04-14-2008, 12:00 AM
Bob, I don't know much about Kundalini practice. You are much more qualified to speak about it.
The Tibetans have secret practices, that shouldn't be done without the correct empowerments, and other lifestyle requisites, that involve breath and energy
manipulation, including Tumo practices, or inner heat. Tumo is usually given to ascetic yogis and people on retreat. ... To keep the from freezing to death?
I haven't been given any of those practices..
Kundalini Fire is created through advanced Yogic practices, which if you have a qualified teacher, are really powerful, and extremely hazardous to everyone
else.
None of the techniques I work with involve manipulating body energies through the various "wind channels" however.
These techniques are skillful means (or for the un-initiated ... unskillful means!)
Means are suited for different people for specific circumstances, but they don't address the root of the problem.
So how do we address the root of the problem, which is the Foreign Installation, Ego, the notion of a separate self?
I would define the "fire" in one way as the frequency of moments of insight. "Bodhichitta" or Wisdom Energy is sometimes used to describe
it.
Usually we aren't very present, our attention is weak, so the fire is weak or not there.
If insight is lacking or attention is lacking the moments of insight are spaced widely apart.
If they are quite frequent insight becomes quite tangible. One western Buddhist monk I know said that it can be like a laser beam.
Recently I've been reading a fascinating book called "Buddhahood Without Meditation, by Dudjom Lingpa (about 1895)
This book de-constructs the notion that we have a separate Self in a series of visions, dreamings. It uses a number of logical arguments to perform the
deconstruction process.
It's different than anything else I've read so far. The approach is called Nang-Jan or t'hreg-chhod (cutting through solidity).
Simply put if you look at anything long enough and hard enough, it will disappear. Not literally of course!
This idea of using insight to rearrange our description of the world is part and parcel to the Toltec way as well.
If we have this notion that we exist in one form, when our reality is something entirely different.
You can see how this dichotomy creates a kind of madness in average humans!
Resolving the dichotomy is "Stopping the World", as we have spoken about previously.
"Stopping the World" is the term Toltecs would use to describe cutting the root of our Self-Identification (or the Foreign Installation)
We have to attack the root of the problem first, the root of the problem is Self-Identification.
Whatever we get from solving this puzzle is not madness, but Freedom.
The Tibetans have secret practices, that shouldn't be done without the correct empowerments, and other lifestyle requisites, that involve breath and energy
manipulation, including Tumo practices, or inner heat. Tumo is usually given to ascetic yogis and people on retreat. ... To keep the from freezing to death?
I haven't been given any of those practices..
Kundalini Fire is created through advanced Yogic practices, which if you have a qualified teacher, are really powerful, and extremely hazardous to everyone
else.
None of the techniques I work with involve manipulating body energies through the various "wind channels" however.
These techniques are skillful means (or for the un-initiated ... unskillful means!)
Means are suited for different people for specific circumstances, but they don't address the root of the problem.
So how do we address the root of the problem, which is the Foreign Installation, Ego, the notion of a separate self?
I would define the "fire" in one way as the frequency of moments of insight. "Bodhichitta" or Wisdom Energy is sometimes used to describe
it.
Usually we aren't very present, our attention is weak, so the fire is weak or not there.
If insight is lacking or attention is lacking the moments of insight are spaced widely apart.
If they are quite frequent insight becomes quite tangible. One western Buddhist monk I know said that it can be like a laser beam.
Recently I've been reading a fascinating book called "Buddhahood Without Meditation, by Dudjom Lingpa (about 1895)
This book de-constructs the notion that we have a separate Self in a series of visions, dreamings. It uses a number of logical arguments to perform the
deconstruction process.
It's different than anything else I've read so far. The approach is called Nang-Jan or t'hreg-chhod (cutting through solidity).
Simply put if you look at anything long enough and hard enough, it will disappear. Not literally of course!
This idea of using insight to rearrange our description of the world is part and parcel to the Toltec way as well.
If we have this notion that we exist in one form, when our reality is something entirely different.
You can see how this dichotomy creates a kind of madness in average humans!
Resolving the dichotomy is "Stopping the World", as we have spoken about previously.
"Stopping the World" is the term Toltecs would use to describe cutting the root of our Self-Identification (or the Foreign Installation)
We have to attack the root of the problem first, the root of the problem is Self-Identification.
Whatever we get from solving this puzzle is not madness, but Freedom.