Trunk

Years ago I got one of T.Dunn's tai chi videos, and liked it also. The production quality was excellent, and the instruction was clear.

The simple emdr technique in the link I posted does that, quite effectively.

Here. In therapy its done once you've brought a troubling feeling, memory, etc., to your focus, but you can also do it on a regular basis.

Wow, are tough! (Their secret is to .)

You're not the only one.

I don't think that someone would get a good understanding of this topic without being in several groups one's self (of course choosing as wisely as you can) and then interviewing people (plural) who've been in whatever group you're interested in clarifying. The rest is just assumptions from a distance. And then, to what purpose??? That you maybe have a better understanding of something that you never wanted to participate in anyway? Seems a more productive topic would be how to be an effective student in a viable group & teacher-student relationship.

No, I haven't studied with Osho.My response was towards what I mis-perceived as unbalanced general guru-bashing (which cloud_recluse has since clarified that that is not what he is doing). I'm for a realistic view of acknowledging actual benefits and difficulties, dangers. Even with teachers of general good character and perhaps some exceptional teaching skill, there's always something to watch out for - every relationship has its in's & out's. For people who've never received a really pure transmission, its too easy to dismiss gurus altogether. And, for some who've received transmission, its too easy to go gah-gah. There's a middle ground that's .. useful, and carefully realistic.

Oh. That's more real to me.

I think you'd change your tune if you spent some time sitting with an advanced teacher. For whatever valid points you make, the element of gratitude seems absent - and that says a lot.

A friend of mine had a hang-over this Sunday, sent her this note below.. thought I'd pass it along. Hang-overs suck.

Well, first off, I'm no Zen expert. I've read a couple of books, and briefly stayed at a couple of places (for about a week each). A resident at Tassajara said that Shunryu Suzuki Roshi had a strong palpable presence (he'd passed considerably prior to me visiting), and I know that Maezumi Roshi had energy. So, probably zazen has energetic consequences, but Zen looks at it as a by-product (imo - they actually hardly mention it at all), not the main point. And, yeah, Zen definately clearly goes for the transpersonal.

I stayed at Tassajara for a week back in the 80's, and had an interesting conversation with a modern Zen nun resident. She put Zen's pooh-pooh of energetics within the cultural context of old China where she thought that energetics were really well known and popular .. sort of thoroughly in the culture (medicine, martial arts, meditation, etc.) at the time. .. Perhaps excessively so, and so Zen's attitude against energetics should perhaps be taken in context that it was a response to too much of that in the culture at the time. And that, maybe, taking it to utterly disparage energetics entirely is perhaps taking it too far. That, in the context of modern U.S. culture - where stillness meditation and energetic qi gong are both relatively new - maybe the correct message should be somewhat different than what Zen said way back then, there.

I just saw the Charlie Rose interview of Al Gore. (I haven't seen the movie yet.) Impressive statement that Gore quotes the window of opportunity to significantly solve the problem to be 10 years! Really short period of time. Time to move the country, energy-efficient house, large organic garden, and a bio-deisel pickup truck.

bicycle powered blender hmmmm, how to get the gears right to get the most hp out of this thing?

Drink aloe vera juice.

Yeah, if I have a guitar hero, he's the one. The youtube vids of him don't do justice. I rented Gillian Welch in concert on dvd from Netflix, and it deepened my appreciation for David Rawlings' guitar-work. I think he's Gillian's beau, and he plays lead guitar to her rhythm (and voice). Ah!, here's a youtube link to a piece from that dvd. Here's another one. (Hey!, I didn't realize till just now that I could watch youtube vids full-screen!)

I've been diggin' Kelly Joe Phelps for some time. Also Gillian Welch. Dead Can Dance.

Couple of things, here. One, I think its more effective to talk about enlightened states, rather than enlightened people. We all experience some small degree of enlightened, sometimes. Also saying someone is enlightened implies that they're in the enlightened state all the time .. and that's too much of an absolute to live up to. Anyway... The more important point, is that I think there's still a lack of understanding of forward and reverse - in general, and in relation to light. (imo ->) In forward you got your vital winds flowing 'round & 'bout you, and you got your thoughts ridin' on them and as you experience you try and do "warding off stuff" with your winds & thoughts to try and stop the experience, or make it different. When good stuff happens, we do "yummm, gobble-onto" stuff with our thoughts, winds, subtle bodies - in relation to that yummy stuff. And we express ourselves. In reverse, the vital winds gather and concentrate in the central channel (that still center empty throughway), particularly in the deep-center. The bindu becomes illuminated and unifies with The Big Light. Upon that power, all the vital winds (and whatever else is laying around) are spontaneously drawn into the center and refined. The Big Light suffuses the centers: Radiance. imo, fluency in the above is a lot about what our practices are leading to.

No disrespect to you, but I can't find any sense in any of your statements in this post. (Trying to find common ground..) .. A basic fact of ecology is that you can never affect just one thing; there is a cascading weave of relationships that runs entirely through ecosystems. Humans of the last 100 years have been doing serious radical shit at a speed that's unprecedented (not counting meteors) .. It just makes sense (to me) that there's lots of repurcussions. There couldn't not be. I think there's some real wisdom in Amish culture.

My observation is that people are generally not really competent to discern the difference between tangling and untangling, much less the skill to accomplish fluently - to actually do it. And, for me, this has to do with what goes on with the winds and thoughts and reaching/defending and centers' and the central-channel's relation to Openness. "Keeping one's center", and finding that one's center coincides with the Big Nameless. There aren't many places of an intimate relationship where that Return to Suchness is actually regularly co-cultivated. .. or, at least, relationships tend to lose that occasionally and usually the relationship had very little to do with Nothing .. awwww, you know what I'm trying to say. Occasional co-still-standing is has interesting possibilities.

I've explored, some, partner-still-standing. Just standing a couple of feet apart, often not touching at all, sometimes something simple like palms to palms, or hand to heart, or back to back. The main focus is the stillness, just like solo practice, maintaining center while whatever else goes on around. Having a partner there makes it very nourishing and pleasurable .. but there is a distinct lack of engagement (almost a rule) of 'normal' sexual-romantic-attaching stuff, its about maintaining centered alignment, stillness, vastness. Its good practice for a tantric attitude, imo, for both partners. Didn't Ian write about this some time back?

Path to Freedom's video brochure. All that happening on a small residential lot!

Fun to read. Welcome aboard.

I think this should be split into a new thread: white tantra. (Sean?, or other moderator?) Its a rich topic that we really haven't talked about at all, and has a lot to do with the stillness teachings we've been clamoring for.

Sounds like genuine experience, though not especially enjoyable, a nuisance, and maybe unsettling at times. Its a challenge, socially, and of one's maturity, stability. Basically, you can't tell hardly anyone about it: your friends will either not believe you and think that you're nuts, or they'll believe you and always wonder if their thoughts are their private thoughts or do you hear them (are they stripped of the privacy of their internal world). And it separates you, perhaps, from others in a way that you're not used to. Its a typical thing of the path: stuff (sometimes big stuff) happens and you generally deal with it mostly on your own. Of course, its valuable to find friendships where you have this sort of thing in common (that's being kind to yourself). But a significant part of the path, of integrating with most people, is a placid ability to act as if nothing unusual is going on (that's being kind to others, and also practical survival).