Shinay meditation (or focused attention meditation) is a very good practice for sitting with painful emotions until they subside.
I have CPTSD and have used shinay meditation to great effect when I am dealing with flashbacks.
Samaya pollution happens when you spend time around people who break their tantric vows. You can correct this with lama atisha's samaya stupa that protects from samaya pollution. Having this in your home, or wearing it will protect you from samaya pollution.
https://shop.fpmt.org/Lama-Atisha-Protection-Stupa-PDF_p_1432.html
Honestly he is a dorje shugden lama that has alot of really dubious teachings out there. Dont get sucked in. He has abuse allegations against him too.
If practicing koans does not work for you, you may need to try a different lineage of dharma. I would talk to your master about it and tell him or her that you are unable to pass the koan and cannot work with it anymore.
If someone told you the answer then it would be worthless to you. Thats like trying to lose weight by watching someone else run a mile.
Why on earth would you want someone to answer your koan for you? Practice and figure it out yourself.
You are going to run into alot of pain if you look to dharma teachers to help you heal from child abuse. The dharma is not set up to deal with the sophisticated problems that are cause by child abuse. It is more of a hammer for your mental health. It can buddhist meditation hammer you into a person who can tolerate distress without coming apart, and can manage their emotional distress on their own (for the most part) and to help you be a bit less reactive, and to clean up your act - help you to stop behaving in compulsive and immoral ways.
Psychotherapy is a place you can bring your fucked up mess and a place that can help you work on the fine issues that you are facing, with a lazer focus.
That being said, dharma teachers do not want to hear about the stories or your past. You will not find validation for your pain or struggle, instead, a dharma teacher will likely point out that you arent the only one who suffers (and this is just not helpful to help you work out your problems like codependency or ptsd) and then dismiss your problems as not very serious or tell you that you should reapect your parents and not complain.
The buddha taught 4 reliances;
Rely on the Dharma, not on the teacher.
Rely on the meaning, not the letter.
Rely on the definitive meaning, not on the provisional one
Rely on wisdom, not on your ordinary mind
This is highly important. All teachers have their bullshit and faults, they are human.
Some are worse than others.
Ultimately we are responsible for our own liberation. Alot is made of the student teacher relationship and how intimate the relationship can be, but typically you will see the teacher very rarely. Their real role is to give you some meditation instructions. These are usually brief and quick. The teacher typically wont listen to your stories about your problems, typically, or help you work through emotional difficulties by supporting you. Teachers are in high demand and highly educated, so their time is valuable.
1) dont buy the line about not reading dharma books. That keeps you dependent on the person teaching you. You are responsible for your liberation, not them. Reading dharma books allows you to rely on the dharma, not the teacher.
Teachers fail and have all kinds of bullshit, bad motives etc. The dharma will never hurt you or steer you wrong.
2)dharma is not written legalistically or meant to be followed slavishly. Follow their spirit and allow for compassionate exceptions where appropriate.
Shambhala has a big following in halifax, but they are a tricky organization with abuse allegations.
Its a cause for compassion. By deliberately inflicting graphic and painful stories on yourself, you are making yourself miserable. You can pray for peace.
But what are you doing to liberate yourself from samsara for their sake?
Sorry to say, but war, fighting, and atrocity will continue whether you watch it on instagram or not.
I know that kusum lingpa would probably say that if you really cared so much about it, you should go fight and try to protect the innocent. When you say no to this, then we would really see how much attachment you had to your own safety and body, and how little you really care about the poor people dying in this war.
One time, after 9/11 kusum lingpa gave a teaching outside a peace protest and he launched into a lecture about how george w bush was a great bodhisattva and how you cannot be a coward and allow terrorists to kill your people and accrue heavy black karmas without stopping them. He was so pro war that people got up and left in disgust. But kusum lingpa would really put people to the test. Do you really care about these poor people dying in the war? If you care so much, why haven't you joined their side and picked up arms? Are you too attached to your safety, health, and comfort? Or Is your distress performative, helping you feel like a "good person" and attention seeking by waving a sign in the street?
Only you can answer that question.
Another point is that life is impermanent and karma is real. If these people's fate is to be the victims of destruction in a cruel war, somehow, that is their karma. Life is also impermanent. Suffering is a condition of being alive. No amount of your tears on the behalf of other people will make their suffering go away. You can't rescue people from their own karma.
Buddhism does not hwlp you build self-esteem and self worth. We do not believe in a self in buddhism and buddhist meditation, if done properly and under the guidance of a proper master, will erode your grasping at a "self" and begin to destroy your sense of "me" "I" and "mine".
The dharma is not psychotherapy and buddhist teachers are not equipped to help you with mental illness that comes from child abuse.
Do not spiritually bypass the real shit you need to work on in therapy.
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche said you need to work on your real shit. You cannot avoid it.
Buddhism is not a cure for child abuse. You need to go to r/cptsd and find a cptsd therapist for that.
Source? I am a child abuse survivor and made this same mistake.
I dont often agree with you mayayana, but this is an excellent post. Our egos scream for validation and confirmation. We can give that to "ourselves" whatever a "self" is. There are many ways to measure your own progress, the 9 stages of shinay, the 10 bumhis, 4 nyams, 4 stillnesses etc.
The meadows
There are a number of bpd inpatient places that can help too.
You can also try to get into a day program.
Tell him he's punk because he can't even eat medium salsa.
Challenge him to arm wrestling.
The buddha's teaching is that time is also a relative illusion.
Impermanence is a more provisional teaching. Ultimate teachings like Emptiness, dependent origination, and dharmakaya (look it up) lead to the implication of impermanence in relative reality.
Medicine buddha, chenrezig, and tara, shinay and vipassina
No i am talking about niguma. Kalu Rinpoche yangsid teaches the vajra drop as part of the trulkor of the six yogas of niguma.
Na he is talking about a tummo thibg from the six yogas of niguma. Its the right place.
To me getting it done was fast was worth it. It totally overturned my life and almost ruined it. I am a lawyet and may be facing a legal malpractice case because of a blown deadline due to being laid up from healing, but it was totally worth it.
I did exposure therapy and despite gaining 50 pounds and maybe wrecking my career, I think it was totally worth it. I healed almost all of my CPTSD in 1.5 years with prolonged exposure therapy.
How much do you need to pay?
Do you think that anyone could be enthroned if they bribed tha right person?
Bill is a gentleman.
Bill immediately moves to tha back so that Luanne doesn't walk at the back of the group in an empty street. I mean was this detail intentional or am I reading to much b/w the lines?
KingOfTheHill