freeform

I reckon this attraction to members outside your 'tribe' has two reasons - one evolutionary and another one is that differences in language and habitual memes often facillitate a much deeper connection - beyond the superficial.

When I noticed that my mind was not in control, I started opening up... between every thought is a space and even within thoughts there are holes of nothingness - we're used to having our attention on the stuff (thoughts) rather than on the holes and empty space. So I started directing my awareness on the holes and discovered something - the holes are where the magic comes from... The first thing that came up is emotion - a gushing torrent of emotion - the whole backlog of 'emotion for no reason' came through and it was a little unsettling - emotion when you're looking at it from the point of view of 'stuff' is very different - it always seems like some external thing is causing it and there is all that mental anguish of trying to control those external things to stop some emotions and have more of other emotions... From the point of view of 'holes' emotions are felt - not seen or thought about but felt deeply - they arise as internal indicators - they're like trackers helping you on your journey through the wilderness of life. I remember when I was 13 I experimented with the sensations of having my hand in hot and cold water - I decided to really feel what's happening rather than think about it - I discovered that there was cold in hot and hot in cold - it was all sensation, only the mind sees the separateness. Similarly when I was young and getting bitten by mosquitos, I would scratch the bites hard and that would only satisfy me for a second and the itch would get worse - so I decided that instead of jumping to the conclusion that an itch is irritating, I would put all my awareness on the actual feeling and keep it there - as a result I noticed that I gravitated between irritation/pain and extreme pleasure - after a bit of time concentrating on it I couldn't tell the pleasure from the pain - it was just sensation - so guess what happens now that I put my awareness on the sensation of emotions? After the initial torrent of emotions everything settled down - I feel emotions unguardedly - sometimes I catch myself in mental anguish, trying to control it all, this is a habit of a lifetime and I'm surrounded by it every day... so it's a little difficult to not go back into this habitual slumber... The gift that comes from the holes is that intuition follows the initial torrent of emotion... It's a simple sort of intuition - I dont see the future, or lizard people or lottery results... instead, when I'm really in the flow of this non-practice, I just watch where I move - I watch what my body decides - it involves courage and trust - one day I watched myself not go to work (is this my mind just playing tricks so that I can be lazy all day?) it turned out that the office watercooler was contaminated with salmonella - 80% of the office spent weeks puking (reminds me of Cam )... I also get strong emotions around some people so I either feel myself retreating or coming closer... anyhoo enough for now - all the best and worst to you all!

Being Confused is a good sign! embrace confusion - because it's not You who is confused, it's a small part of You that is confused - it's that part of You that thinks you can give without receiving and receive without giving... I'm not trying to be cryptic - there is nothing to 'understand' here... That part that needs to 'understand' has been running our life and controlling our awareness for far too long - being confused and not trying to grasp at 'understanding' allows a little bit of magic to seep into our life... magic can only seep in when there is space for it - and confusion can help create that space. That small part of you also sees importance in giving and receiving and controlling this or that. It's fine - keep doing what you're doing - but maybe let a bit of space in, maybe be a little less sure about what is happening - and maybe let yourself be a little bit more confused - understanding only stifles the magic... Cat - yes I've done a bit of Kunlun practice - I'll write more about my experience when it's time - but I can say that the practice requires that space I talked about above.

Pero and Mantra - thanks, I hope to meet you guys on Max's european workshop Witch - you can't give without rceiving and you certainly can't receive without giving - it all happens at once... giving and receiving are two names for one phenomenon - which is flow - the directions of flow (in or out) is a simplification for the sake of our minds - (our bellies get this)... or maybe I'm wrong? (actually i'm definately wrong and definately right - two names for the same phenomenon )

wow never really got that before!!

Witch - I've noticed a big issue in most of your posts - it's focused around giving/receiving/stealing/collecting/hoarding/losing etc. You swing between talking about giving energy to men to stealing their jing, to being frightened that someone could steal your energy to complaining that men gather energy but don't share. I'm not saying anything about this issue and there is certainly no value judgement there - just wondering if you've noticed this? in the light of this, it's also not surprising that you see emptyness as the absence of something valuable.

you are the book, you are the philosopher, you are dead, you are the living force - it is all already here, now - and you are the reason! unless you're not

Yes! I dont know the violence and extent of this purging - but ofcourse get it checked out if it goes on for more than a day. Vomit love is not for everyone!

dont ever stop scratching your head!!!

I see it kind of like wu wei... Let the Tao play through you.. so how come you've been going all 333ish and Crowleyish and ancient Egyptish?

Is that a new name or a declaration? Vomiting could be a sign that you're violently clearing out and purging old 'stuff'... Drink a lot of water in small sips throughout the day.

yup - it seems easy to over-bend the neck when I try this - it lets the upward energy escape from the neck... I've found that some people are more susceptable to it (leaking energy from the neck) than others.

This is a quick reply, I'll elaborate later (for some reason I used to find the subject fascinating and spent a lot of time researching)... An enlightened, Tao - harmonious government is almost an oxymoron... I think government would be minimal - no centralised leadership, but a cellular system of small, self-governing groups... very,very simple - it's almost like a tribal system... it would work harmoniously if there is general abundance and only after our mamalian hoarding impulses colapse (which is happening slowly as the over complex capitalist systems self destruct)... I think the complex, capitalist phase is a necessary phase of development - just like 'the terrible twos'.

As with any good qi gong - let go of 'trying'... that includes trying to relax or even trying to let go... Have you ever been really lost in a forest? - I mean really, absolutely lost? if not, could you imagine it? - do you get scared or do you quite like it and relax? If you were a gymnast jumping from hoop to hoop - the most exciting and alive part is the bit in between the hoops where you're flying through the air - where you're not holding on to anything... so yeah just lose yourself and find the part of you that feels relaxed as a result... let go of the hoops and fall - let whatever passes by pass by, but keep falling and dont hold on.

I like Crowley - the story - not sure I would like the actual man. He was instrumental in bringing eastern spirituality to the west - yoga was unheard of before him. The guy was a catalyst - he sparked off things that were both good and bad - he has many fantastic consciousness expanding excersises and brought many secretive practices out to the public... he was also a great mountaineer lol Just like Osho, though, his personal internal battles were not integrated - so you see these battles taking on external forms. He certainly 'used' people like Osho did - not to the extent and severity, maybe even not on purpose - his abilities were not refined so people tended to worship him and then go crazy without him - even though he emphasised individuality... I had a little read about Osho from the link Thelerner posted on another thread (http://home.att.net/~meditation/Osho.html) - it confirmed my initial idea that he had a highly realised awareness (upper dan tien centered) but a complete disconnection with the earth (his body) and eventually humanity (his heart)... that's why people felt he was enlightened - it seems he had this incredible awareness and when he narrowed it in on one person or a group, it had a very powerfull subjective effect on them... I've got a feeling that he's a type 3 on the enneagram, which means he has this amazing ability to focus, but also a yearning to expand his self-image... I'm sure he started out with a big heart, but what happens when you are elevated 'above' others is that you lose this connection with others and your heart, and instead, start to connect with all the unintegrated personal shadow aspects that start to run his life... having no earth connection meant that he did not feel the emptiness of his illusions and the pain of his shadow - so this pain and shadow started externalising both in his behaviour and the behaviour of his organisation... his illnesses (and his drug-taking to counteract them) exemplify this disconnection from earth... ofcourse these are all my personal and rather dubious views that are all subject to change...

Didn't seem like a trick to me... I'll try and find out where I saw this interview - from my pov what happened was that she was caught off-guard, that someone could see through her 'persona' and see the humanness there... ofcourse I could be completely wrong... but my feeling is that he wasn't running any energy through her or anything like that (I can usually spot this kind of thing) - he just put all of his undivided awareness on her... I would like to have seen Jeremy Paxman interviewing him if only Michael Winn had dozens of Royces, maybe we could stay on topic...

yeah I'd like to see where it leads. Certainly Crowley and Osho are good candidates...

I remember seeing a clip of an interview with him and thought the exact opposite of 'sinister'... I cant remember what was said, but the female reporter asked him something sober and 'newsworthy' and he turned the question around and focused all of his awareness on her, and very 'unreporterly' she lost her words, her face flushed red and she glowed - her identity of 'newsreporter' and whatever other bits of identity she had really seemed to disappear for a moment - her 'piece to camera' was almost non-sensical - it was like a child pretending to be a newsreporter... I was impressed... but other than that, I've not studied much of him... ....aaand back to Michael Winn....

What's wrong with having loads of cars and rolex's? how can one tell whether he really 'died a miserable, fearful, bitter creature.'? Nothing wrong with having concensual sex with students... He's obviously a man who likes to play with people's pereceptions - and just like Alistair Crowley it becomes hard to 'get where he's coming from'... Crowley, by some was seen as the evilest man in history, by others he was seen as a genius. Which is the 'correct' view? I personally think that's a counterproductive question... Where can one find a proper, unbiased overview of Osho's life? I'm willing to see both beauty and ugliness - in any human, including this osho... I mean it's easy to demonise - it certainly creates a compelling drama... isn't that what attracts some of us to stories of masters fallen from grace?

lol fair enough. I'm not that big on Sonnon and Rmax, but still love intuflow and flowfit... Have a look at Meridian Stretching - I think there are a few people here that do it... you might like it for stretching - no cardio though... There is also the Hindu pushups, squats and bridging combo for cardio conditioning - Cameron seems to like em.

I personally enjoy FlowFit - imo it covers all the bases - dynamic flexibility, breathing in motion, cardio, helps to balance the muscles and tendons\ligaments, is designed in a way that helps you get into a flow state... it also progresses in complexity so there is always room for growth... pretty good for one dvd! I think Sonnon's systems are very much compatible with qi gong.

interesting, thanks

I found in my experience 3 general ways of meditating - one pointedness - emptiness and embodiment... These tend to mix as well... Embodiment I find the most important - it's meditating with the body in your awareness - it's difficult for westerners - Lao Tzu I suspect had a much easier time with it, because he was embodied from the start - he wasn't living with stocks, shares, media, trust funds, skincare, fashion etc... for us to be still and be in the body is difficult and is a necessary step... it makes emptiness (no thought) easier to achieve... Do not use visualisations, mantras or breath counting in embodiment excersises - sit still, let whatever thoughts come up, come up and then float away - keep your awareness on your body - notice what it feels like to breathe - just be aware of the sensations of the air moving inside of your chest, ribs, belly and lower back exapnding and contracting - be aware of your weight on your chair, the sensation of having your clothes touching your skin... Although I mention specific things, after a while you start to develop a sort of diffuse, peripheral awareness that is attending to all of that but not any one of these separately... You can practice using your peripheral vision all the time - this helps a lot and tends to help embodiment when not strictly meditating... Start to develop this kind of peripheral sense in your ears - become aware of sound (all sound - not a collection of different sounds)... Obviously progress at your own pace... dont forcefully direct your awareness - dont concentrate on one thing to the exclusion of everything else - just let your awareness be a central, non-directional light illuminating what's going on in your body and mind - rather than being like a flashlight trying to find things in the dark... Another way of looking at it is like you're dropping away all that is unnecessary and in the way of this pure, simple awareness (it's already there, it's just been habitually drowned out since you were born)...

We're all quite varied here at TB - so any generalization is bound to be inaccurate, but a lot of us practice physical aspects of taoism - namely cultivation... so probably all the confusing lingo is to do with that... It's great you're practicing Tai Chi, you may also want to start a qi gong practice (this is where most of the terminology comes from)... are you enjoying your journey into Taoism?

Yes - going physical often quietens the mind - I normally pay attention to how my body expands and contracts with each breath... A couple of times I've managed to humm in such a way that I could feel the vibration move from my chest to the bottom of my feet - that really shut me up! lol