Birch

Thanks Susan! I have a question/experience to share. When I've gotten my breathing really long and slow and quiet, I sometimes think along with it "well, this is funny, why breathe at all then?" And to the contrary, I've had panic attacks (years ago) where it seemed I couldn't breathe enough. Sometimes when I am with other people, I notice how fast they breathe and how I invariably end up lining my breathing up with theirs, unless I make an effort. The reverse sometimes happens but only when I make that effort. Any suggestions for maintaining without effort??

Thanks Mark! Nicely written. I've been doing a "double wake-up" the past few mornings because my first experience upon waking has been something like "ugh" so I sort of backtrack and change it before I actually do get up so that "ugh" does not become the color of the day. Dan Ariely (sp?) has a weird experiment about this stuff in one of his latest irrationality books. It's weird because he openly admits to manipulating (ok, he calls it "priming") people into the required experimental condition. As an aside, I wonder if he wonders about how ethical (or just plain weird or kooky) that is? Anyway, I guess my double-wake-up is sort of cheating with respect to the terms you put down in your writing. Yeah, a kind of avoidance. But who knows what my "ugh" idea/feeling comes from in the first place? It could be something really pointless and unimportant. Pointless killing the day because I have some strange desire for acceptance of everything. That in itself is sort of weird. A desire for acceptance! What do you think? I'm not a skilled enough notation meditator to reach back into the sequence preceding my waking up to figure it out. I can do it ok if I'm awake already, just not through the transitions so I can't say if it is really "the same" as falling asleep. Sorry for falling off topic. To get back on it. Given the adage about "blood following qi", it might be a safe pick to focus on certain areas and not others. My acupuncturist told me I was too much in my head (again, dammit). I believe it was also Yang Jwing Ming who theorized about people in Northern hemispheres having more qi in their heads vs people in the Southern hemisphere having more qi...well

"Some people who are not even spiritual or undertake any sort of practices can have an accident and suddenly attain a level of development comparable to people who have been meditating arduously for years." Huh. And I figured it was worth doing (meditation) anyway. Bum choice! How awful the accident for the person who wasn't looking! What was the person who wasn't looking for it looking for then? I'm serious. I enjoy meditation, only because I enjoy the silence:-) And it's not the be all and end all. Sort of like getting offline from time to time But then - to take the allusion further - you get back online. Then what? Huh. I reckon we're (speaking for myself) looking to wake up from whatever we do not wish to experience. Otherwise, well? IMO I reckon all that sh*t about sitting around rivers is pretty spot on. I reckon many wakings up await us. Not just one. But it all does seem to me to be going boomshacka with the waking up stuff right now. I mean, have you been offline recently?? Edit to make topic: As far as I can figure, LDT is one of your neurosystems (to not utter the word "brain) and as long as you starve it (or feed it cr*p l) then indeed, that is what it will do for you. But if you start paying attention to it, feeding it with your awareness, attention and energy, then it will (re)start doing for you what it's designed for :-) It might not always coincide with the rest of you. I think that's quite a dangerous part of developing it.

Barb...Manitou...you said "woof" An' the guy(s) missed it...again :-) As I was saying (during my TTB's vacation) to another bum "Where are all these "men" that these "women" keep talking about?" And I dare say the reverse could also be true:-) So tired of so many threads that seem to me to rehash a million times over the "traditional female" (and I guess by allusion "traditional male") roles under covert yin/yang dynamics. Tired of it. Doormat. My take. Never ever presume a "relationship" where none exists- except maybe in your head. Do not attempt to make someone else "fit" into your own idea of, well, anything at all. Otherwise, many many disappointments in store (IME\IMO). Burdening others with your own idea(ls) whether those be yin/yang or not is IMO really really silly - and not to mention completely pointless (or possibly cruel...) Better to feel/understand yin/yang, maybe? While I'm in favour of erudition when it comes to each of us and our world, I'm very much not in favour of erudition towards the goal of "controlling" the former. Just look where that seems to get us. Whatevs.

IMO, one might begin (if context allows) in a less-complicated system:-). IMO "non-dualism" - admitting dualism is a pretty good start. Then what? I find I am still alive in an amazing world (and as I learn about the universe, I find it amazing too!). Many things apparent, many things hidden. If these are me ("as consciousness") then I would love to know them :-) What I've found so far is that I personally need to align myself with systems that reflect me as I am, if I am to make any progress in my life (forget about enlightenment for a moment). I'm a 10,000th thing with its dao as given by Dao - of which I am part. Could it be that I accept both things and delight in both?

But what really could I do? If someone has decided to see things in a specific light, what can I do? Do I change the light? The person? (hehehe, the incandescent lightbulb is soon to be dead! No more "how many...to change the lightbulb" - jokes? I will miss them (aside from them getting quite crowded, recently :-)) IMO "Laziness" is not doing, or doing too little of what is required in any given situation. Wu-wei is doing what is required in any given situation and not doing (too much) in situations that are perfectly able to resolve themselves without action on one's part. Not to say that no action takes place, it just might not have to be yours :-). The other way I've felt this is as a distinct "ego-move" that is distinct from anything I would do "naturally". So I might say that "wu-wei" is uncontrived, not thought about, not manipulated...it is natural action.

I liked both of these posts and I have to say, if "technology" is going to bite me in the A44 then there's not point in my helping it along :-) So the deal is to stop doing anything that helps it happen. Whether the required action be obviously pleasant or not to me personally seems to be a side-issue. TaoMeow and Mr MH, I've understood that the magic you're referring to does not require belief to function Just like an H-bomb (or a reactor, to bring things back to actuality) does not require my belief in it to blow me to smithereens. So what's the smart thing to do in such circumstances? In the case of a reactor, wouldn't it be "get as far the hell away as possible?" In the case of such magic/technology, what would it be? Somewhere in me is a naive hope that very "brilliant" magicians do not "bother" with the lesser mortals (i.e. me) because they have bigger fish to fry. Or am I being silly? Yep, would seem I am, didn't seem to stop a bunch of magicians blowing up all kinds of things (and people) prior and concurrent to me. Still, aren't we on a "helpful" forum? So if Mo-pie guy is scared out of his britches then isn't it worth helping the boy out? I'd personally call out the obituary-posting dude and request he stop. But if he's magic/technology-using and has it seriously in for me then I really don't know what the "best" course of action would be. Of course I'd tend to think he sucks and should show me some compassion. But heretofore, I haven't been able to make virtue coincide with power.

Thank you! Alan Watts is one of my favorite authors.

I'm still waiting for my gift :-)

Do you mean fear and malaise in yourself or other people? I definitely think it's worth looking at fear and malaise in yourself as these are so often avoided. Maybe once you've done that you won't want to intentionally do it to other people? I find the TCM stuff pretty interesting. It discusses arising and maintenance of specific "emotions" and their effects on organs. So are you "angry" because you're "angry" or because your liver is out of whack? If you are going to be kind to your kidneys, do you opt not to fear? If you have a cold, is feeling "sad" via the lungs a necessity? As far as I've read so far, actual "emotions" don't actually counter or "5E" each other while overall "mood" is definitely a source of influence over the whole human system. So while I've found emotional training (don't know what it's called) interesting, I'm not sure that they can be orchestrated to that point. Or if they are, gotta ask who's life one is living :-) IME What I hate about qi-gong is that it very much re-localises emotions.

I reckon you'd have to ask a buddhist for their reading of your insight. My personal take is it's pleasant to find other people attractive. Now whether you find them pretty because you were told to or not is a real good question :-)

Sure is :-) That book also has a bunch of good explanations for "fire" and "water" paths and all kinds of stuff that we frequently discuss here. I also found the author's hypotheses about fields - including bio-fields and polarities pretty compelling.

Really interesting stuff Sykkelpump. Thanks for posting. Reminded me I probably should also keep up the salt baths in general.

Dmatt, check out this book, makes a good case for not over-doing the single chakra/organ energy work http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1886969507/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/189-4144648-6390522 And seems the more qi you build the more dangerous this gets. It's also an excellent overall read

That's a nice way of putting it Manitou. But it does seem that many people are poised and willing to "teach" us as soon as we are born. And it continues, until you put a stop to it, or find better teachers who will acknowledge the space essence needs. Or point gently (or harshly) in a particular direction. But IMO many public teachings run contrary to essence, then oh how grand is our conflict and how difficult our awakening.

It ain't that mysterious ;-)

It came to me (although nowhere, suddenly) that Buddhist viewpoints allow for the elimination of suffering by cutting off many of the root (or could it be said the ONLY root) causes of suffering. In other words, the notion and (as I understand Buddhism calls it, the "belief" in a separate self). Well, I wonder. I wonder if it's really as simple as that? I wonder if the removal of self as an entity isn't just another attempt to suppress one's "true" expression. I can expect at roughly (more or less) 5 minutes from now there will be an attempt to explain karma or dharma to me as if I were ignorant of such concepts. I am not. Unfortunately. Yup yup, I get that if I don't think those awful suffering thoughts, I don't suffer. Thanks. However, I guess I'm having an issue with that stuff. I can't live in denial of suffering - whether my own or others. I may even want to do something else to alleviate such. And I suspect it will be action, not just not-thinking.

Very nicely articulated and agreed with :-)

"past lives" I'm very sorry to have to suggest this. But from where I can see it "past lives" are simply other people's problems that they pass on to you. So yeah, "technically" you can end up with a "past life" -effect despite yourself (or your best interests). I'll avoid "pre-birth" for now. But imagine everything you find out about women through example as well as implicit/explicit teaching (dogma-tradition: including that of your ancestors) becomes your current belief, which becomes your way of being. Maybe Non didn't decide the half of what he's experiencing? In which case we ought to cut him just as much slack as we condemn him. Hence my "lusty women" dig. That we ever defend any of our wrongdoing or wrongthinking or wrongbeing as "ourselves" is another topic for another day.IMO

"I suppose if you're ego dissolves then you really see." I reckon we ought to get this "ego" word-reference thing right, if not collectively, then at least personally. Because IMO, if we let Freud have it, or Jung have it, or Buddha have it, or the ad-guys (mad-men) have it then we do not have it and therefore they can do whatever they want with it - because we gave it to them. No matter that one thinks by giving it up that one may be saved or enlightened or loved or avoid being kicked out or down or up for that matter. In practice: My ego is the hard-covering over me, the necessary shell I grew to protect myself from the attacks of an incredibly insane culture- curls up but can't swim...y'know. Doesn't mean I have to keep it.

I was going to say something dumb about qi being plasma. Then I remembered I would have to go get a link of some kind to explain what I am referring to when I say "plasma" Ok, I went and got it. It's not Wikipedia, but I figured it would do http://physics.about.com/od/glossary/g/plasma.htm

That's cool in a creepy sort of a way... Which talk-show?

Any gifts for lust-driven women ? I'm serious.

Oh no, man, you said the r-word

I figured I'd resuscitate this thread to post this: Spiritual Bypassing This has to be the best book I've read in a while! Reality rocks :-)