Bindi

A quote is making him into a caricature? This is what Stirling believes, you also believe some version of it, I have clarified this with you before, subtle body work to create an immortal body is dual, this is what you believe, I’m not making fun of it in any way. I am merely stating that his realisation and your realisation are not meaningful to me because they don’t have room for subtle energy body work or outcomes. Indeed his realisation and yours are like a cummin seed to me, not satisfying at all, I’m merely trying to explain why. The above is one reason amongst others. Did you think I should have been being educated by stirling’s ‘wisdom’? The longer this thread goes the more I understand why nonduality as presented by stirling and you are anathema to me. But I’m not against nonduality in principle, it’s a fine thing when it happens naturally, it just isn’t happening naturally in many cases. I also don’t think nonduality is the full meaning of life that you and stirling and maybe others take it to be.

Do you mean an example of rejection of physical, mental, emotional or subtle? Stirling states “What is MCO? Either way, a discussion on this topic is really unimportant... siddhis in general are just entertainment really - not a path to anywhere” therefore I reject stirling’s philosophy/realisation, as siddhis are based on subtle body development, and I don’t dismiss their value.

Perhaps I am just rejecting any philosophy/realisation that doesn’t value the physical body, the emotions, the mind and the subtle body.

Very broadly, didn’t Gautama stand by not-self, where Hinduism in general looks for the Self? I thought this was the irreconcilable difference.

Do you really think your nondual realisation = enlightenment = non-returner = Christian sainthood = immortality? I think different methods will actually produce different results, and each can say they were successful within their own tradition to a greater or lesser degree, but each realisation is not the same. There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Stirling, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Funny thing is you too have some very fixed ideas. You don’t have the understanding to make a supposition about siddhis, yet you’re very quick to dismiss them. Yes I’m pretty clear about it.

Seconded

I said I’m never going to try the nondual view. I’m never going to choose nonduality, all I will ever choose is to work with the restrictions on nonduality. To choose the nondual view or try to have that perspective is deeply inauthentic IMO, and leaves this sort of nondualist full of dual foibles which is not a good look.

True, what I’m now happy to call Mind/spirit is leading me through the process but only to an extent, I have found IME personal guidance falls short unless you’re that one or two in a hundred billion, and it’s understandably rare to be one of those. Wonderful! Qi is a deep subject indeed, and it is qi and the subtle body that need special skills to navigate IMO. It is in this field that one can start a fraction off course and end up miles from the goal, I think this is ultimately the hardest nut to crack, and TBH I can’t blame people for not even trying because it’s almost impossible to get right without 100% correct guidance.

I agree but not Buddhism in general, just mahamudra and Dzogchen I think.

If I can insert ‘spirit’ for mind, to extend the concept of mind, emotions inform mind/spirit, just as mentation informs mind/spirit, but I agree they are not the fundamental thing, mind/spirit is, and mind/spirit has the potential to exist beyond emotions and mentation. In saying this I am also implying that the two subtle side channels inform the central channel, that is their role, but the central channel is the fundamental channel. The thinking mind and the emotional stream are conditioned, and can perhaps be unconditioned, their conditioning perhaps occludes our posited mind/spirit, and looking at it in this way what was occluded was never conditioned except for the thoughts and emotions that had become monstrous hiding it. I wouldn’t be inclined to believe in the occluded mind/spirit, I would only be prepared to remove the conditioning to see what is then revealed, and this still leaves me working within duality in an effort to resolve conditioning to reveal mind/spirit. What about qi, it’s neither conditioned emotion and mentation nor is it unconditioned spirit/mind, yet it wants to flow in certain ‘extraordinary’ channels to accomplish certain extraordinary tasks, perhaps as someone posted earlier this is the toolbox for mind/spirit, and thus equally worthy of being developed. Thanks for your post. edit to add: conditioned emotions and mentation occlude mind/spirit, undeveloped qi leaves mind/spirit ineffective in the world.

Which bit is embarrassing?

The mind has its own mind nature, but the emotions have their own nature as well, and qi has its own nature, and we’re a mixture of all of them, why prioritise mind above all other fundamental natures that exist within us?

I recall I was once aware of two levels of mind, two spinning discs one on top of the other, both contained in a thick flat bottomed metal bowl. The top one was the everyday voice in my head and the bottom one was half that speed and thinking with this one was calm and clear. This bottom disc is a good candidate for me for ‘nondual perspective’, the subtle body form of the mind, valid within itself, but at the end of the day just one more level of mind.

Do I have to practice Islam to know I don’t like it? I read the Koran, that was enough. Do I have to get sucked in to conspiracy theory, or get involved in a suicidal cult to know that they’re not for me? I think not. In the same way nor do I have to try the nondual view.

Would you kiss this Salome?

“self” is empty, but identification with a new “Self” beyond “self” would surely be just one more identification to a Buddhist or non-dualist. I am an alchemical factory, not a paper tiger. You’r welcome to consider yourself a paper tiger. Someone once described his accomplishment of the MCO as spinning his wheels. I think he was right, because it was just empty energy without “the medicine”. All the intention in the world could not produce “the medicine”. Same with healing, all the good intention in the world will not produce actual healing apart from a placebo effect. Empty achievements deluding self and others, until like my ‘someone’ above you have the guts to look within and say I am kidding myself, and in that moment one will be a little less deluded, until the next delusion comes by that one can hold onto of course. Because of the shallowness of non-dual realisation.

“You open the gates of the soul to let the dark flood of chaos flow into your order and meaning. If you marry the ordered [Elijah] to the chaos [Salome] you produce the divine child, the supreme meaning beyond meaning and meaninglessness.” (C.G. Jung, “The Red Book”, 2009: 139)

What of those with real non-dual realisation at the level of ‘Self’? Agreed. Do you really believe that non-dualists are paper tigers? If so I rest my case Definition of paper tiger : one that is outwardly powerful or dangerous but inwardly weak or ineffectual. If her distance healing doesn’t work, even though her intention is to be helpful, I would find the whole endeavour to be deluded. Kind is good. Some beliefs/practices just make me cranky, for example, Conspiracy theory, dangerous cult practices, Islam, and the self-proclaimed nondually awakened. C’est la vie.

I would say you can’t be in wuwei if you haven’t arrived at hsuan kuan, like which comes first the chicken or the egg, I’d say hsuan kuan. But then again we’d have to agree on what wuwei actually is. Which to me begs the question what is the great medicine?

I like the topic, and I liked your OP video, things that resonated with me were hsuan kuan as the gateway from youwei to wuwei and from action to non-action, found in the upper dantian, a stage during the course of practice, formless but revealed when ‘the energy’ rises, and the Great Medicine will be generated when hsuan kuan emerges.

A technique for feeling painful feelings. I’ve been actively working with stored painful feelings for literally decades, and I still have to remind myself to feel a painful feeling in the present, because I believe we are naturally pain averse, as the linked blog suggests. I have a difficult situation at work, and I’m having painful feelings about it, I woke up early because of it and couldn’t get back to sleep, that was four hours ago, and only now, four hours later, have I remembered to allow the painful feeling, it’s like I had to get through the fear of emotional pain first before I could accept feeling this feeling, and it has eased the pain a little, and allows a little more objectivity about the actual work issue, a little more neutrality. Almost in the now, just a four hour lag 😄

At best we can both humbly disagree with each other. This is your belief system yes. My path tells me otherwise.

The foetus of neidan is not a focusing method, it is a fundamental aspect of the whole endeavour. This foetus develops and matures, and in the end can be sent out into the world at will after it has been brought up to the head. This might be a million miles away from your belief system, but your belief system is not the final word in what is possible/real on the subtle body level. This Self that sits on a lotus in the heart is a potential in the subtle body that can only be realised when the flower itself Is brought into place, the flower faces downwards and clearing Ida specifically allows it to travel and face upwards. This is visible to those with subtle sight, and the sort of happening that can cross different religions and cultures because it is real on the subtle body level. To be sure nonduality doesn’t cultivate the subtle energy body in this fashion, and has no interest in cultivating the subtle energy body in this fashion, but my interest in clearing the subtle Nadi’s does allow exactly this as one step on the way to actualising the immortal body.

Agreed, though I suspect these beings are representations of the Self. 3bob, I did not know that, but it allows me to make sense of when Ida and Pingala are cleared and merge in the heart, this Self on the lotus is revealed. I suppose the halo appears when Ida and Pingala are cleared and merge in the head, not something I have achieved yet.