silent thunder

Hey angstg, welcome to the Bums. I second moment's sharing. Really solid advice on how to approach this process openly, flowingly... an ever moving target. Not becoming rigid or fixated overly on any one aspect is a constant process for me. As with all things... run what is offered through your filter and keep searching for what works for you. Cheers on your path mate and again, welcome.

It's been intriguing and enlightening, watching my own tendencies to assume that through my interpretations, I accurately determine the compass and conditions of what and who others are in their totality. This teacher is the real deal. This teacher is a fake. What a judgemental ass. What a kind hearted So and so is backsliding. So and so is awakened. All I decry, stems solely from my own perspective however. I determine only my take the nature of another's path from how I interpret them from within my own awareness. We each experience life from the center of our own awareness. And we each see an event through the lense of that center. Fascinating process...

I experience no dissonance when I act to alter conditions, or refrain from action, in regards to acceptance. My draw to act is a natural expression of my acceptance to be an agent of action within co-arising conditions. As my refraining from action is a natural expression of my acceptance that there is no draw to alter current conditions. Acceptance is not reliant upon acting, not acting... it seems only reliant upon acknowledging what is. Action or stillness do not determine acceptance... for me. In this manner... wei wu wei can encompass flurry of action, or stillness, or any of the spectrum between...

One of my dearest and closest life long friends was raised Christian Scientist. I've witnessed him literally will away injuries in the moment, after a serious crash on the Mountain snowboarding. It certainly has worked for him throughout his life, even though he's not any form of practicing devotee... the concepts as he absorbed them, are profoundly impressive to witness... Strikes me as rather a Gnostic approach.

“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, woven into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

and

Sun Tzu's strategy, markedly differs from mine. For with me, there's none.

Rilke reaching out to me... again. The highest form of love is to be the protector of another person’s solitude. Go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows. Sadness is the soul, recognizing change. To be here is immense. If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable. Since I've learned to be silent, everything has come so much closer to me. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Awesome... that's like waiting for Solstice Eve...

tzujan ziran wabi sabi

I'm quite curious to hear any thoughts you'd be willing to share on this.

ordered three more today... haven't read a word in weeks... it's a compulsion. and

Thanks for sharing this @Yueya... I've added it to my list. Did his take on things resonate with you?

What a potent conversation... thanks all. To echo the catch phrase of a dear and missed friend @rene for me it's both, same time. (though for me, there's a third). As life unfolds, any appreciable differentiation of mind and body as separate processes or 'things' has become undesignatable for me in any satisfiable manner. Mind and Body are varied expressional aspects of one fluid process of co-arising verbs, not examples of separate and static nouns. I must add a third... Spirit and then the comingling, co-creating triumverate of mindbodyspirit arises. Each of them all ceaselessly co-generating, co-arising and ever unfolding in the process of awareness I call 'my life'. Within the expression of each, arises the aspects of the others and in the co-mingling, co-creation and co-arising of each other my life unfolds ceaselessly. Remove any aspect and the process is no longer the process. Like the generative and diffusing model of the five elements and five organs. They are not separatable for me as they are systemic expressions of one overal fluid process. None of them are separate, they are all living aspects of a system of expression. Without kidneys, what function will happen in the liver? the heart? If the lungs fail, what happens to the rest? Without spirit, or mind, or body... what occurs and yet all arises in awareness. For me the center is awareness. Awareness

I've had both shaved bald and long hair oscillating all my life. My wife has several severed braids in her keeping. As a child it was kept long... my mother adored the copper color. By my teens I was a stage actor and my hair suited the role I was playing. No choice. Though here too, as to my casting slants, my hair tended medium to long. One day, I woke up with a compulsion and shaved my head and then kept it that way for about 20 years (with two exceptions). There is an amazing level of sensation to an exposed dome... but likewise there is also much communication from the hair to the follicle in long hair... Four years ago, I followed a compulsion to stop cutting it and now it's half way down my back. I doubt I'll ever cut it short again. There are subtle nuances to a bald head that are lost in the long locks... as there are transmissions from the long locks that the bald can not receive... both have their bonuses. Though i can unequivicolly share that few stimuli in life to me, equal to the sensation of my freshly shaved head, jumping into a pool of water, or stepping under a shower... that level of sensation is overwhelmingly pleasant. Your question has me recalling the Russian Twin Sisters, from the late 19th, early 20th centuries. Natural Witches of astounding power and reputation who reportedly never once cut their hair in their lifetimes... claiming sensitivities to nature through their hair.

and then there's me in the corner... LMAO Captain Bee Fart!

Thanks for the belly laugh mate! It kind of hurt to write that cheese bacon comment... so. much. cognitive. dissonance. inherent. in. the. concept... The gentle man behind Almazan Kitchen has succeeded in counseling these two... His methods. Open kitchen. Fresh bread and an open flame... doesn't hurt to add one more counseling agent... eggs.

While I support your ability to believe whatever... your assertion is not supported. Such claims are like the following, conveying opinion, not functional meaning of stated truths. In fact Mozart is better than Beethoven. In fact cheese is better than bacon. According to what sample? Who's experience? These are revealed as unsupportable claims of opinion and thought turned to belief. A resoundingly potent realization came to me decades ago, unbidden. I share it due to relevance. "Just because I thought it, and even felt strongly about it, does not mean it's inherently real, true, or even important. Thoughts are thoughts. We have thousands a day. Don't believe everything you think."

Dead Can Dance were touring again this year after many years hiatus, I bought tickets to surprise my wife and son for her birthday. Last time we saw them was 15 years ago, my wife pregnant with our son standing in front of me @ The Hollywood Bowl, me with my hands resting on her belly... etheric, transportive, magickal. Every time Lisa Gerrard sang, Connor would start gyrating in the womb. and of course Ms Gerrard's tones are so perfectly matched in timbre by the resonant baritone of Brendan Perry

I have learned much about my True Nature in the realms of dreaming. Many dreams are still more piqued in memory than many events that transpired in the phenomenal. Just because it is not manifest, in the substantial, does not mean it lacks reality, for me. Ontological includes the phenomenal, noumenal and that which lies beyond the ken of our apparatus and mind.

maybe in another life... if there is another time... maybe in that time... i could learn... to love you.

Some time ago, I stopped seeking answers and started living in the questioning. Such contentment arose effortlessly. So much energy spent in the defining, propping up and defending of answers that in my experience time and again, can not hold their timbre under the weight of their own surety. “To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness