liminal_luke

Joy in the midst of craziness...

This is a thread for practicing social closeness. Let´s swap stories and strategies for coming together and feeling close, even in these times when hugging feels (and perhaps is) dangerous. We´re social by design and need to be close, not distant. How do we find balance when maintaining our mental health means coming together and maintaining our physical health seems to require coming apart? Please snuggle in and share. How has the coronavirus scare helped you deepen your relationship with yourself and others? How are you reaching out and connecting with others in this time when many are feeling isolated? If you´re having a hard time with the stress of all this, this is a thread for sharing your challenges too. How can the Bum community help you feel emotionally supported? This is not a thread for arguments. It´s not a place for putting forth theories about the nature, origin, prevention, or treatment of coronavirus. There are other threads for those worthy subjects. This is a thread for love. Reach out and touch someone (with your words).

You keep on saying that young people are unlikely to get coronavirus but is this true? My understanding is it´s not: young people can get coronavirus as easily as everybody else. The difference is that kids are more likely to be asymptomatic or have very mild symptoms. They can get infected and can still infect others, but don´t get sick like older people are more likely to. If I´m wrong and younger people truly don´t get infected, perhaps you could post a link to information supporting this? I´d be interested.

Did you miss the dantien awareness debate, @Goku76? Many practitioners, including the uncharacteristically quiet Earl Grey above, chimed in to say that focusing on the lower dan tien was counterproductive. Personally, I´d always heard the opposite. I´d say this: if you are following a practice of a particular teacher, great. Otherwise it´s probably not a good idea thinking too much about what´s happening with the energy of your breath. It´s especially not a good idea to do any "packing." Best to just breathe. Breathe and be aware. Allow what wants to happen to happen. The body is generally more intelligent than we are. I´m a big advocate of awareness and following the body. Tinkering is more dangerous.

It´s worth it to close kid´s schools and prevent infections among kids, even if those infections will be very minor, because kids don´t live in bubbles: they come home to older parents and grandparents who could be infected and more vulnerable.

I knew it!

This thread makes me feel nostalgic for Trump Talk.

Oops! I created this thread before looking and it turns out @Earl Grey already created a similar one at Maybe his thread can be more for general community support and this one for "social closeness" in particular.

Great story, @thelerner. Gives me a sense of what it would have been like to be there. I´ve often thought of you as a Dao Bums bartender but Guardian of the Flames has a nicer ring to it and probably amounts to the same thing.

Here´s a meditation on feeling safe from psychologist and brain expert, Rick Hanson. It´s about noticing and really taking in the awareness that you´re (most likely) basically alright in this moment. It works for me. https://www.rickhanson.net/a-meditation-for-feeling-as-safe-as-you-reasonably-can/

I´m woo-woo for days but my best pals in Palm Springs are much more conventional. Nevertheless, this is exactly the gesture we settled on to say goodbye to each other at the end of my recent visit. It was very sweet. Sadhguru suggests that looking into someone´s eyes while making this posture for 3 to 5 minutes builds connection. I believe it! These kind of social closeness measures are just what the doctor guru ordered in this time when physical touch is discouraged.

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There was some great information in that thread, particularly the post Taomeow made detailing which herbs/foods might or might not be helpful against the virus. I hope that people that need/want that info will still have access to it somewhere. That said, seems to me the thread had run it´s course. Personally, I´m most interested in practical information about how to protect ourselves from infection. Once the thread veered into controversy about the virus origin...well, let´s just say I´m not sorry to see that conflict washed away from pulbic view. I like what @steve said about the origin controversy: dead is dead. Figuring out how this thing started may have implications for public health policy going forward; it likely doesn´t matter much in terms of how we need to take care of ourselves as individuals now.

When Lord Josh Allen first introduced himself and started this thread, do ya think he had any idea what strange turns it would take?

Not to worry. Anything you might lack in the gym body department is more than made up for by your rippling hot spirit.

Actually, no. Starjumper went to post a picture of a shaman and...somehow threw up a picture from my private internet files. How does that even happen? Perhaps there´s something to what Manitou keeps telling us -- we´re all one.

If the "voice of pines and cedars" could take human form and post on this forum the resulting posts would share much in common with your own.

I´m reminded of a beautiful visualization meditation called "moon on lake" that @Sebastian shared way back in 2014. Something so special about moonlight reflected in water...

There´s lot on the internet about meditating on loving kindness. Just google "metta meditation." Why limit yourself to just women though? That seems a very odd instruction. Better, I think, to aim for loving everybody, beginning with your self.

Buddhism makes for a fine spiritual path but a poor career choice. Way too many professional Buddhists have empty wallets.

About money: I`ve noticed that many people associate virtue with their own particular economic circumstances. For years I lived in Zacatecas Mexico among the relatively poor. Many (not all) of the poor people I met think that wealthy people (say those living in the US) are morally suspect. Some wealthy people think that the poor are morally suspect. Perhaps we`re just generally suspicious of those who are different from us.

What a grounded, rational position. Be careful -- someone might take your "happy idiot" card away.

One argument raised against someone like Lord Josh Allen calling himself a Daoist is that people who don´t know anything will believe that he represents Daoism, take him as a spiritual teacher, and get messed up. But is this really true? Are otherwise prudent and serious spiritual seekers being lead down Josh´s bejeweled garden path? @Walker , @flowing hands , think back to before you knew anything about Daoism: if you´d seen Lord Josh Allen´s videos, would you have become one of his Youtube fans and followed his version of Daoism? I doubt it. His style doesn´t resonate with you. It doesn´t now and I don´t think it would have then. It doesn´t resonate with me either. I like Josh as a person, as far as I can tell, but am not drawn to him as a spiritual teacher. Now perhaps some people are drawn to Josh as a spiritual teacher. Those people would never -- not in a million years -- decide to follow the path you guys have followed. The spiritual path one takes in life is a matter of deep karma and destiny: we´re not so easily pulled from our destiny because of watching the wrong Youtube video. We can trust that people go where they need to go.

Hi Freeform, So I´m wondering, does the practice of Yi Jin Jing develop these things -- relaxed major muscles, engaged fascial network, song, ting? Is that it´s purpose? Thanks!

Love of splendid clothes, fine jewels and material possessions can be a sidetrack. So can judgment of those things...