?
Are you brave enough to think, to try, to ... be willing to actually be alive ?

 

 

[Jonesboy]

14 hours ago, Jeff said:

 

Yes, you raise a very good point.  Let's talk about the words and their meaning, and try not to get caught up in specific stories about an individual.

 

What does everyone think about this first part of the quote...

 

The pleasure orientation is very important, very powerful, and very basic. If you are not pleasure-oriented, you can’t understand tantra. You have to be pleasure-oriented, because otherwise you are pain- and misery-oriented.

 

 

 

I have definitely seen this in many ways.

 

I have seen some associate the beginning of feeling energy as pain, I have seen people grasp onto that pain, enjoy it and often the negativity it brings. I have also seen people feel the ecstatic energy as a negative thing as well. Running from it, hating how it will come and go without them being able to control it.

 

On the other side of that I see people who view it all as a wonder and are open to it all.

[Jonesboy]

13 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

A yoke implies direction given by higher powers to the animal nature. In this case (tantra) I recommend NOT breaking free of the yoke

 

Unless you want to be free to be a pleasure / sex   junkie .

 

 

Isn't silence blissful?

 

Could one not say that with more silence in daily life you are breaking free of the yoke of those previous attachments to one degree or another?

 

I have found that the energy feeling very sexual is a phase. Many, many people get caught up in the sexual aspect of it. They like it and grasp on to it or they fight and run from it. Both of those are things people have to learn to let go off.

 

Another way of looking at it is you are using that energy to work on those obstructions that you named animal nature. Running or staying in a box/yoke.. won't help one let those issues go.

[Jeff]

5 minutes ago, Jonesboy said:

 

I have definitely seen this in many ways.

 

I have seen some associate the beginning of feeling energy as pain, I have seen people grasp onto that pain, enjoy it and often the negativity it brings. I have also seen people feel the ecstatic energy as a negative thing as well. Running from it, hating how it will come and go without them being able to control it.

 

On the other side of that I see people who view it all as a wonder and are open to it all.

 

Yes, a child like wonder of it is rare, but a beautiful gift to themselves and the world. Open and flowing...

[rideforever]

30 min ZZ, with Chogyam Trungpa.

Few Buddhist teachers come close to his quality, even those from Tibet.