I was under the impression that there was a intersection between yoga practice and mindfulness. Especially in varjayana.
Obviously also the diaphragm-focused breathing technique/concentration practice in many traditions.
Again, perhaps I’m conflating specific techniques with schools of practice…
[Disclaimer, never done a lick of yoga (so far as I know) in my life]
also @albill
Anyone have any experience with Bon?
My very basic understanding is that the Bonpo people had a deep demonology developed before encountering Mahayana Buddhism and that they sort of absorbed techniques from that tradition in order to better ‘deal’ with their daemons.
Intriguing stuff and perhaps suited to the catholic/pagan influenced society that informs a lot of the western image systems.
It isn’t that there aren’t people willing to become teachers. It is that the existing structure (I’m mostly discussing the Tibetans here) aren’t willing to empower Western teachers.
Train people, sure. Make them lamas empowered to fully transmit the teachings (or often any empowerments), no.
In retrospect, I’d agree. I started out in Tibetan Vajrayana and have quite a bit of exposure to Japanese Mikkyo. I only came to Zen and Vipassana later. I’ve done a year long Mahamudra meditation manual (under guidance) that started with Shamatha/Vipassana joint practices.
Actually, a couple of years ago I was supposed to go to Japan to become a Shingon priest but it didn’t work out for purely practical reasons. That actually turned out to be to my benefit in an immediate manner as I had an abscessed tooth that tried to kill me literally while I would have been on pilgrimage in Japan.
Don’t we just have to get good at opening terma on our own?
Or is that practice non-discoverable?
Which kind of brings me back to psylocin and DMT-like molecules. There are surely many different avenues that afford some perspective over the lip of the mountain at various points of interest.
Some people claim to have done so.
I’ve moved away from worrying about such things (and “legitimacy”) overly. I found a good teacher who I do multiple week-long retreats with every year and who has been practicing for 40 years or so. That’s good enough for me at this point in order to help my practice. I got lucky and found a local sitting group that is run by one of his senior instructors too.
I have never had anybody to teach me meditation. My background has been that of an informal participant in eclectic branches of western occultism (IoT, TOPY, OTO, etc). I have often talked with and worked with practitioners, but never been a member or initiated by anyone else. As Groucho Marx said, I would never belong to any club which would have me as a member! For 25 years or so of work, it has only been fruitful over the past 10 or so. I have tended to be very slow and methodical, which was an absolute necessity in my 20s when I was extremely unbalanced. Eventually I realized that I was actually working more or less in the Tantras, so began by reading Woodroffe, through to the BSY/Satyananda people and to some of the “originals” in various translations.
When I was thinking that it might be nice to meet a teacher even anybody else who did some kind of work on their self, I happened to meet a Tae Kwon Do master who lives near me, and we have since been practicing together on a regular basis. It is Chang-On, which is a more rigorous military style than the more sports oriented TKD I usually encounter. Sitting, it is not! But, for me, it can be quite meditative, as it involves needing to coordinate many internal and external aspects. I need to concentrate, making an effort to be powerful, fast, balanced, and precise - but without trying, in the usual sense. I can only get anywhere with it if I can stay out of my own way and let it happen.
It’s not what I thought I was looking for, but it has been what I needed
I am not a very visually-oriented person, so I hadn’t really thought about what the experience would look like. If I had to convey a visualization, I’d say it is something like this:
Hmm, one of those reminded me of an early experience, echoes of the future in from the right, nothing in the middle, echoes of the past out to the left. Or something. Difficult to put into words. Natch.
Though when I’m on a depression swing and I miss my meds, it can definitely feel like you’re barely holding onto a ledge to keep from falling into
Definitely that vertigo feeling of leaning over a high ledge with no safety railing.
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