freeform

ah, well in that case I'd love it if Sean would run/set up a forum - I didn't think it would be fair for us to hassle him until he did. If he's willing, then great. I do agree. Although your millitant approach to developing harmony does make me giggle. just my two handfulls of bs

agreed on a full separate forum for Kunlun. It wouldn't be fair to have Sean run it, imho. But, I think in the meantime what we could do is set up a Kunlun section in the private practice area. - it's not as public, someone would have some control over it (I vote for Yoda!) and the private practice area works like a mini forum anyway, with separate topics/threads and everything... I think it's a great immediate sollution - it would free up the main TB area for non-kunlun discussion, and people who're uninterested will keep away and not be bombarded with Kunlun themed discussion in the main forum, and so would have no excuse for trolling and causing trouble. what do you reckon? I interepreted absolutely no disrespect in what mikaelz wrote - if anything, he was making fun of WYG... so that's why I vote for Yoda as moderator.

Hey Neimad great to have you back!!! I personally like the sound of the second 'way'. the first focuses far too much on the 'good'... focusing on good goals, bringing in good qi, having good emotions. This has the effect of creating illusion, separation and drives the 'bad' down into unconsciousness (where it has far greater effect). There simply is never good without bad. if you focus on your good emotions, all the bad ones still happen, you just ignore them and drive them deeper into your body. If you focus on a goal you ignore the rest of the universe that's already there and happening (and has anyone ever been really deeply fullfilled by achieving some goal?) This is the model life for a western seeker... but imho it's not a spiritual life. A spiritual life is about expanding the bandwidth of experience - and that's experience without a prefference. The energy that you gain from this sort of life nourishes your soul. The path is removing prefference and slowly beginning to see more and more of what is...

Neimad! how have you been!!??

and i bet you cant wait to catch it seriously though, are you saying you wouldn't want to check it out for yourself if there was a workshop nearby?

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Yue, Each of us has a dominant sensory system - for some it visual, others auditory and others kinasthetic (or feeling). It's just our internal plumbing. Most of us will be much better at one than the other two, but it doesn't mean the other two arent present, they're just less distinct and conscious. For visual people it's very easy to immediately visualise that scene. You and I and thelerner find it more difficult. You may be kinesthetic or auditory dominant - and once you find out which you can use it to your advantage. for example imagining a sunny beach scene - for a visual person it just pops up they can see it, they can tell you the colour of the water, the sky, who or what else is on the beach. I'm a kinasthetic person, so for me imagining a beach scene starts with remembering what it feels like to have my feet enveloped in warm, moist sand - the feeling of heat on my skin from the sun and the slight breeze cooling my skin - I feel the quality of the air as it fills my lungs and a hazy picture starts to develop in my mind's eye, maybe not sharp and defined but kind of 360 degree view and it really starts to become real without me trying to make it real by forcing it. An auditory person might start by remembering the sound of sea birds and the sound of gentle waves and the quality that sound takes on in the seaside. You might hear the wind and the sound of kids playing in the distance. So, start out with your dominant sense and gently start to discover how the other senses fit in there as you develop the scene. I recommend with Max's specific visalization to experience it from first person - although you can set the scene initially from third person or 'omni-person' - when you're doing the light breathing you want to be in first person. remember never try too hard - trying gets in the way of experiencing! And I'd like to thank AugustLeo for the post below, and maybe bring a little more attention to it:

I'll try and look it up, because I came accross this case many years ago, but there was a lady born with 80% of her brain matter missing - this wasn't diagnosed untill her 40's - she also had a significantly higher IQ than her husband. I think the brain is kind of holographic... slugs can do this cool thing: one slug can learn how to navigate a certain maze after extensive 'learning' - the slug is then killed and its body is fed to other slugs who can then navigate the same maze without the 'learning'... not sure what my point is...

I'm sorry but there is no proof or any kind of verifiable way of testing what percentage of the brain we use or not... besides that, there is the problem of defining 'use'. I only 'use' my hand and wrist to operate this mouse (3% of the body as a very rough estimate) - but if I didnt have most of the rest of my body those 3% would be useless... anyway, I dont want to start sounding like xeno lol. I think the sentiment of using this as a way of motivating yourself is a kind one, Cam.

Hi AugustLeo good to have you here, I'm glad you decided to join! You're obviously very experienced, what's your daily practice like now? Yes, at first experience this chasm of not knowing is frightning and ungraspable... I've been finding this dark chasm the greatest source of nourishment in my life... letting go of the drive to 'grasp' it is simple but very difficult...

Hi Brian welcome! Could you share your experiences of DaYan and your sitting practice? look forward to hearing more from you here.

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Jing, Chi and Shen are rather mechanical ways of understanding the dan tiens (at least in my oppinion). Like looking at blood to try and understand the heart... I'm always very curious as to how reality and my consciousness is formed by these three... The jing, qi and shen then kind of fall into place and kind of confuse in the right way. My belly is basically infinity - it contains everything as well as nothing - when first discovering it, it feels almost like an empty void - but that void is the everything... In normal day to day life, my belly is silently witnessing - it has no emotion - or rather it has all emotion, but never one emotion and not another one, so it basically feels like flowing stillness... The heart is the part of me that feels - it feels things in the body and it feels things outside of the body - it registers everything whether we're aware or not. It feels and feels - feels emotion, feels physical sensation, feels the connection we have with people, feels the pain of being ignored, feels the orientation of the planets, feels the death of a peasant a million miles away, feels the guy who just won the lottery etc. And then we have the head - if the belly is infinite - this is exactly the opposite - it's very finite - it's like a tiny flashlight that can be directed anywhere in the universe, but only sees the bit of the universe that it sheds its light on, thereby missing the infity around. This is the part of us that runs our lives - it makes judgements, it makes emotions be about something in particular, it's what some call the ego... So we have the infinite undifferentiated bit in the belly - we have the finite, individuated bit in the head and we have this heart that is the bridge between the two (and eventually it becomes far more than just the bridge). jing and shen, kind of work in an opposite sort of way.... in the words of a very wise man: "keep asking questions."

yes I was looking into this a while back. Seems genuine - a lot of elite athletes use vibration in their regimes - and they usually dont do things that waste one's time. I've tried a machine out in a shop - and you certainly do feel the vibration - there is a way of making iternal adjustments to kind of direct the vibration around the body - I also managed to get the vibration going throught the body - it's kind of like my body and the rate of vibration momentarily synchronised - felt very nice. I also wonder what it would be like to practice full structured standing meditation on one of these things regularly... I suspect it would be a good workout for the tendons... also the machines are getting cheaper by the year. I remember Plato had one of the soloflex machines, maybe we could get an update on how he's getting on with it...?

Ya konechno uveren chto on ne ponemayet, but he still has the language in him... I go for 'in the now' stuff - both past and present and future contained in the now... I mean there is a part of me that indeed differentiates past and present and future - both the upper dan tien mind and the middle dan tien heart... although the middle experiences time in a really different kind of way (maybe cyclic is a good description) - the mind ofcourse experiences time in a very binary way - but the belly seems to contain the whole thing both time and no time and everything else. The linguistic stuff I posted earlier is kind of a way to break the mind out of its habitual illusion of control and get it down into the heart - the heart has a bigger bandwidth to truth than the mind - and the belly has unlimited bandwidth...

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You're filling your head with stuff... Since you're using the internet, you must be a modern person living in the modern 'civilised' world - which (usually) means that your head is already full of stuff... so rather than filling more and more in, try emptying, unlearning, forgetting, welcoming confusion and disorientation... The universe consists of 'stuff' and 'space' - whether you look at very big things (as in astronomy) or very small things (particle physics or even the dreaded quantum mechanics) - you will find a certain ratio of 'space' to 'stuff' - our whole culture is focused on stuff - generation upon generation we have been indoctrinated with focusing on 'stuff'... try letting a bit of space in between the stuff - the tao arises from there... There is nothing you have to learn - especially with the Tao... The TTC is of little value if you have to 'learn and understand' it... start being a little less sure about things - the Tao is about spontaneous discovery, not intellectual understanding and verbal reasoning. If you find yourself 'thinking' after reading the TTC, you've already fallen at the first hurdle...

actually... I dont.... well - to be honest that's not quite true - what I have found is that I must hold two strong beliefs that oppose each other. So I hold the belief that being gay and enjoying gay sex would preclude one from any reasonable level of development - and - I also hold the belief that being gay and enjoying gay sex would improve the chances of someone reaching a reasonable level of development. In between, right in the middle of these polar opposites is something special - kind of like emptiness or non-attachment or not-knowing or blissful confusion... I tend to prefer to hold to this middle point. I hold to the middle and then I see how my body reacts to external stimulus in regards to this specific duality. So when I read this thread (or with any interaction) my natural response (usually) is to unequivocally agree with the point of view of that person - then I just return to the middle... If I'm prompted for an oppinion I usually just watch myself answer whatever I answer... ofcourse the next time the answer might be different lol We often try to scoop up the infiniteness of the universe with a desert-spoon of a mind and then declare the contents of the spoon as 'the truth'... I mean this does serve to make things seem simple and under control... but... well, you know.... ....and could a severely disabled person reach a high level of cultivation? (fun to watch the mind squirm and chase after the heroin of 'truth', no?)

and that and that and that and that... not that not that not that not that... They're the same really... I think both are important... although Aiwei might disagree - I think I mostly do 'and that' - it's in my nature to see all points of view - so including more and more views tends to (for me) blow out the illusions... 'not that' adherents would say everything is illusion, but I dont go for that at the moment - I think it's an 'and that' kind of thing that I find my body and its sensations and evaluations 'true' - I mean as soon as it goes to the mind (which it has to in this case, as I can only communicate in words) there is illusion there - but it's quite possible to sense things in a different way - where what you get is sensory data not judgement... 'I feel a cold tightness' in my solar plexus instead of 'I'm nervous' - see the difference? Someone into 'not that' might say that even the sensory experience is an illusion... And they're kind of right - this sensory way of experiencing the universe happens on the level of the heart, but there is also the level of the belly - which doesn't work in sensory terms because it's infinite and senses are finite - I mean the belly can hold sensation, but it does not differentiate between 'this sensation' and 'that sensation' - it contains all sensation - and that includes no sensation... the belly is where the duality of everything and nothing gets expressed - ofcourse from the point of view of the belly everything and nothing is not duality - it's the same thing/nothing... you see how language and the mind has trouble with this? lol I'll say something that's bound to trigger some mental judgement (because the words are loaded with illusiory meanings) but I'll do it anyway - not that, or the path of denial is a masculine practice - it is the practice of killing! and that, or the path of acceptance is feminine and the practice of nurturing! now killing and nurturing are very loaded aren't they? but it's basic stuff - what do little boys play at? usually killing each other or bugs or dieing etc - it's fascinating for boys... girls play with beautiful shiny things and with dolls - they nurture what is alive and in flux... So some people go about killing off everything that is not infinite (feels kind of Buddhist in my very limited understanding) and others go about nurturing the flow of the finite... Taoism (again in my limited understanding) engages both of these - Taoism is about the dance between the finite and the infinite - the finite being your mind and the infinite being your belly... You can burn away illusion with the power of not that or you can accept illusion and notice its flow and the infinite within the flow... Taoism is a little more focused on the process of the latter - but then there are as many differences in taoism as there are taoist practitioners... many do play with the fire of 'not that' - but it's usually after the nurturing process... well it's all a confusing business (which is a good thing) - the mind tries to understand what's going down, but I just watch it and smile... (there is also the finite within the infinite and the infinite within the finite, if you're not confused enough yet)... some people see confusion as something undesirable (I've read Aiwei mention this) but I see it as a blessing...

Fun is for the head... because only the head can distinguish between fun and no fun (I say 'distinguish' but it's more of an artificial seperation)... Just like with good and bad - there is always an exactly equal balance of the two, but the mind is like a narrow beam of light, only able to concentrate on a tiny part of 'everything' at a time - so it concentrates on good and sees it as good, when in fact it's good and bad at the same time - the heart and belly know this... There is nothing wrong with having ths very limited mind that can only shine it's light on a very miniscule part of 'everything' (7 (+ or - 2) bits of information is all it can manage) - I personally think that once you overcome the control of the mind - how it always tries to be in control and dictate what everything is, how this is good because of that and that is bad because of this (this is all a dramatic little imagination game) - and once you're able to establish a balanced connection between all three aspects of yourself (the belly - infinite, the mind - very finite and the heart which feels in between them now) - then you're ready to have fun with your mind - and at this point the idea of 'fun' might change... fun will be percieving all the crap that the mind gets up to (it's like a little spoilt kid looking for attention - and hey that was fun at some point in our lives, no?) - so now your mind starts getting worried about a job interview and you notice the fun in that and instead of that thought killing you a tiny little bit, it will, instead nourish you. In terms of 'doing stuff' rather than 'thinking stuff', once there is balance between the three aspects of oneself, doing stuff will be in accordance of your true will - your actions are hooked up to the infinite, the finite and the bit in between that feels the now and i suspect all actions coming from that, flow in a kind of golden mean/fibbonacci spiral - in perfect accord to nature and everything... but hey - I wrote all that for fun - and nothing more or less than that

I think we really do have these kind of things in our collective unconscious - myths around the world have had reptilian themes throughout... What seems to happen is that lay-people open up to these unconscious aspects and rather than carry on opening further, start focusing on what comes up as a result - so we have a mixture of openness and plain old human numbness and so we see these unconscious fragments and our numb and narrow mind tries to pin them down, to make them real (or completely unreal) - because the mind needs to be sure about stuff - so we end up projecting all this stuff outwards and seeing evidence in the outer world that 'humanoid reptiles really exist and live among us and shape shift and control our society and george bush is one and it's a whole conspiracy and the government is in on it and they build underground tunnels and change our atmosphere and are trying to kill us etc etc etc' or we go this is complete bull crap and people that believe this are paranoid, delusional idiots... neither is true, ofcourse... It's like if a scientist looked into a microscope and saw tiny living organisms and instead of looking further threw away the microscope and started to try and convince everyone that these micro organisms are aliens and they control us and the whole earth is ruled by them and george bush is one and they live in underground tunnels in the fourth dimension etc... and then another guy goes: yeah whatever this is all delusional nonsence, there is no such thing as microorganisms, get real... Once we open up to the mysterious, our minds freak out - "shit I'm losing my control" - and so our mind attempts in any way possible to take back control and stop the mysterious, so it becomes sure about reptilians and starts seeing it everywhere or becomes actively against such stuff and sees everyone as delusional - and yeah it takes a lot of energy and life force and stops further development - but hey at least we're in control again, phew

yes! This is how I see 'karma' - all our present patterns are connected to our past patterns, to societal patterns, to archetypal, collective unconscious patterns up to planetary and universal patterns... This is what I get if I trace an 'attachment' or pattern far enough - at first it seems personal, connected to current, then past events and traumas, if I look deeper there is usually (not always) some aspect of this in my bloodline, sometimes I get glimpses of how the pattern started in a completely different person in a different time and has been unresolved... deeper still I sometimes get these mythological sort of dramas being played out by gods and 'elementals'... deeper still there are planetary/universal things going on, but by this point I'm usually out of my depth... It's obvious that it's my mind that needs to put this into a linear model and see it as 'deeper' or more 'shallow' or past or future, but really it's all being played out now, in the present (and my belly knows this very well)... My practice for years has been tracing these patterns and resolving them slowly, one by one (there are literally thousands in here!) At the moment Kunlun seems to be doing this automatically and spontaneously with little need for conscious direction (over the years I perfected 'conscious direction' into an art form - learning not so much to direct but just 'allow' or 'invite' and just let go of anything in the way, all the while holding a simple, gentle intention in the background). So that's what I've been finding with Kunlun... I actually had found another (very unexpected) tool that made this kind of energy available (although less powerful) - it feels nice to finally not have to make so much effort for this to happen... and I still haven't met Max in person... (still hoping for a UK workshop, Chris!!) Smile, if you feel inspired, then do share some more on what you said above.