Pietro

Drew, are you aware of the work by Nitamo Federico Montecucco with the Brain Olotested on the syncronizations between the right and the left hemisphere, and between different people? Unfortunately all I can find is in Italian. http://www.amadeux.net/sublimen/dossier/si...a_coerenza.html I asked around a lot even to people who are doing similar research and it seems that this guy have not published anything in english! He should just translate the 8th chapter of his book, the one where he presents his results, in english, and dump it on the web.

damn, just as I was going to bet all my money with people that it was not going to be the end of the world! This is ruining my plan!

How interesting! Me too, me too. I can say: "fuck? " without being emotional at all. I like this game!

You claim that in order to observe a person must have a cognitive context. Newborns are easily drawn toward their mother tits. They find them and suck on them. What belief does a newborn have to know how to suck milk? Isn't the fact that they find their mother tit enough of a proof that they observe or perceive it in some ways? So you have someone who perceives and does not yet have believes. Animals, even the simplest, have perceptions about the world. Even the simplest microbes will follows the gradient of a molecule that is released. What belief does such microbe need to have about the world? When we can actually dissect the bacteria and see mechanically how that microbe will follow the concentration of the molecule. Take a Braitenber vehicle. That is a small toy car with 4 wheels. The two on the back are connected with light sensors on the front of the vehicle. They are connected in a crossed wire way (the left wheel to the right sensor, and viceversa). The more a sensor receives light the more the wheel that is connceted to will work. The result is a vehicle that follows light. If the light is on the right it will move the left wheel stronger, if the light is on the left it will move the right wheel stronger. Of course if the light cannot be reached (is above) it will pass through the area with the highest light, and then continue, just to turn in a circle and pass again. SO here we have an object that perceives light. What belief system does this object have? And where is it?

Indeed, it can. But assuming that when the experience of others do not match our own they must be under an illusion is itself limitating. Oh, absolutely. Agreed. This also I agree, but I think I interpret this phrase in a way that is slightly different than yours. We both agree that is our choice to be in heaven or in hell (at least for us, not sure about people who are schizophrenics). But my understanding is that this choise is deeper than just chosing to believe that some entities are there or not. If you are tormented by those entites, and you don't believe in them... you still are going to be one miserable puppy. Just either denying your misery (which can then explode in ways that we too often see around). Or interpreting your misery in other ways.

I don't know how Mal or the community feels about this. And I haven't really followed the derailment as half of the posts are missing in my version of TB :-P. But maybe we could solve also this problem by moving those derailments into its own thread. Wouldn't this solve the Buddhists vs Taoists problem? Dear Zhuo Ming Dao, thank you very much for your analysis. (And thanks Yoda for your warm presence, I feel you very near). Let me start by clarifying that this happened quite some time ago. This night, for example, I was in the perfect physical conditions where it would have happened, in the past... and it didn't. Sleeping with no energetic protection, and with not enough blankets. Now I think that your analysis is spot on respect to what can happen. The way in which worries during the day can lead to a troubled sleep. I am absolutely aware of that. I also had faced disembodied entities in my waking life. Both controlling a friend of mine who was having a mental problem. And just as being present in an area. So my experience on the topic is unfortunately deeper than I wished it was. One of the interesting thing some time after I had those experiences (the entities, not the nightmares), was the absolute belief that I must have imagined everything... until it happened again. Then you realise how real it is. So please forgive me if I have the arrogance to claim that I know better about what was going on around me, basing myself on the little detail that I was actually living it through.

yeah, run it in both ways to open it up well. There are periods when it's running naturally the other way round. Like when women have their periods (so now they have an excuse ;-) ). Hear what trunk says.

Look: belief, observation and illusion are three different things. To be able to asses reality as it is you need to distinguish between the three. You practice Taoist arts, so I suppose you move, use and feel Qi. What would you answer to someone that tells you that it is all an illusion, and you should just stop believing in it. That you don't believe in it. And that your observation does not come after belief, but belief come after observation. It's the difference between the word belief as used by religious people, and the word belief as used by scientists. In the second case it means: "I have looked at this from all possible angles. And given that my information is and will always be limited. Still I can try to propose an explanation for those phenomena." If I stop "believing" the phenomena would still happen. Because the phenomena predated the belief. When Lino described what he described I could recognize someone who had, in a deeper way, similar experiences to mine. And reached similar conclusions. I appreciate you remaining speechless when confronted with his admission. What can you say? I am not suggesting that you should change your life. But I am sharing something of mine just to instill the doubt that there might be more that is going on. You said that there is no heaven and hell in your belief system. In this post I spoke about two different ways to believe. Which of the two meaning of the word "belief" were you using? Or do you find a third one?

why??? Granted! We are back in 1970. Just after the sexual revolution. In the middle of the cold war and with a 4 billion people population. In fact everybody went back to the age it has when he was 1970. I was just born. For everybody this is just going through the same thing, but you remember having already lived it all. You use this extra insight to make yourself a better career, but also to buy the right stocks from the market (Microsoft). You son gather so much money that the financial police start to investigate you. And although you haevn't done anything wrong, the probability of you getting every financial decision right are so low, that they arrest you on a "presumption" of guilty. We eventually get back to 2009.. with you in jail. I wish I could share my desire to build a permaculture Taoist community with more people, who would come and join forces here in Portugal

Neither. There are times when you are between wake and sleep. When you feel more or maybe in a different way than usual. It is easy to discount those sensations as lunatic, or unfounded if you are in your right mind. But please do remember that no one remains in its right mind... after he is dead. Those are the times where you feel entities, demons and similar. They are definitely not an illusion, but they are not also part of your physical life as if when you married the wrong woman. You remember the descriptions of lino on the sex with entites thread? I resonate with that. But not always. There are some times, when the doors open. Between sleep and wake. When the room is cold, your energy is low, and you are not protected. While I was experiencing that quite recurrently, in a period of my life. Eventually I reached the deep realization that that was how my "life" was going to feel like, were I to die in that period. It's not a pleasant sensation. The nearest thing I can relate it to is the concept of being in deadly sin, in Christianity. I am not "believing" it to be so. I am observing some experiences I had, and try to make sense of them. The way I could make sense of it was: the life that you lead leaves the door open for those entities. If they come for you while you are alive, it makes you consider what would happen when you don't have the defense of being in a body.

I don't know. beside the obvious. But let me add something. When I was a kid I read a book about being conscious in my dreams. I immediately had a conscious dream that very night. Some time after I started having them, every now and then. But only when I was full of energy. Now they never happen to me anymore. No matter how much energy do I store. I have read on a "reliable" source (i.e. random page on the net ;-) ) that you need particular substances in your body to have conscious dreams. Probably I just don't have those anymore. Why am I saying this? Because we keep on treating Jing as if it was a single source. But it might be that there are different substances, and we need to have plenty of all of them. Just a passing thought

Is working all right, thanks. Being in a Latin country with a Mediterranean climate is affecting me in deeper ways that I expected. After all I grew up in a place very similar. I bought a house with some land. I am now working part time in restoring the place. Both the house and the land. I am using Permaculture, for the land, and studying how to permit to the water to be absorbed more in the land. Portugal can be quite dry at times, and the times ahead sees Portugal desertify. My hope is that by acting early enough I should be able to counteract this tendency, and then maybe even share with others. The house is an old house partially in ruin. But part of it is working alright (provided you don't care for the spiders, ...). Of course the long term goal would be to have a Taoist community. In the meantime I am inviting my friends to come and visit me for short or long time. In fact you should come and visit too. With your italian wife and your kid. It would be wonderful to have you here. Pietro

and for those of us who have experienced hell, what does your believe system prescribe?

Hi Viking Good question. I think we don't know yet. What we know is that too much mental activity can reduce the jing. This is called the brain eats the body, and I am a classical example, like many others over here. Not sure if simply the use of bineural beat would produce that. Maybe some practices will and some will not. P:S. how are bineural beats working for you? I have them on the iphone, and used them a bit but I find them so borning. (so maybe it does not induce too much brain activity or I would not be bored :-D)

Only half an hour (the rest we spoke about other stuff. Those other meanings came just as a vague reference. But we were also discussing the chinese ideogram of hsin. I thought it had two parts, a heart, and something that represented a mind above. I was told that no, it's just the heart part. So the reason to translate it as heartmind (and not with heart) is because chinese culture is less emotion-centered. "I" instead is written with the two radicals. I really need to learn chinese! agreed! It's like "kan and li". different people use it to represent different practices. There is no "real" kan and li". PM me if you really want to know. But not with Bruce.

Granted, you have never ending wishes. They are just never satisfied. But you never reach a form of centeredness or buddhahood. You are always in the wish, and always perceive the limitation. I wish I was not addicted to the internet.

Ok, so I asked, and in half an hour of skype conversation I received no less than 5 different answers. All of which are probably true to some degree. The final admission was: well, I don't know how you are going to explain all this to the Tao Bums. :-D So, let's see what I can remember. The first point is that those words come from different sub-traditions. One of the thing that Bruce said in that article is that Taoist prefer to speak about Shen than about heart mind. Well the first interesting thing is that this is "false" according to what we have seen about Taoism. I mean there is plenty of Taoists that speaks about Hsin. So what is Bruce referring to here? Assuming that we are right in our evaluation about Taoists around, then the possibilities would only be 3. Either he is mistaken, or he is lying, or what he is saying is referring to the oral tradition he was made part of. Remember that when Bruce speaks about Taoism he is often referring to "Taoism" as something different from "Neo-Taoism". And if Hsin is very much in the dictionary of Buddhists, then it's probably in the dictionary of Neo-Taoists... and so he might be referring to that. In which case the unity of Shen and Taoism is more an element internal to his tradition. And not necessarily something you will find around. second point: who cares. Words don't mean anything, words are only gates to experiences. So with the word Shen you might refer to an experience, with the word Hsin you might refer to a different experience. I personally connect the word Shen with some experiences (many of which took place while I was in my HT years). While I connect the word Hsin to other experiences. Are those experiences different for me? Hell, yes! But maybe Bruce is right, and they are ultimately the same, huge, elephant. third point: it's a matter of nuances. fourth point: I always forget the fourth point. fifth point: Bruce started teaching, and the first 10 years were his Jing phase, where he was teaching more about the physical body. Now he is in his Chi period. Where he teaches more meditation and chi practices. Eventually he is preparing himself for his Shen period. Now we don't know what is he going to teach in this period. If he wasn't able to absolutely blow my mind in the most unexpected ways every time I saw him, I probably would not be so fond of him. But since he is, I have stopped guessing. In any case during the Shen period we shall learn the meaning of the word Shen in his oral tradition. And the difference, if there is any, between Shen and Hsin. to wrap it up: Bruce might use the words Hsin and Shen interchangebly, but since with me he was quite consistent in his use of the work Hsin, by now I have associated the word Hsin with some experiences, and the word Shen with others, so for now I will keep on differentiating between the two. Sue me ;-) !

The thread was so much fun... I wish it started again

I once asked my teacher if Journey to the west was a Taoist book. I wanted to make sure I placed in the right place in the bookshelf at home. He is an academic anthropologist and answered: it is a Chinese book. I am afraid there is no such thing as Taoism, as a single undivided whole. It's hard for religions like Christianity to present a single face, when there are in fact multiple groups. And Easter comes at different times for different people. But for a bottom up religion-cultural movement-set of traditions like Taoism it is crazy to just ask the question. The assumptions of the questions are false. You would be better off asking if New Agers believe in channeling. Some do... There are some group of Taoists for which... There are other groups of Taoists for which... while a third group of Taoist believes that... So the answer is yes, no, both yeas and no, neither of the two, and the space in between.

How interesting. With Bruce we have learned about the 8 energy bodies, and some of those were called Jing, some Chi and some Shen. And of course the last two were called Wu and Tao. And so we learned on how to dissolve those energy bodies, although of course each of us picked only as much as he could. And then we learned about the heart mind. As related with the middle tan tien. But we learned about this in a different cotext. With different practices. Practices to open the heart mind, to think from the heart mind, to greet from the heart mind, and to dissolve the heart mind. Which of course would suggest that the Heart Mind was indeed the Shen. But you see we also learned techniques to dissolve both in the heart mind and in the eight bodies. At the same time. Hmmm. So the answer is that I am not convinced that when Bruce presented us those techniques he was speaking about the same thing as when he says that some of the bodies are the Shen of a person. My sensation, as someone who does not know, but who have been in touch with those experiences is that when Bruce speaks about the Heart Mind he speaks about something more precise than when he speaks about Shen. Shen is somehow a general term for Spirit. And as I write this, I remember a phrase that Bruce use to say a lot: "the mind inside your mind". Maybe that is the difference between Shen and Heart Mind. So, definitely not the same thing. But since this is in contradiction with what Bruce stated, let me please inquire further. I mean, Bruce in his book distinguishes between chi and Chi, as one meaning the chi of something, and the second meaning the Universal Chi. And we know that shen and Shen have at least two different meanings (spirit as ghost, and spirit as Spirit). I wouldn't be surprised to discover that there is also a Spirit heart Mind, and a Spirit normal Mind. I'll get back to you.

ok, I have ordered it. It should take a couple of weeks since I'm in Portugal. Amazon would not even consider selling it here: I had to go to another website. We shall see

WOW! that looks like a really great tool to have. Also for the students. But 179$... No, Shen is translated as Spirit. Heart Mind is translated as Hsin. Not sure if this link will work: but is a link to page 74 of the book the power of internal martial arts. End of page. As scanned by google books.

Hello sheng zhen, I am sorry, inviting your question, and then not answering. In any case you got a first answer from durkhrod. And although everything he says is true I would like to clarify a few points, and expand a little bit. There isn't one, but few reasons why we follow the 70% rule. The first one has already been mentioned, and is the law of limited return. After a certain point what you put in in an exercise start to become more than what you get out. This works at two different level. One is a global level, some exercises just have a sort of maximum. After which they stop being really positive, and start to be neutral (you are essentially just throwing away time), or even negative (you become more and more stressed as you do the exercise.). It is true that standing should be considered more than a simple exercise, and as such I disagree that this semi-hard limit should be at 40 minutes. Where exactly this limit is, according to Bruce, depends from situation to situation. But it is way over 40 minutes. We are speaking on the limit of 2 or 3 hours. But then again for people who are of a certain age, and who just want to keep themselves fit, they would be better off doing between 20-40 minutes. And then maybe doing something else. So it really depends. As I said the law of limited return works also in another way. More personal. As you approach your limit, your inside start to close up, and you get less and less from an exercise. So you might be doing an exercise that is good to be done for 40 minutes, but if all you can manage is 10 minutes, then there is a point after which you start to gain less and less. And this point is much before 40 minutes, and before also 10 minutes. It is like, if I ask you what is the maximum length of a breath that you can do, while continuously breathing for 5 minutes. Or if I ask you what is the maximum length of a breath that you can do, while continuously breathing for 5 hours? For the second one you need to do it without strain. That's probably about 2/3, or 7/10th of the first one. So here we found again the 70% rule. But in a practical way. Now let's look at a second reason. We have already mentioned the law of limited return. The second is called spiritual greed. Fact is that we are all very greedy, spiritually. People in this community in particular. But everybody in general. We want to succeed. We want to be enlightened, super heroes, and so on. It is important to keep this desire in check. It is an important desire, because it pushes you forward, but a lot of misery and problems can come from that. Now this desire is never so strong as when we feel we are expanding our limits. Now fact is that we are continuously expanding our limits. But when you approach your 100%, that is the moment where your desire will start to increase. So if you reach 90% of what you can do, you will want to go further. 95%, 100%, 105%, 110%, yeah!, 120%, hospital. When we go over our limits we harm ourselves. And then we need to stop, recover, start again. And this is slowing you down and damaging both the nervous system and the hardening the body. In this sense the slow road is the fast road. If you do not go this route, but take it easy, go the 70% of your capacity you will still expand your limits, but in a smooth way. And you will not harm yourself. While the fast road is the slow road, because each time you go over your limit you strain yourself, you often need to take a pause. Sometimes of a few months, sometimes of years. And the final result is much slower. The third reason that I can see is related to the nervous system. For what I could peek, all the advanced meditation in Taoism start with the heart mind, and the heart mind require to be opened a smooth nervous system. Now let us clarify, it is not enough to have a smooth nervous system to open the heart mind. There are certain things you need to do, and you need to find a teacher that will share them with you. I am not qualified to teach about it, but I can mention it so you don't make errors that in future might slow you down as you need to unwind everything you have done to rewire it with your new knowledge. Bruce only taught about the heart mind one time (that I know off). But I think he will teach about it more often, as his teaching is going more and more in that direction. So reaching your limit is not nice toward your nervous system. It tend to make you go into a panic state. Which is really not so good. And going over your limit is even worse. So if you work slowly you can expand your limit without ever going over them. Trying to stay as close as possible to the 70% rule. This will not only expand them, but expand them without straining your nervous system. Which will then strengthen your concentration and give you one of the keys to advanced meditations. I hope I have answered your question. BTW, all I have said here comes from Bruce, as I have understood him. Some is from Bruce books, some from his lessons or from the lessons he gave to other students that then spoke with me.

Today I discovered the blog of Drew Hempel: http://naturalresonancerevolution.blogspot.com/ Where he actually speaks in his later post about SereneBlue. So a blog post about TaoBums. I find this very interesting, as the discussion spread out from this discussion board to the more general blogsphere. Now most of us have practice log forums, so no need to advertise them (although of course you could). But I really would appreciate if anyone who has a blog or who knows a blog from a member (and I am speaking about Taoist or practice blogs, not just any blog on any topic) could advertise it here. If this threads succeeds and start to hold a valuable index, it would be good if it could be pinned.

agreed, good job, Mal! Good Point! Sheng Zhen, why do we follow the 70% rule? Why not the 100% rule? That would still be within what you can do. Or the 99.9% rule. Do you know that? Because if you don't then it is easy to overlook it.