Creation

Pietro, I finally got around to digging up some stuff I saw on this for you, in Hu Xuezhi's description of the process of alchemy in his lineage, which is a celibate/monastic tradition. http://damo-qigong.net/step5-1.htm http://damo-qigong.net/step14.htm http://damo-qigong.net/step15-2.htm

You might try this: Feel everything that is inside of you, don't label good and bad. Develop relaxed and non-judgmental awareness of what you are sensing, feeling, thinking, etc in the here and now. There is no need to indulge by amplifying. Don't indulge thoughts, images, judgments, or ideas. Just be present and feel. That has been the main thrust of my practice recently, mostly in order to face my demons. This is the mother load of instruction on how to become present what is inside of you to and dissolve the blockages/knots that you find there: http://www.amazon.com/TAO-Letting-Go-Medit...n/dp/1556437897 http://www.amazon.com/TAO-Letting-Go-Medit...n/dp/1556438087

That is profoundly inspiring. Thank you for sharing.

You like others to share personal stories, but what about you? The last personal story you shared, you deleted and said you regretted sharing. This puzzles me. I like it when you share. For my part, here is some personal sharing. I discovered this place because when I first started researching Taoist practices, I kept getting linked here from google. I read lots of inspiring things by people who are no longer around. I realized that this place provides a unique service to seekers, one that remains after we are gone. I joined so that I could be helpful to others, as I perceived others had been helpful to me, keeping in mind that what I posted would remain a service to others into the future. I spend so much energy on the posts I write. I try to be so careful to weigh all the meanings and interpretations of what I write to get across what I want to say in the clearest way with the least chance of misinterpretation. But that's only the beginning. After I post, there is fretting if I really said it in just the right way, checking back for responses, and feeling obligated to respond to those. There are so many threads I have wanted to contribute to but something held me back, saying "That would take more energy than I am willing to give." I have spent large amounts of time and energy carefully crafting a post, only to realize that actually putting it out there would be too much of a drain. I'm such a perfectionist, I put such a load on myself. For what? I've made so many posts and immediately thought "Why did I do that? What good did that do?" Once someone told me something like "there's a preview post button, why don't you use it?" That really hurt. Whatever high minded goals I have for my posts, my neuroses creep in. My need to be right and sound smart, my compulsive over-analysis. Being contradicted is painful, especially if it is by someone I respect. When someone says something that I don't like I come down hard on them in a offensive and patronizing way (if I ever do this to you, take it as a complement because I probably wouldn't say anything if I didn't respect you somewhat). So what of all this? What a wonderful opportunity for growth! That applies to interacting with the Homer Simpsons around here too. I try to avoid them, but I've had a few bouts. Well, to be fair, no one is a Homer Simpson, they just happen to act like one at a particular time (some more frequently than others). Best wishes to you all.

Silatgirl is the only person I have felt on the Shaktipat calls besides Susan and Santi. What an energy she has. A real Kali, that one. Welcome to the forum Andrea. It's a pleasure to see you. Tyler

Well well Taomeow Tightlips, I think you just gave away that "the one who looks like a cat" was in fact the correct answer.

Math and writing seem like destiny to me. Perhaps or perhaps not for music, but I would say I love it the most of the three. [EDIT: It is difficult me to separate perceptions of destiny with fancy, potential ability, and love of the thing. These are related, I guess. Just to be sure, what did you mean by destiny?] I had to put the breaks on the my obsessive pursuit of mathematics because I was getting completely stuck in my head and divorced from reality, and because of my inability to give form to my ideas. I am not sure when I will pick it up again in earnest. But it will definitely require the aforementioned obstacles be removed. A vision of 4D Minkowski space? Einstein would be jealous! The difficulty of really wrapping one's mind around the picture of spacetime that Poincare, Einstein, and Minkowki bequeathed has been an obstacle for physicists since the start. Case in point, Thomas precession. People were still thinking of particles like electrons in terms of Newton's picture of space and time, and could not figure out why something related to the electron's spin was different by exactly a factor of 2 from what they thought it would be. Then Thomas came along and said, well if you really think in terms of the kinematics of Minkowski spacetime the factor of 2 comes out automatically. Even Einstein had missed this! About science in general: Doing science depends on the one's ability to separate the world into distinct parts. From the viewpoint of spirituality this is fundamentally an illusory idea, making science, in an ultimate sense, an illusion as well, albeit a useful one. I didn't need any math to say that, so I'm wondering what your insight was.

Speaking of enlightened guitar playing IAjNJVZ1npI Sorry if that's cliche, but I still think many of those videos are amazing and that is my personal favorite (Kaizokuou ftw!). Here is a fun Larry Carlton (jazz fusion guitarist) cover. I find it very relaxing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTS8187NQ6w

My main attempts at creative expression have been through theoretical mathematics and music (mostly performance: self-taught in guitar, piano, dance and voice, but I aspire to composition). Writing, mostly expository, is a side interest. I alwasy run into the same feeling of what's "out there, in here" not being able to come together and manifest, like we discussed. MADDENING. I'm sure a personal reading would be best, but according to my free astrology reading from Chia's site, it showed earth as large, fire as medium, and the rest as small. Overactive spleen fits my personality well, don't know about the rest. Is that what you meant by main phase?

She is quite intense and mysterious, my second guess by a small margin. I am surprised more people haven't guessed her.

Hmmmm... Third row, third from cameraman's right, in the white jacket and black shirt.

Bump for Creation's question about creation.

Ahh, I forgot something I wanted to put in my big post of my favorite classical pieces. I have great memories of this one. Mussorgsky/Ravel - Pictures at an Exhibition: Baba Yaga and The Great Gate of Kiev What's more, I love watching this guy conduct!

I'm glad all the time I've spent reading old Tao Bums threads can help someone. That's cool that you specialize in brain qigong. What kind of training did you receive for that? Did your teacher not emphasize extreme caution for that type of thing? You have SFJane and Taomeow giving their experience of working directly with their brain energies (n.b. not kundalini) and opening themselves up to all the deep dark stuff inside themselves all at once and not being able to turn it off, and B.K. Frantzis warning very strongly that this is not something to play around with, and he speaks from having seen a lot of crazy stuff in China. I don't know what kind of deep dark stuff Blasto has inside of him, but I am willing to bet there is some. Will it do this to you no matter what? You say no, and I'm sure you're right. You said people who have trouble with this have some sort of genetically inherent issues. How does one know if one has these issues or not? Are there any other contraindications? Blasto said he overdid the MCO and seriously overheated rather recently. Is that not a red flag to you? If someone can be careful, listen to his body, ground himself, and not get carried away with cool sensations, I would not argue with your statement "go for it." But how many people do you think can really do that? What kind of experiences and training and attainments do you think would indicate that someone could responsibly mess with this stuff? Regards, Tyler

This post and her subsequent 3 posts in this thread are also relevant: http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?s=&amp...ost&p=39836

You might like to take a look at this thread, and pay particular attention to the posts by SFJane. http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?showtopic=4789

Oh! This makes sense to me now. It is not that yin inspires my yang creativity, it is the pull of the yin that causes my yang inspiration to manifest. The idea that without the yin I cannot manifest my inspiration is exactly what I feel, but I never thought of in that way, perhaps for the same reasons that caused Wilhelm to translate as he did. So thanks for that. BTW, I thought both sperm and egg cells only contained only half the total chromosomes needed for new life. So...

The catalogue is growing.

The real reason I thought of creativity as yang is because 1. I am a male 2. I am a very creative person (hence the screen name) 3. The "divine female who inspires" archetype resonates very strongly with me (e.g. this is one of my favorite paintings http://www.museumsyndicate.com/images/1/2133.jpg ) I.e. yin inspires yang to create. But I know this is not universal, and there are plenty of reasons someone might consider yin to be the creative. It's just my personal disposition. Your personal disposition seems to be opposite to mine. But that is not universal either. Someone else pointed out (much to my delight), it takes yin and yang together to create. That is universal.

Hmmm... in a sense everything is spiritual and in another sense nothing is spiritual. I'm not sure what you are asking. But my heart is with you. I too struggle with depression and anxiety, and used to desire to harm myself, and was once hospitalized for it. May the light of the Infinite One shine upon you.

If ever there was a perfect reply, this was surely it!

Yeah, I was waiting for someone to say this. I thought that yang was considered creative relative to yin because the sperm it is the "spark" that makes the egg start to divide. But there are bigger issues with what the OP said, and arguments about is x yin or yang are hardly productive, so I didn't say anything.