Birch

Stig, IMO you've nailed it. While I quite liked my "condensed milk" analogy, it doesn't take into account the permutations, hence Taoism :-) Which does! So that would make for a neat "Jing-chi-shen" thread.

To which egg are you referring? The "eggo"? (couldn't resist ;-)) Are you talking about something that destroys that egoic-structure? That would make sense to me, but I'd rather hear what you mean. Thank you:-)

Excellent replies! I wanted to add the thing about yin being found in yang and vice-versa. In other words they aren't mutuallly exclusive or empty of each other. So it might seem that the solution for lacking something is to be found by doing things to get more of the thing that is lacking when in practice it's actually by doing less. It's one of the many things I enjoy about Taoism. It sounds counter-intuitive and backwards to some people:-)

Nicely put Aaron! Although I would also add that your ego is the way that consciouness experiences everything. Not just love. In other words, consciousness includes hate as well. I could have been vague or used prettier ideas but I thought it would be worth being blunt. I could push it and say that this killing ego stuff is therefore pointless. Given it's yourself :-) So while I totally agree with the everything is consciouness stuff (and yes it is beautiful and it sometimes creeps me out -when I see dogs on leads for example, but I digress) I also consider there are aspects of it that merit further enquiry. Like how did us humans get ourselves into the state we're in? How was it allowed? How do we unalllow it? That sort of thing. Taoism IMO also provides a map for getting out of the state we're in in practical, embodied terms, unless you no longer desire embodiment of course:-)

Wow! A scientist tells it like I have experienced it (on occasion - not too much as it tends to freak me out :-)) I'm glad there's so much more about it that I don't know. Thanks for this one.

Red car game. If you want to count red cars, you'll start seeing them. All over. I'd akin this one to belief and biased evidence-forming. Fake it until you make it. Want to feel good right now? Just do it :-) Slap a smile on your face:-) IMO what it's good for? An inventory of belief. Perhaps an inventory of value? Still, amongst the countless books out there on LOA, I can almost bet I know who's making more cash :-) I'd take what's useful from all that stuff about belief and then make your own mind up about what you want and what you believe and how you believe any of that happens.

Gaming getting used to train people - amongst other things. IMO it's sort of like cognitive yoga - brain doesn't necessarily know the difference. So I'd say be careful which games you pick for you and yours. Jus' like TV :-) But maybe worse. However, I will admit, with guilt and pleasure to finding that Angry Birds rocks. Especially the dialogue. Mhnyuck nyucj grognt.

Sending all love and healing to Kan. I know he's done a lot for people through teaching Kunlun and I'm sorry to hear about his village. Wishing him and family and friends the best.

Thanks for your reply Aaron. Appreciated.

I'd personally be pretty wary of who and what I let in on "my" energy system. Although this is not to discount any "healing crisis" effects which do (and I believe I know what I'm on about, hahahaha) happen with many modalities (meditation included). We've discussed the "jing loss" of homeopathy before. An interesting one. I can sort of figure out "how that works" but I haven't, so far, been able to figure things that involve giving (and potentially taking) of energies between people. I kind of have a feel for it but I'd have to sit and contemplate before I could get an explanation out. I mean I know when I'm being drained in a "bad" way, but beyond that, it's pretty tough to tell, especially if you have allowed it for your own healing. Lots of different traditions see this stuff differently. Then we have BK's recent interview as well as Ya Mu who insist that healers need to have some kind of protocol in place to deal with "sick chi". Then we have folks like SFQ guy (Chunyi Lin) who write about there being no "sick chi", just "chi", blocked or flowing. I'd tend to align with the latter but then I don't sit full lotus fours hours per day either. I was trying to write a last rallying phrase of some kind and I just couldn't. Healing is so personal.

I read this mythologically, you know, a myth, a narrative about something else that is intended to show/teach/prescribe the listener something that (should?) directly apply to them in their current situation. Another example in this line is the so-called "survival of the fittest" myth. Did Darwin actually coin that one? No, Herbert Spencer did but Darwin picked it back up again because he apparently agreed: "I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient." I gotta ask, "convenient for who?" I have a few ideas and they're not pleasant. What I'm trying to get at is whenever we use myth, are we making sure it's something for everyone's benefit? Just ours? If not, whose? What about the planet? What about the other animals? Not for nothing we have brother and sister animals in some myths :-)

What Ralis said:-)

Oh you can bet I'm upset. Thankfully, when I'm upset, I don't resort to attempting to "rationalize" it all away thereby creating yet another philosophical split. This time would you have it be between "reason" and "emotion"? They actually work very closely together. (As an aside, much of practice involves this recognition and the reconfiguration of the way they interact with each other, but I digress.) Nor do I allow people to persist in their condescention by attempting to point out that I may not be capable of respectful discourse, and this via public requests to the contrary - however polite that might seem on the surface.

Oh dear Aaron, I'm afraid you've drunk the universalist Kool Aid. By all means keep your understanding if it suits you and by all means talk down to me, a mere mortal. A small i. Ironically, I don't disagree with any of your statements. But as it suits me to get angry enough about many things ( including atrocity) to change my actions and choices may it suit others to sit on their philosophical asses and pontificate. If you skip right to the punch you will forget to live your life and in doing so waste your contribution. Unless your contribution is philosophy, but most of that has been done already. We don't need another Lao Tzu ( or IMO, any number of copycats)

"In my mind I tend to view good and evil as irrelevant in the grand scheme. I know it might be hard to accept, but atrocities and catastrophes occur for a reason. I wont be so presumptuous as to try and explain it, but I do believe that there's no intent to cause suffering, rather it's quite unsentimental." Yeah, not so acceptable IMO. I also wouldn't lump atrocities and catastrophies together. If you can't explain the reason, I'd suggest not saying there is one because it looks to too far out (grand scheme) to justify things that are too far in. I'd rather say "we don't know why atrocities happen" unless of course that's false and we do know why but would rather not admit it.

Remember Ralis "everything is fine" at some level and "you are the problem" Yes it is sickening and yes this is how media works -although there are changes underway. I had a phase where I was fully focussed on everything that is sick-making in this world and believe me there is a tonne. Right now I'm trying to be media "non-reactive" and personal- sphere of influence "active" as I figure the only areas I'll be able to affect for the better are in those zones. And if I get helled at for "self-centeredness" by admitting such, then so be it. I've forgotten my heroine-outfit and my ability to comment in an informed manner on all subjects in the closet.

The fable explains food-chain killing pretty well. Inter-species killing for food. I don't see how it could possibly justify intra-species killing. Oh yeah, just a reminder of where you are on the food chain folks. IMO myths like this "are the problem". However it does seem that our world is exactly this way.

Excellent points Ulises. Retroengineering experience seems to be a goal of many yogas. Irony being that no effective distinction between a willed experience and an unwilled one. Except our idea of control and containment?

"Mine" scream at me from the other end of the room when I don't water them enough. Or they grumble when I pass and I feel compelled to get the watering can. One of them had slowly been growing into a monster, like the part of the room it was in wasn't big enough. It started pushing things off the shelf (very slowly, but you get the idea). I don't know what to do with it now. Take it to a proper hothouse?

Sure. What I find is amazing is you can get to some sort of this knowing directly through meditation. Not by being told by physicists (although I personally find I'm happy when I read their "discoveries" of this stuff because I'm a westerner after all and despite appearances I have huge respect for science :-)) I'm pretty sure if more physicists meditated they'd advance their stuff a huge amount But following that, would they share what they'd found out properly? Would they use what they'd found out for, to paraphrase TaoMeow "good processes" or "bad processes". So far the track-record isn't looking too hot.

A "thing" has "form" which IMO requires a separation (or several) of some kind. What could this "separation" be produced by? My take is that conscousness itself produces the separation - and not in all cases either.Seems it's very culturally-dependent too (dreamtime etc). What of the "formless?" I reckon the "formless" is what the forms are "made out of" so to speak. After I get to this point, I tend to get very confused in my explanation because I can't "understand" something being both form and formless at the same time but somehow I know that's what the deal is. I also have a hard time sharing the timespace with atrocitity-committing dictators and evil-doing banking institutions. Aaron, I liked your explanation.

I think the examples I have affect health directly alright. Might be your emotional health though. Perhaps folks care even less about that as well now? IMO people get caught up in the STD=morality thing and I think it's a touchpoint for so many other things. Let's say it's just part of the evidence of not caring enough about anyone else to tell them (or enough about yourself to find out). I appreciated the distinctions made between different types of herpes and what you can't do to avoid it. Gerard, how on earth would it be "karmic"? I don't understand that, at all.

"that's HILARIOUS! my first thought was, "wow, what a jerk to be sexually active with a guy BEFORE being upfront about something like that!" I don't see what's funny about it. This happens IMO/IME all the time. Seriously, can you imagine people actually being upfront with each other BEFOREHAND? If they were, IMO, very few people would ever get together. Or probably do anything much at all IMO - Oh wait, whatdya mean you're married, oh... - oh wait, whatdya mean you have kids, oh... - oh wait, whatdya mean you're not over the death of your ex, oh.. - oh wait, whatdya mean you owe alimony,oh... - oh wait, whatdya mean you have a gf,oh... - oh wait, whatdya mean you have a history of depression, oh... - oh wait, whatdya mean,... I agree that people should disclose their sexual "status" before getting it on but a)how many people actually KNOW and b)how many actually care about what they're doing? IMO many care more about what they're getting out of the situation, but they maybe don't know what they're getting at all. BTW, this post actually succeeded in bugging me because I DON'T think it's funny. Thanks Mr Hundun. Not laughing, at all.

Right. But do you gather what the text suggests? I think (and have found IME) that perhaps "spirituality" could have downfalls one may not be ready for IF one remains within tradition (or within anything that maintains duality really :-) ). What I like about this stuff is it doesn't suggest separation of any kind at all AND yet suggests choice. At least that's how I read it. I'm not up on upinshads.