Guivs

@Prabhaker Sure, but you responded to that : "Hinduism dasha maha vidya (tantric) has lot of freedom compared to some budhist practise.",this is why I thought it would be good to clarify

@LifeandDeath Here we go : from the dalai Lama Quote : "The process of dying involves a serial cessation, or dissolution, of the four internal elements : earth (hard substances of the body); water (fluids); fire (heat); and wind (energy, movement). In ordinary life, these elements serve as the basis for consciousness, but during the process of dying, their capacity to support consciousness decreases, beginning with the earth element. Each step in this dissolution actually increases the capacity of the next element to support consciousness. Step by step, it looks like this. 1. When the earth elements, or hard substances of your body, dissolves into the water element, the external indication is that your body becomes thinner. Internally, you see what appears to be a mirage seen in a desert. 2. When the water element of your body dissolves into the fire element, the external sign is that the fluids in your body dry, your mouth dries, your nose puckers and so fort; internally, you see what has been described as puffs of smoke from a chimney or smoke floating throughout a room. 3. When the fire element of your body dissolves into the wind, or air, element, the external indication is that the heat of your body diminishes, internally, you see what look like fireflies at nights or like scattering sparks. Heat withdraws from the body (...) from the feet upward to the heart or from the top of the head down. The former is preferrable (...) 4. Next, the wind, or movement of energy in your body, dissolves into consciousness, and your outer breath ceases; at this time you see an appearance like the light above a flickering candle flame when the fuel has almost been used up. (Some doctors would consider a person in this state to be dead, but from the Buddhist point of view, the mere cessation of outer breath does not mean that consciousness has left the body.) The flickering light is followed by the appearance of a steady flame. The final four phases of dying involve the dissolution of grosser levels of consciousness into subtler. This happens when the energues that serve as the mounts of consciousness dissolve. (...) In preparation for the next phase, the energies that served as the mounts of the many types of conceptual consciousnesses dissolve, shifting the basis of consciousness from grosser to subtler levels of energy. These naturally occur in four phases : 5. Your mind itself turns into an omnipresent, huge, vivid white vastness. It is described as a clear sky filled with moonlight, not the moon shining in empty space, but that space filled with white light. Conceputal thought has vanished and nothing appears except this vivid whiteness, which is your consciousness. However, a subtle sense of subject and object remains, so the state is slightly dualistic. 6. Your mind turns into a red or orange vastness, more vivid than before; nothing elese appears. It is like a clear sky filled with sunlight, not the sun shining in the sky, but space itself, filled with red or orange light. This state is even less dualistic. 7. Your mind itself turns into a still more subtle vividly black state, nothing else appears. This is called near-attainment, because you are close to manifesting the mind of clear light. The mind of black vastness is like a moonless, very dark sky just after dusk when no stars are seen. In the beginning of this phase, you are aware, but then you lose awareness as you slip into even thicker darkness. 8. When the mind of black appearance ceases, your mind itself turns into the fully aware mind of clear light. Called the fundamental innate mind of clear light, this is the most subtle, profound, and powerful level of consciousness. It's like the sky's natural state at dawn (not sunrise), without moonlight, sunlight, or darkness The passage through to the mind of clear light can be fast or slow. Some people remain in the final stage, the mind of clear light of death, for only several minutes, others stay as long as a week or two. ( Side note : See people in tukdam) Since the mind of clear light is so powerful, it is valuable to practice, so many practitioners visualize these stages of dying on a daily basis. I myself practice them six times daily by going through the eight levels of mind one by one (...) 1.Mirage 2.Smoke 3.Fireflies 4.Flame of candle. 5. Vivid white sky-mind 6.Vivid red orange sky-mind 7.vivid black sky-mind 8.Clear light (...) we know that the person is still in the clear light as long as the body does not begin to smell or rot. (...)Modern science has done a great deal of research on energy waves, the human brain, and its functions. Scientists and buddhists share a common interest in this area, and I believe we should work together to probe the relationship between the mind and its inner energies (...) " Here we go, you could do this visualization each day and give it a real try until you have some experiential understanding, maybe ?

@Prabhaker What you refer to is a little bit inaccurate as it depicts only the Hinayana and sutrayana path of buddhism, the path of renunciation. But this is not the only path that exists within buddhism. Actually, there are three principal paths or methods of teachings, none being more perfect or effective than another. In fact, all are really precious. 1) The path of renunciation (that you talk about) : The sutra teachings of the buddha, the four noble truths. The basic principle is that, to bring an end to th suddering, it is necessary to renounce or abstain from carrying actions that produce negative karma. By observing rules/ precepts and guarding one's body/speech/ mind, one's mind rests more easilly in concentration and mindfulness is more easilly guarded all day. (Imagine if you had to follow 252 rules how mindful you would be of your actions, words, thoughts). The conduct is not the goal, nor is the renunciation. This is just a tool for wisdom to develop more easilly, and reaching a state where you realize that there was nothing to renounce. In fact, a thai monk, Ajahn Chah, used to say : "I'm always talking about things to develop and things to give up, but, really, there's nothing to develop and nothing to give up" 2) The path of transformation The path of transformation can be found in tantric teachings and are based on the knowledge and application of energy. In Vajrayana or secret mantra, for example, nothing is to be renounced, and it is considered a violation to discard anything. (In vajrayana, one must recognize every thought to be the display of wisdom, every sound to be the sound of mantra, and all form to be the display of deities). If anger arises, for example, instead of blocking the anger by seeing the negative consequences of it as in the path of renunciation, the tantric practionner uses its energy as a means for transformation by visualizing himself as transformed into a wrathful form of deity. Much harder to do, and much more dangerous, but if done well, brings tremendous insights. 3) The path of self-liberation In atiyoga, or the dzogchen path, there is nothing to renounce or to transform. Easy, one can say, but if one does not have sufficient capacity, this self liberation will not bring real results and it is then advised that one should use whatever method is suited to the situation until one has acquired deep knowledge of self-liberation. In fact, many accomplished 'buddhist' yogis had a wife, children, a regular job and did not renounce anything of this life. Therefore, any spiritual practice cannot be defined by such dichotomy and all teachings meet at one point. They are tools to reach this meeting point where tools are not needed anymore and teachings can be discarded. So we cannot make hasty judgements about how it looks from the outside.

@Will Bigger Yeah, those phenomena fascinate me (a bit) too much, I think (cfr my post in "Attempt To Bridge Buddhist With Christian Principles") Oh well, it's inspiring, people love "so-called" miracles

@Will Bigger In my opinion, the ultimate sign of complete enlightenment is the attainment of the rainbow body at the time of death, way beyond the accomplishmetnt of being an arahat. When all karma, whatever, has been exhausted, everything that created this body. . But I'm so far from even the smallest state of enlightenement in my own experience that it is pretty much mental jerking and nonsense at this point Then again, I may be wrong and deluded about this. The main point to take from this though is that we ought not to rest on our laurels when we think we had an undeniable breakthrough, no matter how profound. I might be really naive, but hereunder are rare photos of Drubwang Konchok Norbu Rinpoche that were shot at a retreat during which he said that ,finally, all the teachings he had learned and his many years of intensive practice had suddently come together and that he had eventually just reached full enlightenment. These photos were shot one second apart on autoflash, on a tripod on June 10, 2000. Makes me wonder, at least.

@Shin There will be a Dzogchen retreat weekend with Chogyal Namkhai Norbu in Paris in June, I believe. He organises retreats all over Europe and webcasts ad well.

@Shin Hello, What kinds of workshops would you be interested in ?

@LifeandDeath In my opinion the tibetan tradition has a lot of knowledge about it. And it shows as some advanced practionners have been able and seem to remain in "tukdam"(meditation state after one has seemingly died) for some days/weeks. But first hand experience should not be replaced by beliefs of course. There is a meditation practice that is about the dissolution of the elements at the time of death. With practice, the experience is apparently becomes as if one really dies (lose sight, sound, sense of body,...). I will write about the details of that meditation if you wish. it is said that the dalai lama 'dies' or visualizes death 5 times each day during his meditations.

In addition: The accomplishment of the body of resurrection of Jesus Christ= accomplishment of rainbow body for advanced dzogchen practioners (where the body either shrinks significantly or totally disappears in the days after death with many signs such as weird rainbows and so on)? Father Tiso has done plenty of research about it :

@Wormon Blatburm Couldn't agree more, great posting.

@onacloudynight Wow, I'm sorry this happened to you The ideal would be to consult someone who's both a psychiatrist and at the same time experienced with meditation, someone like Mark Epstein or something. But this is difficult to find... If you are sure it is related to your meditation practice, maybe you should stop the "do nothing meditation" for a while ? And you could switch for a meditation in which you keep some control over your mind (calm abiding meditation) rather than letting it run free like in "do nothing". You could try some mindfulness of breathing that might make you more relaxed and less prone to this. If that does not work, maybe would it be best for you to stop meditating until you see someone that can help you. My advice here does not replace professional guidance whatsoever. Maybe are there people here on the forum that have gone through such experiences ? They are people which have experience with kundalini (like @Martin123 ). They might have an idea. Sorry of not being able to help much, we hope that you will be fine

@Anton Rogachevski hey how are you doing? You could also say that there does not exist any reality from its own side, independent from a cognition and interpretation of it. But I think that the way in which we are deluded when we see dependently arisen phenomena is that: 1) we think they are solid and unchanging. (you expect your hand to be the same hand tomorrow even though this ia not the case at all. It is always changing) 2) we do not think of phenomena in terms of parts. When you shake hands with someone, we do not think of that hands in terms of its parts: bones, blood, skin,... 3) we think that phenomena exist by themselves : when we see someone we believe they exist from their own side, but this is not the case. They exist only because : there is the ? on which they walk, air they breethe, your thoughts of them. Without it, nada So, seeing phenomena as they are is knowing this at an experiential level, maybe? Phenomena are more fluid than we think and always in movement.

@Prabhaker I do not think the Dalai Lama had any relationship with Osho though I might be wrong. When and where did he say this ?

@carlos flores @Snick @Prabhaker I do not know if you have seen those, but you might be interested in those documentaries about the tibetan tradition of yogis The second video is an excerpt from the documentary : "The message of the tibetans" by Arnaud Desjardins Found them quite insightful and inspiring

@Vytas Hey No easy trick that can fix everything, but just being aware troughout the day is the answer. It will have a positive impact on the clarity of your dreams. Just be open to your environment during the day and recognize your thoughts as soon as they arise. Just try to be dilligent. You might want to set one day where your only goal will be to be aware all day, a day when you do not have anything to do (a mini retreat). Then you will see in your sleep the dramatic difference. But for the DMT part, I am not knowledgeable, unfortunately.

100,000 songs of Milarepa

@BeginnerActualizer Hello ! The practice of jhana is something that you will encounter 'more often' in the Theravada tradition of buddhism. Some people worth checking out, because they are experienced on the subject (with videos on youtube that you can check out) : -Richard Shankman (one of his books : "The Art an Skill of Buddhist Meditation" covers the concentration aspect of meditation and discusses jhana at length. Good book on meditation that answer just your questions I think!) He also has a series of youtube videos on samadhi and jhana. -Ajahn Brahm (former student of Ajahn Chah. He is really experienced in the Jhanas and lots of lenghty youtube videos can be found) I think you can benefit from talks about Shamatha meditation (calm abiding) which brings you to jhanas as well. Someone really knowledgeable about Shamatha is Alan Wallace. You could benefit from his recorded talks and guided meditations in a "shamatha retreat" : https://archive.org/details/ShamathaRetreatWithAlanWallace2012/01_shamathaRetreatDay1Session1.mp3 Would be great for you to follow it as a sort of mini-retreat for you, I think! Nothing replaces meeting a qualified teacher face to face, of course. Hope that helps!

@BeginnerActualizer just at the end of your next meditation, if it was quite deep, still in meditation, ask yourself "what is the earliest thing I can remember". You might have some really interesting insights !

@Martin123 OK, I'll keep it in mind, thanks for your opinion.

@Martin123 This was not the intended meaning, my bad Enlightenment is a way out, in the sense that it is the end of all repressions and escapism to what is. Quite the oppisite, in fact. I see your point though, it was not a wise choice of words in that context.

This is a great posting @BeginnerActualizer. Yes, indeed, it's relatively true. When we look into things, people, and even spirituality for happiness, we end up being dissatisfied. And, as far as we know, we have always been doing this, so it is really hard to break free of this cycle. Enlightenment, therefore, seems to be the only way out. This quest is tricky business, and only a few of us will not get trapped in some form of spiritual materialism, thinking : "I am enlightened, now" This is why this forum is great, because here people can support each other on this path, and it would be close to impossible to find the superhumane dilligence, effort, honesty and motivation needed to "become enlightened" without such group of support. This is why relating with a teacher who has travelled the path is very important, too. In any case, your honesty is refreshing and much needed "act in such a way that you will not be ashamed of yourself." ( Milarepa) is a good advice at this point.

I was just listening to this the other day and thought it would be a great add to Leo's post (about Zen and the way many materialists like us see it) "If we are to save ourselves from spiritual materialism and from buddha-dharma with credentials, if we are to become the dharma without credentials, the introduction of boredom and repetitiousness is extremely important. Without it, we have no hope. It is true — no hope. There are definite styles of boredom. The Zen tradition in Japan creates a definite style of boredom in its monasteries. Sit, cook, eat. Sit zazen and do your walking meditation and so on. But to an American novice who goes to Japan or take part in tradtional Japanese practice in this country, the message of boredom is not communicated properly. Instead, if I may say so, it turns into a militant appreciation of rigidity, or an aesthetic appreciation of simplicity, rather than actually being bored, which is strange. Actually it was not designed to be that way. To the Japanese, Zen practice is an ordinary Japanese life-situation in which you just do your daily work and sit a lot of zazen. But Americans appreciate the little details — how you use your bowl and how you eat consciously in zazen posture. This is only supposed to create a feeling of boredom, but to American students it is a work of art. Cleaning your bowl, washing it out, folding your white napkin and so forth, becomes living theater. The black cushion is supposed to suggest no color, complete boredom. But for Americans it inspires a mentality of militant blackness, straightforwardness . The tradition is trying to bring out boredom, which is a necessary aspect of the narrow path of discipline, but instead the practice turns out to be an archeological, sociological survey of interesting things to do, something you could tell your friends about: “Last year I spent the whole fal sitting in a Zen monastery for six months. I watched autumn turn into winter and I did my zazen practice and everything was so precise and beautiful. I learned how to sit and I even learned how to walk and eat. It was a wonderful experience and I did not get bored at all.” You tell your friends, “Go, it’s great fun,” and you collect another credential. The attempt to destroy credentials creates another credential. The first point in destroying ego’s game is the strict discipline of sitting meditation practice. No intellectual speculation, no philosophizing. Just sit and do it. That is the first strategy in developing buddha-dharma without credentials." (The Myth of Freedom, CTR)

It depends. Closing your eyes might help you focus better on your breath, so that you can achieve a concentrated state of mind. With this method, the rest of the environment is kind of discarded and if you go deep enough and let go, other sense of hearing, seeing might disappear altogether. This brings a lot of relaxation and seeing the mind empty of most sensorial inputs can bring insights. On the other hand, having your eyes open might help you be aware of everything with the breathing within the space of awareness. This is a meditation which is much more open, and that allows you to embrace the environment, so to speak. With practice, every sound might seem as if they come out of you and acceptance of everything gets enhanced and brings insights as well Two techniques that might make it easier in one way or another, so you decide

@Martin123 this is a great topic, thanks! Well,in my experience, almost everything I do seems to be based on hope or fear. Therefore I try to use the means necessary to unmask these subtle tendencies and be naked in the open, so to speak. It is very hard because even spirituality gets transformed into some kind of materialism. So yeah,not easy. Why do I do it? At the start it was to become "enlightened", now I do not really know what that means. Let's see what happens. Before any formal meditation, i usually set the intention to become enlightened in order to benefit all beings. Intention will for sure have a strong impact on your meditation, the way one relates to it and its outcome.

@pureexp A pitfall that we see everywhere in the "Modern" advaita movement that came to the west : Attachment to emptiness. Honestly, one of the worst kinds of attachments, and difficult to get rid off. -Overlooking convenient reality (and its dualism) when it's convenient for the ego. -Underestimating that most people need some kind of practice. -No ethical background. Ethics mean that practitioners are ready to give up something. Without ethics at the start, spirituality is more likely to become just some kind of ego trip. A really harsh article can be found below, but some of the points being made are worth a look, if you do not mind ignoring some of the more agressive remarks : http://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/neo-advaita.html Advaita is beautiful though, but it is not for everyone. Ramana Maharshi used to teach at the level of the understanding of the student, and many times advised students to continue with their dualistic practice, according to David Godman.* If someone feels connected with advaita, investigating the teacher thoroughly cannot be emphasized enough. *He was the librarian of the Ashram where Ramana lived during eight years. Finally, 1) Being honest with one's experience : supressing everything because "all is illusory" is very dangerous. 2) Wanting to correct others when they say they suffer is a sure sign that your ego uses the teachings for its own benefit. (when one says "I feel sick", having the urge and saying "there is only life, there is no you to be sick. You are identifying with the body.") Just a fool's opinion though