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I have attended two Sunday meditation practices at a Kadampa Meditation Center which is very close to home.
But there are some strange aspects to this group. They charge $15.00 to attend a meditation practice.
There is much talk about Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, but I haven't heard anything about the Noble truths, Marks of existence, or the Eightfold path.
Gyatso has 100s of video on Youtube, but I don't perceive any remarkable qualities to this man.
Frankly, this group feels a little cultish, but I also have a certain dislike for Tibetan Buddhism as being somewhat corrupted, so perhaps I am being unfair.
There are 3 signs of meditation technique suitable for a person.
One of them is - it appeals to you. Your entire physical and spiritual, I'll keep it simple, feels comfortable with it.
That said, if it does NOT feel that way - move on. One needs to know, how to trust intuition. Considering, that you are exploring your fine matters with meditation, they can be very easily damaged or tempered with.
So stay safe and aware.
Do you absolutely must be part of a social group to meditate?
If not, here is all inclusive and ultimate list of all possible meditation techniques one can do. They have been available for humanity for over 5 000 years and nothing was subtracted or added to the list. This is why it is ultimate and complete.
WHAT ARE THE EXACT INDICATIONS TO KNOW THAT THE PARTICULAR TECHNIQUE ONE IS
PRACTISING WILL LEAD TO THE ULTIMATE?
There are indications. One, you begin to feel a different identity within you. You are no more the
same. If the technique fits you, immediately you are a different person. If you are a husband, you
are no more the same husband. If you are a shopkeeper, you are never again the same shopkeeper.
Whatsoever you are, if the technique fits you, you are a different person; that is the first indication.
So if you begin to feel strange about yourself, know that something is happening to you. If you
remain the same and do not feel any strangeness, nothing is happening. This is the first indication
of whether a technique fits you. If it fits, immediately you are transported, transformed into a different
person. Suddenly this happens: you look at the world in a different way. The eyes are the same, but
the looker behind them is different.
Secondly, all that creates tensions, conflicts, starts dropping. It is not that when you have practiced
the method for years, then your conflicts, anxieties, tensions will drop – no! If the method fits
you, immediately they start dropping. You can feel an aliveness coming to you; you are being
unburdened. You will begin to feel, if the technique fits you, that gravity has become reversed. Now
the earth is not pulling you down. Rather, the sky is pulling you up. How do you feel when an airplane
takes off? Everything is disturbed. Suddenly there is a jerk, and gravity becomes meaningless. Now
the earth is not pulling you, you are going away from gravity.
The same jerk happens if a meditative technique fits you. Suddenly you take off. Suddenly you feel
the earth has become meaningless; there is no gravity. It is not pulling you down, you are being
pulled up. In religious terminology, this is called ”grace”. There are two forces – gravity and grace.
Grace means you are being pulled upwards; gravity means you are being pulled downwards.
That is why in meditation many people suddenly feel they have no weight. That is why many people
feel an inner levitation. So many have reported this to me when the technique fits them: ”This is
strange! We close our eyes and we feel that we are a little bit above the earth – one foot, two feet,
even four feet above the earth. When we open our eyes we are just on the ground; when we close
our eyes we have levitated. So what is this? When we open our eyes we are just on the ground! We
never levitated.”
The body remains on the ground, but you levitate. This levitation is really a pull from the above. If
the technique fits you have been pulled, because the working of the technique is to make available
for you the upward pull. This is what the technique means: to make you available for the force which
can pull you up. So if it fits, you know – you have become weightless.
Thirdly, whatsoever you will now do, whatsoever, howsoever trivial, will be different. You will walk
in a different way, you will sit in a different way, you will eat in a different way. Everything will be
different. This difference you will feel everywhere. Sometimes this strange experience of being
different creates fear. One wants again to go back and be the same, because one was so attuned
with the old. It was a routine world, even boring, but you were efficient in it.
Now everywhere you will feel a gap. You will feel that your efficiency is lost. You will feel that
your utility is reduced. You will feel that everywhere you are an outsider. One has to pass through
this period. You will become attuned again. You have changed, not the world, so you will not fit. So
remember the third thing: When the technique fits you, you will not fit into the world. You will become
unfit. Everywhere something is loose, some bolt is missing. Everywhere you will feel that there has
been an earthquake. And everything has remained the same; only you, you, have become different.
But you will be attuned again on a different plane, on a higher plane.
The disturbance is felt just like when a child grows and becomes sexually mature. At the age of
fourteen or fifteen every boy feels that he has become strange. A new force has entered – sex. It
was not there before, or it was, but it was hidden. Now for the first time he has become available
for a new kind of force. That is why boys are very awkward; girls, boys, when they become sexually
mature, they are very awkward. They are nowhere. They are no longer children and they are not
yet men, so they are in between, fitting nowhere. If they play with small children they feel awkward –
they have become men. If they start making friendships with men they feel awkward – they are still
children. They fit with no one.
The same phenomenon happens when a technique fits you. A new energy source becomes
available that is greater than sex. You are again in a transitory period. Now you cannot fit in
this world of worldly men. You are not a child, and you cannot yet fit in the world of saints; and in
between one feels awkward.
If a technique fits you these three things will come up. You may not have expected that I would say
these things. You may have expected that I would say you will become more silent, more quiet, and
I am saying quite the contrary: you will become more disturbed. When the technique fits you will
become more disturbed, not more silent. Silence will come later on. And if silence comes and not
disturbance, know well that this is not a technique; this is just getting adjusted to the old pattern.
That is why more people go for a prayer than for meditation because prayer gives you a consolation.
It fits you, adjusts to you, to your world. Prayer was doing virtually the same thing that
psychoanalysts are now doing. If you are disturbed they will make you less disturbed, adjusted
to the pattern, to the society, to the family. So by going to a psychoanalyst for one, two or three
years you will not get better, but you will be more adjusted. Prayer does the same thing, and priests
do the same thing – they make you more adjusted.
I have attended two Sunday meditation practices at a Kadampa Meditation Center which is very close to home.
But there are some strange aspects to this group. They charge $15.00 to attend a meditation practice.
There is much talk about Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, but I haven't heard anything about the Noble truths, Marks of existence, or the Eightfold path.
Gyatso has 100s of video on Youtube, but I don't perceive any remarkable qualities to this man.
Frankly, this group feels a little cultish, but I also have a certain dislike for Tibetan Buddhism as being somewhat corrupted, so perhaps I am being unfair.
Comments?
Yeah, I wouldn't pay 15 bucks to go to a meditation practice. There is a Buddhist monastery here where I ive that has weekly meditation practice for free with the monks and dhamma talks directly about and from Buddhas teachings. They also do once a month day long retreats and I went to a week long retreat last year at the monastery. Al for free of course you can make donations if you want but it is no necessary. Kadampa in all honesty seems a bit sketchy to me. I agree they do seem to be a bit cultish and seem to have some money behind them because they are everywhere. It seems to me there are several Tibetan groups that seem to be a bit cultish.
I have attended two Sunday meditation practices at a Kadampa Meditation Center which is very close to home.
But there are some strange aspects to this group. They charge $15.00 to attend a meditation practice.
There is much talk about Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, but I haven't heard anything about the Noble truths, Marks of existence, or the Eightfold path.
Gyatso has 100s of video on Youtube, but I don't perceive any remarkable qualities to this man.
Frankly, this group feels a little cultish, but I also have a certain dislike for Tibetan Buddhism as being somewhat corrupted, so perhaps I am being unfair.
Comments?
Before you get deep into Tibetan Buddhism there are a couple of websites that I believe you should read:
It is easier to get out of something now that to try to do so later on.
I also suggest the book, Enthralled, the Guru Cult of Tibetan Buddhism.
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