goldisheavy

You can say whatever you like as far as I am concerned, Marblehead. I'm not going to keep your mouth shut. As far as I am concerned, evolution is all about the study of shapes. Which shapes related to what shapes. It's all interesting in the same sense jeopardy is interesting. It's basically useless information. Whether I come from a monkey or whether aliens put me here, it makes no difference whatsoever. Mind is what's important. When it comes to mind, we know that all cognitions only have meaning within some context. No context, no meaning. The implication is that there is no such thing as "first cognition." Why not? Because in order for cognition to occur, there must be some context and that context is precisely made of other cognitions. So the chain of cognitions is an unbroken one by necessity. If your reasoning faculties are strong, that is enough to see the truth. Otherwise, it's also possible to experience what I am saying directly by experiencing the dissolution of context and noticing what happens next. Getting this kind of experience is hit or miss and is very very hard. It's much easier and more practical to just sharpen up your reasoning and see the same thing through observation and logic. I am lucky in that I've done it both ways. I see the truth of the endless mind through both mystical experience and through sheer logic applied to common day to day experience. The mind has no beginning and no end. The shapes that appear within the mind have a beginning and an end. The shapes have lineages. The mind does not (at least, not any kind of conventional lineage). Recognizing this is essential for spiritual progress, otherwise your most important and most powerful tool, the mind, is disengaged from reality. If we come from apes, that's fine with me. If we don't come from apes, that's also fine with me. We certainly do not come from an Abrahamic creator God -- this can be dismissed through logic.

The mind is not something that's manufactured. The bodies come and go but not so the mind.

Do you pick your nose and/or rip out nose hair? If yes, try to stop that at least temporarily. See if your nasal allergies don't improve. Excessively stripping the nose of the mucus, and/or excessively injuring it by tearing the hair can lead to allergies. That's been my personal experience.

Are you lying right now? Good point. But you can always take a break from the forum, and you tend to learn which people are likely to disagree with you and which ones are likely to agree. So while insults can indeed be surprising, they aren't always all that surprising. This goes completely against my experience. I've even had situations where a physical fight has turned a relationship of animosity into a friendship. It's true that fights are not how you generally make friends. But at the same time to say that roughness is always negative is wrong. It's too extreme a stance. Criticism and insults are not all that separate. They are part of one single unbroken spectrum of expression. Nonsense. If insults are personal, then no matter what the person believes we'll feel like insulting that specific person. This isn't what happens in most cases. In most cases as soon as the beliefs and/or opinions that are expressed change, the insults stop. So the insults are not in fact personal, no matter how they may appear. Some people really do hurl personal insults that have nothing to do with beliefs and behaviors. Some people just hate one person and no matter what that person does, they can do no right. These cases are very rare and they are pathological. My whole point is that insults are on the same spectrum as criticism and that a small and judicious amount of them are admissible. Keep in mind that one man's constructive criticism is another man's destructive criticism. One man's polite criticism is another man's insult of intelligence that's taken personally. It would be better to go beyond seeing everything as a black or white caricature of reality. It's very easy to be dishonest. So what? What I am discussing here has nothing to do with the ease if implementation. I do that already. But at the same time my goal is not to eliminate expressions that some may consider insulting, but to moderate them. Do you understand the difference between elimination and moderation the way I use these terms? I strongly disagree. I also now think you're a snake in the grass who's possibly backstabbed me behind my back, while being all nice and smiles to my face, possibly bitching to moderators in private. I hope that's not personally insulting to you Steve, but it's only honest. I still respect you, but I will appreciate it if you stop lying. In particular you said you agree with almost everything and then proceeded to disagree with practically the entire post. So at best you agree with 5% and disagree with 95%. And then you presented it as a slight disagreement. Is this your idea of being "nice"? Don't you see this kind of dishonesty is exactly what I oppose? So you think you're doing me a service by presenting such false front to me? No, I reject it. I don't want that kind of service. Be straight with me. If you disagree don't try to sweeten your post artificially. I am disappointed.

Is it centered around the nose? I don't know what is considered a lot, but I think you know very well if you're eating too many cookies or not. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/23/health/webmd/main662755.shtml http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000816.htm Some theories as to how allergies may work.

Outer level: 7-9 hours of sleep (whatever is natural to you). Eat healthy and in moderation. Everything is OK to eat as long as pizza is not the sole food you eat and other such extremes. Don't forget to drink water in some way. If you're doing some kind of work that bangs up your body, then change professions, take a (extended) break from it, or moderate yourself somehow so as to get back within a reasonable amount of strain. Some exercise and some walking or jogging or running. Inner level: Stress.... it's all about stress. Stress is the killer. So anything to get rid of it, to melt it away, or to transform it, such as tai chi, yoga, meditation, tantric visualizations, some types of contemplation (but some can actually increase stress, so watch out), herbs that have a calming effect, maybe even some marijuana, moderate use of alcohol (between 1 and 3 shots depending on body weight, only to the point of relaxation and the onset of the buzzed feeling and not more than that) -- all these things can help. Things like meditation and tai chi or yoga can help as daily routine. If you have a stress emergency then a shot of alcohol or some herbal tea of the right kind can be more expedient, faster, and it works best in combination with the mental approach. So you can take a shot of vodka and meditate for example. If you have an addictive personality or you believe you may be subject to addiction, then you may want to avoid alcohol or mj or even herbal remedies. Long term stress is managed through belief management. Do you have beliefs that cause you to overly struggle against the world or against certain aspects of yourself? If the answer is yes, you may want to check them out. There are two possibilities here. One is that the struggle is necessary. In that case you just have to suck it up and bear it. Another possibility is that the struggle is not necessary, and in this case, you can attempt belief modification by critical analysis of the offending belief, investigation, deconstruction, looking at many alternative beliefs and considering the alternatives more seriously, and so on. Of course I am not telling you what's what because ultimately everything is up to you. So these guidelines are general and abstract on purpose. Other things: aromatherapy, music, hypnosis (self-hypnosis, tapes/mp3, professional). Finally people with a strong purpose and some kind of central love in their lives are healthier and stronger. The purpose can really be anything. Even if your purpose is to flutter around without any purpose, as long as you find this deeply meaningful and engaging, that's a fine purpose. So if you have some kind of love or passion in life, something you find meaningful and engaging, something that allows you to think that your life is not a waste of time, it will help your immune system tremendously. So the inner side can be split into the negative and positive. On the negative side, you avoid stress, on the positive side you seek meaningful engagement. So you avoid the sticks and seek the carrots. It's that simple. Another option that is very very difficult is to transcend the entire carrot and stick paradigm we all tend to live in. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. You can for example experience some significant and valuable measure or transcendence without the full transcendence. That's possible. If you can step beyond hope and fear entirely then your immune system will become undefined. It will be outside the realm of speculation.

Steve, many people can't see any difference between their viewpoints and themselves. So when the viewpoint is subject to criticism or even disrespect, they take it personally. That's a problem. I don't think I must respect every single belief out there. In my opinion many beliefs lead to harm both for oneself and for others. I tolerate a huge amount of things, especially in the so-called "physical" sphere, but when we come together in a forum, in the mental sphere, I let it be known what's what. Why? Because you can always just skip the post. You don't have to read any specific post here. So in other words, everything on a forum like this is non-coercive. Everything is voluntary. So this is the only realm where we can express criticism and disrespect without physically hurting someone, which is vastly superior to actually physically hurting people and property (which is what eventually happens when disagreements fester and aren't addressed in the open forum). Just like light and shadow, construction and destruction, they all have their place, so does the rough language. Rough language is what allows us to avoid tangible bloodshed down the line. It's what allows us to prevent extremism from crystalizing and stabilizing itself into something less manageable than a forum discussion. It's like a disease that's caught early and requires only a minimum intervention vs one that's left to fester and either requires a dramatic intervention or is fatal at that stage. What if people only built up things and never demolished them? Well, if that's how we did things, we'd never be able to renovate or fix anything. The key to making discussions like these painless is to remember that your opinions are not you. When your opinion is criticized or disrespected, it's not you who is criticized or disrespected. I've always said that too much is too much, but at the same time, there is an allowable limit for just about anything that's well short of "too much." It's my responsibility not to go overboard with the disrespect but at the same time, it's also my responsibility to avoid becoming too upset when "I" am the subject of criticism and disrespect. Of course in reality it's not actually me, it's my opinions that I put forth that could be criticized and disrespected. If everyone else on this forum thought the same way, then all our problems would be manageable and solvable almost always without bans. Then our use of rough language would be moderate and at the same time, people would learn to gracefully handle criticism in a way that allowed people to be productive and flexible with their beliefs and opinions. It's wrong to put the entire onus on one or the other party here, imo. I don't say the entire onus is on the one who is criticized to be more detached and mature, to be less egoistic and more innerly stable. I don't say that. But neither do I say the reverse, that the entire onus is on the person who itches to criticize to completely avoid doing so, or to present criticism in a dishonest way, respectfully, when in fact one doesn't experience true respect for this or that belief or opinion. I believe my approach is not only healthy, it's realistic and attainable. Your approach Steve is essentially non-attainable and will lead to censorship and repression.

I have always advocated moderation when it comes to rough language. I always said it's OK to curse and to insult as long as it's done tastefully, within a proper context and not too much. Some people on this forum have selective memories. I've always advocated a middle way approach for cursing. As long as cursing is not the main content of the post, and as long as it's not the only thing you come here to do, it's OK to curse once in a while or to insult and whatever else, if it helps to illuminate the truth. Unlike some others I don't think there is anything absolutely worthless under the Sun, so cursing and insults sometimes have their worth and should be admitted. As long as I remember I've always maintained this. It's nothing new.

Thanks Stig. This formulation is very valuable and not in any contradiction with the video. The video simply dresses it up a bit. We can say that beliefs are frozen, iced intent on the spiritual level. So it's not only that as shen solidifies it becomes qi and later jing, it's also that shen itself has long-lasting structures and those can be called beliefs, but they don't have to be. We could also call those structures -- the world pattern. Calling them the world pattern gives us an idea of the effect and calling them beliefs gives us intuitive internal access. Either way there is nothing out there that is self-existing in a manner that's independent of belief. That's why one's state of mind is important. I am pretty sure that a lot of Daoists get this. Zhuangzi harped about the importance of mind and illumination and not a word on substance. Daodejing beings with an analysis of the cognitive opposites, and this kind of analysis is also an anti-substantialist one. It points out that everything is defined only in relation, and that relation is not in fact substantial. Relations are governed by shen, and are ultimately flexible, although relatively they can be very hard to flex. If you consider intent as a kind of energy, the more intent gets taken up in beliefs, the less you have available to do anything else. Beliefs capture and freeze a portion of intent-energy and beliefs require constant intent input to be maintained. If intent is cut off from the belief formation, then the belief formation begins to melt and lose shape and power.

Your eyebrows will grow back and pretty quickly at that. At the same time, by shaving your eyebrows you've unwittingly eliminated one possible source of rogue hairs. So you've actually narrowed down your problem by restricting your search space. Obviously you want to look handsome so it wasn't completely intentional on your part, but if you think about it, it wasn't a complete waste. Perhaps shaving your eyebrow was simply the only way for you to realize that eyelashes could be a contributing source of rogue hair. Perhaps if you just thought about it a little more carefully you could have spared yourself the "agony" of having no eyebrows. In any case, your eyebrows will be back quickly so it's not much of a loss. Meanwhile you'll get some extra attention, and if you like attention, that's a good thing. It can be your little conversation piece for about a week or two. Enjoy it while it lasts.

I agree with you Informer. I would say not only are you the greatest teacher for yourself, but you are the only teacher. Every time you think you are learning from someone else, you are in fact processing your own state of mind. The objects you call "other" appear where? They appear in your own mind to you. This is why inner integrity is such a critical aspect of the spiritual path. If you are not straight with yourself, there is nothing "out there" that can correct you or set you straight. Ultimately you are left to decide what is correct and what isn't.

First, I don't think the "dark night of the soul" is something like an objective fact that happens to everyone. Second, people can discern things like the dark night of the soul only in retrospect. I really doubt anyone can sincerely say "hey, yes, I am in the middle of the dark night of the soul right now." It's only 10, 20 or 30 years later that you'll maybe be able to recognize the dark night of the soul as such, if in fact you've experienced it. I don't think it's a good idea to imagine that your personal path is exactly like that of countless others, as if you're treading some well established path. The path you are on is unique. No one has attempted to be you before. You're the first you there is, and most likely the last. As for the actual content of your post, I tend to agree with it. I think yes, sentient beings are all that matters in the world. Everything revolves around the sentient beings. I've also felt limited by the physical body before, but I came to recognize that my body is in many ways representative of my own intention. It's not imposed on me despite myself, but it represents my own willingness. So my body is only limited to the extent my mind is limited. So if I am unhappy, instead of railing against my body, I should check out my mind and unclog the limitations there, and the body will soon catch up, because the body always follows the mind. The mind is in charge and the body is like a shadow of the mind.

I disagree completely. Sometimes it's not only that you disagree with someone, but you also don't respect a certain point of view. Pretending that you respect something when you don't is what's dishonest. Insults are healthy because they prevent people from taking themselves too seriously. I think it would be bad if insults were the only content, or if they were the dominant content, but if the insults merely pepper an otherwise interesting post from time to time, it's perfectly healthy. Moderation is the key. Also insults convey a level of informality which is important to bring people closer together. When the speech is formalized and regulated it makes it harder to trust anything that's being said. This is where "political correctness" comes from. Formalisms get in the way of the real thing and if anywhere it should be obvious, it should be obvious to the Daoist community.

This is brilliant. Thank you!

Marblehead stated the premise too simply. Coherency of beliefs matters. If you believe in gravity and you also believe in levitation, then your beliefs are incoherent. In this case magic is not likely to work. Magic works when there are no or few blocking beliefs, or if the contradicting beliefs are relatively weak. So the quality and quantity both matter here. Many people claim it does. Science is axiomatic at its root. They do. What do you think the body of light is, if you believe such things? How about a Dzogchen practitioner waving his hand through a solid column of stone? I haven't personally seen these specific manifestations, but I've experienced enough strange things that combined with my understanding of things born of contemplation, I believe all such things are possible. It is enough. The question is, is the belief a sincere one? Are there contradictory beliefs? Is the mind in a coherent state? To get nice and easy manifestations your mind has to be coherent and your beliefs sincere. In fact, most sincere and firm beliefs are unconscious, they are silent and tacit beliefs that are so deep that we don't even bother to pronounce them most of the time.

That's a dishonest way to live. In this way of life you prize comfort over honesty and the result will not be a good one in the long term. I am not completely against the comfort and I am not saying anything extreme here. Comfort is valuable, but sometimes comfort contends with sincerity and in my opinion we should let the sincerity win at least in some arenas of life.

It's hard to discuss issues that are near and dear our hearts without at times delving into an insult or two. I think we should keep the overall intent in the mind and be ready to forgive people.

I'll also go on the record saying that while I disagreed with bodyoflight on a number of important issues, overall I had no problem with him. I either wan't offended at all (true most of the time) or I was offended only slightly and I considered my offended state in those cases to be purely my own internal problem, for which I take responsibility.

I agree. But I would never completely follow someone whom I believed to be plagued by a critical non-recognition of this kind. It's precisely like athletics. Also athletic power is not a mindless power either. Consider mathematics. All the mathematical knowledge is open. Studying the books, considering the examples, and perfecting this knowledge to the point of making it practically applicable in your life is your responsibility. There is no secrecy in mathematics but you can't say that knowledge of mathematics is undeserved by those who have it just because they could rely on clearly and openly available information. So do you think mathematicians spoon-feed others when they openly publish their findings? Is that what they are doing? I don't. I don't want to know anyone's secrets. I am just not interested. I've got plenty of my own to worry about. I didn't state that at all. Relativity would exist, but it would be completely internalized and soft, malleable. You could decide to be wise and then in the next second you could decide to be ignorant, and there's be nothing to either stop or check you. Social structure gives relativity a more stable and less flexible character. Such measurements would have so much less baggage if you didn't have anything outside yourself to compare against. My thought experiment rules this out.

Good question. The difference is one of convention. Being obsessed with something that the society or some community of people approve of is called "dedication." Being obsessed with something that the society or some community of people disapprove of is called "attachment." It's the same psychological process, but when it involves something that's socially approved it's called "dedication" and when it involves something that's not socially approved it's called "attachment." Let me guess: you know the answer. You've jumped into Dalai Lama's heart and you know the truth about Dalai Lama's spiritual state. Perhaps you're making an appeal to convention here. Dalai Lama is conventionally considered a model buddhist, and buddhists are supposed to be non-attached, so we can add a conventional 1 plus another conventional 1 and get a conventional 2, while actually not really knowing anything. If that's true, then why are you making such judgments all the time? Or are you not on this forum?

One more thing. From what I've heard John Chang never claimed that Mo Pai had anything to do with enlightenment. Immortality and power, yes. And how about enlightenment? I think it's pretty clear that enlightenment is not one of the goals in Mo Pai. Since enlightenment is one of the things you list as "wanted," I figured I'd mention this.

How about those who knowingly and purposefully keep others in the dark? (by failing to share some vital or critical information) If you think about it, ignorance and knowledge are both social phenomena. If you were the only being in the world, there would be no way to establish you as either knowledgeable or ignorant, since there would be no way to compare you with someone else who is more or less intelligent. So if you admit that knowledge and ignorance the way people often use such terms are social in nature, then surely blocking the flow of vital information is not a neutral act.

I haven't seen it. I do believe such things are possible and if I was interested in developing that kind of power, I know how to begin without going to the Himalayas. You didn't show that you know such masters either, remember? You just made a bunch of statements. How about this? Move to Himalayas and once you're there, send us a note when you see a master meditate in boiling oil with you own eyes. Stick your finger in the oil to make sure it's the real deal. Secondly, just because someone has this kind of power doesn't mean they have compassion or kindness. Such a person can easily be abusive and temperamental toward you. Such a person can easily decide not to teach you anything, or to teach you a distorted filtration of the true knowledge. People with big powers are often those who crave power, and as it happens, the percentage of decent people among those is small. I'm not saying every powerful being is an ass, but I am saying it's a risky game. I am also saying, if you're willing to put up the risk, it's better to bet on yourself than on others. I don't know anything with complete certainty. However I have a good idea just by listening to you talk here. You're not necessarily revealing all there is to know about you, but you are revealing something of yourself, yes. I had a feeling you were one of the handlers or associates of that kid who's coming here to drum up more tourism, and to get more marks to move down to India. I'm not saying that's exactly what you are, but that's the thought that crossed my mind. Either that, or you're a blind fool. In scams like these usually a handler or an associate will receive most of the money. All the good scams work this way. If you had to force people to pay, it would not be very efficient. You'd need an army of paid thugs to do that, so your revenue better cover your expenses then. We disagree on this one. If you don't even have basic reading comprehension, then you have no hope of developing higher powers. Go to Himalayas by all means. Just don't say I didn't warn you, and do tell us about your (mis)adventures.

Good thing this Sutra was written after Buddha's death, or it would be very embarrassing for the Buddha. Unless of course the meaning isn't literal, but what are the chances?

Be careful with Mo Pai. For better or for worse, Mo Pai is a secret system. This means much or most of the information available, or perhaps all the information available about Mo Pai is wrong. The presence of warped information is one of the reasons I oppose secrecy, in fact. So while I will abstain from making an absolute judgement about Mo Pai, my current opinion is that Mo Pai is a useless and deluded system and so far I've seen it cause mostly pain and suffering to people, and not anything that I would call "positive." I've watched people chase the Mo Pai dream while falling prey to scams and distortions. This doesn't mean that Mo Pai at its core is a complete waste of time, although it can very well be. So that's why I am saying my judgment on Mo Pai is not absolute. So I am not going to try to dissuade you, but I do want to caution you. Be very very careful when you deal with information or traditions that are considered secret, because they are often poisoned and they are ripe for scams and exploitations, since you have no way to verify anything (because everything is secret). I believe there are some secret systems that are what they claim to be, but given the publicly available information it makes little sense trying to chase even those known-good secret materials out, in my opinion.