This author is quite popular among online esoteric circles. And by esoteric circles, I really mean imageboards like 4chan or 8chan, specifically their /x/ boards. Here goes this summary:
Part 1 – Orientations
1. The modern world and traditional man.
A book for those who feel “as belonging to a different race from that of the overwhelming majority of his contemporaries“. Tradition is that cultural element that transcends the individual. Some people want out, but they lack the material resources. The current cultural values can’t be used to fix culture, as they are culture itself. It might be better to actually contribute to the fall of the current systems. “There is nothing that is not risky“. This Hegelian negation of negation would end up in nothing, a nothing from which something good might eventually surface.
2. The end of a cycle – Ride the tiger
The symbology of Mithras and the bull. Riding the tiger. The doctrine of cycles. During the final cycles, even the ancient precepts followed to the word might not yield any results. Eastern civilization. There might not be anything different in those Eastern cultures other than the fact that the process of decadence has started a little bit later. But the present discussion is not about actions in the outside world, but rather about actions to carry out in your personal life.
Monkey riding the tiger. Available as a sticker, click the image.
Part 2 – In the world where god is dead
3. European Nihilism – The Dissolution of morals
“This is a struggle for the sake οf modern man, that man who no longer has any roots in the sacred soil of tradition, wavering in search οf himself between the peaks οf civilization and the abysses οf barbarism, trying to find a satisfactory meaning for an existence completely left to itself.” Attributed to Robert Reininger. God is dead. Morality is independent from theology. Society becomes a god. Idols. The misery of man without god.
4. From the Precursors of Nihilism to the “Lost Youth” and the Protest Movement.
Shipwreck euphoria. Writer’s lifestyle that becomes the norm. Nihilism and alcoholism. Dadaism. Surrealism. “The simplest surreal act would be to go out into the street and shoot passersby at random” attributed to Andre Breton. Hooligans. Henry Miller. The absurdity of what is normal. Hesse, van den Bosch.
5. Disguises of European Nihilism. The Socioeconomic Myth and the Protestor movement.
The communist myth. Reducing existential misery to a matter of capital values. Not just the lower classes suffer from misery. Suicide rates. Buddha was not a poor chap. Zarathustra. Protest movement. Psychoanalysis and the study of the subconscious and unconscious. Humanity is too weak to keep its archetypes under control. Freud. Kafka. (Looking back, I think I understand The Metamorphosis a bit better. Particularly the way how people just seem to accept that “this man is now a giant cockroach”. After the initial shock, they just resume their normal life, working around the absurdity of the situation)
6. Active Nihilism – Nietzsche
Humanity as objects of suffering. Life as a trial. Facing the problems of modernity without being a modern man. Positive nihilism. Nietzsche, overcoming nihilism. Nihilism as a pathological stage of human evolution. The tragic phase is when we realize God is dead. Living without a meaning. Life has no meaning – life is the meaning. You’re free. Now prove the nobility of your nature. Dostoyevsky. Projecting god outside. Or, “if god doesn’t exist, I must be god”. Sartre, condemnation to be free. Nietzsche’s superman. Will to power. If all of history is a series of phases, why should one phase be considered evil and not the other? Superman is similar to the Marxist-communist promise of a better future, after the revolution. Nihilism should not even spare Superman. The eternal return. Neoplatonism.
7. Being Oneself.
Destroyers of morality, or discoverers of themselves? Kant’s autonomous morality. Beyond simple naturalism. A man with a law that is not impeded by what is good or what is evil, without consideration for punishment or reward. Without heaven waiting for you, you must become Christ. A new idea of duty, derived from the will to power. But even the Nietzschean superman doesn’t need to be good. He could be corrupt, evil, and perverted, and it would be its freeway. Calvinism, the fallen man. Without God, humans must be capable of standing in their own skin, with nothing to fear and nothing to hope for. In no place is a human able to be unburdened of its own being. A proper nature however is problematic in a world where societies are no longer organized in castes or have internal unity. With liberty, the modern human has become changeable. A multitude of souls in its breast. Dostoyevsky’s characters, collapse because they are divided. With the will to power, but no idea to what to apply their strength. Power in itself can result in chaos. Remorse as a manifestation of division. Guyau’s morality is the “unity of being”.
8. The Transcendent Dimension – “Life” and “More than life”
The human who looks within itself and finds a dominant, existential dimension. Nietzsche’s destructive life. Affirmation that life itself is meaning, is only useful for a human who has transcendence as an essential component of itself. A reaction to life that cannot arise from life itself. The strength to resist pain, torment, without obeying your passions. “Greatness of character does not consist in not having such passions: … but held them in check“. The way of happiness? But what does happiness matter to us? Indifference even to life itself. Avoiding ascesis as a goal. Superman is not the utmost limit of the species. It is beyond the species. Extreme asceticism for an exasperated sensation of life only leaves humans embittered. Move beyond any state, any attachment. The human in which transcendence has awakened, but who is uncentered with regard to it. Life turned upside down, not as mehr leben (living more) but as mehr als leben (more than living). The Beats groping for Zen.
9. Beyond Theism and Atheism.
Emancipation leads to destruction and regression. In the recent west, and particularly in Christianity, everything religious belongs to a human perspective, not to transcendent values. Christianity stripped from esotericism, from a metaphysical character beyond dogmas and faith. The god that died is the god of morality. Not the god of metaphysics, but the god of theism. To Zarathustra, “everything that becomes seems to me divine dance”. The dance of Shiva. Samsara, nirvana. The god of the free glance does not judge according to good and evil. Buddhism and Taoism also passed from metaphysical to religious and devotional. Jacopone da Todi. “Do not fear hell, do not hope for heaven”. Being knows no good, no evil. In an epoch of dissolution, humans must discover themselves, perceive the dimension of transcendence within themselves. Prayer and invocations are rendered useless. God no exists, but he is no God. No negation of god is possible, because that would be the negation of oneself. Courage is based on the dimension of transcendence. Not the arrogant hardening of individuality, but the activation of the other principle. Sometimes reawakened by the shock of reality.
10. Invulnerability – Apollo and Dyonisus.
That was for being oneself. Now unto proving oneself. Difficult if one has no unity. But don’t speak about it…abhor speaking out loud. Actions that arise from the depths, not skin-deep sensations. Discipline in inner teachings. Gurdjeff, being sucked into thoughts, memories, smoking, making love. But it’s not passive obedience, as Jaspers notes. It is facing the dangerous, the uncertain, without feeling that you’re doing anything wrong, with confidence. Once you find your main tendency, identify it to your will. Give yourself a law. If you cannot command, you must obey. Until you reach the higher planes, you must have blind obedience to your law. The law comes from your transcendental dimension, the root of your being.
There exists the fear of unifying yourself into a lower dimension, of falling into fanaticism. You must remain on your feet. Get ready to be destroyed, without being hurt. In our social climate, this is more dangerous because there are no magical circles of protection, no traditions to support you. But it is the only way. Dionysismm and Apolloism, as misunderstood by Nietzsche. The centered man has as its center Being, not life. Accepts all experiences, not to prove themselves, but to unfold every experience. Your soul must enjoy chance, the irrational. It must overcome the opposition of spirit and the senses. In the Upanishads, it is spoken of him against whom death is powerless because it has become part of his being. The transcendent dimension keeps humans from identifying with themselves. Detachment is part of a meaningful life. Beware of being purely a rebel against rationalism or puritanism, the cult of action. Freedom from the I, the being that manifests itself as action.
11. Acting without Desire – The Causal Law
Act without regard to the consequences of your actions. No attachment to success, failure, defeat, or victory. Act without acting, even. From the void of pure freedom. Pain and pleasure should not be reasons to act. The vital decadence of the hedonist. Heroic pleasure comes from a plane superior to life. It doesn’t mean however not to take into consideration what is necessary for an action to be successfully carried out. Act without attachment, but strive for perfection. Replace sin for mistake. Karma as purely natural law, amoral. Difficult to let go of your social conditioning. Through inner neutrality, abolish the evil or good aspects of karma. Eastern traditions don’t have a moral component to karma. The comparisons with existentialism are purely illustrative, and it would be possible to dispense with these modern thinkers mentioned all together.
After reading The Beautiful Side of Evil, I continued with a couple of books that dealt with ghosts and spirits, although leaning more into the realm of actual psychology and into the experience of people dealing with Multiple Personality Disorders.
First, I read Gods, Spirits, Cosmic Guardians by Hilary Evans. Unfortunately for this one, I did not highlight anything, so I don’t have the time to sentences to summarize the book. I can tell you in brief that it deals with the different contact experiences that people claim to have had, be it encounters with God, or god, its army of angels, saints, or even the bad guys from the side of evil, to encounters with the more mundane spiritual denizens of our astral planes, like ghosts, poltergeists, or demonic entities of all sorts.
The book presents the details of many witnesses who claim to have had these experiences, and asks the question: why exactly are they saying this? Was the experience objectively real, or was it more something that took place in the theater of the personal subjectivity of the individual? The book covers some similarities between the different experiences and doesn’t particularly try to present one single argument as the explanation for all all these manifestations, but rather it leaves it to you to open up to the many different possible reasons why these events take place even in our modern world, and draw your own conclusions.
After finishing this, I was hungry for more, so I checked the bibliography and grabbed the first book that seemed interesting: Minds in Many Pieces. This one deals with Multiple Personality Disorder, detailing the author’s career as a psychologist dealing with patients with Multiple Personality Disorder, which now is being called Dissociative Identity Disorder (according to Wikipedia).
It’s been a while. Anyway, here’s a book I read recently:
So, one day, Tracy Twyman decided to create an esoteric order to study the mysteries of the holy grail. She was joined by some curious figures, a certain De Vere among them, a man who claimed to be the heir to a blood lineage that could be traced back to ancient Sumeria, a lineage of people with magical powers who once ruled the earth. In its modern incarnation, this bloodline, he claimed, gave him also certain political leverage that he wanted to use in order to start his own country – and pretty much, take over the world with the help of his magic.
They started communicating with an entity which identified itself as “Baphomet”, the talking head that the templar knights confessed, under torture, to worship in their ceremonies. The Ordo Lapsit Exilis -the organization the author created- started having spirit sessions where, through the ouija board, the entity explained to them what they have to do, and gave them information about itself, the myth of the garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, and many more ancient things.
Ultimately, Tracy realized that Baphomet was simply using her, giving her rituals that would, purportedly, open the gate between our worlds and bring only-god-knows-what kind of creatures and calamities into our planet. She abandons the project, shuts down the order, and moves on.
Opinion
The book contains a lot of ideas that were new to me, for example the different connections between modern occultism and traditional religion, such as the idea that Baphomet’s head might be the head of John the Baptist, or the ideas about why god rejected the offering from Cain and not the one from Abel. I definitely need to read this again and take more notes next time, because there are a lot of symbolism and references that need to be followed in order to make the best out of this. The story of the order itself, is not very interesting – another secret society in communication with spirits which are up to no good. But the links between different myths, shed a bit of light on the mysteries of the ancient figures and the origin of the universe. Not definite though, because as usual, we can only speculate – unless God, or God the LORD, or Cain or Baphomet themselves manifest on this earth and tell us the real story, we probably will never know what exactly happened, what is truth and what is myth.
But thinking is fun, and this book made me think.
To read:
Holy Blood, Holy Grail
Guardians of the Grail (J.R.Church)
From Transylvania to Tunbridge Wells (De Vere)
The Messianic Legacy (Baigent)
Magic: A history of its rites, rituals and mysteries (Eliphas Levi)
The Faerie Queene (Spenser)
The Apocryphon of St James
Solomon’s Treasure (Twyman)
The Gospel of Barnabas
The Beginner’s Guide to Constructing the Universe (Michael Schneider)
The Satanic Bible (LaVey)
The Book of the Cave of Treasures
Legends of the Jews (Ginzberg)
The Book of Enoch
The Life of Adam and Eve
The Golden Bough (James Frazer)
Merovingian Mythos and the Mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau (Tracy Twyman)
The Mystery of the Grail (Evola)
Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (Gershom Scholem)
Le Serpent Rouge (Priory of Sion)
Money Grows on the Tree of Knowledge (Tracy Twyman)
The Third Book of Enoch
Mystery of the Cathedrals (Fulcanelli)
The Secret Destiny of America (Manly P. Hall)
Cabala: Mirror of Art and Nature in Alchemy (Stefan Michael Spacher)
A Synopsis of the Books of Adam and Eve
Secret Dossiers (Henri Lobineau)
Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia (Stephen Bertman)
Mythology – Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes (Edith Hamilton)
Dark Mirrors – Azazel and Satanael in Early Jewish Mythology
Six yogas is a completion stage practice. Generation stage are practices like Chakrasamvara, Yamantaka, Chenrezig, Tara. Hinayana has the 3 higher trainings, Mahayana has the 2 Bodhicittas and 6 paramitas. From Wikipedia, the six paramitas are:
Generosity: to cultivate the attitude of generosity.
And the two conditions for Bodhicitta I believe are:
Aspiration to become enlightened
Aspiration to become enlightened to help other sentient beings
We seek refuge, and then we visualize the Gurus around us. Gurus are the embodiment of all of the best inner spiritual attitudes.
We should have a generation stage empowerment to do six yogas…if you don’t…just pretend like you do! \
(((Buddhism has a lot of things that are like this – On the one side they tell you that “you should”. On the other hand, they tell you “hey, all things are unreal. Even the Buddha. So don’t worry”. )))
The white “AH” is moon, male. The red sun is female. But some other schools have it the other way around. (that’s Buddhism for you). We enter a meditation state with Om, Ah, Hum, as if we were the divinity ourselves, the Buddha form, looking at the world.
Vajradhara is a Buddha. Supposedly he is the source of all buddhist teaching. But before him, that position was given to Samantabhadra. (that’s Buddhism for you). From this Buddha others manifested: Akshobhya, Amitabha, Amoghasiddhi, Ratnasambhava, Vairocana.
(((I am Bhavasamraksha)))
Cakrasamvara is a teaching – not a thing. When we talk about Heruka Cakrasamvara, we are talking about a Heruka, usually the main one of those is Sri heruka, but there are more: Eight at least, each one a wrathful form of a Bodhisatva (at least in the Nyingma tradition).
1) Yamantaka (Tib. Jampal Shinje, ’jam dpal sku) the wrathful Manjushri, the deity of body; 2) Hayagriva (Tib. Pema Sung, padma gsung) the wrathful Avalokiteśvara, the deity of speech; 3) Vishuddha/Sri Samyak (Tib. Yangdak Thuk, Wylie: yang dag thugs) the wrathful Vajrapani deity of mind; 4) Mahottara (Tib. Chem Chok, Wylie: che mchog) the wrathful Samantabhadra, the deity of enlightened qualities; 5) Vajrakilaya/Vajrakumara (Tib. Dorje Phurba, phur ba ‘phrin las), the wrathful Vajrasattva, the deity of purification; 6) Matarah (Tib. Mamo Botong, mo rbod gtong) the wrathful Akasagarbha, the deity of calling and dispatching; 7) Lokastotrapuja-natha (Tib. Jigten Chotod, ’jig rten mchod bstod) the wrathful Ksitigarbha, the deity of worldly offering and praise; 8) Vajramantrabhiru (Tib. Mopa Dragnak, mod pa drag sngags) the wrathful Maitreya, the deity of wrathful mantras.
Their exact identity is quite confusing – sometimes they are told to be manifestations from one or another Buddha (that’s Buddhism for you). So I have more or less given up on trying to understand what they are, and right now just consider them to be symbols of mental states.
Vajravarahi is the wrathful form of Vajrayogini, according to Wikipedia. Which is funny because I thought Vajrayogini was already a wrathful deity – I mean, look at her:
In any case, the Cakrasamvara tantra pairs Vajravarahi with Heruka Cakrasamvara as his consort.
“Ah is the mother of all Buddhists”. According to the Dalai Lama, to achieve enlightenment you need to achieve understanding of the “Ah”. What does this mean?
Guru Yoga is practiced always – until you become a Buddha, you are practicing Guru Yoga. Is what connects you to the “authentic”.
Now we saw the image of the triangle facing down, that is inside our heads. During practice, we are told to fill this with white light, coming from the buddhas and bodhisattvas that we summon, and overflowing, it drips down into our entire body.
Q&A
Ours is a Guru Yoga practiced, with “Ah” in the center of the brain – centered on Vajradhara, as a preliminary to practice Niguma’s Tummo. In the Six Yogas of Naropa we don’t use the Ahhh, so the Niguma Yoga is more feminine.
Vajravarahi and Vajrayogini are the same thing. They can’t be used for Tara practices. Tummo is part of the Highest Yoga Tantra practices. Not usually done together with White Tara. Unless you do it, and you become enlightened. Then it can (that’s Buddhism for you).
I first heard the word “Cybernetics” while I was in college.
It sounded like a somewhat esoteric branch of information technology. The word was introduced by Robert Wiener in his book Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. Being a relatively old book, written in 1948 when computers were much different, I felt like it was something extremely theoretical, difficult to understand, and not something that most people would be able to talk about. I have never read it.
Now we have this one, psycho cybernetics. It picks up theories from Wiener’s book, applying them to the field of psychology, and especially the improvement of one’s self-image.
So, let’s get into the notes:
Foreword: I skipped it after a cursory glance. Seems to include details about the author’s personal life (not relevant to the subject of Cybernetics).
Preface: Self-image. Based on something not just related to how you look on the outside. Positive psychology requires the person to have a positive image of themselves as well. No variant of “think happy thoughts” would work if you think of yourself as being a loser that never accomplishes anything. The human nervous system can’t tell the difference between a real situation and an imagined situation. In this way, you can trick your personality into accepting images as real experiences (see Jodorowsky’sPsycho Magic).
The self image: Your key to a better life
You will act like the person you consider yourself to be. Visualize yourself achieving states of being, rather than particular material things.
Don’t manifest material things: you can’t. But if you manifest yourself as a successful human being, then you will by your own efforts accomplish anything you want. Achieve personality states, not material things. Self-Consistency: A Theory of Personality.
“The most important psychological discovery of this century is the discovery of the “self-image.” Whether we realize it or not, each of us carries about with us a mental blueprint or picture of ourselves”
All your actions, feelings, and behaviors -even your abilities- are consistent with this self-image.
So first, you need to recognize what kind of self-image you have. Do you see yourself as a winner? Or do you see yourself as a failure, someone who can never get what he desires, and who doesn’t deserve to succeed? Even if you work hard, your self-image might be getting in the way of success.
“The man who conceives himself to be a “failure-type person” will find some way to fail (…) even if an opportunity is literally dumped in his lap”
Reminds me of that Peep Show episode where Jeff tells Mark, speaking about the girl they both like, Sophie: “You could have your cock in her, you still wouldn’t have the balls to fuck“.
((( This is great news, actually. Imposter syndrome can be cured. It’s not that you lack the skills necessary to succeed, is that you haven’t built yourself a proper self-image for success. I see other people around me with fewer abilities and less intelligence, getting further ahead in their careers. And I think, “Why can they do it, and I can’t?” Well, it seems pretty clear to me now. I see myself as a loser. Someone who doesn’t deserve to succeed. )))
To live, to really live the author says, you need to have an adequate and realistic image that you can live with.
((( Am I ashamed of being myself? Yes, somewhat. I feel like perhaps I don’t have enough strengths, I don’t have many things that I could let’s say “put on display” for other people to appreciate. But I do! Such a dumb thought. )))
The subconscious mind might not be a mind at all, but rather just a mechanism. It impersonally works to produce whatever idea of life you feed into it. Do you feel like you are a lazy person? It will find ways to make you wake up late, and feel like you don’t want to work. Do you think you’re ugly? It will reaffirm your ugliness by making people reject you, by making them judge you by your appearance.
Discovering the success mechanism within you
Attempting to build electronic brains, man discovered how his own brain worked. The success instinct. You are not a machine, but you pilot one. If you have a goal, you can slowly move towards it, correcting yourself at each step. Ideas that come from a universal source, writers that just repeat what comes to them from the ocean of ideas that is the universal mind. The answer exists, now!
Practice:
Remember these principles:
Your success mechanism must have a goal
The automatic mechanism works towards “end results”. Don’t think about the how, just the what.
Do not be afraid of making mistakes
Forget past errors, focus on old successes.
Let your creative mechanism do the work, don’t think it.
Your mind is working to help you succeed. The problem is, you might be trying to achieve the wrong goals. Even alcoholics succeed! At getting drunk. Smokers succeed at smoking. Against all odds, against society telling them that they should stop smoking, that smoking will eventually kill them, they succeed. They overcome all obstacles, they run under the rain to the tobacco store, and they take money away from their food budget, only to succeed at being a smoker.
So, what are you telling your brain to succeed at?
Imagination: The first key to your success mechanism
Hypnotic power. You act according to your perception of what you can do. Role-playing. Creativity might work better than effort. If you believe a hypnotist’s statements to be true, then your brain will react accordingly. Hell, even reality seems to react to your beliefs! So, what if you took the role of the hypnotist for yourself? What lies could you make yourself believe? The lie that you’re happy? The lie that you’re successful, confident, charming?
“In a controlled experiment, psychologist R. A. Vandell proved that mental practice in throwing darts at a target, wherein the person sits for a period each day in front of the target and imagines throwing darts at it, improves aim as much as actually throwing darts”
According to the book, it will also help you to be: a better salesperson, a better golfer, a more confident person, a better pianist…the list goes on. As long as you can imagine it, you can apparently train it in your own mind. Just imagine you’re sane.
Practice:
Take 20 minutes of your time every day to sit in quiet reflection, imagining yourself as being the kind of person you really want to be. See yourself being, acting, moving, speaking, interacting with people, working…all the -ings you want, as the person you want to be.
It seems details are important here, so try to visualize small things, scents, the color of a door, the shape of a knob, the haircut of your coworkers, and all that. Fix that image into reality by bringing more details into it.
De-hypnotize yourself from false beliefs
If your teacher tells you that you’re bad at maths, you will become bad at maths. What holds you back is the belief. Hypnosis works when you believe the hypnotist has powers. A hypnotized salesman sells more things. The curse of the African bug. You can cure your inferiority complex. Don’t put other people above you. Use relaxation.
Practice
Sit down and relax all your body. Imagine yourself in 3 relaxing situations: Lying down on the bed, legs turning into concrete. Then arms, hands. Chest, neck, etc. Now, you’re a marionette. All loose. Thrown into the bed without tension. Lastly, you’re made of balloons. Imagine your legs as balloons and the air starts to escape from them. Chest, arms, head, neck. Now, find an old relaxing situation, when everything felt good. Be detailed.
How to utilize the power of rational thinking
Your automatic mechanism is impersonal and has no will of its own. Like a computer. Its input is your ideas, beliefs, interpretations, and opinions. Bad memories must be forgotten, used to just extract a lesson, and then no longer taken into consideration, lest they end up becoming your goal. Make up your mind about what you rationally believe, because if you don’t, the irrational will tell you what to believe. Two powerful levers for changing your beliefs: 1) believing that you’re capable of doing your share, and 2) believing that something, someone inside of you does not deserve to suffer indignities.
Is there anything, any channel where you want to express yourself, but you feel I can’t? Ask: – Is there a rational reason for the belief? – Could it be a mistaken belief? – If someone else were in your situation, would you come to the same conclusion? – If there is no reason to believe, why do you keep having this belief?
Your creative mechanism needs to be fed truths about your environment. Always think of what you have to do as being easy, and it will become so. Decide what you want, not what you don’t want. Your automatic mechanism is…well….automatic! Don’t force it, like forcing Sikanda out of its sheath. It will come to you, on its own.
Relax and let your success mechanism work for you
Your forebrain doesn’t solve problems, only poses them to the servo-mechanism. Give up the feeling of responsibility. Success comes when you give up the conscious struggle. Be indifferent to what will come from it all. Many scientists have documented how their greatest ideas came not when they were mentally struggling to find the solution, but when they found themselves away from their workbenches and focused on something else, like shaving or sleeping. See how musicians or athletes surrender rather than try to consciously direct their bodies step by step, note after note.
You could plan on finding a solution to your problem right before going to bed. Keep a pen and a notebook at hand.
5 rules for freeing your imagination:
1). Do your worrying before you bet, not after the wheel starts turning. 2) Form the habit of consciously responding only to the present, don’t worry about what will happen tomorrow. Live in 24-hour compartments. 3) Do only one thing at a time 4) Sleep on it 5) Relax while you work
Be happy, and you will be more likely to succeed. So, even from a materialistic point of view, happiness makes more sense. Also if you are happy, your interactions with and impact on other people might be more beneficial to the whole world. But happiness today, as you are now. Happiness just because you are happy. Don’t wait for something: A husband, a better job, or children. Be happy right now, as you are.
Practice:
Keep a positive-aggressive attitude. See yourself reacting to the threats you face, rather than running away from them.
Don’t wait until circumstances allow you to have happy thoughts. Elwood Worcester’s Body Mind and Spirit. Recall good moments and good feelings, on a daily basis.
(((For me, it could be giving out food in Edinburgh to the homeless people, giving money to the lady in Salt who was waiting outside the supermarket, or walkings dogs at the pet shelter. Those were moments when I felt really good. )))
Determine consciously which shoe will you put on first. And make an effort to do it in a different way for the next 21 days. Say this to yourself: “I am starting my day in a better, new way.” Then make the conscious decision to 1) Be as cheerful as possible 2) Be more friendly towards other people 3) Be less critical and more tolerant, always assume good intentions 4) Act as if success is inevitable 5) Don’t let your own opinion color the facts 6) Smile at least 3 times per day 7) React calmly and intelligently (as much as possible) 8) Ignore pessimistic and negative facts
Ingredients of the “Success-Type” personality and how to acquire them
What does this successful personality look like, and feel like? As a self-guiding mechanism, the brain also needs a target! What is your goal? “Success” spells success:
S: Sense of direction. Where do you want to go? A bicycle only stands if it keeps moving forward. Get yourself a goal!
U: Understanding. Your reaction to things is based on your image, and your understanding of them. Try to see a pure truth. the facts – not your opinion!
C: Courage. Don’t be afraid to act. Any decision can be wrong. Just pick the one that seems the most favorable, and do it! Be a big hero with your small actions!
C: Compassion. Develop compassion for other people and you will gain more compassion for yourself. What you think about others – is also how you feel about yourself!
E: Esteem. Try not to see yourself as a defeated person, rather appreciate your personal worth. And especially, treat other people as valuable children of god (sic).
S: Self-confidence. Forget past failures, use errors and mistakes as a way of learning. Perhaps actively remembering your happy or courageous moments.
S: Self-acceptance. Accept all you have made mistakes, but you are not those mistakes. Rather, they happened to you. But you are always in a state of learning, improving, and expressing your potential. So you will always encounter mistakes. Accept it!
You are something, not nothing. Perhaps you are in the process of becoming that which you want to be. But you are, first and foremost! Don’t ever tell yourself I am nothing.
The Failure Mechanism: How to make it work for you instead of against you.
Recognizing personality traits as part of the failure-type personality will help you correct your behavior. Another mnemonic:
F – Frustration, Hopelessness, futility. When a goal can’t be accomplished. Learn that “good enough” is sometimes good enough. Maybe you’re aiming too high, or you have an inadequate image of yourself.
A – Aggressiveness (misdirected). Concentrate your fire. You need to find an adequate outlet for your aggression, you can’t suppress it. Martial arts.
I – Insecurity. You feel you don’t measure up. You are afraid of trying hard, it proves you’re not perfect!
L – Loneliness (lack of oneness). You need to meet with other people, actively. Don’t wait for others to call you. What if they’re waiting for you to call? Do it! Be the initiator.
U – Uncertainty. Nobody is right all the time! Appreciate your failures, don’t think even the best athletes are always perfect. We all make mistakes!
R – Resentment. Do you feel others have wronged you? Society is shortchanging you? You are depending on others to decide how you feel. But life doesn’t owe you happiness. You develop your own, your own joy which accompanies creative functioning.
E – Emptiness. Maybe you lack a goal. If you just work for a paycheck, why bother? You need to find yourself an exciting goal!
How to remove emotional scars, or how to give yourself and emotional face-lift.
Scar tissue. You build it to heal, to protect yourself. But, “the emotional wall that we build as protection against one person cuts us off from all other human beings“. (Tell me about it!) To become a self-fulfilled person, you need to:
See yourself as someone who is liked
Accept yourself as you are
Have a feeling of connection (oneness) to others
Be wise and worldly
Accept yourself, don’t think your mistakes make you less capable, maintain an inquisitive mind, and share with others!
How to gain immunity against emotional pain?
Become too big to give a fuck. The big animal is not afraid of the small one. Work on your self-esteem and self-image
If you responsibly rely on yourself, you become less vulnerable.
Relax when you face tension. Take a deep breath, or practice relaxation exercises daily. Carry this state of relaxation with you throughout your entire day.
Learn to forgive those old emotional wounds, don’t try to heal them. Give them up like they are cancer, don’t try to hold unto them. Don’t feel morally superior either. Just let go of it, there’s nothing that is owed to you, no matter how much you’d like to hold onto the feeling of resentment.
Don’t forget also to forgive yourself, like the book says: you will always make some mistakes, but even smart people do. Mistakes are part of the road, not part of you. You stumble upon them, you go over them, and you drive past them. Do not look back, lest you miss the road ahead!
How to unlock your real personality
Having a personality means being able to release your full potential creative self. Negative feedback is a way to detect when you are going the wrong way and make changes to your direction to ensure you hit the goal. Not to stop moving! but to change the course.
Excessive negative feedback can be inhibiting. If you worry too much about what possible mistakes you’ll make, you might end up so afraid of acting that you will end up doing nothing at all. Just do your research, prepare, and then forget about it the day before! Just say “I don’t care whether I succeed or fail!”.
To make a good impression, just don’t think about making a good impression. You might inhibit your creative self if you force yourself to adjust too much based on what you perceive the other person might be thinking about you. If you can act around other people the same way you act when you’re alone, then you have become a master of self-consciousness.
Expressing yourself is not wrong, and what is appropriate in one context might not be in another. So when you are judged, think perhaps that was not the best place or situation to express yourself. But don’t stop expressing yourself for fear of getting something you “don’t deserve”. Be more disinhibited. Be more spontaneous. Be yourself!
But not so much that you…
Get in trouble for not being able to keep your mouth shut
Get into situations that most people could clearly see were problematic
You cause things to fall apart (projects, friendships) because of talking first, thinking later
You are very loud and like to gossip
Contrary to that, do speak more openly if you…
Feel shy when you meet new people
Feel you’re not adequate, not good enough, find yourself worrying often
You have tics, or tremors, or suffer from insomnia
You don’t enjoy being in social situations
You force yourself to stay out of the front and look at life from the backseat
Practice:
Don’t think before speaking, just open your mouth and say it. The spirit will guide you (sort of).
Don’t plan for tomorrow, but correct yourself if you make a mistake.
Stop when you’re about to criticize yourself. Don’t give you “I shouldn’t have done that”. You did it, and it’s done! Learn from it and let it go.
Speak louder than usual. Don’t shout, but speak a little bit louder than your normal tone.
Let people know when you like them. Don’t fear expressing your emotions.
Do-It-Yourself tranquilizers that bring peace of mind
Tranquilizers don’t change the environment, they change our response to it. When the phone rings, let it ring!
((( Could I turn this into an exercise? With a person who is easily throwing into fits of anger, have them sit down and ring their phone. Ask them to ignore it, and just sit there and breathe. Now, insult them. Ask them to act as if they were getting a phone call they simply have to ignore. Would that work to increase people’s resistance to getting angry? )))
You don’t do anything to ignore the phone. On the contrary, you do nothing. Pavlov’s dog. Train yourself to ignore the phone ringing, hold this as a mental image. You can’t do it? Then, delay the response! The quiet room inside of you. An imaginary room that you build for yourself, furnished with whatever you find most relaxing and restful. A window that opens into a beautiful landscape. Go there every day. Don’t make any decisions, and don’t worry about anything while you are in it.
We need a certain level of escapism in our lives. And pictures are more impressive to our automatic mechanism than words. See yourself generating steam like a geyser, blowing off steam to relax. Practice when you move from one task to another, to avoid carrying over negative emotions. Emotional carryovers are the cause of many car accidents. But, you can also carry over love and friendliness! If you practice the quiet room.
The key is not the exterior, but your internal response to it. Psalm 99. William James, James T. Mangan. If responding doesn’t further our goals or help us achieve what we want, then why respond? We need to maintain the same attitude regardless of external situations.
We often create imaginary pictures in our heads and then respond to them. But the pictures might be a twisted interpretation of what really happened! Our nervous system can’t tell the difference between what’s real and what’s imagined. The best response here is, once again: to ignore them! Give your focus to the present moment, not your dimension of imagination.
Practice not responding
Delaying the usual negative response
Relaxing will help you not responding
Visit your quiet room
Don’t respond to imaginary situations
Practice:
Visit your quiet room, furnished with all the things that make you relaxed, and surrounded by the place where you will feel the most at peace. Sit down, and relax. Imagine yourself practicing non-responding. The phone rings or someone makes you angry, yet you do not respond. See yourself completely not responding.
How to turn a crisis into a creative opportunity
The story of a young golfer who exceeds at home but the pressure gets to him and has never placed in a big tournament. Others play even better when they are under pressure. The secret is learning how to react to the situation. A crisis will make you…or break you. React well to crisis situations.
Learn skills under conditions where there is no pressure
React to crises with an aggressive mindset – go for it!
Evaluate crisis situations under their true perspective – don’t make mountains out of molehills
Brain maps, cognitive maps, practicing. Learn and practice under non-crisis conditions. The more intense the crisis, the less you learn. Firemen, shadowboxing. Fighting imaginary fights.
(Practice approaching people. In public, don’t be afraid of talking to a stranger even if you are in the middle of other strangers. Prepare a visualization where you approach girls and practice all kinds of situations – positive and negative)
According to Prescott Lecky, there is only one basic emotion – excitement. Don’t try to control your emotions, but rather “the choice of which tendency shall receive emotional reinforcement”. If you want to go forward, your excitement will move you forward, and feel motivated. If you want to hide, your excitement will seek shelter, and you will feel fear.
Excitement is not necessarily fear or anxiety! (Perhaps the same can be said about loneliness – it’s not love!)
What’s the worst that could happen? (if you didn’t sleep with X, Y or Z, what would be so terrible about that?). In our past, failure usually meant death. These days, crisis situations are opportunities to advance.
“I have everything to gain – but nothing to lose!”
How to Get That Winning Feeling
There are patterns in your brain for every action you carried out in the past. Replay them, and let nature take its course. Give yourself work that you can succeed at. Small successes give you more confidence, to then attempt bigger things.
Pavlov’s advice on his deathbed: “passion and gradualness”. Go back in memory and relive successful experiences. Then imagine how you would feel if you had already succeeded! Play with the idea of complete and inevitable success. Gradually, don’t just force yourself to have absolute faith. “What if…”, then, “I think it could…” and finally “It definitely will…”
(guided visualization: meet a lot of girls, have a lot of relationships, then just end them. As part of the process of life. Over and over. Exhaust yourself with dates, one-night stands, and breakups. Until you are done with that.)
Feelings of failure are just caused by the attitude of your mind. Some people might be in the same situation as you, and feel so happy! These attitudes don’t represent reality or the truth. React to negative attitudes with aggressiveness: “You think I can’t do it? Just you fucking wait!”
Bad feelings are dispelled by positive feelings. Don’t fight back empty-handed: concentrate on positive imagery. Fill the mind with pleasant mental pictures. The present influences the past. And the more you replay an image, the stronger and potent it becomes.
More Years of Life and More Life in Your Years:
Everyone has beliefs that the facts themselves do not justify. Ideas of why this or that happened. The body, the author believes, is like a machine, composed of small separate mechanisms. Life force, “adaptive energy”, pseudoscience basically. Not much to extract from this part.
Rapid healers: they are optimistic, and think positive thoughts. Create a need for more life, a reason to wake up next day. Develop a nostalgia for the future. Keep learning, never retire from life. Exercise, to the best of your potential. Don’t call unclean that which god has created (author is clearly a Christian).
Everything in life is a mental picture
Every goal begins as one of these pictures
Anything you don’t like from yourself or your life can be changed by changing your mental pictures
Think of Buddha as your own Buddha mind, not necessarily as an external Buddha. The four immeasurables: All should be happy, all should be free from suffering, all should rest in joy free from attachments, and all should live in equanimity. “If something feels foreign, don’t bother with it!”. Dharma teachings are like items on a menu. Teachings should be analyzed like the jewel shop owner analyses the gold that he’s about to buy.
Check your mind once a month to see how much you have grown
Tantra is the ornament of Mahayana. Your mind should be aligned with the teachings of Mahayana. Good people help us directly, and bad people help us by showing us our own faults. “Refuge” actually means something like power. We search for powerful inspiration from Buddha, Dharma and Sangha (BDS).
Every highest Yoga tantra system has its own Kundalini system, but many of them use Tummo, and that’s what we will use in the Naropa/Niguma teachings. Chakrasamvara: the wheel of great bliss. Everything that we experience can be experienced as bliss (try it!). Chrakrasamvara appears always in union with the consort, because we should be as happy as we are when we make love. Vajrayogini is the consort. Dharmapalas are protectors, sort of like guardian angels, but perhaps just symbols of how we direct our energies. Mahakala is a dharma protector.
Palden Lhamo is another dharmapala. She rides a donkey. The role model in Hinayana is the Arhat, the foe destroyer. Monks who look beautiful and serene. For the Mahayana, the role model is the Boddhisattva, usually sporting long hair, one foot in Nirvana and another foot in the world. For Tantra, the role model is the Mahasiddhas, embracing the full rawness of being.
Each family in Tibet usually has a totem animal. The six yogas are energy practices, sometimes 8, sometimes 11. Sometimes including Mahamudra or Karmamudra practices.
Okay, time to get -somewhat- serious with spiritual practices and daily habits. I’m gonna proceed with the studies from the book Initiation into Hermetics. As a first step, let’s review the book “Preliminary Practice for Franz Bardon’s Initiation into Hermetics”.
So, the system of magic taught by Bardon is highly practical. Apparently, he also wrote his books to match the energies of the first Tarot cards. So, something like this?:
The Magician = Initiation into Hermetics The High Priestess = Practice of Magical Evocation The Empress = Key to the True Quabbalah
Additional reading:
Swami Vivekananda: Raja Yoga, Jnana Yoga, Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga
Apart from this, make sure to read all the books in Bardon’s curriculum at least once, just a cursory reading, to get the basic idea of the entire system in your head.
Mental Attitude:
Know what you do, why, and when. Create a plan to track your results, and include the exercises in your daily schedule. Make a daily schedule if you have none, and find a good way to keep track of it.
Venture into the unknown: Make an effort to keep exploring new places and people. Keep learning languages, and make it into a weekly habit (Duolingo, Graded Readers)
Will yourself into success: practice strengthening your willpower, and go jogging twice per week. Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day.
Keep silent: the best results are not shared with others but become public through your good work.
Your personal dedication:
A small exercise to improve: press each one of the four element chakras as described:
Fire: Press the point between your eyebrows. That is the Ajna Chakra, to train your will
Air: Press the point in the middle of your forehead. To train your visionary intuition
Water: Press the point right below your hairline. To train your intuitive feeling
Earth: Press the crown area. To train your higher consciousness
Other techniques for balancing your soul: homeopathy, Bach flowers, Acupuncture, and Pranic healing. You can also do the chakra exercises using all the chakras in the body, either from the feet chakra to the crown or vice versa.
Physical training:
Jog twice per week
Read the book “The Inner Structure of Tai Chi” by Mantak Chia
Try to have a balanced diet, and include strengthening exercises in your routine.
This is your time, your opportunity. Don’t waste it!
Described as “An extraordinary story about Johanna’s involvement in the occult and how she learned to distinguish between the beautiful side of evil and the true way of the Lord” I must have seen this book mentioned in another book related to ghosts and the occult that I read recently, called The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts. In that book, we read the story of a group of people who came into contact with discarnate entities -spirits- via a medium. The author of the book starts talking to a spirit that claims to be an old girlfriend that he had when, in a previous life, both lived in Greece. She knows many things about him, and she seems to really love him and knows exactly what to tell him to make him feel good. Soon, his real-life relationship with his girlfriend gets cast aside and he starts to develop a closer relationship with the spirit, which calls herself Philippa. He asks the spirits to give him more information about their past lives, and they happily do so. However, when he actually tries to verify some of those facts, it turns out that they are either incomplete or altogether fake. Then, the spirits turn sour. They come up with all kinds of explanations as to why he was unable to verify their claims. They get angry. He finds out that most, if not all, of the historical and geographical information Philippa has given him is wrong. Heartbroken, he decides not to even confront her, and instead he just distances himself from the spirit sessions.
On a similar line then, we find “The Beautiful Side of Evil“. Of a much more religious preachy nature, the book relates the story of a woman who was able to feel spirits and sense ghosts ever since she was a kid. As an adult, she enrolls as the helper of a Mexican spiritual healer, Pachita. At first, it seems like they are only helping people, providing healing where regular medicine can’t. However, when she starts to question the nature of hers and Pachita’s powers, the spirits seem displeased. She gets attacked, she suffers moments of mental instability and only the help of a devoted Christian community manages to save her from going insane. The last third of the book went a little bit too Christian for my liking, and the message is clear: accept Jesus as your savior or suffer the consequences. Nothing else is good, all spiritism is evil…and get this: EVEN DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS IS EVIL.
Yes, that’s right. Here are the relevant mentions:
I’ve lost count of how many individuals, even while under severe demonic bondage, have said to me, “Oh, but I’ve never been involved in the occult! I just played around with the Ouija board a few times!” (or astrology, or tea-leaf reading, or rod-and-pendulum, or Dungeons and Dragons, or seances, or palmistry, or tarot cards, etc.)
Ouija boards are sold in almost every toy store – frequently next to “Dungeons and Dragons,” a game which is occultic to the core, whatever its devotees may believe.
Putting aside the fact that no, Ouija boards are not sold in almost every toy store (I think I remember asking around in my city and never finding one), I found that statement to be extremely stupid. D&D is occultic to the core? How so? Because it takes place in a world of magic, wizards, and spells? I played D&D and other role-playing games with my friends, and I fail to see how they can be occultic. We never tried to talk to the dead, all we did was pretend like we were people who we weren’t. We were actors. Is acting occultic, then? This is the part of the book that just put me off. I absolutely despise most Christian denominations because they just blindly accept that their interpretation is the only one valid, their book is the only one that contains the truth, and they treat you as if you were ignorant, as if somehow you were the only one incapable of understanding those deep truths that they have received from God…only they did not receive anything from God. Human hands wrote the Bible. That’s the undeniable truth. Everything else is just our own addition.
So, personally, I enjoyed the first two-thirds of the book, but I really hated the last part. Whereas the author of “The Siren Call…” does actual research, and tries to verify the information he gets from the spirits, the author of “The Beautiful Side...” just meets up with some hardcore Christians that tell her that everything that’s not in the bible is literally satan, and that’s all. Both authors decided to stop interacting with these spirits when they realize that things aren’t as clear and clean as they were led to believe, but I prefer when people switch lanes for a real, valid reason. Going “I stopped having irrational faith on this thing, and started having irrational faith on this other thing“…just doesn’t cut it for me.
Overall: 3/5. Read it if you are curious about spirits, whether they are good or evil, and what plans they might have for the living, or even if you’re an occultist who wonders whether these practices are good for you or not. But don’t expect to find here much in terms of scientific explanations. It’s just “I saw this and that, and then I stopped working with spirits and started praying to Jesus Christ“. That’s the book, in a nutshell.
Far from being a short story, this is 150 pages of good Buddhism knowledge. Perhaps that’s nothing when you take into consideration the thousands of books and millions of pages of manuscripts, tantras, and sutras, so well, maybe it’s better not to complain about having to read a book that is actually shorter than 200 pages. I took those lines I highlighted while I was reading, and tried to put them together into something that could resemble a summary. But this is mostly intended to be a reminder of the book’s contents.
Introduction
Violence has to be avoided
The self is responsible for all suffering
Death is an error that can be overcome
Old Buddhism is Hinayana. The second Buddhist period sees the rise of Mahayana. Finally, the third period with Tantra and Ch’an.
The First Five Hundred Years: 500 – 0 BC.
Monastic discipline (Vinaya) and Skandhaka, the document which contains some rules to regulate Buddhist life. The 250 rules of Pratimoksha, ecclesiastical offenses. Some of these include having a chair or bed made with legs higher than eight inches. The basic doctrines include a theory of salvation and a theory of the three jewels (the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha). Searching for security in the material world is futile. In fear of birth and death, Buddhists leave their home lives to attain salvation. To Buddhism, the root of all evil is not sin, but ignorance. They don’t care much to define Nirvana, but rather to realize it within themselves, through effort in meditation. Meditation, which:
Aims at a withdrawal of attention
Shifts attention to a subtler realm
Penetrates into the supra-sensory reality
Mindfulness leads to trance (samadhi) and then to wisdom (prajna). There is almost no limit to the total of different meditational methods reported during the first period.
As for the three jewels: Buddha is the enlightened one. His name was Gautama, or Siddharta (often called Sakyamuni). Tathagata is the spirit of Buddhism, the Dharma-body, or the Buddha nature. “Whoso sees the spiritual law, or Dharma, he sees me“. Buddha incarnated is not really important: what’s important is the Buddha nature. The seven Buddhas. The Boddhisatva theory. Maitreya, the future Buddha. Dharma is the subject of all teachings. It is the one ultimate reality, it is the teachings of the Buddha, and it is also the application of these teachings in our daily life, becoming righteousness or virtue. Sometimes, Dharmas -note the plural- are seen in Buddhist teachings, denoting the individual “things” that we perceive and that give origin to ignorance. Examples of these are the five Skandhas (form, feelings, perceptions, volitional impulses, and consciousness) which constitute the human personality. As per the Sangha (or Samgha) the real Samgha is the invisible church, the Aryans, the holy ones. Of all the Buddhist saints, the Arhats are the most highly prized.
Sects and their disputes
Buddhist sects remained in contact and thus were able to share principles and understand each other. The goal -of enlightenment- may be reached on different roads. Tensions between the elitists who want to keep the Dharma for a small number of Arhats, and those who wish to increase the salvation chances of the common people. As salvation depended on the awareness of certain mental processes, philosophy played an important role in Buddhism. The classification of knowledge, the problems of causality, time, the criteria of what is real and what is not… At this point, a scholar called Mahadeva called into question the holiness of the Arhats. Those who agreed with him separated into the called Mahasanghikas. Those who didn’t were called the Sthaviras, the elders. Buddha became an object of religious faith, more than just a human being. The earth Buddha became then a fictitious creature who was thought to have been sent by the transcendental Buddha to teach the world. The Mahasanghikas taught two important things: 1) that all thought is pure, and 2) that all worldly things are unreal, and that includes verbalized and conceptualized knowledge (even Buddhist knowledge).
The next separation was caused by the question of the person, or “pugdala” (“entity that reincarnates as an individual or person” – Wikipedia). The personalists or Vatsiputriyas claimed that apart from all the impersonal Dharmas, there is still a person that needs to be taken into consideration. “One person, when He is born in the world, is born for the weal of the many. Who is that one person? He is the Tathagata“. For them, the person is a reality in the ultimate sense. Neither identical to the skandhas, nor in the skandhas, nor outside of them.
The third split was caused by the doctrine of Katyayaniputra, who taught that not only present but also past and future events are all real (pan-realism).
The laity
What is the place of the common folk in the scheme of things? There are four avenues for them to increase their merit:
observe the five precepts
be devoted to the three treasures
be generous, especially to the monks
worship the relics of the Buddha
The monks, in return, increase the spiritual and material welfare of the community, and also the well-being of the country. Much of Buddhism’s success is owed to its good relationship with Asian rulers. Nevertheless, there was a precarious relationship with the laity, and this invited the development of Mahayana, and the idea that people are as important as dharmas. In the third period, monks were forced to become astrologers, doctors, weather changers, and other professions useful to laymen. “The story of Buddhism becomes unintelligible unless due weight is given to the desires of the dumb common people“.
Expansion
Asoka, his son, and Buddhism in Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka). Close contact between Buddhists and rulers infused the latter with a sense of nationalism and led the monks to support national wars. Ceylon was home to the Theravadins.
The Second Period: AD 0 – 500
Mahayana, the great vehicle (Maha means big. Mahatma, Maha Kali). Demand for more equal rights for the laity, and fewer arhats. Mahayana Buddhism was able to travel outside India and was influenced by foreign ideas. The importance of the Sakyamuni Buddha was put aside, making room for the Buddha who is the embodiment of Dharma (the Dharmakaya). Among the Mahayana innovations we count:
shifting the ideal from the Arhat to the Bodhisattva, who remains in touch with the ordinary people.
giving compassion equal importance as wisdom. Paramita, the six “methods to go to the beyond”: giving, morality, patience, vigor, meditation, and wisdom.
a new pantheon of deities, composed of more-than-divine persons (Avalokitesvara, Manjusri, Samantabhadra), both mythical Buddhas as well as Bodhisattvas.
development of the idea of Skill-in-means (skillful means) the ability to bring out the potential in people through unusual ways.
a new ontological doctrine dealing with emptiness, suchness. Although the “beyond” is considered to be, well, beyond the grasp of intellectual and verbal comprehension
The Yogacarin school (“one whose practice is yoga” – Wikipedia) came up with the final formulation of the Three Bodies of the Buddha. The Dharmakaya is the absolute truth, and reality itself. The Sambhogakaya is the body in unearthly realms. The Nirmanakaya is the one that human beings see on earth, the physical incarnation of the Buddha.
Some of these doctrines were forbidden and esoteric, to the point where it becomes hard to distinguish between true Buddhist innovation and just esoteric knowledge being made available to the populace.
Hinayana developments in India
To hold its position, Hinayana adopted some of the Mahayana theories. They stressed more the idea of “emptiness”. Created the Abhidharma.
Ceylon
Is learning more important than practicing? Buddhaghosa, writer of the Visuddhimagga. Discord between the Mahavihara and the Abhayagirivihara. The latter were more open toward laymen. The Mahaviharas were more conservative.
Expansion into greater Asia
As a world religion, Buddhism was born in Gandhara, India. The Mahayanists were more successful missionaries, given their freedom in interpreting the scriptures. Medical missionaries were also responsible for a great number of conversions. The first large country to be penetrated by Buddhist thought was China. First as a religion of the non-Chinese, but by 500 it was well established throughout the whole of China, developing a state within a state. The Chinese Buddhists weren’t shy about quoting Lao Tzu or the Yellow Emperor. Rulers found the Buddhist priests more amiable than Taoist priests, as they relied on donations from wealthy laymen, and were not inciting rebellions like the Taoists were. Among the first works to be translated into Chinese we find the sutras on Prajnaparamita. The problem of being versus non-being, the emergence of the seven schools.
School of original non-being
Variations in the first school
School of the emptiness of matter
School of the non-being of mind
School of stored impressions
School of phenomenal illusions
School of causal combination
Kumarajiva, the Book of Chao. Buddhism and neo-Taoism. The Icchantikas (“deluded being who can never attain enlightenment” – Wikipedia) are forever excluded from Buddhahood. Achieving Buddhahood in an instant opposes Hindu thought regarding acquired learning. Meanwhile, popular faith concerns itself with rebirth in paradise. Be it Akshobhya’s in the east, Amitabha’s in the west, or Maitreya’s in the future. Founding of the Fellowship of the White Lotus, which would later evolve into Chung-t’u, or school of Pure Land.
The Third Period – AD 500 – 100
The emergence of Tantra. This is the last creative achievement of Buddhism, which enriched it with magical traditions. Mantras, mudras and mandalas were introduced. Systematized into Vajrayana, and the syncretist Kalacakra, with an emphasis on astrology. Whereas common people use magic to acquire power, Buddhists use it to free themselves from powers that are alien to their true being. No longer distant, Buddhahood is right now, “in this very body”. The ideal now is the Siddha. The ambiguous language of Tantra, and the visions of the yogins which they esteemed as more real than reality itself (which makes it difficult to research Buddhism historically).
The monastic system was weakened and spread into groups of self-sufficient Yogins. The wrathful deities, and their feminine counterparts. Cunda, Vasudhara, Usnisavijaya, Vajravarahi, Buddhalocana…dakinis, consorts of the Buddhas and their erotic rituals. The fivefold division of all cosmic forces, each one presided by one Tathagata: Vairocana, Akshobhya, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha, Amoghasiddhi. Clothing the highest into the form of the lower, shock therapy, the union of male and female in the ecstasy of love.
Royal patronage of Buddhism in Northern India would come to define its direction for the following centuries. The Buddhists developed their logic preceding the Hindus. Formulation of epistemological theories.
China and Korea
Between 500 and 800 AD were the most productive centuries for Chinese Buddhism. The eight indigenous schools. The Mi-Tsung, is the Chinese version of Tantra. The T’ien-t’ai school aimed at a syncretism of all Mahayana schools. The Pure Land school, and Amidism. O-mi-to-fo, and the legend of Sukhavativyuha. Kuan-yin, the Indian version of Avalokitesvara. The strength of Amidism lies in its democratic spirit: just chant the name and you will be free, all that is required is faith. The Ch’an school, and the introduction of working monks. “A day without work, a day without eating”. Practical realization, simplification of the approach to enlightenment. If you are cold, just burn a statue of the Buddha. Kill the Buddha if he gets in your way. “Strange words and stranger actions“. Buddhahood is achieved through instantaneous enlightenment.
Buddhists were becoming impatient with how long it took for Hinayana or Mahayana to produce any enlightened beings, so the Ch’ans worked for enlightenment “in this life”. After the Arhats, Pratyekabuddhas, Boddhisattvas, and Siddhas, we now have the Roshis. Cultivation through non-cultivation. “Only do ordinary things with no special effort“. “To eat all day yet not to swallow a grain of rice“. The great prosecution of 845.
In Tibet, Buddhism found resistance from the Bon religion. The prosecution of 863. Padmasambhava.
The Last One Thousand Years: AD 1000 – 1978
In India, Buddhism pretty much ended in 1200 due to Mohammedan invasions, much as it was also due to internal strife. Monks left the country, thanks to the international character of Buddhism, contributing in this way to its extinction. The creative impulse had ceased. The division between Hindus and Buddhists had diminished, and Buddhism no longer served a purpose as a separate entity. In Nepal, monks gave up celibacy, and lay Buddhism prevailed. In Burma, Theravada orthodoxy was preserved. Build a pagoda to acquire merits (with the consequence that the country is covered with them). In Laos, the story of Buddhism is shrouded in legend. In China, Amidism and Ch’an ousted all other schools. While the school of Ts’ao-tung stressed quiet sitting and silent meditation, the Lin-chi sect favored rudeness and the “shout and the stick” approach. Nembutsu. The Taiping rebellion.
In Korea, the government was entirely in the hands of the bonzes for long stretches of time, but that changed in 1392 with the change of dynasty. Confucianism gained the upper hand. In Japan, Buddhism reached its creative peak. During the Kamakura period, Amida and Zen schools became the two most prominent forms of Buddhism. The Yozo Nembutsu, the Jodo or Pure Land school. In this age of decay, traditional Buddhist morals are no longer effective, and we must rely on a higher power, that of the Buddha Amitabha. The nationalistic school was founded by Nichiren, who replaced the Nembutsu with the Namu Myoho Renge-kyo. As for the Zen schools, Dogen introduced Ts’ao-tung into Japan, insisting that a decadent age was no reason to aim at less than insight into the highest truth. Zazen is carried out as an absolutely pure religious exercise from which nothing is sought, and nothing is gained. All daily activities should be regarded as post-enlightenment exercises. Bushido, the way of the warrior. Mono-no-aware, sensitivity to beauty. After 1500, there was a revival of Confucianism and military Shintoism in Japan. Only the Zen sect showed signs of vitality.
In Tibet, Indian teachers were invited again after a revival in 1000. Atisa came in 1042. His seminal work, “Lamp illuminating the road to enlightenment“. Tsong-kha-pa, the formation of different Tibetan sects. The Bka-ijdam-pa (Kadampa). The bKa-rclyud-pa (Kaguypa) was founded by Marpa. Their monks were not saints, but human beings. The story of Mila-ras-pa, Tibet’s greatest saint and poet. Gtum-mo, magical heat. The shi-byed-pa, the Sa-skya-pa, the Nying-ma-pa. The latter came up with the concept of hidden treasures, or gter-ma. The biography of Padmasambhava was one of these discovered treasures, as well as the bar do thos grol. The six bardos of the Nyingmapas. The ceremony of gCod (Chod) to offer one’s body to greedy demons. They operate similarly to the left-hand tantra practitioners of India. Creating tutelary deities (yidams), controlling the occult body, and realizing the nature of one’s own mind. A well-rounded personality does not suppress lust, anger, etc., but puts them into their own place. Finally, only the Dge-lugs-pa were able to come out victorious over the Nyingmapas. This sect was founded by Tsongkhapa, the last great thinker of the Buddhist world.
Three great achievements: codification of the canon into two big collections (the Kanjur and the Tanjur). Production of a large quantity of indigenous literature. Lastly, the rooting of Buddhism in the life of people. Tulkus, lamaism. The violence of the fifth Dalai Lama, and the shutting off of the country after the 18th century.
In Mongolia, the Dalai Lama converted the Mongols in 1577 when he journeyed to meet Altan Chagan, ruler of the eastern Mongols to show him his magical powers, forcing rivers to run uphill. Shamanistic sacrifices were thereupon forbidden. The Mongols conquest of Iran meant they built many cultural centers in those lands.
The present situation
Buddhism is now just spending its energies on maintaining itself, having lost the initiative it once had. The Buddha Jayanti, the 2500th anniversary of Shakyamuni’s enlightenment. Prophecies mark this era as the time when monks “will be strong only in fighting and reproving“. Northern Buddhism is under communist control (Mongolia, China, Tibet, and then Southeast Asia), and Buddhism and communism seem to be perfect enemies for each other, although Mahayana Buddhism and Dialectical Materialism seem to be surprisingly close.
Modern warfare, Cambodia. Although the country was neutral during the Vietnam war, it was “bombed back into the Stone age“. In Japan, we have seen a growth of nationalistic Buddhism. It is doubtful whether capitalism has been more kind to the Buddhists than communism.
In the West, Buddhism was absorbed on three different levels: The philosophical, Schopenhauer, Blavatsky, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and abundant literature has been written about the similarities between eastern ideas and those of some of the modern European thinkers. On the historical level, Buddhist manuscripts and documents have attracted the attention of many scholars. On the sectarian level, many Buddhist communities have been formed, primarily in protestant countries. Figures like Alan Watts served as conduits for the spreading of a multiplicity of somewhat disorganized ideas. “How a drop of water could be prevented from ever drying up?”
The answer is: “by throwing it into the sea“.
Conclussion:
It was definitely interesting to me to learn about the historical development of Buddhism. Of particular interest was the realization that Buddhism hasn’t been just “the words of the Buddha”, but that the tradition has grown, evolved, and transformed itself into many different things across the span of centuries. Like Christianism, Buddhism was once a well-guarded secret that only a few could understand, with fundamental teachings being written in a language very few people spoke (Sanskrit, whereas Christianism hid behind Latin words). Then, the common folk found a way to open it up, and thus came Mahayana (in Christianism, we got the New Testament).
One thing that is clear to me now is that Buddhism IS A RELIGION. Fine, it is a philosophical religion, and it involves much more debating and thinking about the ontological matter of our own existence, but in the end, you pray to divinities and hope to be reincarnated in another world (be it Samsara or it in a pure land). You wear a uniform (the orange robe) that differentiates you from those who don’t believe in your thing. And you see those others as unintelligent, or incomplete human beings. That’s pretty much what religion is.
Now that I have seen how complex Buddhism is, I have actually lost some faith in it. One of my criticisms of the Bible is how complicated it makes the message of the one -supposedly- true god. He couldn’t just forgive our sins in one swipe of his divine hand, no, he had to come up with an elaborate plan that required him to prepare a specific tribe from a specific location on the planet, and into this tribe, he sent the spirit of the first creature he ever created so that he could give up this very life and somehow fix things up. Why I really don’t know.
Anyway. I really recommend this book, especially if you want to understand Buddhism better. Before you start chanting all those nembutsus, you might want to know where it all came from.
I watched a seminar by Brigit Esselmont, creator of Biddy Tarot, and I’ve had the video sitting on my desktop for the longest time, thinking “I will rewatch it and make some notes”. Well, here they are. All the information and credits go to Brigit Esselmont.
Why learn how to read the tarot
Tarot puts your intuition on speed dial
Tarot helps you make better decisions with greater clarity
Tarot helps you create the life that you want to live
Reasons why Tarot readings are confusing or inaccurate
Rushing the reading (not diving deep into the story behind the cards)
Asking the wrong questions (questions that don’t help the querent!)
Not interpreting the story in the cards (sticking to the surface-level interpretation)
How to create powerful and accurate readings
Create the space. Physically, mentally and emotionally. Like how I don’t like to read when I’m tired. Dress up for it, if you can! Banish the area, burn some incense.
Get to the heart of the question. What exactly would answer the question? What would help the person?
Choose the spread. Decide if you’re going to read 2 cards, 3 cards or a full-blown Celtic Cross.
Shuffle the deck. Put your energy into it. Bring the universal order into your hands.
Read the cards and interpret the story. First, intuitively look and interpret the cards. Write it down. If the cards were a movie, what kind of movie would it be?
Answer the question asked. Don’t forget the person is looking for answers.
Reflect, and ask for feedback. Take a photo, write down the cards you got and your interpretation.
There’s also a very good document with 10 questions you could ask before the reading. Perhaps the querent is not sure what they need to know, see if one of these might help! https://biddytarot.com/10questions
In closing
Let’s not forget to say Thank You Very Much! To Brigit Esselmont for all the quality information she’s put out there for people to learn from.
Spirit chasing 