Fleet MaullThe Entrepreneur’s Zen Master

The secret of the subtle bodies.🌀✨ Robert Thurman at the Art of Meditation Global Summit! Jan 23-30

24 Jan 2024 · 1 min

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Robert Thurman explains the Buddhist concept of the "subtle body," identifying it with the central nervous system and arguing it is integral to Mahayana rather than a late addition. He notes Tibetan traditions kept subtle-body practices secret (partly to avoid social disruption linked to energized individuals), links the practices to liberating and transforming personal energies (paralleling Freud's Eros and Thanatos), and mentions kundalini and cultural/caste dynamics as part of the explanation.

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The thing about the subtle body is really the central nervous system. And the way Tibetans understand it, it's there with the origin of Mahayana. It isn't just a late decadent thing. It's something that is really integral to the Buddhist thing, but kept secret because the cultures didn't necessarily want people running around with their kundalinis energized, you know, and that kind of highly energized person didn't really fit into caste hierarchies. And so the idea of liberating one's personal energy in a powerful way by going into the unconscious, actually, and finding Freud's Eros and Thanatos, but in the Buddhist sense, you go in and transform those energies, which is what that whole subtle body business is about.