Prana / Yoga / Containing Energy

[rideforever]

Crikey.

Matthew, you make so many assumptions about me ... the last thing you do is look at yourself.

If you are not courageous enought to reveal something about yourself, or be honest about the things you have said in this thread ... then frankly I think you do not see things clearly.

You seem to view your position here as 'answering questions' ... same as Che.  I would have more self-doubt than that. 

You have said many negative things in this thread - just look at the first response - and yet you don't want to talk about what you are doing.  You think you are helping ?

Your justification for your 'view' of me is that I am a 'mess'.  Well that certainly gives you licence.  But I certainly have engaged in a positive way recently here - your distorted mind probably erased that.

And in this thread I wanted to talk about Prana before you slammed the door.

Who has the problem ?  Who is negative ?

Your slamming the door on this thread pre-empted this very unhappy discussion ... but I suppose it re-inforces your distorted world-view that I am a someone that needs your help - and that you can help. 

You have a lot of distortions in your mind.  Have some doubt.

And ... I am not revealing my issues here so that you can stab me in the back with them two months later ... oh leader of the sangha !!  Come on, that's just crap.

Yes ... I have issues.  We are not even arguing about that because I admitted it many times.  But if anyone suggest something about you ... oh oh ... no that's not possible.


And Che, my friend who is practicing meditation for 6 months ... I would counsel you to walk your own path and have self-doubt.  Slapping people in the face I don't is good for a global moderator - you used to be in the army right ?  I am sure slapping people in the face happened every day there.  Like I said have self-doubt ?

[Matthew]

i dont like the reply,
matthew is 200% correct, it is a spiritual supermarket ,he is not putting any of his views or ideas at all here......

Rideforever, you don`t have enemies here, the suggestions were meant to assist you in your meditation practice. You feel under attack by critics and bad feelings but these attacks are not real, you give them power and make them stronger. Nobody will tell you what you must or must not do, but on a Vipassana forum you have to expect to get mostly Vipassana advice.  .....

rideforever,

....
Your justification for your 'view' of me is that I am a 'mess'.
....

You said you are a mess - not me.

When I said you would not like my post I hoped you would at least spend enough time with it to fully reflect on it before answering. You have not done so - just spouted more of the same.

To correct a misunderstanding you suffer: You ask questions. Do you want suggestions and answers? Or are you just doing it for the sake of it - pissing your time and ours away?

Point being?: Don't ask questions if you don't want answers and suggestions. You might not like what comes back but when you react as you are doing, you turn the situation into more suffering for yourself.

My role here is not as "answering questions" - that is your simplification, projection and assumptions at work.

My role here is far wider than that - but when someone asks a question I will do my best to answer it. Most of what I do here involves cleaning up other people's CRAPOLA so that this place is workable, sane and productive - or doing things behind the scene to keep the shop open.

I am not the leader of this Sangha other than administratively/technically. This Sangha is leaderless - it is a Sangha of equals. We can all ask questions and offer support in the way of answering those of others. There are people here who have taught me much.

You are perceiving what is happening here through the lens of your trauma and your attachment difficulties/relationship problems. In psychological terms you are "transferring" on to me feelings from your troubled past and the authority figures who hurt you. This is why you are attacking me in this and other threads.

I am sorry you were hurt as a child - it happened to me too, so in this instance the compassion that arises in me towards you is in no way conceptual - but based on very personal and similar experiences - and experience of working through and healing from that Trauma over many years.

At one point many years ago I was in a place very similar to the place you seem to be in from your posts. Trying to take in all the stuff I could and make the connections and "find the answer". Then I came to learn I was merely fuelling the fire. It was when I stopped all that and sat on my arse a lot doing calm abiding meditation that my life turned around.

If the answers you are getting do not please you, has it occurred to you that you might, just possibly, either be asking the wrong questions - or reading the answers through the filter of your misunderstandings?

Warmly,

Matthew

[rideforever]

Well, I am very much regretting this thread.

Matthew, yes I think the website is useful and I am grateful for it.  Yet, sometimes it seems to me (my view) that you are trying to help and things are distorted.  In the last thread you say "do I want some suggestions or answers" ... well that's the point really ...  why do you think of it in those terms - why is it not a chat or an exploration.  Like Krishnamurti says, enter into the question with me. 

Yeah I got pissed off because you slammed this thread - I honestly wanted to have a chat about prana, and I felt you had done something very negative when your immeditate response was : "immense fabrication" ... there seemed to be something going on underneath that, right ... maybe you felt frustration with me at having started 3 threads in quick succession ? 

Anyway, I regret the violence in this thread. 

I would like it if you choose to engage with me that you do so as an equal, and aren't trying to 'help me', and that you try to be open about your own situation, and I thank you for your insight into mine.

[Matthew]

rideforever,

The point here is that by asking the question you asked in this thread you are jumping the gun in an unhealthy way. Questions regarding Prana when you have deep trauma to process are simply misplaced.

You seem in this whole debate to have forgotten the supportive post I made in one of the other threads you started this week - which was a very important point for you to take onboard and an important line for you to follow. Much more so than all this speculation:

This is interesting rf. It is true that for working through trauma additional techniques to meditation can be advantageous and sometimes essential. I think the way you are working shows some true wisdom.
...

As I stated before we are all equals here. That is why I turned off the rating and ranking systems and made all membership levels equal. Someone has to hold the technical keys to the house to be able to do that kind of thing. That is Joey and myself.

The moderators are not here to be above anyone either and if any moderator thought the position made them so they would be mistaken. They help do the dirty work of keeping house. Their work and mine is an offering to all this community, and all who visit as guests, in the name of the Dhamma. We have a staff only board where we communicate if and when a decision has to be reached (which becomes clear to us all usually at about the same time).

Matthew

[Morning Dew]

RF sit down and relax, actualy do so.

Your equanimity sure looks weak and that is to be your main indicator whether ur current practice is benefiting you or not. When big waves rise the only strong anker is abiding in calm and let the waves pass.
At the moment you are riding the waves forever. Stop riding forever and simply be Calming Forever instead

If it bothers you that i am giving you advice because i meditated only for 6 month and was never on retreats, i can come back in 30 years when i gain more experience maybe you will have more respect for my advice then.
I find slaping very helpful. During the war one of mh mates totaly paralized kn one spot out of fear when the shooting started. I had to slap him several times Hard to bring him back to reality so he would move away into the bunker.

I dont mind your rant not at all you are hurt and hurt lion can bite. What the lion doesnt realise just yet is that he is Surounded by friends and this too shall pass.

Once you gain the courage to throw away all those books, you tube videos and similar mind crap and get Actualy back to your self in a calm manner actual insights will arise and you will laugh at your own writing in this thread that day

Sit down and relax my friend i know it hurts bad.

Friendly Che

[rideforever]

Hi

Okay Matthew, I could equally say ... look you have a large ego ... you buy a sangha and you want to answer questions.  Simple challenges to you, simple questions, you avoid at all costs.   You say some negative things in a thread and don't take responsibility.

You see it doesn't go anywhere talking like that, does it.  You blame me, I blame you ...

It's basic conflict resolution I am talking about.

Withdraw your assumptions.  Withdraw the feeling 'I know what is wrong with you'.  Withdraw the feeling 'I am going to tell you'.  Try to find the feeling, what is going in me ?

If you can do that, If I can do that then there is communication.

RF

[rideforever]

Hi Che,

When you became a moderator it seemed to me your focus became answering threads, rather than being a part of them.  You starting going onto threads and saying, just shut up and sit own ... every time, rather than listening.

When you talk about slapping someone.  I think this is a problem.  I think this is violence.

A few weeks back you posted a story about a man getting mauled by a lion ... and in the story a second man walks off and ignores what is going on.  (something like that).  I have the feeling that you have become kind of indifferent to violence.  And you are not noticing this.

And so, I would urge restraint - and to consider what I am saying.

And I appreciate that you are a nice guy and are taking on responsibility with the website.

[rideforever]

Listen guys, I am really sorry that all this negative energy has appeared here. 

And please help me to resolve it, de-escalate it.

[Matthew]

rideforever,

No need for guilt trips - it is clear you had enough of that shoved on you in the past. You are doing your best - as am I.

And I did not "buy a Sangha". I bought a web domain and made a space where people could learn and share from each other about meditation practice. Please recognise the passive aggressive nature of these unskilful things you are saying, again without guilt-trip - yet you do know these comments could be hurtful.

My first response to you could have explained in more detail why I was saying what I was saying. Please accept my apology for that. At the moment I have been very busy with behind the scenes work here and with work at the University and for the community I live in - my post was hastily written.

Che put on a different hat for a few days when he was made a moderator yet I think he has seen through that already based on things he has written elsewhere. You mention violence - he has not hidden from us that he was behind a gun involved in a desperate war. If he uses metaphors of violence I suspect a lot stems from those experiences.

The "slap" metaphor though is one that has some meaning. Sometimes it takes an unpleasant experience such as this thread to wake us up a little.

De-escalation pretty much completed methinks.

Warmly,

Matthew

[ivana]

Listen guys, I am really sorry that all this negative energy has appeared here. 

And please help me to resolve it, de-escalate it.

Dear Rideforever
I am here , you did it well. You wrote "I am really sorry". I am sorry that I do not know a reply to your first question of the thread.
Take care
Ivana

[Stefan]

Hello.  I was just listening to Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev on youtube earlier and he said that his yoga works like this : it aims to raise your energies to a certain point, and after that the effort is to 'contain' the energies. Does anybody have any information as to how that relates to Vipassana ?

Hi. There's a certain trend in yogic traditions. While some aim in the right direction (in MY opinion  ), there are many others that work in an obsessive kind of way. "Power Yogis", bursting with energy, full of deepest whatsoever, but then start quarreling like little children over nonsense ... that's because they gather energy only, but gathering energy doesn't change a thing, it only provides the ego with more power ...
("Poooowerrr! Unlimited poooowwweeeerrrr!" - Darth Siddious)

There are times of increased need for energy, and there are some yoga exercises that provide you with extra energy temporarily. That is useful. Vipassana will help you to see it as what it is: a useful tool.
But a way to Nibbana?
"Fuel alone won't take your car anywhere."

[Stefan]

Listen guys, I am really sorry that all this negative energy has appeared here. 

It's like on the cushion ... negative energy arises, regard it with equanimity, negative energy passes, sankara dissolved.

And please help me to resolve it, de-escalate it.

You did with your post.

Metta, Stefan

[Crystal Palace]

Actually I think this is a great thread, so I want to thank rideforever. We need such honest discussion.

In fact Matthew should be grateful to rideforever that he openly challenged him (whether Matthew was right or not) because this way Matthew at least got a chance to sit back and reflect - even if for a brief moment. Just the same way as RF should be grateful to Matthew. 

If we have somebody openly question our approach, we should be thankful to him/her. Indeed such a thing should happen from time to time, this way there is a lesser chance of falling prey to our own ego and our own "approach."

Im sure this thread has been beneficial to Matthew, rideforever and Che GoneBuddha. If they realized they were wrong, then they got an opportunity to correct themselves, and if they thought they were not wrong, then they got an opportunity to gain confidence that what they are indeed going in the right direction! 

I'd love to be part of such interesting discussions, but at the moment I am constrained by time.

Warmly,
Crystal Palace

[Crystal Palace]

The last thing we need is a diplomatic sangha where nobody has the guts to ask tough questions for the fear of upsetting someone or disturbing the equlibrium.

[Stefan]

The last thing we need is a diplomatic sangha where nobody has the guts to ask tough questions for the fear of upsetting someone or disturbing the equlibrium.

... there's this golden path between "tough" and "tact" ...

[Morning Dew]

Listen guys, I am really sorry that all this negative energy has appeared here. 

And please help me to resolve it, de-escalate it.

We are here because of this very negativity, because somewhere deep we feel it being wrong, to find the way out of it. But the only way out of it is through this very negativity you are experiencing right now. This is the teaching of J. Krishnamurti whom i respect alot, actualy so much that i have burned all his books to never read the again he said and i now say it too, follow no mans ideas even if they are the truth, because for you his very truth is your biggest lie
As he sais, and i too, close your eyes and still the eye balls, sit very still and focus on nothing, dont try to do anything just observe the very thoughts taking place in your mind but not loosing the awareness of the body (eye balls). On this very teaching i added calming into the body with each in and outbreath but firstly i do "follow" JK advice.
At one stage his words opened my eyes but too much of the Wanting To jumped in via excitement about this newly intelectualy enquired idea JK's truth became my very lie and conditioning. Thanks to calm-abiding have i seen and heard JK's Actual words "truth is a pathless land" no one can show you the way where there is no way. The only thing we can do is to observe the disturbed self like a hawk and always look at it Actualy through the body breathing. Like this we do the reality check otherwise we end up observing the self intelectualy which is a form of fabrication.
JK said observe the self Actualy not Intelectually think about it a bit and test it. You once said you like JK. Dont have to trust my words, trust him and actualy follow his advice, but do couple it with calming the whole body without it mind tends to start intelectualy to observe itself.

This thread was inevitable and very positive in my opinion right here something genious will come to life

Good man RF

Friendly Che

[joy]

Who is JK ?

...
As he sais, and i too, close your eyes and still the eye balls, sit very still and focus on nothing, dont try to do anything just observe the very thoughts taking place in your mind but not loosing the awareness of the body (eye balls). On this very teaching i added calming into the body with each in and outbreath but firstly i do "follow" JK advice...
ithout it mind tends to start intelectualy to observe itself.

Friendly Che

How to still the eye balls ?
How this 'eye balls business' fits in your scheme of relaxing and calm- abiding.
Did Buddho say anything regarding  'stilling eye balls'.
Obcourse next question will come who is  Buddho ?

[Morning Dew]

Who is Buddha?

[joy]

Who is Buddha?

Tat Tvam Asi      

[Andrew]

Hello.  I was just listening to Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev on youtube earlier and he said that his yoga works like this : it aims to raise your energies to a certain point, and after that the effort is to 'contain' the energies.

Does anybody have any information as to how that relates to Vipassana ?

Hi rideforever,
Good to see you!

I don't know about yoga and vipassana, though I'm impressed by how physically fit yoga can keep the body.

I have been experiencing a lot of heat energy that started after I gained some insight into how to moderate my sexual energies. (we had a couple of threads going a while back, I took alot of that on board).

I feel that subtle energies are a part of the breath experience and relate to 'the breath within the breath'. When coupled with moderation of expending sexual energies, they do build up in a good way. I don't go seeking the experience when I sit, but more often than not, I am aware of this energy when I sit now.

Taoism teaches that there is a continuum of energies, Jing Chi and Shen, which are all interrelated. I'm not too attached to the whole thing as it isn't anymore significant than 'hey, look, I  have a foot I didn't know I had!' Which is cool, but still just a foot.


But  I do think that to 'write off' subtle energies is a mistake, that is just our western upbringing. To see them as an alternative path to insight or enlightenment is not correct either, it would seem there are plenty of energies experiences that have no more tranformative effect than if I did discover an extra foot!. Energy is just that, energy. It should be there if that's how the bodymind works, like blood or lymph or neurotransmitters.

This certainly is an interesting thread.

love

andy

[Morning Dew]

Energy is just that, energy

Amen to that my friend

And for the reason we dont wreck our head becouse we have a foot there is no reason we are to do so about the energy. Any sort of idea that gives a rise to excitement is to be questioned and calmed down we think wow there is energy connecting all of universe we are One etc ... Failing to see that we are simply in the dream world of ideas

My Qigong shifu told me that to be part of the energy flow the mind must be silent and body very relaxed. He would say that Qigong is not just one practice but made of awareness meditation, relaxing the body via movement, right breathing and contracting the perineum musscle to strenghten the door to life (?) Hui Jin (?)
So here we can see that Vipassana is a part of Qigong.
We would practice only sitting meditation, then only breathing while lying on the back, then only movements etc... To get into each separately to get to know them to feel them.

When we sit the Shifu would say to sit still And notice thoughts, notice them then let go of them. A car passing by the building notice it "car" and let go of it. Dont go ah a car i wonder what color it is i love cars shoit i must change my winter tires, and buy a new summer tire! Shoit summer tires are expensive this year! I better ask my boss for a payraise...

As we see here he didt say lets think about energy, only lets feel the bodily sensations and notice the thoughts and letting go of them.
A moving Shamatha-Vipassana a moving Calm abiding and seeing things as they are.

Not many teachers are like this. Most are into channeling energy, healing others etc so question the teacher.

So much energy goes around in Shamatha on its own accord. No reason pondering about it. If i get anoyed by Matthews reply i channel energies which are negativly effecting my body-mind my health.

Noticing thoughts and bodily sensations IS noticing THE Energy. All the rest
 is just smoke n dust, playground for the mind


Friendly Che

[Andrew]

I cannot remember the sutra, but I'm pretty sure that buddha made the point that it is better to be identified with the body than the mind. Implying I guess that the body, being more immediate is less likely to be subject to delusion.

It seems that my labels i.e. 'that is anger' or 'that is happiness' were always covering what is actually movements and distributions of energy in the body. Once the label is removed, the energy dissipates and continues to do whatever it is meant to be doing. Just like holding tension in the shoulders, once realized, they can be dropped and relaxed.

Getting back to RF's question then, yoga would be a way of removing abstract labels such as 'anger' 'disappointment' 'emotional hurt', and releasing the energy without engaging the intellect in 'para psychology' and abstract speculation about our emotional situation. Emotions aren't words after all.


For example;
Last year I ran a marathon, and I'm training for another now. It makes a massive difference how I regard my body when I am running. If I have labels such as 'lazy' or 'fat' or anything of the sort, this greatly affects how easy or hard training is. If I look down and regard  the little belly I have grown over summer and say 'yuck, I'm fat' then I am imagining that I am in my mind and can pass judgment on my body. Whatever I am, I am as much, if not a whole lot more my body, than what ever I think my mind is.

It is the same when I sit now, I now longer care about various 'emotional abstractions' but just train myself to relax, when I notice things I would call emotions, I only now deal with one concept, energy. I watch only what it does and feels like.  It is working for me to get me much calmer in the body/mind in the time I have.

love


andy

 

[Andrew]

This is the teaching of J. Krishnamurti whom i respect alot, actualy so much that i have burned all his books to never read the again he said and i now say it too, follow no mans ideas even if they are the truth, because for you his very truth is your biggest lie

This is one of the all time classic lines!

Good work Dusko!

love to all

andy