thelerner

For a brief respite from winter cold. Enjoying a few days in the 40's.

Course, that's also the game we tend to play with regards to interpreting Karma.

In one of Richard Bach (Jonathon Livingston seagull) books Illusions; memoir of a reluctant messiah, he writes all books or newpapers can be used like prophetic bibles. Think of the question, and open them up at random, start reading.. and there you go. It may be mysterious, but you will get your answer. Can't vouch for it myself, but I've found all great writing is philosophical, even when its not.

Also not a fan, yet being outside his sphere, our view is necessarily distorted. By the news sources we read and by our own prejudices. If we really had inside sources and studied his life indepth, all the good, bad.. loving and bankrupt things he's done we'd probably have a far different opinion..maybe. We need to beware being too attached to opinions made through distant telescopes, ie okay to make them but beware of 'knowing' they're the absolute truth. Everyday we move this world knocking over dominoes without knowing how they'll fall and in which directions they'll spill into. So.. with this Karma stuff, be generous, not for reward but because we're in this world.. shareholders, tiny tiny co-creators.. So, help others and also realize that those in power trying to do good, will often create unintended consequences that wreak havoc elsewhere.

As a cosmic concept, I don't think there's anybody keeping a scorecard on what I'm doing. On a personal level, its a good concept for living a better life and leaving a better world in our wake.. so for me- acknowledging my actions have consequences is a good way to live. The cosmic happenings are above my paygrade, but kindnesses are not.

After years, an old mantra is like an old friend. I can't imagine showering without one. The acoustics give another dimension to the meaning, rhythm and sacred sound.

Good question. I'd say, Get a meditative sitting practice, a movement practice and work on dropping judgements.

Not arse about face nor letting my haste make waste keeps me from my task

Okay, thanks. Anyone else, who'd like to talk about how they interpret the GF's instructions into how they meditate. Not looking for a quote from the book, rather a description of what their practice is.

Are you able to expand that.. explain it as a meditation exercise? Or no, its just -turn the light around, preferably in the niwan. I consider light anything under 8 or 9 pounds. I know some consider light to be awareness, others consider light to be an inner vision of brightness. Others go further and say it really does look Golden Flower-ish, though often people's assumptions influence there inner vision. Similarly niwan, is often taken as third eye area, though deeper readings are it's in 9 sections. The more I do, the 'deeper' into the head I'll place my focus, though it naturally seems to go a little lower then my 'aim'.. eye level instead classically above the eyes. Often I'll see a light blob in my third eye section, which I sometimes 'hold' in place. At times its almost eye-like, though that getting a little anthropomorphic.

To those who practice the Golden Flower as a meditation method rather then a philosophical reading.. What do you actually do? (Please no theories, just what you do)

So.. what should a Golden Flower meditation session look like? Here's my shot.. To me, its sitting, I do half lotus, probably full lotus is better. Eyes relaxed, in 'half eye' position, lids half closed, a lightly staring at the tip of the nose. The mental focus is on the third eye. Not the surface, a little deeper in. A secondary focus on the breath and keeping it as quiet, noiseless as possible. Which automatically means slow and gentle. Especially on at the beginning and end points. Keeping up this up as long as is comfortable or perhaps a little longer. Let thinking go, only the stare, the mental focus on 3rd eye, and a vigilant ever so quiet breathing.

Could you talk about breathing patterns in more detail?

If people want to discuss the philosophy who a teacher is that's great.. I'd prefer you do it on another thread. I'd rather not see most of this thread taken up by that question. For now, like the OP said, a teacher is someone who knows there crap well and has taught students for over a year. If you think the definition should be only people with orange auras should be able to teach, start an orange aura teacher thread. I'm sure this thread will get hijacked but I don't want it to be all continually a discussion of Who A teacher REa;ly REally is. Okay? Not here.. start a new thread- 'I Want to discuss What A teacher is' thread.. or put it in your PPD.. or ask around.. but not here. For a short while.. lets keep this to 'Q's.. ONLY Teachers may Answer..'

Enough conceptualizing, back to OP. Any questions for Teachers?

Looks like a blend of austere Gothic and Christmas-y. I take you believe vampires are real, and regularly attend services there?

amazing..https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/260215-alphazero-new-chess-champion-harbinger-brave-new-world-ai- ..By simply playing against itself for a mere 4 hours, the equivalent of over 22 million training games, AlphaZero learned the relevant associations with the various chess moves and their outcomes. In doing so, it was learning much the way a human does, but because the computer can compress 100,000 hours of human chess play into a few minutes, it builds up a set of associations far more quickly than we ever could, and over a far wider range of move combinations. And now its owned by Google. It's been pointed out that its expertise is in limited areas. Yet, the idea of a 100,000 hours of experimentation in a few minutes is amazing. Seems like there are many scientific problems you could set it to and have it chug along practically randomly until it hits a workable solution. Course, the computers we're using now are probably the super computer equivalents of the early 90's. late 80's. Here's some perspective on the latest tech as far as chips. https://www.popsci.com/intel-teraflop-chip#page-3 "..In fact, if you wind back the clock to 1976, the Cray-1 supercomputer could do just 160 megaflops (that’s a million FLOPS), meaning this singular new Intel chip is about 6,000 times as fast as that machine, says Steve Scott, a senior vice president and chief technology officer at Cray, Inc..." And thats a single Chip! These days a kids Play Station 4 is processing over a teraflop at a time.

It's true and I'm always looking around for one of the other 6 to high five and say Yeah, we did it.

Glad your here. We have a couple members with solid information on China, like Wu Ming Jen. I am not one of them, but once you settle in here. I'd love to hear stories of how your travels and time in China was.

I get the feeling many national healthcare services around the world, pay more attention to preventative care then the U.S. I've never been to China, but walking through Chicago's China town, the many herbal stores with plain and exotic herbs are like nothing that we have natively in the U.S. I can't help thinking to put medicinal (& common) herbs so prominently on sale, points towards a much more holistic and preventative way of thinking.

In the deluge its nice to keep aware of some good things- http://mentalfloss.com/article/519659/25-species-have-made-amazing-comebacks quote- "Conservationists can’t afford to become complacent. When it comes to rescuing endangered species, progress is an ongoing effort. Still, we can take comfort in the knowledge that many life forms which were once on the brink of extinction or endangerment have made tremendous comebacks with our help. Just look at what happened to these 25 plants and animals." As we see fearful trends happening we need to keep in mind that these things can reverse themselves.

I understand the sentiment, but judging by the flow of this thread and general free/flow of conversation on the bums, that wouldn't help. Trying to enforce it would create more spam then it would prevent. On the other hand, if there was a Teachers Corner maybe they could ask for credentials and create special Permissions for such authorized Teachers. But even that would be problematic since it'd keep regular people from asking questions, which is half of the purpose. Maybe the best is for teachers to create there own threads here (Systems and Teachers.), and define on the outset the parameters of the discussion and keep reminding people if the thread goes off subject.

I do a couple at home. Like you, Pushups. Squats are good, they hit the lower half, that pushups don't. I have some kettlebells I'll squat with, then raise them above my head. Using a dumbbell would work just as well.

Good question. These weren't 'just' books, they were rare manuals (or scrolls) containing treasured secrets. In many cultures it was not unusual to have written as well as deeper oral traditions that were not to be written down. Partly to make sure those who got the deeper instructions were worthy. In the case of the Golden Flower a scholar pointed out that it lacked clear descriptions of a some key points, leaving people to fill in the dots. Thus you see discussions here over whose translation is best, and reading them you see big differences. Amongst the few teachers too. To some that points to oral instructions. There's a world of forms and traditions- gi gung, herbal..etc., we'll never know about because they are family forms only passed on parent to child. So secretive they die out when holders no longer have progeny to learn. Thankfully there are cases where the rule is broken.

Most of the time being a mod is interesting.. sometimes it gets sticky and unpleasant. I think there's a fair amount of wisdom in taking a break after a long time. So, another wise decision, Karen.