liminal_luke

Quality of life what shall we do now honey, morphine overdose?

Far be it from me to tell anybody how to reply to anybody else, but since you ask...you might have started by rolling your eyes. Do you have beautiful, long hair? If so, I´d of flipped it insolently. Alternatively, you could of pursed your lips together and blown raspberries. Simply stomping off would of worked too. My point is that if you say you´re a Daoist nobody has any business telling you you aren´t. If someone is curious about what you mean by that statement they can ask. Do you mean you study the Daoist literature? Do you endeavor to live by a particular philosophy? Do you engage in Daoist spiritual practices? Telling someone who says they are a Daoist that they aren´t is bad form.

I think there´s a quality of ego surrender inherent in the feeling of gratitude. Gratitude is about recognizing something good in the outside world that exists outside our circle of control. When we´re grateful we step aside from preoccupation with ourselves and recognize the other. In some ways, gratitude is about recognizing that we aren´t in control, that good things can come to us unbidden. In working with gratitude, I´d emphasize the sense of surrender and letting go, the idea that it´s a big world out there and we can´t control everything and don´t need to. Maybe it´s not so much a matter of how to work with gratitude as how to let gratitude work with us.

There is so much I relate to here. Laura Lund, a Zapchen coach, once told me that my energy is very diffuse. Rather than remaining firmly grounded in my own body, I habitually reach out to other people energetically. In practical terms, this means that I can get overconcerned with other people, particularly in intimate relationships. I´m continually checking in with loved ones. While this might sound like a good thing, it´s not so good if I´m not also connected with myself. It can actually work against intimacy. It sounds to me that when you contained your action and remained in your inner silence, you reconnected with yourself energetically. Instead of being overconcerned with your girlfriend and what was going on for her and how she might be feeling about you, you just pulled back into yourself and allowed things to just be. Congratulations on your great evening!

Thanks for that insight RL -- it rings true for me. From the student perspective, I think it´s easy to get wigged out over the apparent differences between forms, to struggle with doubts over whether a given form is the authentic version. I think this handwringing is largely unnecessary. This is especially true perhaps with this form because much of the power comes from connecting with the lineage and that´s largely a matter of intent.

My own suspicion is that awareness is not easily pigeonholed into any particular shape. Awareness, at least at it´s most refined, cannot ultimately be said to be here and not there. Awareness isn´t exactly a thing, not in the sense that we usually think of things: it can´t be precisely located in space. Take Silent Thunder´s new avatar for example. ST might conceive of it differently, but to my mind it´s a picture of awareness. Put another way, it´s an awareness generating image, a meditation exercise disguised as an avatar. On it´s face it´s a small green dot on a black background. Although the dot has dimension on the page, I like to think that metaphorically it´s an infintisimal dot. And yet, contemplating that speck of infinite smallness, my own awareness expands. So what then is awareness -- something very small or something very big? I think both. The difficulty we have wrapping our minds around that contradiction is precisely the point. The seeming discrepancy in the above two quoted posts is much the same. Is awareness located at the center or does it take the form of a toroidal sphere? Again, I think both. What if an awareness of the center generates the energetic pattern of the toroidal sphere?

Michael Winn spoke about the spiritual significance of the toroidal sphere in a workshop I attended years ago. Fascinating stuff. In addition to all the cosmic applications you mention, it´s also the shape of one of my favorite foods. As above, so below.

Thanks for that video Phil. I´ve just recently started practicing again after a hiatus. The form shown in the video differs significantly from what I learned from Michael Winn. Seems like all the modern instructors teach slightly different variants. Not sure how much it matters in the end. Some people who´ve tried this form say it doesn´t do much. My take is that it´s a powerful form but often takes a period of dedicated practice before the benefits become apparent. Do you practice? Any impressions to share?

I haven´t used any yet but have high hopes for my latest Amazon purchase -- fermented shrimp paste. Even with the lid still on the stuff smells rotten, just as it´s supposed to. Any shrimp paste tips from the knowledgable cooks out there?

Everything´s stance may be more compatible with a functional life, but I´d like to like to live in a state of near perpetual wow. Admittedly, I´ve got a long way to go. At present I´m only gobsmacked by the most obvious of miracles -- double rainbows, a really good eggs benedict, the human ear. As I exercise my wow muscle, I hope to get that mindblown feeling in response to smaller stimuli. The world is wondrous aplenty; it´s my abilty to perceive wonder that could use some shoring up.

If it´s any consolation, you´re of help to me.

My experience is that judgment of others and judgment of self go hand in hand. When you find yourself feeling negative towards others, that can be a cue to look inside and see if you´re also being a little harsh with yourself. If you have a teacher whose guiding your cultivation practice, perhaps talk with your teacher about this? If you don´t have a teacher, I´d consider slowing down so that you can integrate your growing energy in a way that doesn´t negatively color the way you see others.

This sounds right on to me. Not the most intrepid of Daoist adventurers, I´m happy to allow much of the unseen to remain invisible. Or, at the very least, to open my eyes very, very slowly. That stuff is no joke.

@Spotless Well, better late than never -- I hope. I´d be interested to know what you think constitutes "the basics" and how a person might best go about practicing them. Freeform has put forth his understanding of the basics -- stretching and strengthening the body, getting into the "inner body" with standing and qigong movements. When you say basics is this also what you mean or are you referring to something different?

Three cheers for the sacred clown! (Great phrase, @Fa Xin) We fall so easily into judgment of seeming idiots but there´s a positive aspect to the fool archetype. You´ll know my spiritual practices have finally started to kick in when my posts exhibit less ironic sensibility and less cleverness, when I´m simple and innocent and without guile. Many will disagree, I know, but in my own estimation I´m not yet a fool. There´s still hope for me though.

I agree with Pilgrim´s cautions. Any kind of meditation or breathwork could do more harm than good. What could be good is simple movement. I´m thinking of warmups I used to do in tai chi class. Rotating all the joints in circles -- feet, knees, wrists, arms, etc. Bending down and stretching up. Light shaking. Self-massage of face, ears, etc. Keep things simple and easy, without asking anybody to focus on their internal experience. People with depression may not want or be able to move but this would be the best thing, imo.

After having read through some of the preview, I agree. In fact, the translator explicitly says that the book is no substitute for in-person instruction. There´s a lot of fascinating information but it´s not written in a manner that would allow a newcomer to actually start a practice. At least not this newcomer. That´s my preliminary thinking, anyway. Other readers may conclude differently.

Wow!

Which is perfectly fine as long as you aren´t using your mind to force the dying. What you´ve got to do is set up the conditions which allow death to happen naturally. Or at least that´s what I read somewhere.

The idea that meditation and thinking are mutually exclusive can be discouraging, especially in the beginning. My mom started a meditation practice for health, discovered that she couldn´t stop her mind, and decided that meditation wasn´t for her.

So the Jews created Christianity and Islam for the purpose of fomenting war, gaining slaves, and possibly stealing gold? Oy vey!

My old Zapchen coach, Laura Lund, used to say that the entire universe was conspiring to help me awaken. Or at least that it would be helpful to me to consider this to be so. I believe the universe is entirely friendly, which is not to say that I´m living some sort of charmed life where nothing "bad" ever happens. Quite the contrary. Bad things aplenty happen to me, seemingly on a daily basis. Here´s the thing though: seen from a big picture view, everything bad that happens is ultimately for my benefit. I´m drowning in absolute perfection that my little egoistic self perceives as absolute crap. The trick to feeling harmonious is to step out of the woe-is-me mentality of the little self and enter into the sublime connectivity of the me that´s beyond the friendly/hostile dicotomy altogether.

I´m reminded of the Healing Tao practice of fusion of the five elements, as taught by Michael Winn. Five main organs of the body -- associated with the five elements (lungs/metal, spleen/earth, heart/fire, liver/wood, kidney/water) -- each have their own spirit. These spirits are in turn associated with different emotional states and can have different agendas. One way to think of conflicting voices is to imagine that they are spirits of your different organs that want different things. In fusion of the five elements, these energies are brought together and harmonized, literally fused, in a single pearl in the dan tien.

I used to live in Zacatecas where rata del campo, country rat, was sometimes sold outside the market. Although generally an adventurous eater, I never sampled. The video below is in Spanish but the pictures tell the story.

And the less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine. Indigo Girls, Closer to Fine. Heard these words again and was reminded of many of your posts.