liminal_luke

What is it about language and ultimate reality? The Dao that can be named is, quite famously, not the real Dao. Some Orthodox Jews are so hesitant to write the name of God, even in English, that they write G-d instead. Everywhere people are talking about the sublime truths that "words can´t express"; meanwhile, nobody is talking about similar limitations in the realm or art or music. It´s as if painters and musicians can soar to the heavens and the poor writers are limited to their grocery lists, banished by virtue of words themselves to the sad dualistic world. Go directly to jail. Do not collect $200. It´s true that nouns commonly refer to distinct things -- an apple, the computer, my "self." What´s sometimes missed is the power of metaphor and image to evoke twilight states, paradox, the infinite. Words by themselves are clumsy instruments, I grant you. But when carefully arranged they can speak the unspeakable. Syntax is magic.

Oh wow...now I´m starting to see things in the left hand side too. There´s two distinct faces.

As a boy, one of my chores was to let the geese out of their pen in the mornings. Every day I´d open the pen door, stand back, and watch as twenty or so geese would clamber out and fly into the pond nearby. One especially cold morning the pond froze over. I still remember the distinct sense of surprise (can geese look surprised?) when the birds skidded on the ice.

I decided to go back and see if I could see an elephant or ganesh. No such luck. This time however I did see a rabbit head (or perhaps a goat?) in profile facing to the left.

A cat in the lower right, eyes looking straight at me.

Hi oglights, You don´t sound like an ungrateful bastard. More like someone whose spent an amazing amount of effort doing something and not gotten anywhere. How frustrating that must be! Are we not supposed to have any expectations about getting results? That sounds like the kind of thing lots of people say, but honestly, I think everybody has expectations. It´s natural to want things to work and be disappointed when they don´t. From what you´ve wrote, I´d say you´ve given this technique an honest shot -- and then some. The question is, what now? This is obviously a really tough place to be in and I think one of the most important things you can do is not make it any tougher by being hard on yourself or judging yourself in any way. It´s not your fault this technique didn´t work for you. Maybe the technique isn´t all it´s cracked up to be. Maybe it works for some but isn´t right for you. Regardless: not your fault. I don´t have any suggestions for what you might do next. Indeed, I´m not sure the internet is the best place to find suggestions, although you never know -- someone might say something that speaks to you. I just hope you treat yourself with all the kindness and gentleness you deserve.

I know. It´s just that I think the symbolism is misleading and actually harmful. The symbolism furthers the erroneous idea that egoic pride and humility are correlated with money. They aren´t. Rich people are just as likely to be humble as the poor; poor people are just as likely to be proud as the rich. This erroneous idea is embedded deeply in our culture. Many "spiritual" people are averse to money because they think it´s bad -- "the root of all evil."

In my mind, spirituality and sensuality are not at odds. A well-made eggs benedict is one of life´s great spiritual indulgences. Pleasure can be a doorway to spirit rather than a wall blocking entry. Pain can be too but I prefer pleasure. Likewise, wealth and power do not disqualify a person from spiritual achievement (a clumsy phrase but I trust you know what I mean). Jesus porportedly said "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." I guess even the son of God can get it wrong sometimes. Unlike the vast majority of human beings, I don´t think God judges us based on the size of our bank accounts.

I think the above would be a great title for a Netflix series on Bon.

In memory of hidden lost posts past...

The hide button is a bit of a misnomer. We might rename it the hide-from-yourself (and some others) button.

Somehow I doubt that.

For me there´s a stark difference between my interactions in real life and on this forum. On the forum, I´m all about putting forth a certain view of reality and then defending it when challenged. I recently challenged the usefulness of Zork´s statement about achieving non-duality. He quoted my reply and I´m tempted to reply back further hashing out my thinking about why I was right. Although I try to be polite, the format for "discussion" has more in common with a medieval duel than getting to know somebody. Am I like this in "real life?" God no. In real life, I´m all about building relationships through conversation; I´m not so focused on convincing others of the rightness of my views. In real life I´m much more receptive, more of a listener. I ask questions hoping to get others to express themselves. People will oftentimes say something I disagree with and I won´t even voice my disagreement.

It´s not you, it´s me. I´m biased against a certain kind of very intellectual spiritual conversation common on the forum, especially among those who aspire towards the non-dual. Sometimes these discussions feel overly abstracted, cut off from real life, contentious and critical. So when someone shares some aspect of their actual lived experience and the response is that "it won´t help in achieving non-duality"...when that happens I cringe a little. But perhaps others find it useful?

Oh dear...

I am interested in writing. One thing that I do is collect words. I have a huge collection of words gathered from readings, television dialog, and more than a few from posts here. They are broken down into various categories by part of speech and sometimes also by number of syllables. Here´s a sampling of multisyllabic nouns that made my list: adventuress, buckeroo, charcuterie, didley-squat, evanescence, fuddy-duddy, gobbledygook, heebie-jeebies, imbroglio... Just recently I´ve started to collect memories. Every day I write down a memory in a special online memory journal. Today I wrote about the huge toads I occasionally found at night as a kid living in rural northern California. I try to learn something new every day and am keeping a running list of things I´ve learned. Today a Bum mentioned longboarding to me. What´s longboarding? I´m something of a fuddy-duddy and, like many fuddy-duddies, I know didley-squat about longboarding. So I looked it up and now I know more.

It´s true that people can be kinda harsh on the forum. Still, I do occasionally share personal circumstances on here and haven´t regretted it yet. A member might occasionally point out that my mode of thought is less than enlightened. Idiot_stimpy, for instance, suggests that if someone is attached to their online persona (as I am) or occasionally feels unwholesome emotions (as I do) then "more internal work needs to be done." Let the Bum without attachments throw the first stone. Oh wait...do people without attachments even throw stones? There´s little to be gained from pretending to some perfection I´ve yet to achieve. The secret benefit of spiritual and psychological imperfections is that, when shared in a clean nonmanipulative way, they can dispell shame and create connection. It´s almost worth it.

Becoming a moderator has been a very interesting journey for me. We all have our stories around power and control and authority. Psychologically, the moderator role is a tricky one because all of a sudden a person is perceived as having power (and actually does have power, to some limited extent) and people have their reactions to that, sometimes vigorous reactions. It´s come as a surprise. My father was a lawyer, the district attorney for our county. I thought of him as a professional arguer, a professional punisher. Even for a highly verbal kid, he was tough to beat in our diningroom courthouse. Mostly I tried to keep the peace, a role I often take to this day right here on the forum. I often preferred to hang back: there´s safety in quietness. The few times I tried to give my father warning points or issue a suspension did not end well for me. I haven´t sought authority in my adult life. I´ve also avoided situation (like jobs ) where people would have authority over me. It´s easier to avoid the whole power and control thing as much as humanly possible and just do things on my own. Oddly, my relationship has put me somewhat in an authority position. My partner has schizoaffective disorder and I sometimes make decisions for him. Without my intervention, he´d literally stay in bed sleeping until the late afternoon every single day. Most of the time I tell him he has to get up and go outside, something he doesn´t like to do. But if I tell him to do it, he´ll do it. I believe he´s better off getting up so most of the time I do tell him. It´s so weird though...I´ve become this authority figure telling another adult when to get out of bed. I never wanted to be this person yet here I am. And now I´m an authority figure on Daobums too. Say what? People complain and say that moderation decisions our group has made have been too harsh and maybe they´re right. But I´m not rubbing my hands with glee delighting in my ability to punish. At least I don´t think so. (If you see me that way Cloudhands, please spare me your not-so-erroneous analysis of my shadow.) In my own eyes, I´m just someone whose trying to help my partner go outside and order his own green tea. I´m also someone who likes it when people are nice to each other here. (Not sure if any of this is useful but I felt like sharing so I did. Thanks for reading.)

I liked your use of erroneous. To me it implied a certain respect. You´re putting your opinions out there but also creating space in case someone wants to say they are incorrect rather than insisting on some sort of infallibility. That´s my erroneous opinion.

I think you´ve hit on something especially worthy of note here, Yueya. Even online, people often know us better than we think (or, in some cases, would like).

Apropo of this topic, am I the only one who finds it mildly creepy that hidden posts (and, I believe, threads in PPJs) are not actually hidden from moderators? I make it a point not to go snooping around where I´m not wanted but it´s a little unsettling to know that I could. Members should be aware that if they don´t want anyone to read something the way to accomplish that is to erase through an edit.

That´s hilarious, Anand -- thanks! Just the same, I would welcome erroneous feedback from @CloudHands. As erroneous feedback goes, I think CloudHand´s is some of the best.

Steve, Just to riff a little... I think most of us are different in different contexts. My partner sees a different side of me than my friends and family, for instance. Many people are markedly different at work versus at play. There´s recently been some discussion of a DaoBums retreat and I expressed some reluctance to attend. Reading your OP post Steve, I realize my reluctance stems from the difference in my online persona and how I might come off in person. I´ve invested literally years into building relationships with people here online. To what extent these relationships are "real" I don´t know, but they feel real to me. The way I present myself online is me, but it´s not the fully embodied me that people would see at a retreat. What if people who´ve come to like me online met me in person and decided, nope, that Luke dude isn´t as together as we previously thought?! That would be tragic. In thinking about the various iterations of ourselves we present to the world, it´s natural to wonder...which of these guises is the real me? Is the me I am at work, for instance, more or less authentic than the me I am with my friends or online? I believe that all the versions of myself out there in the world, however varied, have a little bit of the real Luke Jesse in them. The person people know here is me but it´s a whittled down wordy version. I like to think people would accept the unathletic and sometimes insecure man behind the curtain if given a chance but I´ll probably never know. Anywho...this very likely has nothing to do with what you were thinking in your OP but it´s what your thoughts brought forth in me. Thought I´d share.

Yes, that too. And more than once I´ve seen celibacy promoted as a way to get girls. Desperate times, desperate measures.