silent thunder

Geodesic

Hexagon

For me, any longer, to release and let go, is vastly more potent and healing than to seek... anything. To seek is to become seeking and effort and strain and things naturally fall into a struggle for and against with duality. To release seems to foster mental quiet, clarity and simple being that resonates in a sense of flowing unity.

I won't say much, because the sleep meditations were among some of the most profound experiences of my life and words just don't encompass what took place. Paradigm shifting stuff. I will share some of the more blunt experiences/sensations though. The meditations were quite simple and required very little from the students, aside from laying in a specific posture and breathing in a simple pattern for a set count with focus on one, or more of the Dan Tien, depending where the work would be done. The effects seemed to manifest from the field generated by Master Wang, my being open and relaxed within it and following the instructions very carefully at the designated time... It really felt as if he (and one night, some of his teachers and past lineage holders) were expending the effort and working on me/with me/for me and the most effective thing I could do was try and not interfere, or resist. They ranged from one to four hours in length. The physical sensations included floating, prickling, water flowing, intense heat emanating, flowing and pulsing in, through and out of the body and outside the body in a mind boggling array of directions. Intense, spontaneous physical motions... to the point that I was laughing several times while wondering if I may just flop right out of bed. Being awakened at various points in the night and flowing in and out of sleep with magnetic pulsing in the heart, lungs and MDT. Pulsing in the liver and kidneys. Very potent and lucid dreams nightly. And one night in particular while he was working with the heart, spontaneously sitting up in bed from sleep hours later, into seated stillness form and being visited systematically for about three hours one by one, by nearly everyone whom I have ever had a strong connection with, friend, foe, animal, family, trees... all the way back to preschool... The effect of the spontaneous physical motion was one of having gone through a four hour physical therapy session that rendered my body and joints more physically relaxed than I can recall, which resulted in the meridians opening up and subsequent the mental/emotional clarity brought about by the heart work which is still manifesting when I sit. Profound. Deeply Compassionate. Loving. Grateful. Subtle and Deeply Pervasive. Lovingly Penetrative and Infusing. Opening and Releasing and Simultaneously Contracting and Expanding are all words and phrases that come to mind now to describe the process. It is ongoing. I still wake on occasion, to the magnetic affect in my lungs/heart.

My most recurrent and annoying is probably... think about enlightenment hard enough and finally 'figure the puzzle out'. Followed closely by 'the world would be so much better if we just ___________, or didn't ___________'.

flowing intuition

release

anticipation

samadhi

OH SNAP! Done deal Dude! Digital High Five! edit: the others are clearly more appropriately utilized in positions within the Cabinet.

My vote is torn this cycle. I'm still putting quite little effort into my decision and expect it to be a lightly considered decision, probably made from a quick 3/5 rock paper scissors with myself in the booth to decide who it'll be... Flying Spaghetti Monster Heimdall Freyr Freyr holds a solid lead in the current polls as he's got sunshine and rain on his side... not to mention he's Vanir and a bit closer to the elements which always plays well with me in an election cycle... Heimdall is a distant third due to his only real qualities being the birthfather of humanity and the other hominids, where as the second place Spaghetti Monster comes with pasta and the high quality head gear... One thing is certain, the decision will come last minute, with almost no thought beyond the current list and a considerable amount of ale...

I am with you mate. I take it as one of my badges of good parentage to claim that my ten year old has never once asked to, nor seen an episode of Barney. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

UBER COOKIES!

Waffle

Do you experience that Yin and Yang are separate 'things'? Any more, I see them not as separate, or opposing things, but as the expression of Tao, interpreted as varying degrees of polar extremes and appearing separate based on a perspective, which is shaped by human senses and cognitive filters of family, culture, etc. For some time now, I have not been able to reconcile any 'things' that are separate. The ten thousand things... are they separate? For me, where I am now, it seems not. They are more like facets to the gem of the expression of tao source and each facet may have the strong illusion to my senses of being separate, based on how I may perceive it in a given moment, yet remain unerringly part of source, never separated from it, nor independent of it. And for the record, I have no intentions of deleting or modifying anyone's statements in conversations I initiate, ever. If something breaks the rules of the forum, I'll let the mods handle that. Speak your mind freely in any thread where I am the OP, please... how else do we get to the solid potential truths if we don't wade through some muck?

It seems that my perspective is always at the heart of what drives the nature of 'this' and 'that' and then my mind, based on how I filter perspective analyzes and I define opposites. I can't grab a one sided stick, if I split a stick down the middle I still grab a whole stick, though its shape has been altered... yet I need a hand to grab a stick and they seem separate to my mind and my senses, I can't chew my own teeth, or close my eyes and look at my own eyeballs. To my senses and my mind, my son, sitting at his computer across from me, appears like a separate human, yet as we just did a few hours ago, scrape his skin and put it under a microscope and we are a community of trillions of other 'separate' cells. I remember vividly when I lived up North and experienced the four seasons... in Fall, 35 degrees felt chilly and I'd wear a jacket outside. In Spring, after six to eight weeks of -10, when it got up to 35 we were running around in t-shirts... It really seems like my experiential awareness, based on my cognitive and sensual filters, is behind the very idea of yin and yang. Without senses, without mind, without analysis, is there appreciable yin and yang, or just the one process, playing out in myriad expression and the mostly illusory and projective nature of my mind, that sets up all these seemingly static things that become so easily labeled as 'this' and 'that', apparently either at odds with one another, or in harmonious support depending on how I interpret it? Always nagging me with this of late is the Naive Realism aspect to it. I don't necessarily sense the world as it is, nor do I necessarily interpret what I sense accurately... every perception is a gamble and an interpretation...

It's inevitable that some folks have a very harsh reaction to these topics. Everyone's reaction is their own, but just their own and to say unequivocally that all should follow your own view of these matters if fundamentalist and projective in nature. In the end, none of us know how we will react to anything until we're in the midst of it. Yes it may be very trying and difficult, it may be amazing. Don't know if the water is deep til you get in... you can sit and project from the shore all you want, but the realm of thoughts is not the realm of experience. It's entirely possible, I've witnessed it personally, to have a psyche breaking bad trip with no entheogens at all, just sitting at the dinner table for Thanksgiving, or Australia Day... should we say all large family gatherings are potentially dangerous and should be avoided without the proper guidance of a family shaman? Relax folks, nothing wrong with some healthy advice... but the all or nothing blanket statements are tiring, overly-authoritative and in the end, just how you feel about it. The world is a flowing process and these plants are part of it. I have talked down several friends who've had very hard 'trips', but I have also had the exact same level and type of conversations that were just as debilitating and harsh, where no chemicals of any kind were involved, other than extremely unkind actions and words by supposed 'loved ones'. In the end, everything in life that can cause a reaction has an entheogenic property to our awareness. For me personally, nothing I have ever ingested as a 'drug' has ever come close to being as powerful as my experiences in Pranayama. Should I then outlaw breathing exercises, because they might shake me out of my stupor? When exploring the psyche, it's advisable to prepare and approach with respect, but I'd say the exact same thing of getting in your car and driving to the airport. Life is not inherently safe. Live. Jump in the water if you're inclined, if not, sit on the shore and project and contemplate. Nothing is wrong with either, life is life.

Fordham

Ok listen up fuckers! I happen to love one thing almost above all others, (except the stuff that I don't...) and that is grumpy old folks! At least Grandmaster P popped in and said Hi, so I know we haven't totally lost him... But if you chase off any more grumpy old folks, I'll have to go too, since I'm one of em. and for THE LOVE OF TAO... STOP THROWING MUD AT MY HOUSE!

Good topic. Thanks for posting. I have made significant, abiding and very beneficial breakthroughs using psilocybin in particular, and have always revered plant medicine for its essential contribution to life as we know it.

Good on ya!

I am wondering if anyone else would be into a casual film/book club, where we pick something, set a date, then open a thread and discuss it? I've found so many things to watch and read via the 'what's on your nightstand?' and 'what are you watching threads?', but then I usually end up just mulling over my own thoughts on them, or pestering my wife and buddy, into glassy eyed trances...

Bifrost

Mjollnir