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Konchok Ösel Dorje
USA
545 Posts |
 Posted - Apr 09 2009 : 10:31:45 PM
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| lol I never said it could. But it can be equalled. ;-) |
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alwayson
Canada
288 Posts |
Posted - Apr 09 2009 : 11:20:44 PM
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This is how I understand Dzogchen view.
All phenomenon lack inherent essence, including thoughts and emotions.
Therefore simply let emotions and thoughts self-liberate.
Furthermore thoughts and emotions are merely energy currents in the body.
(You can actually feel emotions in the physical chakras...) |
Edited by - alwayson on Apr 10 2009 04:00:59 AM |
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stevenbhow
Japan
352 Posts |
Posted - Apr 10 2009 : 05:13:57 AM
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| Very interesting. I'm still very new to all this, but Swami Shankaranda's Shiva Process has the mediator concentrate on several of the chakras and determine if there are any emotions associated with them. From there you attempt to find the source of the emotion, assuming it is negative, and try and remove the blocks. I don't think the method that I'm learning now is as in depth as Dzogchen, but hopefully as I progress maybe the teachings will go deeper. For now though, I've had some wonderful experiences while meditating. |
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Konchok Ösel Dorje
USA
545 Posts |
Posted - Apr 10 2009 : 12:24:18 PM
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I bow to the gurus and dharma protectors...
I agree with everything. I think what is missing from Alwayson and Stevebow is 1) How do you let thoughts and feelings self-liberate? and 2) Once your view allows the thoughts and feelings to self-liberate, then there is no need to penetrate each chakra. It's not about deep, broad or whatever. It's about correct point of view, the posture of the mind. No? The highest mind yoga is simply resting in the correct point of view. How to do that?
Must examine the mind. Investigate what about it is inherently real, beyond mere intellectual understanding; make it a real visceral experience. Investigate the quality of awareness. Where is it? What size is it? What color? What shape? Is it in space, or outside of space? Look at space, what about space is different than awareness? Is it in the present that past or the future? Keep looking examining and investigating like this until you are totally exhausted, until you recognize the natural state like the back of your hand. Be sure of it, well settled. Then rest, empty of any thoughts or feelings; the only remainder is a natural clarity, the middle between extremes.
The only "doing" is to release attachments to old thoughts, let them go. Don't fixate on any new experiences; don't even focus on them. That rest in empty clarity is the highest meditation practice. The Big Secret. Looking for a higher practice is like a fly caught in a spiderweb. This rest cleanses and balances all the channels and chakras and then they naturally charge up with great power.
Dzogchen and Mahamudra are the same thing different names. In fact, Zen is the same thing except they have a different action; Zen practices pratyahara, sensory withdrawal. It's like a hard landing, versus the soft landing. Meditation is like landing a helicopter. It's softness allows the view to remain longer, to grow: like being able to see full moon rather than just the sliver.
This is just meditation. The dharma activities are six perfections: generosity, compassion, etc., etc. Buddhahood is like an eagle with two wings: one is discipline the other is meditation.
The simplicity of this is magnificent. |
Edited by - Konchok Ösel Dorje on Apr 10 2009 12:41:48 PM |
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alwayson
Canada
288 Posts |
Posted - Apr 10 2009 : 1:22:39 PM
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| Simply let thoughts and emotions self-liberate as they come up in daily life. Just like theives in an empty house. It is pretty simple because the nature of all phenomenon naturally lack inherent essence. |
Edited by - alwayson on Apr 10 2009 1:30:56 PM |
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Konchok Ösel Dorje
USA
545 Posts |
Posted - Apr 10 2009 : 2:50:51 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by alwayson
Simply let thoughts and emotions self-liberate as they come up in daily life. Just like theives in an empty house. It is pretty simple because the nature of all phenomenon naturally lack inherent essence.
This is true, but it only becomes a meditation and a tool when *you* rest in the natural state. That only happens when you can clearly recognize it. Otherwise, it is just an intellectual thesis. It must be practiced as a meditation. Anger comes and goes, too, even if you don't know the mind's nature. Unless, you rest in the natural state the thoughts and emotions take root in the mind as karmic seeds. It is simple once you acquire the view and practice staying there. No one is naturally in the natural state. You can't just say "thoughts lack inherent existence" and expect them to self-liberate. The mind itself must be oriented to emptiness. That orientation takes work, it is the *practice* of trekcho and mahamudra. It is not *just* a view. View, practice and action are interdependent.
The work of orientation is a forceful and energetic self-inquiry into the nature of mind, thoughts and awareness. |
Edited by - Konchok Ösel Dorje on Apr 10 2009 3:33:52 PM |
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alwayson
Canada
288 Posts |
Posted - Apr 10 2009 : 6:22:01 PM
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I disagree
How can you orient to emptiness? Everything is already and ALWAYS empty, that is just the truth.
I know Mahamudra teaches that first you bring thoughts onto the path, and then later emotions onto the path etc. etc.
But Dzogchen refutes this. |
Edited by - alwayson on Apr 10 2009 8:33:54 PM |
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Konchok Ösel Dorje
USA
545 Posts |
Posted - Apr 10 2009 : 9:31:03 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by alwayson
I disagree
How can you orient to emptiness? Everything is already and ALWAYS empty, that is just the truth.
I know Mahamudra teaches that first you bring thoughts onto the path, and then later emotions onto the path etc. etc.
But Dzogchen refutes this.
No it doesn't. Dzogchen and Mahamudra are in perfect agreement. Dzogchen also has pointing out instructions of the natural state as well. You orient to emptiness by examining your mind to gain a definite orgainic experience of clarity of awareness, so that you can make that clarity the object of the meditation. View, practice and action in mahamudra and dzogchen are identical. There are no disagreements. I'm not talking about thoughts or emotions on the path. I'm talking about recognizing the natural state.
Everything is empty is just an argument. It is not an experience. The truth is an assertion. It is not meditation. You have to face that.
How do you practice?
How can you say emptiness is the truth? |
Edited by - Konchok Ösel Dorje on Apr 10 2009 10:04:32 PM |
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alwayson
Canada
288 Posts |
Posted - Apr 11 2009 : 1:57:44 PM
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Your thinking is quite upside down, if you are asking me to prove emptiness....Nagarjuna and his disciples would ask YOU to prove inherent existence.
'I make no claims, therefore I have none to defend'-Nagarjuna
Buddhapalita quips "It is not that we assert non-existence, we merely remove claims for existing existents." |
Edited by - alwayson on Apr 11 2009 2:27:30 PM |
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Konchok Ösel Dorje
USA
545 Posts |
Posted - Apr 11 2009 : 7:01:49 PM
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| I'm not the one who is thinking. I'm not asking for proof emptiness is true. I'm not interested in arguments. I'm interested in how you practice. What is your experience of emptiness? Does emptiness guarantee your automatic self-liberation or what? |
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alwayson
Canada
288 Posts |
Posted - Apr 17 2009 : 2:37:53 PM
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| I think noone gains true experience with emptiness until like the seventh or eight bhumi or the third vision of thogal? |
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Konchok Ösel Dorje
USA
545 Posts |
Posted - Apr 17 2009 : 4:27:09 PM
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No. That's not correct. From the beginning one must master the view and practice. The view is the emptiness experience. You gain that with intense inquiry and investigation of your own mind. Not finding anything exactly, you practice. Then the practice is to relax in the view with no hope. Bhumis arise from the great increase in energy of the wisdom awareness. There is no self-liberation without view and practice. You can't even get to the first bhumi without the view and practice. You will not traverse to the tenth without the view and practice. The nature of the mind is not something you can research in a book. You have research it in your own mind. You have to expend your own energy in the search. Then, exhausted from not finding, you recognize the state.
By mind, I really mean awareness power.
The following are the most basic and most effective instructions:
1. What color is space? What shape? What form? Can space be divided, separated, stained? Continue to investigate until all your energy is exhausted.
2. What color is your awareness, white, black or what?
3. What shape?
4. What size?
5. Where in your body? Inside or outside? Both or neither?
6. If you can identify something exactly, then ask: Who does that?
7. When a strong emotion arises, don't move. Again ask: Where is it? What color, etc.
8. Continue to investigate until you are completely spent from the search.
9. When you don't identify anything, stay with it.
10. Don't hope for anything.
This is the fruit, buddhahood in a nutshell. This is the practice, buddha-mind step by step, until you are a marathon runner.
Always start with compassion for all sentient beings. Always end with dedication of merit for all sentient beings. This is bodhicitta method. Without this first step, you will never have realization let alone enter the first bhumi.
You must do this self-inquiry to gain a whole bodymind experience of the state beyond words and concepts.
Once you recognize the natural state, you recognize it. The search is over. It's just a matter of becoming habituated to maintaining the view until you become one-pointed. One-pointed is the first bhumi, when psychic powers will arise.
Dzogchen is very similar. I have both a Mahamudra and a Dzogchen teacher. "The Emptiness" is just your awareness power minus the thoughts and concepts. When you recognize the view, feel it, experience it, through and through, then you are on your way to buddhahood.
The 8th Bhumi and up are the transcendental experience of the union of the mother and son Clear Light Mind, otherwise known as the union of bliss and emptiness. These are technical descriptions of events that happen naturally during the practice of the view. Some people supercharge their practice with tummo or thogal. These are enhancement methods to accelerate and supercharge the practice. Unless you spend considerable time with the investigation of the mind, these practices have really no purpose at all.
It helps a lot to have a "spotter" who can toss you trick questions and whatnot while you are do the investigation. It keeps you looking and prevents your from carelessly concluding you've discovered it, when you barely caught a glimpse. |
Edited by - Konchok Ösel Dorje on Apr 17 2009 4:36:19 PM |
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alwayson
Canada
288 Posts |
Posted - Apr 17 2009 : 11:39:42 PM
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how many times do you have to dedicate merit?
don't you have to do it just once? |
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Konchok Ösel Dorje
USA
545 Posts |
Posted - Apr 18 2009 : 11:13:09 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by alwayson
how many times do you have to dedicate merit?
don't you have to do it just once?
You do it after any meditation session. Devotion is also prescribed in all the yogas of this type. That may be devotion to guru as in guru yoga. It may also be devotion to a great teacher, or deity (seen as not different than one' self). It may also be devotion to Self-nature or the inner-guru. Or simply to the white color syllable A in your heart chakra, as ChNN prescribes.
So aspiration and action bodhichitta, guru devotion and dedication bodhichitta together form the energetic field upon which mind yoga may advance most swiftly. |
Edited by - Konchok Ösel Dorje on Apr 18 2009 11:28:27 AM |
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stevenbhow
Japan
352 Posts |
Posted - Apr 19 2009 : 02:55:42 AM
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| Wow, this thread is like getting free Ph.D courses in Buddhist practices. Thanks guys. I appreciate all of the knowledge you are sharing. Once again, I'm learning a lot and this makes a lot of what I'm reading right now (Shingon Refractions) about Myoe and the Mantra of Light a lot clearer. |
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markern
Norway
171 Posts |
Posted - Apr 19 2009 : 08:50:24 AM
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| My teacher which has extensive Dzogchen training has the same impressiona bout Kashmiri Sahivism as you have Osel |
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alwayson
Canada
288 Posts |
Posted - Apr 21 2009 : 6:12:46 PM
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I am still looking for a kashmir shaivism resource that talks about thogal.
I don't think it exists |
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Konchok Ösel Dorje
USA
545 Posts |
Posted - Apr 22 2009 : 3:54:01 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by alwayson
I am still looking for a kashmir shaivism resource that talks about thogal.
I don't think it exists
You didn't see that in the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra? About staring at morning and evening sun, moonlight and candles? The commentator talked about making a device, like a wood panel with a hole in it, then covering it over with black cloth and staring through that at the sun. I think that was Jaidev Singh's translation. |
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alwayson
Canada
288 Posts |
Posted - Apr 22 2009 : 6:10:06 PM
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I guess I missed it.
Did you ever get a copy of the Yeshe Lama? |
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Konchok Ösel Dorje
USA
545 Posts |
Posted - Apr 22 2009 : 7:50:31 PM
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| Yes I have Yeshe Lama. I love it. But my main meditation at this time is Mahamudra. In time, I will do retreat where I can make use of thogal. Until then, I am having very profound experience with Mahamudra. How is your practice, Alwayson? Are you meditating? Are you investigating the nature of your mind? |
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alwayson
Canada
288 Posts |
Posted - Apr 22 2009 : 8:01:48 PM
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I have been trying to get kechari mudra going. Then I can shift nonmeditation into sixth gear.
can you email me, I lost your email |
Edited by - alwayson on Apr 22 2009 8:11:28 PM |
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porcupine
USA
193 Posts |
Posted - May 02 2009 : 10:27:07 AM
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There is no need to force in any direction, we are all master yogis at play among the universes.
Namaste, thank you all who have helped to create this thread, I have been meditating on it for six days now, and I feel I have come to a definite understanding that is somehow invisible and empty all the same. |
Edited by - porcupine on May 02 2009 10:40:00 AM |
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