silent thunder

I no longer find a use in spending what energy or effort I possess in engaging with persons who's only goal is to simply disagree or refute anything being said about a topic. Contrarians are not interested in discourse, they are interested in opposition for the sake of opposition. In short, don't feed the trolls.

I haven't been in the mood for big meals or much solid food recently but we are in a big push at work, so I need something for a good energy booster. That coupled with several of my close work mates feeling the need to come to work while being very sick (go home freaks)... This morning I woke up to the smells of my gal putting together a high energy veggie broth. Extra heavy doses of garlic, onion and cayenne. Liberal sprinklings of tumeric, sage, thyme, tumeric and various others. She made a nice big batch so I can fill a couple thermoses and sip throughout the day. Now that is my kind of Valentine's gift!

flexible

Ha... some of these contrarian responses really take me back to my church days. "Too many questions are unhealthy young man" and "that was a very deep question... you know... deep people drown", I heard something along those lines often when I would begin talking and questioning with any depth in my Confirmation and Sunday school classes, usually by those unwilling, incapable, or uninterested in exploring or understanding a concept in any greater depth than what was already readily 'accepted status quo'. Rubbish! That is sheep thinking and living death in my experience. Leaving folks nothing more than biological robots acting out their social and familial conditioning in familiar surroundings to their great detriment. While we are limited to using the senses of our natural instrument to explore and interact with the ten thousand things and then in addition using those instruments we fashion (which will reflect our natural senses as they are products of our process and also carry along the inherent flaws there of... ), I don't see the merit in saying this process of exploration and discovery is worthless... seriously? If we adopted this line of thinking as a species, we'd still be burning folks at the stake for claiming the heliocentric model. Even if we don't see the ramifications of our discoveries now, it will pay benefit in cumulative effect, much like spiritual development. Often, as I have engaged in inner work, I feel a definite sense of 'moving backwards' and it seems at the time as if I am not making progress, however I have found in time that progress in some matters is analogous to firing an arrow at a target, in order to fire the arrow, I must first draw it backward, or in order to make a good leap across a gap, I have to take a few steps back to get a running start... Even if these findings now are completely flawed and incorrect and will be proven so sometime in the future; there is as much merit in discovery of flaws as well as 'truths', since the exposure of a flaw, more readily brings to light, the deeper. underlying truth which the surface illusion was masking. The fear mongering and the shaming of explorers is pathetic to me, not to mention pointless. If one thing has been proven over and over through history, it is that the shamers and bullies will never stop the explorers and discoverers. That impulse runs deeper than and laughs in the face of fear.

Limits of Power: Andrew Bacevich

It's always resonated with me that I often know my self better by identifying what I am not... and that becomes becomes further clarified by my actions, when I am absolutely certain that no one will know what I'm doing...

Master Wang Li Ping delivered a paradigm shifting and very potent lesson prior to one of our sessions regarding the immortal fetus practice and the image he drew was identical, minus the small/fine details. Breath is inextricably linked to consciousness and body/mind process. What a great image. Thanks for the blazing reminder.

While I can't imagine doing anything on the order of these types of modifications to my self. I can't condemn it outright. I recall reading the advise and warnings of 'experts' when the first cars were being driven around about the inherent dangers to the human body of traveling over 30 mph and how it would surely lead to unimaginable and dire consequences. I'm not certain of much, but of this I'm fairly certain, we are an absolutely mind-bogglingly interesting and odd species.

Freakishly, Amazingly Awesome! Love it.

So much wonderful crazy shit to be freaked out by and scared of... Life would be so boring and peaceful without it.

I love routine... until I get bored. Then I long for excitement, until it gets overwhelming... then I long for routine again.

heavily concentrated laundry soap should be used sparingly...

mmm monkey peaches...

This reminds me of an insight I had while still embedded in the Christian world view I was given as a child. I was reading the bible intensely in my teens, in an attempt to get some answers to all the questions that folks in church were unwilling, or unable to give. I wasn't even reading the 10 commandments at the time, but it suddenly became apparent to me that the 10 commandments, weren't intended as actual orders, as they had always been offered as guilt and fear currency in church. They are not a list of 'should nots', rather they are indicators or Path Markers of embodiment of Metta, or Source Love of things that you would not do. When in the flow of Metta it is not possible to murder, or covet and theft becomes laughable. It's not a case of Thou shall not (or else), it's Thou will not, because in the state of such love, those actions just can't manifest. It's just not possible to engage in them while in the flow of such love.

I'm going to share the time while working with a tree, whom incidentally I consider a friend, when it became energetically and tangibly apparent in the midst of the form that she was playing Qi Gong along with me... This triggered a very gentle, but instantaneous and pervasive expansion of sense of self, into samadhi and a tangible awareness of the processes all interconnected through myself and the network of trees in the park around me. It also triggered a flooding rush of sense memories of my innate love of and core experiential connection to trees throughout my entire life. Like a flash of lightning in a clear blue sky... Unshakable and piercing to the core. Indeed, it is now an apparent truth for me that trees in general are engaged in a life process of Qi and Nei Gong and such is one of the cornerstones of their existence. I routinely high five their branches as I pass them by, caress their trunks and frequently chat with them and remind them that I am aware and grateful for what they embody and who they are...

I have found that good health, limber mobility and stabilized emotions are an unavoidable side effect of the work, which to me, falls under the category of slowing the aging process, if we define aging as the degeneration of mental/body function and quality of life. However I don't share the goal it seems many have in stretching out physical manifestation for centuries, or anything even remotely resembling immortality. It seems I'm just not that attached to this body and have never had a fear of death. While I thoroughly enjoy my body/mind and my life process, I have no desire to foster it indefinitely, nor am I interested in a yang energy body that lives for eons. What I am consumed by, is the exponential growth in compassionate love that results from the work.

On this topic, I have always operated on the premise that: Just because they don't have a body, doesn't mean they are helpful, smart, or nice.

Ling Bao Tong Zhi Neng Nei Gong Shu: Wang Li Ping Secret of the Golden Flower: Richard Wilhelm translator

One of my favorite creatures. Simply amazing.

That is the poster slogan for Naive Realism. Such a very seductive trap to believe that we perceive and interpret our perception of the world accurately, if we ever even become aware that we are interpreting our perceptions at all... I'll defer to Robert Anton Wilson when he echos the words of Husserl and many other philosophers over the last 2,500 years commenting on Naive Realism and Reality Tunnels. edit to fix link

For me it's "may all beings be released from suffering, or the illusion of suffering..."

not to forget... everything on and in our planet is reconstituted supernova stardust... edit: I typed that as if using what I imagine to be Brian's voice... echo... echo... echo...

limber elf

I try to chuckle at all this talk of various races of humans, if I don't I tend to drop into sadness over it and that is a waste of energy in my experience any longer. Save energy for what you love, not what you fear. There is one race of humans. Differentiation of race is little more to me than the expression of fear based insecurity usually due to a lack of experience and parroting of conditioned information/thought forms from culture and family.