freeform

Microbes are indeed the most successful creatures on earth - in almost every single way... They can live in the most remote, lifeless of places (think nuclear waste, very deep in the oceans - where there is no oxygen or light and extreme pressures) - even a surprising proportion of each of our bodies relies on an ecosystem of micro-organisms... If you took the total weight of all the microbes on earth, they would outweigh all other life (or so I was told)

"For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" My favourite Shakespeare quote. It's actually quite precise... 'Thinking' comes from our limited ego-mind... If you lower your awareness to the level of the heart you may notice that there is an exact balance - there is exactly as much good as there is bad... If you lower your awareness even further down to the level of the belly, you might notice that even that collapses - there is no good or bad - only everything... Our whole culture is based on the illusion that if we somehow manage to capture, hold on to and hoard more 'good' that life will be better... To do this we must basically suppress and ignore half of reality... and then build complex illusions to try and hold on to the good and stay away from the bad... This creates suffering and unconsciousness.

Enlightenment is about everything rather than something specific... If you're seeking something specific (power) for something specific (healing) then you're moving against the flow of enlightenment - which always leads to everything... here is also a big element of control coming from the part of you that 'knows' - it doesn't matter what specifically you want power for - whether it's healing and curing the ill or being a deadly martial artist, it's still that small, very limited, knowing part of you that is doing this. It's yet another way for your knowing mind to control your world and keep you in this state of sleep, dreaming the illusion that it creates. You might notice that you feel a little offended by what I've said... the you that is offended is holding on to all the baggage that you identify with as "I", and all I'm offending is this stuff that this part of you is holding on to... There is another part of you that is radiating infinitely - That's the "I" that can never be offended, because it holds on to nothing specific and embraces everything, that's the part that you've always wanted to re-discover... MASTERforge - a pint sounds great! (can a pint 'sound'?...)

You know a lot... You know a lot about enlightenment... you know a lot about your 'journey'... you know a lot about the multiverse interpretation... Have you ever considered that knowing is the one thing that's keeping you asleep, dreaming the dream that is 'mwight'? Have you noticed that 'knowing' is just a form of illusory control? Once you 'know', you can be sure... there is no need to be unsure, confused or even be aware of what you know - because you already know it, it's all under control. Notice how everything you think of spirituality is controlled - I need to be able to sit in deep trance for 10 hours... I need to be in a void... I need to develop gamma brainwaves... I need to be able to demonstrate power - and then I will know I'm enlightened... Just below the knowing and control - in the gaps between - there is Now - that contains all the universes all the good and all the bad, all the strands of all realities but all at once... to get to Now, you have to let go... then you have to let go of letting go - I suspect the 'knowing' part of you is reading this and thinking "this guy knows nothing - that's exactly what I do already"... another opportunity to let go ... When you start letting go, really letting go - not letting go in a controlled, tightly scheduled way - but letting go in the same way you would have to let go to allow yourself to fall off the edge of a cliff - when you really let go, you will be presented with what is. And just like everyone else who decides to travel the way you will have to confront all the stuff that is obscuring Now, the stuff that's been buried, that's been suppressed by the part of you that knows... The stuff that you refuse to acknowledge as important for you - grounding, emotional stability, relationships etc. may well become important - I don't know, and neither will you (remember - when letting go, there is nothing to grasp or hold on to...) To know or to Now - that is the question

I suspect it's probably more beneficial for you not to understand it, since 'understanding' is a function of the small, limited mind... As soon as you 'understand', you bring your experience from the present, up into your head and into dreamland - based on the past... You might like to try this: hold both love and anxiety together at the same time - and don't allow your 'preference' or awareness to go for one and exclude the other... just stay at the still point right in between the two and see what happens... it takes a little bit of practice, but it's fantastic... and terrifying (actually it's neither - but you have to discover what it is for yourself)

That is an interesting question. I suspect that speaking for all Taoists is not your intention here, as I'm certain that at least some can see the general trend. The 'evidence' is there - if you want to look into it, you really need to trace human history from the 'beginning' - from small tribal societies, to agriculture, to industrial age and to the current information age... these 'ages' were always very grand and relatively quickly changed our entire way of life in many very important ways... To view a tiny part of it all in a Taoist way, you can notice that this trend has been moving up and out - yang expanding... this is apparent microcosmically in the average western human - most of their awareness is limited to the head and all their attention is outwards to things outside themselves... As this trend is gathering more and more momentum there is a quieter, subtler trend moving in the opposite direction - people moving down into their bodies with their attention moving inwards into themselves (for most this is an extremely painful process)... Nature has this habit of balancing things out eh? That balancing is happening internally too - you notice richer people, more complicated healthcare, all the external things seem to be sorted out, yet there is this obvious dissatisfaction with it all - do you realise how many middle-aged women are on anti-depressant medication? - particularly those of middle and upper class economic standing... Innate nature corrects the imbalance of going up into the head, by drawing us back down into the body with plenty of 'new world' illnesses. And it's also drawing us back inwards by never allowing real satisfaction from all the stuff we've hoarded... There is so much more to it, so much fascinating exploration to be had... It's so beautiful to watch it without concern and judgement - and it's so painful to watch it with concern and judgement... but we have to do both, if we're to grow...

Stig - As an impartial observer, I can see Todd is challenging something in you... maybe you could just allow it to happen? it's at least worth a go. Be challenged and defeated, be challenged and win... Todd, maybe let yourself be completely wrong - and then completely right. it feels like (to me) that you might be thinking that you're kind of in the middle, neither wrong nor right, but I'm noticing something else going on under that (!?) Wisdom and seeing clearly... We tend to have preferences. Which extend to the senses. The senses pick up what we prefer for them to pick up... it's like the ignore function on this forum - we have this ignore function in place for almost everything that is available to our senses. We ignore everything that is not familiar and doesn't fit in with whatever we already 'have'. Not only that, but we have a mechanism that labels things - this mechanism is there for the purpose of recognising familiar things and making the mysterious become familiar... If we're bombarded with something that is not of preference, we use this mechanism... lets say you meditate and you notice that void... notice it several times and you have a name for it, and then it becomes a 'bit', a 'thing' - not experience but some piece you're already familiar with, something you can think about, talk about, base arguments around etc... Normal seeing is based on recognising what is familiar, Wisdom insight is seeing only the unfamiliar... Wisdom insight involves using the senses that are unencumbered by preferences - This means all the senses, open and focused - on nothing in particular, but everything that is available (and Everything is available!). With the senses open in this way and unified together it opens one up to deep intuition. Even though this state of attainment is very rare these days, it's not 'Wisdom insight' just yet... I'm sending you my warmest, kindest regards - Imagine it as a hug that melts through the surface to who You really are.

Sounds great Breaking it down into the VAK (visual, auditory and kinesthetic) model, it's interesting to see what happened. Internal dialogue is based on our Auditory function - we hear sounds, take them out of context, fit them into a static pattern and out comes a word... it's 'digital' in the sense that digital is the use of two discreet/separate pieces - 0 and 1... Actual sound is never digital - there is no duality of sound and silence (this is an artificial creation) - there is no beginning and end to a sound - that tree in the forest is making a constant sound whether it hits the ground or carries on growing as normal... This becomes amusingly obvious when we listen to completely foreign languages - just hearing the sound of speech instead of meaning opens us up so much (the Tonal, of course thinks it closes us down ) One thing I do with my auditory sense (that always results in the stoppage of internal dialogue) is externalise, and de-specify - what this means is I stop listening to my thoughts and memories (internal) and I start listening to what can be heard right here, right now - to start from outside of me... except I dont use only my ears to listen, I use my entire body as a listening instrument - and something magical happens when I do that - when the whole body is recruited in listening, I become enveloped in a soundscape - the mind doesn't differentiate the sounds into separate bits, it all comes in at once with minimal filtering/editing by the Tonal, and suddenly that little "I" disappears! Chanting requires using the whole body to make sound! What a fantastic combination with proper listening practice - thanks to you I have some interesting exploration on the way... I've been playing quite deeply with the senses recently - I might start a separate thread for each of the senses when I feel the time is right...

This is from Cognitive Psychology... it's usually related to 'short term' or 'working' memory - from personal exploration calling it 'memory' is rather limiting - I think of it more as awareness or playground... Another observation is that using the mind always creates 'bits' - the mind creates separate independent bits from whatever it places its attention on... Holding your energy in the mind, if you scan with your eyes the room where you are right now, you will notice your eyes automatically jump from 'object' to 'object' - it's pretty much impossible to smoothly move your eyes from left to right, without your focus jumping from 'bit' to 'bit'... If you start to bring out your peripheral vision, you'll notice the energy move from your head downwards - it becomes much easier to scan without jumping and distinguishing 'things'... this is how good artists 'see'. When I let my energy go down lower, there is no need to scan - everything is perceived 'at once'... anyway the above is from personal experimentation. to read more about the 7 + or - 2 bits as working memory, this wikipedia is a good place to start.

Fantastic post, Stig. A few things to add - the Tonal being in the realm of words... There is a layer below words: I see the Tonal as being the undeveloped 'mind' - its level of awareness is based on its bandwidth - which is 7 (+ or - 2) 'bits' of information... quite simple - but our mind works on between 9 and 5 bits at any one time... So during an average moment in the day if we took a look inside our mind we would have 2 or 3 'bits' having to do with our 'identity' (I'm a salesman, I'm a mother, I'm a friend etc) - 2 or 3 bits to do with where we are (I'm in the office, I'm in the nursery, I'm in the bar etc) - the rest (1 to 3 bits) is used for what's actually going on at the moment (writing an email, feeding a baby, holding a conversation etc)... Of course this is all subject to a lot of flexibility - when people describe what it feels like to be in 'the zone' (or whatever state comes about when we're doing something excellently) - they talk about losing who they are, where they are and any stray thoughts, and all their attention is focused on the task at hand... what happens there (among many other things that I wont bother mentioning now) is the 7 +/- 2 awareness is emptied of useless background noise and is filled with the information required for the task at hand... so what are these bits and how do they work? - well this is it - they're made up of the senses: Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic (as well as tastes and smells)... each individual also has varying ratios of these (more visual or more kinaesthetic etc) - there is that general habitual preference, but also different sorts of thoughts require different concentrations of V,A,K... So language, words, internal dialogue etc is based on a variant of A (auditory) it's called 'auditory digital' - which basically means having discreet/separate bits of auditory information. My personal tendency is to have K (kinaesthetic) 'thoughts' (like I really 'get' an idea, or get the feel for a subject) and then I try to 'explain' or translate it to Ad (auditory digital)... It seems to me, from following your posts, Stig, that you have a similar tendency. Then there is the part of us that is on the opposite end of the spectrum - I think you called it Nagal (?) I just know it as my belly. It has to do with eternity, 'everything'... if your mind is a digital clock, the belly is an analogue clock - so it's hard to compare them - if you had to compare the bandwidth - the mind has up to 9 bits - the belly has unlimited amount of bits (but, and quite importantly, it can only ever be aware of all the bits, and can never be aware of only some bits to the exclusion of other bits). For the mind the belly is incredibly frightening - it's like a black hole of nothingness. For the belly the mind is like a narcissistic teenager who's trying to run the whole show - for the belly it's incredibly limiting, and ungraspable. Taoists, however recognise another core aspect. It's the heart. The heart is the middle bit - it helps the mind and the belly find a common ground to communicate. I think the Tonal incorporates a bit of the heart - it's the bit between the heart and the mind that makes up the 'personality'... the heart is to do with emotions, feelings - a bodily sort of awareness... the mind filters incoming and outgoing information through it's 7 +or- 2 processor, and it also creates patterns. The heart communicates in dramatic archetypes - by the time this communication works through all the patterning and personalization that is programmed in by the mind, it becomes a single, discreet, separate 'thing' that the mind can grasp - this is how words come about... so the archetypal quality of 'Heroness' goes up from the heart and through the mind and becomes '50 Cent' or 'Rambo' or 'Luke Skywalker' or 'Lao Tzu' etc... (stories, poetry, art, music works this process the other way round - they take mind-based discreet bits and feed them through the mind, down to the heart - which resonates with this indistinct quality that's already there, and that's why we enjoy these things so much) ...so yeah - this is my highly simplified etymology of self...

Hey Chris - Any solidified dates yet?! I'll need to book time off work, international plane tickets (which get more expensive by the day!), hotel and so on... so please do let us know as soon as you know - I'm sure i speak for more than just myself. thanks

This regressive 'who am I?' question is useful in context... it certainly brings you to emptiness/stillness. However - this a forum - this is a place for establishing relationships, for stimulating expressiveness, emotion and creativity. You're kidding yourself if you think that a post on a forum will bring stillness... it's quite obviously an emotionally motivated 'game'...

Hi Sasha Good to have you here. I look forward finding more about you and Nityama.

Much less so these days - the vibe really does balance between bravery and sadness. Your willingness to fall appart certainly transforms the sadness of the inevitability of death/imperfection/decay into something new... this is where words fail... thank you.

Tibetan_Ice is a very visual person - not only are all his descriptions very visual, but there is a certain quality you may sense reading his posts - There is a certain pace (fast) and a light, insubstantial, heavenly quality that I feel reading his posts - as a contrast reading Ian's posts, I feel a real, earthy gravity - Cat's posts open up in the heart - there is a mixture of gravity and of lightness, playing together - there is a kind of emotional, movmenty feeling to it... TI's posts certainly feel without ground, I won't speculate as to what that means, but for me personally it's a little disconcerting, but then again I'm a kinesthetic, earthy person - I can certainly escape up into the heavens, but that's how I personally tend to lose touch with what's around me here and now, maybe I haven't developed my inner earth fully enough to go 'up' without losing touch with 'down'... I'm really pleased that you share with us, TI, it's reassuring to see such diversity.

Jesse, this is a wonderful opportunity for us, and I feel warmed by your presence here. I have several questions - of course you're free to choose which ones are most appropriate and change them in any way you see fit: What is the connection between the emotions, the personality and the 5 organs/elements? What is the prerequisite to working with the emotions/organs/elements? How does one transform/integrate/work with the emotions/organs/elements? What role do the organs play in his cultivation after extensive alchemical practice? What role does the bone marrow play in alchemical cultivation? thanks. I may have more later.

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I know! There is a thing that people like you and I do that tends to numb out any negativity... your liver and lungs aren't happy about that, but we tend to mask away the messages... smoking weed is part of that... I'm betting you have a real distaste for outward anger, aggression, confrontation etc. and you probably find yourself a little lazy sometimes? That's all to do with the liver - you'd be surprised how much anger you have in you and how much of your energy is used up in keeping it inside and unconscious... The issue with the lungs is even more hidden - it's to do with the profound sadness that the world is not perfect and never will be... smoking masks that too. (Also I can feel this sadness from some of Hagar's posts - it gives me courage to confront mine, thanks ) This is a hard message to swallow - I know!

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Most PU people don't have enough interest or patience in developing the level of awareness necessary to be able to do this in a sufficiently predictable way. Has this worked for me? yes, in several different ways - the breathing takes a while to get a hang of - also taking on the breathing pattern of another person usually means breathing shallower and in the upper chest - basically you put yourself in a mild state of panic which is how 70% of people live constantly... if you also start to pace other aspects (posture, location of awareness etc) you develop a really deep connection without sharing any words, looks or anything - this can freak people out... I remember practicing pacing people's walking styles... This one time I was crossing an empty road and I noticed a man quite far away (about 30 - 50 metres) so I took on his posture, rhythm, stiffness etc and took a couple of paces - suddenly the guy stopped in the middle of the road, turned towards me and started squinting as if trying to see if he recognised me (ofcourse he recognsed me - I was him!) Milton Erickson was a real master of this - but he had many years as a child living in an 'iron lung' with nothing else to do but watch people...

yeah - he does a covert induction (puting someone in a hypnotic state) - it starts from the moment when he tells the person to 'come and stand here' - they do - they're already following his lead. With the guy with the hat - he does something with his hand - it's called a pattern interrupt - look at it closely - he waves his hand up and down gently untill it stays in the air... how he gets them to feel ill, i dont know - I suspect he just leaves out a bit in the film where he explains what's going on to the crowd and gives subtle suggestions ("don't allow your eyes to sting" - "I would stare in the mirror untill I would feel ill in the stomach") - something along those lines... Here is an influence trick you can all learn to do: practice breathing exactly like someone else - you do need a lot of practice, but if you decide to do it, you can do this: on public transport, waiting in a queue, on the plane, wherever - use the periphery of your vision and start copying the breathing pattern of your target - by breathing pattern I mean the tempo, the depth, the area in the lungs breathed into etc. when you're completely in rhythm, just hold your breath - and watch the surprise on the target's face as they hold their breath not knowing why... breathing is just one level - heart rate, pulse, facial tonus, blinking, eye accessing cues, posture, movement internal rhythm, even metaprograms (the basic building blocks of personality) all can be 'paced' (followed) - this is how you get 'cooperation' using Buddy's terminology - but it's cooperation beyond normal awareness... pace two or three of these things successfully when next to someone you're attracted to and remember the feeling of the tingle in your lips that you feel when you're about to kiss someone you really like - then watch what happens

I met an old Mongolian man once that could demonstrate a very cool skill - I was a kid, and I'm not sure if he was a martial artist or not (I think he did wrestling at least) - he was traveling around with a soviet boxing team, he was the healer giving massages, healing bruises for the boxers and stuff... The best way to describe it is that he could, at will, project a real 'intenseness' and the body would just reflexively get out of the way - it's like he would trigger a flight reflex... he demonstrated it on several martial artists, and on me too... he would stand there and ask me to step towards him - so I would step closer and suddenly this intense fear would take over and I had to step back... with the adults he actually stepped towards them and it seemed to have a very strong and obvious effect - they would try and hold it together, and eventually cave in and jump out the way (one proud guy was resisting a lot, you could see afterwards he was red and sweaty, and was in nervous fits of laughter) This guy was very cool - as a kid, I remember I was really curious about him, he had a real gentleness to him...

Gareth - it seems ridiculous, but there is something actually going on here... the students are in a receptive state and when the master passes energy they react in that way... it's 'real' - in that there is a real deep-level connection between master and student - it's nothing more 'far out' than if regular, professional dance partners managed to perfectly dance completely new steps with only the lead knowing the steps - it's not acting and pretending, but it's also not Dragonball Z type stuff (using Buddy's terminology)...