Birch

Another wise person asks for nebulously constructed abstractions to be explained by the farmer:-) Whaddya mean Mr Cow?

With sea salt

That's a shame you deleted your 10 paragraph post! I'll dip into a few of your points, if I may:-) 1. we were originally beings of light energy. from the sky, we came down to earth and merged with the heavier earth energy, and became humans. - This to me is a story. I have no way of checking the facts of it. What it sounds like: 'The Fall of Man'. I'm unaware of a universal human story, but of lots of variants. 2. the mind is a blend of heavy and light energy. the interaction between our spirit and physical body. you can say that as long as we are on earth our reality is created by the mind. - The 'blend' is interesting. Again, I take this as a story, not the reality of it since I have no history of anywhere else. I guess I could take your word for it:-) Should I? 3. the mind has a natural tendency to follow the instinctive guidance of light energy, because of our ancestral roots and connection to the light energy. meaning, in a choice between heavy and light energy, we will always choose the virtuous way. this is our conscience. - I see counterexamples to this suggested 'natural' tendency pretty much everywhere. I see this also as 'natural' (unfortunately). So it's a nice thing to suggest to people as an ideal, but I don't consider it to be the case. 4. unnatural circumstances and over-development of the mind, coupled with the increased heavy energy amongst us, has blocked the natural guidance from the light. we become conditioned by difficult circumstances to not see the light. What circumstances are unnatural? I agree that left-brained verbal language makes it too easy to confound and lie to others and ourselves about pretty much anything. What increased 'heavy' energy? 5. cultivation is not a matter of reprogramming the mind, so to speak. its a matter of rediscovering the natural function of the balanced mind that follows the light. Balanced, yes. How about SOUND as the missing direction, not light? (Although at some point they end up being the same whatever, but still:-)) 6. this discovery process often creates a conflict, between pre-heaven protocol of following the light and the years of haphazard conditioned mind protocol based on experience. My personal understanding of conflict is when people invent linguistic narratives to influence others away from what is otherwise well understood as real. 7. in this conflict, you begin to feel that one type of energy is "better" than the other. the light energy is free and buoyant and non-conceptual. the heavy energy is always accompanied by pain and misery and conflict. and so you begin to question many of your previous ideas about self and others. you realize the light is independent of external circumstances, while the heavier energy is always dependent on circumstance. The use of 'you' as a case in point to my example above:-) Certainly some energies are more pleasant than others, but the full spectrum of them includes all of them AFAIK. One's attempts to not experience some of the less pleasant ones may lead to wrong decisions (amongst othe roads to hell paved with good intentions). 8. you choose the light energy because it feels natural, instinctive, and good. but the visible and invisible forces of societal conditioning is strong. yet you persevere. having experienced the light, you will naturally want to uncover more of it. so you follow the dim light in the distance, and as you follow it, it becomes bright and brighter. Hasn't been my personal experience so far but I'll leave you with yours on this:-) I was very personally coerced into accepting some concepts and not others. I should apologize in advance for not wishing to take on any additional ones without having the opportunity to roadtest them. 9. an important realization is that heavy energy is in fact fuel for your spiritual energy. I have feet in the world, yes:-) And an objective to bring whatever 'spiritual' energy is available to me to put it back into the world for the benefit of all. 10. the conflicted mind gradually takes the backseat, as you begin to use the darkness within to support the light. the polarities between good and evil is dissolved, and the spiritual energy takes the front seat. the thief is gone. the mind's natural functioning of following one's spiritual nature resumes. our natural virtue is restored. I can't say anything much about this:-) Thanks for your post:-)

How so Oildrops? I think I 'like' that idea better than the 'micromanagement' of my current 'mindfulness' practice (it used to be 'worse' than this, much more suppressive:-)) If anything, mindfulness has shown me very specifically that I'm not very often choosing my thoughts. To the contrary, I'm simply watching them, most of the time in fact. At this point, I don't get what this idea of choosing one's thoughts is supposed to be doing. I can't do this thing but other people can? Or that I might be able to in the future? What about the people that say I should because they can? Do they really do it? Or is it just a nice idea to tell other people to do? Why? Does it mean there's a developmental process at work of some kind which will take me from a place of not being able to do it very well to being able to? Are there any costs involved? On what basis should I make a choice of thought? Something pops up and I don't like it, is that enough to say 'ah, better immediately think something else'? Reminds me of some game of Whack-a-mole:-)

Here's another for the list SB:-) http://www.wisebrain.org/Polyvagal_Theory.pdf

That's where I'd say I'm around at at this point. In other words the 'next' thought that follows a thought of which I become aware can be 'chosen' as a reaction (hmmm...) to the first thought. Edit: further, I question what's 'wrong' with the first that I should then wish to choose a different one? And further, if I react to one thought by imposing/'choosing' its reverse, doesn't sound like more than yet another reaction to me.

Could you explain what that is JB?

No assumptions (I think;-)) here. I'm speaking from where my practice is at.

So this is a belief? Or is it the case that some people can while others cannot? An ideal that should be striven for but that we know is very difficult to accomplish?

The choice in the above is? Not the thought itself?

Ok, I got it up until "the mind is a thief and you must guard yourself until you see that you are the thief, and eventually, that there was never any thief to begin with".

http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/pubs/64onedim/odm7.html Read the part on masochism

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Hi mom!

Okaaays

People invoke Sponge Bob???

Thanks Taomeow for your time, effort and work on the boards:-)

"Yeah I think I agree K , but I am not sure I understand how you mean that." I mean that the 'therapeutic world' (more so the 'self-help' industry and forums;-)) is filled with people attempting to resolve other people's problems while their own largely remain unexamined and unresolved. It (IMO/IME) can result in less than fortunate consequences for the people seeking help because they can inadvertently become the means towards the therapist's end and not their own. I'd say especially if the latter has no training but it is mitigated by self-awareness. I'd suggest further, it's not good 'energetic' practice to involve people in one's own resolution in this matter. I realise the irony of saying this on a forum with a heavy amount of dedication to DIY healing, self-development etc and I have done it myself. Curiously, my interest in being a 'healer' of any kind for the reasons cited above has evaporated with my own progress. --opinion etc--

Thank you Apech.

Stosh, I think we'd never have any therapists if we held them to some degree of having resolved things for themselves before they started their practice/training... Joke aside, I agree that it could be counterproductive for others to be helped by someone who needs to help themselves more first. I think we do have to be careful on the forum not to offer too much of a pointed diagnosis. --opinion etc--

Thanks Seth, this sheds some light on some things. It would definitely factor into whether I wished to delve further into the 'spirit' contacting stuff.

Welcome to TTB's!

"My final final note, is spirits are real. If you treat them as psychological manifestations of your own mind, they will resent you and things will go badly for you. Also you will continually underestimate them and their capacities... " Now this is the thing that sticks out for me as a huge difference between Buddhism and magical practices. Seth, given your expertise in both, could you talk to this a bit more? I'm finding it tough to get. The book I read by Blofeld on Kuan Yin was about this too. The people he met on his trip had no problems reconciling both.

Take your time with all this advice. There are lots of folks trying to help from their own perspective but you know yourself best. You have been through a lot. I think the internet is great for venting and finding people going through similar things but it has the emotional warmth of a wet rag sometimes:-) A face to face counsellor (not the internet) would be IMO/IME much help at this point.