liminal_luke

I like your openness to experience. At the risk of further exasperating our cloudwalking owl, I´ll share my method for deciding if I want to provisionally accept a given teacher´s explanation of energetic phenomenon: I feel their qi. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that I feel how my own qi feels around them. Everybody does this, I think -- we pick up the vibe. I´m more inclined to believe teachers with good vibes. Whether or not this method truly leads to capital T Truth I can´t say, but I like where it´s taken me so far.

I don´t think anybody is saying that "orgasm at a distance" is inherently evil. Actually, I imagine it could be quite beautiful in the right circumstances -- namely between two people who consciously intend for it to happen. The issue isn´t about whether orgasm at a distance is ethical per se or whether or not it´s a bona fide Daoist phenomenon. The issue is consent. It´s not illegal to sit in full lotus in public, nor should it be. It´s probably not illegal to give people orgasms at a distance either, simply because most legal types wouldn´t believe it´s possible. But we´re not really talking about legality here -- we´re talking about ethics. So are you saying that you never intended to give anybody an orgasm at a distance but your energetic development was such that it "just happened" on it´s own? I´m not sure that takes you entirely off the hook. If you know that that kind of thing is likely to happen when you sit in ful lotus in public then maybe you shouldn´t sit in full lotus in public. Not because it´s illegal to do so, but because being careful about how your energy effects others is the decent thing to do. Still, I´ll grant you that accidentally triggering an orgasm in someone is less pervy than intentionally doing so. What I´m not hearing from you is any sort of contrition or acceptance of responsibility, whether or not your O at a D incidents were intentional or not. Just for fun, I wonder what kind of reaction from people you would get if you said something like this... I´ve made some mistakes as a Daoist cultivator. Years ago I worked very hard to gain a certain kind of power but in my youthful immaturity I didn´t have the wisdom to know how to use this power correctly -- or even how to contain it. As a result, I gave some young girls who didn´t consent to have sex with me orgasms from a distance. Sometimes I even felt proud of my ability to do this. Looking back, I see that this was wrong. I see now how my earlier posts about this subject might be upsetting to people, especially perhaps to people who have themselves been victims of nonconsensual sex or know people who have been. I am truly sorry for any discomfort I´ve caused forum members. Because I´m acutely aware of the peryy side of my own shadow self, and aware of the damage it can cause, I´m particularly vigilant about perviness in other´s as well. That´s why I started this thread about Elitom. Nobody should be sexually assaulted, not in the usual physical sense and not energetically from a distance either. Of course you didn´t write this. I did. Something like this is what I wish you´d written.

Luke takes a little superpower bow. Adoring fans marvel at his psychic powers reading comprehension and memory. He really nailed this one.

Two people consensually exchanging erotic energy at a distance as part of a spiritual practice is one thing; one person imposing their erotic energy on an unsuspecting fast food eating stranger another. I do recall you saying, @voidisyinyang, that you gave young women "orgasms at a distance" at McDonalds. Am I misremembering this? Looking back, what do you think of this incident(s) now? Do you think it was OK? Would you do it again? I get that you would like this thread to be about the sexual behavior of someone else and not about yourself. But the fact is that some of us who were around to hear your stories of years ago are not going to move past this without some sort of further clarification from you. I`m not. This is a tough subject to talk about. Many people have been on the receiving end of nonconsensual sexual experiences, including, I`m sure, many Bums. Other people have loved ones who have been traumatized by nonconsensual sexual experiences. Feelings run strong! Like it or not, you are in the crosshairs of this discussion. You might want to move on but people simply won`t let you, especially not when you`re focusing on other people`s sexual behaior. If you`d be willing to talk about your previous "orgasm at a distance" postings in a really human, nondefensive way I think that would go a long way towards clearing the air.

You want people to be a certain way and they are refusing to do what you want. Happens to me all the time. If you think the Bums in this thread are stubborn, you should meet my partner! I`ve read somewhere that this situation reflects a certain kind of disharmonious qi dynamic. Kind of like when you reach for something and get an energetic pain in your back only on an interpersonal level. Well, I guess that pretty much explains it. My work here is done.

Can I suggest a change in strategy? So far you´ve been asking people to give you examples of their experience according to parameters that you´ve set -- relatively objective, free from cultural overlays, etc. Nobody has stepped up to the plate, at least not in the way you´d like. Since people haven´t been playing along, why not simply make your point without their participation? Then people could agree or disagree as they choose. So far I think you´ve said that taking on ancient spiritual beliefs about the meaning of our experiences is not always useful. Do I understand you correctly? This is an interesting idea and I´d be open to hearing more about it. Can you give examples from your experience of how these belief systems lead people astray? How might people approach spiritual practice in a more productive way?

Has Dwai escaped from the insane asylum again? He has one of the worst cases of dissociative disorder we´ve seen in a long, long time. Going in and out of his body at random. In and out of other people´s bodies. It´s really too much! All this talk of lucid dreams and visions, not to mention the unintelligilble gibberish about non-duality. Nobody here has the faintest clue what he´s talking about, although he does claim to have a few friends on an obscure Daoist internet forum. Sigh.

I like the distinction ilumairen makes between experience and explanatory narratives. Suppose I do some meditative movements and afterwards I have the subjective experience of warmth in my abdomen. To me, this is inherently interesting. If someone comes along and tells me this experience is "nonsense" I´m likely to feel disrespected. It was a real experience, it happened to me. I don´t care much whether anybody else finds it interesting or not, but I do and it certainly isn´t nonsense. Where things get tricky is when we try to fit experience into some sort of intellectual framework. Maybe I believe that the heat I felt is a result of "energy" filling up my lower dan tien. Maybe I think I´ve been possessed by alien hotties from another planet. Perhaps it´s the spirit of God descending down on me from above, a reward for my good deeds in a past life. Some of these theories may indeed be nonsense and, in any case, nobody is required to accept my philosophical framework as gospel. If you´re skeptical, Cloudwalking Owl, of some of the theoretical constructs people use to expain their subjective spiritual experiences, well, welcome to the club. Me too. But please don´t be disdainful of the experiences themselves. People have engaged in a wide variety of spiritual practices and have had a wide variety of spiritual experience for a long, long time, probably from the get-go of our species. Spiritual practice comes to us as naturally as our tendency to sing or to dance or to draw pictures of bison on the cave walls. It´s part of what makes us human.

I find it odd that you say I´m deflecting from the topic and don´t want to answer your questions. As you can read in the bottom quoted paragraph, I answered each of your four questions in the order given.

Agreed. To my mind, perviness has nothing to do with the size of a person´s dildo collection, nothing to do with a sling that may or may not hang in a basement. It has nothing to do with the clothes someone chooses to wear or the number of people a person has slept with. A perv is someone who doesn´t respect the personal sovereignty of others. It´s that simple.

Is it useful for other people to know about the specifics of my energetic experiences? I´m not so sure. Many of us tend towards excessive social comparison -- who has more money, better looks, more expertise, popularity...and on and on. I like to think of my embodied energetic experience as a small island relatively free of the modern scourges of competition and self-recrimination. If my experiences of qi seem more dramatic and powerful than someone else´s does that mean I´m a more advanced qi-ster? If your experiences seem more dramatic and powerful are you necessarily more advanced? I don´t think so. We are all so different and I have faith that qi is "intelligent" and that we each have the experience of qi we need in a given moment. But to answer your question...over the years I´ve had some qi experiences that seemed localized and others that seemed to effect my body globally, sometimes even the area around my body. Many of these experiences have involved heat, cold not so much. Some experiences were over in a flash, others lasted several hours. Some were clearly the result of doing a certain practice or being in a certain circumstance, others came upon me seemingly out of the blue.

Fascinating video with many actionable tips for practice -- thanks!

I´ve had many experiences of energy or qi, however you want to say it. Generally speaking, these experiences are quite pleasurable. They are also fascinating. How delightful that my body is capable of such varied sensation! Other people more expert than I might be able to interpret my qi experiences according to some system of understanding. Maybe these feelings I feel in my body mean something in terms of my health or level of spiritual development. For the most part, I´m happy to leave these intellectual ideas about energy alone and simply be with my body as I find it. The experience of qi certainly isn´t nonsense. It´s part of my life and of great interest to me. No further justification seems necessary.

My superpower is recognizing other people´s strengths, other people´s superpowers. It´s not that impressive of an ability really but does come in handy on occasion. Since everybody loves a superpower demonstration and nobody takes anything on faith, I´ll demonstrate. Here goes in the order in which people posted in this thread... Silent Thunder: Your superpower is that you´re an exceptional father. (Not as fun as shitting other people´s pants but hey...) Nungali: You combine masculinity with a poetic sensibility (a very rare superpower indeed) and have an astounding ability to come up with a graphic for every occasion. Manitou: Your superpower is radical humility, the kind of humility that opens spiritual doors.

...

Looks like we have our organizer! In the unlikely event that I´m not around if Everything posts again just PM me Nungali and I´ll get right on it.

I´d be happy to report right now myself...or wait...or ignore. Maybe TM can decide and we can all act together as a group?

This has probably already been tried but just in case -- have Everything`s posts been reported to Sean? He`s clearly interfering with other Bums right to peacefully discuss a topic of mutual interest and doesn`t respond to polite requests to desist. If ever there was a need for moderator action, this is it.

Void`s posts don`t make a lot of sense to me personally so I tend to skip over them. Still, he does appear to be a very practiced guy who knows a lot. I`m glad he`s here. If people benefit from his perspective -- and I think some do -- that`s all for the better. @WHITEROOMENERGYMINE1 probably wasn`t reading Void`s posts, now several years old, when he was talking about his infamous "orgasm at a distance." I like what @freeform said above about cultivation magnifying base desires and can easily imagine that`s what happened to Void. It would be nice to get some historical perspective from @voidisyinyang on the whole "orgasm at a distance" phenomenon. Does he feel in retrospect that it was wrong? Does he feel contrite? Perhaps Void has already made such a statement and I missed it. If so, I`m prepared to let bygones be bygones. Let the person without pervy feelings throw the first stone. (With regret, Luke sets down his rock.)

This is my impression too. In particular, the idea that one ought to be willing to shorten one`s life in order to lengthen someone else`s doesn`t jive with my understanding of Buddhist kindness. Here`s a quote I like by Buddhist meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg... You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

Most people, with the possible exception of Tibetan Buddhist monks, simply aren´t very aware of the extent of their fear of death. It´s impossible to simply ask people about their fear of death and get anything like a cogent answer. For instance, I prefer to deal with my fear of death through denial. Despite a great deal of evidence to the contrary, I plan to become a quick study in the field of Daoist alchemy and live forever. Should researchers ask me if I am afraid of death, I´ll appear much more evolved than all of those scaredy-cat Buddhist monks -- but it´s all a front. If anything, I think the study suggests that the monks are unusually aware of their feelings and not scared of sharing them openly. Could it be that Tibetan Buddhist monks think that fear of death is nothing to be afraid of? It´s a little like asking people if they can empty their mind of thoughts. Newbies sometimes think they can; practiced meditators know it´s not so easy. I can see the headline now: Business Executives Beat Out Monks in Quiet Mind Contest. It takes a bit of meditative skill even to be aware of the presence of thought. Unlike the average Tibetan Buddhist monk, I can go off on a thinking jag and not even realize I´m having win-the-lottery fantasies until the meditation bell rings thirty minutes later. But even if the study´s conclusion is correct and Tibetan Buddhist monks are especially afraid of death, that finding is a bit beside the point as far as their practice goes. More scholarly Bums can feel free to correct me, but I don´t think the point of Buddhist practice is to eradicate feelings. My understanding is that Buddhists can be as happy, sad, angry and fearful as the rest of us. The trick is to relate to these ongoing human emotions in a spacious way, recognizing their impermanent nature, and generally getting on with things.

First Sean said no more rightwing bullshit. OK, fair enough. But now it looks like we`re cracking down on perviness too? Jeez, Louise. At this rate the forum will soon be limited to clear-thinking spritually-minded types who want to discuss philosophy and help each other out. It`s like Giuliani cleaning up Times Square. Enough already. Sign the petition and save the last of our pervy voices. Together we can make the forum safe for squalor. (Just in case it`s unclear, the above is meant tongue-in-cheek. People shouldn`t mess around with other people`s energy psychically without permission, perhaps especially if such messing around is for the purpose of nonconsensual erotic jollies Those who do are poorly positioned to police the perviness of others.)

I´ve never been able to read about philosophical principles, Daoist or otherwise, and apply them to my life. Perhaps other people can do this? If I want to embody the principles of Daoism in my life I have to practice a Daoist art and hope the principles seep in -- and out! -- through osmosis.

Many people choose to "rest" in a box after death, too.

My mom knits a mean scarf, but ya, other than that women are inferior to men in every conceivable domain. Fortunately, chivalry is not dead and many men take the time to explain things to the fairer sex that they might not otherwise understand. We also open doors. When needed (not in your case, ilumairen) some of us throw protective punches. These kind avuncular types are colloquially known as "manplainers" and even in our modern day, when kindness so often seems on the wane, we´re on hand to answer questions. You´re welcome. LL