Alex's (APrioriKreuz) practice

First some history =)

I oficially started meditating in 2007, however, I know I've been meditating since I was a kid (I'm 31 right now). I just didn't know it was called meditation. When I was 6 or 7, I used to swim in pools I would just stay motionless in water because I liked the feeling of losing sensibility of water, then I would feel I was the pool itself, with my body floating in it. I thought it was a neat thing to do. As I grew older, that faded away and then I started meditating again when I was 28.

Since childhood, I've been sensing emptiness. In my first years, it was disconcerting. I remember thinking "there it is again, that 'thing'". Eventually I just forgot about it. Then suffering hit hard when I was a teen. So I sedated myself with parties, alcohol, relationships and anything that could aliviate the thirst of "well-being"

When I was 26 I ended up in rehab. 1st year was very painful. Group meetings taught me the importance of honesty, humbleness, and true compassion. After the first year, my life was very calm. So calm that it was disconcerting. I had less drama in my life and that was just too weird for me. Instead of substances I started buying movies, music, books, anything to fill that plainness. Nothing worked. I stopped fighting, embraced emptiness and everything changed.

I understood that a denial of emptiness was the root of all cravings. It was a huge leap (no jhanas yet, just a rational leap). The more i thought about that the more I wanted to explore emptiness. A friend recommended J Krishnamurti. I agreed with many of his ideas, disagreed with many too. Later I read Eckhart Tolle's Now Teaching and then things became more evident. I started practicing everyday. In January, 2008, while practcing in a taxi, I realized I could be open. Not just in a perceptual way, but in a communicative way too. I realized my words could embrace and understand instead of push and kill other people's words. The next second I was completely filled with immense joy and bliss. This lasted 3 days I think.

A week before that experience, a friend invited me to a buddhisct center. Before that glimpse of truth I had no interest in buddhism. After the glimpse, I submerged myself in buddhism completely. The first thing I read was the 4 noble truths. I couldn't believe how much sense those truths made. It seemed like the words had more teachings. They had a nonverbal teaching in the grammar. Something way deeper.

So I went to my friend's buddhist center. It was a vajrayana center. At first it was too ritualistic for me. But I stayed because the Dharma given there was just too real. I stayed because the tantric teachings revealed many, many things. At the same time I started reading anything on buddhism. Some Theravada, Zen but mainly vajrayana teachings.

In the vajrayana we use mantras and visualizations, so I did that a lot, and I also did samatha/vipassana. Soon I realized that in essence, there is no difference.

2009 was full of jhanas. Pain was common too, chest pain, throat pain, headaches, etc. Almost everyday. Some days it was overwhelming, other days blissful, other days were painless.

I don't remember exactly when the dukkha ñanas happened, but I do remember being very scared, I remember shedding tears, thinking of loved ones, and of myself. I got scared because I drifted into some sort of cognitive limbo. Its hard to describe. That too ceased.

Everyday my ears listen many many sounds.

2010: This year pain started to fade. I don't feel it anymore, though I do feel subtle movements. Some of the formless jhanas are here everyday (the pool ^_^). Most common: infinite space, consciousness, nothingness and perception/non perception.

I think the dark night of the soul, 10th ñana, occured a few months ago. I felt that no matter how deep my insight was, it didn't mean anything at all. Everything was worthless. I felt that like 2-3 weeks. Its gone now.

Nowadays my self is fading. The self is penetrating itself with its own nature (a nature that is not different from everything else).

Equanimity is increasing. I know emotional pain must arise. It always ceases. Everything ceases. I know acting out anger, drama, etc. never solves things, so I let acting out cease too. Acting out is fading.

Everyday the witness changes. I switch automatically to third gear when I don't need to engage in cognitive activity. "There" everything is an expression of unborn nature. "There", nothing is solid, yet solidity is not eliminated. Nothing needs to disappear to reveal its empty nature. "There" is unfindable. Everything is pure.

Pureness is obviousness of everything. The clearest light of all.

In my spare time I share and give teachings here: morgensternen.blogspot.com Its in Spanish though =/ (my native language). A bilingual blog is coming soon =)

In my current blog I teach dharma, tantric preliminaries and anything related to genuine spirituality. It is mainly targeted to beginners.

hello Alex! welcome to KFD. Nice story and thanks for sharing.

I have a question about Vajrayana, as I've been quite fascinated by it. Are the rituals and the exact imagery, the identities of the dieties, are they important, do they have a real identity? I heard a story of the Dalai Lama telling a tibetan order to stop doing devotional practice to a certain Diety because he discovered that that diety was bad and that they (Vajrayana) made a mistake in making him a diety, and he seems to be dead serious of the severity of this.

Buddhism teaches us that all is Signless, but Vajrayana, does the lineage matter? make a difference? Is there some morphic resonance at play ? Does the dogma actually have a point or is it just purely make believe

All the symbols in the vajrayana represent aspects of our mind. The rituals, deities, details, prayers, mantras, etc. they all have a meaning. These meanings are just concepts. Like the concepts we have here in KFD: Third Gear, Primordial Wisdom, emptiness, etc. All concepts. The real thing is something completely different to the words we use. All these concepts lead us into signlessness. But in signlessness there is no "third gear", no "primordial wisdom"

In the same way, the rituals, visualizations, mantras, and deities are just "words", or signs that point to the signless.

In the vajrayana there are many traditions. The main are nyingma, kagyu, sakya, gelug and Bön. They all have sub traditions, for example: nyngma has palyul, dudjom tersar, etc. They share some deities, but not all.

So, we can't really say "the vajrayana made a mistake" in making him a deity. A more accurate thing to say is that a tradition within the vajrayana made this character a deity. A mistake? who knows. Origins of this controversy are very shady.

So why would this be a serious thing? Meaning. Meaning is everything in the vajrayana. I dont really know this practice because I dont have training in the gelug tradition (dalai lama's tradition), but from what I've read on the internet, it seems that there is something wrong with the meaning of this particular deity.

For example: saying that one of the formless jhanas is enlightenment. That would be an incorrect meaning. So, in the case of the deity, it seems that its origin is not correct (within right view, middle way, etc.)

The movie Inception shows this very well: a sign/idea can have healthy or harmful consequences: an idea can be planted in the mind and this idea grows (cause and effect at work). If you have a wrong idea/cognition, ignorance occurs If you have a valid idea, awakening occurs.

Continued from above...

So, according to the Dalai Lama (and many more Lamas), this deity has harmful consequences. According to other traditions, it does not at all. Some lamas don't even care about this issue.

I think any sign/idea/symbol/deity/concept, etc. can be used in the wrong way. Even a concept like primordial wisdom or the Three gears. If the individual doesn't have the right guidance, that's it, he/she can easily make up his/her own interpretations of concepts, reality, etc. And as we all know, when you're not awake, many things have negative effects.

Welcome, Alejandro! It feels great to have you here, sharing your uniquely penetrating wisdom.

May all beings awaken in this lifetime,

Kenneth

Thank you Kenneth =) Thank you for everything. Its an honor to be here ^_^

I love this, I love how there is so much wisdom in these forums. We need more of this!

Long blip, without leaving here and now. A very clear sense of being undefined. Sometimes it was a bit hard to do things, but I'm thinking the positive attainment was to have a strong sense of being here without being someone or something. It allowed me to experience the "dance of phenomena" as some call it. Very interesting mode of perception.

Being undefined without going anywhere.

After mantra and visualization, I rested in a deep vibrating state, a lot of hissing in my ears, some dim clear lights appeared before my eyes but faded quickly. My self was constantly trying to grasp anything, but it couldn't really establish itself again. That gave me the feeling of just being sensations, vibrations within a gigantic space. Bliss was present in torso and in my head, although a bit more active than usual. Some sounds diminished, as if someone had turned down the volume. I also heard a strange buzz, as if my ears were breathing. Attainments of today's practice: 1) discern how easy it is to form back a self, and 2) long cultivation of selflessness

Today's attainments: being able to experience that every single sankhara, pain, negative pattern, etc. is primordial awareness. When everything is discerned as primordial awareness, everything turns to "gold". This is only possible in genuine third gear. Just like a friend from Spain tells me: we need to learn how to touch everything. In order to touch everything, the observer, adult, spectator, etc. has to be seen as an object. I confirmed that every single jhana, ñana, insight, etc. can be used again as self: delusion.

Spent quite some time in the first 4 jhanas. I sensed a subtle yearning to perceive the witness, took me like 5 minutes to disembed the yearning, then the witness revealed itself. I sensed a will without pupose and then I accessed the formless jhanas. Distance revealed itself as ilussione. Perspective was no more and I sensed that "I" was space. I objectified space and sensed fear a little bit, along with some kundalini grasping. Vision changed, things seemed shiny. "Wanting" permeated phenomena and hence "wanting" revealed itself as just pure being.

" I heard a story of the Dalai Lama telling a tibetan order to stop doing devotional practice to a certain Diety because he discovered that that diety was bad and that they (Vajrayana) made a mistake in making him a diety, and he seems to be dead serious of the severity of this.
"

Hi,

yes, you talk about the Dorje Shugden debate.
Cheers
Sven