silent thunder

I feel like a minority in that I can't not notice, or forget for long that America was not founded on freedom and liberty, but on profit. America began as a business venture. A for profit venture capital investment by the European nobility structure. And it's pretty evident to see the model's characteristics playing out in the for profit nature of almost every aspect of life here. Health care for profit? Privatize education? Profit prison systems? "We hold these truths to be self evident... that all men are created equal." Written by white guys who owned people as property and were tired of their profits being taken by their boss, so they claim independence. whew... well... at least I'm not bitter about it...

aaah George... tell me a story George... and the bombs are shaped like dicks... dick bombs, that cost more than the guy firing them makes in a year, landing on a man who wouldn't make that much money in his lifetime, even if it hadn't been shortened by said bomb. And while we don't dominate the world in education, health care, or production, we sure have set the tone for the media packaging of spin and bullshit and the production of bombs... on both sides of the aisle.

Routinely crush a bulb on the counter with a spoon, first thing in the morning. Let it steep for a bit, as I heat my water. Then dip the spoon in honey scoop it up and take it that way. Followed with a cup of hot water. Blissful, high energy stuff.

Tseng Lao-weng to John Blofeld as described by John in his book, The Secret and Sublime

intersticial

What about cold foot baths when it's really hot?

damnit, where is that sarcazzzm font?

I originally began listening to this guy, due to his ground shattering insights on the true nature of light and magnetism. Then I happened upon this seven year old video of him, talking about his exploration of citta in the original texts. He's something of a savaunt it seems, translating for enjoyment, ancient latin, greek and sanskrit. I've little to no experience in Buddhism, but as I've found his insights in physics and natural philosophy to be intensely brilliant, I'm intrigued what buddhists here think about his take on citta...

relinquishing

I first heard this seven years ago, when it was shared by the artist at a retreat. Listening to this is like swimming in Light.

Shedding a bit each day... Shed and release until what remains is presence. Presence reflecting source in manifest and unmanifest. Living presence unfolding, action arising or not, spontaneously, authentically... as a bird flies, as fish swim. unfolding presence.

Indeed! What i shared is my haiku interpretation of verse 3. One reality, many lenses it seems. I find the analogy of a crystal often rises for me in regards to how humans perceive absolute reality. Reality seems a unity, but a unity with many facets, like the facets of a crystal. As many facets as localized awarenesses. Each facet reflects the whole, but through a portioned lense of localized awareness.

Thanks for the reminder! Santa Ana's will be blowing soon, time to get the neti pot out for Summer.

That's only part of it. The left also wants to erase caucasians and replace us with mestizos and africans. It's amazing how the left has turned their caucasian members against themselves. Cleary when someone is ideologically driven, one's own self preservation instinct can be bypassed. there's that mis-quote bug again...

embraces

ah, I see. i was speaking conceptually, you are speaking directly, locally and personally. I have not read the prior thread, but only felt a pull to respond philosophically to this one statement on the feed page. Please disregard my comment in any other context. I mean only that in any massing of wealth, inevitably is the process of loss and theft. So the amasser is complicit in the theft, though not guilty of it. Stop short of the brim. Oversharpenned blades soon blunt. Better to stop short. Claim wealth and titles, Disaster surely lives there. This is nature's way. Amass stores of gold and no one can protect it. Retire when work's done!

There is a game. There's a game being played. Players play it using pieces and boards. Everyone plays it. And even though not everyone actively plays... everyone is involved. Everything is involved. Everything is game. Even non things. Default. The game excluding none, is utterly and wholly, entirely all inclusive. All pieces, all Players, playing or not are part of the game... as is The Board. As to Players and Pieces, there seems some ambiguity. There seems no agreement on whether Pieces are just pieces, or if some pieces are Players, or if Players are Pieces, or if players use pieces to Play... the rules aren't cut in stone you see. But the game is very clear. everything is game. Even the box is part of the game, it's in the rules... i think. The Rules: There is no book of The Rules. Although there are many books about rules. The Rules are entirely implicit, revealed most clearly when broken. Never explicit. And prone to regular shift. It seems. Any rule broken is penalized, but there are other rules for how much penalty, how often and for how long. It also seems there is no agreement among Players as to The Rules about the penalizing of broken rules. One thing is certain though, every broken rule is penalized, (even if only through praise). The Rules are most vividly unveiled only when broken. There are layers of rules and there are even Rules for The Rules. Some of the rules, while seemingly discoverable and understandable to an extent, are rarely conveyable in a manner capable of insighting lasting agreement among all players. It also seems an axiom that whenever some aspect of the rules seems to be explicitized and concretized, explainable by a player, new aspects of the rule become unveiled, often revealing the former rule's irrelevance. All rules seem prone to shift, subtle and radical, without signal or forewarning. As do the pieces... and the players come to think of it. Indeed, a definitive knowable, concrete source for having them explained to one outright, in no uncertain terms, is perhaps the rarest thing imaginable. The one impossible thing? Many people claim to know the rules. Many people will tell you the rules. Some seek to enforce them. Some try to follow them. Some rules i break, others i seem to break upon. Some follow some of them... some of the time. Some by trying and some accidentally find they follow them. Though they are broken in precisely the same manner... Some rely on them, others revile them. Disagreement over them seems one of the few truly unifying principles among Players and Pieces alike. The Board: There is a board for the game. It's huge. vast. As unimaginable as it is palpable. Beautiful, and Terrible. It's beyond reckoning. Literally. And yet, much of the board seems concrete. Players move about the board. Players meet on the board. Pieces are moved by players and by... the board? Players who are pieces, interact with pieces and players and Pieces who are Players... players encountering the rules... playing the game. To some players, the board is also a player. To others, the board is a dull box of rocks... more rules it seems. Clever buggers... into everything. The board is so vast because it's comprised of... other boards. Each piece of the game brings its own board to the game. Each player has a board as well, or is a board... i forget... Bit of a grey area, if players are boards as well as players... Have to check the rules... All boards comprise 'The Board' and 'The Board' shifts with the rules players and pieces. Among all this inherent implicitness, there arises and abides a sense of pattern among the board and playerpieces... in the playing of the game. Players refer to the patterns arising... it seems central to the play. Patterns: comforting, familiar, terrifying, auspicious, awe=inspiring, and all encompassing. Though The Board embodies an ambiguity that abides, no matter how many patterns arise, and agreement flies whenever explicit descriptions of the board are claimed or championed. so... there's a game. are you playing?

wherever wealth is hoarded, those who participate are to blame... as here lies the source of temptation for subsequent thievery?

indra's net

the abiding release of simple saturation in paradox and contradiction without needing to endorse or reject, prove or disprove, accept or renounce... such freedom as considering a concept or notion, without having to accept it as legitimate, or renounce it as preposterous... freedom experienced when not complusively having to create a story about every sensation, to either evaluate and champion, or despise, revile and villify... this abiding body of experiential senses i use to type these words to share... unto itself, this body, a seeming whole, upon inspection is revealed to be comprised entirely of smaller bodies... each a whole unto itself and the whole of this seeming whole, itself but an infinitesimal speck, within the whole flow of the all in all. paradox, wrapped in contradiction, steeping in enigma... how sweet such paradox... clearest solvent and dissolver of preconceived and championed or reviled notions held in the way stations of 'assumed truths' and the dreaded 'truth by consensus' ignorance factories.

Well said... your words resonate my localized experience of it. The analysis and story developed around the series of compulsions toward what i crave and away from what i despise is what i find most folks identify as 'the ego'. It's never a thing. Not even a conceptual thing. That's the analysis of the movement, or compulsion. The story. Ego is a verb, not a thing, or an imaginary thing, or a non-thing. We are I experience 'egoing' when we i attach to a notion we i desire, or when we i attempt to shun away what we i despise. A fluid process, not a thing, or non-thing. There is no ego as a thing for me... but there seems to be a process that arises, a tendency of 'egoing' towards some manifestations and away from others.

Intriguing how this resonates with many Zen realization/assertions.

four part series... some gems strewn throughout.

A second chance helps, but what of a third? Soon it's too much improvement.

I've found spending time in a truly pitch dark, no visible light environment induces, or is a condition conducive to deep relaxation not experiencable for me in other manners. When not even my skin is forced to process and perceive light upon it, something deeply primal in awareness shifts in response. There's a bouyancy and a weightlessness to it... an effortlessness that isn't experienced when light is constantly cascading... We now have so much light in the cities... it's literally incessant. Simply closing ones eyes does not and cannot induce lightlessness. Some years ago, I was overcome by an unsought and unignorable compulsion to experience lightlessness again. I'd encountered it a few times before, when exploring old buildings and some caves in the Midwest. After playing with it again, I come to realize why it's a standard operating procedure for many inner shamanic paths and lineages. True Dark I experience as palpable, resonant, bouyant and freeing. unfolding... I recommend it highly. It's akin to weightlessly floating and drinking cool neutral bouyancy where i wasn't aware i had a thirst that only this could slake. We seldom, if ever, get to experience the relaxation of not having to process some level of light, through our lids, on our skin (which may seem odd at first notion, but for me, after time in a truly lightless environment, the lack of visible light is palpable). Even out camping away from the manmade lights, a moonlit night is filled with enough light that it does not require a flashlight to go for walks. My son now loves to accompany me on my night walks in the woods without flashlights. But in the cities... pfft... light is literally inescapable, and most of it is partial spectrum, (not going into that rant here, as just thinking of it, induces tension lol). Some years back I developed an unsought compulsion... a deep, unignorable craving arose and would not abate within me, for pitch dark... lightlessness, so that even my skin would not have to process light. Lacking a cave, I found a way to create a lightless environment in my home in which to sit and it's become something of a deeply refreshing oasis. Akin to drifting weightless on a calm lake at night. My experience of the relaxation induced by lightlessness is akin to the relaxation experienced after extreme exertion and tension. Often after tensing up purposefully either in forms or exertion, upon releasing, I experience deeper relaxation than if I had simply tried to let go of present tension and manufacture relaxation from the get go. Some folks I imagine, may have not experienced the liquid bliss of lightlessness since the womb. I highly recommend it.