have u guys ever tried stuff like reflection on the 32 body parts, corpse, repulsiveness of the body/food, or perhaps Vajrayana visualizations or Tantra, or anything that is meant to train the mind to think in a different way.

Has anyone found it useful and practical and thus continue a regular practice of such techniques?

I am attracted to philosophies and practices that are inclusive in the broadest sense. The whole morality thing is probably useful for neanderthals who need to reign in their animal instincts a bit, but not for a modern educated man. I think that aligning yourself with only the good, the moral and the righteous might get you in nearly as much bother as identifying with the bad, the darkness, the immoral and the sinful. In that sense, if you are someone who thinks that God = 'goodness, light, love and niceties', then it might do you good to meditate on a corpse for balance...or some dog shit on the sidewalk. I think the idea of those left hand path style practices is to jolt people out of that polar style of thinking, and maybe into something more spacious and inclusive.

There's nothing pure in this world. The circular Taoist symbol of yin-yang has a white dot in the middle of the black part, and a black dot in the middle of the white part. One must exist before the other can, and each is in the other. Elegant.

I never did corpse meditations or the repulsiveness of the body, but I did do some basic tantra visualization stuff and found it useful and interesting. I would make sure you have good instruction with a good teacher who you can work with and ask questions of if you are doing that sort of thing, as tantra has its own set of traps and complexities. That is the sort of thing I would do within a tradition, as each part of the image has its symbolism, and some of that symbolic meaning can have multiple levels and depths and implications, and so if you are sufficiently into that tradition for them to have relevance to you at some deep level you will get more out of those aspects. The ultimate aspects are obviously the same regardless.

Daniel