blue eyed snake

recognition

thank you, I wondered about the meaning of this picture when I saw it in that other thread, Bes

I'll just go after the book, these pictures intrigue me, thanks for bringing them up.

it does not annoy me, many times it gets e a laugh. huh... well, apparently I'm wrong I just wondered where the question came from healthy motto

thanks for posting, good research and enjoyable read, i'll send it to my son too, he'll like it

thank you CT, you seem to look right through me now I'll try to switch off the analyzer again, it's the pitfall, time and again and I'll stop to pull on the grass, it will not grow any quicker doing that. reading this I hear my teacher telling me that i've to learn more patience, another well know pitfall. thank you for your insight and this is amazingly soothing, she sings with the voice of the mother I never had. i feel grateful for that Bes

yes, to me it seems like phases of development, first the outer de, after that the inner de thanks, i took the word in its dutch meaning, which is somewhat narrower this is beautiful! Yes, by now I've read chapter 5, but another edition ( brook Ziporyn). I'm a bit shy of contributing to this thread, you all know so much, and i am so new to it, nothing more than associations and questions to contribute. If it becomes tiresome to you all i will fade back and just read along. I wonder, in what way were humpbacked people looked at in old china? I mean, here of old, people with a physical deformity were regarded as tainted, being unworthy, it being a punishment by god ( punishment for the parents I think) If ideas like that were eh.. normative in those times, that would throw a still different light on the fact that he was deformed and still had inner De. also I see that earlier in the story several onefooted guys come up, so also deformed, but onefooted because of punishment for bad deeds. This contrasts with the guy with the hump. Both ' categories' seem to be able to attain De. and TT wrote this which I like very much! I want to add, when I read about the description of this humpbacked guy, my teacher comes to the fore in my mind. He's not humpbacked, but not beautiful/handsome either, just a small, bald-headed chinee man, a bit too fat because he likes good food and getting older doesn't do as much physical training as when he was younger. but indeed, everybody wants to be with him. reading this text and these posts I suspect that he has mostly attained inner De and is still refining it. On rare occasions i observe that his waters are stirred by what is happening around him, but it's rare, it comes as a surprise... and being so refined, he has that mirroring quality

if the original poster will allow me to derail the 40, trial, reminds me sharply of the three of swords of the Waite deck that being the card that I chose being just eleven years old, as the most attractive card of the whole deck ( the second one being the hermit, the third one I do not remember for sure, I think it was one of the higher swords 9, 10 or 11) looking at your two cards it seems to me that I've arrived at 14 now, the cure. I can see that all four elements are needed to cook the cure up ( now, why does that not surprise me?) In the background there is a small rural village, it conveys 'home' and 'rest' to me. Could you tell me more about the meaning of these two cards? also this seems to go sort of backwards, trial at forty and cure at fourteen, which is fitting to me. I begin to regard ' the path' as a going back, a shedding of what was accumulated , ever going closer to the core. btw, I like the german word heilung better, its close to my own language and conveys more something like healing/ being healed. Becoming whole again.

well, i said that your way of framing your answers are more suitable for unwilling participants. The way you write you write a fun message with the message therein, or you lace the message with jokes and pictures and moving emoticons. That makes people laugh, or get in a more open mood. Thereby reducing the chance that someones buttons are pushed and that he will close up and not hear the message but immediately goes in 'attackmodus' I like the posts of noonespecial, but I'm open to read them, like you are. There are no buttons to be pushed, no risk that we close off for his message, maybe that is what Noonespecial meant by coming of as snobby and preachy. His posts are more serious written and that tends to push buttons. --- but i suspect that you are well aware of the way your writingstyle comes of and maybe you're just fishing for a compliment here

yes, that's it, but knowing it, is not the same as shedding those fears, it cannot be forced, i suppose it grows slowly edit: eh, i did not read well earlier, you say that shedding your attachments will lead to ending the fears, which is true. When you go down your fears you'll find attachment to something. But how to give up the attachment to the idea of getting back my health ( which is of course the largest chunk) while at the same time doing my best to regain that health? I mean, i will not stop doing the things that are meant to slowly regain the balance that is lost. having found a therapist and going to her for instance, or mailing her now that the situation seems to get worse. the two seem incompatible to me, or are they ?

thank you Steve, for your wanting to help me, for this forum where i can post and get answers like this but it would be too much now. I started up meditation again and I go too deep too fast. The supplements I use in combination with meditation are relaxing my body at such a fast rate that my body cannot handle the detoxing reaction that is part of that relaxation. That's the reason I'm so very tired again. I have to take it slow, for the next days no meditaion, in dialogue with therapist/ energyhealer stopping one of my sups and stating with herbs to support liver and kidneys, hopefully there will come a healthy balance in a few days. but I do hope to be able to follow a course like that next year

birth

I like your analyzing of text and words and see the great value of someone who can read this stuff in Chinese. I did not read the whole text, just the few posts above. My brain is befuddled and I fear that will stay that way, but i have some associations here. Even though I see what dusty means by rejecting the word ' though' in these sentences. There might still be a relation between the two. Maybe the inner De can come into being only after the outer De has established itself. also I'm surprised about the mentioning of outer physicality as ' being ugly' maybe there is some other meaning there, maybe like that we can relatively easy recognize when someone is in the state of outer De, but that the having reached inner De is less visible, comes only when you come closer to that person, and only then feeling/becoming aware of his inner De. Also the comparison inner De with water at rest reminds me of mirror, but maybe that was already mentioned. One with inner De is a clear mirror for those around him. Thereby allowing for communication that is not befuddled by his emotions. This gives the possibility for those around him to see themselves more clearly and grow towards ( outer) De.

'There is suffering' is a Noble Truth. 'I am suffering' is not. yes, this is what came to me some years ago, in a mindblowing experience, i know it to be true but yet I cannot really feel that anymore. I'm sort of boxed in in my own suffering, the body hurts everywhere, it is so tired that I'm not able to do anything but caring for it and the body will not sleep. Thereby influencing my mind, triggering fears of the sort of " will this ever end" and " money will run out" I know that the suffering is lessened greatly when I take it minute by minute. Just leave it, all the worries, and, when I compare myself with ten years ago, there almost no worry, almost no fear. but "the I" keeps me boxed in. I see how I cling to the remnants of what once was my life, the yearning to have that back, the healthy body, the smart mind, it's all shattered, but i still cling to it, want it back.. the old life I observe the circular thoughts in my mind, as if by repeating by the actions I have to take, the body and mind will become well. and at the same time, there's the awareness that this suffering is sort of needed, to let the insights that are given to us here by CT, breakthrough It feels like arrogance/hubris to say this, but sometimes the feeling arises, that to become "well" this clinging has to end, to leave the ' me', the future and the past to their own, just be. But i observe the clinging is just continuing, sometimes it feels like, when that breakthrough won't come, the suffering will get worse (which I fear..) but i cannot do anything but (try) to let go, to let be.. see how nonsensical it all becomes? It truly is like a Koan.... Bes

agreed but the way Nungali frames his answers may be better suited to work on ' unwilling participants'

yes, that is an exact description of what happens, that's the reason I reacted on your post. that's a way of looking at it that I had not yet thought of, but he knows I sometimes can hear him, that was almost right from the beginning. But later he started to answer questions of mine, questions that were only in my head. Talking to the group, then looking at me and answering my question, and i then hear it, in my head.

I suspected that, they were instructions for you at the where you were at the time thank you for your elaborate reply, it's useful. This illness of mine is like a mountain, it has many sides, the more sides I can see and climb, the better my changes on recovery. My breath is not too fast really, maybe a regular doctor would even find it slow. But I know something has changed for the worse. But i am very quickly short of breath, I know that this has a connection with this endorfine thingie that i wrote about elsewhere, but there are always more ways to skin a hare so do I

It is "clear hearing" and it is most strikingly when you hear in complete sentences what someone is about to say - you hear the formulation of their thought that's nice, this is an exact description of the way my teacher sometimes communicates with me, but I suspect that that is more of his doing than mine

Yes it is, maybe I should not have used the word 'controlling' Currently i'm trying to flow with un-control, with getting easy in my life that i have no control whatsoever, I suspect btw that this is part of what is needed to be able to hear/be aware of the other. and I can block it when it happens, by sort of 'thinking' ( there's more to it but can't explain it really) that I do not want it. But it would be nice to learn how to not invade someone's brain without permission. I'm interested in what happens when i get my vitality back and start practicing again....

I would think there are more influences on toothdecay . In the Netherlands water is not fluoridated, but for long years children were given fluoridetablets ( me being one of them) Some twenty years ago they stopped giving children fluoride tablets and , if i remember well reduced the amount of fluoride in childrens toothpaste, also then warning parents that children may not ingest the stuff. this latest generation of kids has an awful amount of cavities, from a young age, more and more children have their children teeth pulled ( under full narcosis...) because the amount of cavities and broken teeth is so big, with a lot of pain for the kids. dentists are free of cost for children up to 18 years, i suspect that bad food and feeding habits are the rootcause of this. Not to say I'm a proponent of fluoridizing. But imho it does have a hardening effect ( not only on the teeth) I keep using fluoridized toothpaste but mostly because of parodontitis, the tooth-necks are bare and the use of fluoridized toothpaste does help to keep them from rotting and reduces the sensitivity

Nice, the way this thread has developed after an unsavoury interlude I'll add the perspective of a somewhat older female the OP said: when I was just in my forties, I was writing my master thesis and at the same time divorcing my husband. our child was 18, we'd staid together to rear him, son being special needs kid that needed far more personal attention from mum then a normally developing child would have. But this ' marriage' had left me with low selfworth regarding me as a female. Then one day my professor on one of our twoweekly teasessions, nice guy, close to his retirement, told me: Bes, I'm too old for you, but isn't it time to go hunting . that was the best advise he could have given me, By advising me that, he was in effect, telling me I'm beautiful and worthy. I've enjoyed very much the funyears I had after that, sort of being young again. I've never liked bars much, but I do like sailing and have been to several singletrips. The camaraderie of being together, the flow of it, lightly lubricated by a little alcohol (only after 'sails down' that is) . Is the same as how the lerner describes visiting bars. Humans are in essence ' grouppeople' something that is sorely missed in this society of nuclear families. And being attractive for the other sexe, well, i'm not the one for dressing up much ( neither is a sailingtrip a suitable occasion for that .) But I found it lies in the feeling of being beautiful and worthy, of being happy and free, of just enjoying life as it is. I had no shortage of interested guys and my was I choosy. Happy times which lasted for as long as I wanted it and chose a different path. accidentaly, several of these smart and highly educated guys wanted me to make fleeting relationships into more stable ' real' relationships, not the other way round ( causing me to end it, being honest, as I had told them from the start that I was not looking for a long term ' real' relationship but for loving fun in deep friendship)

I would like to read along with you, I just started my first-time reading of it ( thanks to Marble one of his older threads inspired me) I sort of agree with Dusty, that if we're gonna do it, the use of the text is noncommercial. ( author should be happy with people that are so interested) and the whole text is to be found easily as pdf. so it's not as if were putting it on the www for the first time

a Koan in and of itself

Hi Rigdzin, is that breathing technique you learned transferable via words? and are you allowed to teach it to someone else? after this winter of being so ill my breathing can definitely use some help, I've earlier in my life used a technique which was helpful but also forced. I do not really like to start with that again, so your comment sparked my interest Bes

yes, i agree with that, but only if you can control it, that being the hitch...