7 Roads to Meditation

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7 Roads to Meditation

• Bill Bodri
• www.meditationexpert.com
• 718-539-2811
• Go to www.MeditationExpert.com for free articles
  and downloads

2
Why Meditate?

• Reasons
• Health and Longevity
• Spiritual Progress
• Calm Your Mind - Defuse Stress - Learn to Relax
• Cultivate Virtue and Purity
• Facilitates Changing Your Behavior
• How
• Cross your legs in a quiet place (tune the body)
• Cover your knees with towel and avoid drafts
• Relaxed but straight, head up
• When
• The best time is whenever you can (like exercise,
  there is no one best exercise the one you
  bother to do is how you start, so go from there)
• 20, 40, 60 minutes once or twice a day
• Quiet time (morning/night), before eating or more
  than 1½ hours later

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The Purpose of Meditation - Every Religion says
the Same

• Buddhism realize emptiness, attain enlightenment
• Judaism ayin (nothingness) - the annihilation of
  thought
• Christianity become selfless, give up the ego
  (give up your personal thoughts, i.e. emptiness,
  to become one with the Father)
• Islam to see Gods face (hey, thats your
  original nature)
• Confucianism to rest in the highest virtue
• Zen to realize ones original nature
• Yoga sense withdrawal and then pacification of
  thought, samadhi
• Taoism to see the Tao, realize the Tao,
  attain the Tao
• Final goal emptiness, enlightenment,
  self-realization, Buddhahood

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The Basic Method

• Sit, cross your legs, relax your body, forget
  your body, watch your thoughts in a detached
  mode, they die down gt mental quiet gt find the
  watcher/ultimate source of the quiet
• Adding methods - Tibetan ceremonies
• Subtraction methods - letting go, neti neti
• One-pointed Concentration - visualizations
• Mantra - Tire/busy the mind
• Breathing - breathing and thoughts are linked
• Pacification methods - relaxing, tantra
• Etc. (they all rely on the principles of
  cessation and contemplation, or samadhi and
  prajna wisdom, along with mindfulness of let it
  go!)

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Shakyamuni Buddha said
Do not believe something solely on the strength
of traditions, even if those customs or
traditions have been held in honor and in many
places for many generations. Don't believe
anything simply because many people say it is so
either. Furthermore, do not believe something
just because it was maintained by ancient sagas.
Do not believe that which you have imagined
yourself either, thinking a god has inspired you.
Believe nothing which depends only on the
authority of your teachers or of priests.
Rather, test everything and after investigation,
believe that which you yourself have tested and
found reasonable and true, and which is good for
you and others. Prove things through your
personal experience.
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Topics

• The 5 Stages of the Spiritual Path
• Meditation 1 Seeing the light
• Tao School Basics jing-chi-shen transformations
  
• Meditation 2 Skeleton meditation
• The Time Sequences of the Spiritual Path and
  Physical Transformations
• Cultivation Method 3 9-bottled wind
• Esoteric school and Wu Liu methods all based on
  breathing
• Meditation 4 -- Mantra
• Meditation 5 Meditations for Cancer and High
  Blood Pressure
• Mozart effect, Healing, Chi and Consciousness are
  linked ...
• Meditation 6 Cessation-contemplation practice
  in Confucianism, Vipassana, Now!, Sandhinirmocana
  jing
• Various stages of samadhi
• Meditation 7 -- Dream Yoga
• Meditation 8 Sexual cultivation
• Big cheats positive thinking, visualization,
  naturalistic being in the moment

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The 5 Stages of the Spiritual Path

• (1) The Stage of Wisdom and Merit Accumulation
  (Study and Virtue)
• (2) The Stage of Preparatory Practice,
  Progressive Practice, Evolutionary Yoga,
  Intensified Preparatory Practices, Earnest
  Endeavor, Prayoga, ...
• Warming
• Peak
• Forbearance
• Highest Worldly Dharma
• Yogas 4 stages Introduction - transition -
  attainment - perfection
• (3) The Stage of Seeing the Tao, Direct Vision,
  Clear Light, 10,000 miles of Empty Sky,
  Selflessness, Realizing Your Original Nature,
  Illuminate Your Bright Virtue, See Gods face,
  See the Tao ...
• (4) The Stage of True Cultivation Practice
  (realize the emptiness of the self, now realize
  the emptiness of phenomena, dissolve away or
  purify habitual energy streams)
• (5) The Stage of Complete Enlightenment, No More
  Learning, Buddhahood

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Meditation - Seeing the Light

• Tibetan monks usually must wait 20 years before
  being introduced to this practice
• Mahakasyapa on Chicken Foot Mountain practices
  it
• Seeing the Light - Were not talking about a
  physical light you see with your eyes. Dont try
  to visualize anything, you just realize the light
  thats everywhere which is the light of awareness
  (the mind)
• Mother light versus child light -- awareness
  clear light
• Close your eyes and let your mind and body merge
  with whatever light there is (I am the light,
  the light is me, God is light). Merge and then
  forget your body and self.
• Forget the knower, knowing, and object - Merge
  with the light you realize -- light has no
  boundaries (is bodyless) and extends everywhere

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Vairocana Tathagata
Ahh Bee Lah Hung! Cht! Practice from visualizing
you are a bright sun, next become invisible
sunlight thats everywhere, and then clear
bodyless awareness
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Tao School Basics
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Two Sets of Basic Principles

• When your jing becomes full you wont think of
  sex
• When your chi becomes full you wont think of
  eating
• When your shen is full you wont feel like
  sleeping

• If you dont accumulate your jing, you will never
  experience the state of physical bliss
• If you dont accumulate your chi, you will never
  experience the stage of internal light
• If you dont accumulate your shen, you will never
  experience the state of no-thought

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White Skeleton Meditation

• Start with your left big toe
• Give away your flesh joyfully to the ghosts and
  spirits
• Visualize that you are just a shiny, dazzling
  white (silver) skeleton
• Visualize that your bones becoming dust and then
  emptiness -- then forget your body abandon all
  ideas of a having body or form (mentally let go
  of everything)
• Sexual desire grows strong with this practice
  youll become extremely flexible ... Youll
  become able to see other peoples bones and
  inside their body superpowers will arise ...
  Youll be able to initially enter samadhi
• Sickness focus - Manjushri 7th-8th lower
  vertebrae method
• Chiropractors and bodyworkers should use this

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The Time Sequences of the Spiritual Path
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Advanced Stages of Physical Transformations -
Time Requirements

• After 1 year - chi
• After 2 years - blood
• After 3 years - mai (energy meridians, vessels)
• After 4 years - flesh
• After 5 years - bone marrow (white)
• After 6 years - sinews and tendons
• After 7 years - bones
• After 8 years - hair (leave behind)
• After 9 years - entire body form/shape

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9-Bottled Wind Practice

• 3 sets of 3 repetitions (left, right, center)
• Draw in as much air as possible,
• as slowly as possible,
• into your lungs as deep as possible,
• hold for as long as possible using as few muscles
  as possible
• exhale as quickly as possible.

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Cultivating the 5 Elements

• Earth Bones, Teeth, Nails, Muscles
• Water Blood, Hormones, Lymph
• Wind/Air/Wood Breath
• Fire Bodily Warmth, Kundalini
• Space/Metal Interstitial Places, Joints
• The Most Common Sequence of the Path
• Wind (Water) -gt Fire -gt Earth -gt Space
• Air Oil (hormones/mai) Kundalini
  Skeleton Entire Body
• Easiest, Chi/Consciousness

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The 5 Elements
FIRE Kundalini (bodily warmth)
EARTH Bones, teeth, nails, sinews, muscles
WIND Breath, chi (prana, life energy)
WATER Blood, water, hormones, jing, lymph, ...
SPACE Interstitial spaces, joint gaps, hollow
spaces
The 3 Doshas VATAAir Space, PITTAFire
Water, KAPHAWater Earth
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Cultivating the 5 Elements

• Earth Imagine you are atoms
• Water Link with water, become water
• Wind/Air/Wood Breathing practices - chi
• Fire Imagine you are fire
• Space/Metal Become like space (bodyless)
• The Most Common Sequence of the Path
• Wind (Water) -gt Fire -gt Earth -gt Space
• Air Oil (hormones/mai) Kundalini
  Skeleton Entire Body
• Easiest, Chi/Consciousness

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Detoxifying Your Body for the Spiritual Path

• Nattokinase - open up arteries and dissolve
  blood clots
• GSH250 (Douglas labs) or Recancostat (Tyler Labs)
  - detoxify toxic chemicals (liver) having
  glutathione, NAC, alpha lipoic acid
• Natures Pure Body (Pure Body Institute) - whole
  body detoxification
• Liver Flush and Kidney Flush (Richard Schulze
  American Botanical Pharmacy)
• Glutamine powder
• Chiropractic adjustments
• Supernutrition Brand Multivitamin
• Breathing practices - 9 Bottled wind

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Various Mantra You Can Use for Cultivation

• Amitofo Avalokitesvara
• Namo Amitofo Ohm Man Bei Me Hon!
• Zhunti Vairocana
• Namo Sadoh Nah Ohm Ah Bee Lah Hung
  Chit
• Samyak Sampoh Doh
• Jeezuh Nah, Dazah Toh
• Ohm, Zurleee, Julee, Zhunti, Soha
• Lotus, Mahagala, ...

Reciting the rosary is exactly the same as mantra
(japa) repetition practice
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Proven Effects of Meditation

• Lowers blood pressure
• Increases serum DHEA (master hormone)
• Reduces serum cortisol (stress)
• Reduces pulse rate
• Increases serum total protein
• Quiets the mind - reduces stress
• Chinese Medicine the 100 diseases start with
  wind (chi)

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Ainslie Meares and Cancer

• Treated 73 patients with advanced cancer who
  attended at least 20 sessions of intensive
  meditation
• Found that meditation reduces anxiety, depression
  and pain
• Tumor growth inhibited in 10 of cases
• Tumor regression in 10 of cases - 3 attributes
• their meditation was profound and prolonged
• little or no conscious activity during meditation
• they carried the meditation into their daily
  lives
• Survival longer than expected
• Quality of life improved in 50 of cases
• Meditation facilitated death with dignity in 90
  of cases
• Meares encouraged effortless stilling of the
  mind and discouraged mantra, active
  visualization, breathing methods

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Meditations for Healing

• CANCER
• Visualize giving away your dirty flesh/meat to
  all beings at and then you become a skeleton
  which then transforms into emptiness
• Visualize your body burns away or is burned by
  light and you become light only (high wisdom
  people go directly to emptiness/light)
• Vairocana Sun light method just get to
  emptiness or light (not in the shape of the body)
• Exhale visualizing the dirty things/illness
  leaving your body
• Meares in Australia (10) - emptiness method best
• The Power of Emptiness can destroy all the bad
  things and set up the new things Emptiness
  method is Great vehicle and visualization/other
  methods small vehicle
• Diet, Supplements, Detox

• HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE
• Use the skeleton method, visualize you become a
  skeleton, then you imagine taking your skull,
  turning it upside down and putting it on your
  waist
• Visualize skeleton method but focus on your big
  toes
• Visualize a small fire flame or small sun in the
  center of the bottom of your feet
• In this case, visualize the emptiness going down
  (most people visualize emptiness proceeding
  upwards)
• Breathing begins after you are born, so
  breathing methods concentrate on post natal
  phenomena skeleton method -gt no breathing
  anymore One not better than another, just use
  all the methods combined ordinary people differ
  from advanced practitioners
• Supplements, destress, meditation, diet

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Meditations for Healing

• PAIN
• Arthritis - water and wind elements fasting,
  medicines and breathing (takes time)
• Chant a mantra or be mindful of Buddha to such a
  degree of one-pointedness that you forget about
  the existence of your body (higher method), but
  you also need to do fasting
• HEADACHE
• You need to know the source of the problem
  because there are many causes
• General method - visualize your head is not
  there... non-existent (ex. Generals in war forget
  the pain) for this to work you need great mind
  power (highest method the thought is not there)
• GRIEF and WORRY
• Empty your thoughts to get mental relief by
  entering a state of no-thought, or you try to
  breathe out or do exercise or sing to put your
  attention elsewhere
• Methods to shift attention are not the ultimate
  solution (doctors will always have business)
• STRESS
• Zen - just know it is there, thats the highest
  method

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The Mozart Effect

• 1996 Study College Entrance Exam - if students
  sing or play an instrument they score 51 points
  higher on Verbal and 39 points higher in Math
• Univ. of CA study - listen to Mozart for 10
  minutes before have higher SAT score
• Shell, IBM, Dupont, universities use music to cut
  learning time in half
• Univ. of WA study - listening to light classical
  music for 90 minutes, students catch 21 more
  copywriting errors
• Baltimore hospital study - heart patients get as
  much benefit from 30 minutes of classical music
  and 10 mg of Valium
• CA State University study - migraine sufferers
  were trained to use imagery, music and relaxation
  techniques to reduce the frequency, intensity and
  duration of their headaches

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Chi and Consciousness are Linked

• Chi and consciousness are linked
• Zen Master Nan Huai-Chin
• Consciousnesses are said to ride on winds
  various types of chi, or prana in the same
  manner that a horseman rides his mount by
  travelling on the winds, consciousnesses are able
  to leave their bases in the sense-powers (located
  in the eye, ear, and so forth) to contact their
  objects. Because minds are inoperative without
  winds to provide a medium for their movement, and
  because winds lack specific direction without
  minds, minds are likened to cripples with sights
  and winds to blind men with legs the lame climb
  on the backs of the blind and together they can
  move about. Because the winds are the medium for
  the operation of minds, fluctuation in the winds
  necessarily affects consciousness, and thus it is
  crucial for tantric yogis who wish to yoke
  consciousness to gain control over the movement
  of winds. Tantric yogics engage in a variety of
  practices to bring about a concentration of the
  winds, for concentration of the winds leads to
  concentration of consciousness.
• Highest Yoga Tantra, Daniel Cozort

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Chi and Consciousness are Linked

• Mind and prana are mixed like milk and water.
  Both of them are equal in their activities.
  Where there is pranic movement or activity there
  is mind (consciousness). Where there is
  consciousness there is prana.
• When prana moves, chitta (the mental force)
  moves. When prana is without movement, chitta is
  without movement. By this (steadiness of prana)
  the yogis attains steadiness and should thus
  restrain the vayu (air).
• Hatha Yoga Pradipika Light on Hatha Yoga, Swami
  Muktibodhananda Saraswati
• The mindthe kingsurrounded by a retinue of
  mindfulness, meditative stabilization, and so
  forth is considered as being mounted on the horse
  of vitality (prana). When the horse of vitality
  wind is held, the mindthe kingas well as the
  retinue will definitely be held. For another
  text says, Vitality wind is to be stopped.
  When it is stopped, ones mind as well as
  mindfulness, intellect, mental engagement, and so
  forth will definitely be held.
• The Yoga of Tibet, Tsong-Ka-Pa, trans. Jeffrey
  Hopkins
• He who has power over his mind can also control
  prana. For the two causes that activate the
  mind are prana respiration and the sources of
  karma vasanas, latent tendencies.
• The Yoga of Light, Hans-Ulich Rieker

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Cessation-Contemplation Practice

• Shamatha-vipashyana, Chih-guan, Confucian
  cultivation, Vipassana, Tiendai, Greater and
  Lesser Contemplation, Sandhinirmocana Sutra,
  Christian contemplation, Benjamin Franklin, Liao
  Fan, self-awareness, Kabbalah, Gurdjieff
  self-remembering
• Step 1 Sit, relax your body and respiration,
  tune your physical nature, physiological
  adjustments. Start to watch your thoughts as if
  you were a 3rd person observer.
• Step 2 You reach a stage where you can start to
  clearly see each thought that appears in the
  mind, and can distinguish the beginning and
  ending of thoughts. You start to notice a gap of
  clear immediate presence of mind.

Benjamin Franklin
Confucius
Socrates
Chih-i
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• Step 3 You realize that thoughts dont stay --
  observing birth and death -- and that the never
  ending stream of arising is the realm of birth
  and death. If you remain attached to this realm
  you can never achieve liberation. Observe this
  stream and you will gradually learn how to detach
  from it. In contemplating the mean between
  stillness and activity, you will arrive at the
  source. Through inner watching your stream of
  consciousness becomes interrupted. Your clarity
  increases and peace and calm increase. This is
  CONTEMPLATION.
• Step 4 Youll start to notice a momentary gap of
  silence between thoughts - the practice of silent
  watching will interrupt the stream of mentation
  like a fragrant elephant. This mental silence
  will open up into a clear, lucid, open awareness.
  This is CESSATION.
• Step 5 Carry over this state of watching into
  all your activities. Thoughts will die down,
  radiant awareness will expand, and youll
  naturally enter into samadhi. KEEP SHINING
  AWARENESS ON CESSATION TO ARRIVE AT
  DHYANA-SAMADHI.
• NOW! If your vital energy doesnt move, Zen
  practice is dead tree Zen - you must know the
  joyful side of existence

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The Three Realms and Samadhi
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Dream Yoga

• People in ancient times used the dream state to
  cure themselves
• There are 5 Types of dreams in cultivation (1)
  sickness, (2) see the future, (3) past life, (4)
  deep thinking related, (5) interaction with
  spiritual beings
• Du-yin shadow side of clear consciousness can
  reach outside the bounds of space and time --
  small psychic abilities -- dont rely on it for
  BIG things
• Buddha said people who are enlightened dont
  dream and Chuang Tzu mentioned two types of such
  people the dullard and sage
• Various cultivation methods focus on dream
  existence or dream emptiness
• Lucid dreaming - bring your chi to your throat
  (or into your head - flying in dreams is when
  your chi is rising - Yellow Emperors Classic of
  Internal Medicine)
• Bring clear awareness into your dream --
  recognize that things do not exist in the way
  they appear to be gt detachment gt emptiness
• Recognize the dreamlike nature of reality -- all
  phenomena are a dream or illusion -- dream state
  and awakeness are indistinguishable gt relax the
  mind
• The Diamond Sutra is talking about how the world
  is like a dream

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Sexual Cultivation

• Not a public teaching -- Shakayamuni never taught
  it -- Nagarjuna and Tsong Khapa never taught it
  -- Esoteric school outlawed in China
• Tao school left door practices and Tibetan
  Tantra are the only 2 schools Tibet had 3 roads,
  Tao school making the sword
• The objective is to reach the 1st dhyana
  (samadhi) -- a stage of Co-emergent emptiness and
  bliss
• Qualifications You need merit (king/samadhi or
  queen/high born) and cultivation attainment
  (breathing methods and skeleton method and
  cessation-contemplation and some dhyana) ...
  Story of the 6th Dalai Lama

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• You dont try to swap or steal energy from your
  partner or circulate it -- all those books and
  teachers are wrong -- if you want sex then have
  sex but dont cheat yourself/others and try to
  spiritualize lust - avoid drafts and cold drinks
• Principles Brahmacharya, celibacy, chastity no
  ejaculation joyful play without desire
  (emptiness) not sexual yoga (good for healing)
  or trying to spiritualize lust reach a state
  where the mind is empty, the body is relaxed so
  you can forget the body, you need chi
  communication
• Mens barrier is sexual desire, womens barrier
  is emotions
• Sky Dancer - Yeshe Tsogyel, women kill the
  dragon see How to Measure and Deepen Your
  Spiritual Realization at www.meditationexpert.com
• Authors Jolan Chang, Doug Wile

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Taoism says
Slow foreplay is important every time a man
lies with a woman so that the two spirits will be
in harmony. Only after the spirits are perfectly
moved for a long time should the couple unite.
The man should enter the woman when the penis is
soft and pull it back when it becomes firm and
strong. He should penetrate only without
ejaculating. He who can have intercourse many
times in a single day without letting his essence
leak will increase his lifespan and heal himself
of all disease.
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Matching the Various Stages of the Spiritual
Experience among Cultivation Traditions
5 STAGES TAOISM SKANDHAS Consciousness
DHYANA TANTRA
YOGA
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Big Cheats

• Visualizations, Affirmations, Positive thinking,
  Writing messages given to heaven, Mantra for
  things
• My teacher If I cannot get them, why cheat
  people?
• This is all focusing on Wandering Thoughts
• Success stories are the 1 coincidentals
  (consistent with karma/astrological periods)
• To be famous today, write a book difficult to
  understand (wow youre intelligent) or really
  strange, irregular, imaginary, mystical
• Time Patience Method Disciplined Practice
  Result (Gong-fu) can change your fortune

Formula
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