Cameron

I think this might relate to Freeforms merging with the void but keeping your identity/sense of self thread. I think Genpo Roshi is one of the cutting edge Zen teachers and this little bit probably just scratches the surface of his Big Mind process..

I don't see any problem with that either. Actually if you check out a thread I posted recently called "same shit new day" Genpo Roshi..an enlightened American Zen Master..goes into his approach which includes both non dual and dual. It's quite interesting stuff I might check out. Big Mind/Genpo Roshi

From what I have experienced, Living in The Now resolves all these things. In the Now there is this flow and surrender and merging that happens beyond the ego(as ego is all in your mind to begin with). I don't know what to call it. It feels like love to me..actually the best explanation I could come up with is it feels like SPACE. Love..Awareness..Space..being free of the "little me". Are you saying you want to hold on to the little me and also get enlightenement?

I imagine actors must get some sort of "spiritual" experience from there work. Playing other characters like they are real. Adyashanti says he has a hard time watching movies after awakening. Like he will be watching a dramatic movie and not pay attention to the main characters but wonder about the people in the backround who aren't saying anything. I have hard time getting into them myself lately unless the acting is really tight like in most HBO shows which I love. And video games. Which is apparently bigger than the movie industry now.

I am in a film class at school so writing alot about movies next few weeks. Probably the best one I saw recently was Babel. I think there were alot of powerful pefomances in that. From the deaf Japanese teenager to the Mexican housekeeper and Kate Blanchet's character. I even think Brad Pitt did a really good job in it.

Cool. It sounds like you have a strong inner calling to check out Lei Shan Dao. Check it out!!!

I say if your drawn to it check it out and report back. I may check out Master Tseng's Alchemy training at some point. Though I would need to get a good explanation of what exactly it entails. Which probably wouldn't be possible until after doing the "foundation" stuff..whatever that is As far as the enlightenment question...it seems different traditions have different explanations of what enlightenment means. The thing I personally question about some of these paths that make a big, big deal about the process,the training..and how it is so very hard to "achieve" enlightenment is from my experience with people I would call "awake"(not neccissarilly "fully" enlightened as I haven't gotten a clear enough view of these things yet) is it is pretty much about waking up to your true self which is WHAT IS ALREADY...rather than something added to. It's interesting to see what people want or expect enlightnment to be. For example, Adyashanti, who I would say at very least is "awake" would probably say the imagined mountain top of enlightenment is just that..imagined. That the real thing is WHAT DOES NOT COME AND GO. By the same token people who want to "get out of the matrix". What exactly do you mean by that? I don't have any problem with whatever peoples goals are just interesting to understand what people are talking about when they say that sort of thing. Best.

Accidents and failures are at the top of my list of learning experiences.

Actually the idea that we came from somewhere else and got "stranded" here or something is kind of interesting. Who knows. Like one of my teachers said "eternity is a long time". hehe.

At very least modern humans are almost 200,00 years old. So most of our recorded history is pretty much recent events. Lozen..from what I can tell God created most of the animal kingdom which have been around for millions of years in male and female..seems to be how the universe likes to operate..the whole yin and yang thing link

My gut tells me we have been around a long ass time .At best modern attempts at our ancient history just look at recent ancient history. We don't have a clue what really went down millions of years ago. I mean, they found Lucy a female who walked upright over 3 million years ago. OVER 3 MILLION YEARS AGO!!! Maybe she wasn't exactly like modern humans but had alot of the same characterstics(I think?!) So..what is the Bible...like 5000 YEARS OLD?! Science and common sense is a better help with this I think. Of course if any higher life forms exist I would be interested just for the fun factor. I know it's hard to accept but as Master Yoda and other's I talk to have said the law of physics may pretty much prevent beings from other universes to even get here in the first place. We are all one but maybe it's more like we are all islands without boats than the Star Trek universe some people invision. The real question I would have if Lucy is over 3 million years old and humans have been around a loooooooong time where are all of our civilizations? Ancient Egypt is an interesting pointer. I mean some scientists were saying the Sphynx is like 15,000 years old. Which would mean we were pretty advanced back then. Maybe floods..natural disasters did wipe out ancient civilzations. It's hard to imagine, especially if we have been around that long(Ime talking physical humans here not spiritually..spirit is a whole other thing which in my opinion stops this whole discussion and makes it rather boring).

I was thinking about this today and I think Adyashanti summed it up best(for me)when he said that in wordly life you want to get a PhD and in awakening you want to go back to kindergarden. In wordly stuff..getting a job..a degree..a master's degree..becoming a doctor,lawyer,artist,musician etc you want to become as much of an expert as you can. You learn things. You learn and develop knowledge in a certian field. In awakening it's almost exactly the opposite..you want to go back to kindergarden..you want to regain the innocent awareness of the child..return to simplicity. The universe and enlightenment play by different rules. The whole basis of true meditation and awakening seems to come from a recognition when you really take a look you don't know. When it comes to the really important stuff you don't know. So it's more like starting to be honest with yourself. Do I know who I am? Do I know if I really exist? Do I know what life is really? As far as the teacher stuff..I definetly think good teachers can help you awaken to your natural state but the really good ones will tell you after you have done that how it's all a sham. Of course it's not all a sham..I think the teacher student realationship and study is a pretty important part of awakening. I went for a long time on my own without teachers and got some taste but I think the presence of the teacher just speeds things up. Sure, at an ultimate level we don't need the teacher but if you look at pretty much any enlightened guy after the Buddha they all had there teacher. The real question arises in me why would you not want to study with an awakened teacher? It would just seem to be missing a crucial element to the whole process. But if awakening without a teacher and not needing a teacher is your reality nothing wrong with that either I guess.

This guy is amazing. First time I ever heard him. Can someone explain how to do the embed thingie again? JKvz3BdB2EE 7qy6YZSseAo And listen to these kids! oSqzkGyxpmc

We should just make our government a garden. Trees, plants and real bushes clearly have more wisdom than Washington. I think having plants and real bushes run other countries governments is a good idea too. ps. Actually if any future presidents are unsure about how to lead they should go see Transfomers The Movie-in theatres now and look at Optimus Prime. Optimus is basically the perfect leader. Strong, courageous, wise, intelligent, funny. He resorts to violence(killing Decipticons) only to defend his robots or earthlings. He doesn't go out of his way to kill other people like certain current Presidents enjoy doing.

Very cool. Ken Cohen calls this "center everywhere, circumfrence nowhere".

Ok Good luck in your study/research into higher dimensions.

Really? Oh well. I like what they say towards the end how the highest level science could get to in terms of truth is if the scientist realizes he is what he is looking for. My feeling is if you live in truth/oneness it's probably not too important to dissect the universe into different dimensions for intellectual study. But it could be interesting stuff. Probably others here can say something about it. I don't know.

I heard this talk from Adyashanti a couple months ago that goes into awakening and science. Go to this link and it's the third one down called "science and spirit" you can download. link

I don't hate Dubya but I still mantain an actual bush would do a better job as president.

edit.

Father P-arch nemisis of mental constructs.

Master Tseng in Colorado teaches Taoist Alchemy. I can't say if it is similar or not to other systems because I haven't studied it. Ime doing a 3 day workshop with him and Ken Cohen in Nov. Here is his website if you want to explore yourself. link

edit-I agree. I don't think your true nature is stupid. It probably empowers and makes you better at things you already know. I think maybe a better way(for me)to look at it is a freeing up of conditioning rather than unlearning. Unlearning implies things are forgotton. Perhaps things we don't need are forgotten with awakening but to say the conditioning/ego/illusion is seen through and freed up of it's confused/contracted energy seems more true. But I don't know

I would like to change my answer to this too

I think you have alot to share and agree with alot of the things you said. For example, you mentioned something about seperating cake from the frosting. When I sat with one of my teachers a couple weeks ago I asked him does he have a 'recipe' for awakening. He said it's like if someone baked him a delicious cake with all the stuff(he explained it better and using his hands to illustrate) and spent all this time to make it he doesn't really care about all the work and all the ingredients that went into making it he just wants to eat it! So, there may be a slight difference from the more philosopher way of thinking where you try to break things down and get an understanding and the more gut level-or heart level-way of being which is I think more about enjoying and living life. It's nice to know how to make a nice cake and all the different characterics but it's probably even more important to be able to enjoy it! But..maybe some people really enjoy studying things like I Ching with a passion and get a deep level of insight from it. I haven't even really gone deeply into I Ching to comment but would just leave space for it.