Ian

As I understand it, the karma doesn't need anything to follow, as it's all tangled together. So it starts again, not in any sense as "the same person" but with the same tendencies and encumbrances.

Agreed. I think you may be right about me being a little below par today. I just put milk in a cup of sage tea, which is not the work of a man on top form. So, my apologies.

No, for your style of being one, in this thread True, thank you. Not necessarily, but in this case, yes. My point exactly. I wish you would say it, rather than implying it. I do find the subject interesting, and I admit that I should, like Yoda, just thank you for raising it, and, what's more, thank you for helping to bring my own irritability to my attention. I'm sure I only find what I perceive to be your arrogance irritating, because I have definite arrogant tendencies, as I'm sure these posts have proved, and less material to support them! I hope people add more about their experience and methods of actually blessing food. Care to start?

I don't know your practice, so I can just throw in a few things I've been taught that may or may not be relevant. 1) I'm told it is good not to know what or how you are doing, at least while you're doing it. 2) For dealing with pain I have had it suggested, in no particular order, and certainly not all at once: Be soft. Spread awareness out to include more than the pain. Stop and do movements. Take the perspective that you made the pain and it's your job/opportunity to love it until it's had enough love. Allow spontaneous movements, so long as they don't distract you from being soft and spread. Assume those seconds at a time of doing what you think you should be doing are in fact a damn good achievement and just keep repeating them as often as you can... And that's about it. I don't do anything alchemical, as far as I know, but my practice does involve pain, when done properly, and on the rare occasions I do it properly enough to get serious pain it throws me completely.

Hmmm, well, yes. Questions worthy of a good answer, if I can pull one together. All that I notice first off is that your style of writing causes my hackles to rise, as often as not. Partly that you imply repeatedly, without actually saying it directly, that you are an accomplished energy practitioner, have proper energetics, powerful intent, etc. etc., that you are better than those who, irresponsibly or because of being low level, don't teach food blessing. I just find it a bit, well, tactless, tasteless, arrogant? How very peculiar. Why on earth not? There's about 20,000 of us, 98-99% consumers of esoteric teaching. Frankly, I don't believe you. This seems, to me, disingenuous. You must be aware that the two are inseperable. The more you help others, as a professional teacher, the more money you make... But anyway, I admit that I don't know how a teacher "should" communicate to a forum like this. All I know is that very few of the non-teachers on here, many of whom have loads to share, wouldn't be embarrassed to speak so highly of themselves...

Absolutely not ! Sorry if I wasn't clear. What I was trying to say is that you're the only professional teacher of esoteric stuff, that I'm aware of, whose style of appearing on this forum DOESN'T irritate me. Maybe because you actually share information, as here. I don't know what a blink symbol really means: I just wanted to suggest my own confusion. I wish I was more like you, old chap. Always taking the positive and letting the rest go by...

This comment rather reinforces the suspicion I had at the start of the thread, and which I had managed to dismiss as unworthy, that the thread is not really based on a genuine wish to share the benefits of food blessing, but on a wish to suggest that you're a bit special and people could benefit from learning from you. For money. Somewhere else. Which is fine, but I would like to see it done more openly. I continue to have a problem with people who make their living teaching this stuff chatting as if they are just one of the gang and have nothing to sell. Except for Santiago, for some reason which I don't understand myself... By all means tell me I'm wrong...

Dirk Oellibrandt's meridian chi kung. It's way stretchy, six element, as hard or easy as you like, comprehensive DVD... And he's a genius.

mmmm

Sean has mentioned this guy before, but I think he deserves his own thread. Apologies if there's one already. Basically, he's an arahant, by his own assertion, and reckons it's not that hard to become one too with reasonable dedication and proper instruction. So he's written his "unusually hardcore dharma book", which you can read online here Suggest you read it all through before you ask him any daft questions (unlike me). He's pretty thorough, and really quite funny. Best wishes, Ian

Curiously enough I just let the hosting and domain lapse about 5 days ago. Streamlining, and all that. It was called, well, never mind, eh? Might put it up again one day.

Brief addition. It helps me to remember that life is not the opposite of death. Birth is. Death is just part of life. Life is everything.

Present, present, present. If we want to be present, hope is in the future, yes, ok. But why do we bother trying to be present? Because we hope it'll work and make things better.

Nice answer ! I was going to scrape up an opinion and now I simply needn't bother.

Cool. Maybe it's more significant to you than I can imagine precisely because you have always had these two very separate parts of your life. And the integraton has had to happen first, for you to even be able to address both at once.

Ok ! But is that the only difference? Because I don't see you as someone who would often say in one context things he knew to be untrue in another, with or without facebook. Consequently I don't really imagine that having to speak to both camps simultaneously would make a huge difference to you. Hope I don't sound too negative: just trying to understand. Could this pleasing note you experience not be simply an effect of your being present across a wider spectrum all at once? Or is that the same thing, in the end?

Yes ! Many happy returns!

Any of you tooth experts know anything about Xylitol? People been telling me it's good to the point where you can swill it round your mouth at night and have your enamel strengthened while you sleep. True ? False? Other?

Interesting. I just was on retreat and my teacher addressed this question very emphatically. He said to get up, indulge karma, have a coffee, even a beer (!), come back, try again. Or just stretch, loosen, soften, try again. Even if you can only do 30 seconds at a time that's good. Also, my friend, who has started to make very good progress, reported that she had whole days where she couldn't even start, and just did movement practices instead and that worked pretty good. Basically the message from this discipline is to stay flexible and playful, as your opponent is the solid stuff that takes itself seriously.

Darin, surely you can't be unaware that there are many people who regard serving in the armed forces as a dubious occupation?

Earth is where you go when you're empty enough to make new mistakes, instead of just living out the old ones.

I've been getting a lot of what I call "pricklies" lately. These are the, well, prickly skin sensations I associate with liver release. Used to have them when I did lots of liver sounds, and now they're coming, I think, largely because I'm swimming a lot more. And it occurred to me that I can't remember most of the others. Excess heart energy comes out as a rash, but what about lungs, spleen and kidneys?

Thanks, but I have. The pool I use is really good that way, and the pricklies come when I do livery things, stretching, squats etc

If what you say in those articles is correct, then it's the biggest news ever to hit this forum, in my opinion. Do give it its own thread.