Bindi

Neidan also has different terrains and obstacles, trees, towers, mountains, passes, doors, gates, pools, wells, tubes, cauldrons, walls, chambers, houses, villages, pavilions, palaces and gardens. In neidan gates and doors are opened, they don’t disappear as such.

For a Daoist take: The Dao itself resides in the human being as the Supreme Lord of the Central Ultimate (Shangshang zhongji jun). It is the individual "self" (wu), also called Zidan (Child-Cinnabar) or Red Child (chizi). https://www.goldenelixir.com/taoism/inner_gods.html

So when you say “heart, mind, and body”, there is no mundane mind in that equation? A lot of different practices will give a lot of different results, each according to their own practice. I recall one practice develops a hard lump in the belly, this is seen as a tangible result with associated benefits, but you and I might not see it as particularly relevant to any authentic achievement. What I’m trying to get at is that a person can be quite happy with their results, but those results aren’t objectively valuable, merely valuable to a practitioner who employs a specific method which delivers specific results. Qi has nothing to do with the mind, if you can access Qi and there are health improvements, that can be assessed somewhat more objectively. Say there is something considered incurable, for example the herpes simplex virus and the evidence of regular cold sores, if that can be removed via qi then whether you have a cold sore again or not is a non-mind assessment, it can cross over into a scientific assessment. How so if I am making a distinction between mundane mind and echoes from Higher Self? The two year old is required to listen and act on instructions, not to make decisions. The mind is used to interpret a message, not to interfere with a message. To me the higher Self has a broader perspective than my mundane mind, though I don’t definitively know where or what it actually is. I really only know that there is a voice within that is worth listening to as it has an understanding of how things are and how they need to be and a program of how to get there if we could only hear or know it. Of course As I said before I agree there is a time for wuwei, but if wuwei is instigated too early it’s like resting before the field is planted and being content with that. Perhaps it’s pleasant to rest, but I’d prefer the field to be productive and then rest. I don’t think it is analogous. The labyrinth to me is more finding the way through confusion and developing discernment as to what is necessary and unnecessary, and killing a Minotaur or two on the way. Clearly we differ in what we discern to be necessary. Truth is not in the eye of the beholder, I think there are more effective and less effective ways of climbing the mountain and beyond, which makes some paths better and some paths worse.

If your mundane mind is part of what you trust as a feedback system it would be like putting a 2 year old in charge of the cookie jar, bad judgement is inevitable. If your heart isn’t thoroughly cleansed it also is likely to mislead, your body is least likely to mislead but it’s not terribly wise. I’ve never understood the rationale behind lucid dreaming. The mind is not wise, it is entangled with ego, and lucid dreaming introduces this mind into the echo from the higher Self. Instead of listening you poison the echo with the egoic mind. What are the benefits of nonduality, being in the moment, feelings of oneness, non-judgement - if there is a labyrinth these are not the tools that will get you through it. If there is a labyrinth what you need is a map, and the wisdom and discernment to read it, mull it’s directions over and then follow those directions. What you want to connect to is fundamentally different to what I want to connect to. Your nature of mind is nondual with nothing that needs to be done, the source I want to connect to gives specific directions (albeit sometimes cryptic or metaphorical) for bringing the subtle body to its full potential.

I agree with this to a great extent, the point where I cannot do it without some Spiritual help which you are calling Christ is an acknowledgment that I am insufficient, it puts us in our place and allows the Spiritual in.

The source of information has to bypass the mundane mind, I think dreams are an accessible source for many people and if they are interpreted correctly, they can be very useful - unfortunately very few people can interpret them correctly, but it is a somewhat learnable skill, so it can be an avenue worth exploring. Having access to someone who is a medical intuitive (which is checkable) and also sees the subtle energy body (which can then be accepted on the grounds that the medical level seeing is proven) is invaluable, but there are very few of them. I wouldn’t trust any source other than these two. On a subtle body level, non-interference seems unlikely to actually develop what is necessary. Say the goal is making your way through a particularly difficult labyrinth, it’s almost impossible by trial and error, and impossible if you just sit patiently at any point within the labyrinth, the only way is with a guide who can see the way either step by step or one who has an overview of the whole thing. Nonduality seems to say there is no labyrinth, it’s a solution of sorts, but if there is a labyrinth it’s not going to be very helpful. Who would be the Self that wishes for the subtle energy body to be developed and flow according to it’s natural and authentic blueprint. Unfortunately this Self can only be heard as a vague echo, and it is easily missed if you’re looking in the wrong direction.

Annamaya kosha, not it, done. Pranamaya kosha, not it, done. So far it’s taken 5 seconds. A few seconds more and I’ll be all done and dusted. Manomaya kosha, as if, done. Vijnanamaya kosha, already noticed, done. Anandamaya, awesome, done. Abiding in Self, done yesterday. 4 elements, got it, done. Not

It’s worth a lot I refer to the kosha model because it is a good fit for my dream of the vine and the structure as the self/Self and the koshas below. But I also relate to energy and the channels as described in the Indian tradition, and there are actual points when a meaningful boundary or gatekeeper is passed, such as when the doors between ida and pingala are opened, or when the central channel is consciously entered. Passing these boundaries allows the subtle energy body to flow in ways that were previously blocked, one boundary at a time, and as far as I can understand this is the underlying structure of what we perceive as the koshas. This is the dynamic I wish to perceive and grapple with ultimately, the tiny bit of personal perspective that’s left, this is what I’m so carefully working towards. Thing is I don’t think it’s actually tiny, I think it is actually massive, just almost invisible, I take my cue from the vine trunk wrapped around the post, the post is almost indistinguishable from the vine, so it would be easy to kid oneself that there is already no post, and this is far from the truth. I suspect I am in ‘hunt it down’ mode, I want to see it so I can do something about it, and I need the right ‘spiritual’ tools to be able to do that, and I need to know when to grapple with it, and when to walk away. The wrong action at the wrong time won’t get the job done.

You said this exactly: “So, your next milepost is having non-dual understanding.” No you’re not wrong about that, but this doesn’t mean you didn’t say the above. Out of interest, do you still have delusions and obscuratiions?

You have absolutely no idea what my next milepost is. You assume it is having non-dual understanding, but it’s not, in fact my next milepost is related to the Vijnanamaya Kosha, the layer of intellect, wisdom, intuition and knowledge. I have no interest whatsoever in shortcuts to nonduality. Each kosha is only revealed and accessed once the journey through the previous layer has been completed and the illusions or falsehoods of the previous layer has been peeled away. Leaping ahead to nonduality is to miss all the valuable development and peeling away of each amazing layer of ourselves.

This is pretty much what I would expect of the nondual perspective, it can be toggled at will when needed. Perhaps you could find where I said this and quote it, as this isn’t something I think.

You think your advice is absolute reality instead? Do I have a fear of nonduality though? From my perspective my fear would be to identify with nondual perception as the final achievement, unaware that the job isn’t done. Ego is a mightily slippery customer.

I would expect Nondual understanding to be one of the perception modes available to me for when that is the most useful mode to employ, but yes just one more way station, just one more mode. My dream of the vine and the structure suggests that this particular mode, the nondual mode, is the hardest to disidentify from, because it can’t actually be distinguished from ego.

That’s what you would like him to be saying, but that’s not what he is saying. He says “But with the death of this body am I dead? Is the body I? It is silent and inert, but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of the ‘I’ within me, apart from it. So, I am Spirit transcending the body. The body dies but the Spirit that transcends it cannot be touched by death. That means I am the deathless Spirit.” My personality and the voice of the I. What does this mean to you? If nothing else he faced his fear of death by acting out his own death, and good on him for that, but there’s more than just the body to disidentify from, there’s still the ‘full force of his personality’ and the egoic “I”. Many layers.

Do the ‘nondually awakened’ believe that there is no further awakening to come? https://liveanddare.com/neo-advaita/8/

I have no idea, it just wouldn’t start playing and I tried it multiple times.

Is the ‘nature of your consciousness’ the multiple perception filters through which consciousness gathers information? So we need to identify the filters?

Same for the Buddha, “When the Blessed One had thus entered upon the rainy season there fell upon him a dire sickness, and sharp pains came upon him even unto death. But the Blessed One, mindful and self-possessed, bore his ailments without complaint. Then this thought occurred to the Blessed One, “It would not be right for me to pass away from life without addressing the disciples, without taking leave of the order. Let me now, by a strong effort of the will, subdue this sickness, and keep my hold on life till the allotted time have come.” And the Blessed One, by a strong effort of the will subdued the sickness, and kept his hold on life till the time he fixed upon should come. And the sickness abated. Thus the Blessed One began to recover, and when he had quite got rid of the sickness, he went out from the monastery, and sat down on a seat spread out in the open air.” As Mark posted above, he put his death off for 3 months. This is no simple acceptance like Ramana Maharshi’s, the Buddha must have had a very powerful will and actively used it to be able to deliberately extend his life. IME and FWIW Qi healing doesn’t require will, it’s set up differently, more to do with Qi energy flowing than willpower.

I wasn’t able to play it, but it does sound quite interesting, I tried to buy it to watch online but couldn’t even manage that.

NDE’s seem like a shortcut to gaining a ‘spiritual’ perspective: By ‘head awakening’ I mean a non-dual experience which only changes one’s perspective or perhaps more correctly one’s perception. Steve posted earlier that nondual realisation is not equivalent to spiritual development, whereas I would class the consequences of an NDE as a spiritual shift.

I was re-reading Ramana Maharshi’s body disidentification process (in the spoiler below), he had a thought that he was dying (with absolutely no physical problem), and proceeded to question what this meant and came to the conclusion that even if dead (which he wasn’t) that there was still a sense of me (though he wasn’t dead) therefore the ‘I’ persists beyond the body. It was an exercise of the intellect and imagination. Near Death Experiencers will sometimes experience consciousness existing beyond the physical body, and these experiencers will often have a remarkable change in perspective when they return to life, this seems to be one of the most valuable spiritual shortcuts I’ve come across. I’m not too sure that Ramana’s imagination and intellectual conclusion are equally valuable, yet he built his whole philosophy on this imaginary question/disidentifying answer model.

This sort of research can also be used as a wake up call to guard against ‘head awakening’, the daoists have the 3 dantians that need to be cultivated, I suspect the non-passive range is in the lower dantian. Instead of illusory comfort I think conversations about the value of emotional health are required, especially in spiritual circles which I feel have progressively devalued emotional health for Millenia. What if this sort of research could support a new wave of emotionally healthy cultivatiors, what a breath of fresh air that would be.

I would suggest because they couldn’t heal themselves, their forms of cultivation don’t confer the ability to heal. Hypothetically, if you had the ability to heal yourself and you developed some terminal condition, would it be better to accept death or heal the underlying condition? It is a given that we will all die, but if there is something of metaphysical value to do whilst in the physical body then it could be more beneficial to extend the life of the body.

What if you smoked a pack of cigarettes per day and ended up with lung cancer, I could rightly say your smoking caused your lung cancer without being offensive, or maybe the doctor would say it and I’d just think it. If people became aware of the link between cancer and passivity it wouldn’t be a judgement, just a fact. If you don’t know about the link you are unfortunately ignorant but still likely to get cancer, if you do know about the link and ignore it then you’re like the pack a day smoker willing to take the risk. Seems more beneficial to me to consider her ideas about emotional balance being necessary than finding fault with her data driven statements. edit to add: Ramana Maharshi got cancer, and simply accepted it as was his nondual wont. Other people wanted to treat it and tried various methods, which he also simply accepted. In the end none of the treatments worked and he died. Perhaps this demonstrates the pinnacle of nonattachment, or perhaps it shines a spotlight on the consequences of the passive acceptance associated with ‘nonduality’.

Very Yin/Yang, and I wouldn’t argue against that as a fundamental principle.