silent thunder

Thank you for sharing Sketch. The properties of water are endlessly fascinating to me, and this was some very new and highly intriguing info.

That was beautiful! Those sandwiches were as big as their faces! what a sweet man... thanks for sharing mate.

That's got me thinking... Given the circumstances here regarding our history... could Earth be a version of one of those 'bus stops' on a galactic scale?

The cyclical nature of the seasonal procession seems like an indicator of this inherent cyclical nature of the manifest, to me. A Spiral Progression. As I move through the process of my life here, these cycles reflect internally as well, within my own individual awareness are the ages of the spiral progression reflected within my own process. As within, without. As above, below.

For me the hinge pin in how to tell delusion from true perception of actual reality is our perceptual process and the awareness that fuels it. When there is no true perception among human minds regarding reality... perception for each individual is interpretation, gamble, assumption, projection that is created by the storyteller of mind, that is formulated and based on filters of perceptual cognition created by family, society and self dialogue. How does one define actual reality in a manner that doesn't rely solely on their awareness through their perceptual apparatus? Perception and Awareness are the arbiters of actual reality? To me they are filters and reflections of it, respectively... we only ever speak about what we perceive and are consciously aware of... what we perceive is what is filtered into and then through awareness... because of this, claiming that we are free of delusion at any time is akin (to me) to aiming a flashlight into the ocean and saying... I've seen the ocean, so I now know it as it is, in full, clearly and truthfully, it's actual reality... It is the same for me when folks claim to know actual reality with their flashlight (local conscious) awareness. Such innate trust in and assumption of the capability and accuracy of the projections of one's perceptual process and local awareness is alien to me.

Thanks mate. You are appreciated.

Welcome mate!

I adore Niels Bohr. ha, rhymes! This quote of his (and subsequent parlay by Alan Watts) caused a shift in me. And some time ago, I traded away seriousness in my demeanor for sincerity. After living this way, I'll ever go back. Serious is dead inside, muddied and muted, to me. Somber without need and innately withdrawn on a fundamental level. Whereas Sincerity is vibrant, fully capable, engaged, present and able to play in the midst of still 'getting shit done'. Sincerity over Seriousness for the win. And deep love for Sir Bohr.

I've encountered emptiness breath sublimation practices in G-Tummo (Tibetan) and in my experiences with Longmen Pai. I expect it's shared by many traditions under a variety of names and to a myriad of potential applications. It's surprisingly potent for me. I play it sparingly.

“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes. And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.” And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.” And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut

“The hypothesis of God, for instance, gives an incomparably absolute opportunity to understand everything and know absolutely nothing. Give man an extremely simplified system of the world and explain every phenomenon away on the basis of that system. An approach like that doesn't require any knowledge. Just a few memorized formulas plus so-called intuition and so-called common sense.” ~ Arkady Strugatsky, Roadside Picnic “Strange department, this. Their motto was: "The comprehension of Infinity requires infinite time." I did not argue with that, but then they derived an unexpected conclusion from it: Therefore work or not, it´s all the same." In the interests of not increasing the entropy of the universe, they did not work.” ~ Arkady Strugatsky, Понедельник начинается в субботу “I would put it this way. There are objects for which we have found uses. We use them, but almost certainly not the way the visitors use them. I am positive that in the vast majority of cases we are hammering nails with microscopes.” ~ Arkady Strugatsky “Easier to believe than comprehend.” ~ Arkady Strugatsky, The Snail on the Slope

Welcome to the Bums Jordan.

Well, at least you're not bitter about it. Fundamentally disagree with you on time existing mate. It's not an objective property/virtue of reality. Time is a human manufactured perceptual function of comparative memory and as such, is relegated to thought and is subjective. If your memory (alzheimers, dementia) shuts down, your notions of time passing dissolve as well. You could visit the work of Einstein, Bohm, Bohr or visit an elderly care facility to observe this.

In my life, meditation oscillates between dietary and medicinal. For a long time was dietary for me. A disciplined daily process linked exclusively to the cushion (or the stance, or form). Eventually, some decades in, a process of release was initiated. A deep foundational shift in paradigm, awareness, perspective, motivations/desires, attachments played out... all forms and processes dissolved (some still are). Interesting to note that meditational states had branched out into daily life, work, shopping and so the need to pursue it actively was released into daily embodiment. Formal cushion time and use of stances and forms lately manifests in a more medicinal process. No longer a daily diet, formal sitting and forms arise tzujan, when conditions call for it and i respond.

Lime is pretty close to Lima...?

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn't make any sense. ~ Rumi

Nature takes no pains to explain herself, but spares no pain to ensure her message actualizes. ~ (spontaneous thought while rock climbing)

Misery, it seems to me, above all other things, craves making others miserable as well.

Wang Liping recommends the Wilhelm version at his retreats.