Todd

Gold, If you want to influence me, you might do better if you managed to stop mischaracterizing what I say. I would be much more receptive to considering your suggestions if I had a sense that you actually understood what I am trying to convey. I still do consider what you say, since I enjoy considering things and I enjoy learning, even from those who do not understand me. I am just making a suggestion, since you seem to have a strong desire to influence people. It is hard to have a cooperative relationship with someone whom you feel cannot really hear you. I have never suggested stopping verbalization. It may be useful as a change of pace, but I'm pretty sure that I have never suggested this as a long term path. I do not think that I have even specifically suggested it as a short term path. The closest I have come to that is suggesting moving attention from discursive mind to something else, if one has a strong habit of fixating on discursive mind. This is not stopping thoughts, since they can continue without attention fixed on them. This is not the first time that I have said this, so either you have a poor memory or you are intentionally mischaracterizing what I say. Please reread my previous post with this in mind and see if you come up with a different interpretation. To respond to your point about no verbal understandings, I would suggest that there is a strong relationship between verbal manifestations and psychic structures, and commitment to one is commitment to the other. The issue is commitment and not the presence or lack thereof of "contradictory" psychic structures. You have said yourself that psychic structures do not disappear, but return to potential, which is nowhere other than us, so really its all about commitment. Of course, commitment in the sense of invigorating as a temporary manifestation appropriate to the moment is useful, but I am referring to the more fixated sort of commitment that gets riled up when it is questioned, and limits perceptions in ways that are harmful to health. Kate, turning your discursive mind off?

I would say that commitment to any verbal understanding is eventually painful. This is because any verbal understanding is contradictory to experience on some level. If one is stronger, then one can argue for this understanding and can kind've muscle one's experience to fit in with this understanding and try to influence the world so that it better matches this understanding, but this is a false strength, because it is based on violence. It is a strength that postpones failure, while at the same time guaranteeing failure, because the first step was wrong and persevering in it only generates more pain. Instead of contradictory verbal understandings being the issue, it is commitment to verbal understandings that is violence. This is a very clear experience to me. Is it deep or shallow? I don't know, but it is clear. "No thing". No particular thing. Thats totally clear to me. Perhaps you have trouble getting it because you aren't able to reconcile nothing and something. They are not contradictory to me. The problem with all this talk of eliminating contradictions is that people get confused, because they meet something that seems contradictory on the surface and they decide that this is not good, or not appropriate, so they choose one over the other. This is violence, because oftentimes both are true, and not actually contradictory. It is internal violence, so it does not need to be imposed from the outside. It is alienating oneself from oneself. A better language would be reconciling contradictions, or realizing underlying unity of seeming contradictions. Your language encourages violence, when the actual experience is more one of recognition and then harmonization. If by this you mean that I have understood your meaning, then you are right. Not everyone will understand you. I think a lot of people will/do misunderstand you and use it to do violence to themselves and others. That is like equating my toe and my body. They are not equal, because you can cut off my toe, and my body will still be my body, just minus one of its parts. If you have all of your identity wrapped up in your toe, then it will be a hell'v'a lot more traumatic experience to lose that toe than otherwise (even though it'd probably still be pretty damn traumatic and not recommended). You might choose to sacrifice your whole body to protect that toe, instead of letting it go and saving the rest of the body. This is the kind've mistake that equating two unequal things can lead to.

This depends on your point of view. If your viewpoint is from mystery, then nothing contradicts. If your viewpoint is conventional understanding, then many seeming contradictions exist, especially in a very healthy person. In fact, the more contradictions that can be consciously held, the better. An example might be my sense of self: I can find all of these within me, that I am nothing, that I am somebody in particular, that I am everything, that I am all potential, that I am a man, that I have many roles, that I am none of my roles, that I have a name, that I am indescribable, that I have a state, that no state is me, that there is no self, that self is actual. I could go on, but my point is that in conventional understanding, many of these are contradictory. So from the conventional viewpoint, if I were to eliminate contradiction, then I would have to settle on some of these and throw out the others. This would be violence and limiting. I get that this is not what you are advocating, but at times your words suggest something like this. Perhaps there is an artifact in you that wants things to only be one way? I will say that in my experience none of the things that I listed is actually contradictory. They are all playing on the same team, as it were. It may be that at different times in my life, different experiences of self predominate, and some may become very quiet, but that doesn't change that they all play a part in the whole of my life manifestation. So I get what you are saying about coherence and non-contradiction. If a part of the self seems to be in conflict with another part, then there is a breakdown happening. I just worry that it can be easily misinterpreted in very unskillful ways. Harmonious seems like a less tricky word. Coherence also works-- its just the association with non-contradiction that is opaque. Also, I think that elements that are very different on the surface can create a very healthy tension. This is the experience of life. It is good if there is a knowing of non-contradiction, or inherent coherence in the midst of this tension though. Are you saying that there is not a deeper intent? Then what maintains unconscious beliefs? What keeps our hearts beating? What breathes us when we sleep? What heals a cut? No, its not separate in an actual way, as in two discrete objects, separated by other objects or space, but to equate the conscious intent with this deeper intent is very misleading. I will admit that satisfying mystery's intent is ridiculous, since there is no separation between its intent and what happens, so how can there be an intent, which is then satisfied? It then becomes just what is happening. I actually would not have been using the word intent if I were not speaking with you, since in my experience it is removed from where things are really happening. It is based in separation. It is a very useful concept in some situations, but not particularly useful for describing reality, and not actually the most powerful thing that I have encountered, which is silence. This is not the silence of stopping thoughts.

Oh, my. I'm not going to be able to respond to this whole post, using quotes. On the whole, I'd say that your view makes sense. I can see this view and I share similar views often. There are a few things that are asking to be expressed though. First, there is no guarantee that any method will work. If anything, there is only a guarantee that any method will fail. To understand this, we need to understand what it is to succeed and to fail. I think it is not uncommon for people to be able to see the viewpoint that success and failure are relative, depending on intent (e.g. If one's intent is to eat ice cream, then one has succeeded when one eats ice cream). But the intent that most people are aware of often changes, so it isn't really reliable as a guide to lasting success or failure. The reason that it changes is that it isn't really coherent. It is actually important for a healthy human intent to have contradictory tendencies, which vary according to the situation so that one is capable to varied responses appropriate to conditions (as we discussed earlier). The only truly coherent intent is the mystery. As such, one can't really call it truly coherent intent, since its the mystery. As you stated, it is its mysteriousness which makes it alive. In order to succeed, we must satisfy the mystery's intent. And yet, it is the mystery. It won't be defined, can't really be pinned down. As such, any rigidly defined method will obviously fail at some point, since it is not alive. Even very subtly defined methods eventually fail. Ultimately, the only method that succeeds is the method of the moment, generated by the mystery. From a certain point of view, every method is the method of the moment. This information is either not useful at all, or extremely useful, depending on your point of view. One can reject this information outright. One can take this information, adopt it as a method to justify any old thing and go to sleep. One can also take this information and stop seeking for methods, but this end to seeking does not change the fact of intent, and it can and does continue to manifest methods in all shapes, sizes and forms, much as you describe your method manifesting. From the outside, it might not be obvious, who is consciously living as a manifestation of this intent and who is still unconscious. The "methods" and even the superficial intents could be the same, but one is fixated on a partial view, whereas the other is exploring a partial view without fixation. The lack of fixation comes from the recognition that another method could be manifesting and it would be equally the mystery's intent, or more simply, that this method is the mystery's intent. The "this" doesn't change, as the method changes (if that makes any sense!). In terms of your stance that your method is guaranteed to work, I would say that that is only true if it is engaged in with integrity. By integrity I mean openness to a deeper intent which supercedes methods, since it is their source. Ultimately all methods boil down to this openness to a deeper intent. If your method is engaged in without this integrity, it can easily become non-helpful self-criticism (which is basically just the assertion of new negative beliefs without really encountering or examining one's underlying beliefs), cataloging of ideas about one's psyche without transformation, managing beliefs to generate relatively stable states that still lack wisdom, or even worse, deciding that one has gotten one's beliefs really coherent and so one is now way more enlightened than everyone else. You might say that such people wouldn't really be applying your method, and I agree, but what exactly is your method? It seems much more flexible than something that can be simply said. I think we both aim at introducing people to this flexibility. My method has the ordering a little different from yours. I agree that there really are no short cuts, and that the idea of short cuts can really get in the way, but even though there is no faster way between two points (remember, we're talking relatively here) than a straight line, it is certainly possible to spend a lot of time walking in circles. --- I also find that it is powerful and useful to not associate the prime mover with any particular experiences. That has been a huge stumbling block for me, no matter how clear I may have been conceptually on this issue. I guess I'll leave the rest to come up again, or else I might look back at your post and see what else comes up.

Examining one's beliefs is very important for this very reason. It's precisely because you can get hurt that sitting on a mat and summarily ignoring your thinking and beliefs in order to bliss out is not a good long term approach. Have I ever suggested sitting on a mat and summarily ignoring your thinking and beliefs in order to bliss out as a long term approach? Or even a short-term approach? Directing one's attention to something other than thinking and beliefs for periods of time can be very useful, but I have never emphasized bliss as the purpose. I think I have mostly emphasized truth, utility, and broader perspective. Beliefs have a direct relationship to aesthetics. When you know your beliefs, you know the aesthetics of your life as well. It's not clarity, it's intent. What you're describing is a way for the intent to flow such that it will look to an ignorant observer as if you should have been hit, but you aren't hit. It's possible to have what you refer to as clarity and simply to allow yourself to be hit, as if it's not a very big deal. The reason I criticize clarity is because I see it as counter-productive. By trying to see things clearly you're actually becoming more crazy over time. Eventually you might actually convince yourself that you got it, you can finally see things as they really are. If that happened, it would be the beginning of the horizons collapsing. I am starting to see that what you call coherence I am calling clarity. Your criticism of clarity is my criticism of coherence-- specifically a crystallization of view based upon false assumptions/limiting motives, and that the only true clarity/coherence is already present and whole and does not increase or decrease, even in the presence of relative lack of clarity/coherence. Its kinda funny, in a way. Perhaps you will notice that your argument for increasing coherence depends upon a less coherent state, which then becomes more coherent. The method that you propose is becoming aware of one's beliefs (which we created but then somehow forgot, even though we still continue to invigorate them) and then reconciling them, as a function of our awareness (or intent, which you have manifesting awareness (please correct me if I am wrong)). This is essentially the same process by which relative clarity increases, using different words. First, there is no source in the way you describe. Strictly speaking, this is right. Everything just is. But the idea of a source or a prime mover is useful in some contexts. You used it yourself in your diagram of power coupling (I had to look up the definition of coupling to be sure I understood you. Are you using that term in the computer science sense of degree of dependency of one module on another, or as just as a link, transferring power?): "As I see it, the power coupling looks roughly like this: 1. You 2. (optional) Thoughts 3. Beliefs 4. Experience" What I am calling the source is what you list as You. Secondly, if someone pays attention to this strange source, they'll be ignoring everything else. That's how attention works. Attention is selective. You keep forgetting that I suggest connecting with or recognizing this source, seeing what it reveals, trusting it, and then seeing what unfolds from there. What unfolds is not a trivial thing. It quite literally can be anything, since this source or You, is the only thing that ultimately has power. It is the intent, as you use the term. If it wants to, it can turn attention to core beliefs. Or in your language, if you want to, you can make your core beliefs more coherent, whether automagically, or via a process of deep, slow, mixed active and passive contemplation. It/You is not limited to this, which is why I value it so much. Just to make sure that this point is clear, I do not advocate fixed attention on any one thing. If I were to interpret you as you have interpreted me, then I would accuse you of advocating blindness, because placing attention of beliefs means one is ignoring sensations, true nature, day to day life, surface thoughts, etc.... You could say its all beliefs, and I could slightly more accurately say its all You/source. Oh wait, maybe I did imply that. Sorry. Only if you intend to use such state this way, but the state you describe as "following the source" doesn't automagically force this outcome. Thank god! If there was only one way that the infinite potential explores itself, then that would be kinda boring, don't you think? There is no such thing as absence of beliefs. Didn't we discuss this already? You can change what you believe, but you can't nullify them. Your beliefs can become very flexible, but they can't vanish altogether. Well, thats why I said "(or perhaps more accurately, what is revealed as the death grip on them relaxes)". Lets look at this idea that beliefs cannot disappear, though. Are you postulating some fixed quantity of beliefs that never changes, a kind of law of conservation of beliefs? How many is it? Or is it not fixed, but ever increasing (actually, that seems more likely than the fixed number hypothesis)? I would suggest that although beliefs sure seem to be a necessary component of manifestation, that their number is not fixed, and that individual beliefs do disappear, and do not necessarily need to be replaced by other beliefs. Or since infinite potential does not decrease, one might also say that beliefs can cease to be invigorated, without invigorating an equal number of other beliefs, or perhaps any beliefs at all. I am not even willing to say that beliefs are 100% definitely necessary for manifestation. A bending of intent perhaps, but this doesn't need to form beliefs as we currently experience them. I maintain it as an open question, not ready to collapse my horizons on this issue just yet. Really? What is "that" which never bought into one of them? Sounds like nonsense and it sounds like you're contradicting what we've talked about earlier as well. Remember that we agreed that silent, tacit beliefs, core beliefs, all those are intentionally invigorated by your mind, by the totality of your being. It's this totality of commitment that gives those beliefs such force that you don't even have to be conscious of them in order for them to operate. No beliefs operate despite yourself. They all operate because at some level you've invigorated them (and then forgot this fact). So what this means is that there is no "that" which never bought into them. Consider this. This "that which never bought into core beliefs" is more powerful than the conscious layer of the mind. If this deep and powerful layer of the mind doesn't do anything to be pro- or con- anything, then it falls to relatively powerless conscious mind to be the one creating this whole world. If that's the case, then manifesting magic in the world should be joke easy, since there is nothing to counteract the conscious intent in this deluded view. "That which never bought into core beliefs" has indeed bought into them, and is maintaining this entire show. And the reason you can't willy nilly screw around with this show is because you've cut yourself off, fragmented yourself off from that which runs the show. If you then just settle into intentionally inactive observation you'll get what you intend to happen -- status quo. Well, from the point of view that it creates and invigorates them, then obviously it has bought into them. But this buying in isn't as a consumer of someone else's product, or line of reasoning. It is never truly caught, since it can change them at will. They are its intent, as you say. Giving attention to true nature is a means to bridge the apparent fragmentation "off from that which runs the show." It is always available, since this fragmentation is a function of beliefs and not actual, as per your own definition of mind. There is nothing inactive about the sort of observation that occurs from/as source. Remember, this is the sort of observation that automagically transforms beliefs. It is precisely the assumption that nothing will happen when I stop adding intent upon intent that keeps people from ever coming to recognize their true nature, and that their intent is really what's running the show, and if they just their get heads out their asses, then it really has a way of revealing what needs to be revealed and generally working things out. Because first of all, discursive mind is volitional. It's not something other than yourself. It's you talking to yourself. It's not an "it". Don't refer to it in 3rd person. Discursive mind is a part of, but not the whole of, the self. You use "it" three times and then say not to use "it". The discursive mind is not any more or less me than my toe. Second, when you turn away from the discursive mind you're not actually facing that which you really are! That depends on what you turn toward. In an ultimate sense, the discursive mind is included, but if one has all of oneself tied up in it, it is very useful to untie those knots. Precisely. Not less! Only different. "If so, then I'll have to define interpretation as conceptual addition to bare experience, where concepts are defined as mental chatter that one can communicate to another person using words. Still no difference?" I'll just tack on, "in amount" here, to be clear. Power over one's own limitations. The same limitations that are one's intent? Be careful, you might start arguing for clarity again!

No you aren't. If you were, you'd be able to admit that things can't really get more or less clear. For a thing to be more clear it has to be perceived in a way that's closer to its true state. If there is no true state for anything, then there is no such thing as getting closer or moving away from it. Thus there is no such thing as clear or muddy perception. I have studied this very issue extensively. Ultimately I reject the idea of seeing things more or less clearly. When people talk about it, I know what they are trying to say, but they are all deluded. People generally think that things have true states, or true natures, and we can get closer and further away from those. Of course I don't think that. I know how to talk to people who have this baseless belief simply thanks to me having had that same belief in the past. At the same time I know it's nonsense. Now then, things aren't muddy or clear except relatively. So this entire discussion is purely about aesthetics. It's like comparing different brands of beer and discussing which one has a more velvety texture and which one goes down smoother. We all have our preferences. Your argument that things don't have a true state consisted of a description of how a teacup appears differently in different contexts, and so no pure, true teacup can be found. I stated that nothing that I was saying depended upon the presence of a true state of a teacup as you defined true state. I do not depend on knowing the teacup in some pure form, divorced from context. In any given context (and take context to mean whatever level you like, out to the most profoundly altered core beliefs) the teacup has a way of appearing, which one can perceive more or less clearly. I get that in terms of the ultimate there really is no clarity or lack of clarity. All just is, and is equally a revelation of the same reality. This is a part of the basis for my argument that truth is available no matter the state of one's beliefs. But we were talking about relative clarity. You can dismiss it as aesthetics, and I get that point of view, but its not the aesthetics of which brand of beer is more velvety. Is the aesthetics of stepping into the road and getting run over or not. It is the aesthetics of alienating your child or not. It is the aesthetics of financial ruin or success. It is the aesthetics of being run by one's beliefs unconsciously, or encountering one's beliefs and their changing to something more harmonious (or whatever word you're using to mean preferable at the moment). If you have trouble seeing how this plays out, I can flesh it out. For now I'll just explain the first example. As we step into the street a car either is or isn't just about to pass through the space that we move into. If it is, then we will be hit. If it isn't, then we won't. If we don't perceive the situation clearly, then we might walk into the street when we will be hit. It may be that it is possible to have some super clarity, where one sees how thoughts are creating the street and the cars and one's body, and so through this super clarity, one is able to step into the street, while at the same time neglecting to create the thought of being hit, or creating some other thought, which would be preferable to being hit, and thereby circumvent what would be the reality of the situation for most people, but that doesn't change that it is relative clarity that brings about this result. You can argue that all of this is still just aesthetics, and thats your right, but holding onto such an attitude has its own outcomes. My personal preference is to rely on a good mix of active and passive observation. Sometimes I allow myself to get passive. Sometimes I become active and observe what happens then. I use every modality I am capable of to understand what I am capable of. I don't restrict myself in any kind of formulaic manner. I am not committed to action. I am not committed to non-action. I am not even committed to clarity. Good for you! Really! You can perhaps say that I am committed to wisdom, and then to power right after that. Wisdom first, power second. On the days I feel that convention deserves some respect (which happens often), I also put compassion into the number three spot, right after power. That's my personal order of priorities. More on power later. Because people's true nature is one of limitlessness. But you advise people to become silent and ignorant (to ignore something is to be ignorant, especially when that something is as life-shaping as core beliefs are). In other words, you advise people to embrace a limitation. You have a noble intent, but you're just unwise because you haven't connected all the dots yet. This is why you found a formula that works for you and you decided to stick with it. Needless to say, me and you will never agree on this. I see your method as ranging between somewhat useful if the person doesn't become dogmatic about it, or very harmful if the person applies your method in a rigid and uncritical manner. Considering that most people around here lean toward dogma, it's kind of a harmful method actually. You're giving people what they superficially crave (mental laziness), which is the wrong thing to do right now. A better way is to do what I do. Periods of relaxation followed by periods of effort. Mix and match. Adapt. Bend. Go with the circumstances and don't get stuck on any formula. Always put living wisdom ahead of any and all formulas, dogmas, and rituals. Your last two paragraphs could just as easily be me talking about your method, though I wouldn't have added the "never agree on this" part. The first paragraph is a reflection of your misunderstanding of what I have been saying. I have never advocated for some wholesale ignoring of core beliefs. I advocate for paying attention to the source, coming to know it intimately, and then seeing where that leads. It can form a powerful basis from which to become aware of one's core beliefs, and let go of them in favor of what is revealed in their absence (or perhaps more accurately, what is revealed as the death grip on them relaxes). Core beliefs can be strongly highlighted when we contact that which never bought into one of them, even for a second. I have said that it is possible to access this, without first making one's core beliefs especially coherent. Any approach will be toxic if it is engaged in dogmatically. Surely you can see how a dogmatic understanding of your approach can lead to a lot of ineffective mind referring to mind, staying at a very surface level of verbal thoughts, or even if it goes deeper, to a lot of fiddling with beliefs in order get just the right set of beliefs, to make some more preferable experience, without ever really discovering what one really is. For your approach to lead somewhere, a person must engage in it with deep integrity, or just make a mistake somewhere on the way. The same is true with my approach. True nature cannot be hidden in the manner you imagine. Specifically discursive thought has no power at all to hide your true nature. What hides the true nature are beliefs. For example, if you believe that the true nature can be hidden by discursive thought, that kind of self-limiting belief will obscure the recognition of your true nature. I wasn't referring to discursive thought when I was speaking of hiding true nature (despite the fact that it can't be hidden). I was referring beliefs. Discursive thoughts reflect beliefs in some sense, and can distract us from beliefs, so I can see how that might seem to hide true nature as well (even though it doesn't), now that you bring it up. You use the term "discursive mind" in a pejorative sense. Your attitude toward it is to dismiss it, or to ignore it. This is a very much partial attitude that leads you toward a giant limitation and ignorance instead of toward limitlessness. How exactly does suggesting that someone move their attention from the discursive mind, which previously was the place that they constantly looked to tell them what they and everything else is, to what they actually are (or even to anything else at all, for that matter!) is introducing some new limitation? If it is interpreted as ignore the discursive mind in all situations, then yes, this is a new limitation, even though it might be freeing on some level, but if it is, "Hey, there is something other than your discursive mind going on. You might want to check it out, really!", then please, tell me how this is introducing a new limitation. I have no idea what is an especially conceptual concept. I'm not even going to try to understand this. It's like a supremely buttery butter. No idea what that is either. An especially conceptual concept is a concept that is further removed from sense experience than another concept. An example of a relatively less conceptual concept is "water". I can point to water. A more conceptual concept is "wetness", since it requires separating out a single quality from at least one thing. And in the sense that "wetness" is often used, it refers to quality that is conceptually separated out of many different things, or applied to many different things, depending on your point of view, and can be further separated into many different degrees of "wetness". An even more conceptual concept is "perfection", since it is a concept that refers to the state of satisfying various arbitrarily defined parameters of said perfection, which are all other concepts. I can point to something that I think is perfect and a lot fewer people will agree that I am pointing to perfection than would agree that I was pointing to water if I were pointing to it, or to an example of wetness. This is because perfection is more reliant on concepts for its perception, and they have different concepts making up their concept of perfection as it relates to whatever object I am pointing at. This is all relative, but if I have to keep saying that, then maybe we're not understanding each other very well. It's contextualized intent. In other words, whatever you intend is generally what happens, and this includes interpretations. And intent is not something that operates in the void (except at the highest level), but it operates within a certain context. This answer applies to interpretation in general. The questions were directed specifically to the "Lord" interpretation. It's impossible. If you ever said to yourself, "Right now I am interpreting less" that would simply be your interpretation. You can't interpret more or less, only differently. Really? So lets say I see someone open a mailbox. I perceive that event without naming any of those objects. I have no idea how to describe such a perception, but I think that you have access to such a way of perceiving, so perhaps you know what I mean. I could also not only name all of those objects, but I could start telling a story about it, with many far-flung assumptions and perceived connections, such that I decide that I need to move house within the hour, or else the world will end. Are you saying that there is not less interpretation in one of these examples? If so, then I'll have to define interpretation as conceptual addition to bare experience, where concepts are defined as mental chatter that one can communicate to another person using words. Still no difference? True contemplation cannot be obscured by anything at all, ever. Alternatively, what obscures contemplation are beliefs. For example, if you believe that the discursive thoughts have the power to obscure true contemplation, your experience will confirm that for you. You'll just find whatever limitation you believe in to be generally true in your experience. It just means you've created a self-fulfilling prophecy for yourself. I agree, including the belief that people cannot readily access true nature except through investigating beliefs, and then only after a very long time and a lot of effort. And frankly, as long as you're not hurting too many people too much, and as long as you're having a good time with it, there is nothing wrong living like that. That's what conventional living is all about. It's a kind of enjoyable limited ignorance. It comes replete with paths which pretend to take you beyond convention, but which in reality are just part of the convention and keep you enmeshed in it. Why? Because those paths don't challenge any of your core beliefs. Are you going to die with largely the same worldview you were born with? Are you just tweaking it a bit here and a bit there? That's good enough for some people. It is true-- at some point it is important to challenge core beliefs, though, as you suggest, not necessarily as a project. The opinions have their "own" energy whether or not I choose to aggregate them under my personal identity. Simply observe other people from your point of view. Other people do not embody your identity, and yet they go around doing what is natural to them. So this proves that you don't need to slap your identity on everything in order to make things go boom. People will clash without your personal involvement as long as you believe in free will for all people, or as long as you have other beliefs that enable such manifestations. Alternatively you can freeze all the people in their tracks, and/or make them peaceful by the force of your mind. You'd be chocking the living heck out of them and destroying the very meaning of what it means to be a person in the process. Ever read Dune? Think of Leto's peace, if yes. It's a stifling, brutal kind of peace. It's peaceful on the surface, but it's vicious and brutal at heart level. In other words, I can create a universal peace by disempowering people within the space of my mind and by making them into my puppets, or otherwise, making them less meaningful and less free. If I did that, I'd be in peace, but also alone. I'd be one without equals. Certainly doable, but it's not to my taste. In fact, I decided I will give people even more power than before and I will ratchet up the creative and beautiful chaos everywhere. When every person is Lord, there will be no such thing as leadership and followership. All the dogmas will fall and no one will command an army of dittoheads anymore because no one will be stupid enough to yield one's power to be used by others. This time is coming because it is my intent. Fun times! Its not so impressive when you consider that you are all those other people, and giving them their freedom is only really giving yourself freedom. Given that you are everything, how does the question of power come into play? Power of what, over what? In my view, the obsessive movement, either toward or away from power is a symptom of a rather limited view. So you agree with me then. Grudgingly. Well, I'm glad that you agree with me. I had gotten the impression from what you wrote that you felt that it would necessarily be dishonest to not voice an opinion in deference to a deeper movement, but now that I reread what you wrote when the subject first came up, I see that I misinterpreted you. I think reason can exist without any kind of consent, but not the other way around. Because you don't consent to things, but to other sentient beings opinion of those things. Reason is consistency of beliefs and experiences and this can be completely self-referential. Consent is an alignment of sentient beings' intentions and it has very little meaning outside the network of peers. I misinterpreted you again here. Thanks for the clarification. As defined here, reason and consent do not seem like a good basis to guide my direction in life.

I lied. I want to respond to this with quotes. The thing is, things don't have a true state. Things have a state in which they are stably manifest, but this state, like we talked about earlier, is kind of like a vortex, and it's moving around. So for example, if I am looking at a tea cup in a room that's lit with a red light, I see it a certain way. If I am looking at the same tea cup outside, in the sunny weather conditions, I see a cup that looks rather differently again. If we bring the cup back indoors and look at it under the candlelight conditions, then again it looks differently. Which of these experience is the true cup as it really is? Well, I think the best realization is to realize that actually there is no true cup at all. Whatever you see is whatever stabilized given the circumstances of your psyche. So none of it is "what it is." Things don't have a true state that different from a false state, except conventionally. But even conventionally, it's a troublesome subject where you'll find plenty of disagreement. So in other words, you seem to think that we are constantly mentally pulling and pushing on all the phenomena we observe, and thus we distort those phenomena. As soon as we relax a bit and let the phenomena be "themselves", we'll start seeing the true form of those phenomena. And here I am telling you, it's a false hope. Relaxing does not bring you closer to the truth than does straining. You have to exhaust the meaning of both straining and relaxation to really understand this. Now, relaxation tends to feel better than straining, so it's still a good idea to praise it, but I think one should be careful not to give relaxation a truth-giving character that it doesn't necessarily deserve. Relaxed approach, effortless intent, I praise these not because they are more true, but because they are more powerful and more sustainable. They are as false as anything else though. Consider the fact that people relax all the time, but at the same time, people's delusions do not get cleared up by relaxing. It seems obvious to me. I mean, if relaxation by itself was some kind of truth serum, well, all the laid back people would be wizards and sages. We don't observe that, in my view. It's obvious to me that not all relaxations are alike. Some relaxations are better than the others, just like some efforts are better than the others. Some people relax into wisdom, others relax into the status quo. And believing that things have some kind of true state is delusional, in my view. Things are never anything other than what they are. Why not? Because things don't really have a true state. All things are dynamic, although the speed of change can sometimes be glacial. When I talk about the way things are, I am not referring to a stable, true state. I am talking about their manifestation in a given moment. I haven't done a study on this or anything, but my experience is that when I am invested in the outcome of something, it often is more difficult to view things clearly. As I gain more perspective and add less biased energy, then I see things more clearly and decisions come more easily. This doesn't have anything to do with true states really. Now that I think of it, I remember a RSA youtube video that cited studies showing that people did better with some incentive, but beyond that basic level, more incentive actually harmed results, especially if the task was more complex. Studies aside, does your experience suggest that biases and strong investment in outcome help you to see things more clearly? It is indeed available. But you don't want to make people's own minds their own worst enemies to expose this availability. Being willfully ignorant doesn't make you into a sage and it doesn't enhance the availability of the mystical states. It's just the opposite. Its seems like you're making a big leap here. How exactly does reacquainting people with their true nature make enemies of their minds? If it is because they start to see all the ways that they compulsively hide their true nature from themselves, there is nothing in that that requires the making of enemies. Its not different from contemplation, it just starts at a different place. I meant this in a conventional sense. For example, I am sitting in the chair typing this post. I can return to this experience many times at will. It doesn't mean it's exactly the same, but it's same enough to warrant me calling what happens here "a return to typing." So when I asked whether or not you can return to that experience that you felt at 14, I didn't mean the precise replica, but something that's largely similar. Obviously some experiences are harder to return to than others. Specifically spiritual experiences that lie outside convention and outside the day to day normalcy are harder to return to. Well it depends on what level of similarity you require when you say the same experience. The higher the level of similarity, the rarer the experience. Within the level of similarity of accessing true nature, that is always available, though depth of recognition can vary. Also the reaction to it is very much different now. That part of the spectrum of feeling/experience does come from time to time, though, and isn't that rare. Those feelings/experiences are pretty conditional, so they aren't what I would call true nature. Concepts are about as non-conceptual as they get. What is conceptual in a concept? Nothing. Just check it out for yourself if you don't trust me. I meant conceptual in the conventional sense. By that I mean word based, and particularly word based without direct reference to apparent objects of the senses. I'm guessing that when you say there is nothing conceptual in a concept that you are saying that concepts do not exist in the head, but are an aspect of existence, shaping experience in concrete ways. That doesn't change that perfection is an especially conceptual concept. OK, in that sense everything you are saying is also an interpretation, so there was no need to call my attention to that fact as if it was something only I was committing. (or something that was committed in only one specific instance, as opposed to constantly and by all parties) Thats true. Some interpretations are less skillful that others though. How does the interpretation affect your experience? How does it affect the experience of those you share it with? Where does it come from? Is it possible to interpret less? Thinking is essential. It's misleading to say that contemplation can be done in the absence of thought. Not all thought sounds like words either. When people try to stop their thoughts, they really get lost. I learned how to stop my thoughts long time ago, and let me tell you, it did not make me even a tiny bit wiser or smarter. Having thoughts or not having them, I was the same genius or the same moron I always was. There was no real difference in my beliefs or in my state of being. Why not take it further? Some people think that stopping breathing is even better than stopping thought. Why don't you stop your breathing in order to contemplate? When that's done, just keep taking it further and further. See if there is a stopping point somewhere down the line, or if it's chasing an ever receding horizon. I agree here. When the discursive mind is silent, there still can be thought. This is the type of thought that is particularly useful in contemplation. The discursive mind doesn't need to be quiet for this thought to go on, but it sure does make it more obvious. If we keep looking to the discursive mind and our judgments, without making the break that allows true contemplation, and think that that is some path to truth or clarity, then I think we will mostly be very disappointed. This is not to suggest any forceful stopping of the discursive mind. As the attention moves elsewhere, it becomes less relevant. I disagree. Because all people are different, all people have opinions that are disagreeable to others. To the extent you cushion those opinions of yours during communication, is the extent to which you misrepresent the state of your heart. This is only true if you identify with your opinions. If you don't identify with your opinions, then communication has nothing to do with some objectified subjective truth which is communicated or not. It is a creative response to the environment. In this case, honesty is not bound to particular opinions or ways of expressing those opinions. It could be more honest for me to refrain from saying something that I have a strong sense will be hurtful than to say that thing because I think I should because its what the tough honest guys do. It can also be more honest to say the hurtful thing, if in my heart of hearts I have a strong sense that it is the best possible thing I can do right then. In this view, honesty is an expression of a deeper movement, and not of the state of my discursive mind in any given moment. Ultimately whatever direction you choose is the right one and what makes it right is you. Relatively the right direction is whichever one obtains maximum reason and consent, both. Too much consent and too little reason is as bad as too much reason and too little consent. Both reason and consent are important for the convention to remain healthy. This makes sense. I have tended to be weaker on the consent side, so this is one of the reasons that I have been emphasizing it recently. Consent and reason are two sides of the same coin, and you can't really have one without the other. To what are you consenting, if you have not the reason to perceive it? And how can one have the use of reason to perceive clearly, if one cannot consent to things appearing as they do? Edit: For quote color. Bright yellow was not my most inspired choice.

In the interest of time, I'm gonna try the replying to quotes approach. Kind of. Think about it. You see what you want to see. Agree? Yes, what you observe, be it this computer screen here, or some subtle and very abstract object of consciousness such as a belief, is intentional. We weren't talking about what is seen, we were talking about what sees. Is intent what sees? Moreover, many beliefs are best observed in action. In other words, when you observe yourself act in a certain way is when you can more truly observe what you actually believe as opposed to what you profess to believe. I find that sometimes there is a difference between what I profess to believe or what I sort of wished I believed, and what I actually believe. That difference is a disturbing one, and in my opinion, not seeing my beliefs clearly has made my life more difficult than it needs to be in some sense. Of course in another sense, everything is just as it should be, so there is no problem. In particular experimenting inside lucid dreams can demonstrate very clearly how beliefs exist and operate in a way that we weren't aware of at first. This has been an essential process for me. I'm glad that it works for you. Maybe you're confused. You think seeing clearly means filling your field of vision with objects that have sharp, crisp outlines. This is where you are confused. I do not think seeing clearly means filling my field of vision with objects that have sharp, crisp outlines. What gave you that impression? I knew my description of it was impressionistic, but I am surprised that you got this from what I wrote. That could very well be seeing unclearly. Maybe seeing clearly is seeing everything muddy and washed out. When you look for clarity, you're looking for some kind of preferential vision, are you not? If not, then you'll recognize there is ultimately no such thing as seeing things clearly. Everything is already as clear as it will ever be, in a sense. For the most part I agree. Except that clarity is clear, not preferential. Clarity can be of confusion, or sorrow, or anything. Looking for clarity is preferential, and I don't see anything wrong with preferences. The relative clarity is relative (really a relationship between consciousness and absolute clarity), and absolute clarity can take any form and so is diminished by nothing. And yet, many of us are unhappy. Some of that unhappiness is necessary and we shouldn't get rid of it. But some of it, I think, is wasted or unnecessary unhappiness that we can do better without. To actually know what is what requires one to have a huge, very wide perspective. This hugeness is of two kinds. One kind of hugeness is to get very very close to things and to see the details of operations. Another hugeness is to get very very far from things and to see the big picture. If you only see the big picture but not the minutia, or if you only see the minutia but not the big picture, then your vision is not yet mature. You have to see it all. Everything. From every level of magnification. From at least 2, or even 100 perspectives, simultaneously. I agree, though it doesn't necessarily have to be simultaneous. Such simultaneity is one of those perspectives. There is. All seeing is contextualized, and from the point of view of that context, it is indeed directional and intentional. But don't take my word for it. Just keep paying attention as you already have. Challenge yourself. I don't agree that context necessitates direction or intention. If you could clarify this point, that might be helpful. My experience is that seeing can happen at a level that introduces no direction. It is as if the seeing happens as things return to nothingness. Relative clarity of seeing has a way of impacting the next arising, in that the clearer the seeing, the more freedom there is in the next arising, hence the tendency of things to change that before seemed stable. I've had an profound visionary experience long time ago when I've experienced nothing less than the Omniscience itself. I've seen all things unmade and remade. I was God. I saw it all and knew it all and there was nothing left for me to see or to know. And yet a friend I had at the time challenged me and questioned the meaning of my experience. He didn't demean anything or denigrate it. He just questioned it in an honest way. This is the best thing that happened to me. Why so? Because I've become infinitely more omniscient since then. I've exposed many more prejudices and biases on my part. I've exposed emotional attachments I didn't think I had. And so on. In other words, contemplation really opened my eyes in ways that the experience of omniscience alone could not. Peak experiences most often have a component of interpretation to them. It is the interpretation that makes them "peak", just as it is the interpretation that makes low experiences low. For example, Omniscience is a somewhat arbitrary word choice, though it does color one's experience of what it refers to. That is not to say that there are not many different non-ordinary experiences that one might have, but as you refer to somewhere else in here, wisdom itself is not a peak experience, and it doesn't lie in any of these interpretive colorings. It is then I realized that nothing is wasted. Nothing is completely wrong. Omniscience is not completely right. Our relative experience is not completely wrong or completely mundane. They illumine one another. This illumines that. That illumines this. There is interplay. All is valuable in terms of vision. Muddy vision is essential to clear seeing. Confusion is perfect knowledge. Perfect knowledge is confusion. Confusion is confusion. Perfect knowledge is perfect knowledge. I got this understanding only on the back of experience and contemplation, combined. I agree. Now it's been some time, and I can honestly say that if I had to let go of my contemplation or of my experience, and I had to lose one, I'd choose to lose the experience of omniscience. Because contemplation over the long term is that much more powerful. Seems like it would be a good choice. The so-called peak experiences are powerful and precious. If I can, I want it all. I don't want to have to discard something. But at the same time, worship of the peak experience is false, because it sells short what can be learned from the ordinary experience. (And in my book lucid dreaming is an ordinary experience that anyone can easily experience, if so desired, unlike Omniscience, which is not whatsoever easily experienced.) I don't really agree here. The particulars of your Omniscience experience may never be experienced by any given person, not would I suggest that it should be, but an intimate experience of the source of that experience is readily available to anyone who is interested. Interesting that it is this conversation that prompts you to describe something you've never even tried to describe before. What do you think is the significance of that? Or perhaps you think it's all random? I often do things that I have never done before, so in that sense its not particularly significant. On the other hand, there is a quality to this conversation that is not usual, though similar to (and obviously not identical to, thank god) experiences that I have had with other people. Well, if we go with "my" theory of envisioning, then the answer is "a lot." What exactly is your theory of envisioning again? I'm sorry if I am being dense. I make a distinction between peak spiritual experiences and wisdom. It's possible to get started on the spiritual path thanks to a strong peak experience. It's not possible to get started on the spiritual path thanks to the perfection of wisdom. This is a very useful distinction to make. The experience that I shared was not a peak spiritual experience, primarily because I was not seeking it and I had no context for it, so I didn't have much basis to interpret it, hence it was not "peak". Given that I did not do any of those things, then it slipped right in and went very deep and radically changed my life without my knowledge. It began a process, which is what I was referring to when I said "deeper movement" several times in my last post. This deeper movement is how wisdom interacts with my manifestation (though I'm pretty sure I can come up with a better description than that some other time, since that one feels pretty off). You might say that it kicked off an intensified process of contemplation. If you are talking about perfection of relative wisdom, then I agree. If you are talking contact with perfected wisdom, I strongly disagree. I think this contact exists before there is any consciousness of it, and that we are all on a spiritual path, like it or not. You probably got lucky that one time. I bet you can't repeat such experience at will. Am I right or wrong? Yes I got lucky, though that is an arbitrary judgement. The actual experience.. no, can't repeat that at will. Access to what it revealed, yes, assuming I am interested and not too caught up in mind stuff. It is automatic in a lot of ways, though interest definitely can highlight it, or more importantly, allow it to function. I can't return to my state of omniscience voluntarily because I am voluntarily bound up here right now. When I experienced omniscience back then, I was lucky and not lucky at the same time. I'll try to describe both elements. I was lucky because I had a period in life when I didn't have to worry about much. I was lucky because no one was blocking my meditation and contemplation efforts. I was lucky because if I wanted some teaching, I got it (Internet, book store, etc.). I was lucky because I didn't have a Guru who brainwashed me with dogma and tradition. I was lucky because my parents did not brainwash me pro- or con- spirituality and they didn't brainwash me into any religion. I was also lucky because I had no idea how much impact that which I wanted would have on me. So I had the strength and the courage of the naive. It's like a man bravely walking into fire for the first time, because the man has no idea of what the fire is like. So I was lucky to be ignorant. Ignorance is different from a true lack of prejudice because an ignorant man is indifferent on the account of not knowing any better. A truly unprejudiced man knows what to expect, understands the process, and still is not prejudiced despite that knowledge. So I kind of had a naive lack of prejudice born of ignorance. But in which way was my experience not due to luck? It was not luck because I intended my experience to happen and when it was ongoing, I was a willing participant. It was not luck because I've prepared myself for the experience by putting my mind in a helpful perspective, by certain kinds of meditation and so on. After the experience one could say I understood everything there was to ever understand. At the same time, I didn't fully own my understanding at that time. The understanding wasn't my bitch. It was still in awe of it. I was still bending my knee to my understanding. I was still not able to see every kind of connection between the extraordinary and the ordinary. I could see some connections, but not every kind. I was on my way to becoming the Lord, but not quite Lord yet. It was kind of like a prince who's been in the throne room. So peak experience is not at all useless, but contemplation is key. Peak experience is optional. Contemplation isn't. Peak experiences come and go. They have a start, middle and end. The fruit of contemplation is a new way to live, a new direction in life... it doesn't come and go. It's stable. And it is more mystical than the mystical, because ordinary mystical states exist in contradistinction to the non-mystical states. Like black against white. But the contemplative mystery includes everything into it. It's not black or white. It's not non-mystical or mystical. It's not anything specific and yet it is. See? It's vastly superior. It represents the ultimate flexibility of mind and true power and not just some pretty vision of beautiful things in a consumerist fashion where you are the helpless consumer of a pretty vision. The Lord stuff seems like added interpretation to me. But whatever floats your boat. As "the fruit of contemplation" does not come and go, then it always is. This is what I point to. Yes, true contemplation is not a technique. It is truly alive and it cannot be predicted. It's not dead or routine. If your thinking is completely directed by some kind of template, then it has less value because it's not your thinking. It's not sincere. Contemplation is sincere, deep and calm meditative thinking. I agree, but didn't you say that it can also be active? Are they helping you now? If yes, good. If not, do you need help? If not, good. If yes, what kind of help are you looking for? I don't relate to you in terms of your teachings. I enjoy you for the most part and find that interacting with you develops my understanding, though not in a categorically different way than interacting with any aspect of life accomplishes a similar task. I admit that I have some resistance to times that you misinterpret things that I say, though I don't know if you misinterpret more than others or if you are just more honest in sharing your judgements. Being thrown back on what you always had... you mean like when I ask you to look at the beliefs you always had? Well, since there was a time that I did not have this particular set of beliefs, however long ago, these beliefs are not what I have always had. I've found significant value in examining my beliefs, but it hasn't been the main thrust of my path, which has been becoming sensitive to, trusting and following the deeper movement. Maybe you shouldn't try to be so perfect? What we say is not supposed to be used for the purpose of brainwashing. It's just food for thought. This is why I am not starting a religion now, when I really have everything I need to start one. I don't want to brainwash people. I think it's enough to share your thoughts and then let people use that expression however they find beneficial. I agree. So if you were writing for someone else, that would be unnatural? Maybe. Maybe not. Doing what comes natural doesn't look a particular way in my book. See the description of the main thrust of my path immediately above. From fear and laziness. Fear to disagree. Fear to take an untrodden path. Fear to be critical of commonly accepted ideas. And laziness in the sense that if something works in a crappy way, but it still works, why fix it? Why fix something today if you can fix it tomorrow? These I think are huge driving factors in dogma adoption. Dogma doesn't require thinking. Dogma just requires agreement and following. Yes, it is important to recognize that we are all responsible in our interactions with any teaching, and in our expression to remain as true as possible to our experience and to be open to what that reveals. Well, it's not often what I talk about gets labeled as "too balanced." My approach is subversive in its total meaning. Only superficially it may not look that way. To question something, anything, is a subversive act. In fact to even look at something, anything, is an act of subversion. You're supposed (who supposes this?) to be blind and ignorant and just do what you are told. I wasn't referring to your current teaching when I said "too balanced", but to a hypothetical teaching that wasn't so unbalanced. I don't know, who supposes? Seeing is beautiful, if challenging at times.

GIH- Thank you for your message. I have a couple questions. Is intent what sees beliefs? I ask because this is not my experience. In my experience, intent is a quality of that which sees beliefs. It is your prerogative to use whatever word you want for the mystery, but if we are going to choose one of its qualities, love seems to be closer to the actual mystery in my experience. I wouldn't really use that word for it either though. We might just be wired differently in this respect. This likely plays into your description of seeing as "envisioning". Could you please elaborate on this process? In my experience I cannot find a strong sense of envisioning when I am seeing things clearly. There is no direction in such seeing. It is more like an explosion, but completely absent of force or direction. It has an almost magical quality about it. I may be understanding the word differently from how you are using it. This is distinct from the knowing, which underlies the seeing. The seeing encompasses the most basic level of form-- how things come to be and their nature as things. The knowing -- I'm not coming up with anything to describe that, but it feeds into the seeing. It is present before the seeing too. I've never described that before. I hope you can do a better job with envisioning. Now I'm going to shift topics a bit. If anything is important in our other disagreements and agreements, then they'll probably come up again. How much of how we see this whole process is an artifact of how we happened to engage in it? I suspect that the reason you see accessing true nature as something for near the end of the spiritual path is because that is how things happened for you, after a long period of contemplating beliefs. I could easily be wrong, since sometimes people realize that their path actually was pretty misguided in a lot of parts, and try to offer people shortcuts. My experience was that I encountered true nature as a teenager with very little preparation, though there was a lot of intention to know and describe the essence of things. True nature made itself known in a semi-accidental pause in that activity. Encountering true nature did not take seeing through many of my beliefs or becoming particularly coherent as a human being. All it took was a suspension of assumptions, coupled with a deep intention to know. Was that some sort of end? Hardly. It was an introduction, and I had no idea what it was, or its significance. For all I knew, everyone goes through this. I assumed everyone goes through it and it was just another stop in general development. A kind've explosion of perception, to which the only natural response is awe. I still feel that this is the most proper viewpoint on this type of realization, though the response matures. Had I had some context, I might have trusted it more. I didn't, so I kept questioning it, and i kept trying all the things that I saw around me. I kept trying techniques-- not necessarily spiritual techniques, since I didn't see a lot of that, but just day to day techniques in many different areas. The techniques would yield results short-term, but those results didn't really satisfy, and the longer term result was usually some form of stasis until I remembered the deeper movement. Often the deeper movement would manifest a technique, and I would try to grasp that and keep applying it, with the same result as exteriorly derived techniques. Long period of trial and error (you're right. sometimes you've got to break a few eggs). In this period, my efforts were diluted by lack of clarity about what brings results, and eventually life just stopped me. Enter more explicit cultivation, with similar technique/no-technique dynamic. I was catching on more to the value of no-technique (which is not really no-technique, but rather following the deeper movement) in my case, but still there was dilution. Enter relatively clear teachings pointing to the value and validity of the initial experience that I had when I was 14 and the deeper movement that it revealed. Still, there was technique/no-technique dilution, but as I devoted longer and longer periods to no-technique and noted how clear the difference was between what was revealed in those periods vs. periods of technique, it became clearer that only one option was viable if my intention was for truth. No-technique becomes clearer and clearer. Techniques can arise and I don't grab onto them nearly so much. They have their value, but always, the most important thing is their source. It is the dear friend, as you mentioned of the mind. Also, what no-technique can be has matured. It can be delusion, or sorrow, or pain, or confusion. It can be totally ordinary, prosaic, banal. It can be happiness, bliss, whatever. I ask myself, if I had come upon your teachings somewhere in there, would it have helped me? I don't know. My guess is that it would not, unless you said something different to me. To me, the most valuable thing has been being thrown back on what I always had, questioning the ways that I grasped for support, and directing attention to the most essential qualities of being. I see how your method works. It does work, if it is carried out with sincerity, if there is an honest drive. It is a trick though. My method is also a trick. There is something that it reveals which I do not say, because I can't, and the near-misses are ugly and not helpful in most situations. I find it a little strange to be talking about a method. I am not trying to teach anyone, and I don't even post much or talk about it with many people. I'm not writing for anyone else, but just doing what comes natural. I find this interaction to be valuable, and not just as entertainment. I did want to make a point after all this story telling. Where does dogma come from? There are a lot of answers. I'd like to get as close as possible to its inception, since if one could minimize such inception, then perhaps a lot of the dogma could be avoided. I acknowledge that this is largely a futile task, since it isn't really up to one or two people. But the more light is shed on the process of dogma creation, the more likely that less of it will be created. I think it boils down to generalizing from experience, without acknowledging the experience that the generalization comes from. As an fictional example imagined from real life: you experience a process, whereby you become interested in the nature of your beliefs. You notice that they aren't really coherent, and that the things that you think you believe are not necessarily the things that you act on in stressful situations. You recognize that there are negative consequences to this, plus it is just really fascinating that such a thing is possible. Since your interest is honestly piqued, your attention naturally goes there. The process of exploration isn't all logical, especially since there are times where you honestly have no idea where the next piece might be, and what reveals the next piece is a kind of waiting coupled with an intent to know. This intent can be more obvious and intense, or just running in the background, more like an openness to new information/understanding. Over time layers upon layers are revealed. Along with this revelation, concrete changes in life become visible. The process by which revelation itself happens becomes of interest. Somewhere in there, perhaps after many years of such exploration, something pops, kind've like the bottom falling out. Some deep assumption is let go of, or even just suspended, and you see things from a radically altered perspective. Perhaps this happens a number of times, with different assumptions, or the same assumptions at different levels. I don't really want to continue narrating from here, since I've gotten to the key point in the example, so I'll skip to the point where you are communicating with someone in an attempt to share this new perspective. It does not seem to be something that can be directly communicated, so the best you can do is to suggest that they have the experience for themselves, and you suggest some steps that they might take. What would be more natural than to suggest that someone become interested in their beliefs, specifically paying attention to the areas in which they are not coherent? Why wouldn't you have suspicion of anyone who suggests that one can skip directly to inquiry into their deepest nature and have the same experience that you had after many years of contemplation? Especially when many people talk about this, without evidence of deep understanding. If someone listens to you, then maybe they will get some benefit. Especially if they happen to be hooked up pretty much like you are, and the coherence or lack of coherence of their thoughts can inspire deep interest in them, such that such exploration can be undertaken for itself and with some degree of joy, even as difficulties are encountered. Effortless effort. Is this like the lifestyle that you mentioned? There are other ways that your words can be of benefit for different people, even if they aren't just the thing for them. But there are also people for whom those words will not be of benefit. And yet you remain confident that your words are correct. As long as those people take your words as guidelines, then they are travelling a path that is longer than it needs to be, perhaps much longer, with all the attendant consequences. There are many different paths. Do they all eventually deal with beliefs in some manner? Yes. But they all also do a lot of things. In my path, there was virtually no dealing with beliefs at first, but just a deep intention and a pause of assumptions. If a person has such an intention, then a very deep seeing is possible more or less immediately. What is revealed can become the basis of a very fruitful exploration. As much as any thing is revealed, the process by which such revelation happens also can be noticed and explored, given attention and allowed. I know I was painting a very partial picture, and that you realize that it is a particular set of people for whom your teaching will resonate, as evidenced by the end of your message to Oolong Rabbit: "And yet some people need to move beyond the conventional understanding on the path of enlightenment. For those specific people being trapped within convention without seeing convention for what it is, is bad." Not sure what to do about this. Teachings that are too balanced don't have much effect for a lot of people. Though I don't know. Sometimes a balanced teaching is all a person needs to let go of the teachings. Even the self-generated ones. With hopes of clarity.

Touche

"First, you make a clear distinction between beliefs and what lies under the beliefs on a deeper level of the psyche. I don't make such a distinction. So right then and there I have one less polarizing and bifurcating line running through my psyche than do you." and, from your most recent post "Secondly, it's correct to say that everything is a belief of some sort." It seems that I have misunderstood you based upon these quotes and similar. Since what I was referring to when I spoke of something more fundamental than beliefs is what you refer to when you use the term "mind", when you said that there was no distinction between beliefs and the more fundamental level, I interpreted that as you saying that they were equal. I don't see them as equal, though they are not separate. Your more recent comments suggest that you see it similarly, the quote from your most recent post notwithstanding. I like to make a distinction between how beliefs are a means by which things manifest, and that which creates and invigorates beliefs, without becoming separate or even different from them. The reason I like to make this distinction is that it takes the power out of beliefs and puts it back where it has always been-- that which experiences and creates and invigorates beliefs. As to the word, "belief", I am fine using the words "psychic structure", which is close to the words "psychical structure" that you used in your last post. I prefer psychic, since it is the more common word with identical meaning to my knowledge. I don't normally like creating and defining terms, since it is a slippery slope and can lead to a certain rigidity of thinking, but if it gets you to stop assuming that I am referring to shallow professed beliefs when I use the word beliefs, then that might facilitate our conversation. I see three main areas where we disagree. The first is that you feel that it is difficult to change unhealthy psychic structures, whereas I say that it is easy (or actually, automatic), provided one sees them clearly. If the structure has not changed, then it hasn't been seen clearly. The effort to change the structure prevents clear seeing. The reason that this is so is ironically one of the points that you have been making-- that psychic structures are not object-like structures, which have independent existence. They are alive. But they participate in aliveness in the same way that all seeming objects participate in aliveness-- as a subset of the greater aliveness. No matter how long they seem to last, or how stable they seem, they are but ephemera to that which creates and invigorates them. They cease to be the instant that they are no longer invigorated. The reason they seem to take a long time to resolve, is that we have yet to see them clearly. Just because something appears to be difficult to see clearly does not change means by which change occurs. And where does the idea that change should occur come from? By focusing on psychic structures we easily lose track of what real change is. Which is more fundamental-- a change in psychic structures, or a lasting recognition of that which gives rise to psychic structures, in the midst of psychic structures? Secondly, you seem to think that only special people can access this, whereas I think that anyone can access it, if they so intend. To intend this is not harder than to intend to contemplate beliefs. Since it is not harder, then I choose to advocate for this, when I think there is a chance that a person might be interested. If they are interested in contemplating beliefs then that is great too. It is not either or, but one is more direct and fundamental. It can form the basis for a totally different relationship with life. Regardless, a person will intend what they will intend and I do not ascribe agency to myself beyond the fact that I am not separate from life. There is no need to locate the intention in myself or in another. There is what is happening, and despite what you may think, this is not a passive attitude. It is a liberating attitude. It begins the process of clear seeing without creating artifacts of partiality. This seeing is also not passive. It is vibrant. Now to coherency of psychic structures: Ecological approaches can also be misguided. In living systems it is nearly ubiquitous for mutually opposing systems to work together to create dynamic homeostasis. The word dynamic is important, because just homeostasis really boils down to stasis. Dynamic means constantly flowing and responsive to inputs from the environment, whether internal or internal. So if things move too far in one direction, then the system that moves them in the opposite direction kicks in. If things move too far in the opposite direction, then the other system kicks in and moves them back toward homeostasis. There is a natural tension between them, and together they create something that neither alone could achieve. This something is the experience of life. I suspect that psychic structures, as a manifestation of life, often relate to one another in a similar way. They oppose one another, though not it in a way that merely causes friction, but which actually allows a third quality to emerge. Once more, it is the experience of life. Thus coherence does not lie in a lack of contradiction, since this would remove the conditions by which life is allowed to manifest. Coherence is a quality of that which creates and invigorates psychic structures, is the only thing that can fully see psychic structures, and is not separate from psychic structures. It is only in this that coherence can be found. In terms of life, a lack of contradiction is actually not useful at all, as in cancers and other catastrophic losses of homeostasis, though they have their place as well. You might define coherency as the overall healthfulness of the way that one's psychic structures interact. Using that definition, then I do see value in coherent psychic structures, but a fundamental aspect of such healthfulness is contradiction, and to suggest otherwise is to invite rather negative consequences, such as fanaticism, certainty of belief, and willful blindness.

Yeah, I guess it depends on where the rotting is going on. If its in our kitchen, maybe not so useful, but if its out in nature, or in our garden, what beautiful rotting!

What you are saying now is different from what you said before. Before you said that the mind is synonymous with beliefs, but now you say that mind is what sees beliefs and manifests the world via beliefs, though is not separate from beliefs. Had you said this earlier, I would have expressed myself differently. I do not have a problem with using the word "mind" for this, but only so long as it is not limited to beliefs. Beliefs are an activity of the mind, not unlike currents in flowing water, or whirlpools. I realize that I haven't expressed myself clearly. There is always more than can be expressed in a given situation. Making the point that beliefs are not the sum of mind doesn't leave as much room to discuss the nature and usefulness of beliefs. Beliefs are the mechanism of manifestation. Ok. You don't like the word mechanism. I primarily use it because it gives a sense of activity which is impersonal/structural. I want to give this sense, since to our conscious minds, there are a great number of things which are shaping our experience, of which we are not aware but go right on shaping our experience. This in no way is meant to suggest that it is not alive or a process. Remember that no belief is actually other than that which creates and invigorates beliefs. This is why it is a simple thing for reality to change beliefs if it so chooses. If you prefer, we could use the word "means" or "the way that things come into manifestation". Given that beliefs can be changed at will by that which creates and invigorates them, then it must not have a problem with them. Otherwise they would be different, or they would not be. And since beliefs are the mechanism of manifestation, then it isn't hard to see their value. Without beliefs, there would be nothing to experience (though I am not sure about that, since I still have beliefs). When I say that we can live without beliefs, I am not speaking about this mechanism of manifestation, which actually deserves a different word, since it is a more fundamental thing than what most people think of when they think "beliefs". It is on the same spectrum though. When I use the word beliefs with reference to letting them go, it corresponds with the way that what you call the neurotic mind functions. The neurotic mind is not unlike a loop, or a series of loops, of energy. I don't completely understand it, since it really seems to be a chicken and egg situation. Do the beliefs create the loop or does the the looping create the beliefs? They are more or less synonymous. In fact, both of the options above are limited by time, and it might be clearest to let go of all narrative and just equate beliefs and looping energy. But I am going to go back to narrative for awhile. As energy loops it becomes more or less frozen, since it has confined itself and the only possible outcome of adding more energy is that the loop becomes tighter. How to loops happen? They happen by partiality, by seeking one outcome or one vision over the other. Now here is a key distinction: partiality can lead to a loop or it can lead to a wave. Or it can lead to a loop that doesn't get overly tight. The good part of loops becoming overly tight, is that it can increase awareness of the tightness. The bad part is that it is uncomfortable and limiting (though to call those two things bad is arbitrary). Since looping or curving is the means by which anything appears, then I wouldn't advocate for the ending of looping and curving. But there is a difference between pathological and healthy looping and curving. It is not so much that one necessarily becomes more conscious of the particular looping and curving, such that it doesn't create unconscious binds, though this is part of it, but rather one can catch onto the process by which looping and curving is pathologically energized. As one catches on, one can then choose to no longer play that game. This begins a process. As we no longer pathologically energize loops and curves, then they loosen and can more easily come in and out of being. This seems to be source of the bliss to which you referred. One might call it more or less frictionless manifestation. Part of the loosening process seems to be a flowering into consciousness of what was previously unconscious. It is as if there is a threshold in the tightness of the loop beyond which the conscious mind can no longer remain aware of the particulars, but perhaps only tightness (here the conscious mind is distinct from the all-encompassing mind that we were referring to above). I am not really clear on this though. It may be that the loops and curves come into being in an unconscious way, become tight, but when they are relaxed (which actually takes the beginning of consciousness, even at a largely unconscious level, if that makes sense) then they tend to become more conscious. That seems to fit better with experience. As you say, there are more shallow and deeper tendencies to create loops. We could also say peripheral and fundamental. As such, many, many individual loops can actually be a manifestation of a single tendency. One of the key tendencies for most humans is the tendency to seek pleasure and to avoid pain, or the tendency to seek advantage. There is value in this tendency, since it a part of our functioning as organisms, and on a deeper level it creates the tightness that allows us to become conscious. But there is a deeper view, which frees this tendency. A more fundamental tendency might be to refer to oneself at all, to create an inner and an outer. That isn't to say that one cannot see through the tendency to refer to oneself to a significant degree and not still have the pleasure/pain thing going in a pathological way. Or have pathological beliefs still going on on many different levels. It is just that they lose a big chunk of their energy and have a greater tendency to unravel. And yes, there are some beliefs that one actually needs to walk right into and really explore for them to begin to loosen up. I look at this more like surgery. It has its uses, but there are often side effects. The side effect in this case is an energizing of the tendency to see oneself as the agent directing life. I generally prefer more ecological approaches, balancing the tendencies of the whole to resolve local problems. Thats not to say that there aren't skillful surgeons, and that they don't do great work from time to time, but surgery is often not the best tool. So surgery is like ecology, in that it takes skill to do it well. If one doesn't do it well, then it can do more harm than good. This is true for both approaches. I tend to see well-done surgery as a subset of ecology, though. If the surgery is not in service of ecology, then what is it for? In ecology, no method is sacrosanct, so long as the use is with regard to the whole. To take it out of the analogy, directed contemplation can arise spontaneously out of the more general attitude of allowing everything to be as it is. However, to engage in directed contemplation without this attitude most often creates as much tension as it relieves, since it is based upon the unexamined intention of making something better or gaining more control. It is only really useful when it is engaged in for its own sake (which is how letting things be as they are looks on the surface), and it is only with this basis that it can release binds fruitfully. I do not advocate relaxation as an approach. I advocate relaxation and knowing. They are synonymous, since knowing is inherent to relaxation. It is just that what most people think of as relaxation is not actually relaxation. This is why I don't use the word relax that often. I try to give a sense for the way of relaxing that is useful. I probably fail pretty often too.

I do not make a clear distinction between beliefs and that which is more fundamental than beliefs. More fundamental does not mean separate or different from. A simple example of this, which may seem provocative to you, is the theory of fundamental particles. In the theory, all of matter is made up of these particles, so although these particles are more fundamental than any given thing, no thing is actually other than the particles. It is the same sort of relationship between the more fundamental level which I am referring to and beliefs. It is also the same sort of relationship between this more fundamental level and the psyche. It is not a deeper level of the psyche. The psyche is made up of it, through and through. I am glad that we have gotten to the purpose of this discussion: I am also presenting a method, but it is not as you think it is. I do not know if it is better or not, but I want to share my sense of a mechanism that it seems that you do not see. The mechanism relates to how we maintain beliefs that are not conducive to happiness and well being, and are not in accord with truth, especially given that they require enormous amounts of energy to maintain, and they disappear the second that we cease to invigorate them (very astute of you to notice). This is actually incredibly difficult to conceive of, let alone convey in words. The mind is always looking for an advantage. Thats what is built for, in many ways. It does its job well. Whatever feels good, or gets the desired result, it tries to remember and to repeat. The same goes for negative experiences, except that it remembers and tries not to repeat. The difficult part to conceive of is that this movement goes nowhere. There is nothing that the mind can achieve that will satisfy it for long. It tries all avenues, including giving up trying, which you rightly point out is just more trying. Once this is seen, that there really is no way out, in the mind, then there can be a variety of responses. One response is to indulge the mind. If there is a desire in the mind, then we explore it, externally or internally. If there is a thought, then we investigate it. Is it true? Is there a better thought? A more satisfying thought? When others suffer, we think that it is their thoughts which make them suffer and we hope to give them tools to help them to let go of the painful thoughts and to come up with some better thoughts. All of that is well and good. It is kind've like redecorating one's prison cell. It may even lead to the prison cell developing some holes, or even beginning to look like a palace. Another response is to recognize something prior to thoughts, something more primary, which is not separate from thoughts, but is never caught in thoughts. Thoughts are always an expression of it. Now here is the key point: that which is prior to thoughts is the only thing that can see thoughts clearly. It is the only thing that has enough perspective to transform thoughts. Thoughts are not actually difficult to transform. They transform of themselves, completely naturally and without effort as soon as one sees them clearly. There are obstacles to seeing clearly, but those obstacles are not actually inherent. They are not objects that need to be handled, or moved. They are something that we are doing. They are what we are invigorating with our life force. They are just like beliefs. In fact, I can't really see a difference between these obstacles and beliefs. They both are partiality to a particular point of view, which must be maintained in order to survive. Now who would consciously expend great energy to maintain something which they knew could only cause them pain? Nobody, that I know (though some people sure seem like they do). So the reason people continue to expend such energy to maintain these beliefs is that they don't see the effects of these beliefs clearly enough. And how does one see more clearly? One method, which is quite valuable, and which I appreciate you advocating for, is to examine one's beliefs. Another method is to stop messing around with the mind so much, since the mind is constantly generating partial views. It constantly generates beliefs. As soon as we see through one belief, another pops up. As soon as we see that effort is not actually helping, we believe that non-effort is the way to salvation. If one only sees the mind, then letting go of beliefs doesn't seem like much of an option. But if there is any recognition of existence prior to thought, then one can thoroughly familiarize oneself with that existence. One returns one's energy to the only thing which can truly see thought, and hence allow it its natural function. This is what allows transformation. The tricky part here is that often it is the mind that tries to do this, and the mind can't do this. The mind creates a division between the mind and that which sees mind, and then it tries to give its energy to that which sees mind, or at least it tries to stop doing the things it has always done. What mind is doing was never the problem. The shift of perspective doesn't have anything to do with the mind, though the mind cannot help but reflect it. The best the mind can do is to open up to the possibility that something else can do the heavy lifting. Now I don't know if this is what you already know, and a part of something else doing the heavy lifting is your mind doing what it does the way that it does. But consider that something else doing the heavy lifting is also me writing this to you. Heavy lifting is a misleading term, but from the mind's perspective it is appropriate. The only reason it is better to let something else do the heavy lifting, is that there is no heavy lifting to it. Thank you for sharing your experience with lucid dreaming with me. I appreciate that. I sounds like you are learning your lessons.

Cat, Thank you. I see both the masculine and feminine approaches as both positive and negative. I value coherency of thought in many situations, especially in communication. However, the drive to coherency can lead to blindness/rigidness. I also value broad and flexible vision and non-contention. This tendency can lead to the accumulation of rotting views (don't know how better to phrase that). I don't see the two approaches as opposed. I actually see that both can manifest in a person at the same time and that they can actually strengthen one another. It is more a matter of how healthy our manifestations of the masculine and the feminine are. GIH, The main place that we seem to differ is that I see coherency as existing most clearly in a level that is more fundamental than beliefs. Contradictory beliefs do not affect this more fundamental coherency. As such, the effort to get all of one's beliefs to match up is misguided, or at least superfluous. If one seeks coherency, it is not to be achieved through explanation or belief. It already is. Most minds don't much like this. Other minds do like it. It doesn't really matter whether a mind likes it or not, since it doesn't have much to do with the mind. Liking or disliking are both ways that the mind tries to avoid the reality of what is. Did you, as you conceive of yourself (assuming you conceive of yourself), choose all of your beliefs? Are you actually conscious of how you chose each one of your beliefs? You suggest that it is difficult to change beliefs, so I suspect that you may not actually remember choosing your beliefs. If you did not choose your beliefs, then where did they come from? It is relatively easy, even for a child, to come up with some story about where his beliefs came from, but if he doesn't actually remember it, then it is just a story. Even if it is remembered, then it is still a story. Where did each of the elements in the story come from? Very quickly we come to mystery. Except mystery is not actually somewhere out there-- it is right here. It doesn't matter what our beliefs are, the mystery is still present. Even if we change our beliefs at a level that greatly affects our experience of the mystery, the mystery is still there. The emphasis on outside and inside comes from giving greatest value to the mind. Since the mystery does not have a location, where is there inside and outside? Also I do not find it necessary to have a belief about people living with or without hearts. I don't really care what you think in this instance and I am open to being surprised by experience. Some things are more probable than others, and as a betting man, I'll bet on the heart in any given person that I see alive. Assuminig I didn't bet too much, I wouldn't mind losing. As an aside, I am interested in your experience of lucid dreaming. I have heard of people who begin to fulfill sexual desires through their lucid dreams, but who, over time, begin to lose control of their dreams, even though they remain lucid in them. Whereas before, they would choose the person and the situation, over time the dream constantly begins forcing itself on the dreamer. My theory is that this is the result of trying to control the dream and is the same mechanism by which our waking lives seem to be outside of our control. Basically, the artifact of consistently trying to control something is that sooner or later it becomes violently out of control. Have you noticed any such mechanism? I suspect that you might say that the dreamer just hasn't gone deeply enough into their beliefs, and so they lose control. Once they get their beliefs coherent then they will have perfect control. But in your experience of your dreams, do you have perfect or ever increasing control? Wondering if I might be surprised.

I understand that the above paragraph was part of larger explanation of how people can believe things ineffectively, and how effective beliefs are necessarily coherent with other beliefs. However, I thought I detected a hidden assumption in this paragraph. Please let me know if I am wrong. The assumption is that coherency is primarily achieved through beliefs, or that the most valuable thing is the mind. A counter proposition is that coherency just is, even in the presence of seeming contradiction, or that the most valuable thing is not the mind, or at least not more the mind than anything else, even if that anything else is nothing at all. At times, recently, it seemed that you were speaking from this perspective. I'll just flesh it out a bit to see if we happen to disagree. If coherency just is, despite seeming contradictions, then one would not necessarily need to be stupid in order to entertain contradictory beliefs at different times. The trick is in recognizing that the contradiction is primarily, or only, a matter of seeming. An example of this is the seeming particle/wave duality of matter/ energy (another seeming duality). At times light can seem to be a particle, and at times it can seem to be a wave. Is it actually two different things? I would suggest not. It actually contains both, seemingly contradictory properties, which are observed under different conditions. It is only the underlying assumption that a thing must fit into one category and not the other that causes the seemingly contradictory observations to cause cognitive dissonance. Light is not actually a particle and it is not actually a wave, but it is not not particle and it is not not a wave. It just is. The issue comes up when we become certain that one aspect of how it is sums it up in totality. This closes our eyes to other aspects of what it is. The same phenomenon goes on at all levels. We don't need to consider light and physics experiments. Just take any person that you know. You may think that you know them, but how often do you end up surprised? What they just did or said did not fit into your understanding of them. You may not even notice if you believe your understanding to be total. This principle also scales to simpler objects (as tricky as the word object may be). Take for example an apple. It can simultaneously be red (on the outside) and white (on the inside) and brown (in the bruise) and sweet and juicy, and firm, and crunchy, and soft, and tasty and sour, and whole, and separated from the tree that it grew on, and lacking in any separation from anything at all, and unreal and real, and nutritious and poisonous, and any number of other categories that we choose to identify it with. All of these descriptions say more about us than about any "apple". The same principle can be applied to vastly more complex objects, such as life, or existence, or even mind. (You might have noticed that this was what Alan Watts was getting at in the video Steve posted) As stated earlier, the issue is not so much that we are capable of perceiving any given entity in innumerable, often seemingly contradictory ways, but that we have a strong tendency to try to eliminate contradiction, and hence to see/experience things in limited ways. We tolerate more variety of perception with objects that we interact with through our varied senses, but when it comes to mental constructs, which are more removed from our senses, then we tend to tolerate less of this. We seem to want one mental construct to win out over the others. Since this not the way the world actually is (without necessarily assigning the world actual existence outside of the mind), in that the world observably manifests in tremendously various ways, then we form what are called beliefs, which actually are mechanisms by which we attempt to hold all of existence which seems to contradict said beliefs outside of consciousness. There can be value in the process of clarifying beliefs, since there are more and less clear ways of seeing, but in the drive for clarity we often lose contact with wholeness. The assumption is that we will be more complete and more effective if we can become more coherent in our mental models. Thus we allow as few contradictory beliefs as possible. I would suggest that this is misapplied energy (although it can produce profound effects in the world, and can also lead to a dropping of a great number of unnecessary beliefs), and that a more fruitful path is to let go of as much of our beliefs as possible, since they are essentially a mechanism by which we limit our conscious experience. This is not to say that limitation is bad, or that having coherent beliefs does not have its uses, but it is to say that we can function quite well with no beliefs at all. When I say no beliefs, I am not referring to the kind of belief that generates experience. I am referring to the kind that blocks experience. The kind that generates experience may be fun to play with from time to time, but it also the mechanism by which there is anything appears at all. In that sense, belief is necessary, but as we saw above with light, it often seems to be contradictory. It is the assumption that we would be better off choosing one belief over the other that closes our eyes to the greater beauty and wonder of what we, and all else, is. To take it a step further, there isn't really a distinction between the type of belief that limits experience and the type that generates experience. They are more like a continuum. As such, we don't really need to get rid of any belief, since they are all the means by which manifestation happens. I am tempted to say something about it all boiling down to a desire to control, but its not even that. There is something else going on, of which beliefs are an epiphenomenon. What would happen if you gave no effort to belief modification? Would your beliefs freeze or become more fluid or neither? How would that affect your life? I've noticed that one of my most prevalent assumptions is that something obscures truth. It both fun and revealing to question it, in the midst of experience, since it doesn't leave me with new beliefs and opens me to more of reality.

When I was in China I developed pretty severe allergies to the air there. What worked for me was Ling Zhi/Reishi/Ganoderma (all different names for the same thing) powder. It worked so well that I never got around to using a neti pot, though that would have been the next thing that I'd've tried, since I know at least one person who has had good success using one. There are probably different patterns that manifest as allergies, and it may be that the Ling Zhi just happened to fit my pattern. I was manifesting a lot of lung symptoms, and Ling Zhi tonifies Lung Qi. Also a lot of allergies have a component of over-excitability/reactivity of the mind and Ling Zhi calms the Spirit. Regular standing meditation cleared up some allergies that I had in my early-mid twenties. A good source for Ling Zhi in the US is Mushroom Science. Homeopathy might be a good place to start though, since it is so affordable/easy. Good luck!

I'll be there.

Natural movement is a basis of intuition. Intuition is more how natural movement registers in us. We can look at intuition as moments in which we become aware of the natural movement. Distinguishing between intuition and impulse is a tricky one. It is something that is learned by experience. That is why it is good to practice. It becomes more and more clear as you make your best guesses, act on them and then notice what happens. To help get a sense of what intuition is: it is a knowing that doesn't justify itself. It is also usually a lot quieter than impulses. It may be very strong, but it isn't saying anything. It is just like a flow, and when you question it, there is only silence. That is not to say that you can't come up with rational reasons for following an intuition, but if you question it directly, it doesn't have much to say. Impulses usually have something to say, like "Of course, yeah!" or "I want/I need...", or an explanation that generates tension in your body. The intuition is clear, in that not a lot is attached to it. It also often does not give more than one step at a time. It doesn't really tell about the future much. It is just like, "This way". An example that my teacher uses that I find helpful is that time when you just knew something. It was just given as a gift. Like "Don't go out with her again." Your mind is like "What!? Did you see her? Who wouldn't go out with her again? All systems are go!" But there was just that knowing that it wouldn't work out, which didn't defend itself. When the mind gave its reasons, the knowing says nothing. Just silence. If we ignore it, then it might be many years before we really know that that "Don't go out with her again" was a gift. Most of us have some sort of experience where we were given a gift like that, and we ignored it. Thats how we learn, but if we can start paying attention for the quieter impulses, the simple knowings, and then act on them, then we can develop this way of moving better and better, until its not really that subtle anymore. You are lucky in a way, since it seems that the old impulses are whithering away on their own. It just goes easier if you don't cling to them and open up to something else.

Cat Pillar, There is a movement to life. It isn't a stable identity, but it is something gives direction in any given moment. Its movement is kind've like water going through all sorts of changes in direction as it flows down a stream. It isn't saying, "I want to go here" or "I want to go there", it is just moving as conditions change. So if there is a rock, it divides and goes around, or if there is a bend in the stream, it follows that path. it is because the water is not saying "I want to go here" and exerting energy trying to get there that it is able to respond so clearly to changing conditions. It can be really confusing to go from "I want" to "Huh, seems to be going here. Huh, changed again." The mind tends to get on board for any shift and try to extend that direction into an identity, or at least a known dependable aspect of oneself. It tries to imbue those movements with the old energy that was driving it. Or, it may not even be noticing the natural movements, since they are so quiet when we haven't been paying attention to them, and it keeps trying to start up its old way of movement. It sounds like this is more of what is happening with you. You've seen the emptiness of the old ways of moving, but you haven't really clearly noticed or given yourself to the natural movement. The easiest way to get a sense for the natural movement is to listen for it. Then start acting on it. When deciding how to move, there is something immediately available, but it may seem very subtle or quiet. It is a direction. The direction may even be no direction, just to be still. But if there is a decision to be made, or a movement to be made, sooner or later a direction becomes apparent. The trick is to go with it, even though it does not justify itself. Don't look for justification, just go with it, because it is what is obvious; it is the direction that presents itself. Start with small stuff. As you practice, it becomes more and more apparent. Your faith in it grows, and you stop looking back for that old sort of direction or motivation. It is actually much better, though much harder to explain, to verbalize the reason for what you are doing. My teacher sometimes tells students who are going through this, "Just sit on the couch and don't move until something moves you. Eventually your body will just get up and do something. Then see what it does next, and what it does next." I haven't actually tried that out, but it helps to give a sense for a movement that isn't coming from our minds.

I remember a report a few months ago of a study that tested whether studying for a test after taking it has an effect on our performance. They found that it did. The participants did better on the aspects of the test that they studied after finishing the test. This is just one study, but it is interesting. It seems to be some evidence that Manitou's figure 8 model might hold some water. I see it as influence from the now into the future and from the future to the now. We all have a lot of evidence that leads us believe that there is influence from the past to the now. That only leaves influence from the now to the past... given this model it seems a given, since the influence from the future to now, from the point of view of the future, is influence on the past from now, though maybe we don't have as much of a visceral feel for that. Letting go of the standard ideas of past and future goes a long way toward allowing such a visceral experience, though in my experience, it is not one of, "Oh now I can change my past", since there is no real idea of past, though that does not change whatever reality there is of the past.

There was another Zen guy, Bankei, who was said to have had his realization as he watched a piece of his lung that he had just coughed out slide down the wall of his meditation cell, and after this realization found a Taoist who taught him how to regain his health. Interestingly, Bankei didn't recommend that others follow a path similar to his, and stated that the way he went about seeking had damaged his health permanently, despite his recovery to relatively good functioning. I don't think there is a record of his conversation with the Taoist, but I could easily be wrong. Bankei is also the guy who said something like "Looking to old books for the truth is like dropping something from a ship at sea and marking the railing so that one can find it again."

Hi Rene, I'm happy you liked it. It's amazing how hard it can be to put into words. I remember thinking that I had something pretty concrete to put down, but when it came to actually putting some words down, nothing really seemed to touch what I was trying convey. Didn't stop me from stumbling along anyway. You must have recognized and appreciated the stumbling. Thank you for your response. Todd

What one is in terms of year and one's bazi constitution are different. I'm no expert in this stuff, but as far as I know the bazi constitution is determined by the day one is born. I happen to be wood, and I also have no water in my basic bazi, though I actually have a lot of water if you look at the hidden stems. It might be hard to send me the book though.