liminal_luke

My post above was a little tongue-in-cheeky but I meant no disrespect. Sorry if I came off weird. I do believe that celibacy can be a great choice. I also believe that it´s sometimes undertaken as a way for people to skirt around sexual issues that might be more productively faced head on. These things are very individual and I don´t pretend to know what anybody else should do.

I believe that our very own Spotless (sadly absent as of late) teaches in the Bay Area. If he´s not teaching what you want to learn he likely has recommendations.

Celibacy comes easily to some, as carefree and effortless as an afternoon spent lounging in a poolside chaise while a cabana boy brings pina coladas. For others, abstaining from flirting with said cabana boy requires a near supernatural act of will. Given that I´ve managed to work a cabana boy metaphor into a discussion of celibacy, can you guess which category of person I fall into?

Just as a heads-up, today (August 21) is the last day to register for Robert Peng´s upcoming online Yi Jin Jing course. https://www.robertpeng.com/events/yi-jin-jing-14-weeks-of-bodymind-transformation

Anything´s possible. When contemplating a celibate path, I´d ask whether celibacy is likely to open me up or close me down. There´s a world of difference between the joyous freedom of renunciation and the angry repression of rule following (one´s own rules or anothers).

Years ago, I made a deal with myself that I was going to sit and meditate every day for some ridiculously short period of time, maybe three minutes. Morning passed and it was getting on late afternoon and still I didn´t want to meditate and I couldn´t figure out why. It was only three minutes -- what was wrong with me? Finally, I just forced myself. I sat down and closed my eyes and immediately broke out in tears. Oh...so that´s why I didn´t want to meditate.

Awww, don´t be confused. These days, I fret about masks and people standing too close to me at the grocery store. I worry about nuclear war, the upcoming presidential election, the radicalization of the right-wing extremists. But whether or not I should wash my chicken? As far as I´m concerned, all poultry -- washed and unwashed -- is on the back burner.

Hilarious (to me) article from the now defunct food magazine, Lucky Peach, about whether or not cooks should wash their chickens before cooking. https://luckypeacharchive.wordpress.com/2017/03/21/should-you-wash-your-chicken-or-not/

A panda walks into a bar. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots into the air. "Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. "I´m a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up." The waiter turns to the relevent entry in the manual and sure enough finds an explanation. "Panda. Large black and white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats shoots and leaves."

I think your wife is exceedingly fortunate to have had your care. That she is doing better now is a testament to your devotion during that time.

Many people share this idea that suicide is selfish. When my partner tried to kill himself, I thought "how could he do this to me?" But of course it wasn´t about me. It was about his mental illness. Unless we´ve had catastrophic mental illness ourselves I don´t think we´re really in a position to judge. I urge compassion.

Lots of people feel that everyone should be vaccinated. Some might believe everyone should be atheist. Virtually nobody thinks everyone should be aborted or gay. Not even the aborted gays themselves.

A few weeks ago I wouldn´t of pegged myself as a conspiracy theorist or "misinformation" peddler, yet here I am. @Taomeow argued quite convincingly in her Batshit thread that hydroxychloroqine is effective against the coronavirus when used prophalactically or at the very first sign of illness. I´m a believer. And yet there´s a boatload of articles on nbc´s webpage saying that this view has been roundly disproved. The last article I read stated that all the research on the drug has distracted scientists from more productive lines of inquiry and wasted us valuable time in the search for a cure. Only quacks continue to push the drug. Perhaps this explains the strange webbing growing between my toes.

It´s human to want a simple answers -- is this foodstuff healthy or unhealthy, good or bad? We imagine that there´s one answer which will hold for all people at every point in life. Unfortunately, many foods have both good and bad properties, helping some physiological processes while hurting others. To further complicate matters, we´re all so different. Coffee is perhaps especially hard to pin down. For some people coffee prevents diabetes; for others, it exacerbates the condition. It can stimulate a good mood or bring on anxiety. There´s no way most of us can even start to get a handle on it´s biochemical complexities without a pot of the stuff.

Not everyone appreciates a pedantic pussy but I don´t mind.

First we thought that the coronavirus only effected the lungs. Then we found out it damaged the kidneys and heart. Now, at long last, scientists are discovering it hurts the humerus. Dry humor has indeed been greatly reduced lately; people are also having trouble lifting their arms.

Agreed. If it gets organized I´ll probably do it in spite of everything.

I believe you can.

Am I the only one who finds the idea of a Dao Bums retreat -- or even the Zoom meeting Steve suggests -- intimidating? Don´t get me wrong: I´m all for forging these kinds of connections, even if the idea challenges me. I´m very comfortable sharing myself through the written word. At times, I´ve shared stories in my personal practice journal that are very personal, some might say too personal -- my partner´s suicide attempts, musings about sexuality. And yet allowing people to see and interact with me in real time feels like a whole different world of self-disclosure I´m not sure I´m ready for. It´s weird. I interact with people all the time in my daily life. I have friends. People who know me as a flesh-and-blood person seem to like me just fine for the most part. But the Dao Bums is a tough crowd. So many people here are superstars -- intellectually, athletically, spiritually -- or so it often seems to me. Can you imagine a Dao Bums talent show? There´d be stunning demonstations of martial arts prowess, a bit of mind-reading, maybe even some levitation. My luck everyone would have glowing skin too. For a spiritual forum, this place doesn´t always feel the most supportive. People can be really hard on each other. At the same time, I love it here. We´ve got some wonderful folks. It´s silly for me to shrink back from making deeper connections but...

Yes, I still practice. I´m glad I took the course. I like that it´s organized by meridian, basically with a movement for each of the twelve main meridians/organs. Week by week, you go through each of the movements for the meridian you´re working with and then put it all together at the end. Robert touches briefly on some of the emotional aspects of the various organs. (The large intestines and "letting go" for instance leading to a feeling of "relief.") When I was deep into the practice, I felt myself becoming more yang, having more of a warrior spirit. I think that´s just me though, what I needed. My guess is that everyone reacts differently according to their own constitutions. After the Yi Jin Jing practice each day Robert has everyone do Xi breathing. This involves some strong breathing, breath holds, followed by a period of still awareness. I had some great experiences with this but haven´t continued with this part after the course.

Very little. There is some here and there but I don´t think it´s integral to your success with the practice. The main practice consists of alternating periods of movement and still awareness where you´re feeling the effects of the movement. For one of the movements he says "feel the chi go to your brain and kidneys" but there´s no emphasis on visualization there per se. I´d say you could do the whole thing and just ignore occasional bits of visualization and receive all the benefit.

The Lotus opens. Movement from earth, through water, from fire to air. Out and in beyond life and death now, beyond inner and outer, sense and non-sense, meaning and futility, male and female, being and non-being, Light and darkness, void and full. Beyond all duality, or non-duality, beyond and beyond. Disincarnation. I breathe again.” R.D. Laing

I often travel to Palm Springs and often hit up the library bookstores there, buying way more than I´ll ever read. My purchases are considerably less erudite Encepalon´s, tending towards Patricia Cornwell and Lee Childs. Occasionally I´ll sneak a Jane Austen in amongst the thrillers.

Our emotional selves go deeper than the surface layer of feeling and thought we´re familiar with, and sometimes deep emotions will push up into consciousness from these deep layers unbidden. To me, that´s part of the beauty of life. I don´t know what your name means to you, catyclysmic sky, but to me it suggests precisely this process. Nothing about this strikes me as a harbinger of "mental damage" (though, in truth, I think we are all suffering from mental damage to some extent.) These experiences would only be concerning from that point of view if they caused you great pain or interferred with your ability to take care of yourself in the world -- and maybe not even then.