My Tibetan Cave

[shaberon]

Posted by Michel Leclerc (here)
If being silent is so important, if silence is so important – why then are we writing?

(Here or elsewhere.)

Because it is a complete cycle, Pravrtti and Nirvrtti.

Our teaching says that "enlightenment" is not to be found in the realm of reason and words, but, the realm of reason *is* a field for conventional truth such as providing benefits to beings.

In this sense, the expression Bodhisattva Path is much harder than anything else, since most yogas revolve around "liberation from conditioned existence", meaning the being or soul passes to the beyond or to the Solar realm. We, instead, bear the burden of transmigration and reincarnation for a cause, synonymous to Salvation or of a similar category.

Moreover, this is an Indian liturgical step that has been omitted in Tibet. It is distinguished in the Samputa (translated) and Sarvabuddha Samayoga (being translated). It's called "Urging through Song". This is a very specific message to the practitioner not to remain in undisturbed Nirvana, but to emerge from silence and do your work. Hence the expression "the lotus grows in mud".

"Bodhisattva" does not exist as such in Pali Buddhism, but, it is in all the distributed sects, such as Tibet, China, etc., and so you might go so far as to say the Theravada is represented by Thai forest hermitage lifestyle, i. e., it has much more the character of seclusion. Most Mahayana uses Retreat as your vacation. It is tuned to be urbanizing and to interact with non-Buddhists. So it has both sides of the coin for things like isolation and silence.

In my experience, I would have to say "yoga" is not Buddhist property, only a certain method of it is. As a seeker without any guide, I wound up attempting a mishmash of yogas of various sources. That's because I have a natural affinity for it, and was able to unleash my tigers in a much faster way than the ordinary person. And so yes, the raw energy of the universe, so to speak, *does* carry a huge "withdrawal" impulse to take you straight out of this world. That was happening to me, a lot, while it took a large number of years with limited resources to learn the Mahayana system. Because of that, what I basically had to do was "force it to stop", I had to make myself much more worldly and literally stifle the yogic energies because they were too overpowering. I would not have been able to function like a normal person. It took more than a year for the reverberations to fade.

If I had the concise, direct guidance available to me then that is available now, it would have helped me.

Now that I have it, from middle age I plan on living backwards, to do some work and eventually move my way into an old-age retreat and just do this, because the intent is a conscious death process.

[shaberon]

Posted by TrumanCash (here)
Hi, Bill. Do you recall when you were in your Tibetan cave what kind of meditation you did? Was it active meditation like visualization, for example. Or simply being and not thinking?

Thinking about this, there aren't really different meditations.

Rather, it is more like a "block outline" with certain adjustable modules.

All Tibet shares the same Preliminaries, called Ngondro. This is what was done at the Dharma Center I went to. But I went there because I had already attained a high level, and was seeking guidance, and they weren't doing any talk sessions. The extra-curricular material at the time was from CT Rinpoche and that "Shamballah Warrior" literature came out, and I thought something was off about that, it's trendy and westernized. And yes, here on Avalon we have a thread about Maurice Strong and the weird stuff they did in Colorado, and unfortunately Buddhism got sucked in to that.

The Tibetan schools are minorly differentiated by lineage holders and selection of deities. This is what is supposed to travel with you from lifetime to lifetime. So, for me, personally, I don't see myself as having been any particular person at any point in time, but, rather making a commitment to Tara which is permanent. That's what made it easy in this lifetime.

There isn't really anything besides Preliminaries and Deity Yoga, and it is just parsed out according to the development of the meditator.

[Rawhide68]

Was it fun in the cave?

[Lunesoleil]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
But I'm curious: can anyone reading this relate or easily understand?

the energy of the Total Lunar Eclipse in Pisces, your Sun sign will have opened a door between two worlds?

[Sunny-side-up]

Hello Bill and all.

Your Cave post reminds me of a regular meditation I used to do back in the day.

I would do breathing exercise's and once in the right mind/realm I would launch myself flying through a snow storm, blustery winds etc, no rain.
Then I would start to see a ledge taking shape in the distance, a ledge with a cave opening, very inviting.
All the time I could feel the cold air rushing past me with snow in my eye's
Once arriving on the ledge I was out of the storm watching it all happen outside the cave. I was now very much in a deep meditation and well energized.

I knew this mountain ledge was up Everest. I have never been mountain climbing, much respect to those who have, Bill

Alan

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Rawhide68 (here)
Was it fun in the cave?

'Fun' isn't quite the right word. That kind of thing is a discipline, a very focused one. There's no physical activity, though it's very hard work. But there are tremendous potential rewards.

[Victoria]

I would guess that it is part of the task of old age..." Bruce G Charlton   I can appreciate what that entails in stage 8, because I have seen family members shift from depression to making peace with the reflections of their lives,  but I don't know about this being the case in Bill's instance.  Bill is not quite the average man, I think he has always been extraordinarily reflective and I surely do hope he has many, many years and happiness-filled journeys ahead.

I am not exactly old yet, either, and I definitely was not close to aging when something started occurring to me in a very similar way as to Bill. Except, that my version of an isolating cave was a trauma response which exhibited as a severely limiting form of extreme shyness. During those early years, I recognized things very much like Bill mentions, with an empathy and knowing that most of my peers did not share.


As rgray222 put beautifully, "... we are all truly connected. Not just all living things but everything, the soil, water, air, man made products and of course plants, insects, animals etc."   

The only times that I felt truly at ease were when immersed in nature away from people; in the pacifying company of our family dogs; when flying well above the cloud cover during travels, or looking toward the trees at night while everything was a palette of calming indigo blues, emerald greens and deepest grey. 

As long as animals (including insects) were present in the vicinity, I felt relatively safe...and believing I could understand (or communicate with) them was my comfort in every situation growing up.


I still look for the resident creatures every place I go, in order to reach out. They soothe my soul and help me center. Honestly, I think animals are what saved me from being completely mute and fearful for life. They certainly taught me about humanity in others and in myself.

Thus, I really love and relate to what you describe Bill.  You have a conscience for the consciousness of all life.

It is wonderful to read about your new experiences and also your efforts to warn and spare the ecosystem in your yard from being razed and trampled. (Which reminds me, too, of Karen caring for all the creatures on her property- I hope she is well!) When we have to trim trees, we do nearly the same. I have always had this idea that our land should be a safe haven for all creatures and beings that visit- a sanctuary, or respite of sorts. We're a bit far from it, still, but it's a work in progress!

------
I think the soothing blanket of solitude and energetic peace, can hone a type of hyper-analytical vision needed to gauge physical details people so often overlook. It also allows emotional space for recognition of the electromagnetic relay that occurs constantly between living creatures and their surroundings.  


As an adult, if one intentionally seeks solitude and consonance with the wilderness and natural world, or even if placed into that simply by existential circumstances,  it seems one gradually returns home to a state of harmony and full perception.  .

I have heard similar anecdotes of increased perception from friends who go on long and lonely treks into the wilderness, or who have hiked the entire Appalachian Trail, and emerge changed.  The concept of a walk-about seems very similar, although I imagine the reconnection is intensely strengthened by epigenetics, the tradition and one's ancestors in that case. 

It feels like when we are surrounded by a destabilizing cacophony, such as in big cities or tightly knit communities where everyone is in everyone else's bubble and business,  we automatically, instinctually react by trying to tune out any excess noise- thereby tuning down our own mental dial in order to block it all. 

That type of deleterious neurohabitat makes it difficult to operate in a state of empathy. It's not practical (or healthy) to feel and absorb everything all around you when surrounded by a million other swarming bodies and minds.

We moved to our current relatively remote wilderness location because I understood it to be a safe harbor, which we needed at the time.

In doing so, a spontaneous information flow has periodically come in like an astonishing flash flood. 

This is amplified when visiting even more desolate locations, surrounded only by marvels of (at least what I perceive to be) a manless realm. It happens when staring up in silence toward the universe spread out above, imagining distant horizons without any hint of human presence in between.

It is not the same when looking out across a cityscape or the corresponding light dome, despite the beauty of buildings and sparkling lights. Connection to the infinite feels lost and completely silent then.

Perhaps, it is as much the mere perception of being removed and completely alone as actually physically being so, which allows the mind to relax enough to receive.

Shaberon said "The most reliable way I have found it to work is a Lie Detector."

This is very much the case in my experience, too, and I feel bad when it happens because I am not typically trying to decipher the truth in what someone confides in me.

Usually, I have to look away and close my eyes for a moment to retrain concentration on the sound of their voice and their intended message: what it is they need to express.  It tends to take place while I'm trying to really, really empathize or feel where someone is coming from; to literally show them I understand and care.

I've tried to be more conscious of when and how certain things take place in order to control the process better, or prevent it.  Mostly, I just have observations right now.


Maybe an expansion of mental clarity and clairsentience is happening to more and more people recently? Maybe whatever was hoisted onto all of us during the traumatic experience of covid and its aftermath forced some of humanity to branch off from the chaos of the rest and internally pursue a new course of understanding?

So much of the world's population has been funneled into urban living that has only gotten more tumultuous and discordant in recent years.

For those immersed in the mayhem of career demands/social expectations and a clamoring urban lifestyle with little control over the commotion around them, who are sensitive to energies and the frequency of such a communal megalopolis swirling about, but who cannot escape to a pastoral existence, I think the automatic recourse is to wall oneself off emotionally and just push others away. To become cold and numb. 

The more tightly populated an area, the more this might be so. Like a method of self defense to de-stress and realign in an attempt to preserve our innermost space for self and sanity. The last frontier that can be held privately.

Perhaps this results in more and more people behaving as what some call NPCs while they are forced to tune everyone and everything out, processing it all as minimally as possible? When the fabric of society becomes increasingly strained and breaks down around them, or the chaos seems too great, people begin to shut down physically, emotionally and mentally and it has a caustic snowball effect. That was the first thing I thought of when someone shared this video clip with me.

*Apologies, I do not know what video this is excerpted from or who the men are in it *

https://video.twimg.com/amplify_vide...ZPi.mp4?tag=16

Not that people are really devoid and soulless non playable characters, but maybe that they have been forced to wall themselves off in order to assimilate with the borg-like requirements of communal city dwelling while still preserving some modicum of their internal state without someone else infringing it...the tiniest of spaces that is still theirs.

Maybe, we are all supposed to be in a state of energetic communication, but in order to have the mental clarity necessary and be emotionally balanced enough to receive and reciprocate without our usual physical senses, we need the silence and tranquility of adequate space between us...or we tend to destroy ourselves.

It reminds me of the Georgia Guidestones. When friends and I visited them 15 years ago, everybody took offense to the, "Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature" line... 

But what if the world's populace were suddenly highly intuitive and psychic and communicated without words, while knowing what many do about the current state in the hearts and minds of men? Illness and wetiko, included. If there are too many people, in too close of a proximity, there might be total mayhem, with reactive responses and violent emotions.

So, maybe the safety mechanism in humanity is to keep us functioning with only minimal psychic senses so long as we are materially concentrated as a species in tightly confined areas and don't know how to control ourselves? Maybe if we were more spread out, our attentions and minds unfettered, allowed to wander, we might have the necessary freedom to really develop those subtle, hidden skills without it being a threat to one another?

[Pfaffenhofen_2009]

I agree with that.

[Listkov]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Posted by Rawhide68 (here)
Was it fun in the cave?

'Fun' isn't quite the right word. That kind of thing is a discipline, a very focused one. There's no physical activity, though it's very hard work. But there are tremendous potential rewards.

What's fun is being in the sun. Anyone can notice how it energizes you. If you're around people you can notice how closely tied people's fluctuations in mood are to it.
But it dampens the subtle perceptions. Everything physical is literally much brighter.

Winter has a similar effect. I can't speak on the "Russian Soul" but what I can tell you is there would be no more Dostoevsky if he took his vitamin D and went on a nice walk on a sunny beach every day. When I lived up north, I would wander around at night because it was easiest to hang out with spirits that way. I could physically see them.

The intensification of the internal world is not dissimilar to a psychedelic experience. Largely mediated by serotonin, albeit different receptors. It's what makes the other mammals hibernate. If you have the flu you can notice that everything seems more vivid, although there's an unreal sense to it - like a fever dream.

You can't live in a city and have second sight. I've always disliked people because most of them have what I call normiEMF radiation. Most people are miserable and they seem to radiate some sort of wave around them that makes you feel whatever they're feeling. Works the opposite way too, cheers you up. But the West is very, very sick. Extrapolating, the idea of higher beings and gods doesn't seem so implausible. I DON'T NEED to know that the guy sitting next to me is extremely depressed and the guy across the street is looking at me to see if I look like enough of a sucker to get robbed. That's why I listen to music.

In my old country, we could sense energies like that so we could take care of it and clean it up. But when I moved to China and every single cave and every single stone in the ground was full of thousands of years of who knows what it drove me sick and I lost my second sight.