silent thunder

inter-actuation

I will be working on surrender. After a three year hibernation, a surrender to the growing desire for regular daily praxis is arising again... I've begun surrendering to it for some weeks now. Going to revisit Wang Liping's sitting process as well as Zhou Ting-Jue's Qi Gong system. I also want to get back in the saddle and resume cycling regularly. Get the kid in on it. I miss that. And our city's been transforming an old railway line into a biking/walking path, which cleverly doubles as a Butterfly Migration corridor, planted as it is with supporting gorgeous flowering shrubs, so it's a stunning ride... In concert with Redondo Beach, Hawthorne and Gardena, it will eventually link up to the coastal path that runs 26 miles up to Malibu, all off street. I love cycling, but street cycling with our drivers and level of traffic is no longer pleasant or relaxing. We could eventually bike up to Wheeler Gorge and go bicycle camping... I'm going to surrender to the desire for a media fast soon, and take a break from all screens. They usually last a month but one of them went over a year, so who knows. All i know is that I've consumed more news in the last four months as in the previous 11 years combined and its influence is palpable. Surrendering to the inner voice beggin me to reduce consumption of media's and random stranger's thoughts and allow space for silence, and for my own thoughts and those close to me to be witnessed. It's noisy of late. The mud settles when i stop stirring the water. If Hollywood doesn't resume soon, (no hints from my contacts of approaching prep work and our department always kicks in weeks before Production/Camera does) so it looks like June and July will be dark. My gut says a few productions may begin in August, but who knows. I left the Morning Show in mid January. So I've had my fill of sitting meditation, screen time, books and movies. So when the hours open up... To Warm up, I have a kit/puzzle I picked up for my son's 12th birthday. He's 14 now. It's a working To Scale replica of one of Da Vinci's catapult designs. It had no gravity for him then, but once he sees me digging into it, he may well want to help. He'll at least, I trust, want to test it out on some targets strewn about the living room once finished. This will be knocked out in a couple hours one afternoon soon. That will be good some good shite... But that short project will be the lead in that should leave my space and tools prepped and ready for the real project. Which is an accurate, 9-10th century replica model of a Viking Longship in scale. The research is done. I have all the blueprints I need and some of the patterns already drawn out on paper. Thinking I'll work in cardboard first, to work kinks out of the patterns, then use those for the wooden final model. It should have full funtion when completed. Rope system, folding mast mount and sail/rudder/oars, storage areas. When painted and finished it should be a nice piece to give a grandchild one day. And while that's going on, it's back to Flutterby's. For years I've wanted to support Monarchs in their migration and host eggs, ever since my wife and I happened on a hibernating cluster of millions of them in a Eucalyptus grove while hiking in Big Sur one day years ago. That was a transformative, peak experience that still resonates energetically and has fostered in me a deep and abiding connection. Monarchs exhibit as a species, a very taoist immortality trait as I see it. Each fourth or fifth generation of them, outlives the previous generations combined and makes the migration back to the nesting grounds in California, or Mexico, to a place they've never been, before laying the eggs for the next cycle of four/five generations to continue. It would be the equivalent of me, living 320 (80x4) years and traveling back to the farm in Trøndelag Norway where my ancestor's came from, without ever having been there. Not to mention the alchemy of creating a sack in which you literally liquify your own walking body and transform it into a new being capable of flight. All with no training, teachers. <woof!> So last year I added Milkweed to our modest balcony garden, hoping to lure some Mama's to lay some eggs the old fashioned way. I'd prefer not ordering eggs online. We got a few visitors, but no eggs. (maybe they're all up on the bike path! ) That plant didn't thrive either, but it seeded in two other pots lol. My plan is to try again with a new plant and if we get any eggs, I'll encase the plant in a light screened cage to protect the little guys n gals and we'll get a chance to watch up close as they transition through their hatching and Chrysallis. Final project gaining inertia in mind. I've been drawn to revisit the DDJ again in depth, another intense immersion. The last study I undertook 9 years ago, lasted almost a year and led to me to write my haiku version of the DDJ. I'd like to commit a hand written version to present to my son as he enters High School and early manhood next year. I'll take one verse at a time, and utterly immerse in it. Through a dozen or more translations, I drop into each verse as fully as possible. At one verse a day it is doable in under three months, but many verses have to gestate for days, sometimes weeks. Or at least they did the last time. I read, reread and reread countless times... that one verse. Memorizing some of them and then carry that verse about with me as i go about my life, seeing life through the lense of that verse and uncovering how it applies and reflects in my daily life. Until I arrive at a point where it synthesizes. This was a life transformative in the extreme for me the last time around. Led me to meeting Master Zhou and then Wang Liping, which also resulted in the healing of my years of crippled disability and internal pain and ill health. It is also what led me here as during my research in finding as many translations as possible, I began lurking Marblehead's and Dawei's conversations here and eventually surrendered to the pull to join in the discussion. So my projects are surrender. To my impulses to act and to quiet down.

@moment... when you stir up shit... days later, flowers bloom. And we could use more flowers in my opinion. So stir away good sir! Incidentally I find myself missing Blue Bells... it's even the season, so if you're taking requests... Also, I know of a few threads that are piping full of potent compost... hell I may even take the ladle and do a bit of stirring myself. love!

This thread could benefit from being closed. It churns up nausea, recalling it, or maybe it's just my sensitivity levels lately. And my vivid memory of its reason for being made, its source and its past. C'est la vie. I share your appreciation for saunas lerner and my experience of their benefit mirrors yours... I have a solution as well, while they're all closed up. I got a personal sauna, after trying one out. It uses far infrared panels and heat to induce a potent sweat. Then folds up and stores in a closet. I use mine during winter to induce relaxation and limbering before engaging in sitting or moving forms. That far infrared really penetrates into the soft tissues and joints, warming the them from within just as the infrared from the Sun will. Mine has been invaluable. They're very reasonable too. Ok, enough of this thread for me. yuck.

This thread is not about full lotus, it was posted by a sexual stalker and generated to respond to the accusations leveled against him for publically bragging about assaulting young and underage women energetically. If you're serious about asking for help, I'd suggest you Open a new thread if you're sincerely asking. Perhaps when soliciting advice from strangers on the internet... expect you may not agree with all of what you hear. But to assume people mean you harm right out of the gate is rather striking. CT is one of the most caring and devoted cultivators on this site CCD, with years of experience in both cultivating and communicating here, at length about it. That any of the advanced practitioners spend their invaluable time here is a boon beyond measure. Try and be respectful, when you disagree. No one here needs to reach out and reply to your query for help. If they do, why leap straight to accusations and assault when you don't agree? Why not inquire why they say what they say first and see what develops? Or why not ask yourself why you bother posing such questions to strangers in the first place, if answers are tough to integrate... CT and now ilumairen have reached out and offered friendly advice from a place of experience. If that advice doesn't match your world view, why not simply thank him and move on? So tired of these attacks on folks lending their valuable time. I strove for years to achieve full lotus and got it. I found I prefer half lotus. I have a catalog of stretching routines that allowed me to get there which i sit in as i respond to you... and getting it was a real grind for me you see, I store tension in my kwa, knees and ankles and so even in my Martial days, I've always been less limber, had to stretch longer than other students, for less flexibility. But I kept with it and it bloomed in time. Now, Normally in a post like this, a person sincerely seeking lotus, I'd add links to some of my more appreciated and effective stretching routines... but in this case, I'll decline to help you directly after seeing how you respond. You can either use the search function, or be on your way. Peace. for the record: my most advanced teachers (multiple 18th generation lineage holders) have all downplayed the need for lotus to progress. Chair, standing, lying down, lotus, full or half... matters little. The internal process is the alchemy... not how tightly folded one is in a physical shape.

While there's nothing wrong with healthy skepticism, your tone is rather repugnant, dropping you into the category of skep-dick. Nothing is owed you. But personally, I'd love to see you ask him in person... and receive a treatment. He'd melt your heart and you'd likely walk around blissed out for daze. I'll pay for your training out of pocket. Bring your own sealed bottle of water, your own towel and foil. It's been done many times by other skeptics, though usually they manage some respect when in person... much of the bravado oddly vanishes in his presence. As explained to me, the foil reduces the effort required to be expended, no more... which adds up at 6-10 patients a day, seven days a week for months at a time. As for students who can create heat, I was treated and taught in person by Ms. Wu, one of Zhou's long time students, and his second at the old Santa Monica Clinic. It was from her I learned level two and received treatment as well. Nothing wrong with healthy skepticism... but the manner in which we approach life, reveals so much about our inner nature. How you share what you share is vital in my experience, to the quality and capacity of cultivation. Good day mate.

Then I guess it's settled... his school will crumble and his healing practice of 40+ years is soon to whither away... decades of healing all down the drain cuz neigongwiki didn't see you do something he wanted...

*mutters from the dark Zen passageway* my answer is dual in nature... *points to empty sandals. Ah... guessin' that'd be me... *receeds back into dark Zen passageway

Outstanding complexity! Absolutely love it.

The historiocity of Jesus is utterly suspect, anecdotal at best. By this point in the game however, for me, the physical existence of jesus the man is moot. Because the influence of The Tulpa of Christ that has been created and endures along with the machinery of rest of 'that system' is well established... and quite vigorous still, though seemingly showing signs of wear among the latest generations.

Ha... another one just popped to mind... "Doubt is sin." Turns out... Doubt has been my most treasured and rewarding trait.

I read the Bible. Cover to cover, old and new... twice, different versions. KJ first and another after that, forget which now. Matters not. Many sections I read dozens, hundreds of times... Reading it was the only course of action I had, for of all the most crucial questions I ever posed to church elders and my mum, all of the most important, the most distressing and challenging... were systematically ignored, cursorily dismissed with gross over-generalized simplifications, or responded to with seemingly, wholly irrelevant non-answers. Which was then usually followed up by accusations of my faith... claims I was disruptive (i was) and pressure to 'get out of your head and into your heart',. 'just trust god', 'if you had jesus in your heart, you would know peace, not inquiry." All were common for me to hear in Sunday School. Questions of my Faith were common... which always struck me, for it was precisely my unflincing belief that was driving me to uncover the truths that i had faith surely must be present. If anything, through the actions of those I knew from the Church, I steadily began to wonder if many of them possessed the faith they claimed so diligently. "methinks she dost protest too much." That line in Hamlet was like a bolt of lightning for me in realization of the self deception and rationalization that was so prevalent among the adults in my congregation. So I finally just opened the book they all kept claiming contained all the answers. The direct word of God. And read it for myself. Houston... we have a problem. My Mum was so proud, while it was ongoing. "you should see his bible study! It's so intense, he reads the bible non stop. I think we've got a preacher on our hands." If only she knew what was unfolding within me, or what was coming; she'd have ditched that bible pronto, for, once finished I'd approached her and asked... Me "have you read the Bible?" Her "Of course!" Me ".... All of it?!" Her "Well, no. Not all of it." Me "I think you should. I did and from now on... I'm done with any kind of organized Christianity." Turns out the shortest route to Apostacy for me, was to read the source material myself.

Welcome to the Bums mate.

Bummer. Thanks for trying. The old map was a welcome feature that always reminded me how magickal this place is... all these folks from around the globe; that I'd never have a chance to meet otherwise, coming together and sharing.

Adyashanti's insights have been in mind since waking today. "Most of us want to feel better, we don't actually want to see that we're misperceiving things. But that's the core of spirituality. And the only way to really wake up is to realize that the way you perceive yourself is not true." Adyashanti "Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It's seeing through the facade of pretence. It's the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.” Adyashanti “All that is necessary to awaken to yourself as the radiant emptiness of spirit is to stop seeking something more or better or different, and to turn your attention inward to the awake silence that you are.” Adyashanti and finally, the first thing I ever read of Adya's... instant recognition and sympathetic resonance that spurred me to seek out all his writings... “If you prefer smoke over fire then get up now and leave. For I do not intend to perfume your mind's clothing with more sooty knowledge. No, I have something else in mind. Today I hold a flame in my left hand and a sword in my right. There will be no damage control today. For God is in a mood to plunder your riches and fling you nakedly into such breathtaking poverty that all that will be left of you will be a tendency to shine. So don't just sit around this flame choking on your mind. For this is no campfire song to mindlessly mantra yourself to sleep with. Jump now into the space between thoughts and exit this dream before I burn the damn place down.” Adyashanti

Wow helpfuldemon. That was one potent sharing. It struck a chord of resonation in me. Sympathetic vibration. I share much empathy with your described process and state. Sounds like you're in the place of 'No Mountain'. One of the aspects of awakening that I did not expect, was the loss of connection. All former pursuits that used to bring relief, or loss of time, increase of knowledge. All former drives, have been reduced to gossamer, vaporous processes that can still be engaged in... i can play the game. But they are perceived as inherently illusory and thus, no longer possess gravity to engage me as they used to. It's an aspect of the process some of my early teacher's realized and perhaps was one reason why they seemed so insistent to not teach me, send me on my way and caution me to 'be careful what i sought for... i may find it.' Your sharing reminds me of Adyashanti's sharing about the nature of the path of waking. "Most of us want to feel better, we don't actually want to see that we're misperceiving things. But that's the core of spirituality. And the only way to really wake up is to realize that the way you perceive yourself is not true." Adyashanti I don't want to feel better, I want to burn through illusion and assumption and awaken to my true nature. This does not result in a life of ease and comfort... most often it involves deeply painful realizations about the nature of my own misperceivings and illusory projections. "Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It's seeing through the facade of pretence. It's the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.” Adyashanti Welcome to the Bums and thanks for such authentic and intimate sharing.

Hey there and welcome mate. Plenty of discussions regarding Kidneys and Jing. Search them out and revive them, and start some new ones... you're sure to find plenty of offerings. Hope you enjoy your time here, again, welcome.

Nice to meet you! Welcome to the Bums.

What a great Auntie! The gift that keeps reducing... Hope you enjoy your time here.

Welcome to the Bums mate!

Tried again. Still only able to observe the map, not interact in any way.

@waterdrop Here's a hodge of answers that arose while pondering your question of how I seek balance. Walking in nature, (which includes the nature of the city where I live, or wherever I happen to find myself). Qi Gong, Spontaneous and Formal. Stillness, Mindfulness, and Emptiness Meditation. Painting, Sketching, Sculpting. Play: cultivating childlike playfulness, anywhere, during any activity, work or free time. Finding a way to engage the inner child, particularly within normally unpleasant tasks. Doubt: Ceaseless questioning and re-examining of assumptions about my actions and their motivations. With specific attention a regarding "The Storyteller's" tendencies to assume I know why people do and say what they do in life, without knowing them, or communicating. Self introspection regarding all the stories that arise in my mind when observing life. Radical Release of all that is, including myself to be what it is in any given moment. Emulating flowers is a great mental model for release. Flowers do not open through diligent effort, but through complete release. If I release all that is not inherently my True Nature, once all is released, what remains is my True Nature. Here in a mix of these processes, I'm never balanced, but I experience states where I'm more likely to become aware when I begin to slip out of balance and may get a chance to course correct before things progress into hack and slash mode.

3 am is the cusp between liver and lungs. 1-3 am is liver 3-5 am is lung My inner clock's been waking me up for several years now between 3 and 4:30, regardless of bed time. Processing lung energies, sustained grief, and well as a good dose of my own inclination, as I am an admitted predawn walk junky.

ok, likely it's an owner's permission issue. Permission to come Aboard Sir Lerner!

I miss the old map, thanks for starting this, it was fun to peruse and see where folks are... I don't seem able to add a layer or marker, even when signed in to g-maps though. Perhaps there is a setting that is preventing those who are not the map owner from adding markers? Or mayhaps my tech savvyness is stale . I'll try again in a bit and see if it's just operator error.