http://www.flickr.com/photos/28424275@N06/

http://www.nevadadharma.net/renospks.html#aci

This course series was devised by Geshe Michael Roach and will be taught by trained teachers here in Reno.  And, it’s free.  Starting this Friday night and continuing for the following 20 Friday nights!  The contact information is provided at the page linked above and it’s important you rsvp so that the teachers have enough course material on hand.

Key to this practice seem to be two areas of focus: the “third eye” region, as a “site” (“…the square inch field of the square foot house [i.e. face] [where] life can be regulated”) representing the core of our being and awareness, and the movement of subtle life or spirit energy.

This meditation practice involves (a) steady focusing on the third eye region, calming agitated awareness and freeing oneself from countless distractions, while (b) feeling and visualizing the circular flow of energy in one’s body.  The circulation of energy, when cultivated to reverse it’s normal outward direction, is meant to “crystallize” an awakened spiritual “body”.  So, this practice of reversing the normal flow of energy and light entails the energy descending down the frontal line of the body (with each exhalation) and ascending up the spinal line (with each inhalation).

John Mann and Lar Short in their 1990 book The Body of Light describe the “Taoist model of the subtle body” (page 96):

The basic elements in the Taoist spiritual anatomy, as in the Hindu and Buddhist, are the energy centers and the channels that connect them.  The most important of these are located in the core, up the back and down the front of the midline of the body.  The central core channels correspond to those in the tantric Buddhist model used for transforming subtle energies into spiritual energies.  The channel in the spine corresponds to the Hindu model.  The channel along the front of the body, in combination with the one in the back, constitutes the Microcosmic Orbit, which forms an inner system for digesting and circulating energies of various types.

So, they explain, the Taoist Yoga system entails three “bodies”: physical, energy, and spirit bodies.  And, while “Hinduism tends to assume the [already in] existence of these bodies” Mann and Short report (page 100) that with Taoist (and also Buddhist) yoga practices an alchemical-like process is at work, where the energy and spirit bodies are developed only by “arduous inner work”.

The Hui Ming Ching, or Book of Consciousness and Life, was written by Liu Hua-yang in the year 1794.  The author was born in the province of the Kiangsi, and later became a monk in the monastery of the Double Lotus Flower (Shuang-lien-ssu) in the province of Anhui.  The translation is from a new edition of a thousand copies printed with The Secret of the Golden Flower in 1921 by a man with the pseudonym of Hui-chen-tzu (“he who has become conscious of truth”).

Wilhelm describes how he became acquainted with both this text and the Secret of the Golden Flower (which Carl Jung, in his foreward, asserts was very important to him in his own work).  From page 3 of the 1962 edition of The Secret of the Golden Flower (A Chinese Book of Life), translated and explained by Richard Wilhelm and with commentary by Carl G. Jung:

This book comes from an esoteric circle in China.  For a long time it was transmitted orally, and then in writing; the first printing is from the Ch-ien-lung period (eighteenth century).  Finally a thousand copies of it were reprinted in Peking in 1920, together with the Hui Ming Ching, and were distributed among a small group of people who, in the opinion of the editor, understood the questions discussed.  That is how I was able to get a copy…..

The oral tradition for these texts goes back to the 8th Century and is traced to a Taoist sect called the Religion of the Golden Elixir of Life.  This was founded by a famed Taoist adept named Lu Yen (or Lu Tung-pin).   Lu Yen identified with the much older teaching perspectives of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, the esoteric and philosophical core of Taoism.

Here (taken from pages 69 t0 79) are the verses that were published from the Book of Consciousness and Life  (only a portion of the full text):

~ Cessation of Outflowing

If thou wouldst complete the diamond body with no outflowing, Diligently heat the roots of consciousness and life.  Kindle light in the blessed country ever close at hand, And there hidden, let thy true self always dwell.

~The Six Periods of Circulation in Conformity with the Law

If one discerns the beginning of the Buddha’s path, There will be the blessed city of the West.  After the circulation in conformity with the law, there is a turn upward towards heaven, when the breath is drawn in.  When the breath flows out energy is directed towards the earth.  One time-period consists of six intervals.  In two intervals one gathers Moni (Sakyamuni).  The great Tao comes forth from the centre.  Do not seek the primordial seed outside!

~The Two Energy-Paths of Function and Control

There appears the way of the in-breathing and out-breathing of the primordial pass.  Do not forget the white path below the circulation in conformity with the law!  Always let the cave of eternal life be nourished through the fire!  Ah!  Test the immortal place of the gleaming pearl!

~The Embryo of the Tao

According to the law, but without exertion, one must diligently fill oneself with light.  Forgetting appearance, look within and help the true spiritual power!  Ten months the embryo is under fire.  After a year the washings and baths become warm.

~The Birth of the Fruit

Outside the body there is a body called the Buddha image.  The thought which is powerful, the absence of thoughts, is Bodhi (liberation).  The thousand-petaled lotus flower opens, transformed through breath-energy.  Because of the crystallization of the spirit, a hundred-fold splendour shines forth.

~Concerning the Retention of the Transformed Body

Every seperate thought takes shape and becomes visible in colour and form.  The total spiritual power unfolds its traces and transforms itself into emptiness.  Going out into being and going into non-being, one completes the miraculous Tao.  All separate shapes appear as bodies, united with a true source.

~The Face Turned to the Wall

The shapes formed by the spirit-fire are only empty colours and forms.  The light of the human nature [essence], shines back on the primordial, the true.  The imprint of the heart floats in space; untarnished, the moonlight shines.  The boat of life has reached the shore; bright shines the sunlight.

~Empty Infinity

Without beginning, without end, Without past, without future.  A halo of light surrounds the world of the law.  We forget one another, quiet and pure, altogether powerful and empty.  The emptiness is irradiated by the light of the heart and heaven.  The water of the sea is smooth and mirrors the moon in its surface.  The clouds disappear in blue space; the mountains shine clear.  Conciousness reverts to contemplation; the moon-disk rests alone.

http://atiasrama.wordpress.com/2008/12/14/the-1970s-and-its-spiritual-influences-part-one/

And, here’s the relevant section of that article:

Then, there was experimentation with a practice that clearly was goal oriented or a search for experiences.  But, what the hell, I wanted to travel to exotic lands!  So, I was exposed to “surat shabda yoga” in my late teens (in Eureka, California, of all places!) and even though I never joined the Ruhani Satsang, got Initiated by Kirpal Singh, or took those classes Bruce Avenell was offering, I had obtained the details of the practice and started in with that.

I did my own google searching and see that Bruce Avenell’s old meditation group, founded in Eureka, California at the very end of the 1960s, appears  to be going strong still!  I used to visit him in his small Eureka apartment when I interviewed him for an assignment for a journalism class at Humboldt State University.  (And, one time I loaned him a book on the old “I AM Society” associated with the Mt. Shasta metaphysical scene, a book loaned to me by an elderly neighbor.)  Here’s what I found:

http://www.eurekasociety.com

And, a yahoo group founded by his daughter:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Audinometry

http://atiasrama.wordpress.com/2008/12/14/the-1970s-and-its-spiritual-influences-part-one/

In one or both of those books that I purchased sometime in late 1973 or early 1974 was contact information for the young spiritual community developing around the young Franklin Jones.  I sent off a letter and, in rapid succession, was assigned a correspondent contact and mentor: first, Dennis Duff, then Elizabeth Brown, and finally Billy (call him William now) Tskinas.  I filled out a detailed questionare and had a complete physical.

At some point, this group moved from Los Angeles up to Lake County, where they had acquired a large spread of property (hot springs and all) on Cobb Mountain at Siegler Springs.  The group was named the Dawn Horse Communion and the sanctuary was called Persimmon.

I was still living in Eureka, California.  And, still attending Humboldt  State University (and working in the mailroom of the local newspaper, the Humboldt Time-Standard).  It seemed like every week I was mailing off answers to these questionare’s as well as sending $10/month.

In additon to the Lake County sanctuary, the Dawn Horse Communion had established a center with a bookstore upstairs from a health food restaurant on the corner of California and  Polk.  I first went there to see a premier screening of a recently filmed movie at the Lake County site called A Difficult Man.   Only a handful of people were there, most of whom I went out to lunch with first: Billy Tsiknas, Patricia Morley, Glenn Johannes, and some others whose names I don’t know or remember.

Bubba’s laughter in A Difficult Man was an apparent sign of a very happy guy.  The movie was filmed by a Hollywood crew and based on the “shocking” book called Garbage and the Goddess, where tales of wife swapping, drinking, and powerful shakti displays were shared.

By the spring of 1975 I was making frequent trips to San Francisco (from Eureka) and I learned at the Dawn Horse bookstore (on California and Polk) that it was going to be easy to visit “Persimmon”, the ashram community in Lake County (on Cobb Mountain) where Bubba Free John lived with his disciples.  So, after an amusing orientation meeting with James Steinberg, a car load of us (driven by a guy from Texas and including a guy from Chicago and another from New York City) made it up to Persimmon on a Friday night in early April 1975.  We got a little lost, but made it just before midnight.

We were greeted by Tsiknas and some of the gopis (Bubba’s wives) and were told that Bubba would soon be sitting in the Hall for “Satsang”.  He had been awaiting our arrival.

In the hall, we faced a couch at the front.  Two guards sat on each  side of it.  When the door behind us opened, everyone of us put our heads to the floor.

Bubba scanned the room, looking around at everyone.  Within seconds, a silver/whitish disc shaped light deep in my head—in the forehead region—began clicking on and off and then I began seeing a raining of drops of light descending in the room!  Whoa!

That night (and other two nights) Islept on a mattress in one of the cabins.  My roomie was the guy from New York. 

We did some service work the next day.  The guy from New York vacummed Bubba’s house.  I was part of the crew that cleaned up all the broken beer bottles between the Dining Hall and Bubba’s house (which had a white picket fence!).  I remember having to extract a piece of a beer bottle from the mouth of the ashram’s dog.

Other memories:

One night, before dinner, the guy from New York and I were sitting on the couch talking with the magazine editor, Saniel Bonder, discussing what we felt were some similiarities in meditation practice in the teachings of Krishnamurti and Bubba Free John.  Then, a woman told us to put the books away and come and eat dinner.  After dinner, Bonder came up to me with an essay Bubba had just written on Krishnamurti.  Bonder said it was written after he shared our conversation with Bubba.  He took me to his office to read it.  Since I had just seen K in San Francisco the  previous month, giving a series of talks at a large Hall on Geary Blvd, I felt that some of his criticisms hit the mark.  Then, he took me to the Bathhouse and we sat there for a while talking (with two women joining us…????)

I have memories (during the service day) of Bubba touring the grounds slowly, visiting with different people.

Also, we spent time in the Bathhouse with Bubba.  Someone put a flotation device in the pool and I held it as Bubba got on.  Then pushed him around.  Again, I saw a rain of energy.

Here I did a big no no.  Feeling faint, I left the bath house after an hour or so.  First!  Bubba Free John followed me out.  I went directly to one of the shower stalls and saw Bubba looking at me, perhaps amazed and amused.  He had that look.  Everyone else was coming out of the hot water pool also and Billy Tsiknas told everyone to hold off on showering and wait for Bubba to finish.  (Oh oh.  I was already dressed by then.)

Another Satsang occassion with  Bubba was held in the meditation or Satsang Hall.  At that time, I felt a current of energy partially rise of my spine, stopping at my chest.  I felt a melting sensation and suddenly saw the room blasted by blue/green colors!  Oh my.

Late one morning, after Bubba engaged in a raucous snowball fight outside, he joined us all inside the Dining Hall.  First, we could hear him chatting and laughing in the kitchen.  This man and I chatted about the oddity of the snow in April and I joked that perhaps President Ford’s recent visit to the nearby Geysers on Mt. Geyser had an impact on the area.  Then Bubba came in and sat by us.  The man asked him if he had anything to do with the snow.  Bubba glanced at me and then turned to answer the man: “no, perhaps President Ford’s recent visit had something to do with it.”  (Again, oh oh.)

Bubba then started talking about raging war on the Forces of the Chocolate Auric Demons and extolled the virtues of the pure white Big Hunk candy bar.  Then, an African-American woman named Michelle came in the room.  Prompting Bubba to ask if anyone knew of any “good nigger jokes”.  She came over to him and they kissed on the lips.

Then, we joined him on the porch.  (There are pictures of this in the archives that include me standing right in front of him, as he holds a new born child.)  Someone asked “Generalissimo” Bubba what he was going to do with his POWs (in his war against the chocolate covered auric forces) and he said: “kill them”.

The final day included the reading of the essay on Krishnamurti before breakfast or lunch.  While everyone cheered, I booed (just to counter the unanimous consent).  This stern looking guy had a little chat with me after that.  (I’ve always been the goofball, clearly.)

Those are just the highlights that I remember.  We returned to San Francisco.  It would be 1986 before I was to visit that sanctuary again (where I saw this guru sit before a large number of people in this big tent).

I never became a formal member after that, but I did frequently visit some of those disciples I had gotten to know in ashram households in The City.  I had settled in San Francisco, initially working in the kitchen at the White Horse Tavern/Hotel Beresford on Sutter Street.  Then, I moved to Forest Hill (on San Marcos Ave), living in a basement apartment of this mansion owned by Olive Cowell (Henry Cowell’s stepmother) and where a college chum and his wife also lived (on the second floor).  My years in San Francisco were coming to an end by the end of 1979, when I became a licensed psychiatric nurse and moved to Napa, California (where I would live and work—at Napa State Hospital—for twenty years).  Not too much in the way of spiritual practice really occurred during my years in Napa.  UNTIL my encounters with Ammachi and Shree Maa (and involvement at the old Ken Wilber Forum).  Those stories in part three.  I retired at the very end of the 199os. 

(This report deliberately has a “rough” draft look to it.  Easier to post my memories in an unvarnished way.)

to be continued…..