silent thunder

As often occurs your sharing is very resonant with my realization on contentment versus happiness/bliss of recent years. Some time ago I realized a truth in my path and left off seeking happiness or craving bliss entirely. They are untenable states in my experience. Happiness and bliss are manic in nature and the manner in which they burn energy is very obviously unsustainable. To maintain them they require upkeep and they continually siphon energy from the well. Inevitably when the well runs low, the manic happy state drops off and reveals its duality in the inevitable let down to misery or apathy. I don't shun them when they arrive, but do nothing to maintain them. They seem to do less 'damage' to raw presence and simplicity. When I used to leap whole heartedly into them, they seemed to fuel a bi-polar like cycle that would feed greater extremes of both aspects of their nature. Contentment requires no maintenance, no upkeep, it is not fueled by forms or objects. Contentment is not only sustainable, but sustaining in my experience. Contentment is abiding, unintrusive, undemanding and seems to be foundational, like awareness. To sit as one is, where one is... to be in raw presence and content... what more powerful practice is there? Happiness rings as hollow as Fear in the long run, and reveals itself as equally unsustainable. Again, my experience, not touting this for any others, or selling it as the one way, but sharing a bit of what is revealed on my way.

I could see cobie's bent within a week of his arrival here. He's been on ignore ever since. Life is too short and the day is too long for such folks in my experience.

Jambalaya

Bubbles n Squeak

The health of a tree, is revealed in the quality of its fruit...

Much resonance and deep gratitude. Thank you for sharing this.

repeated for resonance

Los Angeles is an amazing place and rife with options for cultivation. Welcome to the Bums mate.

utterly beyond the ken of any word object or mental concept to describe or encapsulate.

Thanks for sharing this. I enjoyed hearing him describing his fascination with the materialist conceptualization of physics. I've not spent much time studying the buddhist cosmology of manifestation, but I've been an enraptured amateur physicist most of my adult life. David Bohm and Krishnamurti worked together on unifying their respective paradigms for several decades after their meeting and initial realization that of all the folks they'd met and spoken to over their careers to that point, they each understood each other on a level seldom achieved with any others... all this from seemingly opposing positions, Bohm being a Western scientist and Krishnamurti an Eastern esotericist. Yet as you approach source from any avenue, the realizations begin to mirror each other and reflect the truth of foundational source. all stem from and return to source it seems. Some of their conversations are available on the youtubez and are fascinating. They walked common ground from very differing positions. Their work together is also reminiscent of Fritjoff Capra's synthesizing work The Tao of Physics, which was based on his spontaneous realization of the underlying unifying realizations of western scientism, particularly quantum theory and the established tenets of eastern esoctericism. As i conceptualize it, tao is foundational, prior to the one speck (singularity). Awareness is foundational... all the way up and down, it's awareness. What we call 'manifest' or material reality, is emptiness in form, which arises in awareness pivots about its center then returns. I find myself pondering if tao/awareness are synonymous, or if awareness arises from tao. Within raw awareness there is no distinction of this and that... it is pure, raw, seemingly ground state. It is radiant clarity, void of conceptualization. When awareness identifies with form, thisto me is entering a role within the play of Maya and it is here that foundational awareness divides into the 10,000 within the illusion of emptiness in form. One of these levels being this one we are sharing this theater of life and conversing/experiencing together. The Bon and Tibetan notions of shared dreaming and layers of dreaming have become central to my own paradigm over the years. It's so compelling for me of late, I'm mulling over locating and reaching out to a Dzogchen/Bon teacher for some conversations regarding this to explore in more depth. Though all individual forms and distinctions are constantly passing away, illusory, gossamer, ephemeral, intrinsically transient and returning to source; Awareness seems foundational and unifying... unchanging, undying. Does Tao give rise to Awareness? Is Awareness The One which is birthed from Tao? Or is Awareness intrinsic to Tao? This is the pivotal question whose answer i waffle back and forth, it is a fascinating bone to chew. But alas, it's a conceptualization and thus, form dependent, and so... limited. Ever the menu, never the meal. The paradox of raw experiential awareness, and then the process of thinking/conceptualizing and attempting to speak and sharing it with others, is as frustrating as it is fascinating. The connections it engenders is why i keep coming back here. This is fertile ground for connection and so far in this life, connection is as close as I've come to a meaning for my life.

Her threads seem more like a blog stream, or a preacher's net being cast, than a conversation; but as it doesn't seem to bother the mods and admin then they'll continue until she loses interest. C'est la vie. I tried for a time to ferret about for relevant info being offered in a couple of them, but the language barrier proved inhibiting. When she turned belligerent, I blocked her and moved on. Life is too short, and the day is too long to spend energy there. Very effective to scroll passed.

Cause of violence? Life. (though the distinctions among humans is myriad, for me it's simple. Life is violent at its core. It's unavoidable.) Yet life is the cause of the avoidable violence as well... it's just hardwired into the aggregates of life on earth as we experience it. Yet the avoidable violence of The J Group and the group/hive mind violence is the most disturbing to me. You mentioning them sends shivers down my spine @dwai The mindset of J group is as insidious as it gets... (justified, obligated) Violence of mind and body. Whatever it takes... The story of expansion overall typifies and encompasses the tip of the spear of human depravity to me. It is the manifestation of intended, organized and willful brutality, horror and imperialism run amok. Once begun, no actions are disallowed in carrying out what is justified by divine right... Few encounters raise my radar more than encountering a person who is abiding in the 'justified' mindset. I encountered it regularly as a child given the area I lived in was rife with religious fundamentalists (evangelical christians). Under the sense of being Justified, any actions (no matter how horrific) become not only permissable, but in the deepest mindsets, the actions become an obligation. To not act is equal to sin. Violent conversion against the non compliant is preferrable to the sin of allowing them to continue to live 'in a state of sin'. Violence whether in pursuit of life or in defense of it, seems foundational to the fabric of manifest life on earth though. Life lives by killing other life. Aside from light absorbing proto=life that absorbs light, all life feeds on other life. Everything eats everything. My son likes to remind folks that there are tons of microbes on veggies and if you ever read the ingredient list of potting soil that we grow all our veggies in... well, suffice to say, soil is not vegan. Life feeding on life is violent. Yet, semantically, the violence we talk of here I suspect is the 'voluntary type', the kind that is human generated and not required for living. And among this type of violence we are split as humans. Some violence we condemn, and some we praise and worship. We punish some murders while awarding medals for others... We condone and worship and praise certain violence daily in every form of media. (our soldier heroes! the brave citizens who stop crimes) The rationalization is instantaneous (as it is considered justified, so therefor codified into conditioned thinking modes) and comes with zero guilt, nay even praise and adoration. And it's not wrong to do so. I support violence in a myriad of situations and have engaged in it on several occasions. Culturally and personally, we all I expect have areas where we will feel not only justified, but obligated to act violently. I've encountered these limits in my life. When violence arises in me though it does not seem voluntary, it arises wu wei, tzujan... there is no mulling it over... I recall watching my older cousins climb in a truck and heading over to straighten out their sister's new husband, who'd beat her during an argument. I recal being grateful that she had her brothers to protect her. Witnessing assaults on the weak, defense of my life, or those around me, muggings, rapes, molestations, lynchings... any of this exemplifies where my own justified violent minset arises and I discover (sometimes after the fact) that i've engaged in 'whatever it takes' to stop something abhorrent to me from happening in my presence. The cause of violence? is Life.

If all reverts to Tao. The Tao is not one. It is not a thing. It is not a nothing. Tao is Tao, unspeakable, undefinable, ineffible. So we do not revert to One, we revert to Tao, which is foundationally preconditional to any 'one'. And again, we're holding this conversation in the realm of word objects and conceptualization. And as soon as we intellectualize something, it is no longer what was experienced. Be here, now. What else is there that is required?

Nothing to do with Norbu, everything to do with your behavior.

Moved due to thread topic being about Politics I would guess.

as you routinely like to bully others with the phrase, I'll mirror it back to you... talk is cheap.

Figure it out yourself. No one owes you a free lesson. Puffed up and parading around from thread to thread demanding things of others, condemning and bullying. Who cares if you agree or not, or if you understand or not? We're having a conversation and you appear only interested in policing your belief system and acting with some sort of self imposed authority. You're just some old guy with strong opinions and a rigid belief structure living in the desert. The health of the tree is revealed in the quality of the fruit. Do the work yourself and see what arises, or don't, it matters not a whit. But stop with the bullying. Between you and old fundy bob it's a wonder any conversation is maintainable. [ignored....again]

With no way to properly diagnose you, I'm unsure why you'd be soliciting serious medical advice from strangers on an internet forum. Why not schedule a series of tests with either a Western or TCM Dr with real qualifications to diagnose, and treat, in person?

ok, this is your experience. thank you for sharing.

@natural Pain does not equal Suffering. This is my experiential awareness. i understand if you won't, don't or can't differentiate... this is why I ended my post with (in my experience). I'm not selling this as your truth; i am sharing my own realization.

You describe mind. Lymph is mind. Body is mind. World is mind. What that is spoken of and perceived is not mind? It's all mind. When mind turns outward, it identifies with projection, assumption, conditioning. When turned inward, with the natural state. There are no things, only mind. No thing abides but for a brief interlude of mind propping it up. There is only awareness. Suffering is a projection of mind, what mind creates. Suffering is a crisis of perception. (in my experience)

When present and awake... the entire world is teaching. The teacher is everywhere. Every aspect of life, form and void is teaching and speaking all the time. Are you listening?

Donald and his team have got their fingers on the pulse with this line of enquiry. Been following his lectures for some years now and deeply resonate with some of his metaphors for the hallucinatory nature of our perceptual modeling process.