Master Fwap and I had spent most of the late morning and afternoon, climbing up a steep, rock-strewn mountain pass.
The terrain was difficult, but spectacular.
We stopped to rest at the top of the pass.
I estimated that we were at about 18 thousand feet. I could barely breathe.
Looking up, I noticed that Master Fwap had assumed a cross-legged position, sitting up very straight, and had closed his eyes. His breathing was calm and regular.
His face was serene. An aura of sparkling gold light surrounded his head and shoulders.
Smokey-gray storm clouds had drifted in from the northwest.
Master Fwap had opened his eyes, saying, “At this time of year, snow showers can come up quite unexpectedly.
“I shouldn’t worry though, I know where there is a cave just on the other side of this pass.”
We both started walking back down the trail. The scenery that greeted my eyes, as we traversed the mountain, was breath-taking.
We descended for about an hour-and-a-half, walking carefully on the slippery snow-covered ground. Soon we made an abrupt turn off of the trail, down a smaller path.
It wound around the mountain toward the south, and in a matter of minutes, we came to the mouth of a large cave.
The opening was about 15 feet high. Beyond the mouth of the cave, there was only blackness.
Master Fwap gestured for me to follow.
Sitting down, I noticed that we were resting on solid rock. The snow hadn’t drifted very far into the cave.
Sitting in silence, I felt a familiar feeling. Usually, after a long day of snowboarding, I look up at the mountains that I have been snowboarding, and I experience an exquisite sense of peace and well-being.
That was exactly how I felt, while sitting next to Master Fwap in the Himalayan cave that afternoon.
“There are many caves like this one in the Himalayas,” Master Fwap began. “These are the hermitages of the great Buddhist masters of our order.
“Members of the Rae Chorze-Fwaz have been meditating in caves like these for thousands of years.
“These caves are places of power. They are located along interdimensional power lines and energy vortexes.
“Because of the dimensions they intersect with, it is very easy to meditate here and to understand concepts that might otherwise be difficult to grasp.
“Many of the universities in your country are similarly placed,” he said, in a matter of fact way.
“They are built on locations that intersect with dimensions of great clarity. In life, location is everything. We know a little bit more about this in the Far East, than you do in the West.
“A great deal of what you call ‘success’ in a person’s life comes from the ability to choose the right location to do whatever it is the person wants to do in life.
“Throughout the Earth, there are lines of power. There are many different types of these astral lines, and they carry different types of energy along them.
“Think of the Earth as being superimposed on a grid of horizontal lines.
“Dimensional space and locations are superimposed over horizontal grids of light and energy.
“These grids are points of egress, points that open into other dimensional realities, in which there is much more prana available.
“For instance, did you know that there are specific energy lines running through the Earth, that open up to artistic and musical dimensions?
“If a composer or an artist lives and works in a place that has those types of lines running through it, then it will be much easier for him to create great works of art or music.
“While most people may not consciously know about energy lines, grid planes, interdimensional vortexes, and how all of this works, they unconsciously use their intuition—which I call the ‘second attention’—to find out and use ‘just right’ locations, when they need them, to achieve success.
“Thousands of years ago, the members of the Rae Chorze-Fwaz roamed the Far East, looking for the ‘just right’ places to practice meditation, and other psychic arts.”
“This particular cave is a place of seeing,” Master Fwap explained. “It is easy to see other worlds and dimensions from here, and it is also easy to understand complicated occult concepts here.
“Naturally, once you have understood a difficult metaphysical concept here, that knowledge will accompany you when you leave this cave, in much the same way that you will retain a concept you have learned at school, after you have left your school and gone home for the evening.”
“Master Fwap, is there a particular mountain that is better to snowboard on, than any other mountain in the world?”
I tried to make the tone of my question seem light and conversational, so he wouldn’t suspect how much I really wanted to know the answer.
Having traveled with Master Fwap now for some weeks, I had learned that his sense of humor was bigger than the Himalayas, and that even if he half-suspected that I wanted to know something badly enough, he would deliberately not tell me, just to drive me crazy.
“Yes, there is only one absolutely just-right mountain for snowboarding in the world—not very far from here.
“It is a special mountain. Its power is pure and exact. On our last day together, I will take you there.
“But that is still some time from now, and today we have other things to concern ourselves with.
“What’s on the agenda for today?” I asked, trying my best to conceal my disappointment with the fact that he hadn’t told me the location of the perfect snowboarding mountain.
He asked, “What is the most important aspect of snowboarding?”
“Balance!” I quickly replied.
“Exactly so!” he exclaimed. “Without balance in your life, nothing else will work.
“For purposes of this discussion, let us say, that the goal of life is to be happy.
“It is the primary motivating force, for the vast majority of human being’s actions and decisions.
“In life, happiness is achieved through balance. Naturally, the kind of balance I’m discussing is inside of your mind.
“There are many people who experience happiness from time to time. But their happiness is usually short-lived, because it is dependent upon the outer circumstances of their lives being in accord with the fulfillment of their desires.
“To understand this, you must first know the difference between a hierarchical and a relational mind set.”
“Master Fwap, not only do I not know the difference between them, but I don’t even know what they are.
“Will you please explain this to me in snowboarding terms.”
MASTER FWAP EXPLAINS RELATIONAL SNOWBOARDING
“Yes, of course. There are five basic ways to approach snowboarding, or anything else in your life, for that matter.
“There are also numerous combination approaches, which blend different elements of these five basic approaches.
“The first approach to snowboarding is the
method.
“This is the least effective of the five. Using this method, you allow your body’s basic cellular instincts to guide you.”
“Which instincts do you mean, Master Fwap?”
“Fear, pleasure, and physical balance. You’re willing to learn to snowboard, and go through what is necessary to do so, because your body anticipates a pleasurable experience from snowboarding.
“You use your body’s fear to keep yourself from getting hurt, and you also use your body’s innate sense of balance to stay on your board, and negotiate going down the mountains of snow.
“The second method to approach snowboarding is the
approach.
“In this method, you use your desires to prompt you. In the passionate approach, your ego guides you, and your passions empower you.
“This is the machismo method.”
“I call it the ‘jock syndrome’, Master Fwap. Those guys snowboard just to prove to themselves, and to other people who are watching them, that they can be radical.
“It’s very much an image thing, and a lot of them are very good snowboarders, too!”
He continued. “The third approach is the
way.
“It is not really a method at all. It is dominated by anger, and uncontrolled aggression.
“People who use this approach will skip over the preliminary lessons and instructions about how to snowboard, and just do it!
“They will also probably end up in a hospital, or put someone they run down, in the hospital along with them.
“Now the two more-evolved methods of snowboarding, the fourth and fifth methods, are the
and the
methods.
“These two methods of snowboarding represent the Western and Eastern approaches to life, and to problem solving.
“They are mental approaches, as opposed to the physical or emotional approaches, of the previous methods I outlined.
“Both the hierarchical and relational methods rely on the intelligent uses of structures.
“To understand these two methods, you have to know the difference between Buddhism and Christianity.”
“Why is that, Master Fwap?”
He laughed, and said, “It has to do with circles and straight lines.
“These are respectively, the symbols of the Orient and of the West.”
“What do circles and straight lines have to do with snowboarding?”
I was getting the feeling that Master Fwap was about to launch into another one of his mystical dialogs, and that somehow, the answer to my question was going to get buried in one of his metaphorical avalanches.
He chuckled at my impatience, and continued with his explanation.
“Hierarchical and relational thinking are both extensions of religious viewpoints.
“Hierarchical thinking stems from the Christian belief in the ‘great chain of being’.
“In the Christian religious view, God is at the top of the universe, and the devil is at the bottom.
“Everyone else exists at different levels, according to how divine or un-divine they are, in-between God and the devil.
“According to this Judeo-Christian hierarchical way of thinking, Creation began at a specific point in time in the past, and the end of the world will occur at some specific point in time, in the future.
“Everything is linear in this mind set, and time and space occur in straight lines.
“These two very basic concepts, along with the idea that man is born in a state of corruption and sin—and is in need of redemption—created a physical and metaphysical cosmology that influenced the very structures of the Western peoples’ languages, philosophies, methods of thought and analysis, problem solving, and of course, their social value system.
“In other words, people in the West, unless they are irrational or intuitive, tend to think in straight lines.
“Let me give you a snowboarding example.
“A hierarchical snowboarder, snowboards in a straight line.
“He begins at the top of the mountain, and snowboards straight down it.
“His method of accessing his snowboarding skills is linear.
“This means that the data constructs, in his mind, move fairly slowly.
“Not a good thing, for much a fast-moving sport, I would think.”
“Master Fwap!” I said with renewed exasperation. “I don’t have any idea at all what you are talking about.
“If this cave is supposed to make things more clear, it isn’t working very well.
“Are you sure we’re in the right location?”
“I’m quite sure, but you must be patient and let me finish.
“I am just getting to the practical part—the way your mind processes information.
“It connects ideas and feelings in a particular fashion, and then it sorts them into patterns and matches them.
“It can do so, in and through, either a
or
framework.
“Relational thinking is based on circles. That is how Buddhists see the world, as a
“We don’t believe in God or in the devil, at least not as they are commonly conceived in the mind of Westerners.
“We also don’t believe that time is linear.
“Instead, we believe that God and the devil, good and evil, and all of the pairs of what you would call ‘opposites’, exist inside your own mind.
“And we don’t feel that these things are opposites at all—we view them as complementary.
“As Buddhists, we believe that time occurs in cycles, that the entire universe is one big circle, and that many smaller circles and cycles are contained within that larger circle.
“Needless to say, both the hierarchical and the relational cosmologies, and views of life, are slightly off the mark.
“They are both attempts to define existence, in a way it really cannot be defined.
“So, to answer your question, a hierarchical snowboarder takes longer to think things through, because he must connect all of this thoughts in straight lines.
“A relational snowboarder can think faster, because he thinks in circles—that is, he doesn’t have to go through as many time-consuming thoughts, to make relevant connections between the things he thinks about, and perceives.
MASTER FWAP DISCUSSES LINES AND CIRCLES
“If we want to get to a particular piece of information, we don’t have to go through a lot of useless data to get to it.
“All we have to do is reach out, to the edge of the circle, and grab it.
“Obviously, this is a much quicker and more efficient way of accessing information.
“When you snowboard, you can think and perceive from the center of the circle.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“By not thinking at all. Say for example, you were snowboarding down a strange mountain, and suddenly, a Buddhist monk appears directly in your path.
“Logically, thinking in a straight line, he shouldn’t be there at all.
“What on earth would a Buddhist monk be doing, wandering around in the snow on a Himalayan mountain?
“Now, if you were thinking relationally, which would mean that you weren’t thinking at all, your body would react instantly, and you would avoid hitting the monk.
“You wouldn’t lose that split-second it takes to get through your logical analysis of the situation.
“You wouldn’t hit him, and thus you would avoid all the bad karma that comes from snowboarding over an unsuspecting, enlightened Buddhist monk!”
Master Fwap paused. Even though I could not see his expression, I was sure he had a self-satisfied grin on his face.
“Master Fwap, how is what you just described, any different from instinctual reflexes?
“In what way is this relational?
“Also, isn’t ‘not thinking’ when you are snowboarding, basically the same as being unconscious?”
MASTER FWAP DEFINES THE CENTER OF THE CIRCLE
He answered, “The main problem you are having is that you are being a little too serious.
“You need to relax your mind, and let the luminous energy of this cave help you understand all of this.
“You are paying much, too much, attention to my words, and missing the yogic point that they are directing your mind towards.
“One of the great secrets of life, that Buddhist monks have learned from their study of meditation, is how to eliminate anything extraneous from their minds.
“If something doesn’t contribute to their happiness and well-being, they are able to remove it from their thoughts, and keep their mind focused on what does matter.
“While you are plummeting down the mountain on your snowboard, your mind normally would be thinking of many different things.
“You might be remembering something irrelevant, you might be anticipating something unnecessary, or you might be focusing your mind, on exactly how you are going to do what you are doing.
“For most people, at any given time, it is usually a mixture of all three of these things.
“The relational way of doing things is to move your mind to a fourth condition, a condition of heightened awareness.
“In a condition of heightened awareness, you elevate your conscious mind above the stream of extraneous data, out of dimensional ‘time and space’, so to speak, and you meld your mind instead with the
of the universe.
“When your mind becomes absorbed in this higher level of intelligent consciousness, which I refer to as the ‘second attention’, your mind will automatically access and create new relations with the data that you require.
“This is the center of the ‘circle of intelligence’. In this condition of inner illumination, you will always know exactly the right thing to do, or not do, at exactly the right time.
ॐ
“It is our Buddhist belief that the human mind is made up of countless layers.
“Think of your mind as being similar to an onion.
“There is layer after layer, as you peel your way down to the onion’s core.
“Your mind is made of thousands of layers, in a similar way, comparable to a series of interconnected circles.”
“But Master Fwap, how does any of this relate to snowboarding?”
“Let us suppose that you are snowboarding down a mountain.
“You are engaged in the types of thoughts that you normally think while you are snowboarding.
“Perhaps you are gauging the snowbank ahead and preparing to turn, when suddenly, and without warning, you see a Buddhist monk standing in the path of your rapidly descending snowboard.
“But if you are not thinking at all, if your mind is absorbed in the ‘second attention’, and you are able to make extra-logical connections within your mind with immediacy, then you will react smoothly to this unexpected occurrence and avoid hitting the poor, unsuspecting Buddhist monk with your snowboard.
“Most highly successful people live in a state of creative and happy emptiness.
“From the center of the ‘circle of consciousness’, they can see opportunities that other people overlook, and simultaneously, create rapid relations that enable them to quickly and successfully seize these opportunities and avoid disasters.
“To sum it all up in overly simplistic terms, success in life primarily depends on two things,
and
“From the center of the circle, you can instantly find whatever it is you need to know, in order to react properly to any situation. Trust me, this is true.”
“Master Fwap! How can this be?”
“There are two ways of doing things in life,” Master Fwap replied.
“One way, is to do things
The other way, is to do things
“Doing things in and through structures is what most people do.
“If you want to build a house, for example, you decide what type of house you want to build, choose a site for it, create a blue print, and then build your house, following the blue print.
“But there is another way to build a house, the Tantric Buddhist way.
“You first
Then you go there and
and then
“So what does that have to do with the second attention?”
“Everything. The second attention is the magical side of life.
“There are two sides to existence: the side you see, and the side you don’t!
“The side that you see is
and the side that you don’t see is
“The second attention is beyond structures.
“By structures, I mean the dimensions of
and
“The second attention is
that exists, just beyond our grasp.
“It is the home of what human beings call magic and miracles.”
“I still don’t understand what it is.”
“Oh yes, you do! You use your second attention whenever you go snowboarding.
“That is why you are able to do it so well!
“Most people don’t believe in the second attention. They have never experienced it, even though it surrounds them, and the world they live in, all of the time.
“The second attention is the power of life. It exists within every atom of the universe. It is the power behind perception, and all things which you perceive.
“You see, my young friend, there are many unseen miracles of life. The very existence of the universe is a miracle. The fact that we live—and are aware—is a miracle. The fact that we die, and are reborn, is a miracle.
“These things cannot be understood by the thinking and calculating, portions of our mind.
“We can examine aspects of these miracles with those parts of our mind, but we can never truly understand them.
“The second attention is an essence,” he continued. “It exists whether we are aware of it or not.
“Through the practice of short-path Tantric Buddhist yoga, we learn to become a bridge between the power of the second attention—the world of magic—and the dimensionality of the first attention, which is, of course, the day-to-day world we normally live in.
“Through meditation and other tantric practices, we learn to tap into the magical side of creation.
“This is the invisible side of life that underlies and supports all of the universes.
“The second attention is ancient and powerful. It doesn’t care for our puny reasons. It can do things that are unimaginable. As a matter of fact, it does them all the time!
“And when you allow its power to pulse through you, then
become the vehicle of
“So Master Fwap, what does all of this have to do with yoga and enlightenment?”
“Normally, it takes many incarnations of yogic practice, for people to make major structural changes in
and in
“But when the power of the second attention is released into the practice of yoga—or anything, for that matter—the ‘miracle power of the universe’ enters into it, allowing things, that would normally take place at a much slower pace, to occur much faster.
“It even makes some things happen that would otherwise be totally impossible.”
“So then, why doesn’t everyone who practices Buddhism, use the second attention?”
“They do. Whenever they meditate, or focus on the worlds of enlightenment, and the higher dimensions inside their mind, that is exactly what they are doing.
“But most Buddhists only touch the second attention lightly. It empowers them, and gives them a better life, and that is enough for them.
“But that is not the case for all Buddhists,” he laughed. “Some of us want to surf the ‘inner Himalayas’, you know.”
“What do you mean by that, Master Fwap?”
“Most Buddhists, and most people, for that matter, are easily satisfied, and I assure you, there is nothing wrong with that.
“But some of us are drawn to more. It is our karma. We want to go further into enlightenment, and deeper into ecstasy.
“We want to
and
the
“We want to transcend the self, as soon as possible.
“So those people who want to attain enlightenment as quickly as possible, practice Tantric Buddhism, because Tantric Buddhism is the fastest path for attaining enlightenment. It’s really that simple.”
“But what does that have to do with me surfing the Himalayas?” I inquired.
“You, like a Tantric Buddhist, are a person who seeks peak experiences.
“Most people your age wouldn’t need to leave their native country, where there are plenty of high mountains to go snowboarding on, and travel all the way to the Himalayas to snowboard.
“But you needed to. It is part of your karma, because you are the way that you are.
“The important thing is not to become egotistical. Not to feel spiritually superior to someone who is following a more gradual path to enlightenment.
“When you feel that you are superior to someone else, you lack compassion.
“Compassion is a word Buddhists use to express the realization, that even though we may differ greatly in evolution, appearance, talents, or intelligence, from other beings in the universe, we are all equally valuable in the eyes of eternity.
“This is wisdom.
“To reach the
we must overcome all feelings of both superiority and inferiority.
“Feelings of inferiority are simply another manifestation of the ego in disguise.
“Simply realize that we all have different karmas. Enjoy your own struggles and successes, too.
“If you want to be happy, avoid falling into the trap of egotism about what you do, and who you perceive yourself to be, and don’t be threatened or feel jealous of someone else because they can do something you can’t, or because they have something that you don’t.”
“But Master Fwap, isn’t there a difference between desire, and doing what is right?
“If I just do whatever it is that I am drawn to, that won’t make me happy, will it?”
“Your ‘awareness’, which is your karma, is what hooks you to things,” Master Fwap explained. “That is not the same as desire.
“Desire is a short-term pull towards an object, experience, or some other aspect of life.
“Desire fades with time—sometimes even minutes, or within seconds of its fulfillment.
“Very few desires last for more than a few years, let alone for an entire incarnation.
“So when you are inexplicably pulled towards something, an experience, or someone, and that pull won’t go away, that is how you can know it is your karma, not simply another transient desire.
“And if it is an especially strong pull, that won’t go away, then it is probably from your past lives.
“And if you don’t follow your karma, if you try to avoid it, and run away from whatever your karma happens to be, you will never be happy, or at peace with ourself, no matter what you do or achieve in this, or in any other world. Now do you understand?”
Somewhat hesitantly I said, “I think so, Master Fwap.”
“Good! Then please give me an example,” he said, with a big laugh.
“You are saying that the universe is one big mind. And all of us are part of that big mind, and it is also, a part of us.
“Well, relationally speaking, when I suspend my thoughts, I go into the ‘second attention’, and in my second attention I see the universe differently, from what you refer to as ‘the center of the circle of perception’.
“From there, I can draw from my current- and past-life knowledge, or directly, from the second attention, which is the essential knowing of the universe.
“So, if I was snowboarding down a mountain, and a Buddhist monk suddenly appeared in front of me, instead of panicking and losing it like I did when I surfed you, I could flow with the experience.
“To do this, I would simply accept the fact that you were there, as if it were an every day occurrence, not freak out, and deal with it from a deeper level of awareness.”
We sat in the cave for a little while longer.
Master Fwap told me, that I needed time for my new understanding of ‘relational thinking’ to sink in, before we left the cave’s helpful energy.
ॐ
Sitting in silence in the cave, next to Master Fwap, a variety of different sensations passed through my body and mind.
At times, I felt as if all the universe was part of me, and at other times, I felt that I was part of it.
After some time, we left the “cave of seeing”, and journeyed down the winding mountain trail, until we entered a valley, in which there was a small hermitage, run by some Buddhist monks who were friends of Master Fwap.
We spent the next several days at the monastery with Master Fwap’s monk friends, and I have never been so happy, before or since, but that’s another story.