goldisheavy

Thanks Magitek. I think you are spot-on as they say. The book I linked is also pretty decent, "take off your glasses and see." It makes the same point that vision is not due to eyeball, or at least, not alone. In the book, the author describes one interesting thing. He says he went to a machine to measure his eye lens' refractive ability and according to the machine, he still had myopia. This meant the lens did not focus the light correctly on the retina and machine was able to detect that. However, even so, this guy would read all the eye charts at 20/20. He even invited his friends to help randomize the charts/letters to make sure he hasn't subconsciously memorized the charts. He could see 20/20 even though his "physical" eye couldn't, according to the machine. This is the point where the author of the book realized that vision is not physical. Of course he didn't realize the the physical world doesn't exist as such, that's what we realize here on taobums. But it's not a bad realization for an optometrist. Oh yea, and the author of that book is an optometrist who himself had myopia, this is why he had access to the machine, charts and all that. I've also had a brief moment of perfect vision and I also cannot be convinced that elongated eyeball has anything to do with anything. In fact, I am not even convinced it is a real phenomenon. Unless I measure my own eyeball, I am not going to assume anything about its shape. But even if my eyeball was in the shape of a pretzel, I know I could still see perfectly if I wanted, because after all, vision and all other phenomena are ultimately not physical in nature. They are dream-like visions in the primordial mind.

If any of you are non-materialists at least to some degree, some of these other suggestions might work. Otherwise, if you strongly believe in a materialist/physicalist paradigm, they are less likely to work. Imagine eagle eye, a symbol of perfect vision. See it dissolve into the core of your being. Repeat this many times. Here I like to use eagle eye, but you can create and use any symbol of perfect vision that you think is good. Visualize yourself being a hunter with great visual acuity, using either a bow or a rifle with iron sights. Visualize yourself seeing perfectly, calmly, easily, clearly, very far away as you bring the prey in your sights. Feel yourself slowly pulling the trigger and making the sure shot, thanks to your perfect vision and steady hand. Be comfortable and certain in that vision. Know the one who does it as yourself. You can create other visions for yourself. The idea is that the vision has to symbolize and epitomize a task of great visual acuity. You can visualize this with eyes closed, or you can visualize this over some "real" landscape. That might even be better, depending on your mentality. These kinds of more magical things will work better for people who understand emptiness. If you think physicality is the name of the game, they might still work, but not as effectively, because there will always be that "yea right, bullshit" doubting aspect of mind, spoiling your efforts.

Oh, and one more thing. What might also help, is to rotate the eyeballs gently clockwise and then counter-clockwise. So let's say clockwise 5 times and counter-clockwise 5 times, then repeat that 2 more times. That little exercise might be helpful too. I do this with the eyelids closed. It might be that the problem is not just the fixed distance that we tend to stare at, but also the fact that we're fixing our eyeballs straight ahead and we don't move them around enough. I think in a more natural environment the eyeball is supposed to move around more when looking at things left and right.

First, I hesitate to call what I am describing either a "system" or "mine". It's mine in some sense, but not in a possessive sense or one of exclusivity. Second, I have a couple of things to say to that. Did you get your eyeball measured? If not, don't assume it's elongated. Even if it was elongated, how can you be sure that whatever method it used to "elongate" itself is not available to also shorten it? There is a good reason to believe that. The way our body is designed is symmetrical. For every flexor muscle group there is an extensor muscle group. It makes no sense for our body to have a muscle group whose sole purpose is to irreversibly damage the eyeball. If you're a non-materialist like me, things are easier, because you don't have to rely on the physcialist explanations as much, or if you are advanced, then not at all. It is my understanding that our body is intelligent down to the cellular level and below. This means your intention will have an impact at a very profound level. In physicalist language I think vision problems result from bad muscle habits. And by muscle I mean the muscles of the eye lens first and foremost. There might be other muscles involved too, but I don't worry about them. In non-physicalist language vision problems result in a wrong attitude toward or the wrong relationship with the field of vision. This can be caused by bad habits and/or by bad assumptions about the vision field and/or yourself in relation to the field of vision. See how much confidence you have in this? Remember this, because you'll need to put the same and greater amount of confidence to work for you on the healing side. I would recommend to try on -4 and -2.5 (-30%). What I suggest is that you go to a friendly optometrist who will not flip a lid. There is a chance the optometrist will be indignant or furious that how dare you fuck with his prescriptions etc., but it's not hard to find a cooperative optometrist. Just ask if they can do this service for you. Once you get there, have the optometrist drop 30% of diopters, and see how you feel. Can you read the computer screen with those? Can you shop? Can you walk down the street? Etc. Just imagine doing many tasks in those glasses. If you are not comfortable, increase your prescription, but if you are too comfortable, you can decrease it even further. Basically the idea is that you should not be too uncomfortable, but at the same time, there should be some room for you to grow into as you improve your vision. Of course keep your full strength glasses just in case. Don't throw them away yet. Yes. It takes commitment. I guess "my" "system" is not really a miracle. It just a plain old exercise, except one for the field of vision and the mind (which interprets the vision). Remember that in physicalists terms the brain does a lot of the work interpreting the signals too, right? So you're not just improving your eyeballs, but you're improving your brain's ability to interpret what it gets from them as well. In non-physicalist language you're training your mind as much as your vision.

Suppressing human sexuality is generally a very dumb idea. It's no wonder people fail. From a Buddhist point of view, those monks are not necessarily going to hell, but they will be reborn as humans again, in the realm of desire. Celibacy is not for everyone. It's really dumb to push it on people.

Why would I do that? I never use such features when they are available. I want to see the reality in its uncut form, including anything that might annoy me. I cannot afford blindness. EDIT: Aha I see what happened. I read back to the beginning of the thread and I see that you made a similar comment before (about us getting along). My apologies. I have a tendency to sometimes jump into a thread with 3 pages and only read the last page.

Wrong. This is something you have no insight into yet. Thinking about comparing things is not the same thing as cognizance.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but we are all getting along. Getting along doesn't mean loving each other. It just means not trying to kill each other or ban each other or get each other banned. "Getting along" is a really low and unambitious standard to strive for. People who don't give a crap about each other can get along. Two self-absorbed and unkind people can get along. Etc.

You hit the nail on the head here 100%. Not exactly. The problem is the consciousness cannot be considered to be separate from objects of some kind, even if those objects are formless or mysterious. At the same time, consciousness cannot be describe in terms of its objects. So for example, if you are conscious of being warm it doesn't mean consciousness is warm. If you are conscious of being cold it doesn't mean consciousness is cold and so on. The ability to think this way is called abstract thinking and not everyone knows how to think like that. This is a higher order ability. When you refine your ability to think you begin to recognize that strong conceptual designations are deviant. So for example, if we say consciousness is the same as objects, that's deviant. But if we say consciousness is not the same as objects, that's deviant too. Each such definitive statement about consciousness is open to wide range of criticism. And that's the point of the Zen Koan "if you say yes, I hit you 50 times, and if you say no, I hit you 50 times." The point is that strong designations are deviant and do not capture the nuances. So saying that consciousness is something completely on its own with regard to objects, is a deviant approach, because this involves conceiving of consciousness as a thing (how else can it be on its own? ownership, self-possession, is what things have, it's what thingness is). So Buddhists rightly critique this nonsense. However Buddhists then fall into a hole by going too far and saying consciousness is nothing but objects. That's another deviant approach because it limits the scope of consciousness. Consciousness works by cognizing what occurs as distinct from that which is not occurring now. When people talk about objects, they don't have in mind endless possible objects. They only mean the presently occurring ones. And to limit consciousness to those presently occurring objects is wrong, because consciousness is a "tension" (or interplay) between manifest and unmanifest rather than just manifest. The unknown plays a role in consciousness as much as known. The unseen defines the seen just like left defines the right, long short, and so on. So when you understand the full scope of consciousness, you won't want to limit it only to the presently occurring objects, and as far as what's not occurring, you won't want to name it in anything more than the vaguest way possible, because it's improper to talk about what's not occurring as it were were totally occurring now. The truth is that what's not occurring now is every so subtly occurring too, but we can't speak of it, or we break our language and meanings become void. So right here I am going to the very limit of language. So by saying the consciousness is just objects you are narrowing the scope of it by ignoring the ever expanding contextuality of perception. Each object is only an object within a context. Each context is only what it is within further context. And that one is within further context and so on. This contextuality goes on forever without end, and to say "consciousness is just objects" is to ignore that endlessness that goes beyond objects. Define "are".

This is nonsense dwai. First of all what is light? Light is an object of perception too. Secondly, what is an object? Etc. So you're using some kind of nonsense here. I tend to agree with you often, but in this case I must take exception. I just can't hang with that kind of reasoning.

Yea, but there were many other interesting tidbits mentioned about them and not just their running technique and the fact that cushioned shoes are bad. Personally I knew both of those facts about running before I learned about Tarahumara from http://www.posetech.com/. I found it interesting to read about their lifestyle, their like of alcohol and their simple food (which would be considered crappy by our modern standards). I also found it interesting how they like to live far away from each other.

I keep my 100% prescription in the glovebox of my car. So if I need to drive somewhere I haven't been before and I need to read road signs well in advance, I'll put on my 100% glasses. I wear about 60% prescription under all other circumstances. You should exercise your own good judgment here. The idea is to give yourself a prescription to grow into while not making yourself too disabled. The best and most important exercise that I do is so simple, I just walk around without glasses. Just put the glasses away (or in your pocket) and walk around the block. Relax. Don't try to see anything. Just let vision be vision. Eventually vision begins to coalesce into clear vision on its own, without any kind of pushing and prodding on your part. There are things to avoid, like, avoid drilling fixed points with your eyes. Avoid trying to grab images with your eyes (the correct attitude is to relax and let be rather than to mentally grab the visual landscape). Simply have fun and see. Be open to seeing better and just enjoy yourself. Then you might (or might not) have subtle issues. For example you might not care to see anything. Or you might be afraid to see some things. If you discover a subtle issue, you can address it. But don't assume you have an issue like that. Assume that you have no issues at first and that you just have bad visual habits. If you are improving and then hit a stumbling block, then it might be worth investigating. I'll tell you my own issue. When I walk, I don't really care what's on the street. That's not helping me to see clearly. If I took interest, I would be more likely to see clearly. This is an effect of my mindset, which is my beliefs about what's external and what's internal, what's important and what's superficial and so on. You might also want to try this. When you are comfortable and alone, close your eyes and visualize yourself seeing perfectly. Walking around in your vision of yourself seeing perfectly. Does a feeling of rejection come up? Does a feeling something like "no, this cannot be me" come up? Or maybe "this is just a foolish fantasy" feeling? If you sense a rejection toward that vision of yourself, that's an indication of an inner obstacle. If you know about an obstacle, you can also dissolve it. And then one other exercise I do only rarely is "palming". Close my eyes and put my palms over them. There is imperfect blackness. It's imperfect because there is some redness in it (maybe because the sun is shining through my hands), maybe because some light specks appear spontaneously in my field of vision, whatever... I allow blackness to get deeper and deeper. Eventually it becomes like perfect black velvet without flaws (and yes, this is hypnosis, but I don't do any formal hypnosis for this... it's just a hypnotic effect that is not that hard to achieve simply by intent). Anyway, this blackness is very nice and relaxing. Very soothing. And having your hands on your eyes has a very healing energy to it. This is a very pleasant exercise to do, but for some reason I do this very rarely, even though it's fun to do. Part of the problem is that we focus at a fixed distance too much. For example, computer screen is at a distance X and doesn't move. A book is at a fixed distance from our eyes when we read and so on. Eyes are made to fluidly shift from far to near to medium back to far and so on. Eyes are not made to look at something at a fixed distance forever. Well, at least if you believe in physical eyes anyway. But most of us believe at least somewhat in physical eyes, even me. I don't believe in the physicality of vision at the ultimate level, but in practice I think my eyes have something to do with it here and now. So the point is, we have bad habits, like starting at computer screens forever without breaks. So even if you do all the good stuff, but if you keep the bad habits, it may be an uphill battle. These habits are bad within a physicalist worldview. If you 100% believe that vision is spiritual, you can stare at a fixed distance forever without the tiniest deterioration in your vision quality, because distance is simply irrelevant. But with concepts of physicality come concepts like muscles and muscles have to move around to be healthy. A muscle cannot be healthy if it's kept locked statically for long periods of time. That's a limitation of physicalist worldview. My favorite book on this subject is "take off your glasses and see" http://www.amazon.com/Take-Off-Your-Glasse...1430&sr=8-1 It's pretty decent. I think the purpose of the book is to 1. inspire you and tell you it's possible. 2. tell you that vision is not physical. 3. give you some exercises, but these are not as important as simply knowing the first 2. I discovered on my own many things in that book before I even knew it existed. Getting the book just confirmed what I already demonstrated to myself to be true. The limit is your intention to see clearly, or your need to see clearly, your dedication. If you're have a "meh" attitude toward it, I doubt you'll have a lot of improvement. Although just spending 1 day without glasses will show you a minor miracle in and of itself.

We already discussed this before. I guess you couldn't find the old thread. I can't say I have fixed my short-sightedness (that would be 20/20 or better vision). But I have noticed significant improvements in vision in all the times I've practiced clear seeing. The problem is that I have a habit of staring at a computer screen for a long time, plus a habit to strain my eyes and so on. And my dedication to clear seeing is surprisingly not that great. I am certain that someone who is dedicated to it in all seriousness, someone who is willing to give up bad habits and embrace the good ones, can achieve 20/20 and beyond. Take off your glasses to begin with. Spend as much time without glasses as you can. Second, get a weaker than normal prescription. Say if you are at -5, get -3. As you exercise clear vision, your -3 should start to correct you to 20/20. Drop it to -2, and so on. Never wear full strength prescription unless you absolutely must. This isn't limited to short-sightedness either. I think any problem can be fixed. When I train my vision, I go outside and put my glasses in my pocket. I gaze all around without straining and without purposely trying to see clearly. Instead I allow clarity to come in on its own, and it does, gradually. Don't drill anything with my eyes. Keep the eyes free and moving and try to observe a wide field. I purposefully enjoy what I see. And I take interest in what I see (my normal attitude is that I don't care... visionary phenomena are way too mundane for me). There are many other exercises too, but I am too lazy to retype them again. If you are really interested, you can find them yourself or even intuitively come up with your own ones.

Not same, not different. Old Zen Koan. If you say the same, I smack you 40 times. If you say different, I smack you 40 times. Haven't you heard it?

That's a long quote. I say it like this "awareness cannot be described in terms of its artifacts." But some people have trouble with abstract thought and can't comprehend this idea. This includes some Buddhists who insist on incorrectly reifying abstract. To those Buddhists, any noun whatsoever is a reification, thus a thing, thus something to negate, etc... It's basically a deficiency in the reasoning faculty due to not having enough contemplation under their belts.

Karma means "intent". So as long as your intent has returned to "good", you're mostly OK. Sometimes you can do better than that if you are skillful. So for example, if you poured water while it was cold, you have ice. This ice sticks around even if you have stopped pouring water. It won't stick around forever though. But if you are impatient, you can pour hot water mixed with salt on it. This will get rid of the ice much faster than just waiting for it to go away. But for this to work reliably, you have to understand each kind of ice and what the antidotes are. So for example, if you pour vaseline on the ice, not only will ice not go away, but it will become an even bigger mess. So not just any old thing will do. You have to understand what conditions keep something the way it is. So for ice, it is cold and low salinity, for example. Making the environment hot will melt the ice. And increase in the salinity will keep it from re-freezing. So if you understand the conditions behind your karma vipaka, you can play with them. If you pay attention, you can learn these things. For example people who have been paying attention noticed that the salt water doesn't freeze as readily. This is how you learn these things. You need to pay attention.

Enjoy your liberty. A Danish cartoonist's life has been threatened for much less raucous material. Go to google.com and type the following and observe how Google completes the suggestion: christianity is judaism is buddhism is atheism is islam is Notice what happens when you type "islam is" into Google? Whatever we say about Christianity, but at least they don't try to murder people who make political images of Christians and things Christians hold dear.

Make the muscle around the base of the penis stronger by contracting it. It's the one that makes your penis "wiggle" upward when you contract it. You would want your blood flow to improve, thus any exercise that improves blood flow is a good one. Just about any whole-body exercise does this. Also, the less stress you have the more open the flow. If you are working 10 hour days at a stressful job, that's an obstacle to a good erection. Work as little as you can at a job you enjoy, if you care about your erection. Of course, eat well, sleep well, goes without saying. None of these things are particularly easy to do in our society. If you're a kind, compassionate and empathic person, chances are you have plenty of stress. It takes a psychopathic level of detachment not to be bothered by anything in our world. So if you're having some problems, you might want to avoid beating yourself up for it. It could be that you're a good person.

I have my wisdom teeth. The dentist gave me a horror story too, but I didn't buy it. I seem to be OK, at least for the time being. I have no nerve damage or any other crap people talk about. Now there is a bit about wisdom teeth pushing on other teeth, and mine are pretty close together, but thing is, they've always been that way, even before the wisdom teeth. So I don't think the wisdom teeth contribute much or at all to the placement of my teeth. I am pragmatic. There have to be two things to get me to do a surgery: either there is immediate unbearable pain that shows no sign of abating, or the story I am being told is supremely logical and stands up to critical analysis very well. A lot of times the scare stories fail on both counts. Either the pain is not as bad or as permanent. Or the story is full of holes if you care to check it. I also had another doc try to sell me scar tissue removal when I was very young. I had no problem with my scar though, even though it was sensitive. I said screw you. Later in life the scar tissue mellowed out on its own. Another time some greedy doctor was selling me eye surgery for $$$. I told him to go fuck himself. A good deal of doctors are greedy/unethical/immoral/corrupted human beings. I won't say all of them, but there are enough people who went into the field of medicine for $$$ instead of to heal, that you must seriously, seriously watch out for yourself. I've been misdiagnosed on a serious condition too. Docs just don't give a shit in a lot of cases. The doc that misdiagnosed my eye condition didn't even examine me. He just glanced at me and said I have conjunctivites, but severe pain is not a symptom of conjunctivites. Basically the doc was a moron, not to mention lazy (he worked in ER). So long story short, watch out. Research everything and try to contact the top specialists in each field directly, by phone or email. But even then you can't always trust them. The guy who was trying to sell me on eye surgery was a top specialist in his field too, and you could tell he was out for $$$. He's a smart guy, but very immoral. He ignored my complaints and proceeded into a sales pitch. He made no effort to heal me.

"Knowledge as Problematic." Although "problematic" is a poor choice of words, I think. It's only problematic if you take knowledge as a given when it's not a given at all. Zhuangzi would laugh at "yes this," "no that", right? Any rigid relation to knowledge is a dead relation. The Daoist idea of life is one of softness. Teeth are more rigid than tongue but the tongue outlives the teeth due to its softness. The idea of softness at the highest level is the softness of one's relationship to knowledge. This means that your grasp on knowledge is not rigid. It's fluid. You can forget things and learn new things easily. This is true at least with regard to all relative knowledge. When it comes to the knowledge of Dao, Daoists seem to be very circuitous and cautious when pointing it out, so it's very hard to say anything about non-relative knowledge or one's relationship to it.

Power is that which cannot be taken away. Power cannot be given or borrowed. Power either sleeps or awakens.

OK, unless you want to reveal more, I will have to content myself with this information.

It's possible I missed the point. Were you trying to point out that Sufism is distinct from Islam?