Transcendence vs Integration

[Bindi]

4 hours ago, doc benway said:

 

No, though abiding in the natural state one is not subject to karma.

Interesting. I wonder, what do you think happens to the karma you have transcended when you die and if you are reincarnated? 

[old3bob]

 

some teachings related to this string come from renunciates living in a controlled environment (like a  monastery) and are under the guidance and protection of their Guru or Master (who may also be watching out for their families of householders)...so and btw. some that may be reading here that are not in such an environment or under such protection should be warned to not just grab a book and start doing this energy stuff on their own!  

[johndoe2012]

You don't need kundalini to clear issues or samskaras.

 

You can use ordinary sitting mediation or as I shared in another thread you can invoke a Flying Phoenix meditation and clear deep stuff in your system using that particular energy. 

[Sahaja]

Seems like both have the potential for problems. Integration model risks focusing one on the acquired mind with an endless stream of rumination all reinforcing itself that doesn’t go anywhere because it continues to be from that perspective . The transcendent may bypass the vehicle we are in  (the body) which has many interconnected layers influencing each other (physical, mental, emotional, energetic, causal etc ) that all participate in each activity you undertake. Bypassing these may take you somewhere that is irrelevant that you don’t want to be. I would describe both risks as taking/keeping you outside - either at the level of the acquired mind or at a void level (truly empty, nihilistic,negative). This void is different than  “emptiness”.

 

whichever route one takes it’s important to factor in these risks to your approach. I think the paths  that take you inside approaching things with just attention can help with both risks. I think viewing it as an either/or choice of paths is likely a false choice.i think a better choice is acknowledging the risks of each and making adjustments as needed to your path. 

[johndoe2012]

Deep seated stuff like eg. anger can be uprooted by contemplating not self / no-doer as antivirus for the mind. 

 

If there is still glue in the body you clean that out using other tools until nothing is left. 

 

Circumstances will pop up to help you recognize if you are still holding on to wrong views. Essentially you have no choice but to drop all the false. 

[stirling]

14 hours ago, doc benway said:

No, though abiding in the natural state one is not subject to karma.

 

There is an important clue here. Abiding in the natural state is NOT DIFFERENT than enlightened mind... in fact, not different from Nirodha, or the cessation of suffering. The Buddha's promise of some respite from suffering can be experienced relatively easily, at the very least for short periods of time.

 

Sitting in such a way, with a little pointing, can allow almost anyone to see whether karma is real, or "self" is real, or... anything else, in the way that we typically imagine it. That is the utility of meditation when it is free of all practices and other contrivances.

 

9 hours ago, Bindi said:

Interesting. I wonder, what do you think happens to the karma you have transcended when you die and if you are reincarnated? 

 

Karma isn't really a thing that has its own existence. Karma is a story you tell about yourself, like, "I am a vegetarian", or "I am a cancer survivor", or "I am a Buddhist", that subtly (or not so subtly) filters the way you encounter your day to day experience. When you realize unity, the gossamer and unreal quality of such stories loses its teeth. Over time, these stop being stories we tell about the self, and there is just the joy of simply being in this moment.

 

It isn't that the stories are transcended, it is that they are seen and understood to be based on a false premise, just as birth and death are.

 

What happens after death? How would anyone know? Have you or I ever experienced death first hand? In my opinion, stories about death are just stories until they become our experience. If there were karmas from previous lives, or previous lives at all, how would you know? What truly matters is what is happening in this moment.

 

[liminal_luke]

1 hour ago, stirling said:

 

What happens after death? How would anyone know? Have you or I ever experienced death first hand? In my opinion, stories about death are just stories until they become our experience. If there were karmas from previous lives, or previous lives at all, how would you know? What truly matters is what is happening in this moment.

 

 

Personally, I don´t know what happens after death but I do think it´s possible to have an informed opinion.  Is it possible to remember past deaths?  Is it possible to be in communication with loved ones who have died or trustworthy spirits willing to fill us in?  Is it possible to develop a kind of intuitive knowingness that confers, well, knowledge?  I like to think all of these things are possible.  

 

This said, there´s no doubt that, as you say, "what truly matters is what is happening in this moment."

[Bindi]

5 hours ago, johndoe2012 said:

You don't need kundalini to clear issues or samskaras.

 

You can use ordinary sitting mediation or as I shared in another thread you can invoke a Flying Phoenix meditation and clear deep stuff in your system using that particular energy. 

I think clearing issues without kundalini is the bulk of the work, no matter what method is used. To stop karma at its source and remove all samskaras, so as to be a perfectly clear channel for the original spirit to operate through takes an extraordinary means, and that extraordinary means is supplied from within in the form of kundalini, it’s just part of the operating system though it’s wise to read the instruction manual before use. 

[Bindi]

4 hours ago, Sahaja said:

Seems like both have the potential for problems. Integration model risks focusing one on the acquired mind with an endless stream of rumination all reinforcing itself that doesn’t go anywhere because it continues to be from that perspective .
 

 

I agree, but having our attention directed by dreams avoids getting stuck in any way as dreams remain fresh. Dreams are my preferred method, but any method that equally addresses this problem should work. 

 

4 hours ago, Sahaja said:

The transcendent may bypass the vehicle we are in  (the body) which has many interconnected layers influencing each other (physical, mental, emotional, energetic, causal etc ) that all participate in each activity you undertake. Bypassing these may take you somewhere that is irrelevant that you don’t want to be.

 

I would go further and say the transcendent will bypass the vehicle we are in, it’s written into the product description - everything is illusory, engage with nothing, add in compassion if you’re Buddhist which adds to karma because it is a conditioned intent. 

 

4 hours ago, Sahaja said:

 

I would describe both risks as taking/keeping you outside - either at the level of the acquired mind or at a void level (truly empty, nihilistic,negative). This void is different than  “emptiness”.

 

whichever route one takes it’s important to factor in these risks to your approach. I think the paths  that take you inside approaching things with just attention can help with both risks. I think viewing it as an either/or choice of paths is likely a false choice.i think a better choice is acknowledging the risks of each and making adjustments as needed to your path. 

 

[Bindi]

1 hour ago, stirling said:

 

There is an important clue here. Abiding in the natural state is NOT DIFFERENT than enlightened mind... in fact, not different from Nirodha, or the cessation of suffering. The Buddha's promise of some respite from suffering can be experienced relatively easily, at the very least for short periods of time.
 

 

I think the danger Sahaja pointed out is highly relevant here -  how do you know if you’ve reached some “void level (truly empty, nihilistic,negative). This void is different than  “emptiness”.” 
 

1 hour ago, stirling said:

 

Sitting in such a way, with a little pointing, can allow almost anyone to see whether karma is real, or "self" is real, or... anything else, in the way that we typically imagine it. That is the utility of meditation when it is free of all practices and other contrivances.

 

 

Karma isn't really a thing that has its own existence. Karma is a story you tell about yourself, like, "I am a vegetarian", or "I am a cancer survivor", or "I am a Buddhist", that subtly (or not so subtly) filters the way you encounter your day to day experience. When you realize unity, the gossamer and unreal quality of such stories loses its teeth. Over time, these stop being stories we tell about the self, and there is just the joy of simply being in this moment.

 

It isn't that the stories are transcended, it is that they are seen and understood to be based on a false premise, just as birth and death are.

 

 

As I see it, yes we are caught in stories which are the samskaras, but our fundamental and life steering stories originate from karma that we are born with. The source of this level of karma is deep within but it is as real as this table in front of me. I can choose to see both the karma generator and this table in front of me as unreal, but both are going to hurt my shins if I ignore them and walk straight into them. 
 

1 hour ago, stirling said:

 

What happens after death? How would anyone know? Have you or I ever experienced death first hand? In my opinion, stories about death are just stories until they become our experience. If there were karmas from previous lives, or previous lives at all, how would you know? What truly matters is what is happening in this moment.

 

I have been grappling with the concept of reincarnation since I was twelve and had a dream about a particularly devastated old man whom I was informed was me. Not surprisingly it’s been mainly his karma that I’ve played out in my life, but by addressing it, even if it’s taken many decades, I can finally see an end in sight. So as much as I’d prefer to be a reincarnation and karma denier, I have been pushed in the other direction, and have in effect prised these stories open to resolve them. 

[Bindi]

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

 

Personally, I don´t know what happens after death but I do think it´s possible to have an informed opinion.  Is it possible to remember past deaths?  Is it possible to be in communication with loved ones who have died or trustworthy spirits willing to fill us in?  Is it possible to develop a kind of intuitive knowingness that confers, well, knowledge?  I like to think all of these things are possible.  

 

This said, there´s no doubt that, as you say, "what truly matters is what is happening in this moment."

If what is happening in this moment is driven by karma and samskaras, wouldn’t that make them the most important issue? 

[Bindi]

3 hours ago, johndoe2012 said:

Deep seated stuff like eg. anger can be uprooted by contemplating not self / no-doer as antivirus for the mind. 

 

If there is still glue in the body you clean that out using other tools until nothing is left. 

 

Circumstances will pop up to help you recognize if you are still holding on to wrong views. Essentially you have no choice but to drop all the false. 

I fully agree that circumstances will pop up to help us recognise if we are still holding onto wrong views, but when deeply karmic wrong views are entangled with unrecognised and unresolved driver emotions, I am personally unable to just drop them.

[liminal_luke]

1 hour ago, Bindi said:

If what is happening in this moment is driven by karma and samskaras, wouldn’t that make them the most important issue? 

 

The more I´m bound up with karma, the more I have to gain from present-moment consciousness.  Being in the present moment is a powerful way to unhook.

 

 

Edited December 29, 2024 by liminal_luke

[old3bob]

 

what happens after  the Self is unveiled, death dies.

[johndoe2012]

59 minutes ago, Bindi said:

I fully agree that circumstances will pop up to help us recognise if we are still holding onto wrong views, but when deeply karmic wrong views are entangled with unrecognised and unresolved driver emotions, I am personally unable to just drop them.

 

This is true. What I mean by drop, is to heal the issue with whatever method you prefer. 

[Nungali]

42 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

The more I´m bound up with karma, the more I have to gain from present-moment consciousness.  Being in the present moment is a powerful way to unhook.

 

 

 

 

 

Thing is , you arent going to watch that just after you have had a car crash  !     You wont be sitting back watching a youtube while you are fleeing a missile attack . 

 

I guess its good for anxiety ; I used to do it with my ex sometimes when I detected stress  ; we would be sitting i the garden  and i would start ;   ' Its calm ... the twins are napping , the sun is warm and bright , we are dry and fed , there is no war , no invasion , we are not having an earthquake ......  "   and so on .

 

It would often work  ... one time she confessed   " Still, I have fear though  ..... any moment the babies will wake up and I will have to  start all over again . " 

 

- a difficult situation ; one that has generated both love  as well as  fear and apprehension .

 

 

[silent thunder]

I sometimes wonder if adrenaline addiction might be the most prevalent addiction in humans over all other stimulus... 

[idquest]

Hubris can come in very subtle ways. Sneaky snake it is.

[Mark Foote]

1 hour ago, Bindi said:

 

... As I see it, yes we are caught in stories which are the samskaras, but our fundamental and life steering stories originate from karma that we are born with. The source of this level of karma is deep within but it is as real as this table in front of me. I can choose to see both the karma generator and this table in front of me as unreal, but both are going to hurt my shins if I ignore them and walk straight into them. 
 

I have been grappling with the concept of reincarnation since I was twelve and had a dream about a particularly devastated old man whom I was informed was me. Not surprisingly it’s been mainly his karma that I’ve played out in my life, but by addressing it, even if it’s taken many decades, I can finally see an end in sight. So as much as I’d prefer to be a reincarnation and karma denier, I have been pushed in the other direction, and have in effect prised these stories open to resolve them. 
 

 

 

What's unclear to me is how you came to establish a relationship between your work with dreams, emotions, and karma and kundalini. 

 

 

[Bindi]

23 minutes ago, Mark Foote said:

 

 

What's unclear to me is how you came to establish a relationship between your work with dreams, emotions, and karma and kundalini. 

 

 

There was one element that I haven’t referred to here, though I did refer to it many times years ago on the daobums. I did work exclusively with dreams for decades, but I also worked helping my family with their dreams including my mother’s dreams. A couple of decades of helping her work with her dreams kicked off her ability to see what was happening in both the subtle body and the physical body. This in turn led to her guiding me through the actions I needed to take to develop my lower and middle dantian and balance upper and lower forces, and she also was able to give me information on what was happening in my subtle channels, which was happening without her direction, it was just feedback. 
 

To make a long story short, I am led to believe from her seeing that clearing Ida and Pingala nadi’s with appropriate emotional and mental work leads to the natural waking of kundalini, which then uses the previously prepared dantians to sojourn in on her way up. I believe this is why my experience with kundalini is different to what seems to be offered in methods like kundalini yoga, for me kundalini has time and space to do everything she needs to do at various points and she remains cool while doing it, leaving nothing undone before she continues to rise, and not tearing me to bits in the process. My mother died a couple of years ago, but kundalini was already awake at that point, and my dreams have kept me informed about her movements from that point on. 
 

What I perceive as the “grip of karma”  I found in subtle body heart work that touched on the causal level, allowing kundalini to break karmas grip there before she returned to the subtle body. Just to be very clear, I haven’t finished this kundalini journey yet, I am aware that rudra granthi remains to be cut, so I’m not suggesting I understand everything or have accomplished everything. 

[doc benway]

14 hours ago, Bindi said:

Interesting. I wonder, what do you think happens to the karma you have transcended when you die and if you are reincarnated? 

 

I can’t say I hold firm views on these subjects. There are things I don’t know (like what happens after death) and I prefer to be open to the not knowing than filling the openness with a belief. I can see the effects of karma in my life and those around me and I can also see the effects of my practice on my relationship to karma. Stirling’s response above says most of what I would offer as a response. I do think that if you subscribe to the general Buddhist/Hindu view of karma and rebirth, and if karma is truly transcended (or integrated) during life or death, then it will not influence rebirth, by definition. 

[stirling]

4 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

Personally, I don´t know what happens after death but I do think it´s possible to have an informed opinion.  Is it possible to remember past deaths?  Is it possible to be in communication with loved ones who have died or trustworthy spirits willing to fill us in?  Is it possible to develop a kind of intuitive knowingness that confers, well, knowledge?  I like to think all of these things are possible.

 

I am completely with you on this, and Doc Benway. Is it possible? Sure? Do I know? Absolutely not. I don't know anyone that has died and can tell me, or anyone else about it, and I am disinterested in adopting beliefs, since I know intimately that they entail creating stories in time and space, and neither exist in the way we imagine they do. 

 

I actually HAVE experience with spirits, gods, and angels, but none of those experiences are sufficient to demonstrate that they enjoy any greater reality or power than any other appearance in consciousness, and certainly not any greater understanding than the host of realized "beings" in the world I have encountered.

 

4 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

This said, there´s no doubt that, as you say, "what truly matters is what is happening in this moment."

 

Everything you could possibly need to know is right here.

[Bindi]

14 minutes ago, doc benway said:

 

I can’t say I hold firm views on these subjects. There are things I don’t know (like what happens after death) and I prefer to be open to the not knowing than filling the openness with a belief. I can see the effects of karma in my life and those around me and I can also see the effects of my practice on my relationship to karma. Stirling’s response above says most of what I would offer as a response. I do think that if you subscribe to the general Buddhist/Hindu view of karma and rebirth, and if karma is truly transcended (or integrated) during life or death, then it will not influence rebirth, by definition. 

Stirlings response is “Karma isn't really a thing that has its own existence. Karma is a story you tell about yourself, like, "I am a vegetarian", or "I am a cancer survivor", or "I am a Buddhist", that subtly (or not so subtly) filters the way you encounter your day to day experience.” But this is itself a belief that you are filling your mind with. I imagine someone told you or you read that identifying with these stories is the problem, so you went about disidentifying from these stories. This is a conditioned response. 
 

 

Edited December 30, 2024 by Bindi

[stirling]

4 hours ago, Bindi said:

I think the danger Sahaja pointed out is highly relevant here -  how do you know if you’ve reached some “void level (truly empty, nihilistic,negative). This void is different than  “emptiness”.”

 

The short answer is: It is obvious once you see it. I realize that this not the most satisfying answer. 

 

"Emptiness" is reality's salient characteristic, once it is seen and understood. It is impossible for it to be negative because it truly embodies no characteristics. If you had to assign it characteristics you might say it is loving, just, and kind, amongst a short list. In the same way that a realized teacher acts, it is intentionally pointing out our attachment and aversion moment by moment so that we can wake up. Every time some else's post here makes you angry, or afraid, that is what is happening. It is love, actively loving you. It isn't separate for a moment from what YOU are... is the same. To imagine that its action is nihilistic or negative in any way is to misunderstand it entirely. It is a constant hand on your shoulder in your darkest moments, gently pushing you toward realization, regardless of how you pursue it.

 

Quote

As I see it, yes we are caught in stories which are the samskaras, but our fundamental and life steering stories originate from karma that we are born with.

 

I agree with you here, for the most part. But the karma is OURS. We generate and reinforce it moment to moment by retelling our stories of trauma. Those stories distort our understanding of the world, but only until the moment that we can drop our attachment and aversion to their message and just see them as stories. Criminals often see the world as a place where only crime is a way to get ahead. Jilted lovers see the world as a place where no-one can be trusted. Really, the world is just, loving and kind, at least in my experience, now. What stories do we tell ourselves about the world? Waking up itslef isn't really complicated at all, but needs the space created by dropping as many of the stories that obscure it as we can to open up. 

 

Quote

The source of this level of karma is deep within but it is as real as this table in front of me. I can choose to see both the karma generator and this table in front of me as unreal, but both are going to hurt my shins if I ignore them and walk straight into them.

 

It IS real, until you day that you see it isn't. Karma can ruin our lives if we let it. It isn't the sensations of pain that go away, it is the story about the pain lasting forever, or being deserved for our actions. It isn't relationships ending that stops, it is our dialog about being undesirable, unlovable - about being alone and lonely forever now. It isn't the car accident that goes away, but our story about reality being fundamentally unsafe, about how we are an inch from being erased from existence, or left in the hospital in debilitating pain for the rest of a lifetime. All of these stories can be beautiful, bittersweet experiences without our story about them. 

 

Quote

 I have been grappling with the concept of reincarnation since I was twelve and had a dream about a particularly devastated old man whom I was informed was me. Not surprisingly it’s been mainly his karma that I’ve played out in my life, but by addressing it, even if it’s taken many decades, I can finally see an end in sight. So as much as I’d prefer to be a reincarnation and karma denier, I have been pushed in the other direction, and have in effect prised these stories open to resolve them. 

 

Worrying about the past or future can be an exquisite torture. I also tried for many years to take apart reincarnation, or learn to love it because I wanted to tow the Buddhist line. Now, I am certain it doesn't happen, and no longer worry about it. We are reincarnated all of the time, live in the 6 realms all the time. It happens when we open a door, or put on a different persona for work or for a dinner party. We think we live in a contiguous experience, but in fact reality is disjointed and haphazard, full of missing time, awkward transitions, and transitions we completely make up by explaining our experience. The one thing that we can experiment with and ALWAYS find is the awareness that lies under ALL experiences. It is always there underneath everything else. 

 

Thank you for your thoughtful reply Bindi.

[stirling]

48 minutes ago, Bindi said:

I imagine someone told you or you read that identifying with these stories is the problem, so you went about disidentifying from these stories. This is a conditioned response.

 

I never intimated that this was the way forward, and "you" can't disidentify with them anyway. What you can do is realize that they are a view that you distilled from your suffering that doesn't accurately portray the world. You can take the teeth out of them so that they don't color the way you experience reality. The more life you can experience without your story, the more clarity you have, and the less suffering you encounter.

 

To end suffering, we need to see reality plainly as it is, instead of through the models we build for ourselves about it.