silent thunder

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth. Marcus Aurelius

I'm down with Salami... Did someone say Salami?!

no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no

I appreciate your clarifications. We don't see things very similarly, which is wonderful. Variety and adaptability seems one of the great strengths of our species. now... about that weather magick...

Lovecraft Yesterday it was The Temple tonight Dreams in the Witches House

Classic! I wanted to laugh, thank and like that post simultaneously mate.

That plays harsher than it was intended. That was offered in the vein of one of your brothers sitting around the table mate. Not a cold judgement at all, but an opportunity for a well timed hammer, but with heart. What you have up there in the Andes is phenomenal and I admire it. If your book is available directly I'm definitely interested. I studied under one of Bruce's long term students. I'd have it already, but i stopped buying through Amazombie a while ago.

says a guy publishing books and videos... "pot... meet kettle." ~anonymous

i read some Ayn. i shrugged.

local mind oscillates on and off, like a bellows. universal mind... seems akin to an ocean on which local mind is one wave. or a massive gem, of which, one facet is local silent thunder awareness. each other facet being another local awareness/mind. or one dew drop on Indra's Net. at this point there appears to be no dimmer switch for local mind, it's experienced as on or off. when thinking, experiencing... it's on. when off... there is no residue, it's off, off. what is thought about is irrelevant to the process. a symptom. good thought... bad thought... productive thought... demoralizing thought... all part of local mind story time. for a while now, i practice no formal thinking meditations, nor achievement seeking, nor thought admonishment demonizing. what arises, arises... then disperses. what arises tends to disperse more readily when not engaged, fed, resisted or engaged by storymaking. local mind oscillates like a bellows. but universal mind? hmm... challenging for words to encompass... seems to be ever-present, underlying all other unfoldings. local mind relays a sense that awareness oscillates between active and inactive, local and universal, but paradoxically, this notion arises in local mind which is immured in storytime and unreliably interpretive and projective. fascinating conversation @old3bob thanks for phrasing it and presenting it such. the op and the title engages succincly in the one real process... unfolding in presence... now what else is there but now? as is? beingness

i see the qi is working...

ego is not a thing to me, not an aspect of personality. it is a verb, a process that personality engages in... when drawn toward some thing, idea... i am egoing. when repulsed by some thing, idea... i am egoing. egoing is a process, not an aspect of mind that can be built up or destroyed. it is an activity i engage in with mind actively, or don't. mind is aware of egoing and may misidentify itself with the process. but i am not a human doing, or a human thinking... but a human being. beingness requires no push, pull, aversion, nor attraction, it is as is... now. egoing is engaging mind in the pushing and pulling of aversion, attraction; not local personality aspect. that's as close in words as i experience it at this point. not selling this as truth, just sharing.

memory of past happens now fantasies of future happen now there is only now mind makes distinctions of its own accord mind is also now

Caps Lock is cruise control for cool.

That's the old Rapture Carpool Lane gag for Evangelicals. If pulled over, you simply look over and exclaim... "Holy Shit! The Rapture took him!"

mind thinks mind believes mind tells stories center of beingness release of mind in raw being sincere mind quiet mind kind mind clarity bliss tao

I got into my truck the other day where I had parked on our street. The sun was shining and the light was angled along windshield and due to a layer of tree pollen/dust accumulated on the glass, and the angle of the sunlight, it was almost impossible to see out of the glass, even a bit. I could perceive only patterns of dust on the glass, nothing beyond it. Have you noticed not being able to see through a window into a dark house on a bright day? The reflected light prevents seeing what lies beyond the glass. It struck me... Knowing the way ahead was clear, I rolled forward and passed out of direct light into the shadow of a building. And the dust became invisible and the world beyond the glass became clearly visible. I knew the world and the path beyond, even though I couldn't see it, so familiarity allowed me to move the vehicle until sight cleared. Then went and grabbed the cleaning supplies and cleaned the window. But the conditions of dust and angle of light, prevented clear vision. Functionally, in those conditions it was not possible to operate with any detail, comfort, or with clarity. It struck me that this is how it goes with awakening... with me. Citta is like clear glass and when conditions align, reality is clear and readily visible, maneuvering becomes simple, the path is readily obvious. When choked with dust and harsh direct light, reflections of obfuscation create a film over Citta preventing seeing reality more readily and clearly. Our experience of the world arises in our awareness. Conditions may occlude Citta from time to time, but this is not reflective of the natural state. The world beyond the glass is not altered... only our ability to pierce through it, until we clean the glass, or the wind blows it free. You are it... now... as you are. Cleanse your awareness and see through the dust... or wait for the wind to blow it clean. Either way, the glass, nor the world changed in seeing or not seeing. It's all right here, right now.

this one is part of my personal soundtrack lately i often wake up with a song in mid-refrain as if it was playing in my sleep as i woke. this one plays in my mind a lot recently when not playing on my speakers. the beat is redonkulous and the lyrics, right on point for where I'm at. I don't know. You don't know. Nobody knows. but everybody talkin'...

um... wow!

As long as I have memory, you will have clout in my heart friend. That account cannot overdraft and the currency never goes out of favor. Love!

The utter simplicity and intimacy of this is perhaps why it is often seemingly so untouchable and beyond local awareness for me. And perhaps why so many established lineages recommend quieting the mind and body... so that we may have the chance to hear and encounter this level of simplicity in local awareness. it's so familiar, so intimate that I can readily become desensitized and unable to register it... yet it's the foundation of my very fabric of mind and being. In relating to this, I often have the image of myself as a fish... who, while swimming, learning and making his entire life in water, is unaware that water is even exists, so close and intimate it is to foundational being. Wittgenstein alludes to it adroitly in this bit.

omg @steve thank you so much for sharing this... you may have thought of manitou, but you have just pierced awareness with an arrow of resonance with these words. the timing and resonance for me are staggering! Man, I apologize for the intense side tracking of this thread, but I'm not sorry. The resonance and connection are palpable and welcome. Some old energies have been stirred to balance in ways I could not have anticipated in this thread and its various off-shoots. I used to close my bar in Manhattan and ride my bike back to Brooklyn, over the Brooklyn Bridge at around 4:30-4:45am. I'd often stop mid bridge to hang out, smoke a fatty, or just linger in the early pre-dawn quiet... bridges are one of the few places you can physically be not close to another human in that city. But The Moon... she was usually there and on several occasions her message, always readily available was able to land in my awareness that had grown quiet enough to be able to hear her. I've always found magick to be an exploration of my greater self. When I'm trying to influence material existence, or my own inner paradigm and landscape... I align my small self with the change I wish to entice from the outer self. I go within my own weather system so to speak, to entice a reflective shift in the outer world, which in my experience is my extended self. Go within to entice reflective shift without. Thanks Bums... once again you shine with unanticipatable brilliance and are a wealth of wisdom from an unexpected source. What is magick but our influence of intent affecting that which we are connected to? It's like a conversation, but not in words between people, in actions and presence and awareness between my own local awareness and that of me that lies beyond my ken. reminds me of a powerful saying that came to my thought pond one day quite unexpectedly but resoundingly one moment years ago. "It is a poor man indeed, who, not listening, stomps about, proclaiming Nature to be mute."

Sweet topic. I'd never heard of Chinese Ghost Story... I'll check it out. I have one that I didn't know what a Taoist movie, but on rewatching it as an adult, it simply blew my mind with its insight and subtlety. 1970-something. My Dad took me to see a Peter Seller's film Being There. I recall Dad was not pleased with the movie, it was not like the Pink Panther series. I was only 8 or so, but I recall that the way Sellers portrayed his character was very impacting, though it was so understated and simple. I recently rewatched it several years ago when it leapt to mind like a fire spark and was utterly gob-smacked. For me, Peter Sellers portrays the best 'Cucumber Sage', 'Grinning taoist idiot master' I've ever seen on film. In the film, Sellers plays a simple (mentally simple) man, who as a child was taken in by an eccentric millionaire, who seeing his misfortune at his mental simplicity, raises him and gives him a job, tending his garden. The garden is closed off from NYC. Sellers lives his entire childhood and adult life in this mansion, tending its garden. Idyllic, simple. He masters the gardening, but it's literally the only thing he knows. When the old man dies at the beginning of the film. Peter's character is driven out into a world he has seen only through windows. He has no idea how society operates, the whims of personalities and the intricacies of human interaction. He knows one thing. Gardening. Well dressed as he is, in the millionaires old clothes, folks assume and project onto him in his simple demeanor, all manner of assumptions about his status. He responds to every situation in the only way he knows. He relates all questions asked of him, to gardening. His answers, so simple and rudimentary, are assumed to be analogies and sagely wisdom is attributed to him. He ends up being sought out for advice by Presidents and Diplomats, while he calmly engages their questions with mild boredom and a simple desire to be able to tend another garden, or watch some tele... Being There. Daoist Idiot Sage. Check it out!

I feel compelled to share one more thing about Earl... One day I discovered him sitting at my bar and he asked me point blank what my religion was... I replied 'none... any longer', but Druid was as close to my world view as i'd found then... he perked up, cocked his head sideways and I went back to serving customers. When I got back to him he asked me for a glass of water. That made me perk my head as Earl was known for claiming 'don't drink water, rusts yer pipes kid, that's why your shit turns brown'... lmao (god i miss that straw dog). Anyway I set the water before him and he pushed it back at me and asked... 'what is this>?' I was caught for a moment but then the Mabyn of The Mabinogion popped in mind and I got his context and replied... "that... is Life!" Few times in my life have I seen such unbridled joy so effortlessly flow from an elderly african man. He called me Drew from that point on. Thanks for probing me in this manner @Walker My heart is so wide open with radiant joy at the memory of sharing such simple wisdom with a person whom, had I not been looking, may have wandered right past and never come to know... all along he was a master in my lineage... my tribe of life that has room for all, but not always awareness. Wherever you are now Earl... your lessons stuck and your love, is still alive. thank you old friend such gifts as these... treasure in every corner of reality if only i have the eyes to see and ears to hear.