Ian

Surely an old neurological relativist like yourself would like to qualify the tenth, eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth words of that? Or at the very least explain why every other possible method, in all times and for all beings, is futile. A friend recently gave me some good advice. It went along the lines that one can initially realise that all one's thoughts are rubbish. They still come, in their millions, and can carry you along for a while, some of them, but you'll never really believe in them again. But then the next stage is a little more visceral and emotional. And the realisation for that is much less verbal and consists of accepting that no emotional security exists whatsoever. And that so much of us is built on acting in such a way, with family friends and lovers especially, as to try and produce this security. And there's a sort of state where you're ok with this. And it's good to abide there if you can. Sorry. Less helpful than I intended.

Answer number one: I reckon there is a sort of morality based around whether your actions divide or unite you. For example generosity is good in that it implies an expanded view of yourself connected with others and their benefit. So selfishness is not bad except in so far as it fosters the illusion of your separate self. Answer number two: I'm told that there is ordinary good / bad karma and that the only difference is that while you're hanging about the fruits of good karma are less miserable to endure! But, I'm further told, the only really good karma is, and I will mis-spell this, as I've never seen it written, kusala karma, that which occurs from genuine attempts to meditate in a non-karma-creating way.

Really good question. In fact one of only about three real questions I've ever found. When I've asked it, the answer I've got was along the lines of, basically,: "We forgot the game wasn't real."

The trouble is that ALL the decisions about what needs to be done with the intellect are taken by the polluted, passion-riddled collection of pain and desire which initially rules the roost in all of us. And as it won't commit suicide, you cannot trust anything it comes up with. So you need a phase, at least, where intellect is completely subdued, otherwise you'll never get to a stage where you can tell the difference between clear functioning and being led around with a blindfold on. Just my passion-riddled opinion.

When you say inside, do you mean forwards or backwards? I ask because I always assumed that it was a back channel thing, hence at the rear of the spine. But Burgs told us it was in front of the spine, and that its activation was unmistakeable. I believe him!

I recently bought a kefir starter culture from here. (Sorry, UK.) And it's great. I started off using raw milk from the market, as I believe is the general idea, but it also seems to work with pasteurised stuff, which makes an only slightly less pleasant result. Apparently it will work with nut and seed milks also, but needs dairy every so often to keep the culture alive. It couldn't be easier. Add milk, leave in a jar in a cupboard for a day. Strain, drink, repeat. It has this wonderful sour fermented sort of taste. So far my body completely craves it. Er, that's it, I guess. Good for you, apparently.

Many thanks: I'll have a look. There is a wonderful snippet of Jesus in one of the books by Kyriacos Markides. You know, The Magus of Strovolos and all that. Apparently Daskalos remembered an incarnation where he met Jesus. No details spring to mind, but it was ace.

Wonderful. Would you indulge my complete and utter ignorance just a tiny bit? Who is he? Where does he live? What's the story?

Not sure if any of this refers to levitation. I think expanded perception would cover it nicely.

Sounds like an appallingly bad idea, to be honest.

1. Yap Soon-Yeong 2. Barry Long 3. Dirk Oellibrandt 4. Burgs 5. Barry Spendlove

Was just told yesterday, regarding hay fever, that it seems to get worse in twenties & thirties and then get better. Wonder if that's when the immune system is highly activated by people having lots of sex, and the body sort of defending itself against other people. no idea.

According to Sean's teacher Liu Ming, who is one of not many people who can translate ancient chinese, the term "taoist" was coined by Confucians to describe everything they thenselves were not. So it probably covers a pretty broad range....

Not convinced. Ultimate cold is just no movement. There could be infinite movement, something already everywhere. Just harder for us to conceive of.

How about meditating? Seriously though, what drags your attention all over the place is the inability to say "no" to a thought that doing x would be good, necessary, interesting etc. And to get the space, the pause, to say no to a thought you really like, is not really going to happen until you've practiced not being influenced by a million other ordinary random thoughts. I.e. meditation. I know you hate it, but whatever you hate about it will get boring after the first few hundred times. Your mind is probably throwing a big fuss to stop you getting started, because it loves the power of running you ragged. All that energy it gets. Yum. Hope helps, I

I radically disagree. More later, gotta work!!

Try this: do not try to defeat the pain, just contain it. Try to find an inner sensation, a sort of soft alive tingling not based on chi movement. Maybe easiest in the limbs at first. Then see if you can spread that sensation to a whole body thing. Surround the pain with it. Allow the pain to exhaust itself, burn away. Do not combat it, do not engage it. Do not allow it to rise up and make thought. Hold the pain in the physical with your attention to both it and its surrounding softness. Expect it to take a while.

Have you carried on using it? Anything to report now?

Perfectly willing to try this, but does anyone have a better idea than on the page as to why it might work? It doesn't seem like the most natural thing. At what point in evolution would we have first had access to tablespoons of refined oil? Yours mystified, I

Thank you. It's nice to be able to discuss things one passionately believes without it getting fierce. I was a bit nervous, not of you personally, but because there's been so much rancour recently. I think we're moving towards a question of emphasis, rather than of disagreement. I'm with you in being completely against evasion or escapism. I've been taught very firmly that the only way round is through, as it were: that you can't shake off any trauma, blockage, karma, whatever you want to call it, unless you are prepared to face it and experience it in full. Where we diverge is that this experience, according to what I've been taught, and my limited experience so far, is always physical. Always in the body, never a matter of knowing, of words. How do you experience self-knowledge?

If you combine what Vortex said and what Cam quoted, you have my position in a nutshell.

I don't wish to sound agressive here, because I really do respect your commitment to your own path and the hours you've put in, but do you really think you have enough experience to suggest that there is only one right way? I would like to suggest that there are types of meditation which can prepare, heal and strengthen your bodymind as you go along, minutely, incrementally, perhaps, but usefully, nonetheless. This is a whole nother can of worms and we may disagree entirely because the same words mean different things to us, but I'd say no, absolutely thrice no. Your self is entirely false. Those are not your thoughts, just thoughts, not your feelings, just feelings. What you really are is not a who, it's a what. By all means recognise the truth of what's there, but do not at all assemble an idea of your nature. But then that may just be the whole buddhist vs taoist thing coming up again.

Dude, you tried getting one in East Oxford lately? Sheeesh!

My opinion: There is an all-corrupting wave of "false yang" which has been surging through humanity for a few thousand years. It distorts men and women equally and there's no point at all at all to these discussions where we try to establish which gender should blame which and who needs to sort it out. People attempt to correct the imbalance, but what have they got to go on? They try to be the opposite of false yang (arrogant, domineering, exploitative, explosive etc etc) and so end up being "false yin" (over-compliant unassertive, feminised in men, bimbos in women). Then men who are fed up of false yin start trying to be cocky pick up artists. More false yang. Which "works" to an extent, but with women who are so full of false yang themselves that it's basically a type of homosexual relationship, even though the bodies are different. It doesn't help. Problem is, getting a mental template of how you think you should be and then trying to impose it on your nature, is, wait for it, false yang. In a nutshell. My advice: get patient. Stop trying to sort it out. Let a ltttle silence in and your nature, including its gender, will blossom in time.

Woof! Deep breath... It's good we didn't get that flat on the Iffley Road, because someone else will enjoy it, and we may well find somewhere even better and it helped us to realise that we are willing to pay a little bit more for somewhere nice. It's good that my colleagues are skiving loads of hours and leaving me to do more work, because I have had to acknowledge that I have done exactly the same before, and will do the same again, and I am being forced to think about other points of view than my own. And besides, they deserve it, as will I. It's good that I can't think of anything more drastic to have been pissed off about. Period.