liminal_luke

I beg to differ.

The secret of being ultra-smart? Pick ultra-smart parents. Bonus points if they´re also well-educated, reasonably comfortable financially, and interested in your intellectual development. They should be the kind of people who expose you to a lot of learning opportunities early in life -- museums! the trumpet! snorkeling! -- and encourage you to explore whatever tickles you. If this advice is coming too late, you can always dedicate yourself to learning. What you learn may not make you ultra-smart, but it will make you learned. The people on Taobums who seem really smart to me are the ones who know a lot; their posts contain all sorts of obscure but interesting details. They know the things they do because they wanted to know them, and put in the work (usually reading) to satisfy their curiosity. You can too.

How come you never see a Russian doll out on the town? They´re homebodies -- they like to nest.

Almost all of us have ego needs: we want things because having them helps us feel good about ourselves. There is nothing so terrible, in my opinion, about fulfilling these ego needs -- provided you´ve got the cash. When the ego goes shopping for shoes, it doesn´t settle for sneakers; no, the ego wants those fancy smancy Monolo Blahniks from Neiman Marcus. When the ego goes to school, a local community college won´t do; the ego wants Harvard. And when the ego wants to develop spiritually it doesn´t sign up for a tai chi class or attend a free lecture on Buddhist meditation. That wouldn´t be good enough. The ego wants to have a private audience with a sparkly chi gung "master" with supernatural powers. Like I say, expensive.

No One calls himself dull and the rest of us benevolent. Luke raises a jaded eyebrow. No introduction and already two dubiously droll assertions. Should be interesting.

Those who are interested in non-pharmaceutical approaches to depression, might like to know about Dr. Kelly Brogan. http://kellybroganmd.com/. She´s a holistic psychiatrist in NYC who practices entirely without prescribing medication. Her book, A mind of Your Own, outlines the lifestyle recommendations she uses with patients to recover from depression and other mental illnesses.

You´re taking about the "chronically mentally ill" and "people with organic problems" as if they were separate groups. I´m not so sure about this distinction. It seems to me that people with serious ongoing mental difficulties. the kind of difficulties that keep them from living functional lives, have organic brain problems. Sometimes these problems are more subtle than a bang on the head, but the brains of people who suffer from, say, major depression are different from those who don´t. (I agree with you that non-destructive, non-chemical methods are under-utilized and often powerful.)

One thing´s for certain: patients should be informed about the effects of these drugs (side and otherwise) and allowed to make decisions for themselves about their own treatment. I don´t know how it is elsewhere, but here in Mexico psychiatrists ask questions and then just get their prescription pads out. There´s no discussion of options, it´s just "take this." My partner was prescribed Haldol, an old-style anti-psychotic. We bought the stuff at a pharmacy after leaving the doctor´s office and then checked it out on the internet at home. Turns out it can cause people to involuntarily stick their tongues out and make other weird movements, a "side-effect" that usually --but not always-- goes away if you stop taking the medication. Anyway, my partner took a single dose and had the worst nightmare of his life. So much for Haldol. Many people believe these medications are over-prescribed and that they do more harm than good. There´s lots of reason to think lifestyle interventions (chiefly diet and exercise) are a much better way to go. Of course, few psychiatric patients have the emotional stamina to say yes to the jogging track and no to chocolate cake. But some people do make these kind of changes in their lives, and they do get better. Still, I´m grateful that these medicines exist. When nothing else was working, they seemed to get my partner and I through some very hard times.

No, actually I was lying in bed thinking of Robert Frost. (His poem, here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/core-poems/detail/44272) Your post reminded me of a Taoist teacher I took some workshops from years ago who claimed that he was sometimes "two places at once." I´m a big believer in impossible sounding things, so I didn´t even blink when he started to go on about "bilocation." Who knows what possibilities open up when we really get, on a cellular level, that who we are is not limited to our physical bodies? It´s one thing to talk about whether or not we are only our bodies; quite another to have experiences that expand our notions of who we think we are. I´d like to discover for myself whether or not bilocation is possible. As fun as it is to debate, at some point ya gotta sit down and breathe. Or at least I do. In the meantime though, I offer this link about the quantum possibilities of being in two places at once: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/einstein-was-right-you-can-be-in-two-places-at-once-2162648.html

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --

Thought this might be of interest to some: Human brain hard-wired for rural tranquility. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/human-brain-hard-wired-for-rural-tranquillity-8996368.html

Perhaps not, though I like to think your post above is a good start. When the forces that would destroy life gather round, you sound the alarm. You`ve got a forceful way of saying NO to that which is inhuman and cruel. (Maybe it`s a cat thing?) Anyway, I think there`s power in that.

Dust, I quoted you earlier to say that I believe in mind readers and such, but ST`s post reminded me what a powerful concept this last phrase is. My old Tai Chi teacher/ acupuncturist had this quote by Rilke on his desk. “The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.”Rainer Maria Rilke

This hasn`t been my experience. I won`t name names, but I happen to believe there is more than one mind reader active here on Taobums, and ghost whisperers are more commonplace than you might think. Vampire soul attacks are above my pay grade but I wouldn`t be surprised.

Many people are alienated from their bodies, disconnected in a way that divides them from themselves, disconnected in a way that brings unconsciousness and, eventually, disease. Almost almost of us could benefit from greater bodily awareness. In the beginning, I think this awareness deepens our identification with our body: we go into, rather than pull away from, the parts of us that feel uncomfortable or that store, for lack of a better word, the imprints of emotional trauma. Nevertheless, this is not the end of the story. When we stop resisting the body, something frees up within us --- an awareness of "something more." We might then come to understand that that "something more" is in some sense more truly who we are. We know the body as a temple where we come to worship, a place to be lovingly cared for, and we know ourselves as the worshippers who temporarily reside within. Awareness skips playfully anywhere along the scale from dense materiality to spirit`s most ephemeral dew. We feel no need to recoil from the body, and also no need to restrict ourselves senselessly to it`s changing physical form. When we stop resisting matter, matter stops resisting us. Or at least this is what I think.

I am not my body, never was. But back in the day we were at least close. She`d breathe in, and I`d breathe out. We would lie together all night in tender embrace, giggling like fools and going on about digestion and hair folicles, the journey after death into infitite light or inky darkness. I`m not ashamed to admit that I miss the intimacy we shared, body and soul together on a big bed. And there`s nothing like that first flashbang collision of matter and spirit, the moment when time and eternity smudge together, like the slow ecstatic melting of peanut butter and chocolate into unutterable candybar bliss. I am not my body and someday we will say goodbye forever. I`m sure gonna miss her.

if sin simply means the act of doing something wrong, then of course it exists: we do things wrong all the time. So why do I run screaming away from people who use the word, as if I`d seen the Devil himself? Because, in my experience, the word sin is wielded as an instrument of control. It`s bandied about by people who think they are right and other people (usually me) are wrong. It`s a favorite linguistic tool of those who would oppress and suppress, those who want to kill anything that doesn`t fit in with their worldview. OK, so maybe I exaggerate a little. Maybe it`s not always like that. But I say these things because I`ve been burned. I don`t like the word sin.

True. Then again, sometimes people check into hotels there and never leave.

Briefly looking at that map, it seems like most of the dark red is in California and on the East Coast. Apparently, very few murders happen in the middle of the country. Too bad. If I could live anywhere in the United States, I think I`d choose a place with lots of murders. There`s more culture, better restaurants. A greater concentration of quality Tai Chi classes. A Californian life is the only life for me -- just not, perhaps, for long.

I clicked on this link hoping I might find some information that would assist me in unplugging from the matrix. No help here. The author is clearly still tormented by his own personal demons --notably on the subject of woman (as Thelerner pointed out). Young heterosexual males would do better to take their matrix-unplugging cues from someone who seems more at peace with the world and the women who live here.

Thanks everyone! I just started today. In retrospect, I`m realizing my question, anxiety really, about not having a bathtub was just my "mental body" throwing up resistance to the process: I don`t have a bathtub therefore I can`t do it right and shouldn`t do it at all. I still hope to be able to do the full immersion at some point because it sounds powerful, but for now I`ll trust that things will work out as they are supposed to for me. This moment matters. LL

I`ve been inspired by this thread, and am now halfway through reading the second edition of the book. He has some startling insights, really wonderful. Thinking I`ll give the process a go. One thing though, I gather that part of it involves immersing yourself in warm water, like a bath? (Haven`t gotten to that part of the book yet.) That might be challenging as I don`t have a bathtub or access to one. Are baths an essential part of the process?

Some people think suffering confers gravitas, that it makes a person so burdened more interesting, artistically sensitive, or profound. IMHO, just the opposite is true: the really profound thing is to be happy.

...

Why do Africans make good physicists? Because black lives matter. (Luke runs from bad joke police -- fast.)