LMAO! Of course it is and I do not take it very seriously at all! 

Love you mate...

Back atcha Yilun  
I'm not sure how one truly surrenders while maintaining any sort of will, unless we mean something different by that term? The fruit of my practice has been realized through bare awareness, that’s where the magic happens. Setting an intention prior to a sit sure, we’re not fully Enlightened yet, but nothing resembling control during. Fear burns up, grasping releases, Brahma Viharas shine brighter as the fog lifts, without any of my will. Who wills what? Not my experience. I experience will as control, and I experience control as grasping, and grasping involves fear and avoidance, dukkha. That’s what I mean by purification, the purpose of practice, allowing natural increasing joy, compassion, equanimity and love. The ingredients of Emptiness. Total trust and abandonment. What else is all this for? Losing yourself in the show.

_/ \_ Off to try to do the same... It's a place of blissful abandonment indeed.

Hi Daniel-san,

Right, that's the Vedic rap on it. I have a difficult time buying into any particular ideology on the phenomenon though.

From 1998-2000, I went through a period where I could barely do a meditation retreat without feeling like the base of my spine was connected into an electrical socket. At the time, I was practicing as a Soto Zen priest, with tokudo ordination, but using the basic vipassana (Mahsi noting) technique together with a good deal of simple concentration meditation. I recall standing in line for lunch at a retreat where my back kept arcing and my visual field was blanked out by blue-white flashes. For a good part of that period, I had to meditate lying down because I couldn't sit with the amount of prana my body was generating, it was too painful. Some vipassana teachers would classify this as piti, but the difference between piti, as it is described in the Visuddhimagga, and what I experienced IMHO is like the difference between a firecracker and a hydrogen bomb, as I've written about in a blog post.

The acute phase passed, and I can't say that I experienced any purification more than before (in contrast, I feel experiencing a path moment had a big impact). But as I've mentioned recently in another post on this forum, I do occasionally get interesting phenomena (car alarms going off, poltergeist like knocking) when I do an extra period of concentration meditation for a few months, and I do get prana flows regularly during meditation. I've learned to visualize them channeling up through my crown chakra, helps to dissipate the energy.

But anyway, YMMV and if the Vedic interpretation works for you, then fine.

Hi svmonk,
I just read read your blog ‘Comparing Piti and Kundalini’, is that the one?
I’d say a couple things. I also experience still lots of discomfort and energy from this experience that happened to me over ten years ago, not much bliss or happiness. I’ve also realized that people experience kundalini very differently, maybe different types of risings, not sure, it’s tough to get too concrete with this stuff. 
It took me awhile to realize that any sort of effort in meditation involves stress, so directing energies and manipulation, and even concentration practices, were like games. Unfulfilling ones.
It wasn’t until I totally gave in that I started to experience relief. Sometimes the pain grew, so I’m referring more to relief from the second arrow. 
Once I started reading Dzogchen texts I started to see the things I had experienced clearly written about. Purification can refer to a number of things. For years I was playing energy games, thinking that a purified energy body equaled some type of purified consciousness, or was a goal of some sort. But that’s more subtle grasping. A purified energy body is the result of clean thinking, meditation and living, but not the goal, and my energy body has been clogged for years. Yoga, fasting and especially retreat length meditation clears the channels, and I’m looking forward to experiencing this effect of right practice in my future.
Real purification is more like Buddhism 101, a lack of grasping, the spontaneous and natural abundance of the divine abodes permeating the system. Compassion arising without intention, love, joy and equanimity taking more hold.
I don’t necesarily think Kundalini leads to these things any more than noting (or better yet noticing) thinking, thinking, frustrated, frustrated, distracted, distracted, but it is all an opportunity for increased self awareness, which also clears the channels (which certainly heavily correlate with awakening).
I’ve realized my Kundalini experience was different than many though because the teachings that resonate with me the most are the Dzogchen writings about the literal awakening of the Inner Guru. That is a hard experience to miss, it’s the awakening of the higher mind (Buddhi) in Vedanta, Buddha Nature in Dzogchen. My jaw dropped when I first read about this stuff, as it word for word described my experience. I never had blips. It’s an experience I haven’t stabilized, but I see the potential, and believe it can be done. 
The next stop in the Vedas past higher mind on the way to the non-phenomenal Source, is Kundalini Shakti, the first expression of Shiva in time and space. Moving outward there’s higher mind, lower mind, sankharas, vasanas and all sorts of nonsense before one gets to prana, which itself is one stop away from physical manifestation. So Prana = Kundalini? Not the case. Kundalini takes Prana under her foot and smashes it up like turning grapes into wine. All that crazy buzzy painful sensation is the pranic effect of kundalini dancing a number on your energy body. When the channels get cleared out the Kundalini force is still felt as subtle movement, but it’s far from uncomfortable. IME anyway.

Thanks Daniel! 

Hey guys, just a quick thank you. There’s so much great info here for me to go through and digest. I’ll have a closer read through today! 

Hi Daniel-san,

Yep, that's the one.

Regarding kundalini or prana, my Mahamudra teacher calls it prana. I think the Mahamudra perspective on purification is best expressed by this citation from the Aspriration Prayer of Mahamudra from the the Third Gylwa Karmapa:

Nice one shargol. I’d submit that Kundalini is in fact the stainless dharmakaya manifest, the sambhogakaya, the actual purifying(ied) force itself.
This is like the cessation v. fruition discussion going on in the other thread. Dharmakaya would be cessation, and Kundalini/Sambhogakaya would be fruition. Of course this is just for fun, and the cross traditional mapping is a can of worms, but we may be getting warmer.
For the proper Vedic/historical definition of Kundalini, check out a good summation starting just after minute 12:00

https://batgap.com/joan-shivarpita-harrigan/

Kundalini being likened to prana is clearly one of the most widely (and tightly) held misconceptions, albeit for an understandable reason. I attribute the misunderstanding to the fact that an active kundalini experience will have one experiencing massive pranic manifestations and movement. But ride that out, past the craziness and fireworks to the stillness and (sometimes) bliss, and what’s left over is the actual Kundalini life force, basking in the glow of a job well done. It’s a purificatory action on the mind and body, from burning up thoughts to destroying actual physical ailments, and everything in between. It’s the same effect and maybe even practice as dwelling in Emptiness, or non-duality - pranic channels are what’s purified by the Kundalini Shakti, not what she is - no effort required or allowed