Bindi

Slightly below the navel and not too deep. I found that it appeared when I deliberately set out to get in touch with my emotions, a lot of stifled emotions seem to be held there.

“Trump fans flames of Chinese lab coronavirus theory during daily briefing“ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/15/trump-us-coronavirus-theory-china

I agree there seems to be an inborn “absolute knowledge”, meted out to us piecemeal in metaphysical images, that if followed can show us the current state of the subtle energy body, and how to develop it. Jerry Alan Johnson refers to these metaphysical images here: As the Shen is developed and the Upper Dantian is opened, spiritual communications may reveal themselves in a flash of an image or as a vision in the mind's eye. These images and visions are sometimes very brief and abstract. Correctly interpreting these images takes practice, as the images streaming from the Yuan Shen must be distinguished from the dreamlike wanderings of the subconscious and cannot be interpreted easily by the logical mind. Chi Kung doctors must be able to distinguish between true and false messages reflected through their visions. True visions are received from the doctor's divine connection to the Dao or Wuji, while false visions reflect messages from the subconscious. The ability to accurately separate these visions is another example of "knowing without knowing." I believe a lower more distorted version of these images is available to us all in dreams, which also need to be correctly interpreted to be of value. It is a strange idea that a blueprint exists and is actively fed to our minds, I don’t know where it comes from, what I do know is that by following it, whether in dreams or if you’re lucky via someone open to these visions via their “connection to the Dao or Wuji”, this blueprint can be a very direct method for developing the subtle energy body in accord with its innate potential.

“If you are heading out this weekend, please ensure your vehicle has an appropriate door that is not held on with sticky tape” - Victoria Police https://www.9news.com.au/national/victorian-man-driving-western-australia-stopped-by-police-for-sticky-taped-door/c39f98ec-bc95-4d97-ac60-394ccdd35492

There is a benefit to how Australia is dealing with it when you compare the death rate - Australian 18 vs Sweden which is at 110 as of today.

Maybe everyone’s ignore list will have to be as long as GSmaster’s. I’ll be adding to mine today

An enlightenment that didn’t go beyond cultural attitudes would be a very poor enlightenment indeed.

Actually, most of the moderators were directed to leave by the owner of the site for holding right wing views. Those that weren’t banned are still here as far as I know.

Even a well placed troll can get a bit boring and repetitive - I haven’t felt baited yet, but I am getting a bit tired of heartbreaks endless new topics each slightly edgier and wonkier than the last. Here’s an idea, how about everyone who feels the need to respond in any way to heartbreak collectively puts him on ignore right now. Then there will be no more need to respond to anything, and heartbreak will get bored. It’s not like anyone will ever get through to him by continuing to respond. But it’s like herd immunity, enough have to do it that no new outbreaks occur

Trust in Allah but tether your camel.

I’m wondering, is this article good Buddhism? “No Mind” is Buddha Personally I like dust as an analogy for what obscures our highest nature in our minds, on an almost organic level I think our consciousness hasn’t inhabited the head chakras in such a long time that the equivalent of dust has built up there, but that’s just my take on it of course. I’m not sure the dust is ‘delusions’, maybe. I’d be interested in other people’s concepts of dust

And yet... I’ve been reading up on all things Buddhist this weekend, including Buddhist psychology and Buddhist Tantra. From what I can gather from Buddhist psychology, Buddhism doesn’t aim to remove the backlog, and doesn’t claim to deliver mental health in the western sense, for example people on antidepressants are advised to stay on them, and people practicing for many years can still be anxious and depressed. This is relevant if dust is basically the backlog, and dust is what I’m interested in removing.

To me, as far as I can understand it today, dust has to do with thoughts. Once for a couple of days many years ago the backlog of my thoughts, and each new repetition, disappeared and any new thought fell away so it was very peaceful in my mind, it was a great relief, but after a couple of days I noticed thoughts started getting stuck again, falling onto a floor and starting to pile up. I thought of them then like leaves falling to the ground, when I could see them individually falling and starting to pile up, but piled ever higher over the ensuing years I think this is the dust. So I wonder if the problem isn’t in having thoughts, but in them not falling away freely, and to fall away freely somehow the floor might have to be removed, permanently. And I think this might be possible, working my way with wind and consciousness through the emotional and mental subtle channels, which is an unfolding process.

Yes I shouldn’t have put it in the Buddhist forum really, it’s only that my first quote was Buddhist. I’d be interested in hearing what dust means to you. Thinking about it for a few days I have more of an idea of what it might mean to me, but it’s a pretty out there explanation which I might just keep to myself for now 🙃

Thanks Steve, I have come across this before, I don’t resonate with the concept though, as emotional and mental obstructions are quite real for me, and I’m happier working on them as my way through than thinking neither dust nor the potential ‘awakened mind’ beneath it even exist.

I came across the Tibetan Buddhist idea of removing mental and emotional obstructions recently, which leads to the direct experience of our true nature. Perhaps some can bypass this work, but certainly I’m not one of them, and as such there is mud and dust to remove as far as I can see. On the issue of the minds relationship to awareness: Reading this quote carefully, I can see that wisdom wind and karmic wind are differentiated, my lack of understanding on this issue is surely because karmic wind still dominates my mind and I haven’t experienced the nature of wisdom wind yet. Nonetheless I see the need for cleaning away ‘dust’ at the stage I’m at.

What if awareness is filtered through the mind. Awareness being taken as always clear, but passing through the mind it is distorted because of the dust lying there. Like our senses are filtered through the mind, inescapably, same with our pure awareness. Inextricably linked.

I see there is a very early reference to dust, from the Ayacana Sutta: The Request - “Lord, let the Blessed One teach the Dhamma! Let the One-Well-Gone teach the Dhamma! There are beings with little dust in their eyes who are falling away because they do not hear the Dhamma. There will be those who will understand the Dhamma.” “...surveying the world with the eye of an Awakened One, the Blessed One saw beings with little dust in their eyes and those with much, those with keen faculties and those with dull, those with good attributes and those with bad, those easy to teach and those hard, some of them seeing disgrace and danger in the other world.” In this sutra the dust stops people from seeing clearly, from awakened seeing. Old mental habits maybe. Mental obscurations that have been there for ages. Is this dust also (from the Lankavatara sutra) the “habit energy [or memory] which has been accumulated by erroneous reasoning since beginningless time.” Seeing the dust, I have a chance to remove it. Not seeing it, erroneous reasoning can even erroneously reason that there isn’t even any dust.

"Engaging some comments made by Francois Jullien in A Treatise on Efficacy serves well to begin articulating a Daoist sense of emptiness. According to Jullien: There are two ways to understand emptiness. One is an emptiness of inexistence, seen from the metaphysical point of view of being or nonbeing: this is the emptiness of Buddhism (sunya in Sanskrit; cf. kong [空] in Chinese). The other is the functional emptiness of Laozi (the notion of xu [虚])… The two are radically different, although some people have been tempted to confuse them, and, as a result, they have become contaminated. (It is well known that, in part at least, it was on the basis of that misunderstanding that Buddhism… penetrated China. That is, after all, perfectly understandable, since the only way to assimilate thought from outside is by misunderstanding it)." What follows in the spoiler is an in depth examination of Jullien's statement by Ryan Shriver, especially focusing on the meaning of 'kong' and 'xu' from section II in Shriver's paper here.

I once walked into a Scientology office when I was 17. I lasted 20 minutes 😁

I read this: Question: Some of the articles about you over the years have indicated that you’ve dabbled or more than dabbled in various kinds of spiritual paths. Is the line, “Did you ever go clear?” from Famous Blue Raincoat a Scientology reference? Leonard Cohen: It was a Scientology reference. I looked into a lot of things. Scientology was one of them. It did not last very long.

I listened to it and for the first time I noticed “did you ever go clear” and wondered if it was a Scientology reference. Well actually, apparently it is. About that “going clear” thing …

I ordered this today, better late than never, I’m soooo interested in the topic of purifying the heart-mind. Thanks for all the many posts you do on these interesting Daoist resources.

And as a response to the actual thread topic, apparently at least one government is threatened by light bodies, this is from the Lion’s Roar: One particularly fascinating social dynamic that has emerged since the Cultural Revolution—and this has affected the reporting of numerous cases—is that the Chinese government has declared going rainbow to be illegal. In effect, because the phenomena so dramatically challenge the normative paradigm, there has essentially become a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about masters going rainbow in Tibet. For instance, Changchub Dorje’s shrunken bodily remains were hidden from authorities for years until the proper ceremonies could be openly performed. https://www.lionsroar.com/investigating-the-rainbow-body/