dwai

when I posted OP titled “light is pure awareness” I didn’t literally mean light (phenomenological). I notice some people have caught on to that.

Pratyahara is one of the limbs of ashtanga Yoga. Isn’t that all our meditating on internal objects is? We move our attention from external objects to internal objects - chakras, inner motifs, nadis, meridians, dan tiens etc. Eventually we drop even those internal objects, what remains is pure awareness. All these efforts to explain light, sound etc are just prolonging ignorance, imho. Physics might one day be able to come up with a unified theory that explains all phenomena. If it doesn’t do it with awareness as the primary and necessary source, will result in remaining deluded, in spite of all apparent sophistry.

That white light is familiar to me too. I have often seen it during taijiquan practice/meditation. Sometimes it seems like a thick white fog or mist. I’ve also experienced myself and things around me like that white light/fog. Seems like it is “reality” at a certain level. Underlying form and name.

That, Dear Sir, is a priceless question.

There is no physics without awareness

All these talks about pineal this and photon that is just tap dance around awareness. If it doesn’t exist, nothing does...

So you’ve just inverted the two words in their usage. I prefer the words as I use them — awareness - whose reflected aspect is consciousness. Or, we could say - awareness is pure objectless consciousness. Reflected awareness is consciousness with objects.

Absence of light is in reflected awareness, where darkness and light interplay. But really there is no absence at all. Because can awareness be aware of its absence? To know there is no awareness takes awareness. If that is the case, what is that absence? This happens in reflected awareness only.

The property of the awareness is to illuminate. In this manifestation, the first thing that is knowledge is that “I am”. This is the reflected light. Everything else follows this. Only as reflected light of I am.

It boils down to the “adhikara” of the people who Ramana Maharshi was speaking to. If you were at the level of understanding Self as pure witness then it is that. If you don’t need that anymore, you can advance further with awareness as the lightless light that makes everything appear and known and unknown — via reflected light and shadows

The sun was only an analogy. There is only light. Darkness is just an appearance due to reflections of light...

Look back at your day and find what might have triggered a strong negative emotional response in you. Odds are that is rooted in bad behavior you had to endure sometime in the course of your day. I was flying back from San Francisco to Chicago earlier this week and after the plane took off, an elderly gent sitting next to me, managed to cut a chunk of skin off his right wrist (caught on the seat somehow). The flight attendant was right behind us, and prepping to sell food items. The old gentleman was so frail (and later we found out taking a connecting flight from his long travel from Sydney Australia) and tired that he couldn’t even call the attendants for help. I called out to the attendant a few times and he turned around and snapped at me “wait your turn! I will be right with you!!”. I pointed out, it’s not for me, please attend to this gentleman’s injury. All was well but I realized the way the attendant reacted when first approached, left an imprint in my mind. I actually experienced pain from his aggressive reaction. I wonder then, how many times has an irritated retort from me had a similar effect on others? Did my words and manner of delivery negatively affect others? Odds are, yes. While we cannot undo what has passed, we can and should be mindful of our speech and manner of delivery. Approach the world around us with gentleness and loving kindness, for are we all not cut from the same cloth of awareness ?

Nice Yes JP has mentioned Domingo to us. Said he was pretty good but stopped going to WL’s school.

Why isolation or cushion? Just knowing that the world is nothing but your own expression is enough, is it not? And so, accept the expressions as they rise and fall. That there is nothing to reject or resist or crave for. Only happenings happen. All the “trouble” we experience is because we think that the world is separate from us. So outward going of the jnani is different from that of an ajnani. The jnani doesn’t identify with the mind that tends to go outward. So jnani stays as the Self. The ajnani moves with the mind. But vigilance is needed because maya is very powerful.

Yeah I’ve heard many such stories about JP too. Green dragon society folks attacking him and getting knocked out... Very cool. Master JP told me that it’s a gate. We have to cross it to get to the higher levels. Violence-minded people don’t normally evolve to a level where they can progress spiritually. Even if they do get insights, they end up getting pulled back down into the mud, so to speak. But yes, there are charlatans abound. So what do you practice? Chen taiji I presume?

A lot has changed since then. Including liao’s skills too. I’ve heard tales of events that transpired in the 80s and 90s from JP. It’s not right to compare his skills from pre-1980 to CZW. Fair enough. I’ll ask JP again when I meet him next time. JP wasn’t in Wisconsin back then. He ran a school in Chicago too - Northwest Taiji Academy (and so turns out that he started with ML in 1972). He talks of RH often with fond memories from the old days. Yes on all accounts. His students in Ft Lauderdale are a nice bunch (met two of them and a third one now practices with us). Agreed on that point. Personally I don’t find WC stuff in what I’ve practiced. Maybe WL changed it. I’ve heard from Master JP and my teacher before him that Master WL evolved from being extremely Martial oriented to more meditative and Dao focused. Mhmm I think there’s an old YouTube video of his doing condensed power transfer. I think wise people quickly grow beyond challenges and fighting. Haha and having experienced JP’s power (2% only as he says), I’d say DM is probably also quite powerful.

Now that you've observed it, don't pay attention. Keep up your meditation without distractions (as others have said too). It's amazing how little we observe until everything quietens down. All houses make sounds, creak and pop etc. It's more evident at night when the world is in slumber. If you meditate at night you are bound to encounter these phenomena. And, there's usually no "ghost in the machine", so to speak...

Indeed. But not for most of the “ordinary” people. And even then it is a slippery slope. In Vedanta we have a concept called “pramāda”. It is explained as being akin to having reached the top of the stairs with a ball in your hand, the ball slips out. You chase the ball only to realize you have reached the bottom of the stairs again. The outward going mind or pravritti is like the man chasing the ball. The world outside is like that ball.

I do think that there are things that turn us inward and those that turn us outward. Outward turning increases avidya. Inward turning reduces.

I meant it as being like air itself. Not there. Borrowing from taiji concepts. By not “being there”, there is nothing anyone can push against.

Who? Where?

Very interesting. My teacher is JP who was there from the beginning (1973-74). He specifically told me that there is no white crane in what Master Liao taught. I know RH, one of my practice partners (and now Master JP's student along with me and my brothers) was RH's student. I think I know of DM. MM i'm not sure of. There were others too, like KP and so on. When was the last time you met Master Liao btw?

The yielding is a great step. It'll be more interesting (imho) to find out how we can simply 'disappear' when such incidents happen. Nothing to push against...like trying to stand on air itself.

Wang Liping, Waysun Liao are two names that come to mind. My Master too but he's neither famous nor looking for it