When I started meditating about twenty six years ago, I had no idea it would turn out to be so pleasurable. But if you practice sufficiently, you will encounter masses of bliss. Shedloads! Bliss in mentioned a great deal in The Bliss of Inner Fire which is really transcripts of talks given by Lama Thebten Yeshe, the monk in the photograph, to his students. This book's publication has been controversial since doing these practices without guidance from a qualified teacher is probably dangerous. After reading that book, I wanted to take refuge and get empowerment to practice, and I use the methods mentioned in that book although I don't think my root guru, Lama Yeshe Losal likes me doing them. But I'm not sure. I've never had proper instructions for doing anything. I've been told to practice Dorje Sempa, which involves 100,000 prostrations, 100 recitations of the the 100 syllable mantra, etc., but I don't practice this properly, and use the Medicine Buddha instead of Dorje Sempa.
Also, Lama Yeshe warned me in the summer of 2010 that if I kept using the channels and drops visualisations, I assume with the vase breathing, that I would "unleash forces" I "wouldn't be able to control", that my mind would go into a bad place and I'd have to stop meditating. But after a few months my old ways began to re-assert themselves. So I certainly wouldn't advise anyone to practice like me!
I retired from my job share starting from the start of June, and now I don't have any kind of job at all. I'm going to concentrate on practicing my meditations as much as I can in future, after I get the ten books I've written uploaded onto Kindle. Some of these books are quite autobiographical and the ones which have much Buddhist content are:
In The Land of the Demon Masters, which is really based on Tibetan history and mysticism.
The Buddha and the Big Bad Wolf which is about a Buddhist "pilgrimage" to Nepal and India, but has accounts of mystical experiences, and says quite a lot about The Four Noble Truths, Dependant Origination, The Skandas and suchlike.
TheBlissBook, which is about practicing meditation and The Six Yogas of Naropa as well as a story about working in an Edinburgh comprehensive school as a librarian.
The Real McCoy, which is my favourite book, is also very heavily influenced by Buddhism. The main protagonist goes and lives in cave for six years like the Buddha.
If anyone is interested in other post about vase breathing in blogs that I've kept in the past, they can find them here, and here, and here. Well, if you want to get out of your face on air, you can find out there! But remember that kundalini arousals that go wrong can make you mad and sick!!
