Spent a rather lovely and fun day last week with the above gent. (a Yogi and a Lama) He was visiting my area and billeted with a lady who hosted him. I offered to show him some city and countryside as he was basically alone.

He's been based in North America for some years and speaks good English, but was born in India and is connected to a monasteries in Nepal and South India. His Father came out of Tibet in 1959. Mo is an ancient Tibetan divination practice, which he follows up with  Chod and other healing practices  designed to work on issues arising in the readings  - although with limitations as to what can be fixed depending on your karmic situation.

He's quite exotic - long hair, top knot, beard, and exotic dress and looks so we got some strange if friendly looks and comments from the good burghers of Dublin and region.

He's  Kagyu (one major Tibetan lineage or school), and his approach is classical Tibetan Buddhist - he's so focused on practical compassion.

He conducted a group Chod practice for those he had done Mo divinations for. It was new to me, and I was there almost by accident. Chod involves enlisting the assistance of various entities (at the highest level actually aspects of our own psyche) by recognising their suffering and showing compassion towards them. (a form of spiritual healing if you like - not unlike 'loving' your illness as is often taught by healers for example) It's quite graphic - it's often done in graveyards, and involves as a means of reminding us of our mortality the use of a human skull cup and a thigh bone trumpet. (which has quite a tone - much like a hunting horn)

Some perspectives I'd like to communicate:

1. He was so incredibly easy to communicate with - what an advertisment (as is usally the case) for the tradition and it's ability to produce lovely people. Great sense of humour and very light. It's only when it's absent that you realise it, but it's so refreshing to speak to somebody who is not running a selfish agenda. With whom conversation is not a competitive engagement. It flows so easily. I found myself just easing into this really beautiful state of relaxation - like one long out breath. Ahhaaaaaaaaa....... And yet so focused and on the ball but with none of the heaviness we so often bring to stuff.

2. These practices (which are very traditional and involved quite large amounts of Tibetan) are so very beautiful. While ritual is not all you can really feel the momentum of history (and maybe centuries of belief) behind them. Quite remarkable too how he went from chatty smiling chap to exuding presence.

3. These guys are so committed to helping others. This man came on spec. and worked twelve hour days for three weeks. He arrived with only an invite and a return ticket and a suitcase full of paraphenalia. (which was why I felt moved to help) We had a really fun conversation on his problems in getting through customs with all sorts of containers full of exotic substances - he had a great laugh at the idea of being mistaken for a dope dealer.

4. The Chod seemed to really get some energies moving - to the point of almost making one a little nervous. The moment he started to speak in the ceremony there was this distinct tightening of the atmosphere in the room, plus lots of air movement, plus a hair on the back of the neck sort of feeling. Quite amazingly too and despite having got a little bored towards the end (two hours of Tibetan chanting while lovely wears a little thin) there was a definite lightening of the atmosphere when he started to send the entities back 'home' so to speak. I've no idea why, but I found myself quite strongly affected at this point emotionally - almost in tears.

Not sure why I'm posting all this - maybe it's because he made a very positive impression on me which goes very much against the tendency many we know would have to dismiss the like of it as mumbo jumbo.

Anybody else had any experience of this sot of thing???

Sounds like an excellent time.

My own background is Kagyu, although I've never been sure what difference it makes.

Maybe none?

d

Thanks for the account, sounds great
I agree it is lovely to meet someone who is not at all arrogant and trying to "compete"in conversation etc - I had that experience last weekend when I interviewed a renowned  newspaper cartoonist from a famous daily paper. Neither me nor the paper I work for are especially well-known, but he gave me lots of time and was gentle and unassuming and very full and helpful in his answers. When I then, cheekily, asked if there was any chance he could do a cartoon for our paper, and how much his fees might be, he got out felt tip pens and did a lovely one there and then, free of charge. It is nice to meet someone who is so un-puffed up by their sucess and good fortune.

As for spiritual masters, as several times before, I would only say, I had a great feeling on being close to the Dalai lama and hearing him speak in an intimate setting at a peace garden opening once. To me also, I think the sign of a spiritually advanced person would be they would make you feel good, not seem forbidding and lofty

PS I hope you resisted the temptation to declare "alas poor Yorick" when you were presented with the skull cup  

Hi Vajra I enjoyed your story of him and I think that anyone who comes free of monetary charges, well, that speaks for itself that he's not after the fortune, and if you can let your guard down around another person and just be yourself, well, that is PUL, that is comforting and lets you be yourself.

I was wishing I could have been there myself. did you see the love in his eyes? this is where I most often look, is the eyes to pick up vibes.
they will be I think crinkly with laugh lines and very soft looking glow, and look directly at you and never shift their gaze abruptly. good for you, this is a rare event to meet a genuinely loving master.
Master to mean, master of his emotions and reactions and thoughts and in service to life.

thanks again for sharing this. give me a call next time he comes in, ok? 

He very much has the 'softness with a twinkle' feel you guys are talking about. I seem to perceive these more realised and more heart centred people as emitting a sort of glow too - a certain kind of aura. Although with the sort of flexible and fluid firmness and certainty of purpose too - it's quite clear that 'tough love' is an important dimension of compassion.

Astrology (or divination) quite logically fits right in there in my mind Ah So. Inasmuch as the cosmos (which includes ourselves) may in some ways function like a sort of a machine - we seem to build conditioned personalities which to varying degrees emphasise behaviours based on a relatively few archetypes, and live in a reality that to quite a large degree rolls out according to cause and consequence. Which if it's an emanation of the omniscient absolute outcomes must anyway in some overall sense be known in advance. The cocoon or our tendency to selective perception and to conditioned action) might too result in an unhealthy sort of stasis where only one view would repeatedly play out.

Add to this the fact that there do seem to be cyclical influences on existence, and it's not off the wall to think that maybe planetary and other movements of bodies within the universe could well be a part of some great trigger of cyclical variability in existence - a sort of cosmic turbulence generator to create the diversity of life conditions we need if we are to gain a wide enough variety of life experience to learn what we need. Or simply something which happens to be there not particularly for us (it's a human conceit to think this) but which still has this sort of effect.

Quantum effects seem to allow for some freedom of action at the detail level (multiple futures) within a predestined framework without disturbing top level outcomes, but most of us are so driven by our conditioning that our behaviours and actions and consequently our futures are probably very highly predictable.

All a system like astrology, divination or the like need do is maybe finger some of the mechanisms that correlate with the various influences that come to bear on existence and suddenly you have a (maybe not very precise) means of indication of what's going on, and what's coming down the tracks.

Or maybe not, that's just my flying a kite...