Birch

double post

Hello Aaron, Well, I reckon there are definitely experiences that folks have come to share and talk about with each other. Sort of like opening a window when you could already see out :-) I wonder if so many people are having what sounds to me like similar experiences if that's really enough to write down as "enlightenment". I reckon there might be different types :-) I figure what often happens (and I reckon what probably happened to me) and is maybe called "enlightenment" sort of offhand is that people break (or rather, that reality helps and insists that they do) through their own conditioning. As in they break through the "who, what, when" and other "fundamentals" that up until a point they took as being the case. They understand (suddenly or gradually) that those "things" are at the very least questionable or simply not true - "truth" being in my range of definition something that lines up with reality rather than anything else. I think that for this type of enlightenment I'm describing, our increasingly global communications and travel and education and all kinds of stuff are causing dynamics that just won't allow for people to continue to believe ad-nauseum in their own conditioning (if only because they can see the evidence that there are other ways and thoughts and ideas elsewhere) and so it's probably IMO going to get more and more frequent. Then I reckon there is also (potentially) another kind of "enlightenment" which is sort of linked to the first type I suggested (and the ways it is linked are of themselves pretty awesome IMO) but is much more "self-contained". That is the breaking of the "who, what, when" and other "fundamentals" that up until a point they took as being the case just breaks. I guess that sort of begs an argument of some kind for some people being predisposed to it more than others. And yes, I consider that in both cases there are overlaps (which lead to a variety of versions of it) and mental/physical/psychological changes that can probably be measured if we bothered to.

Yeah, I suppose. I'm not sure I "get" the mechanism in some respects. I was really interested in just how the OP was going to work it all. On a "Taoist" forum - filled with skeptics and free-thinkers of all kinds Besides, isn't there supposed to be some negative payback to a black-magic practioner if they start fiddling around with people's free will, consent and destiny? Even Ya Mu makes a point of a number of hours of some kind of purification practice following his medical qi-gong interventions. Even Chuny Lin purportedly sits in FL as an adjunct to his healing practice.

"It could be nothing more than a giant dose of electrolytes and trace minerals that increases the electrical conductivity of your nervous system." We'll there you go Blasto, you wouldn't be getting soft on us, eh?

Do you mean more MA stuff? I only do qi-gong and emptiness meditation. Qi-gong IMO has forms for a variety of reasons and I figure I understand why working with forms in qi-gong is a "good" idea. Emptiness meditation has forms on its edges and if all goes well, then the edges disappear. I think it probably depends on your understanding of how forms originate and what they have as effects. I guess.

Oh no! I didn't write all that to win silly I was genuinely interested. See, here's a dumba44 thing. If you profess to be "enlightened" then you don't get to ask any more dumba44 questions. I'd rather get to ask the questions

Yes I think there is a process. But I'm not exactly sure what it is and whether it just wouldn't happen naturally anyway. Throughout my practices (because I dabble a bunch :-)), I am surprised about just how much pain there is. And also how scared I am of it. But IMO/IME practice is a way of jumping back into it, just so one doesn't end up doing all kinds of wrong to oneself (and others) because one is trying to avoid the pain yet again. A parallel would be when you bang your finger on something and then in your contraction and focus on your hurt finger (I'm saying that because I got mine trapped in a folding table earlier today ;-)) you end up not paying attention to the bucket behind you and end up tripping over it (in this case, I almost fell over some chairs but I was very careful to be mindful of how this stuff works for me :-)) Or if you hurt your ankle and rather than taking time off to rest it, you go hobbling around and put your back out because you're protecting your ankle. It's a bit of a caricature but I hope you get what I mean. I also think that because practice accelerates this process (i.e. you go looking for your issues and problems and pain and all that to solve) there gets a point where it's like "argh, enough already" and so a certain surrender happens (because at some point you don't have a choice) and things just take their course - which they would probably anyway:-)

You're so into this stuff it's killing me. And not in a good way (as in hahaha) I won't bite on the 99.99% bitch BS theory because it's pointless. You know what I'm working on right now? How to not be dependent on ANY of this stuff people make up to defend their BS. And that includes my own. None of it. So you can look at me and say "Wow, what a bitch" and it will not affect me in the slightest. I am working to make myself understand that I can't help you to feel better despite my desire to see it so.

Oh rats, now I wanna know the answers to both of those questions, dammit Oh wait, we have Google, phew :-) - Who won the superbowl in 1976: Pittsburgh Steelers 21. Loser: Dallas Cowboys 17. - Capital of Estonia: Tallinn Apech, are you referring to the actual "things" - as in the entity designated as "Pittsburgh Steelers" during that game or what we're saying about "things" ? Just because we say that team was the "Pittsburgh Steelers" in 1976, doesn't mean that's what they were prior, nor following that match. And don't get me started on the quality of the pitch (sorry, soccer reference) nor the weather, nor the supporters. Were they also part of the winning or the losing team? As a digression, I find it interesting that we have "fun" (and multi-millions) with "win-lose" team sports. Seems pretty silly to me. As does my post IMO, "Psychological Maturity" is a weird one. It seems to me to have a lot to do with social expectations as well. I'm not very sure, really. Reminds me of that article Cat linked to about religious precepts. So I guess somewhere there's a premise of what a "mature" person is in psychological terms. I wonder that now that we have neuroscience if that will change or if we'll just argue the social/moral premises from neurological observations (referring to "fun" Aussie vid in Non's depressing thread).

I don't think it helps. But I think that one might think that talking about it helps. Sorry to be an a44 about it. But someone that wants to (and I'm presently thinking about very old people who are done with suffering, perhaps due to pain and such) - well, if they really want to... But I know that on an online forum, that stuff won't work. As far as I can tell, no-one on TTB's wants to feel responsible for helping Non go there. So i guess he either finds a different forum, or puts up with the BS here :-)

Oh no, I'm busted

Man, I prefer at least level-2 guys Laughing too much to get offended, too much

Before calling BS I'd also like to know more about the spells and how they're done as well. Is it so hard to imagine that someone could (maybe) do something on a level of reality that effects yours? I'm not referring to spells that require your full belief (placebo) either. But I find those pretty amazing too. If you think about it. I think if I was having a spell cast on my behalf I'd need to trust that the spellcaster has really good ethics (and really knows what they're doing - I'm sure there's a lot of bunk out there). So I guess hiding out online isn't such a good show. Or maybe there's another reason? Either way, I'm interested that there's someone on TTB's who wants to get into that with this crowd Besides, I've already heard that name. Sounds familiar. I'd love to know where it comes from. The history and lineage. All that

Hundreds and thousands?? I wish Besides, I quite like you. Oh wait. I'm too fff-ing old.

I'd ping our friend Hundun. I'm not exactly sure what he does, but he does something As do our friends Susan and Santi For folks who have gotten themselves through anxiety I'd suggest Centre I was going to say something stupid like "working is overrated" but then I realised you might be talking about paying the bills. I know it's not very helpful, but I can't handle a lot of pressure either. So I got rid of (most) of it.

Well, I'm not so sure. I've been contemplating this one somewhat. I mean if we really don't see/know. How do we know that there's something that we don't see/know? It's that dog eating grass problem (again ) I think that shining the floodlight of mindfulness on everything is helpful, but if you really want to hide yourself in the dark then I'm sure that's doable as well. Concurrently to boot I think we accept 'unconsciousness' or 'the unconscious' as a psychological given when it might not actually be that obvious that it exists. I'm starting to figure that it might not be so. I guess if you're mindful 24/7 (or at least when not asleep) that might be a consequence. I dunno, I think there's a BS alert somewhere around the whole "unconscious" thing. Oh, especially the efforts made by people to keep their consciousness on the down-low...

Every time I see this topic title I read "Taoist lovemaking and pizza" Sounds good

I think that's pretty good advice BOL. It's pretty much what I'm practicing these days But you did sound ever so judgemental so I just had to go after you Just slightly. Here's my take: LIFE IS SPIRITUAL PRACTICE Yes, depending if you subscribe to that point of view, our friend took the most effective (for him) path to waking up (for him). His call. Not yours (well, technically, whatever, but you get my point ). If you've decided it's gonna take you a long time and much huffing and puffing and meeting aliens (or lizard manifestations) and getting siddhis then that is your call. IMO/IME. I'm going the unenlightened/enlightened combo-route. It's a twofer. On it, there are people and cats and work and play and love and hate and daylight and darkness and fun TTB's forums and qi-gong and music and herbs and cynicism and politics and ponderings and art and - well, you get the idea

Ah, this one I've always had an issue with Manitou:-) What's your "sometimes" caveat? I personally don't believe one needs to have "buttons" to push to recognize things like aggression (including the passive kind :-)) disrespect, unkindness, selfishness etc. However, I do agree that the reaction to such lies within oneself. In my case, that includes not putting up with quite as much BS as I did previously

I was looking at that the other day. I was quite interested in doing it. But of course I couldn't help but get curious :-) So I have to apologize in advance for my questions, but where does the subscription money go? I was thinking about the adwords and stuff the other day. I see all that stuff as helping to pay for the site servers and such and maybe Sean. I mean I hope he's getting something out of this (aside from all the awesome wisdom I mean ;-)) I realise the mods are volunteering (man, I wouldn't want that work :-)) but I'm still curious

I went digging back into this thread and figured the last paragraph was of interest to me. Might be to some other folks :-)

Well, the way I understand "ganying" so far is that it corresponds (which I guess is probably a good term) with reality. So whereas a "manitou" is the recognition of a pattern in something while at the same time "knowing" it's just one's own pattern recognition - "ganying" is the recognition of a pattern in something "knowing" this is part of of reality. I'm not explaining it very well, but "manitou" would be a "meta-recognition" while "ganying" would be recognition as is. I think that actions arising from either of those positions might be quite different and that contemporary folks might insist that "manitou" is correct while "ganying" is primitive and in error.

Well I suppose that's what it's doing :-) My sort of take so far is that it "completes" the qi "circuit" "flow" where and in the order required but because it's not "you" it doesn't get in your own way. I'm sort of rambling on this one :-) Sharing some ideas I've had. I also figure it's a sort of a "sacrifice" for the herb because usually, the result of the herb's "action" would contribute to its life (or it's offspring) because the "action" would be in it's natural environment. But here we have picked it out of there and applied it's properties to help a person. Unless the person gives back in some way? I dunno, I figure it must have been easier when people lived beside herbs I often get an image of a dog eating grass when it come to this stuff. How does the dog know about eating grass??? But, more seriously, perhaps "people problems" are best resolved by "people-medecine" and not anything else?

Nice points Seth. What's your take when thoughts go "underground" - as in they can't be readily identified as internal dialogue any more because you can't hear it any more. Yet the beliefs are still there because they're driving your actions? Yes, this is for me And why I'm still fiddling around. At least when you hear your internal dialogue you can figure out what it is. Would this be the shamanic "hunting ground"???