Birch

"Well it's "low level" like, "extra stuff", "distractions", "not the real path" etc etc etc. Pretty much, "serious practitioners" don't pay attention to stuff like that." Because? "I think it'd still be pretty significant if I can make an entire crowd of people think I was the president for however long I wanted." Well, if Obama/Bush can pull it off, why not? I'm not being snarky BTW. It's just that I believe that a "presidence" of anything is pretty much an illusion. I think the getting everyone to believe in the illusion stuff is pretty "high-level.

"low level" spiritual feats- stuff like clairvoyance, telekinesis, illusions and things like that. Oh, I dunno what's "low level" about: - Clairvoyance - Telekinesis "Illusions" are IMO something else.

"But it would be true that historical Karmapas are said to..." Would it also be "true" that I just almost nearly wrote "Oooh you're getting very good at this stuff"? Mr Apech, I expect more/better. Why I do is, of course, my own problem. I guess I'm doing it for my own practice. Forgive me for doing it on your forum space/time. Take it as flattery, maybe? Was the "But it would be true" caveat necessary? How about just "Historical Karmapas are said to..."? Either they are said or not said to. In which case adding "...it would be true" is pointless, no?

"Karma-I'll define it now as 'Getting what you deserve' is a nice theory philosophically, religiously and appeals to our scientific sense as well." How does it appeal to our "scientific sense"? "Hard to argue with short term cause and effects. But as we go past short term it becomes problematic for me." Well, I dunno. I think it's pretty easy to argue short term cause and effects. Especially if one attributes the wrong (i.e. either over or under) "responsability" to things. "Who the hell is keeping score?" You are "Don't they have better things to do." Hopefully, yes. "Aren't some things just plain random?" Oh. that's a tough one. I don't know what "random" is. "When karmic reactions start getting into past lives that seems ultimately unfair as well as unknowable guesswork." I reckon it depends on what one considers as a "past life". I reckon yesterday is a "past life" for me. "Its also the ultimate in might makes right, validating the caste systems and the worst in snobbery." Ah, that would be "deserving" as well as a misunderstanding of "karma" which as far as I have understood it so far, has little "moral" implications but does have wider "immortal" implications, tending towards "resolution" of desire (life) rather than, well, the opposite. "Well to do tyrants and oppressors are blessed by the universe and victims are getting what they deserve." Human-construct "Murderous villains in the East have been aided by sentiment that it was the victims karma, no need to get involved, mass murder and torture are fine." And in the West. Only way that makes atrocity possible.

Nice one ;-)

"Kate what xactely do you mean by "mind-drawing qigong"?" I mean the version of qi-gong where you just lead your awareness around your channels (maybe MCO is the most common one to start doing that with) without adding anything i.e. no "pearls" of any colour, no "emotions" of any shade, no smiling, no "sexual" energy etc). I think it's a technique that tends to get disparaged as "wind" (I can't remember why) but I think (and from experience) it's worthwhile doing to strengthen the various "channels" before you start pumping specific "energies" through them. Sort of like before doing leg curls with weights you want to actually curl your legs first then add weights.

"then we're left with nothing really said for any shared sense of reality." _oh THIS (I'm taking my "THIS" back for a while ) is the best one! It's the what happens after one (might) realise such a thing that's interesting IMO. Still, it would be neat if the "shared reality" part looked nicer than what it is from where I'm looking at it. But I guess I can't have that (being a silly "idealist" in an "imperfect" world n' all). Anyway, IF whatever Max is doing has resonance in the "right" places it might still stand that he sucks at marketing (or has pretty bad advisors). I also stand by my desire to see BS practices come under the critical regard of people who know what they're talking about in favour of other people who are starting path (whatever it is) and who should be treated better. I was listening to a qi-gong master podcast yesterday and the invitee explained the concessions he made in his teaching practice in order to "make a living". That pissed me off quite a lot because it seemed to me the concessions he was making were being made on the heads of his students.

Excellent! Thanks Trunk and Cheya. I've been "fiddling" with sword fingers on my hands. Definite something going on. Not sure what. If you do self acupuncture/pressure/twiddling, do you "automatically" self-regulate? I would speculate that if you intend to do such then yes, but if you're trying for a high or a "power" then it could be tricky/risk harm. What do you think?

Great post too! Edited to add link: http://www.amazon.com/Why-Not-Scientist-Anthropology-Knowledge/dp/0520259602/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1287490616&sr=1-1

Sounds plausible to me. Which is why you want (need?) all those darn chakras open and balanced :-) I wonder if doing simple "mind-drawing" qi-gong before pumping specific energy(ies) through things might be worth doing? Good luck with the move!

To badly paraphrase Alan Watts. "A good teacher steals your watch and sells it back to you, if only to make you realize you had a watch in the first place." Sloppy, I agree with everything you've said. Again and again, this is why I come to TTB's - as a sort of a clearing house for BS practices. Any mind/body/spirit practice is going to be (IMO and small experience) challenging for someone who grew up in a culture which has split them apart (in fact I believe this is the goal of many "religions" - to install a split model for lay people and an integrated one for the "chosen" but I digress...) Systematically blaming the student for not "getting it" very fast is IMO somewhat disengenous (sp?)on the part of (some) teachers who, if they know better, are perpetuating the very thing they claim to eliminate, or if they don't know better, should probably not be setting up in the teaching business in the first place. I can't decide which is worse so far. I won't address the societal breakdown that could potentially stem from such pictures. Much worse gets shown every day on TV news and no societal breakdown or upheaval (aside from the usual) seems to be going on.

Thank you Santi! Thoughts going your way.

"In the space-time represented by two intersecting triangles" Triangles? Why? I think straight lines are kind of weird. The rest of the quote is pretty cool. Thanks 3Bob. I'm fiddling about with the idea (other people might call it contemplating, I call it "fiddling") that spacetime for people is something we co-create out of Tao's action. I don't know about spacetime for other beings, or even other people for that matter. Does the quote mean actual "genetic" ancestors? Or some other kind of ancestry?

What if...it were actually YOU giving yourself hints? But you've just "projected" the "master" onto someone else that you recall as such? I'm very interested in non-linear unfoldings (there are lots of them, not just one) of time. Especially since "time" per se is non-existant. If everything "in the future" has its basis "in the past" then future "you" would have to come to you to give you hints to become what he is. The other idea I have about this is that you use the "master" as a way to avoid experiencing too much weirdness. Paradoxical, I know, but it's a bit like the kid who makes up an "imaginary friend".

I nabbed this one from another thread because I wanted to start a new one and I have a bone to pick. Mr A Seeker posted in the "Qi is not energy thread": "Physicists (and engineers, chemists, biologists, moms, dads, kids, doctors, lawyers & Indian chiefs) use known-to-be-flawed models all the time! Two quick cases-in-point: gravity & light. We know that gravity really isn't an attraction between two objects in space -- Einstein clearly demonstrated that it is a warping of the space-time continuum -- but we continue to use Newton's equations with huge success on a daily basis and we teach our children this model." But we don't teach them it's just a model and maybe/probably flawed... "likewise, we know that the duality of light -- that it sometimes behaves as a wave and sometimes as a particle -- clearly invalidates BOTH models but we choose to continue to employ both of them, choosing whichever is most convenient for the given problem." But we don't explain to people that's what we're doing... "Unfortunately, the general public has a very limited & simplistic perception of what a physicist thinks of as "energy" and, for most people, "energy" means "electricity"." Well, natch, if they only got taught the first set of ideas. "For the physicist, however, there is vitually nothing (in fact, I cannot think of ANYTHING) in the universe that cannot be properly viewed as "energy" -- with the possible exception of the fabric of the space-time continuum itself, and there has been debate for nearly a century as to whether it even makes sense to talk about the space-time continuum as an independent entity for any purpose other than for facilitating our ability to wrap our heads around the concepts." OK, my bone is "Why NOT teach" kids the stuff that physicist "knows" already? What does this have to do with Taoism? Not sure but I was compelled to post it for no particular reason so figure it must be Wu-Wei

Happy Birthday Blasto. Will miss you! But understand the draw;-)

"when raised separately" When raised separately where? I wonder how many sets of twins you get to experiment on ? I'm only half kidding. I'll need to go and read those twins experiments to see what they controlled for exactly. "What if" both of the twins were raised in the same culture? I don't see where the problem with digging around into the "causes" of mental illness is if it allows people to be helped in ways that are not harmful to them (I'd love to add "and others/future others" but fear it might be taken as a sign that I am an "idealist" - again...) I can see that the findings of this study might not please some people (especially the findings that might put into question socio-cultural ways of raising kids for example) which might be why they'd be willing to dismiss the research. Too close to home? But this is just me speculating too far beyond what the findings say so discard it as my biased opinion. Please, no drive-by taking offense to this post and mentioning your own kids and parenting-skills, unless they were part of the research, in which case that would be awesome.

Anti-freeze

I'll send you this once I'm done with it. Which will be shortly. Or you can go look up a few pages on Amazon to get the gist.

Here's a likely candidate: http://www.amazon.com/Genius-Beast-Radical-Re-Vision-Capitalism/dp/1591027543 Some interesting stuff in there to say the least. Very compelling, chunked reading. Neatly packaged offhand tone with small apology for all kinds of atrocities committed in the name of "transcendence." A few concessions to empathy and compassion, which I felt quite hopeful about but so far overall it's a story where a human argues "divine right" to do whatever he damn well wants (even up to and including suggesting that "Nature" rewards him for doing so, which I very much doubt, given our current predicament). I haven't got to the end of it yet (despite it being compelling).

"OK then. So you've investigated various perceptions such as a perception of yourself, a perception of thoughts, and then a perception of stillness and finally a perception of finding nothing. And yet the word "perception" implies passivity. What if perception is not passive but is creative instead? And what if perception is neither passive nor creative? What happens to echoes and deserving then? At the time you initiate the sound, you're conventionally thought to be creative. When you receive back the echo you're conventionally thought to be passive. What if the convention is wrong in more ways than one?" Oh good, your "what if" machine is working. Sounds like a neat thing to try. "Yes, but how many people can you kiss at once? If there are 30 people in a room, the best you can do is taste a mix of your and someone else's mouth." If there are 2 people in a room (me and someone else) the best I can do is taste a mix of my and their expression/impression. If I read a book, the best I can do is meet it halfway. "It's impossible to taste purely someone else's mouth for one, and two, have you tried kissing 5 people at once? How about 30? Not one after another, but at once, instantly? That's how you are more present to yourself than to others. While you are busy kissing one, there may be 30 others you can't taste." Ah, would that I could I guess I wouldn't actually want to...But I suppose I can, just by breathing and knowing every breath has been someone else's. I feel a musical interlude happening down in my video forum. Quote I will now have to go look up that word. "Real". I think it's something someone who wanted to instill doubt invented. "Who knows. I think it's a way for people to classify experiences into the ones they will take seriously and the ones they won't take seriously. Real experience we tend to take seriously. Dreams, hallucinations and all manner of other experiences we consider unreal are the ones we don't take seriously. So on one hand, it seems like a distinction that makes sense and it seems kind of true and useful, but on the other hand, when you realize it all comes down to your level of seriousness, it all seems to be a big joke." So why are so many people unhappy? This post has been edited by goldisheavy

"So you've gotta have some system that is flexible enough to change, but steady enough to make progress." Ah, progress - What is it? I don't know. It's one of those questions I don't know the answer to. "And the people within the system have to be honest with themselves and others about when a change actually needs to get made, and when it is pointless to bicker because you aren't doing something." It is completely hopeless then. IME, people don't bicker about doing things, they bicker about what other people should be doing (this conversation an example, of course;-) but I'm not "in the education system" because I'm not qualified, although I was allowed to teach foreigners when I was an undergrad,so go figure how "qualification" is determined I think I mentioned this to someone else, that practices wouldn't exist unless they had to (or I'm paraphrasing myself badly and it went something like, "practices exist as an antidote"). And I sometimes feel there are presently too many things that require the antidote afforded by practices. But maybe there have always been "too many things".

Ah, so yes, this was the answer to the question I was hoping not to see. The new question is "What do we want "right" to be"? Not something other people are supposed to do while we're looking the other way, I hope? The lack of hope expressed here is probably a decent illustration of the effects of such an education. Something else? Something better than what's just been described? How about teaching the kids "scientific method"? I don't see anything terrible about teaching people a variety of calculations for applicative purposes. But it stops there for me. Thank you Blasto, I will go read that book.