liminal_luke

I wonder...is ST referring to the folks his hypothetical MAGA hat doesn´t keep at bay or his lack of pants doesn´t keep at bay? Or both? Interesting either way. I imagine the intersection of folks that frequent both Trump rallies and nudist beaches is a small one, though I am open to being corrected if any naked patriots wanna give a yell.

Meditation is a lot like marriage: You begin in pursuit of ecstasy and eventually settle for mild contentment. After twenty years you realize that contentment itself is a kind of ecstasy. From "Sparrow´s Guide to Meditation," The Sun Magazine

To me, this feels like a productive line of inquiry. A new baby boy -- wow, what a potent transitional period. I wouldn`t look at the erotic feelings you are having as some sort of problem that you have to deal with alone, through spiritual practice or by any other means: you and your partner are taking this journey through shifting sexual wants/needs together. It`s not that either of you are wrong. You are not wrong if you feel lustful; your partner is not wrong if she doesn`t. Rather, this seeming problem is really an invitation to doing the "dual cultivation" of digging deep into the roots of your togetherness. Out of this process a stronger bond could emerge.

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No you didn´t call for a ban, Earl. Sorry if I implied otherwise. Personally, Gendao doesn´t bother me because I virtually never read him. (Sorry Gendao!) Well, that´s not completely true; I´ve read enough to know that his thing is colonialism. As far as the validity of his theories go though, I plead blissful ignorance. Even so, I know what it´s like when a member gets under your skin. For me it was Windwalker -- that guy drove me bonkers. I probably shouldn´t have called out GSMaster the way I did. My negative comment about him provoked a negative comment about me -- that I´m not a cultivator. We could probably go on for several pages cutting each other down but I hope one of us has the maturity to stop.

It´s true that I haven´t made it through cultivator kindergarten but my parents have enrolled me in one of the best preschools so things are looking up.

Thanks. I trust your judgment when it comes to toxic materials, among other things. Mexico´s weird. The other day I passed a cheese shop with big signage informing customers that all their products were pasteurized, as if that was a good thing. When things are natural here -- which isn´t always -- it´s often in an unconscious way, because nobody has bothered to make them artificial yet.

My apartment here in Ensenada, Mexico rents for $220 a month including wifi. I´m a ten minute walk away from La Guerrerense, the ceviche stand that Anthony Bordain described as "Le Bernardin-quality seafood in the street." It´s heaven until you want to take a hot shower and discover the city has turned off the running water. And God forbid you actually put toilet paper in the toilet because you´ll surely stop up the pipes. I love to visit my friends in the states because my friends are nice people, yes, but also because their homes feature wall-to-wall carpeting. One other thing: it´s easy to buy stainless steel cookware and cotton sheets in my homeland; here everything is aluminum and polyester. Yuck! Still, ya can´t beat the tacos.

Let´s not ban anybody for their political views, mo pai associations, or eyebrow raising personality traits. Bums should display basic courtesy to others and refrain from making out-an-out insults, that´s all. I personally do a mental facepalm everytime I read about GSMaster´s alledged ability to teleport across the universe or, worse, his unfailing ability to accurately diagnose mental illness -- but I´ll just have to suck it up. The trouble with banning people for saying stupid things is that somebody has to be the arbitrator of stupidity, and that´s not an easy job. Better to stick with the ole insult rule. Call someone a name: edit your post or take a leave of absence. Say something inane: welcome to the club.

Yeah, I wondered where you were going with that. I actually like the juxtaposition of those thoughts with the subject of AI though. There´s a lot of (understandable) fear about AI and technology generally, sci-fi nightmares that our computers will become conscious and turn on us. Some say it´s already happening. I do think there´s a place for making wise, intentional choices about tech use. I recently changed my cell phone to greyscale (black and white) so I´m less tempted to click on those shiny app buttons. At the same time, the use or overuse of technology will never taint our spotless nature. Good to be reminded of this.

Lust, gluttony, sloth...

If I keep reading this thread I might need a doctor to be present.

Are you really sorry though? I do think you owe Dwai an apology for saying his thread "reeks of idiotism." If you´ve watched the videos and disagree, why not make a post explaining why? Then people could debate, clarify ideas, educate themselves.

Belated New Year´s Goal: Memorize a poem a week. Maybe I´m naive but I think that somone who can recite many poems from memory is unlikely to be unknowingly implanted with a computer chip.

What´s with the butthole negativity? I often practice sunning through closed eyes (https://www.chineitsangnow.com/sunning.html) and find it very relaxing. Haven´t tried the anal version as I don´t have a private outdoor place to try, but if I could I would.

Here´s the way the course is structured: Saturdays are teaching days when new material taught. Then, Sunday through Friday, you practice that material following along with practice videos given for each day (all the practice videos for the week are the same). The first week covers breathing that will be used throughout the practice. In subsequent weeks, a new Yi Jin Jing movement that corresponds to a meridian/organ is taught -- lung, large intestine, etc. Some information is given about the psychological effects of having that organ in good working order or not. For instance, a messed up large intestine leads to "stagnation" and a well tuned one leads to "letting go." There are two or three live webinars where there´s an opportunity to ask Robert practice questions. New material is made available as the days and weeks pass and you can always go back and review past days. The class videos can´t be downloaded (maybe the audio can be) but everything is available for a year after the course starts on the website. You can practice whenever you like. At the end of the course there are three different videos of the complete practice that are available to be downloaded and saved "forever" on your computer or whatever. The difference between the three videos is the length of practice. Hope this is clear and helpful. Feel free to ask more questions if you like. (Or you could always go "straight to the horses´s mouth" and email Robert.)

What is spiritual? Often what people mean is something that pertains more to higher heavenly energies and less to grounded, earthy ones. Using the chakra map of human energetics, spiritual qigong would be practices that work with the higher chakras, the third eye area for instance. Personally, I´d stay away from this unless you happen to be very advanced. Practiced prematurely, I think such practices can make one flighty and ungrounded. I like to go low, way low, the lower the better -- work with the feet, the legs, the lower dan tien. If you attend to the low, the high will take care of itself. You stay safe while taking secret advantage of the low (wo)man´s paradox -- the lower you go, the higher your potential.

Thanks for asking. I´ve been taking a break and am just about to cycle back into it. Highly recommend the class. Robert says that if he had to pick one word for Yi Jin Jing it would be "mighty." Supposedly, long-term practitioners are able to perform feats of great strength. (One class participant who´d taken the course before reported this result.) I didn´t get any stronger but did start to develop a fierce warriorlike attitude that was new to me and felt good. I suspect that individual results vary greatly according to what a person needs.

The profound centeredness and silence of genuine spiritual experience is often absent from spiritual debate. (Not that I don´t occasionally love myself some jittery, over-stimulating distraction in the form of a fiercely repetitive Mo Pai fight.)

This is in line with what I´ve read and been taught. I recently took an online Yi Jin Jing course from Robert Peng who refers to abdominal breathing (roughly LTD breathing) as natural breathing, and says that it´s good to do 24/7. Some people breathe this way as a matter of course, especially when they are relaxed, hence the moniker "natural breathing." Relaxation leads to abdominal breathing and abdominal breathing leads to relaxation. It´s hard for me to imagine this is a bad thing. There´s more of a potential for things to go wrong with conscious manipulation. Reverse breathing may be perfectly harmless but maybe not for everybody all of the time. Manipulating energy with breathing into the LDT may or may not be helpful depending on the manipulation and the manipulator. If other people have been taught differently, I´d be interested to hear alternative views.

When I first read the title of this thread, I started thinking about hanging balls. Then I watched the videos and was transported to a sublime and awesome spiritual realm. Now I´m thinking about hanging balls again. Such is life.

I wonder about the idea of imagining an ideal life and the related task of goal-setting. It´s January and as usual I´m big into my New Year´s resolutions. I don´t always (ok, ever) keep my New Year´s resolutions but I always enjoy making them. Here´s my question: Would my ideal self be someone who imagined an ideal life and took constant steps towards manifesting that life? Or is my ideal self more of a go-with-the-flow kind of guy? Is there something about the striving-process that is itself inimical to the "ideal life" I´m striving for?

I don´t find babies cute but I suspect that as I meander my way towards sagehood they will grow on me.

Just an FYI....Robert Peng is starting another Yi Jin Jing course beginning February 8. https://robert-peng-qigong.teachable.com/p/yi-jin-jing

Yikes, hope everything´s OK with the people in your world. I´ve long wished it was possible to have a heartfelt and educational discussion about world events on this forum. The potential consequences of what´s going on with Iran and the US....whew, so big, it certainly seems like we ought to be able to discuss it. Unfortunately, I don´t think we can though. Years of Trump Talk have taught me that. Maybe there´s something about the disembodied nature of online communication that precludes harmonious talk about politics. Or are people having productive online political conversations elsewhere? I dunno. What I do know is that taking care of the real flesh-and-blood people in our lives trumps (no pun intended) whatever´s going on here. At least for me. There´s no winning the war against internet bozos. They´re impervious to reason, always ready to come back with a clever retort or rationalization. But we can make a difference with those we love. Hope everyone you love is safe and secure.