goldisheavy

I realize you didn't address this to me, but you did post on a public forum, so I am replying anyway. If you read Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu), which I highly recommend, there are countless passages that repudiate tradition and fixed ethical systems. I am not even going to bother to quote them. This "religion" Taoism has nothing to do with the real Taoism, and it's just a piss poor attempt to establish a religious community that is competitive with other religious communities. This started to happen with Buddhism's arrival in China, when Taoists started to having to compete with Buddhists and their monasteries and rigid rules and all the showy robes and such. Taoism stems from shamanism, which by nature is not focused on showiness and nor is it focused on social approval. This one thing that endeared Taoists more to me than Buddhists -- the relatively more open mind about rules, focus on essential rather than the superficial, unlike with Buddhists, which constantly get trapped in superficial dogmatism, is being destroyed by guys like Mak Tin Si and their ilk. This guy Mak Tin Si doesn't understand that in the West, people are drawn to Taoism because they are sick of dogma and just want pure spirituality without the closed-minded ritualistic and tribalistic bullshit. He can't understand this because he's probably from China and is not in touch with the Western culture, where most of us are seriously sick of religion and its lies. A ritual can have a place in one's life, but only when it is sacred TO YOU and not an imposition on you by tradition. And rituals are completely unnecessary. In Hua Hu Ching we are advised to avoid structured practice. In Zhuangzi there is talk of people who are not ruled, and yet are not unruly. That's very important. In the "Seven Taoist Masters" book there is an example of an immortal-to-be meditating doggedly in the same spot over and over, until someone comes up to him and starts polishing a stone. The immortal-to-be asks, why polish a stone? Reply, "To make a mirror". Then this immortal-to-be realized he was being too formal and rigid in his practice. He abandoned formal meditation and started to travel and even stopped at some river and helped to carry many people there across the waters. This was one of the stupidest immortals who ascended last. The examples in taoist literature that warn people against the rigid practice are everywhere. However, forget the literature. Look to your own intuition and reason. See for yourself what works and what is just showy fluff.

Connections can be seen in different ways. I think approaching the question from an angle where you ask an external authority to show you "how it is", is wrong, because then it seems like you just want some easy dogma to follow. So I don't know what relationship there is, or isn't, but I want to do my best to present what I think about those terms and let you decide what is there, if anything. Jing, to me, means manifestation or actualization. It is that which is tangible and undeniable. It is obvious to all. It is not hidden from anyone. It is concrete. In Buddhism a similar concept is Nirmanakaya. Qi, to me, is an aspect of liveliness. It is truth of aliveness. Aliveness includes such properties as motion changing to stillness and stillness changing to motion, hot turning to cold and back, abstract turning into something concrete and something concrete becoming abstract, small becoming large and large becoming small and so forth. This is a half-way point between concrete and abstract. The truth of qi reminds us that concrete and abstract are not two distinct realities, nor are they derivations or simplifications of each other, but are two ends of one spectrum/continuum of cognizance. The natural tendency of the spirit to shimmer with appearances is qi. Qi is obvious to an individual (as opposed to all). In Buddhism a similar concept is Sambhogakaya. Shen, to me, means the spirit, or the ultimate mind. It is the ultimate truth, or the fundamental truth, it is something that doesn't have an opposite and cannot be impeded in any way. At best, one can be distracted from it, but it's never lost. This is what transcends all specifications and it has no examples anywhere. It's the ultimate abstraction. Shen is not obvious. In Buddhism a similar concept is Dharmakaya. Compassion -- this is a wish to end all suffering. This represents emotional honesty. Frugality -- this is a quality of intent whereby you are able to reach contentment. This means you don't desire too little, and you don't desire too much, but you desire just right and your desires are always fulfilled. This quality is a consequence of the two types of honesty, emotional and intellectual. So someone who is spiritually honest is also someone who naturally, without trying, is never overreaching and never underreaching. So this represents an honesty of intent. Humility -- this is a tendency to state things just as they are, without exaggerating, without diminution, without pretentious social self-deprecation. This "stating" doesn't refer to just talking, but it is a manner of being, wherein one doesn't exaggerate or diminish any phenomena. This represents intellectual honesty. So, since intellect, or reason, is the most rarefied quality that all living creatures possess, it might be connected to spirit (shen). So humility can be seen as a virtue of the spirit. Since intent is something that's between completely hidden and completely apparent, perfection of it, is a virtue of qi (lifeforce, liveliness, aliveness). And since compassion is something that arises when we see that suffering is bad, which usually happens after something bad has already manifested and we say, "Uh oh... I don't think I want that", it is a virtue of a mature/completed manifestation. However, I would say that these things are not actually 3 separate things. All of this is just shen/spirit. And the entirety of the spiritual path is nothing other than attaining progressively more and more honesty (especially inner honesty for those of us that still think we are separate beings which have an inner and outer side to their experience). So if you don't perceive a divide between inner and outer, it's just honesty, but if you do perceive such a divide, it's all about inner honesty first and foremost. But is that the connection? Do you want this to be it? You do have a say in this.

That's an interesting observation about language. I see every experience as symbolic in essence, so, to me, language is not just words that we speak, but an occurrence like wind is also language. The wholeness is just as symbolic as the separateness. So I don't think the symbols inherently lead to a perception of seemingly beyond question and seemingly objective duality. BUT, and this is a big BUT, the way we, or I, tend to speak, perhaps that's true. But should I blame the language and symbols for that or should I blame myself (or take responsibility)? I haven't made up my mind about this. I don't know what is right or what is best with regard to language. Is silence truly golden? I am not so sure. I believe the best thing to do is to explain things in a nuanced and spiritually disciplined manner, keeping the mind on the true meaning and not on the superficial, as much as possible. I imagine if I ever had a friend and I asked him or her a question, and she or he said, "...." nothing...., would I be happy? I think mostly I wouldn't like that. I appreciate if someone takes my assumptions and works with them. Maybe directly challenge some of my assumptions, but usually the smoothest way is to encourage me to follow up the consequences of my assumptions and to see if I like what I see. Then I will change my assumptions if I realize they lead to unwanted consequences. So, the spoken language is a dangerous thing, like fire, but if used responsibly I think it's a great tool, at least for a while. I think the time is not yet upon us to move completely beyond the spoken language. But I don't know. I'd be very happy to hear what others think about this.

The body is the spirit, and the spirit is the body. In other words, the thoughts, dreams, stars, moon, sun, clouds, and empty space -- this is your body. And two legs, two arms, one head, etc. -- that's spirit. So when you train like this, you don't have two distinct options of immortalizing the spirit or immortalizing the body. Immortality (non-separation) is just one option. You have an option to regard your body as something separate (from spirit, from other bodies, from mind, from universe, from morals, etc.), or you can regard it as a visionary aspect of the whole. If you regard yourself as one aspect of Tao -- that's an illusion. If you regard yourself as the whole Tao -- that's correct vision. Why so? Because aspects derive their meaning from context, and context derives its meaning from further context and so on without end. Therefore, to know the meaning of one thing, is to know the meaning of everything. Therefore if you know the meaning of yourself, even if you know it wrongly, you know the meaning of Dao. Why? Because if you know something wrongly it's because you also know something correctly. If there is no correct knowledge for you, there is no wrong knowledge either. So, if you understand this, you are the whole of Tao, and not just a part.

Lineage is all about membership, indeed. It's not about the truth or understanding or anything like that. It's all about belonging and externalized authenticity. You must do no such thing. Teachers can guide you to your doom as readily as they can guide you to your success. What we need are wise friends and not teachers. Maybe. Or maybe you will learn things that teachers cannot or do not teach. Uncertainty works both ways. You are just as likely to do something unexpectedly well as you are to do something unexpectedly poorly. If you think the chance of doing poorly is much higher than a chance of doing exceptionally well, then you have a bias in your mind that you need to seriously question. Experience cannot be taught. Beliefs can be taught. Even intelligence and reason cannot be taught. Arguments can be taught, but not the underlying reason that understands and recognizes those arguments. I suggest the opposite. I suggest the same thing Zhuangzi suggests, "Even a fool has his own mind for a teacher". All things follow Dao, not just the Daoist masters. Rain falls according to Dao, and thoughts flow according to Dao. When a teacher arises that's in accord with Dao and when a student learns without a teacher, that's also in accord with Dao. Dao is not limited to only this or only that form. A huge problem with the Daoist teachers, as well as with the Buddhist ones, is the secrecy and the "closed door" students. So they teach one thing in public, and an entirely different thing behind the closed doors to their chosen few. I fundamentally reject such practice, and I ask all the people of the West to reject it. We can take Daoist principles without the vile Chinese tribalism.

I find these demonstrations to be interesting in more ways than one. I think the demonstration is interesting in itself. I think many of us have been cut with dull knifes, paper and blades of grass to know that even a dull knife can cut sometimes. So even if you don't believe that the knife is sharp, it takes guts to be on the receiving end of the blade. It's like getting an apple shot above your head by an expert marksmen shooting from a handgun from 100 meters away. One wrong tremble of the hand and your head explodes instead of the apple, so it's impressive no matter how you slice it, trick or no trick. And then there is the video with the razor blade. No one said anything about that. But the reaction to these videos is perhaps even more interesting than the videos themselves. There was much fear and revulsion. These videos do not agree with many people's world views. People want the laws of physics to work, and anything that shows the laws of physics are just mind suggestions is going to be vehemently and emotionally opposed by the so-called "rational" people. My personal opinion is that work like this has a place in spiritual practice. The goal is not to save a few coins! The goal here is to know thyself and to challenge one's own assumptions about reality. If you've already flown to the island many times and you are bored, sure, go ahead and pay the coins to the boatman to take you across the lake. On the other hand, if you are not sure that you can fly, or if you simply enjoy flying more, go ahead and fly to the lake. I walk to work every day, although I could drive or take a bus. No one will tell me I am saving a few coins, will they? I just enjoy walking. But if I would fly to work, many people would get very upset, because they just don't like people flying, but instead of saying, "I am scared of people flying and don't want this in my reality", which would be an acknowledgment of an internal weakness, they say, "Are you greedy or what? Just pay for the bus". Of course they don't say that to someone who walks and also doesn't pay for the bus, or someone who just swims across the lake. Then they say, "Very good sir, your life style is very healthy and down to earth!"

I don't buy this at all. All of experience is just pure vision. The only thing that's dirty about it is your belief system. Question your beliefs. Proceed toward the root concerns and continue questioning. Eventually when the beliefs start to dissolve under the light of examination, what remains is pure wisdom. From within pure wisdom nothing is dirty or polluted. On the contrary -- everything is included in Tao. Nothing is excluded. And enlightenment itself is a remainderless realization -- meaning you do not conceive that you've left something behind to be where you are now. Nothing is left behind or left over. That's what is meant by "remainderless" -- there is nothing left over. Everything is redeemed.

I would say that's it. What you said there includes everything. For example, as an unrestrained Tao, intent is directly fulfilled at all times, since there is no mental framework that would impose a separation or a limit on it. Therefore to have a visceral and clear experience of a body that lasts indefinitely, in accordance to intent, is just natural. In that state of mind, when this body disappears it's never "against your will"; simply because intent itself is unstable (do you always want the same thing?) things change also, but there is no death in a sense that something is taken away from you against your wish (like your body dies even though you want your body not to die). This experience of having events go against your wishes is due to the core beliefs in separation. If you believe that me is fundamentally separate from not-me, and that not-me works according to some well defined rules, then it's no wonder that not-me will always do things that me doesn't like. The solution is not to hammer the not-me part into compliance by following all the proper rules (this is what the scientists do). The solution is to realize that me/not-me divide is purely mind-made first, and second, to transcend it, to take it as purely ornamental if there at all. This will restore wholeness to intent. When the scope of intent returns to unlimited wholeness, there will no longer be an experience of "against will". This change happens from a level that is you beyond your idea of you. In other words, what you think is you is not what will perform exercises and meditation and then transcend. There is a you beyond your idea of you, and that genuine you will do the job by simply relaxing and by simply ceasing from taking certain beliefs seriously. This means embracing any and all experience as a visionary experience. So if you have a horrible sickness you might as well laugh and enjoy it as you might heal it, because your mind will see purity in sickness as well as in health. In other words, you will not have an ordinary idea of health at that point. If your arms fall off, that's health too. If you understand this, there is nothing that can bring you sorrow. The experiences that follow this cannot be described adequately because they do not fit any frameworks. They go beyond points of reference.

But if you don't actually need the oil for anything, there is no problem with claiming you have the oil. It's the people that really want or really need the oil that have to step up to the plate. But not everyone has that wish. I don't think we should denigrate the people who maintain a correct conceptual framework with regard to Tao. Even if they don't realize 1/100th of the wisdom implication from what they claim, there is nothing inherently wrong with that. When those people feel that it's no longer enough to just claim certain things and that now the time has come to manifest, they will move on without all the denigration and shaming.

The assumption is that it is so wonderful to be here, so extending your stay here is a reward. This is a decidedly un-taoist attitude to say the least. In fact, Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi) talks about this topic. I won't recount it. You can look it up yourself. What would you say if you were in prison, and for all your good deeds your stay in prison was extended? You'd be outraged, wouldn't you? The truth is that there is no way to ascertain whether this place is a reward, punishment, or neither. So there is no way to conclude what the meaning of an extended stay could be. Maybe a short stay is a reward? It's quite possible. People are afraid to die, and so they base this retarded attitude on their fear and not on love or any positive quality or virtue. If someone wanted to stay alive for a good reason, maybe the stay of the person should be extended as a reward. But if people stay here because they can't stand to die or to suffer, then there is no good reason to extend the life of such person, no matter how many ants they help. If someone helps someone else just because they are avoiding a blow from a big karmic stick, they are not helping anyone other than themselves. Such a person deserves to burn in hell for a long time, and indeed, that's where they already are. Question, question all you hear. All these traditional stories are as ignorant and stupid as they are wise. I think compassion is a good quality to cultivate, but that story is not a good story to inspire true compassion.

The hidden assumption here is that it's important to come to a conclusion regarding this. Why not just leave the mind in an unconcluded state? Leave it open. Don't close it around this or that opinion. If this guy was nearby, you could go and see for yourself. If you are curious and have the money and good luck, you can go and see him. If you're not curious enough to go see him, is it really that important to come to a conclusion about his state or status? But even if you did see him, what difference would it make to conclude something about him? If someone is not a Buddha, should this person be ignored? And if someone is a Buddha, should your critical thinking faculties be suspended? If you are going to behave the same whether someone is a Buddha or not, is it important to know if that person is a Buddha? On the other hand, if you have a problem that needs solving, does it matter if a Buddha or non-Buddha solves it? If you want to learn some kill, who cares who teaches it to you or if you learn it on your own? So if you investigate this, I think you might find that this amounts to nothing more than idle and useless curiosity.

This is a response of what we call "ordinary being". You must understand why that is so. I can tell you about it, but if you don't feel it in your mind, you don't have an authentic understanding. The reason people panic is because they cling so strongly to form. When a person is attacked, this event threatens the form, the identity of the person. People respond in the same way to identity threats. Damaging the body is one way to attack identity, because people identify with the body. Even the idea of "damage" is based on what the body should be like. Play dough cannot be damaged with a blow, because we don't have an idea of what shape play dough should be in. But you don't have to hit the body. You can insinuate that the person is a liar. If the person's identity is "I am an honest person", this will do damage to it of the exactly the same kind as hitting the body. Straight people who cling to their straightness feel damaged in the presence of gay people and often react violently. It's all the same thing. So then, how does the ordinary, stupid being respond to the threats to the form? They respond by learning even MORE forms. So when the pattern of identity is threatened, the coping mechanism is to acquire even more patterns. Call them defensive patterns or coping patterns. Of course these patterns have exactly the effect I explained in my previous posting in this thread. But long term, the problem only gets worse, because the awareness is submerging itself deeper and deeper into more and more patterns, and life becomes more and more boxed in and regimented and more and more coping strategies are required later on and less and less spontaneity is available and more and more formality and fear enters into life and so on. Eventually the person, if they persist in this idiocy, becomes paranoid and no pattern is enough. This is when the person washes their hands 20 times because they can't be sure that 1 time is enough, or when they lock the door 40 times to make sure it's truly locked, etc. All ordinary people are basically sick and insane people and the arts and sciences they produces are reflections of their sickness. As long as you're dealing with ordinary beings or with beings who are trained in the similar forms as you, yes, it's useful. However, if you meet someone I talk about, you are in trouble. And this happens in the real world once in a while. Like when a boxer gets hit in the legs, or when a grappler gets hit in the face with such speed and force that they're not used to it and haven't trained neither body nor mind to deal with it. And so on. All patterns fail when they meet their anti-pattern. Practitioners who seek to uproot people fail against people who do not depend on a root internally. Breaking the body structures fails against those who have unstructured body mechanics. Hitting someone fails when the person is accustomed to receiving the blows, but the same person could maybe be pinched into submission. A strong warrior wins against all the mighty warriors but utterly fails against a tiny tiny virus. If you are smaller than your opponent, you usually lose, but if you are much smaller, then you win. So there is nothing that's absolutely this or that way. Everything bends and flexes infinitely. Instincts are conditioned by beliefs. You should investigate this for yourself. Beliefs structure the experience. Beliefs are not just words you say to yourself silently in the mind -- that's the most superficial layer of belief, and often the words you say that you believe are actually not your true belief anyway. True belief is that which you take as fact, without question.

I think this is not half bad. But there are different kinds of training. Most martial arts training, even including the internal arts, serve to condition certain patterns into the mind. By putting these patterns into the mind one achieves a two-fold effect: 1. One's mind is calmer, because one believes that if one sticks to the pattern, one will be safe. So when something happens, there is less panic. This is really a placebo effect. You might as well believe that the great Flying Spaghetti Monster in the sky will protect you, and if you believe it enough, you will get the same calm and collected mind. 2. Since one's mind has been constrained by a pattern, one does very well with anything that fits into that pattern, but one fails catastrophically when something doesn't fit into the pattern. A pattern is a form of prejudice. Any conditioning is prejudice. However, there is also a kind of "training" that aims at softening up prejudices and eliminating patterns. This training is not based on any form and it has no forms, or no permanent and important forms. The effect of this training is many-fold. For one, the person clings less to life, because clinging to "life" is actually just clinging to a certain pattern. One's own identity is a pattern. One's own notion of health is a pattern, etc. So as these patterns are softened up, there is less clinging energy. As one clings less, staying "alive" is not that important anymore. A person understands that life is eternal and that one doesn't have to cling to it to ensure its continuation. Secondly, the person becomes more sensitive. When the mind is no longer viewing the phenomena by comparing them against internal patterns, there is more room to notice things and more room for imagination to manifest things. So the liveliness becomes less inhibited. In a street fight this guy would appear like an insane lunatic and his blows would mean death, because there would be no internal stopping energy operating within once they decide to unleash force. But also, it is unlikely a guy like that would fight, because there is not necessarily much to their mind that's really worth fighting for. This training consists of contemplation and meditation. Unfortunately the contemplative and meditative forms you learn are just that - forms. They are patterns. They do not do this trick I am talking about. To learn what I am talking about you have to learn it on your own. You can't be taught this by a master of any kind. The best a master can do is just sit there and question your ignorant assumptions and to help you clarify your desires, like, "Why do you want this? when you get this, it will be good why?" and so on. Most people don't know what they want. If people don't even know their own wishes, how can they know something that is supposedly external to them? It is nonsense. First learn what you want and who you are, then if you still have room for doubts, try to learn about the external world.

Ahh, I really feel for you on this issue. I have infinite sympathy for your plight. I will talk honestly now. Everything you hear in society is basically bullshit. Even if you meet the highest and best Qi Gong master, he cannot teach you anything at all. Why not? Learning from others is a deception at the ultimate level, but why is that so? Because if someone tells you something, you have to recognize it. If you recognize it, it is because you already knew it at the heart level. If you don't recognize it, the other person might as well be a rock or a bird or speaking a language you cannot understand. So, the very best that a teacher can hope to do for a student, is to evoke the student's inner knowing. But there is a problem. The teacher always, invariable has his own motivation that is not the same and that is not in harmony with the student's motivation. Why so? That's because in the mind the student and the teacher are seen as two distinct entities. Now, if you think that beings are separate and that they communicate using an objective medium, you are said to be living in convention. This convention is ultimately a deception, and wisdom that comes from it is always diluted, deceptive, and often wrong, because convention is always based on the baseless premise at its root. I hope I am making this very clear. It is hard to believe, but you have all the wisdom that is ever possible. You are omniscient and omnipotent. The reason these teachers appear to you is because you have agreed to disempower yourself and to delegate this power to entities that you believe exist. So you separate yourself from others and then you shift most of your authority to others. This is called a projection of authority. This is how conventions form. Because if the authority is external, there is no way to understand it completely -- that's the very nature of external entities, the uncertainty. The external is always more uncertain than the internal, because they are conceived that way by the mind. Because in your understanding all beings are external to each other, they don't know exactly what they are saying. So they have to convene, and discuss. In this discussion there will be disagreement, but after much argumentation and swinging of fists and threats finally people agree on how they will talk and behave. The people, mind you, still don't exactly understand what they are agreeing to, but they know if they talk and act a certain way, it is relatively safe. So a person who is considered more in tune with this agreement is called "conventionally respectable". Usually such a person has degrees and other papers that signify that many other people respect this person. It doesn't mean this person knows anything at all, but it just means the society, as conceived by YOU, respects this. Because of this, this guy feels justified to charge any price. Often this guy feels special and unique and more knowledgeable than anyone else. That's because more people agree with him than with others. But keep in mind, all this game is maintained by YOU. You are basically ripping yourself off. You are spanking yourself, but you don't understand this process yet, that's why you complain. You are similar to someone who hits his hand with a hammer and then complains about the hammer hurting the hand, all the while ignoring the fact that you are the one swinging the hammer in the first place. So, nothing in convention has conventional reason to ever be truly nice to you. If you ever meet someone who is truly nice, consider it a miracle. This niceness is not born of conventional reason. This person will be like your friend. This person will not dominate you by using a conventional authority. This person will help you think your issues through without telling you "how it is". You will know how it is on your own, and this person will not get in the way of that. They won't demand a penny from you. But such one is rare, and in order to meet such one, you must have purified your mind to a high degree. While your own mind is still quite dirty and polluted with many ideas you haven't questioned yet, you will continue to encounter people who will rip you off and who will seem like they come for your heart, while in reality coming for your wallet only. Understand -- it's your own spiritual insecurity and ineptness that is causing this to happen.

It's an evocative poem. However, if I respond to it, I will just criticize it up and down and the length of that would be enough to fill a book. A better approach would be to ask people, "When you read a text like that, what problem are you looking to solve? What is missing in your life?" Then I would prefer to respond to the answer to that question rather than to the poem directly. The reason for that is that everyone will read this poem differently based on what they believe and what they intend to achieve. I would focus on analyzing and reflecting on those intentions far more than on the poem itself. The poem will take on totally different meanings based on what intentions and beliefs the person reading it has. That's why I don't think it's a good idea to respond to the poem as if there was just one poem. There are as many of this poem as there are people reading it. For me, this poem doesn't work, because my insight operates on a higher level than what the poem talks about. So the poem is simply irrelevant to me, at best, but at worst, it is just plain wrong or even harmful. At the same time, when I first got this poem in the book form, I really enjoyed it and benefited from reading it. I much prefer to deal with the live heart than to deal with dead concepts. If I interact with the person, I am dealing with a live heart. If I respond to a poem, I am dealing with dead concepts. When I read the poem, the live heart is there, but if I respond to it, none of you will hear it. So if I respond to the poem in a way you can hear, it's definitely going to be a response to a dead concept.

Fear is not an energy like electricity. It's a reaction. I suggest you get as close to your fear as you can without losing your mind. You have to be close enough to make it real, but not so close as to lose the flow of your thoughts. Once there, start examining it. What assumptions are involved? What intentions are being blocked? What beliefs are contextualizing it? Etc. Examine it. It may take 10 years or a lifetime (or hell, lifetimes) of work to really put an end to some of the deeper fears. If the fear is significant, there is no way in hell you can get over it in one day, no matter what you realize. The reason for this is habituation and familiarization. You have to spend time familiarizing yourself with the problem and then habituate a new way of being, and this is not easy when the fear you're dealing with is not something superficial (like the fear of heights or like a fear of public speaking -- those are very superficial fears). I assume you're talking about the level of fear that spiritual adepts confront.

The reverse must then also be true: all that is subject to ceasing is subject to arising. All in all, it's not a bad contemplative tool, but by no means the best. The best is to contemplate your own intention at its deepest level. This is far superior to contemplating a formula about cessation. Any observant person will get enough renunciation just naturally, over time. However renunciation is not all there is to life. As another wise sage said: "Drink the nectar of renunciation to your fill, And then renounce renunciation itself" In reality the proper "place" cannot be described. You find yourself there over time if you are a contemplative sort.

You are asking us here. That likely means you still did not disempower the convention within your mind. That means no matter what anyone says, you have an external Guru already, since you really believe the world is external and Gurus are there to teach you things you didn't know. I say "likely" because you might just be fooling around and not being serious. Let me rephrase the question: is a person needed whom you will never question and whom you will never look at critically? Is such one needed? Not only is such one not needed, but such one can derail the spiritual progress you've made prior to meeting one. Wisdom is the ultimate resolution of all concepts and therefore of all intentions. Intentions and concepts which ground those intentions cannot be resolved if you follow a formulaic step-by-step path. The resolution is a manner of familiarization that is acquired during a curious and constant interaction with the deepest levels of meanings. This interaction has to be done in utmost honesty with the highest aspirations, or it will not have the power to move you beyond the ordinary. The Guru blocks all that. You cannot be honest with the Guru, because the Guru demands respect. But what if you feel like disrespecting your Guru? Already there is a block on certain feelings there through convention. It's not that disrespecting the Guru is important, but the fact that your respect is not spontaneous, but it is there as a duty and a debt, you appear constrained, disempowered and worthless. "Even a fool has his own mind for a teacher." --chuang tzu This is a long term affair. If you want to speed things up, you have the wrong motivation. The motivation should be on honesty, truth, quality and never on how fast you get something done. Ordinary mind panics when hurt and wants the pain over fast. That's where the "fast" motivation comes from. But a mind that is beyond ordinary is not paniced by any sensation at all. Enlightenment is anti-fast by its very nature. Seeking a short-cut one becomes very far from it, and not seeking any short cut you become very near. Chasing fast results on a path where forbearance is a virtue is very deluded. Another reason people seek Gurus is because they are afraid to make a mistake. If you fear mistakes, you are screwed before you even start. Embrace mistakes. Love your mistakes. Make many mistakes. Explore! How else are you to learn? Mistakes are where the wisdom is. If Guru cuts off mistakes, Guru cuts off wisdom as well. If you are not seeking to avoid mistake and if you are not seeking a shortcut, what you need is a spiritual friend, perhaps, and not Guru.

It's not a matter of formula or a technique. A quote attributed to master T.T. Liang goes something like this, paraphrased, "To be an immortal, simply stop thinking like a mortal." What are your most dominant concerns? What does your thinking hinge upon? If your most dominant concern is survival and health, and if your thinking hinges upon the ability of mind to identify, to delineate, to think in terms of identities (A is A, A is not B, etc.), then you have a mind of a mortal. If you have a mind of a mortal you are mortal. If you can see the inadequacy of delineations and if you do not hinge your thinking strongly on identity, and if you are not concerned with survival or health, then you approach immortality. When I say "not concerned", I don't mean you wantonly piss away your health. I mean, you have equanimity toward your apparent condition. So I am talking about a relaxed attitude free of worry and struggle, and not an attitude of careless recklessness. If you don't understand that your own mind is the teacher, then you'll be very confused -- reading this book, that book, following this or that advice. There is very little rest or stability for you when you are unable to accept your own mind as the teacher. You always have to be worried about whether or not advice you receive is really right, whether or not the books or teachers are authoritative enough, and whether or not you understand anything, etc. If you are not rooted within, then you are plagued by a constant stream of doubts, since you are very much moved by appearances (like amazing practices, techniques, masters, ideas, etc.). Look at your own mind. It is deeper and more profound than you give it credit for. Work with your mind. Ask your mind questions. Demand answers from your own mind. Pray to your own mind. Worship it. Bow to it. Develop humility for our own mind. Ordinary people only have humility for external appearances but have no respect whatsoever for their own mind. They constantly put down and denigrate their own minds. Whatever they worship is almost always external. That's the attitude of a mortal. Mortals have pretty much 0 faith in themselves. But the reason for this is because mortal mind is deceived by identity. "I am this" "I am not like this" "I am more like this" "I cannot do this" "This is not me" "This is me" "This is not mine" and so on. All these are identity concerns with respect to a person. The mind is also confused by identifying impersonal objects and even concepts. It's hard or impossible to simply drop or soften up one's reliance on identities by force or some clever 1-2-3 technique. It's a good idea to investigate identifying capacity of mind thoroughly. During an intense investigation a person can become disenchanted with the identifying capacity of mind and then softening up reliance on it is natural and easy and happens by itself. Concerns and thinking patterns of a mortal make you mortal. That's all there is to it. It's that simple.

When there is no mind -- that's still mind. When there is no illusion -- that's just another illusion.

Miraculous abilities are not attainments. They are natural expressions that become freed up when the time is right. It's like this. It's as if you believe you must hold your head in order for your head not to fall off. So you keep holding it all your life and everyone else is doing so. Seeing someone with both hands away from the head is a miracle. But that ability is not an attainment. It's something everyone can do as soon as they get rid of the belief that the head will fall off if you don't hold it. Who or what wants the answer? If you were truly interested in flying, you'd have already flown in your dreams. Then you'd know what I'm talking about. If you haven't yet, it means you're not interested. And if you're not interested, asking is a waste of time. Yen Hui: If you really want to know, I suggest you learn to lucid dream and try flying when dreaming.

Good times.

I don't see how knowing the answer to this question will help you. What matters is how these people affect your thinking, and not what label is best to apply to them. Before asking a question it helps to ask yourself what purpose will getting an answer serve?

You will never achieve this goal, but not because there is something wrong with you. It's just that the very nature of you is subjectivity. When you say "my goal" you are speaking subjectively. It's like saying that you subjectively want to understand objectively. That's pure nonsense. Think slowly... When people talk about objective knowledge, what exactly are they talking about? What about subjective? What is this idea of subjective vs. objective based on? Is it true? Question it. Examine it. If you fail to examine the assumptions inherent in your questions, then you will be asking garbage questions and getting garbage answers. Instead of being in a big hurry to get an answer, why don't you re-examine your question. What exactly are you asking there? What assumptions are you relying on when asking? What will it feel like to know the answer? How will having the answer change your life? What will be different? Will it be different? Etc.