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Thread: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Quote Posted by Old Student (here)
    I do hope this comment comes out where I tried to put it, as a response to Agape. I have tried to post it several times now and it did something else, appending to other of my comments. If it does so this time I will just leave it.

    Do you mean that the shaking you feel is at your heart -- causing palpitations and tachycardia?
    It always starts “at heart” as long as I remember about it. It’s not something that I’d experience too often but I’m quite familiar with it because it occurs at times I get some kind of shock ( or threat). A serious one, that goes beyond my processing abilities of that moment.
    It does not have to be about me at all, may be a news of ailing friend.

    I’ve always had subtle experiences, back to when I was a child and learned to work with them on my own before I ever got to proper meditation practice.

    Someone may not understand what’s my “real take” on anything because I’m a kind of information and energy processor ( right from childhood), so no matter what’s going on outside, I am there to withstand it and sort it out.
    My mum would say she took me on her lap when she felt uncomfortable and the energy would get processed and calmed.

    I’m in power off-stand from within at most times because I know too much now ( years and years of research, study , comparing to my own information and so forth) and some of it may take years to process.

    In the meantime - I think I’ve been too much on the emotional - empathetic side of things for many years now due to other people’s life illnesses and situation requiring my full time and attention and while I’ve did the best I could do for them,
    tthey have seriously mistreated - and kind of misappropriated - me at the end of the story. Edging human trafficking. The next person would probably use me as household cleaner, in the UK.

    It all went down very fast considering and I could not do anything against or start crying even. The consequences would be even more dramatic.

    I’m one person who can’t handle big human emotions for very long time - unless watching movie
    Naturally, I’m sort of too shy probably even conservative. Humour saves my everyday but I’ve always too serious on inside. So when things go down I stop talking on spot.
    I don’t like talking about how I feel if something bad happens.

    Yesterday, when I wrote this down I felt some peace of heart soon after.


    I’ve even asked my heart, in jest “and why are you doing this really” and the answer, half in jest too was “I’m trying to wake you up to what’s going on outside since you carry as if you’re not noticing”.

    Fair enough. It’s not that I’m not wake enough or “not noticing”, I think it’s the opposite. I’m taking in too much. My memory too is like of elephants.
    I can tell you what the scene and the road were like, 20 years later.
    That’s how I sometimes end up in one bag with some kind of “victims” 😅
    It’s when I take another take on what’s already happened long ago because I understand the algorithm yet better ..


    I do understand your “shaking practice” is quite enjoyable for you and you learn to control your heart muscle better.
    But : not sure it’s very “healthy” in long run as it could cause rhythm distortions and palpitations in long run. Be careful not to catch bad flu.



    🙏

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Quote Posted by Old Student (here)
    Quote The principal historical rivalry between Brahmanism and Buddhism is there largely because Adi Shankara did not hear of the Nirakara or Para Sunya philosophy in Buddhism.
    Buddhism was an anti-brahminical movement from its inception. I had told you I began reading the Avatamsaka Sutra (Thomas Cleary ed.), I'm on page 110, and so far they are delineating the "enlightening beings" gathered at Buddha's enlightenment. Among them are all the demon level supernaturals. They had been converted because they would have lived lives in hell in the brahminical world, the Vedic world, but were saved from this suffering by all of the methods they memorialize in that chapter. The parable value of such stories to the masses to convert people away from the brahminical system with its castes is pretty clear.

    Avatamsaka Sutra was compiled, if not some of it also written, in Khotan in the period from 200-400 C.E. Adi Shankara is 700 C.E. It already discusses three vehicles.

    Quote The meditation may resemble destruction because it penetrates that part of the Dharma Realm which withstands the destruction of a world-system. We could say at that time, there are those beings who are in a Deathless condition and have the Paramartha, and those who do not who will simply be eliminated.
    I do not think this follows as an only conclusion in Buddhist thought. I was specifically instructed by my Zen master not to seek this state.

    Quote That is why I think it behooves us to stick around Prajna Paramita or perhaps Upaya Paramita, which is like a working bundle of the vast majority of the teachings. Also that the only real technique suggested for outer Yoga practice is Soft Vase breathing. When we get into more advanced, specialized things, certain techniques may benefit some and not others. Traditionally, this is where the guru's personal instruction is desired.
    Hence my question about the Dakinis. Shaking is very old, it is perhaps the oldest of techniques. But it does turn out to be a place where the ego can be shed, and the worlds that result from that are so far endless.

    I have problems with post editing, too difficult to do efficiently on the small phone screen.


    It’s a good and practical question. In today’s India the situation between Hindu and Buddhist pandits is in centuries old stalemate.

    Enlightened philosophers and scholars who happened to study both will always agree on One-ness of meaning and are aware of co-emergence of both, of course but there are not many truly enlightened ones on the Planet at any times ( it always surprises me) though I tend to believe that so many would get “there” and beyond the philosophical argument if they produced little more diligent effort.

    Perhaps their enlightenments can be called “conditioned enlightenments” but as long as they see and propagate their own system as one only, superior to others, they’re both un-well educated, in my opinion and can’t be called enlightened on pretext of belief in particular racial or ethnic group.


    So in today’s modern, educated and secular India, most people still observe the distinction between “Buddhists” and “Hindus” as if they were too distant philosophies and categories of teachings.
    In reality both visit each other’s temples and teachers, follow practice and worship that has precisely the same meaning on inside yet they would shy away from attending “someone’s else’s ceremonies”. Some people, anyway

    More often this has to do with language and the extra effort we have to put to studying Sanskrit , Pali or Tibetan.

    Tibetan Buddhism is a world of its own with vast linguistic heritage that stands apart from Vedic sutras and Sanskrit based sadhanas.

    Very few Buddhist monks bothered themselves with studying Vedas and where the “philosophical argument” started.


    I think, it’s a similar situation to people who never read Bible or Koran but “heard what’s written” from someone else, in disjointed quotes.


    Unless one reads the “full book”, capturing the meaning albeit on multiple levels is impossible.


    I’m sure you are right: in Buddha’s times Buddhism itself had to start as kind of socio-political movement, thus it separated itself from unwanted or excessive practices and social elements of its times.

    If people back then understood the message they could have well returned to the live they lived - and their practice- with better perspective.

    I think the same has happened both in Nepal and later Tibet and northern parts of India while the two trends eventually reached consonance.

    84 Indian Mahasiddhas and many famous yogis studied with both Hindu and Buddhist teachers.

    In reality, I’ve met people “like that” but they are extremely hard to find nowadays.



    But back to the core, I believe that pure “Brahmanism” ( for whatever the term is worth ) that is Hindu Dharma - also called Sanatana Dharma ( the “eternal law”) is always pure principles and should never be attacked, from inside.

    In the commentary to Stainless Light , I found a passage written by Manjuyasas I believe ( I wanted to copy the page but didn’t so maybe later)
    where he sort of “confirms” some of my worries about the topic.

    He states ( in very blunt words) that when the Kalachakra and the rest of other-worldly ( anuttara) teachings and practices will be taught to all castes without distinction under the umbrella of Buddhist teachings,
    their meaning and purity of practice will decline and both impure students and teachers will end up in hell.
    He describes well what happens with shudra disciples ( who were not previously purified by study of philosophy or ritual cleanliness) once they receive higher initiations, they embrace their meaning “as it stands” without refined discernment and discrimination and commit countless misjudgements based on the presumption of understanding alone.
    He goes on and on detailing exactly what happens and it’s quite to the point.


    The tear between Hindu and Buddhist philosophies should have never happened - firstly, it’s unreal since traditional Hinduism considers Buddha Shakyamuni an Avatar of Mahavishnu and secondly,
    it produces more confusion and ne-science than virtue.

    If both repeat the meaning of “yog” is Unity ( Ekata) the Unity should be the sole objective. The rest of religions are exactly about the same thing.

    “Law of One” means the same thing.

    It’s slightly more profound than “Mahashunya” for sure but any emptiness is not bigger or better than one of our great cosmic voids.


    🍵
    Last edited by Agape; 15th October 2020 at 11:50.

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Quote Posted by Agape (here)

    The tear between Hindu and Buddhist philosophies should have never happened - firstly, it’s unreal since traditional Hinduism considers Buddha Shakyamuni an Avatar of Mahavishnu and secondly,
    it produces more confusion and ne-science than virtue.
    On this, we should perhaps say "some" Hindu sects claim Buddha as an avatar.

    This is sometimes viewed as "fence-mending propaganda" since the whole point of Buddha is that he is not an avatar, and the spot should be granted to Mohini or Jagganatha.

    Vishnu Avatars only speaks of the ten "major" incarnations, which are the pattern of planetary formation as well as fetal development. It ignores Hayagriva, who resurges in Buddhism as something very important, unlike Krishna. Overall, Vishnu--Narayan has one act known to us, where he is granted Magic War Chariot Victory Goddess or Mahamaya Vijayavahini. Otherwise, he is converted into Akshobya.

    The oldest strands of Buddhism may have been fairly un-educated, but, they were not all monks, there has always been householder community. But by the development of Nalanda University, it was filled with thousands of books, mostly the Hindu classics. The universities could also take thousands of students at a time, unlike most Viharas.

    Nepalis are often Buddhists and Hindus at the same time.

    What makes you one or the other? I am a Buddhist because I believe in Refuge Vow. I may not be a Hindu, not because of disagreeing with something, but they probably require some kind of baptism ritual or other affair I have not had. I am not a Christian because I disagree with the teaching that one is judged for eternity based on one earthly incarnation. I could try to argue that some of the Christian Gnostics supported reincarnation, but, since there was such a major movement to define and stamp out Heresy, at that point, I think they removed whatever may have gotten me to agree with it. As far as I know, the only real Gnostic communities these days are closed societies, I cannot just join them.

    I am not good at Tibetan, but, in Vajra Rosary, they are dealing with the action of Lung in order to unite with Yeshe.

    Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is at least this same subject.

    It can be shown that Sadanga or Six Limb Yoga is not the same as Patanjali's Eight Limb Yoga. In some cases, we can find specific differences like this.

    There is a quite old text which I believe is called Tattva Samgraha, which is around 400 pages of Buddhist refutation of every Hindu philosophy. After a certain point, I did not get much value from it.



    Paramartha quite confidently is a or the goal. See how it is conjoined with Sat, "Real Existence" of the trinity Sat--Chit--Ananda, or Truth or Satya Loka (highest of the world systems):

    Satya (सत्य) or Dvisatya refers to the “two truths” as defined in the Dharma-saṃgraha (section 95):

    saṃvṛti-satya (conventional truth),
    paramārtha-satya (ultimate truth).


    paramārtha (परमार्थ).—m (S) The highest and most excellent object or end of man, viz. the attainment and enjoyment of the Divine nature. Pr. prapañcālā dhana paramārthālā vairāgya For the present life, riches; but for the fruition of God, spirituality. 1 John i. 7. 2 Truth, pure truth: as opp. to all manner of error and illusion.

    1) the highest or most sublime truth, true spiritual knowledge, knowledge about Brahman or the Supreme Spirit; इदं हि तत्त्वं परमार्थभाजाम् (idaṃ hi tattvaṃ paramārthabhājām) Mv.7.2.

    It is often translated as Absolute Object in the tantras.

    In the following, we can probably find that Prasangika is a very literal interpretation, whereas Shentong might say the "elimination of prejudices" would allow the conversation to change slightly.

    Prajnaparamita says:

    1) The absolute (paramārtha) is the true nature of dharmas (dharmānāṃ bhūtalakṣaṇam or dharmatā) because it is indestructible and inalterable. This true nature of dharmas itself is empty (śūnya). Why? Because there is no grasping (upādāna) or attachment (abhiniveśa) [in regard to it]. If the true nature of dharmas existed, one would be able to take it and become attached to it, but as it does not really exist, one does not take it and one does not become attached to it. If one does take it and becomes attached to it, that is a mistake.

    2) Furthermore, the dharma supreme among all dharmas (paramadharma) is called nirvāṇa. Thus it is said in the Abhidharma:[2] “What are the dharmas surpassed by others (sottara)? These are: a) all conditioned dharmas (saṃskṛtadharma); b) space (ākāśa); c) cessation not due to knowledge (apratisaṃkhyānirodha). – What is the unsurpassed (anuttara) dharma? It is cessation due to knowledge (pratisaṃkhyānirodha).”[3] But cessation due to knowledge is nirvāṇa.

    II. Emptiness of nirvāṇa
    [288c] In nirvāṇa, there is no nature of nirvāṇa (nirvāṇalakṣaṇa), and the emptiness of nirvāṇa is the emptiness of the absolute (paramārthaśūnyatā).

    Question. – If nirvāṇa is empty and without nature, why do the saints enter into the three Vehicles (yāna) and enter into nirvāṇa? Furthermore, it is said that “all the teachings of the Buddha lead to nirvāṇa” (nirvānaparyavasānāḥ sarve buddhadharmāḥ)[4] like waves all enter into the sea.

    Answer. – There ‘is’ (asti) a nirvāṇa:[5] it is the supreme jewel (paramaratna), the dharma without superior (anuttaradharma),[6] and it is of two kinds: i) nirvāṇa with residue of conditioning (sopadhiśeṣanirvāṇa); ii) nirvāṇa without residue of conditioning (nirupadhiśeṣanirvāṇa). The nirvāṇa with residue of conditioning is the cutting off of all the passions, thirst, etc. (sarveṣāṃ tṛṣṇādikleśānāṃ prahāṇam); the nirvāṇa without residue of conditioning is the exhaustion of the five aggregates assumed by the saint (āryopāttānāṃ pañcaskandhānāṃ kusayaḥ) during the present life and the fact that they will not be taken up anew. Therefore it is impossible to say that there is no nirvāṇa.

    But hearing the name of nirvāṇa pronounced, beings produce wrong views (mithyādṛṣṭi), become attached (abhiniviśante) to the sound (ghoṣa) of nirvāṇa and provoke futile discussions (prapañca) on its existence (bhāva) or its non-existence (abhāva). It is in order to destroy these prejudices (abhiniveśa) that the emptiness of nirvāṇa (nirvāṇaśūnyatā) is taught here.

    If people are attached to existence (bhāva), they are attached to saṃsāra; if they are attached to non-existence (abhāva), they are attached to nirvāṇa. [For myself], I destroy the nirvāṇa, the one that is desired (abhiniviṣṭa) by worldly people (pṛthagjana); I do not destroy nirvāṇa, the one that is grasped (upalabdha) by the saints (ārya). Why? Because the saints do not grasp any characteristic (na nimittam udgṛhṇanati) in any dharma.

    Furthermore, the passions, thirst, etc. (tṛṣṇādikleśa) are metaphorically called (prajñapyante) ‘bonds’ (bandhana). If the path (mārga) is cultivated, these bonds are untied and the deliverance (vimukti) called nirvāṇa is obtained: apart from that there is no dharma that is ‘nirvāṇa’.[7]

    Imagine a man bound in chains who, once he is freed, engages in vain chatter, saying: “Here are the chains, here are the feet, what then is deliverance?” This man is foolish to look for a dharma ‘deliverance’ outside the feet and chains. Beings do the same thing when they seek a dharma ‘deliverance’ elsewhere than the chains of the five aggregates (skandha).

    Finally, dharmas are not separate from the absolute (paramārtha) and the absolute is not separate from the true nature (bhūtalakṣaṇa) of dharmas. The result is that the emptiness of the true nature of dharmas is the ‘emptiness of the absolute’. These are the various names used to designate the emptiness of the absolute.


    So there is a Conceptual level where skandhas are temporarily stopped, and an Actual level where they are completely gone. In Vajra Rosary terms, this would be much like the Non-conceptual mind mounted on the Non-conceptual wind, temporarily or utterly. If what I experienced amounts to a "temporary concept", it is Samjna Nirodha. From here, I would tend to say "emptiness of the Absolute" is something other than the removal of prejudiced notions about it. Similarly, it looks like Buddha never denied Atma, he denied all ideas about it or beliefs in it. So I think you have to not merely lack notions, you have to significantly change the energy-winds to even begin to perceive what is being indicated by something that sounds redundant like "emptiness of nirvana".

    This is also where Buddhism does not seem to fit the teaching of seven planes, which defines Satya as seventh. In other words, its "inherent existence" is denied. It is only intercepted as a result of the practical Noumenal Path. From reading the practices, they require one to stand on the highest, purest part of Kama Loka, and from there, you can more or less begin crossing the Mental Plane or Akash, mostly by quelling the mind's activities. At that point, you are not going to other planets or anything like that, you are becoming fused to qualities. If I try to bug the system about what or where Satya Loka is, then it will just kick me back to the Prajnaparamita article. It will force me to find out.

    The Prajnaparamita deity is Paramartha Krama.

    The closest male with these Yogacara terms is Khasarpana. Manjuvajra is the only one to mention Vajra Kaya:

    tvaṃ vajrakāya bahusattvapriyāṅkacakra
    buddhārthabodhiparamārthahitanudarśī /

    Even if I do not know exactly what he is saying, it comes pretty close to Paramartha there. And so Paramartha is supposed to be the Third Nature-or-naturelessness, and it is not really a whole new tantra or sutra or system, other than we would probably have to say it crosses the Third Void into the Cosmic or Para Sunya, a place or plane in an absolute condition of Prabhasvara or "Clear Light", therefor the teachings are mostly about getting you there and back.

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Quote Perhaps. What does Buddha say that would indicate so?

    As far as caste and everything about institutions, yes, probably contra, but as far as the inner meaning of yoga, not as much.
    Bingo. As far as caste and everything about institutions. This is precisely what defines an anti-brahminical movement, be it Buddhism, Jainism, tantra, or any other. The point is that they recruited locally by promising an end to the notion that one would have to wait until a proper birth in the brahmin caste to seek an end to suffering -- an end to suffering was possible by following the eightfold path.

    Meanwhile, if you look at what might be called the first period of expansion of the Buddhist World, the rule of Ashoka with his pillars and emissaries, even including eventually the questioning of Menander, the Greek satrap (did you know that "satrap" comes from "kshatriya"), the emphasis was on superior medical skills. That is what is promoted in the advertisements cut in stone at the bottom of the pillars of Ashoka. That superior medical knowledge came from living in the charnel grounds -- an automatic anatomy lesson with the meditations there. And probably the three channels and the knots between them -- the description matches a dissection of and revealing of the sympathetic nervous system and their ganglia with the spine.

    Heruka started historically as a demon, he rose eventually to bodhisattva by converting to Buddhism -- something impossible for someone born to such a low birth as a demon, not even human, in the brahminical system.

    Quote Yes most Zen and Chan as far as I am aware are Sakara Vada or Cittamatra Yogacara which would typically either deny Nirakara exists or teach against it. It generally only will be allowed in some Sakya, Jonang, or Kagyu, mainly in the influence of Dolpopa.

    I am sure that is provisionally true, it is not necessarily advisable for everyone to try it. Since I know it exists, I would go so far as to say it is important to do something else, first. Something like it would be best to stabilize an outer Yoga practice, with Ngondro or Preliminaries and some basic modifications.
    He didn't teach against it because it was doctrine. It may well be, I do not know of such doctrine. And you are probably correct "it is not necessarily advisable for everyone to try it." He taught that what I was doing would always lead to a stopping, and that there was another way. Whether stopping is just right for someone else, I'm not arguing. That fits well with, for instance the Avatamsaka Sutra, which ticks off literally thousands of ways that beings of thousands of types reach liberation.

    That it is a necessary step and only some people have been born to be able to do that in this lifetime, that's distinctly the braminical doctrine of "wait until you are high-born enough" that Buddha did not teach.
    Quote If Vairocana is Brahma or Shanpa or the Entrance to Nirvana, and we know this is actually a metaphysical crux at the core of one's skull which can increase its power, then like many other things, Nirodha comes at a Conceptual level before it is Actual:

    When he [the Yogin] enters into Nirvāṇa, he suppresses the five aggregates of attachment (pañcopādānaskandha) that will be continued no longer: that is the notion of cessation (nirodhasaṃjñā)”.

    According to Ten Concepts of Prajnaparamita prior to Ten Knowledges (Jnana). However it is not "this statement" that is the concept--the experience Nirvana and the suppression of the Skandhas is itself the concept of Nirodha. Once you find out how to use this gate of Nirvana, it is not a static picture, the Actual Knowledge will grow on the Concept.
    This is what I had been talking about before. Suppression of the senses does not mean that reality is silent. That silence isn't reality, it precedes it. Reality is apprehending the world with the senses suppressed.

    I have a very different path than you, I do my core meditation and the bliss you are alluding to during my shaking. In some sense, it is more primitive and primal than shikantaza, or than standing, or than mantrayana or mandalayana. It was around long before sitting meditation, it was never reliable because only some people had it happen to them, which somehow doesn't seem to have changed, so better methods -- more reliable methods -- were developed. But it still works for those for whom it works. When the senses are suppressed, when the chains limiting the size of reality come off, reality blazes with the full infinity it really has.

    Quote With the Dakinis, it appears they have a very cyclical aspect. There is a reason to speak of Five Dakinis, associated with the five-fold bundle of form, but then there is reason to speak of Four Dakinis who are the inner petals to various central deities.

    The Four are also said to correspond to the highest four Bodhisattva Bhumis or Paramitas. So to even look at Upaya Paramita is like asking to stand permanently on the Ground associated with the first Dakini, who is easy to remember, because her name is always just Dakini.
    It was the Dakinis who called it, "Skillful Means," and me who translated it into upaya. I am not sure what it means to "look at Upaya Paramita," my only practice of it is to go flitting through someone's consciousness, and was told this can, but does not have to, cause them to stop, interrupts their normal course, and can produce change. I would think it would indeed take a lot more to order this up, to know what needed to be done, and to whom to do it. I would also add that even this is completely not trivial. It came after a long course of training, it produced a very hellish churning of emotions and blocks and the like, and I can barely do it. Last night, this tee'd up again, and then I did not perceive anything happening. I have no idea whether it happened or not, to give an idea as to how elusive this is.

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Quote I do understand your “shaking practice” is quite enjoyable for you and you learn to control your heart muscle better.
    But : not sure it’s very “healthy” in long run as it could cause rhythm distortions and palpitations in long run. Be careful not to catch bad flu.
    I'm not sure that I have such a choice or that it is entirely enjoyment. It does not start at my heart at all, which is why I asked. Since I have been doing shaking I am in better muscular and otherwise physical shape, it is quite strenuous.

    The closest thing I can think of within my experience to your palpitations is my breathing problem. It is caused by malfunctioning of probably one or the other vagus nerves. I learned from the Dakinis in my shaking two techniques for stopping the problem, both of which I can only sometimes accomplish (when there isn't a problem they are easy, when there is, they are essentially digging into that nerve so they are hard). The first is to shake further and further into my chest until I can "grab" my esophagus and trachea and shake them. The second is by taking a drop of pre-bliss to my heart, separating it, and letting the bliss part descend and the nausea part ascend, in other words, inducing nausea. This is not the same as inducing vomiting, this is inducing the widespread feeling of nausea.

    But that malfunction is not caused by shaking, it happens from time to time -- right now maybe once a month or so.

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Quote In reality both visit each other’s temples and teachers, follow practice and worship that has precisely the same meaning on inside yet they would shy away from attending “someone’s else’s ceremonies”. Some people, anyway.
    Sounds like when I was living in China and if you asked people, "Are you Confucian, Buddhist, or Daoist," the answer was usually, "Yes."

    Yes, that is true, in fact, it's sort of true whenever one moves away from Judeo-Christian-Muslim with the concept of one true god. And has been for a long time. Kanishka the Great used to print coins that were Buddhist, Zoroastrian, and Olympian, so it has been that way for a long time. In earlier Buddhism, in "proto-Vajrayana" Central Asia which is kind of called that by modern scholars because of prejudice over who is and is not cultured enough to start something, people chose among the three vehicles based on personal predilection and guru advice. Believe it or not, the original thing which produced an actual outbreak of controversy between Hinayana and Mahayana was a dispute over serendipitous meat (meat from an animal that was killed but not by a person). The Hinayana did not believe it could be eaten. Which means once upon a time Mahayana did.

    Quote He states ( in very blunt words) that when the Kalachakra and the rest of other-worldly ( anuttara) teachings and practices will be taught to all castes without distinction under the umbrella of Buddhist teachings,
    their meaning and purity of practice will decline and both impure students and teachers will end up in hell.
    Kalachakra and Vimalaphrabha (I assume this is what you mean by the Stainless Light commentary) were written/adopted during the collapse of the Buddhist World. Yusuf Qadir Khan successfully conquered Khotan and slaughtered all the Buddhists they could find there, including following and poisoning the son of the Guge king for the Tibetans having joined the fight against them. They wrote hagiographies extolling the level of violence afterwards. Mahmud of Ghazni sacked temples, and toppled the Great Stupa of Kanishka at (modern day) Peshawar. The two divided up the region and Maha Bahar (Balkh/Bactria) was sacked as well. The Chole, who were Hindu but not enlightened as to being one with Buddhists, sacked Srivijaya's capital Palimbang, and the Sena conquered the Palas in the East, and forced Buddhists in Orissa and Bengal to become "cryptobuddhists".

    The two tantras, especially the Vimalaprabha, reflect this. So did subsequent behavior, Tibet going out to find new foundation documents for their Buddhism in Vikramsila and Nalanda, the Pagan emperor Anawrutha going to Sri Lanka for his new versions. Everybody felt Buddhism had left the path and this collapse was the consequence. So a period when people were loathe to let their truths be told to the wrong ears. Most especially the "Mleccha", who at the time meant the Muslim invaders, and still sort of does.

    I know Indians who are "noble born" and had thread ceremonies. If pressed, many of them even know the varnas and jatis of their ancestors back some ways and where they migrated from. I daresay no European is really such, if the strict rules of the 11th century be applied.

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Quote Posted by Old Student (here)
    Quote I do understand your “shaking practice” is quite enjoyable for you and you learn to control your heart muscle better.
    But : not sure it’s very “healthy” in long run as it could cause rhythm distortions and palpitations in long run. Be careful not to catch bad flu.
    I'm not sure that I have such a choice or that it is entirely enjoyment. It does not start at my heart at all, which is why I asked. Since I have been doing shaking I am in better muscular and otherwise physical shape, it is quite strenuous.

    The closest thing I can think of within my experience to your palpitations is my breathing problem. It is caused by malfunctioning of probably one or the other vagus nerves. I learned from the Dakinis in my shaking two techniques for stopping the problem, both of which I can only sometimes accomplish (when there isn't a problem they are easy, when there is, they are essentially digging into that nerve so they are hard). The first is to shake further and further into my chest until I can "grab" my esophagus and trachea and shake them. The second is by taking a drop of pre-bliss to my heart, separating it, and letting the bliss part descend and the nausea part ascend, in other words, inducing nausea. This is not the same as inducing vomiting, this is inducing the widespread feeling of nausea.

    But that malfunction is not caused by shaking, it happens from time to time -- right now maybe once a month or so.


    Guess what: if I ever start shaking ( tremor like vibration) I do not call it “palpitation” either. However, when the “impulse” to this starts at heart,
    I’ve observed “palpitation” occurs naturally ( without medical cause or reason).

    The effect- if it lasts longer than an hour for example- but in extreme cases it can last many days together is a mild “trance state”. My consciousness passes to frequency state where I operate differently, on day to day bases.
    Since it’s not quite enjoyable for me either- unless it would be very well attuned, I make an effort to relax and stop it as soon as possible, if possible.

    The thing with it is that it can’t be stopped mechanically or from outside, certainly not by drugs or someone giving me “an attitude” or even hug :
    those interventions make things genuinely crap.

    There may be exceptions to the rule but if they exist, the situation itself ceases.

    Reason: we all vibrate in different parts of energy spectrum.
    It’s not something “modern science” understands or defines, quite yet.

    Likewise, I can (energetically) help someone who are accessible within the spectrum where I operate but there many people outside of my spectrum also, hence the difficulty.


    On the other hand, vibration ( shaking) can be picked from another person or source outside very easily.
    There were cases of people who started to shake or dance together passing to altered state of consciousness for months together. No one could ever define “where it came from” really.

    If/since you are as physically strong as you describe and pick up that the transformative part of the process, there is something else happening for you than most people experience in long run that will eventually lead to higher state of consciousness.


    With respect to names and terms given to forms and their absence through thousands of years of human history, every experience is unique and the “final state” is free of human conditioned mind.
    It’s a state far beyond what any human teacher and words can deliver ( unless they would be as learned and eloquent as Shaberon 🌟 )
    it does not have any “human mind” left.

    That state happens spontaneously( or in some cases by “cutting off” the last rope of attachment) after the energies associated with grasping for particular phenomena -in this human realm- names and forms- are exhausted.
    It may take long to any practitioner, no matter how they practice and once they start experiencing “cessation” of the outgoing energy and formations before we arrive “there”.

    In that state of matters, wisdom takes over “practice” and life may look as ordinary to onlookers as their own because there’s nothing “longer in it” to work out.
    From human beings perspective the “outcome” is as peaceful as can be.

    There is always a small chance that the “end” will be disrupted by chance, accidents or someone’s foolishness but whether it is so, matters only to Life itself perhaps.

    Even if we have repeated the process thousand times, conditions of this particular time and world we were born into can’t be exactly changed or prevented.


    Most of my time now a days I so look forwards to the Space free of human mind, words and arguments 🙏🌟🙏

    I can’t change my age or appearance or the way I come through massively but since we are in India people are still spiritually more sensitive in general than they would be in the West.

    Balancing my existence carefully between this world and the next, in the empty space in between true meaning emerges clearly.

    Till there are dogs and humans around there will be doubting and pushing minds.


    🦕
    Last edited by Agape; 16th October 2020 at 03:53.

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Quote Posted by Old Student (here)

    He didn't teach against it because it was doctrine. It may well be, I do not know of such doctrine. And you are probably correct "it is not necessarily advisable for everyone to try it." He taught that what I was doing would always lead to a stopping, and that there was another way. Whether stopping is just right for someone else, I'm not arguing. That fits well with, for instance the Avatamsaka Sutra, which ticks off literally thousands of ways that beings of thousands of types reach liberation.
    My question would be if there is a "known condition" that is to be avoided, what do I do about the regular occurrence of Deep Sleep?

    The meditative Voids are the same thing that is said to happen to everyone as Sleep, except instead of going as a helpless, drifting sleeper, you develop lucidity and control.

    That there is a dark or black aspect, and a, to us, non-consciousness, is really just a part of normal everyday life. Everyone knows what it is, just not consciously in their brain. The Heart does.

    The Wiki article on Dhyana is a pile of collisions, there are debates whether Dhyana is less valuable than Vispasaya--Insight, or that it appears contradictory to tantra in general by avoiding the body at a relatively early point.

    It eventually gets to:

    Investigation of self

    On this point, it is thought that the uses of the elements in early Buddhist literature have in general very little connection to Brahmanical thought; in most places they occur in teachings where they form the objects of a detailed contemplation of the human being. The aim of these contemplations seems to have been to bring about the correct understanding that the various perceived aspects of a human being, when taken together, nevertheless do not comprise a "self." Moreover, the self is conceptualized in terms similar to both "nothingness" and "neither perception nor non-perception" at different places in early Upanishadic literature. The latter corresponds to Yajnavalkya’s definition of the self in his famous dialogue with Maitreyi in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad and to the definition given in the post-Buddhist Mandukya Upanishad. This is mentioned as a claim of non-Buddhist ascetics and Brahmins in the Pañcattaya Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya 102.2). In the same dialogue in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Yajnavalkya draws the conclusion that the self that is neither perceptive nor non-perceptive is a state of consciousness without object. The early Buddhist evidence suggests much the same thing for the eighth absorption or jhāna, the state of "neither perception nor non-perception". It is a state without an object of awareness, that is not devoid of awareness. The ninth jhāna that is sometimes said to be beyond this state, the "cessation of perception and sensation", is devoid not only of objectivity, but of subjectivity as well.

    So the most comprehensive picture includes a Ninth Dhyana which is suspiciously close to Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

    Dhyana is Dzyan which is Chan or Zen, it is Concentration or Dhi which is Samadhi and Samapatti.

    Insight or Vispasaya is emphasized mostly in the southern or Theravada sects. I do not know enough about them to explain the difference for them.

    Their counter-point would run something like, well, perhaps I did temporarily experience what probably amounted to the Eighth Dhyana, but, the main benefit was an interruption to the Hindrances. They were not permanently removed, and they would argue I did not grow much in wisdom or compassionate action. Because I did not really start it in a Buddhist manner, there is something to this, but once we can find the RGV appends the Womb of Compassion to Voidness, then there is every reason to see them as working partners.

    By even trying to "look" at Upaya Paramita, I do not think I have the right Buddha Eye to even try, because my plate is already full trying to comprehend Prajna Paramita as the refined, perfected hostess of all the previous stages. I am sure that Upaya would be Sanskrit for Skillful Means, but, I cannot really say if the Dakini means it in terms of this Paramita. In the strictly tantric sense, it would mean male seed or role, or Father tantra as a category. From there you can get the sub-category of a female form performing the usually-male role.

    Since it sounds pretty specific, at least now, to the ability to flit, is it possible to fling gobs of nectar on beings like Vetali does?

    That is "kind of" what I am doing with Usnisa mantra while feeding animals, but it is mostly just a thoughtform since I lack any such reservoir in this state.

    I do not personally have a Path that is anything other than what is in the scriptures. I have a practice that is based from standard Ngondro, and a few "portable" or "anytime" mantras such as Usnisa. In the context of its own milieu, this is very plain Jane.



    Quote Suppression of the senses does not mean that reality is silent. That silence isn't reality, it precedes it. Reality is apprehending the world with the senses suppressed.
    Nirvana suppresses the Aggregates, only one of which has senses. It means it suppresses Feeling and Perception as well as Formation/Conception/Ideation, and Consciousness--Vijnana. That is what it means to burn the Tathagatas.

    I am not that familiar with Avatamsaka Sutra, but, the last chapter, Entry to the Realm of Reality, has Buddha manifest an infinitely-interpenetrating retinue in Jetvana Grove, but Shariputra and the other disciples are unable to see it. He does it in Lion's Roar Samadhi whose nature is Karuna.

    "Why didn't the disciples see any of this?

    Because of lack of corresponding roots of goodness. For they had not accumulated the roots of goodness conducive to vision of the transfiguration of all buddhas, and they had not had the purifications of the arrays of qualities of all buddha-lands in the ten
    directions described to them, and they had not had the various wonders of all
    buddhas described to them by the buddhas, and they had not established
    beings in supreme perfect enlightenment while they were involved in the
    world, and they had not instilled in others' minds the determination for
    enlightenment, and they were not capable of perpetuating the lineage of
    buddhas, and they were not engaged in the salvation of all beings, and they
    had not exhorted enlightening beings to practice transcendent ways, and
    while they were involved in the world they had not focused their minds on
    the stage of knowledge superior to all worldlings, and they had not developed the foundations of goodness conducive to omniscience, and they had not perfected the transmundane roots of goodness of buddhas, and they had
    not realized the miraculous superknowledge to purify all buddha-lands, and
    they did not know the source of the great vow of enlightening beings,
    which is the good root of concentration on unique world-transcending
    enlightenment that represents the range of vision of enlightening beings,
    and they were not born of the magical essence emanating from the power of
    the enlightened, and because hearers and individual illuminates do not share
    in the knowledge of enlightening beings' control over holding various perceptions as in dreams, the growth of the current of joy of enlightening beings, and the manifestations of the range of the eye of knowledge of the
    universally good enlightening being."

    Their problems sound mostly like failures at Karuna.

    It doesn't say anything like they mis-interpreted the Eighth Dhyana, or lost control of the Wind of Vairocana in the Ajna center on Tuesday evening. But that text is so comprehensive and vault-like, it may, in fact, mean that some missing aspect of Vairocana Wind is "not capable of perpetuating the lineage of Buddhas". That would be the relationship of Sutra to Tantra. This thing could have thousands of facets about winds or chakras, and I have no idea what they are. I do know that the "end" or Gandhavyuha Sutra is tantricly re-iterated as Amoghapasha with Sudhana Kumara and others.

    The advanced disciples who were not yet Buddhas but were part of the retinue are described as:

    There were also five hundred hearers with great spiritual powers, all of
    them perfectly aware of the essence of true reason and the principles of
    truth. They had arrived at direct witness of the limit of reality, had penetrated the nature of phenomena, had gotten out of the ocean of existence and into the realm of space of those who have arrived at suchness, had
    stopped their propensities and habits and were beyond regression, dwelled in
    the abode of nonattachment and nonobstruction, were in a state as tranquil
    as space , had cut off all doubt in Buddha, and had entered the path intent on
    the ocean of buddha-knowledge.

    They may not quite be in Paramartha, but they are in the "Space of Those who have arrived at Suchness" or in the Second Void, or, according to Vajra Rosary, a type of Nirvikalpa. They have stopped their Skandhas (propensities and habits) permanently (beyond regression).

    Sat or Satya is one of the main terms for highest reality; in Sadhanamala, Janguli is a Satya Vacanena (Explaining Satya), and Parnasabari absorbs this aspect of her. She and Medicine Buddha are all about herbal and tantric healing, I would guess the teaching owes as much to Ayurveda as to "the Vedas", it is something I think is super-important and there are people who would be much better candidates for it than me.

    Someone who has a knack for healing, or sustained visions, has something that I may never have in this lifetime. That is ok. I have strengths that are more psychological in nature which others do not. Different temperaments are just different Families, which are somewhat played out by the variance in schools or philosophies, and that some Yidams are more effective than others.

    One should cultivate whatever talent is naturally strong, and when the teaching gets to "the use of all Families equally", and we see how different and difficult this probably is, that is why I say it is really hard to "get" Prajna Paramita as such a well-working combination, or it would be hard to balance a Six Family Wheel.

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Quote Guess what: if I ever start shaking ( tremor like vibration) I do not call it “palpitation” either. However, when the “impulse” to this starts at heart,
    I’ve observed “palpitation” occurs naturally ( without medical cause or reason).
    Thanks for clarifying. My shaking never starts at my heart, it does sometimes go there, sometimes in great detail, but it digs in to there, it does not emanate outward from there.

    Quote If/since you are as physically strong as you describe and pick up that the transformative part of the process, there is something else happening for you than most people experience in long run that will eventually lead to higher state of consciousness.
    It may already be the long run. Sometime around now (within the next month) is the two year anniversary of my original clear body experience, and I have been shaking now for a year and a half.
    Quote With respect to names and terms given to forms and their absence through thousands of years of human history, every experience is unique and the “final state” is free of human conditioned mind.
    It’s a state far beyond what any human teacher and words can deliver ( unless they would be as learned and eloquent as Shaberon 🌟 )
    it does not have any “human mind” left.
    Then I am lucky my teachers are not human.

    Thanks, Agape.

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Quote My question would be if there is a "known condition" that is to be avoided, what do I do about the regular occurrence of Deep Sleep?
    The condition we were dealing with is that I was concentrating on a point. I have mentioned to you that I have fairly highly developed ability to visualize, from my math background, and from the same background a fairly highly developed ability to focus during concentration. The two develop together, I once stared so hard while trying to successfully visualize one particular four dimensional object to do a homework assignment, my contacts (which I don't wear anymore) dried out on my eyes because I wasn't blinking at all. I had been told to concentrate on dantian for standing, I carried that into sitting zen. I stopped everything and developed (recurring to this day) problems with "central apnea", where the breathing process just shuts down normal breathing. It can occur briefly in the deep sleep patterns of people who don't have a problem with it, sometimes, but it isn't a desirable condition at all, and causes Cheyne-Stokes breathing even during activity.

    The solution is not to concentrate on a point and stop everything, and the zen master pointed to achieving cessation without stopping everything, specifically, meditating instead on breathing or something similar.

    Quote The meditative Voids are the same thing that is said to happen to everyone as Sleep, except instead of going as a helpless, drifting sleeper, you develop lucidity and control.
    I think I've mentioned before, there is a way during shaking to enter into and to leave a lucid dreaming state. In the visual symbolism of my shaking, this means going inside of a pillar (which arises from my centerline, and from a dissolve which is tabulated in my notes as "brown-skinned earth", in which I dissolve into a woman with brown skin lying on the earth and then rot into the earth. The pillar is usually turned in this view, and arises from dantian or from my navel, it's sufficiently big (as in above, I can walk into it), that it's hard to tell.

    Quote The ninth jhāna that is sometimes said to be beyond this state, the "cessation of perception and sensation", is devoid not only of objectivity, but of subjectivity as well.
    This seems an oddly written sentence, since it maybe ought to be, "devoid not only of subjectivity, but of objectivity as well."

    Quote So the most comprehensive picture includes a Ninth Dhyana which is suspiciously close to Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

    Dhyana is Dzyan which is Chan or Zen, it is Concentration or Dhi which is Samadhi and Samapatti.

    Insight or Vispasaya is emphasized mostly in the southern or Theravada sects. I do not know enough about them to explain the difference for them.
    I am not familiar with the Upanishad, I am familiar with the rest. It is not substantially different than Daoism in its internal variety, and (for Chan/Zen) is historically linked. But it is not entirely deep sleep similar, it is also precisely the application of the perfect brushstroke in a Zen painting. Which also perfectly embodies interpenetration.

    The verse that I had quoted to you before, in Daoist Neidan, they reverse that order to arrive at the Dao. So the ten thousand things become three, which are the jing (semen/bliss), qi (breath/prana), and shen(spirit). These are combined to produce the yang qi and yin qi (symbolized by the Taiji, known in the West as the "yin-yang symbol"). The two then become one, the primordial yang qi (symbolized by an empty circle), and then it returns to the Dao. It is a return to the state before somethingness and nothingness, which create form and essence (which is stated in the first verse of the Daodejing).


    Quote It doesn't say anything like they mis-interpreted the Eighth Dhyana, or lost control of the Wind of Vairocana in the Ajna center on Tuesday evening. But that text is so comprehensive and vault-like, it may, in fact, mean that some missing aspect of Vairocana Wind is "not capable of perpetuating the lineage of Buddhas". That would be the relationship of Sutra to Tantra. This thing could have thousands of facets about winds or chakras, and I have no idea what they are. I do know that the "end" or Gandhavyuha Sutra is tantricly re-iterated as Amoghapasha with Sudhana Kumara and others.
    Avatamsaka is on its way to being tantra. It has been moving there as scholars take a shot here and a shot there at it, but they don't want to go further than "proto-tantra" right now. They will get there, their problems with that classification amount to some problems with politics, and some problems with not being there yet in the evolution out of believing that all of Buddhism fit into Theravada and Mahayana, and in believing in some strict "evolutions" that are still plaguing all historians in the West.
    Quote By even trying to "look" at Upaya Paramita, I do not think I have the right Buddha Eye to even try, because my plate is already full trying to comprehend Prajna Paramita as the refined, perfected hostess of all the previous stages. I am sure that Upaya would be Sanskrit for Skillful Means, but, I cannot really say if the Dakini means it in terms of this Paramita. In the strictly tantric sense, it would mean male seed or role, or Father tantra as a category. From there you can get the sub-category of a female form performing the usually-male role.

    Since it sounds pretty specific, at least now, to the ability to flit, is it possible to fling gobs of nectar on beings like Vetali does?
    It is the same skillful means as in the scriptures. It is teaching on quite a few fronts -- at least to me. I quailed at it when first presented with it. The idea of interfering in someone's life with seemingly no rhyme or reason doesn't sit well, perhaps not with anyone. But it isn't "me" who's interfering, and it isn't interfering, it is a flow of Skillful Means through the universe, and this particular flow is embodied by "me" and flowing through the someone, and all of the flow of such Skillful Means is to bring sentient beings closer to the Dharma. That is nearly identical with the description of Skillful Means in Thomas Cleary's intro to the sutra, and he definitely means Upaya Paramita.

    Quote Someone who has a knack for healing, or sustained visions, has something that I may never have in this lifetime. That is ok.
    Likewise for me and stopping my breath or practicing things that would do that.

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Quote Posted by Old Student (here)

    It may already be the long run. Sometime around now (within the next month) is the two year anniversary of my original clear body experience, and I have been shaking now for a year and a half.
    Quote With respect to names and terms given to forms and their absence through thousands of years of human history, every experience is unique and the “final state” is free of human conditioned mind.
    It’s a state far beyond what any human teacher and words can deliver ( unless they would be as learned and eloquent as Shaberon 🌟 )
    it does not have any “human mind” left.
    I would say that is a bit of a "long run".

    We are not exactly talking about an experiment picked up by a young person and an attempt with questionable results. This is after decades of standard meditation followed by a spontaneous self-arising which is stable.

    I hesitate to say "final state", I think what we can get is more like a "necessary condition" as in something that is "the one root of all these tantras". It "is" a final state if we perhaps call it Samadhi, but those samadhis are infinitely increasing. Or if we think in bodily terms, it "is" the Avadhut, except this keeps getting more and more subtle.

    The following paragraph sounded to me like a fairly accurate tantric translation:

    "That state happens spontaneously( or in some cases by “cutting off” the last rope of attachment) after the energies associated with grasping for particular phenomena -in this human realm- names and forms- are exhausted.
    It may take long to any practitioner, no matter how they practice and once they start experiencing “cessation” of the outgoing energy and formations before we arrive “there”.

    In that state of matters, wisdom takes over “practice” and life may look as ordinary to onlookers as their own because there’s nothing “longer in it” to work out."

    It is accurate because it says Grasping at Name and Form, which are the same as the Skandhas, Name or Nama meaning all the skandhas that are mental, and Form meaning Rupa Skandha, which "isn't" the senses, so much as it is a "mental container" using them. And so yes, you get "variable length of time" for a practitioner to totally stop Grasping.

    There may be different interpretations of "practice", like how Kagyu Ngondro might be different from that of Nyingma, however the way I at least mean it is also in conjunction with states of mind and alterations to the subtle body. So for example you might do the same Ngondro, but then one person might practice Removal of Fear, another something more related to Dream Yoga, another simply watches the drift of the thought process, and so on.

    Speaking of the end of the human mind, or a non-human condition, is I suppose agreeably close to the cessation of skandhas, although the teaching of two additional skandhas makes it resemble Asta Vijnana or Eight Consciousnesses a bit more, since both add a sixth or Mental Mind and seventh or Very Subtle Mind, which each have their own manner of Grasping.

    The point about Buddha not being an avatar, and not being a deva, is that he was human and had the skandhas, and so he is speaking much more to the experience of removing them, is considered more reliable than a heavenly denizen who can tell you "there is" a transcendent state, without knowing much about how to deal with you as a human, as Shariputra and the others were unable to.

    Vasubandhu says only an Arhat experiences the ninth or Nirodha Samapatti or Cessation without Awareness. Would this not be about the same as Deep Sleep?

    The way I have experienced Nirodha is without any mental activity by temporarily suppressing the skandhas. There was still awareness, but, without any duality.

    The reason to Emerge in Reverse Order is to be able to move this state or condition into ordinary waking consciousness. That is perhaps more difficult than entering it. Buddha has no mind, or no human mind, or does not think, because he manifested Maha Sambhoga Kaya, all skandhas were permanently gone, and he is unwavering.

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Further to the shaking aspect of profundity:

    In those moments, and there have been many over the years, dozens, I have not been concerned about my health at all. Even though my heart must surely have been racing and my blood pressure soaring that was so far removed from the pertinence of the experience as to have been unremarkable.

    What I did think was, how can I get closer to it and merge with this presence, immediately followed by, this could end me - and all the while in total bliss.

    Looking back and adding logical analysis, presuming for the moment that such a thing has any human logic to it at all, it seemed like a flashing and flickering between what I think I am and what I really AM. Yet the one excludes the other. And so I have described this as a sort of metaphysical quantum tunneling, where the point of attention dissolves in one aspect and reconstitutes in another - crossing time and space without a temporal or spatial interval.

    And this non-interval is the closest we can come to our essence without total dissolution.

    When we become aware of this frequency we naturally seek to resonate with it, it is true. Yet we are already in resonance because that is what bestows our reality. What actually happens is that we seek harmonic balance. We slide up the scale of harmonics as our point of attention narrows. But we cannot lock onto the higher harmonic without surrender.

    The surrendering is the dissolution of self. Because the little self cannot hold a point of attention outside its purview by design, it must give up its self image, but to give up its self image is to no longer be the self. Then a paradox occurs, if it is no longer the self but is still aware then what was it before?

    See how this paradox naturally turns the point of attention - to the self remembered - and how this mechanism returns the self to itself? Thus the flickering between realms and the corresponding shaking of the body...back and forth between the real and the imagined.

    Truth, it could be said, shakes the lie right out of us - and scares and confuses us enough to pine for the known and the comfortable 'little me' again.
    Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water...Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. Bruce Lee

    Free will can only be as free as the mind that conceives it.

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Old Student : “Then I’m lucky my teachers are not human”.

    What a beautiful truthful statement Old Student. I can compliment.

    My original teachers aren’t human either. Yet they taught me so much about everything.

    But they set me on long journey back then to look for human teachers who could confirm the teachings, the knowledge, science of consciousness.
    That’s some 30 years ago anyway ..and I was quite lucky to find them and studied with good few occasionally. They were and still are the most precious part of my memories of this realm.

    But I always return and shift back to the original state and am happy to do my practice alone. This very human life is also a practice anyway,
    with real goddesses walking around, dakas and dakinis , divinities clad in rags
    some of whom are trying to step to the human world like us and share a message.



    I walk along the line, the fence as if. As if it was for real. Or is it. One day we all return home.



    This will most certainly make you laugh because it would not happen to you but after some cleaning of the house yesterday ( number 365) and another yoga stretch
    I finally figured out that both my shoulder joints are slightly dislodged and were so
    last year also and it hurts. Something to do with previous events and having to pull suitcases around heavier than I were.
    I think I’m going to start fixing it


    Om Ah Hum


    😂

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Shaberon: I may well choose my own terminology or skip my own terminology altogether describing the Path
    since the Path and the State are/were firstly described by seers

    before they were ever recorded or commented on by scholars.

    And each such description of the states beyond human perception and worlds out there is unique because we aren’t exact photocopies of each other or original Adibuddha.

    Whether you use many words or few, quote as many terms you wish, we speak of things and realms that are essentially beyond describable.

    And we always find many new terms, in modern language, see the whole “new age movement”.
    You may argue about the meaning of “new age” or that it isn’t legitimate term and prevent yourself from direct perception.
    There is always an “old age” and “new age” at all times anyway and then there’s the “old-new temple” in town that was rebuilt about 100 times since it started.


    So the mystery can’t be that very different or is it. And yes..it’s long way to go ..it seems before we fully mature from this human experience.
    It’s when we are almost at the door we understand the most 😅


    And then, “return to the original self” turns out to be very simple.

    I’ve just been there many times and back.


    And I’m completely free and foolish person otherwise but I’ve met young ones who made it too.

    Speaking of the Profound.


    In common respect , its meaning should not be offended. If an angry Buddhist attacks the profound with a stick and beats me up to ball - and this is on my record book of 2018 - I still don’t give up on the Profound.
    Because the angry Buddhist won’t ever help me back on my feet
    but the Profound does.



    🙏👒

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Quote I hesitate to say "final state", I think what we can get is more like a "necessary condition" as in something that is "the one root of all these tantras". It "is" a final state if we perhaps call it Samadhi, but those samadhis are infinitely increasing. Or if we think in bodily terms, it "is" the Avadhut, except this keeps getting more and more subtle.
    There are multiple ways to interpret the "root of all these tantras".

    I have a growing theory that the Avatamsaka Sutra was composed as sutra/tantra on one level for those who inhabited the vihara there, and the Book of Zambasta was composed maybe by the same ones as the day to day householder ritual texts. They were intended probably to be comprehensive for the time, and complement the one other text of such completeness at the time, the Prajnaparamita.

    In terms of the other, I am moving towards quiet in the start of my shaking but not towards complete cessation. I am increasingly being made to start the shaking from a state of what I was calling humming shaking, I've described it before. I do notice since yesterday and this morning it was present at times when I was doing other things, that it is invisible, which is very weird, since sometimes it is so strong it sounds like rumbling low thunder. If I was asked to describe how it felt instead of how it sounds, it sounds like I am listening to each and every blood cell move through each and every blood vessel, so I will need to find out what is supposed to happen with the channels, or maybe this is them.

    Quote Would this not be about the same as Deep Sleep?
    Deep sleep is not particularly deep on the consciousness scale. There is something one has to memorize for emergency medicine called the Glascow Coma Scale (GCS). Which has fully awake and oriented at 15 and unconscious at 3. Deep sleep would be not very far off of 15 since the person would arouse by shaking and be able to be lucid and talk and focus their eyes. By contrast, down near 3 is very lacking in control at all.

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Quote The surrendering is the dissolution of self. Because the little self cannot hold a point of attention outside its purview by design, it must give up its self image, but to give up its self image is to no longer be the self. Then a paradox occurs, if it is no longer the self but is still aware then what was it before?
    This is exactly my experience, there is a dissolution of self, and the thing that happens immediately before it is a feeling of surrendering. My experience differs a little from yours in that I shift form instead of shifting place as it seems you do, given your experience of tunneling. (the physicist in me doesn't want to call that quantum tunneling since that is what is done by electrons in your cellphone's memory, where I think you are trying to talk about something more like travel similar to sci-fi through a "wormhole").

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Quote What a beautiful truthful statement Old Student. I can compliment.

    My original teachers aren’t human either. Yet they taught me so much about everything.

    But they set me on long journey back then to look for human teachers who could confirm the teachings, the knowledge, science of consciousness.
    That’s some 30 years ago anyway ..and I was quite lucky to find them and studied with good few occasionally. They were and still are the most precious part of my memories of this realm.

    But I always return and shift back to the original state and am happy to do my practice alone. This very human life is also a practice anyway,
    with real goddesses walking around, dakas and dakinis , divinities clad in rags
    some of whom are trying to step to the human world like us and share a message.
    I wonder if that is a very human thing, to want to confirm from a human what one as been taught by one who isn't.

    Reading biographies of the old masters, one gets the feeling they did it the other way around, no?

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Quote Posted by Old Student (here)
    Quote What a beautiful truthful statement Old Student. I can compliment.

    My original teachers aren’t human either. Yet they taught me so much about everything.

    But they set me on long journey back then to look for human teachers who could confirm the teachings, the knowledge, science of consciousness.
    That’s some 30 years ago anyway ..and I was quite lucky to find them and studied with good few occasionally. They were and still are the most precious part of my memories of this realm.

    But I always return and shift back to the original state and am happy to do my practice alone. This very human life is also a practice anyway,
    with real goddesses walking around, dakas and dakinis , divinities clad in rags
    some of whom are trying to step to the human world like us and share a message.
    I wonder if that is a very human thing, to want to confirm from a human what one as been taught by one who isn't.

    Reading biographies of the old masters, one gets the feeling they did it the other way around, no?

    Yes it’s entirely human because no matter who we are we are brought up as human beings here.
    And unless I could have successfully quit the human experience when I figured out I will never “fit in” exactly and while most other people tried to convince me that we all are here for reason
    I’ve better tried to show that I’m worth the trouble and can philosophically conform, somewhere anyway.

    I think, your sarcasm is also, entirely human there.



    None of this defines me ( or anyone for that purpose). Old Masters had different path than most of us can embrace these days.

    I try to stay with my wisdom when posting on public forum, which this is. There are countless agencies out there trying to collect private information on individuals and I’m not in favor of stripping myself or others naked in public or documenting my experiences on FB.

    There’s nothing that Bill Ryan does not know about me already 😅

    Even I don’t know of anyone who walked the same path I did though there are many ways other people walked and sometimes we happen to talk to each other.

    Not sure what /or who are you mocking here based on the presumption of inherent ignorance ?



    Meant in jest 🥳
    Last edited by Agape; 18th October 2020 at 03:31.

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Quote Posted by Agape (here)
    Whether you use many words or few, quote as many terms you wish, we speak of things and realms that are essentially beyond describable.

    And we always find many new terms, in modern language, see the whole “new age movement”.
    You may argue about the meaning of “new age” or that it isn’t legitimate term and prevent yourself from direct perception.
    Yes, that is what the Mahamudra catechism says, it is a state beyond words.

    Daringly, there are a few descriptions.

    I am not fond of New Age. I could probably reasonably claim to have attempted to invest myself into the views and practices of a wide variety of things from the closest Christian church to Ekankar, and probably have spent more of my time sequestered in a once-important branch of New Age than in any type of Asiatic facility.

    What would be the direct perception that breaks if I point out the differences in things?

    I am guilty of working from a document that is a legendary survivor of genocide. It is not a "fragment" like attempting to practice Druidic or Celtic paganism, or reconstruct the Mysteries, or for instance the guy I tried to ask how or why he had converted Durga into Innana. Is there a Book of Innana out there along with an unbroken chain of succession? Not really. What I am looking at is, and does, you can pick some of it up in Seattle.

    Having said that, I should probably follow it by saying my existence as an organic being has nothing to do with Dharma talk, and a gazillion times more to do with interfacing with human auras with something like an externalized version of Old Student's micro-fine muscle control. The slightest movement at every second is a form of, I wouldn't say language, but communication nevertheless.

    At the same time it is also internal, in the sense of Vajradakini and the power of the heart and how it is like a smooth ghee flame instead of a resistive electrical bulb. There is something like a basal field emitted by the heart which operates at a relatively wide radius with any other hearts nearby. That is something like the prime communication, and if the aura and nerves are filled with junk, that is interference. The opposite of that is a black magician. All they have to do is stand there and peoples' throats tighten or their stomachs sink and the rest of the aura deteriorates from there. It is best not to get too close to them, let alone touch them.

    Does that make sense? It doesn't matter what anyone says to me, I am going to weave the same Mahamudra on them regardless.

    In very rare cases, there is nothing to send, like to the Dzogchen master. Or we met Pema Chodron, there was nothing new for me to push at her, either. Their auras were already beyond my ability to affect. Those are some of the few people I ever really thought I was in the same room with.

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    Default Re: Does Anybody Else Have Clear Body Experiences?

    Quote Posted by Old Student (here)

    Deep sleep is not particularly deep on the consciousness scale. There is something one has to memorize for emergency medicine called the Glascow Coma Scale (GCS). Which has fully awake and oriented at 15 and unconscious at 3. Deep sleep would be not very far off of 15 since the person would arouse by shaking and be able to be lucid and talk and focus their eyes. By contrast, down near 3 is very lacking in control at all.

    Ah, well, when we get down to Coma level, that is something else. How "off" and "unwakeable" the body is. But for most personal experience, we would tend to say, I might be asleep and dreaming, or, I might be asleep and just out of it. So, for practical purposes, that is something pretty much anyone can identify with, dreamless sleep.

    And this is just using the traditional definition of Fourfold Om as in Mandukya Upanishad:

    In verses 3 to 6, the Mandukya Upanishad enumerates four states of consciousness: wakeful, dream, deep sleep and the state of ekatma (being one with Self, the oneness of Self).[4] These four are A + U + M + "without an element" respectively.

    The fourth state is sometimes called Turiya. And again, this is pretty close to the Four Activities.

    According to Nath,

    Raja yoga, samadhi, unmani, manonmani, amaratva, laya, tatva, sunya, asunya, parama pada,
    amanaska, advaita, niralamba, niranjana, jivanmukti, sahaja and turiya denote the same state of being.


    And so the point is that Deep Sleep is similar to the Third Void, and the most mystical condition happens beyond that threshhold, in either the Raja Yoga or Buddhist portrayal.

    The Voids occur naturally along with the sleep process; accessing them in meditation is perhaps like putting the body to sleep without affecting the consciousness.

    In that case, waking up should be at least a bit like Emerging in Reverse Order. It is like descending through planes.

    And so I talk about sinning against Vajradhara as soon as I wake up, and sinning against the others before long, more or less because I am usually awakened by physical things and thrust into material concerns.

    My preference would be to feel a gossamer-like awareness that is not in the body, slowly enters it, pushes light through, and gradually manifests in a mandala-like manner.

    One of the few things HPB told people to practice was to pronounce Om when they wake up.

    Then if you slowly think about Sambhogakaya and Akanistha, and about the Families even if just using one name or syllable for each, you descend a plane. Then if you think about Nirmanakaya and the Ten Directions and Protection, you descend another plane. Then you would enter the body.

    In my experience, when I was able to wake up like that, it characterized the whole day, carried momentum. If not, it is like telling Guru to buzz off, and reverting to an animal.

    There are, of course, millions of ways you could get up quietly and tranquilly, but because it actually is Emergence, if you tie it together with the inner meaning of the sadhana like that, both strengthen each other.


    Avatamsaka is definitely pivotal for the worlds-within-worlds picture. I am pretty sure it is built on the same Yogacara principles as Lankavatara and Lotus Sutras and is a trip through the Dharmadhatu and Kama Loka. Anyone who would sit around and read it must have thousands of consciously-aware sub-units in their aura.

    It comes round in the Mahatma Letters. For years, I was confused about one term which looks, in the handwriting, like sahalo-khadalu which sounded Mesopotamian or something, but if you scrutinize it, you come out with Saha Loka Dhatu which would be specifically meaningful here, and usually translated as Chiliocosm.

    At one point he mentions the Sutra, although I am not sure if it is correct since the name may have been from the Lankavatara. He was justifying the seven-fold scale:

    And thus are misinterpreted and mistranslated nearly all our Sutras; yet even under that confused jumble of doctrines and words, for one who knows even superficially the true doctrine, there is firm ground to stand upon. Thus, for instance in enumerating the seven lokas of the "Kama-Loka" the Avatamsaka Sutra, gives as the seventh, the "Territory of Doubt." I will ask you to remember the name as we will have to speak of it hereafter. Every such "world" within the Sphere of Effects has a Tathagata, or "Dhyan Chohan" -- to protect and watch over, not to interfere with it."

    Even if that name is used, it does not apply to the standard scheme of the lokas.


    Since one of the character traits of Vajra Rosary is a tantric application of the Moods, I took another look at Picuva Marici, and it would appear her "strange" name is possibly just clipped out of the following word:

    picuvāleśasaṃlekhād yat puṇyaṃ samupārjitam /

    Samlekha would have the meaning of austerity or abstinence in Prajnaparamita Sutra, but I cannot figure out the middle part.

    My guess is still that it is based on the presence of "Picu", which would be familiar to anyone who has seen Prajnavardhani mantra. That is because this Marici has no mantra whatsoever, but appears to be telling you to use that one:

    stambhayan kāyavākcittam āmantrya picuvāṃ japet /


    What that does is Paralyze (Stambha) Body, Voice, and Mind.

    The word or name is a puzzle to scholars, artists do not paint her blue face forwards, Picu is abundant with meaning if it refers to Prajnavardhani, and the faces are more than looks if they are in accordance with Vajra Rosary.

    Stambhaya is relatively common in mantras, but this is the only place it is used this way.

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