Damo Mitchell? tell me what you think

[Bindi]

8 hours ago, silent thunder said:

Intriguing line of reasoning.

 

Where then, I wonder, does the Rainbow Body of Tibetan/Buddhist lines fit in with the Daoist Immortal Foetus?

Rough equivalent, or completely differing sphere of influence?

I don’t think they’re equivalent myself, though any knowledge of rainbow body I have is only from reading. 

[Bindi]

4 hours ago, forestofemptiness said:

 

I've heard it both ways. Some teachers and texts discuss it as a building up, and others as an uncovering.

I agree there are some things that need to be uncovered, perhaps this is the work we can do, while the building up happens spontaneously and can’t be engineered by us. 

[Bindi]

5 hours ago, Creation said:

In Buddhism, a Buddha has three bodies, one is formless, the other two are not.  So I don't think it's actually so very different.  Very different process of getting there though.  

 

 

The historical Buddha wasn’t associated with three bodies or rainbows, he just died and claimed that he would not be reborn. This begs the question though - who or what is not reborn, who or what attains nirvana? Didn’t Tibetan Buddhism develop the three body idea? 

 

5 hours ago, Creation said:

 

freeform has mentioned, in a post I can't find, that in Daoism each jhana is fully integrated into the body through an alchemical process of finding the form within the formless, and that completing this with third jhana results in rainbow body after death, and completing it with fourth jhana results in diamond body after death (known as great transference in Tibetan Buddhism, which no one in Tibet has attained since the founders of the tradition).  Not sure how this relates to the immortal fetus, it seems more related to cultivating the elixir.  

 

I appreciate the place from which you share, and your mode of expressing it. _/\_

 

[Cleansox]

44 minutes ago, Bindi said:

I agree there are some things that need to be uncovered, perhaps this is the work we can do, while the building up happens spontaneously and can’t be engineered by us. 

Isn't the building up the Ming aspect of Nei Dan? 

[Cleansox]

1 hour ago, Bindi said:

 

An awakening in the lower dantian? That doesn’t make sense to me, I relate awakening to some sort of consciousness shift associated with the mind. 

The birth of the foetus should refer to when it pops out through the head. 

But I also relate awakening to a shift in consciousness, and that is implied in the stage before the birth, although awakening is a term that seems to mean different things, or relate to different levels of consciousness shifts. 

 

LDT-awakening, wasn't that rideforever who used that term? 

[liminal_luke]

1 hour ago, Bindi said:

 

An awakening in the lower dantian? That doesn’t make sense to me, I relate awakening to some sort of consciousness shift associated with the mind. 

 

 

One day my Zapchen coach, Laura Lund, asked me a provocative question: where in my body did I think "I" was?  Like most western people (all people?), I tend to think of myself as headquartered in my head.  My intestines, liver, toes and forearms all serve useful purposes but the part of me that is most me is my brain, where the thinking happens.  Laura taught me that we can come to feel our being spread out throughout the body rather than sequestered in the brain.

 

Which brings me to a question inspired by Bindi: where does awakening happen?  I don´t know honestly but my preference would be for an awakening that doesn´t exclude the lower dantian.  An awakened mind seems like a relatively paltry accomplishment.

[dwai]

3 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

One day my Zapchen coach, Laura Lund, asked me a provocative question: where in my body did I think "I" was?  Like most western people (all people?), I tend to think of myself as headquartered in my head.  My intestines, liver, toes and forearms all serve useful purposes but the part of me that is most me is my brain, where the thinking happens.  Laura taught me that we can come to feel our being spread out throughout the body rather than sequestered in the brain.

Indeed...what part of the body is not illuminated by awareness?

3 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

Which brings me to a question inspired by Bindi: where does awakening happen?  I don´t know honestly but my preference would be for an awakening that doesn´t exclude the lower dantian. 

Awakening cannot be localized, but it happens via the mind.  

3 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

An awakened mind seems like a relatively paltry accomplishment.

Don't be so eager to dismiss the mind...after all, one has to use it, even to dismiss it away.  

[Bindi]

1 hour ago, Cleansox said:

Isn't the building up the Ming aspect of Nei Dan? 

 

I don’t mind reading about Ming and xing  though I never really remember what they signify, and they seem to double up sometimes, e.g.,

 

Ming can also refer to the idea of self-cultivation, and Xing to what the person experiences from self-cultivation. One cultivates life (Ming) to realize one’s nature (Xing). Once Nature (Xing) is realized, one can know one’s Destiny or Life (Ming)

[Bindi]

1 hour ago, Cleansox said:

The birth of the foetus should refer to when it pops out through the head. 
 

 

So it should be the formation of the foetus in the lower dantian? 

 

1 hour ago, Cleansox said:

But I also relate awakening to a shift in consciousness, and that is implied in the stage before the birth, although awakening is a term that seems to mean different things, or relate to different levels of consciousness shifts. 

 

LDT-awakening, wasn't that rideforever who used that term? 

 

[doc benway]

2 hours ago, Bindi said:

 

Ok, I didn’t recognise it as neidan, it seemed more Buddhist sounding to me. 

 

I think and talk more like a Buddhist now than I did then, no doubt. What occurs in practice defies categorization or imputation, however.

 

2 hours ago, Bindi said:

 

 

An awakening in the lower dantian? That doesn’t make sense to me, I relate awakening to some sort of consciousness shift associated with the mind. 

 

I used that word with silent thunder for a specific reason. 

[Bindi]

1 minute ago, steve said:

 

I think and talk more like a Buddhist now than I did then, no doubt. What occurs in practice defies categorization or imputation, however.

 

 

Not so with neidan. What happens in practice resembles what is described, and if it doesn’t something has been missed, it is the pot boiling with no rice in it. 

 

1 minute ago, steve said:

 

 

I used that word with silent thunder for a specific reason. 

 

[Bindi]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

 

One day my Zapchen coach, Laura Lund, asked me a provocative question: where in my body did I think "I" was?  Like most western people (all people?), I tend to think of myself as headquartered in my head.  My intestines, liver, toes and forearms all serve useful purposes but the part of me that is most me is my brain, where the thinking happens.  Laura taught me that we can come to feel our being spread out throughout the body rather than sequestered in the brain.

 

Apparently the Buddha never had the benefit of Laura’s insight, because to early Buddhists awakening “indicates that normal experience is a dream from which Gotama has awoken. Gotama thus sees things as they actually are and, from this awakened perspective, realises that ideas such as ‘world’, ‘self’ or ‘soul’ are not ultimately real.” Very much in his mind I think, and not overly concerned with the body. 

 

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

 

 

Which brings me to a question inspired by Bindi: where does awakening happen?  I don´t know honestly but my preference would be for an awakening that doesn´t exclude the lower dantian.  An awakened mind seems like a relatively paltry accomplishment.

 

[liminal_luke]

25 minutes ago, Bindi said:

 

Apparently the Buddha never had the benefit of Laura’s insight, 

 

He likely couldn´t of afforded her.  Spiritual life coaches in Berkeley, California are notoriously spendy.  I´m grateful I got to have a few sessions.  

Edited February 23, 2021 by liminal_luke

[doc benway]

1 hour ago, Bindi said:

Not so with neidan. What happens in practice resembles what is described, and if it doesn’t something has been missed, it is the pot boiling with no rice in it. 

 

Care must be taken to avoid creating experiences with your mind based on descriptions and expectations. That can be a serious pitfall. Confirming and discussing results with the master is important, but the teacher knows it is equally important to allow the experience to be genuine and i contrived and will not give away too much. This is one reason why the classics are often so abstruse.

[forestofclarity]

2 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

Laura taught me that we can come to feel our being spread out throughout the body rather than sequestered in the brain.

 

Not just in the body. There's no barrier between inside/outside, IME. 

 

1 hour ago, Bindi said:

Apparently the Buddha never had the benefit of Laura’s insight, because to early Buddhists awakening “indicates that normal experience is a dream from which Gotama has awoken. Gotama thus sees things as they actually are and, from this awakened perspective, realises that ideas such as ‘world’, ‘self’ or ‘soul’ are not ultimately real.” Very much in his mind I think, and not overly concerned with the body. 

 

Ummm.. .where do you suppose the body appears? 

[Bindi]

18 minutes ago, steve said:

 

Care must be taken to avoid creating experiences with your mind based on descriptions and expectations. That can be a serious pitfall. Confirming and discussing results with the master is important, but the teacher knows it is equally important to allow the experience to be genuine and i contrived and will not give away too much. This is one reason why the classics are often so abstruse.

I noticed my LDT and worked with it for many years in my own personal way before I ever even heard the word dantian, and unfortunately I cannot include myself in the category of neidanist because I disagree with most neidan methods. The only way I can read the classics is for confirmation after the fact, as I have my own source, a very accomplished seer, and I follow that one source exclusively. Having said that my perspective has developed along very similar lines to the basic neidan perspective which most definitely includes 3 dantians and the contents therein being formed and developed and brought upwards. If this was not your experience, then the neidan method you were using was not working, and it’s understandable that you went in search of something else. 

 

 

[Bindi]

FWIW I don’t wish to transfer my sense of self to my body, or to the outside, or to the void, or to nirvana. Ultimately  I wish to transfer my sense of self to the immortal foetus, and this is a long slow process which requires an actual immortal foetus to begin with, produced exclusively in the lower dantian. I don’t think this is equivalent to a Buddhist’s aim. 

[forestofclarity]

54 minutes ago, Bindi said:

I don’t think this is equivalent to a Buddhist’s aim. 

 

I would agree, since from a Buddhist POV the sense of self is illusory. 

 

Even from a True Self model, one might say that the sense of self is merely an object illuminated by the Self, a false self, a contraction. But I suppose it depends on the teacher/teaching. 

[Bindi]

1 hour ago, forestofemptiness said:

 

I would agree, since from a Buddhist POV the sense of self is illusory. 

 

Even from a True Self model, one might say that the sense of self is merely an object illuminated by the Self, a false self, a contraction. But I suppose it depends on the teacher/teaching. 

Admittedly, when operating from the ‘True Self Mind’ there might be a different concept of ‘Self’, I don’t know, I can only speak at the moment from the perspective of my current self. 
 

In a dream I had of this process there was a cumbersome vine that had to be slowly detached from its supporting structure, and when it finally split apart from the structure and toppled over and vanished, I saw a new fresh vine was growing in its place, though this time not restricted by a structure. This new vine is to me the True Self’s Mind, it is the same in some respects as the old mind, they’re both vines after all, but the new one is not limited. 
 

 

Edited February 23, 2021 by Bindi

[Cleansox]

6 hours ago, Bindi said:

and unfortunately I cannot include myself in the category of neidanist because I disagree with most neidan methods. 

 

Got any examples of what you disagree with? 

 

Just to have a starting point for a discussion:

 

I guess that you are less than impressed by the entire ejaculation debate 😁. 

 

And if we leave that, the most basic division is between the Zheng-Yi and Zhong-Lu traditions, although there are other schools as well. 

 

Zheng-Yi would be closer to your interest in the Yellow Court Classic. There are manuals available from that tradition, that would lead to the material from Jerry Alan Johnson and Mantak Chia. 

 

I can't say that I have seen any material in the Zhong-Lu tradition that, in a manual form, goes through the entire process outlined in Wang Mu Foundations of internal alchemy. 

Edited February 23, 2021 by Cleansox
Added stuff

[Cleansox]

6 hours ago, Bindi said:

 

So it should be the formation of the foetus in the lower dantian? 

Jerry Alan Johnson writes about the three ascensions, LDT to MDT, MDT to UDT, UDT to exit above the head. 

At every stage, there is a process of development. 

[Bindi]

2 hours ago, Cleansox said:

Got any examples of what you disagree with? 

I prefer to PM my response to this 

 

 

[MIchael80]

21 hours ago, silent thunder said:

Intriguing line of reasoning.

 

Where then, I wonder, does the Rainbow Body of Tibetan/Buddhist lines fit in with the Daoist Immortal Foetus?

Rough equivalent, or completely differing sphere of influence?

Hi!

 

The rainbow body happens also in ancient neidan approach (and some other lineages).... and very simply means that even the physical body is just karma and as that karma is clearerd the physical body disolves.

 

If, from that point of view a corpse is still there not all karma (that made up the physical entity) has been eliminated.

 

This is actually a natural process of waking up to awareness (often called true nature) IF there is no fixation happening on the formless and thereby blocking the natural further purification. 

It speeds up if the source of awareness is realized (the source of the source...so to say) ... which is relativly rare these days because awareness/true nature feels very final.

 

In ancient neidan the elixir is the merging of xing and ming (soul and life battery) or said differently ..the merging of the most primordial Yin Yang split that there is. 

This results in what is called awakening (to awareness/true nature) and earth immortality. 

 

The fetus matures out of the elixir....into the yangshen. (Disolution of the physical body happens after the yangshen is mature).

 

In Tibet buddhism there is no elixir but also a divine body which comes in the completion stage of highest yoga tantra.

This body is called "illusory body" (there is also a practice with that name....i am talking about the phenomena).

There is an imature form called "impure illusory body " and a mature form called "pure illusory body".

That is similiar but not the same as the matured fetus (yangshen).

[forestofclarity]

I listened to another slice of the interview. He reminds me of both Bodri (but more concise and to the point) and Verdesi (but less.. well, probably better not to say. I can see having a nice meal and a drink with Damo). 

 

An interesting point was made on the danger of Taoism. He talks about how some one who is an amateur hedonist may, upon practicing nei gong, become a professional hedonist since one would fuel whatever one's energy patterning is. He also talks about increasing will. He says it is important to apply insight, so the states generated can be sustained with increased qi (or so I'm paraphrasing). 

 

Interestingly, if a Taoist were incorrect about their view, and they build up an ability fuel the wrong state and they have improved their willpower, I can see that it would be difficult if not impossible to correct. Similarly, if one developed a high level of shamatha, and then applied it to the wrong object, it would likely also be difficult to correct. 

 

I suppose one has to be quite confident in one's teacher for such an approach. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[anshino23]