liminal_luke

I`m just on the edge of believing this: that sometimes taking a break isn`t just OK, it can actually be better. I jokingly refer to myself as a Type A Daoist, and this taking a break business doesn`t come easily to me. It`s not that I don`t take breaks, because I do; it`s that I give myself a hard time about them. I think I`m ready for a new perspective though. I`m going to try to see my breaks as part of a natural rhythm rather than an occasion for self-recrimination. Good practice follows nature. Nature is never about an unrelenting push of yang. Waves crash onto the shore and recede back into the sea. Leaves fall in autumn and spring forth in, well, spring. Shame is not the elixir of immortality.

I like this. Maybe I can see it like a yin/yang thing. Periods of yang practice followed by periods of yin rest to integrate what I learned. The tide comes in, the tide goes out.

I agree with you that it`s possible to minimize or eliminate suffering without virtue. Perhaps this is what you`ve done but I doubt it. On the contrary, I think you have a particular talent for the virtue Buddhists call upekkha. Upekkha roughly means equanimity and it`s one of the four Bhramaviharas (virtuous mindstates) along with kindness, compassion, and sympathetic joy. Buddhist meditation teacher Sharon Salzburg suggests repeating the following phrases to cultivate this virtue of equanimity. All beings are the owners of their karma. Their happiness and unhappiness depend upon their actions, not upon my wishes for them. May we all accept things as they are. May we be undisturbed by the comings and goings of events. I will care for you but cannot keep you from suffering. I wish you happiness but cannot make your choices for you. I don`t know you in person so of course I could be wrong, but it seems to me this is something you do well. It`s not the kind of blubbering effusiveness that people all too often confuse with love, but it`s an essential and underrated underpinning of right action. Allowing people to enjoy (or suffer) the fruits of their own actions is also a kindness -- one that is congruent, I believe, with your political philosophy. I`m reminded of a story you recently posted about telling a fast food worker that she was going to be OK before she had some sort of medical episode. Was that not a kindness? Everytime you do your spiritual practice you reinforce neurological pathways of stillness -- and not just for yourself. When you`re in touch with stillness you make it that much easier for the people around you to get in touch with the same mindstate. This is true whether you intend it or not and it`s a kindness. Sometimes the kindest gesture we can make towards another person isn`t a pat on the back. Sometimes it`s a shrug.

Maybe virtue isn`t quite the right word, but I think it`s close. I think the perspective that allows someone to "pass through great storms with a song in their hearts" is a precondition of virtue. Take kindness, for example. Kindness doesn`t flourish in a mindset of constriction. This is especially evident in tricky situations when the kind thing to do isn`t immediately evident, say when someone wants to do something harmful to themselves and you wonder whether or not to intervene (the topic of a recent thread). The same perspective that would allow us to endure difficult situations with aplomb is also indispensable for discerning right action. Just my two cents... LL

Ain`t that the truth. In my experience, God is more like a mischievious like imp that goes around constipating people, losing their money, keeping them up nights tossing with panic. It makes absolutely no (earthly) sense. No matter who you are two things are true: (1) there are better people that have suffered more, and (2) there are worse people that have suffered less. All the virtue in the world won`t protect you from miserable circumstance. It might in fact draw misery towards you. What virtue can do is help us rise above. Virtue can help us feel unshakably OK in the midst of dire health difficulties and contentious presidential elections. Virtue can help us forgive others and ourselves. Virtue can help us find a safe comfy place within our own hearts, even as the seemingly indifferent universe explodes all around.

Shall we put you down for both equally, then?

Taomeow, Oops. It looks like I fell into a connotational sinkhole with my use of the word "imagine." I certainly didn`t mean to make fun of people like Brian (or yourself) whose perspective comes from wide reading and careful research. I just meant that there`s something in human nature that leads some people to use their imaginal faculty to leap to worst case scenarios -- and that most of the time those scenarios don`t come to pass. Perhaps if I was from a country that was more war torn -- rather than a country that exports it`s war -- imminent civil unrest would seem more likely. Could it happen? Yes, it could. And yes, it`s prudent to be prepared for all contingencies. The article you linked to about the shadow government seems entirely plausible to me. Right now it`s mostly covert. Our communications are monitored but most people are either unaware or choose to put that awareness aside. And yet, most of the time, life rolls on. I thought that our economy would collapse if Trump was elected. Hell, I thought the sun wouldn`t rise if Trump was elected. None of my dire imaginings have come to pass -- yet. Perhaps it`s naivete to stand with TheLerner and bet against doom. I guess we`ll all see. Anyway, I may be misguided and insufficiently informed but I`m not mean-spirited. I don`t mean to make fun of anyone. LL

Imminent doom may or may not be upon us now, but there`s something in human character that likes to imagine it is. Some years back I participated in something we called "the gung": a number of groups throughout the US and Canada meditated for a month together three hours a day in order to prevent the mass destruction our qi gung master said was surely coming. At the end of our service nothing happened, leading some to believe that our efforts had been misguided and others to believe that we`d saved the world. Big bad unlikely things do happen. (Philosopher Nassim Taleb specializes in such events and calls them "Black Swans." He has written a slew of books about the phenomenon for those who might be interested.) If I was a betting man, which I`m not, I`d throw my cards in with TheLerner. Most of the time, by definition, things continue pretty much as usual -- which is to say, badly but not freakishly badly. TaoMeow`s puppet masters may indeed be fomenting all sorts of evil change behind the scenes, but, for most of us, the puppet show will go on as advertised. Then again, very occasionally:BOOM.

Speaking as a tortoise, I`ll thank you very much for leaving me on the side of the road. I remember a time when there were no roads and no cars, a time when I crawled free. If I could destroy all this so-called civilization I would -- and it still might happen -- but, barring that, the side of the road is the best I`ve got. At some point in the future I might well choose to get in your car with you, but that will be by my choice. Cheers, Liminal "snapper" Luke

I`m not discounting the possibility that there will be more post-election shenanigans and civil war will break out. I`m discounting the possibility that Thelerner is stupid. (Or that an OP who implies such a thing would create posts I`d be interested in reading.)

I had a feeling that maybe clicking on this thread wasn`t such a good idea.

OK, so yeah...I too have got a criticism of the aptly named Mr. Wong. He starts out by asking us to name five impressive things about ourselves, and then says they can`t be thing we are (I`m a nice guy, I`m honest, I`m kind...etc) but must be things we can do (I can do open heart surgery). He goes on to say that society only values us for the things we can do, not the things we are. I`m paraphrasing here, but that`s the idea. But here`s the thing. Those things we "are," they aren`t useless in the real world. Kindness, for instance, is actually super practical. Do you want to be a good parent? Be in a healthy relationship? Contribute to society in a way that will make you feel like you`ve done something with your life when you`re at death`s door? You`re gonna need that kindness. It`s not namby-pamby airy-fairy hippie-talk, it`s why we`re all here.

All of the law is a "mental construct." And history shows that violent pirates can do away with any one mental construct and substitute another more to their liking. Stosh seems to think that`s a good thing though I can`t for the life of me imagine why.

And right now you`re different from the guy in that second video how?

My life is far from perfect but recently I`ve taken great strides towards making it better. I get up in the morning and do a little simple practice -- a bit of shaking and arm swinging. Then I go to Starbucks (yeah, like I say...not quite perfect) where I read, write, and check Taobums. Most days on my walk back home I stop at a little stand and slurp down a 50 cent oyster.

The beauty of this one is that it`s so clearly in the realm of possibility!

Thanks RC! Yes, you`re probably right -- I could of let it stand. But it was mostly for you and you saw it, so I decided to call it good.

...

It`s great to have a lofty goal like Rainbow Body. At the same time, there are so many smaller signposts of progress along the way that also deserve to be acknowledged and celebrated. I am not anywhere close to enlightened and yet my practice benefits me in many ways just the same. I know how to let go of stress. I am kinder and more forgiving of my own foibles and those of people around me (although you might not know it from occasional spats here on TTB). So I get that in your assessment you haven`t made progress towards the Rainbow Body, but I`m wondering if you`ve achieved any of these lesser mini-accomplishments. Have you experienced moments of calm? Relaxation in your body? A sense of greater spaciousness and ease with life`s inevitable ups and downs? If so, I say it has not been in vain. You say that karma plays into it, and I agree. If that`s the case, the work you`ve done this last two years has laid a karmic foundation that will be there for you if you take up the practice later on in this life or in a life down the line somewhere. Your future self thanks you.

You can`t always stop people from hurting themselves, but you can give them the gift of benevolent non-interference by recognizing that they have the right to live their own lives as they see fit. No small thing that. When my mom had breast cancer I had all sorts of ideas about how she should approach her treatment, none of which she had any interest in. She`s now cancer free and doing just fine -- thanks to the conventional medical care that she decided she wanted. She did it her way without vitamins or herbs or acupuncture needles. It was hard for me watching her make choices I thought might be harmful, but people have got to do what they`ve got to do. All we can do is love them -- and ourselves.

In my favorite time machine fantasy I`m transported back to high school. I`ve got my old adolescent body back, but have kept all my adult knowledge and, um, wisdom. All my old teachers are wowed by the amazing papers I write. Sadly, that fantasy never comes to pass. Instead I just lose my socks in the wash.

Well, maybe not the "we" of Taobums. And lots of people don`t at all, ever. But as a society (here in the US) I think it`s true. Not that I have stats to back it up or anything. You disagree?

Two things that are true about our culture... (1) We are very sex-negative. (Also sensuality-negative, body-negative, earth-negative, woman-negative -- one big mess of interrelated negativity.) (2) We watch a lot of porn. Weird, right? You`d think that we`d have to be really sex-positive to watch as much porn as we do, but that`s not the case. And here`s why: it`s negative attitudes about sex (and embodiment generally) that drive porn use. We don`t watch porn because we love sex so much, however much it might look like that; we watch porn because we are disconnected from our true sexual desires, disconnected from our bodies, and mostly because we are so deeply ashamed of ourselves. So, porn is a little bit like quicksand in that the more you fight against it the deeper in you get. The answer isn`t to become vehemenently anti-porn. That attitude, while understandable, easily morphs into the sexual shame that only leads to more porn use. So what does work? Compassion towards self and others. Mindfulness. Gentleness.

I think that we should bring back the "don`t like" button, and when a bum accumulates enough "don`t likes" they automatically become a moderator as a punishment.

Standing practice isn`t an expertise of mine, but my understanding is that it opens and clears the channels so that earth and heaven energies can flow and integrate. What does this have to do with Neidan? Pretty much everything, I`d imagine.