Birch

I concur Thanks for this. It made my day

"Then again, I used to put a lot of energy into Kali devotion, as I just love her as a Goddess. When I took up extensive fasting and doing puja's she would appear in my room and dance for me. I would be riveted with ecstasy, every drop of blood falling from her tongue would nearly destroy me. But then one day as I felt her coming on, I felt a subtle kind of wrenching from my balls and deep abdomen and it felt as if her Image [she seemed real] was somehow chucked out from within me... It was not quite the same after that, as I felt I was witnessing a part of my self." Right, something similar happened here...but was it the practices themselves??? I wasn't worshipping her but she turned up anyway. Maybe the aliens are just waiting for enough people to put enough energy into them appearing. Alright that sounds weird. But anyway, mass hypnosis, doesn't that happen every time you turn on the TV?

Well, Lao Tzu was his own mother (or father) and 'old boy' right? So I'd shoot for a yes:-) Both are doable. Thing is IME/IMO you start out sort of backwards with this stuff then it flips and then it gets weird for a while and then it becomes - um, normal, I think. So you don't remember what backwards felt like.

I think they help to ground experience (i.e. you're not the only crazy human who has ever done x to get y :-))

"Because in the end, it is all an illusion anyway, isn't it?" No, but your illusion about it is

Oh. I thought it was just a good feeling.

Oh I KNOW this is between you and GIH, but I tend to enjoy his posts. I find some of them a little 'dry' and intellectual but they do seem to be good for me to read. Anyway. What's wrong with being proud? Seriously? It's one of those backwards things you're supposed to want/not want to do/be again, I suppose if you get proud for the wrong reasons where you're currently at, you might 'stick' there. But can't you let someone at least get there and THEN figure out that it might be a good idea to drop it to move? Besides, if you berate them, they might stick there further. Pointless IMO/IME Mr VJ :-)

You mean "I" need a teacher? Or just in general? The intellectual part comes mostly from me trying (pretty badly) to explain my experiences without sounding like a nutcase. No I'm not very good at it. I thought for a while it might be useful to get much better at it. Now not sure. I practice, just maybe not to the heights that I could (maybe). But it's not my main goal right now. I haven't quite worked out what that is yet. Maybe I don't need one. And I don't know whether one really has much choice in the matter either. Or one has full choice and in choosing, I choose to let other things be my teachers. Like dogs and rocks and space pictures. People even :-) Internet forums even.

Well, actually SB, I'd revised my original 'prejudice' of you and found your take in the thread pretty strong indeed (in a 'chi-balanced' kind of way even!) It's interesting this Jing stuff. I swear I sometimes see it transferring. Like a heat-haze sort of. It has a 'plasma' like thing about it (I probably shouldn't get too much into this as it's a bit weird and it's like admitting to hallucinations :-)) Not the same as my experience with Shakti which was definitely electric. It also has a specific colour whereas Jing is colourless :-) I was puzzling the other the day about whether I could now voluntarily zap people or not. I was going to ask Susan but on second thoughts I don't think 'small me' gets to decide to zap or not zap. I mean I'd like to be able to, to see everyone wake up - but I think you wake yourself up when you decide to yourself. Zapping or no zapping. TCM is definitely my 'go-to' for most 'ailings' - only because I have a particularly good TCM who gets me results and I have little confidence in traditional docs. But I will consult them and use them on occasion. I'm not sure you can actually ever 'lose' jing on the grand scale of things. It just converts. ZerosTaos post about open and closed systems was interesting and I would love to heat what TaoMeow has to say about it.

No. But now I know where he is, I'll be sure to drop by and have that psychic judgement served up. It's not often you get a opportunity. You're both still as much in love I see :-) In fact, one of the reasons I chose Santi as a teacher was because he offended me somewhat. Not enough to not want to learn what he was teaching but enough to make me go 'hmm, what's up with that?' I also used to find Susan uber scary, Slop a rational dude, SereneBlue weak, Manitou a bit of a hippy/new age BS person. And many of those things changed into something else and keep changing. It's the 'why' they change (or not) that I'm interested in. I still don't think DO is the biz and I still dislike preaching (so if I'm doing it now, shoot me;-) well, not literally :-))

And we need religion to tell us this? Now I don't know anymore. I think that people are very much aware that they have a perspective. That they argue about theirs being the only one that's the case is where the trouble starts IMO/IME. Even buddhists :-)

"Also, I think you have to do the Taoist practices with some bit of faith otherwise it wouldn't work as well." I did/do most of the ones I learned "faithless" - only because my "faith" had been sorely tested by religious BS for such a long time. Being experimental (as in 'try and fail and try') about practices and perspectives gave/gives me a different idea/understanding of some of them (and some serious doubts about others, but anyway). Those ideas don't always line up with the explanations given by the masters but they do sometimes and do seem to "empirically" 'work' - which IMO/IME is far out :-)

VAJ has psychic judgement? Awesome! VAJ, could you give me the hotline/judgement number? It's (almost) just for fun. I've often been interested in seeing how people that irk me (and you do, but it's probably not your fault :-)) see me. Sounds like a full-on ego-trip :-)

I like this one because it concurred with my pre-exisitng dea that buddhism is not the bearer of truth. It's a religion folks :-) Oh, and to avoid nitpicking, as far as I know, so is taoism. Is shamanism a religion? Hum. Not sure.

Here we go! Ethics of Dogen

"do you mean healing the physical body or healing the mind? " Well, I think that's the point where "faith" crosses over both body and mind. If you have further experience of it 'working' then I guess that might clear things up for you (or maybe confound you further, depending;-)) Weird that lack of experiences doesn't seem to have the same effect...Anyway, I digress And counter to that, mind can scr*w up body... Beware, amateur practitioner speaking :-) IME/IMO the whole "energy cycle" of 'jing to qi to shen' in a human microcosm implies you can also return 'shen to qi to jing' - as the "way of Tao is return" - I read that here Except I've never had it return to a previous state (not exactly the same one!) It's an open system IME/IMO. I'm kind of rambling and not an authority on Taoism so I apologise for giving you just my experience. So, anyway, whether you consider each of body/mind/spirit to be a 'form' of the other (I have a neat condensed milk analogy about that that no-one here listens to ;-)) or that you allow (through experience) that each can and does influence the other in very subtle ways (BTW if you try qi-gong or just breath exercises you will figure that stuff out very fast :-)) I reckon it's fair enough to have them (jing, qi, shen) all influence each other enough to give out some broad rules of thumb. Add to that that, some of them (jing,qi, shen) are super tweaked, very fine, look at acupuncture and what Ya Mu and co do :-)) And don't forget placebo :-) I think westerners tend to dismiss that one, but it's very interesting :-) IME/IMO Of course, if you prefer, then you can just opt to get zapped and not get into the complexity :-)

"I am positively motivated" I had a bit of a bunch of ideas about this a while back being a 'better' propulsive 'way' in the world than suppressing desire. IME/IMO (because IME hahahaha) leads you to return to yourself and love. It leads you to f*cked up places so you can recognize the BS and rid yourself of it. It leads you to be virtuous :-) The problem with this idea tho' IMO/IME is it doesn't set well with logic.

Oh, that's not what I was asking. I was asking about generalizing from one experience to another. I.e. the case for (or not) generalizing a snake/rope experience to any other. In the example I gave, there wasn't 'fear' as such but certainly much attention given to the snake and a good getting out of the snake's way...until I figure it's a rope :-) The snake attention is/was 'sub-cogent' - until I realise that it's a rope. Then I can go 'whoops' thank god it was only a rope and not a snake! IME, meditation is the putting of spaces/punctuation into one's experience, not using it to explain everything - but that's a bit of a personal aside.

"someone projecting a rope as a snake and thereby fearing it" Don't you think that's useful in the case of snakes? I've watched myself of this one. I wouldn't generalize it as a principle and suggest that because the snake/rope mechanism is in play for snakes and ropes that it must be in play for all other experiences. Although I guess if your only 'proof' of this is through sitting or walking meditation then I can also 'get' why you might think so.

Thanks Zerostao. But "Prerequisites Partial differential equations, vector calculus, complex analysis including Fourier-Laplace transforms and contour integration. Elementary kinetic theory of gases. Electromagnetism, including Maxwell's equations and plane waves." I don't remember any (cough, cough)

I'm going to look at these with interest Tyler. Thanks :-) I think there comes a point in practice where the 'small self' (the one you don't love 'enough', the one that compares itself to others far too often, the one that's looking to reinforce itself due to it's weakness) lies somewhat dead and bleeding. I'd turn all the 'gentle' around at this point and point it at myself. Forget all the other people because if you try all that 'spriritual' stuff from that position, it won't work IMO/IME. Just more fakery on the part of the small 'me' trying to be good 'spiritual' person. I think (I know) that the gentle stuff only comes when you've realized just how strong you are and how much power you really have. Doling out 'love' to all willy nilly with no discernment or care for yourself (i.e. boundaries) is possibly self-harming...did it work before? I agree that keeping one's own counsel is a valuable skill to learn.

I agree with Stan's exercise suggestion. In dropping the conditioned self ("opening") you allow yourself to be who you are and other people to be who they are. If you only ever define yourself by others' reactions and expectations of you and you only ever define others by your reactions and expectations of them then IME/IMO you're setting yourself up for a rough time - and in fact this was exactly what you allowed yourself to do as a kid in order to 'get through'. But you don't have to do it forever :-) At some point we'll be able to teach kids that even they don't have to do it, or we'll have a more balanced environment for them so they won't get caught in such a reduced dualistic field :-)

I tend to see 'isms' as suggested techniques/technology/mapmaking to get closer to understanding but at some point, the experience 'does itself' IMO/IME. What some 'isms' actually seem to do is lead people OFF the path. I mentioned this elsewhere and I still don't know why this would be desirable or to whom it would be desirable. You'd think that any given church would be overjoyed to count realized/enlightened people amongst their number, right? Still, while one is still dealing with conditioning/BS/pain/delusion, it does seem to me to make sense to have 'fixes' for the body/mind/spirit but once you're done with whatever raft you've been on, well, you're done with the raft :-) The rest seems to me to be more practical stuff, like what to eat :-)

Thanks for this Niklas. I really enjoyed it and the original movie. Which, strangely enough, I first watched when I was in your town :-) I found the philosophers in the documentary a bit wired and bug-eyed. But it was otherwise neat.

Not on this one IME :-) Ask away. Besides. I don't know jack :-)