Ian

Then the taoist hands over a twenty dollar bill and the vendor just pockets it. "hang on", says the taoist, "where's my change?" "change must come from within," replies the vendor.

It's interesting, what makes people say what they say. I've come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that people are more likely to make negative comments when something is not right in their own world. In my own case I'm uncomfortably aware that I'm more likely to criticise other people's practices when I'm in a stage of uncertainty about my own. I have certain doubts about Kunlun. But I've pretty much managed to keep my gob shut, because things are going ok with me, I'm not recruiting for anything else, and I'm aware that I haven't experienced a Kunlun transmission, nor asked the questions which would address those doubts. I've no doubt that Starjumper has studied well and seriously for long time and knows a great deal. But the manner of his input on this thread, coupled with the fact that he mentions, as if in passing, that he teaches, where he teaches and how long one might need to study with him, gives the impression that his major issues here are that he wants students, and is jealous of Max getting so much attention. Let me be clear: I'm not asserting that this is the case. But it may be useful to him to know that that is the impression given, at least to me.

Red is longer, apparently!

One useful neck exercise is to hold a wine cork between your teeth. Length ways. It's sort of a jaw exercise, but it's all connected. Start with a white wine cork and work up to red. Best to do in shower, as you do drool.

Gilles Marin's book is very nice. But I preferred Ron Diana's approach. I don't know if there's any record of his teaching. I used to have three tapes of him on CNT, but I think I lent them to someone...

On meditation retreats, I've often found myself wanting to cut my hair or wash it more than usual. On enquiring, I was told that if you're managing to release a certain amount of stuck stuff, it can often cling to your hair as it goes, which is one reason why monks used to shave. Who knows?

Not sure if this is totally relevant to your question, but... (And... this is not from experience, but quoting from my favourite dead teacher and a conversation with my live one, who said the same exact thing!) So, what I got told was, the only thing that accumulates, that you keep from one human life to another, is Presence. Meaning being in the reality in the body and needing no stimulus. Everything else, be it bliss, bad karma, suffering, finally getting the girl/power/ car etc., gets burned off in the appropriate realm until you're clear enough to get back to somewhere like here and build more presence. In short, what is significant can't be lost, but much less than we imagine is significant. Hope helps, Your pal too, Ian

Was just watching the first one. I'm in the office watching with no sound so my boss doesn't notice. And I got a really nice sensation from it. Even just the first two minutes with hardly any movement produced a nice, still, embodied feeling, with a gentle sweeping up and down as your arms moved. Thank you.

When I say "body does not want sex" I do not mean that it doesn't want the act of physical union. I define "sex" as lust, anything you can think about physical union, anything abstract, anything of the personality. I argue that all bodily excitement is conditioned by the mind. But bodies still want to join up. That IS natural. I didn't mean to imply that. I have no real issues with your post, except to suggest that threesomes plus may not be for everyone. Sacred, yes. It is the complete and utter absence of any appreciation of the sacred in Plato's posts (as I percieve it and them) that always leads me to conclusion that his advice is dangerous, however many insights he may have. Ian

I'm very very reluctant to get into this topic, simply because I know it will wind me up. However, there are one or two hideous misconceptions (in my opinion, obviously) which should not go unchallenged. Chiefly: Your body doesn't want sex, except in so far as your mind has conditioned it to. Your body wants health, peace, ease, union. Sex, in this context, is excitement, stimulation, thrills, transgression, and is all of the mind. Mind trying to convince mind that mind's desire can be exhausted by satiety? Just another mind trick. Sure, Sean can arrive at a mentality of sexual abundance and pleasure. But NOT by getting rid of sexual awkwardness through treating women as interchangeable commodity rather than human beings. And Osho, like Plato, has some nuggets of truth, which are used to convince the reader of a whole bunch of closely related dangerous misinformation. In my opinion, I emphasise. Wishing everyone good luck.

Rinsing with dilute (3% or so) hydrogen peroxide can also help. I narrowly avoided root canal work a month or two ago via a painfully deep filling. But it may well await me in a few years. So I'd be very interested to hear how it all is for you. Thanks, Ian

I think I sort of, kind of, do dismiss a lot of what is presented as sexual tantra practice. Not for anus related reasons, but just because I think an awful lot of people market their practices as tantra because it's a convenient word by which people understand "some kind of esoteric sexual practice." And I believe that tantra means something much more clear and pure and scary and completely unindulgent. And that a lot of people practice high level sexual energy exchange and access very profound states thereby, but what they do isn't tantra. But anyway, back to the argument I think it might help to define love. (Whew!) Love between people is a mixture of kindness, and attachment, and attraction, and awareness of biological compatibility, and mutual interest. Enough non-verbal inexplicable emotional feeling, or enough desire, and we call it love. And it's great, and certainly better than anything which doesn't help people treat each other nicely. But Love, capital L, is impersonal, and subtends everything, and is approached through peace and stillness and will not be felt in any moment where attachement to another person is more important. It is this love which genuine tantra addresses. If this Love is to be approached via sexuality, it needs to be a non-deliberate balancing of yin and yang, accomplished by nothing more than putting bodies together and keeping all your personal attachments from interfering. For this it doesn't really matter what shape your body is, because everyone has yin and yang inside them. But it may be easier if one body is very yin and one very yang. And this is probably, generally, exemplified more often in situations where one body is male and one female. Maybe. But there are many ways to approach this Love. And most of them have fewer pitfalls than sexual practice. So nothing is impossible for anyone. As ever, all just opinion. I

Sometimes what we call dementia can result from a gradual sinking into the subconscious as the person retreats into their body. If someone is dying gradually, aspects of the subconscious can become as real to them as what they are "normally" conscious of. But it doesn't make too much sense to those around them. Sometimes it's just accumulated blockages, too much in the system over a lifetime. Often spinal problems and not enough juice getting up to the head. There are special bum-wiggling seats to address this. Metta to everyone coping with this. It's not easy. I

Yoda, I just want to say that I really love the way you're continually trying stuff out and always so enthusiastic. I always get a happy vibe from you and it's much appreciated. I don't think I've ever read a negative or critical post from you. Don't know why this burst out of me at this particular moment, but who cares. Blessings to you. I

I think there may be a distinction to be made between sharing positive and negative experiences. If you tell someone a positive thing there is a great likelihood that they will want to experience it too, be looking out for it, be in their mind anticipating rather than in their body experiencing. If you warn someone about a negative thing, in the right way at the right time, it might save them a lot of trouble. It's easier and more useful to stop doing something real you're already doing, than it is to make yourself start doing something which should arise on its own.

Second that.

Drew, I have a question or two, or three. 1. Are you happy? 2. Does your body feel nice (to you, from the inside)? 3. How easily can you do nothing at all, not even sit in lotus? What happens if all these words are kept inside rather than poured out? Just wondered. Please don't take it as subversion.

Reminds me of learning Chi Nei Tsang from Ron Diana. He would be standing there easy as butter, with his elbow in somone's navel, talking about tuning in. He mentioned there being maybe nice different places across your feet where your weight might be, and the hand above the active elbow could point in any direction, just like a satellite dish, and your head and body could lean. Not to any purpose, exactly, just to feel right.

What exactly do you mean by "it" in the above sentence?

Circulus! and Super Furry Animals

May I ask why? I've always understood trance to be something to avoid, an abdication from reality. But maybe we mean different things by the word.

If you read the book Shroom: a cultural history of the magic mushroom, I'm afraid you'll find that most of the "mushroom as foundation of religion, culture etc" legends are, to say the least, undocumented. I've used white powder gold. It purifies the body but not the mind. This can mean that you have more energy to fuel your madness. It won't do anything that meditation should, but can be useful.

I've just finished reading "Seeing Things" the autobiography of Oliver Postgate. For non-English readers, he was/is the inspired creator of Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine, Noggin The Nog, and other formative influences of my youth. Anyway, it's a very nice read, unassuming, honest and evocative of a certain period of English history. I'm mentioning it becuase somewhere about page 350, just after an operation, he has an experience where he looks out of the hospital window and instantly becomes one with life and everything, his small anxious self is revealed as non-existent, and joy floods through his body. And, perhaps because he has no spiritual background whatsoever, he describes it all so simply and nicely that I thought folks might find it helpful.

That energetic development and spiritual development have a certain amount of overlap, but are in many ways totally different processes. That energetic development, done righly, will certainly help with health, up to a point, and that having clear channels, and connections to the world at large will provide new and possibly useful perceptions and can certainly make spiritual development easier, BUT that it is very possible to be very energetically developed and going spiritually backwards fast. That spiritual development is without exception a subtraction, and hurts. That teachers can be sincere, persuasive, accomplished, health and happy and still utterly misguided.

Enlightenment is now.