silent thunder

I enjoy topics that rub the nose of assumption, for me it's good training to explore things counter to one's given notions of things. I particularly enjoy discussing interesting concepts that don't require me to believe or disbelieve, but simply provide a bone to chew, ponder and explore. It's similar to reading news, from sources that don't agree with one's usual political leanings. I find it very beneficial to openly explore things that run counter to my comfortable expectations. No Hollow Earth conversation is complete until mentioning the supposed journal accounts of Rear Admiral Byrd, in which he describes his encounters in the hollow earth while tasked with taking a fleet to dismantle German military camps and sites in Antarctica after the close of WW2 around 1947. He explored Antarctica several times on his own, before WW2, making a solo flyover of the SP in the 20's which was probably the reason for his being given the fleet in 47. Of course after he returned from Antarctica (his mission being terminated a somewhat surprising six months early), he never spoke publically of his experiences after meeting with Eisenhower. His journal published in the sixties, is of course disregarded by the establishment, but it's fascinating stuff to me whether fact or fiction. Here's a short video exploration of Byrd's mission High Jump, along with a brief intro by Linda Moutlon Howe describing her interview with members of a Navy crew whom, in 1995 in an effot to save a fellow member of their team during a medical emergency flew over the 'no fly' zone to save time and while doing so witnessed UFO's and an opening in the earth that fit the descriptions of Byrd's journal decades before. fun stuff!

behold the field in which I grow my fucks... and perceive its innate baren-ness..

I'm not contradicting you at all but agreeing. I read the first four before losing interest in his style. He struck me more of a literary serial killer of cool characters, than a conveyer of in depth stories. And as I've studied and performed many classics on stage for years in my former life (founding member of the Minnesota Shakespeare Company in the late 80's, I found his reiterating of better authors very tiresome. Never bothered watching the watered down television script versions of his watered down versions of great classics. Not enough time in my life for that any more.

Saw one of the best political bumper stickers ever yesterday driving home in traffic. GIANT METEOR STRIKE 2020

On the plus side of forgetfullness... I love forgetting some of the old things as I grow older. I find I get to rewatch some films and reread some favorite books, almost as if for the first time again.

cleanse citta. this is it. stimulus promotes response the builder builds entire worlds of imagination in the dust covering the eyes of citta cleanse citta banish the builder banish imagining citta just this

Friend sent me a text picture couple years ago... it was mono-tone, orangy amber color. Nothing distinguishable in it. I was confused and asked what it was... His reply: This is the view of the building across the street. Taken from the 10th floor of a corporate office building in Beijing where I am currently teaching Qi Gong to a group of corporate slaves. This is the quality of the air here today. One cannot perceive a building 100ft away due to the particulates present.

Eckart Tolle for the win.

Two common reactions I notice in those around me to such insight... life is inherently meaningless boo hoo i give up. way of the poison dragon. life is inherently meaningless... i'm utterly freed to engage revitalized and totally open life of the intrepid explorer mine seems to be a repeated ceasement of engaging the mind in loops of sought out comprehension of what does not require understanding to operate fully... life flows with or without my mind understanding it in a box of words and thought-forms... the universe is not here for me to 'get it'. so instead of chasing supposed to's and must be's as I did so much of my early life... I simply let life and my own beingness occur. I react as I react, sometimes taking action, sometimes observing from non-action all the while trusting inherently the anchor of the dao within me to abide. so long as conditions are such that my being remains, i too abide.

In another life, I was a stage and tv actor. Mostly classical scripts, but I also wrote for a small company writing mostly sketch comedy and standup. Pirandello, Ibsen, Checkov, O'Neill, The Bard, were my life blood then. The words these authors presented were agonized over, sometimes for years before releasing to the public. Every phrase every word was considered from the perspective of the character in such depth. Read some of the interviews with such authors and discover the level of commitment to the meanings of words they lived in. We sometimes talk about the importance of what words mean what in our spiritual conversations here. These men and women understand that implicitly. Their words were so important to me, I couldn't imagine missing one, or substituting any of my own. So I studied like my hair was on fire to saturate my being in the words soaking their essence into my very bones. Turns out, this is the way to release yourself and free your mind into the action of the play and really is the startting point in rehearsals to begin the work. Until the words are second nature, the work of listening in the moment to your fellows on stage cannot begin and the interplay will always appear cardboard, flat, fake and will be unengaging for those trying to watch in the audience. All this to say that memorizing lines is not what we do with a script. Classical actors study scripts they don't memorize. In the process of study, they become ingrained in you and the words become part of your awareness. Then you can play with them and how they will flow through you. This type of work is exceptional for mind elasticity and depending on the subject matter, quite beneficial for you as a human as well. The reason I left acting was due to the nature of the scripts and the subjects. Most scripts dealt with such dark and heinous aspects of humanity, I found my subconscious was not distinguishing that I was only 'playing'. The decompression from roles like Hamlet, Richard III and Alan Strang in Equus, caused emanations in my psyche that persist to this day in some aspects. Something in my life will occur and passages that apply sympathetically will resonate and rise to the surface 30 years later. That said. Few things will benefit one like picking a poet and a subject you love and committing their words to your living being through saturated study. When you can effortlessly recall the words aloud, they will come to life and you may find yourself in the heady territory of face to face meetings with the spirits of long dead authors whose essence is imbued into every word they agonized over. If you don't ever have such an encounter, you'll at least be the beneficiary of increased mental presence, clarity and capacity.

Nope. There's but a small following of The Bard these days. Loyal... but very small... and dwindling each school year that passes.

Got my copy last week. Awaiting the impulse to dive into training again and will open it then. As for Sleeping practices... woof! They were by far the most paradigm shifting experiences for me on the retreat. They were reality expanding experiences. Much like some of my sessions with Zhou Ting-Jue. Still so grateful to have met and worked with Master Wang and Richard. Hope it works out again timing and location wise to go again.

What can any man take from the word or experience of another? I have never known the mind of even my wife, the mother of my son, except when and what she chooses to share. And then, as with anyone, it lies with me to look within and find the truth of their words resonating or not within my own awareness. You have the anchor of the universe in you. As does every blade of grass, every stone and every ant. The answer you seek. Your truth... how could I or anyone know that better? You already know it. My answer, is not yours. But one thing I have witnessed in my wife's path of awakening is that an earnest question... From my own very essence I have experienced... when one asks of absolute reality with complete authenticity. There is always an answer. Do I always hear clearly and do I possess the ken to comprehend seems the only distinguishing features.

When I arrived in the desert back in 2000, for the first time in my life, I experienced allergies. They'd come mostly in the Spring and high Summer and are always at their worst when the dry hot air blows in from the East. Natives call it Crazy Wind. Science calls it the Santa Ana's. Got great advice from a nutritionist I had a conversation with. She recommended avoiding pharmaceuticals and finding a local source for raw honey. Since the bees are local, they're processing from a slew of plants in the area and taking small amounts of the bee processed pollens will eventually allow the body to build up antigens over time. Plus... local awesome honey. Took a few years, but I no longer have allergic reactions... except of course, this year, which saw record rainfall all 'winter' and resulted in massive blooms all along the West Coast. So much pollen in the air you can taste it. So a few weeks ago there were some runny nose and watery eye days, but nothing like the full on fatigued, stuffy headed, itching neck, coughing like I have a cold reactions I got when first moving here. Honey is simply amazing stuff. Bees have always been a favorite of mine. Now I downright worship the wonder buggers.

Aphantasia is the inability to form mental pictures in the mind's eye. It's a fairly common thing. *particularly it seems among the recent design teams I've been building scenery for* I never knew this was a thing until a couple years ago, when I was trying to pin my wife down in describing a house in a dream she was relating to me. I kept trying to get the fine details of the rooms when she said point blank... "well I don't actually see anything when I dream... it's just... you know... impressions." me: wait, what? her: I don't see anything in my dreams... i just, you know... feel it. Turns out it's rather common, some estimate up to 18% do not form clear mental images when imagining, but only deal in conceptual notions. Picture a red ball on a beach. Depending how much energy and time I put into that, I'll be able to tell you how many sand dollars are lying about and if anyone left litter after their picnic. My wife will just experience the feeling of a beach and a ball, but not actually picture any specific ball or beach. It utterly blew my mind when I started digging and found this word Aphantasia. It horrifies me honestly. In my work constructing props and scenery, when someone is describing something, I can't begin working on it until it becomes clear in my head. Once that picture arrives with all the substructure, then I can start, until then, I have to doodle and allow the image to crystallize, or I'm just stumbling around. It also explains why sometimes in my business when I'm trying to describe to a designer how we'll go about constructing what they've drawn, to explain the substructure, their eyes just glaze over and they get lost. We end up having to make small scale models in order for them to see it, as they cannot visualize what I'm describing in words. This has made me much more patient at work... wish I'd known about it 20 years ago, would have prevented much frustration.

Indigo's are very real in my experience. I didn't look at your test, but I'd be mighty skeptical of the source of info the test is basing its judgements and descriptions on. Astrological descriptions can be so vague and puffy as to cover most of the population, doesn't mean all astrological information is useless. Always important to be authentic and present in these manners and not simply reject whole swathes of life on reaction. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, when the water is soiled.

Many people react this way, I'll echo the others here and shift your practice to morning for those aspects of practice that energize you and mess with sleep. Wish I'd have been more attentive to sleep in my 20's and 30's. I now sincerely understand its importance to all other aspects of life.

It doesn't connect at all with his insights on the nature of light, magentism or natural philosophy. It was his lectures on light and magnetism that made me aware of his genius, then later I found he also spent decades studying sanskrit, latin and ancient greek in order to deepen his understanding of reality. He's translating the pali directly and in so doing, he's revealing how most of modern buddhism is more akin to agnostic, moralistic humanism than what Gotama talked about in the original core teachings of the Pali. It's nothing short of an evisceration of nearly all buddhist literature and cosmology I've encountered to this point.

Wow.

SJ my friend... sounds like you're winning up there in the Andes. It causes my face to smile involuntarily and I exude gladness for you.

!!! wow. just wow. Thank you so much for sharing here mate. Given the intensity of my inner landscape recently, I was wondering if I was just off on some solo, isolated tangent in how this was striking me.

this one just pierces right through me