Todd

I think it is also very similar to some statements that Nan Huaijin makes about certain milestones on the spiritual path, such as completeing the hundred days without thoughts of sex. He often says things like "I don't know anyone who has done this."

Hi Freeform, This sounds interesting. Where can I read up on this? Todd

Freeform, We are talking about different levels of the force/no-force issue. Just to be clear, I made a living playing pool for about three years, and spent eight years more or less devoted to the game. I went through many ways of acheiving a flow state, including a sense of playfulness (which naturally tends to increase the higher the stakes are for me, though it is mostly expressed internally and in my level of play) and using phrases, and routines to trigger good states. In my experience, formal approaches to increasing performance work best in the short term, mostly due to an increase in focus and a temporary dropping of old patterns. Real improvement mostly comes from two things: practice/time, and awareness of patterns in the self. These patterns can occur on many different levels, from the body to one's relationship with the universe, and all levels inform one another. Awareness has little to do with momentary realization or intellectual categorization (pretty much any player worth their salt can tell you why they missed their last shot, but can they prevent it from happening again?). To be truly aware of something is to be able to drop it. The whole thing happens prior to words. My question has mainly to do with how we drop things that we are not yet aware of? The answer is obvious. Become aware of it. How do we become aware of what we are not truly aware of? There are a lot of ways that we can come up with: have more experiences, try new things, think of things in a new way, relax.... Do any of these things help? I think the answer is yes and no, and perhaps it is better to not talk about it at all. If a person can maintain the question, that is the best they can do. Or perhaps it is good to talk with someone who also maintains the question? Todd

I connect what you said above about finding a happy balance between too little and too much pressure with ideas of force vs no-force and effort vs. no-effort. Which is better? If I exert no effort then how do I correct my apparent failings. If i exert too much effort I tense up and am not able to express much of anything worthwhile. So what to do? To me, this is one those perennial questions, and since I keep asking it, I obviously don't have a good answer. Daoists tend to come down on the no-force side of things. Though how to explain alchemy? In my experience of pool, before becoming involved with cultivation in any conscious way, I realized that the best stroke was like nothing.... Though I could play great pool whilst exerting lots of effort, the best was always like nothing, at least in terms of tension in my body, and attachment to results. There was definitely something going on while I was playing, but there weren't any good words to attach to it. There's a Wang Xiang-Zhai quote that goes something like, "The less force, the more intense the exercise." I like that idea, but I don't know how to explain what makes an exercise without force intense. Where does this intensity come from? Is it the force of everything moving through one, when one drops all this egotistical forcing? I'm pretty sure thats the standard response, though I am sure there are much more subtle ways of phrasing it. Assuming I accept the standard response as true, how do I drop all of this egotistical forcing? First, I need to know that it is there. The more intimately I know it the better. Second, I need to drop it. If it could all be done at once, that'd be great. But there seem to be layers upon layers.... so thats why I said awareness is the only way I know to resolve the force, no force question. Its hard to force awareness though. I've tried a fair number of ways, though I definitely like meditation. It has been the best so far. It may be that force, no force, is not even the right question and that it will seem irrelevant at some point.

Hey Ian, I've been planning on getting a ball to sit on, but I'm not sure what size to get. I'm 6'5", so I'm pretty interested in your experience, now that you've been using it for awhile. Todd

Neimad, Snooker is a great game, from the little I have played of it. I think the comparison to martial arts is valid, though it is bit less dangerous to compete with full intent on regular basis in the cue sports... either more or less focus, depending on whether that danger deters one from competeing. About trying: I agree that people often use the phrase "I'll try to..." when their intent is weak. Taking a moment before uttering such a phrase to reframe one's intent is a great idea. I just wanted to make sure that you weren't trying to use the word formula of "I will..." in a magical way and lose track of what really mattered in action. As long as you recognize that what makes changing the way you phrase things effective is the adjustment to your intent that you make before uttering the phrase, and that if you start to rely on the phrase, the effect will likely fade, its all good. I think you already recognized that, so I feel a bit foolish for butting in. Thanks for listening though. Todd As far the whole force, no force question... I wish I knew an easy answer. The only thing that seems to help is awareness, developed however you like. Any suggestions?

neimad, I like how you have laid out your plan. It sounds like you have very clear intent and a recognition of the place from which you need to start. About pool: it was an obsession for about 8 years for me, so making a division between "something like pool" and personal goals seems arbitrary. I feel that it is like anything else, in that the more one looks into it, the more one will see. It has certain strengths and weaknesses as a practice though. The main strengths are that it is an endeavor in which it is difficult to blame anything but oneself for mistakes, and mistakes are immediately apparent. I can't count the number of times that I felt I'd figured it all out, or that I was in a very good emotional space and would play very well, only to quickly realize that something wasn't right, because I just missed that ball. Sometimes I end up digging pretty deep to find the source of my weakness, realizing all sorts of things about my reactions to social situations, conflicting motivations, ect... The game ends up being played with my entire life, if that makes any sense. I see the connections between last night's reading, or drinking or whatever, and my experience of the game today. I gets to the level that I am adjusting wordless intentions and non-intentions toward everything I see, and while playing, more and more of what I see is the table. Moving the balls is moving myself, and obvious. It is a sort of ecstatically evolving question and answer. The downsides are constant ego reinforcement, a push toward advesarial and dishonest relationships, and not being good for my back. I remember a discussion with the best player from Mexico about what makes a great player. He spoke about building relationships with spectators, so that one has a circle of support wherever one is, and about not engaging in gamesmanship, because it ends up reducing one's skill; sullies one's intention toward the game. He encouraged me to get out of the game though. "There's no life here. If knew how to do anything else, I would." I don't agree that there is no life in the game, but since starting to meditate, I don't miss it. Well, thats probably more than you wanted to know about pool, but I thought I'd defend my use of it as a potential source of wisdom. Todd BTW In no way can I agree that trying presupposes failure. To really try is to ask a pure question. Saying that there is no try is only a play on words in an attempt to psyche oneself into giving something an honest go. No one that I know of can ever be 100% sure of any result, and the most successful people I know (or at least the ones who inspire me the most) are also the most comfortable with that fact, and act with relatively pure intent regardless.

Neimad, On most levels I agree with you. I am even engaged in a similar experiement, though more with thought than with words. I've only been engaged in it for about a week, attempting to think good thoughts about people and things whenever I can. I agree that it does change the way people react to me. It also makes me aware of how much of my thought about individuals and manifestations has been negative. I feel a certain pressure in forcing myself to think along certain lines, and that this force must ultimately be abandoned. It may be useful to highlight and partially correct a negative tendancy in my personality (I actually think of it as more of an awareness exercise that will potentially lead to largely dropping verbal value judgements, and to opening to the good in everything, which I may be blocking out right now). Part of the reason I don't want to consciously force good thoughts long-term is from experience as a pool player. First off, if I am playing somebody who isn't necessarily the best player, but who has the basic skills to pull off a shot when he is feeling loose, I expect him to make, or come very close to making, a high-pressure shot if he prefaces that shot with a statement such as "I never make this", or "Watch me miss". If I am feeling particularly mercenary, I might try to counter the effect of that statement by saying some thing like, "You always make shots like this". Why does this work? Its hard to say for certain. I just know that it happens often enough that many people who regularly play recognize this effect and enact variations of this dialog in games. Internally, I can describe the process as a lifting of external and internal pressures and a clarification of intent. It can help to untie the mental knots that players and situations contribute to tying. Of course, positive statements can be helpful as well, especially in reinforcing an already fairly pure intention. Things quickly become more complicated at higher levels of play, but my inclination is to say that verbal formulations have less and less importance the better a player is. I can say, "I will miss this" and retain the intent to make it. Or I can say, "I will make this" and retain the intent to make it. I can say, "I'll try to make this" and know that I will make it. The key to forming a solid intent is to form it in a space that is untouched by words. Sometimes words can be used as a gateway to this space, but the less one needs to rely on words, the more solid the space will be. Words to give access, at least for me, quickly morph into words that prevent access. I feel the need to become more intimate with the space, forming connections with no go between. Thats a description of the microcosm of pool. Perhaps you will find something of relevance in there. Todd

I've been following this board for nearly a year, with a long break in the summer. People here have similar interests to me, so I find what you talk about to be generally very interesting. I was seriously considering not visiting this board anymore, however. I am booked up in terms of practices for as far into the future as I care to look, and I found that keeping up with everything you guys have been posting was seriously cutting into my disposable time. Today, however, I found myself in a discussion of Shen in relation to Jing and Qi, and in attempting to express my viewpoint I felt distinctly inarticulate. It made me realize that perhaps there is a practice to be found in attempting to express the experiences I have with cultivation and life in general. You guys are already doing this, so maybe I could join in from time to time. My vitals: I'm an oriental medicine student (2nd week). I started standing about two and a half years ago, inspired by Ken Cohen's book, and then Lam Kam Chuen's stuff. This eventually led to reading Wang Xiang Zhai's writings, then Bill Bodri's (mostly) free stuff on the web, then Nan Huai-chin's material, then working most of the way through Awakening101, on the web (still plan on going back eventually), which branches to Ramana Maharshi. After all that I still pretty much just stand. I am taking a Qigong course for school though, with Zhu Liping, and she is teaching us something I'd never heard of, Zhong Gong, which stresses standing with a hand mudra and doing reverse breathing with a feeling of breathing out through the hands. This is quite a change from my previous mental stance of just standing, but I have decided to give it an honest go for at least the 10 weeks of the course. Looking forward to some interesting conversations. Todd

Hey Cloud, His website is Meditationexpert.com. You can sign up for his newsletter, which occasionally has lengthy discussions of various topics (confucian cultivation being the most recent, though I still haven't gotten around to reading it), or you can go to his free articles page, which I believe is mostly old newsletters. There is also a 189page discussion of the Taoist way of classifying the stages along the path, which heavily emphasises chastity as necessary in the "beginning" stages. You can find this by following the STAGES link on the first page and then scrolling down to the bottom. He also has another long (book length) discussion of samadhi, which I haven't read yet. Also, if you find yourself with plenty of free time, there is Awakening 101, which has literally hundreds of links dealing with Zen, Buddhism, Advaita, Modern Masters, ect... as well as some more out there topics such as UFO's, Thunderbirds, and Shamanism. The introduction page cleared up some things about the different types of meditation for me, much more so than Bodri's material, and the rest of it ranged from mildly interesting to enlightening (to the extent that I am capable of knowing such a thing at this time). In the sixth folder there is a link to free book presenting a "comprehensive" method of meditation, which starts with breathing and eye movements, moves on to a mantra, then sleeping meditation, and ending with practicing the presence (I think). I would probably still be doing the mantra if I wasn't living with people and mostly standing as a practice. It has a pretty profound effect on either my perception of leg numbness, or else blood flow in my legs, because I can sit much longer while intoning it. Also my legs aren't asleep when I uncross them. Hope you find something interesting in all that. Todd