thelerner

In the 13 pages of comments did anyone mention that some people delete themselves out manually? ie blank out every one of their posts. Self terminating there electric finger prints here. Time consuming and doesn't mean much since old posts get washed down the stream of time, but some have a philosophy of leaving no trace, which I can respect. myself, I like to leave traces and bread crumbs in places I've been. Lest I forget them and the lessons learned there.

I think this is worth seconding. You can write about Marxism without throwing words like Mass Murderous Jews into the title. Unless that's what you want to scream in order to get eye balls. I don't think Sionnach's an idiot. He knew what he was doing and got the reaction expected.

I throw this link in whenever Bardon is mentioned on the off chance the person doesn't know about it. Rawn Clark has a site called abardoncompanion.com. He's a long time knowledgeable practitioner who has notes on the system (IIH) as well as a collection of free Bardon inspired audio's that run pretty deep with complimentary practices.

In most martial arts, the grandmaster, who's had a lifetime of experience, does the same moves the beginner does. In truth, nothing fancy.. its just honed by 100,000 repetitions. It becomes simple, efficient and done with cracker jack awareness. Even with something as plain as sitting, you can read expertise in a persons posture and wah.

Yeah, and it seems people get/imagine aspects of the afterlife they imagine. I'm more worried about the heaven/hell I'm making on earth, for myself.. and how I affect others. The afterlife will have to take care of itself.

As a Jew, once you get beyond the bible into 3,300 years of theology, the thinking is God is transcendental, without, within and really really big. Beyond space and time, human conception, yet like dna held within all things. Every day we hold things up, and say The spirit/breath of the infinite infuses all things, Look Bread, or wine, or washroom, anything. The point of prayer is to connect in some way to this Beyondness. Not for stuff, but because its reconnecting to our source. and that's good. On the third hand, in a battle between Christian versus Hindu deities, I'd put my money on Hindu. God and Christ might be a powerful father son team, but the Hindu's still have them outnumbered.

I think its important to die within a sense of peace. I'm glad I wasn't raised in household that believes in hell. Morals/Golden Rule yes, hell.. no. I still think of it as an old nasty system for controlling minds, young and old. Could be wrong, perhaps I'll see.

Wait until the Dr. Strange movie comes out. Think its bad now, after that we'll get a new wave of people looking for Shangrila and the hidden master's looking for the them, The Special One, who'll they'll teach as fast an 80's movie montage, going from rookie to master in 3 minutes, depending on the music theme.

caveat I did Chia's stuff quite a while ago and am certainly not up to date or have any particular expertise in it. I didn't have any bad experiences, so what I'm repeating is from others, you can do a search on Mantak Chia and find the threads. Nor did I go very deep into the system. I never got deep into packing, but that's a practice you should be cautious with. Long sessions of sex sound good but within limits, same with celibacy, unless you're transforming it (?) its seems to be better to have a healthy discipline and that differs for each person. For some once a week, others once a month. Marathon can be good, but early (year or so) on its probably best to build up to it. If your energy sensitive (I'm not) and you do long sessions with energy work, circulation, you can heat up, negative things can happen. So slow and steady, practice with integrity. That never hit me doing Chia's stuff or the orbit. A few years ago I'd do zhan zhang, standing practice, facing the afternoon sun. Bringing it in, circulating it, felt good, active, until one day energy moving too fast up and down. Kinda like it was cooking my heart. So I stopped. If I'd forced it, thinking it was a sign of progress, I'd open myself to myriad physical and mental problems. People blow internal circuits. I'll still stand sometimes, but not for long periods facing the sun. Not unless I want to build up slowly.

me too.

bump. My gardens are going pretty good. Grape tomatoes producing every day. Peppers doing well. Even watermelons are slowly plumping, though like children its sad to lose a few to wild beasts. The lettuce has done well, but we're not eating it, thus its going to seed. Likewise animals have developed a taste for Brussel Sprouts and have stunted there growth, though my friend's plants are giant, I have yet to see many buds. One notable success is hanging strawberries. I have several plants in a burlap metal hanger. They're giving a couple of sweet slightly acidic strawberries each day the last couple weeks. Stronger, truer flavor then store bought, where even the good ones, tend to be more sugary then strawberry flavored. They also seem to rot on the vine if you don't pick and eat them as soon as they turn. I'll definately do this again next year. Great bang for the buck, as long as you can water them every day. I did a hanging lettuce planter, drilling out holes so it'd look like a big ball of lettuce. That's turned out just okay. Holes were a little too small. Some lettuce still grew out of them, but not the full ball effect I've seen elsewhere. Plus, for some reason we're just not into eating it, though we have lettuce with dinner most days. How bout you guys, how's ur lettuce hanging??

A little off topic. After years of various breathing methods, doing the Wim Hof 10 week program had me re-learning and examining what I knew about breath. Its an extreme method, fast deep breathing, verging on hyperventilation then a deep exploration of oft forgotten empty hold, ie you hold the empty breath for ridiculous amounts of time. You experience what a full breath really is, the nature of emptiness, and an intimate awareness of what the most important thing in the world is.. the in breath. Because you explore the reaches of emptiness, will and asphyxiation. Definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but there are benefits.

The seminar I took with Chia was quite a while ago, almost 20 years. It was just a 3 day seminar covering his basics. He was enthusiastic, the teachings were much like his thick book.. what's its name, I have it somewhere upstairs. He went through and reviewed internal smile, mco. Gave some speeches wondering why it hadn't caught on more. I enjoyed it, no particular breakthroughs. I'd been doing the practices for a while, also I tend to not be very energy sensitive. So for me energy movement is more of a sensation mantra, rather then the full blown experience some get out of it. I consider him to be a pioneer in bringing Taoist energetic practices to the West. His dedicated students have gotten much out of his teachings and some have gotten pretty far down the path. (opened channels, a kind of enlightenment). That being said without the live close teacher feedback some (or many depending who you ask) have gotten burned with some of his sexual and packing practices. Which might have been avoided if they'd had a live teacher or gone slower, backing off when things got hot. I probably got more out of Michael Winn's classes. More time spent practicing, able to ask questions of him, other teachers and advanced students. I enjoyed learning some simple but deep gi gung forms. The last seminar I took at Healing Tao, was Fusion, I didn't learn much, but enjoyed it. Soaking up the wah of the teacher, a chance to meditate deeply with peers, saw some amazing demonstrations of healing. There are people, some who used to be very active here, who really blossomed under Chia's methods. Others here have problems with him. I'd say, if you connect, great. Don't let the naysayers dissuade you, but neither ignore there advice, rather take it be cautious against the extremes and slow down the practice if things get strange or negative. Keep the enthusiasm, but without a live teacher, be willing to go slow and steady. I recommend against marathon sessions. For my path, I've gotten away from energetic practices lately, returning to the simple, just sitting. That's not to say one is better then the other, but there are times life leads you in different directions, for me now,its keeping it simple. Later on, that'll probably change.

ego is insidious.

My take, its good to carry your past ages with you. Be able to revert to child, teen, young adult, current age, even project yourself into the old age viewpoint. Its rejuvenating to be with a toddler, spread out your feet, roll a ball back and forth. And that rejuvenation is powerful. The rebellion within teens is powerful. A young adults drive and naivety is powerful. So, in my mind, pull out the child at times. Eat the ice cream, consciously do the stupid pointless things, indulge..sometimes. Have fun for fun's sake. Laugh, play, be childlike, at times. Don't lose the spirit, ever. At times, daily, weekly.. roll up your sleeves, be serious and disciplined, learn and accomplish. There is a time for play and a time to put away childish things, but not permanently. For me the good life, much to the chagrin of my children, is replaying my youth, sometimes.

Two theories. One, we try to be pretty chill- Miss a day worshiping the Taoist Pantheon of Immortals/gods and we're okay with that. 2nd theory, its a play on Jack Kerouac's book The Dharma Bums. Probably more that. We're a pretty eclectic bunch, looking at philosophy and practices from all sorts of angles. Early on I studied Mantak Chia's stuff, even taking a class with him when he visited Chicago, then taking some seminars with Michael Winn of Healing Tao USA.

It's always nice to have an author around. I'd love to hear some of your insights into it. Huh, I don't think I've ever noticed this subsection before..

Partly being aware of the many parts of breath; the crescendo's and holds. Watching as it slides from one part to another. Breathing in, the stop, the hold, the out breath breath, how it crescendo's toward cessation, how it stops, the period of empty holding, the trigger to breath again. Other games, focusing on an area of sensation where the breath moves past. Or its sound. Or the stomach or how a deep breath separates the floating ribs, fills up the chest expanding and separating clavicles and shoulders. In one practice I'll count my breaths from 1 to 100 (or 200) to keep me focused on each as a separate unit, not easy. For me anyway.

Keep it simple, functional.. lots of wood and earth tones. Taomeow turned me on to The Japanese art of Tidying book. Where the main idea is, if you don't love throw it out. This leads to minimalism where everything you own is special and treated as such.

Netflix, not youtube. I've been binging on Penny Dreadful series. Its been helping my Game of Thrones withdrawal. It's dark, horror genre, 1890's soap opera, sex, blood, sympathetic monsters, heroes, heroes who are the sympathetic monsters. Stepping back it raises good questions and issues to chew on. I'll have to dig up season 3 somewhere.

Good stuff. Another point my sensei would make was after you win, or lose- keep quiet and walk away quickly. Often a winner will pontificate and get waylaid by the losers friends or enrage a downed foe so they get up and keep fighting. Or a loser on the ground shouts out a defiant 'screw you' and is re-engaged to their detriment. Don't play the cowboy or philosopher, just leave. A strong spirit can protect you, but leaving tends to be a sure thing, depending on your spirit, you can never be really sure. All that being said, sometimes a fight isn't so bad.

Sure, helping others you learn compassion. Its literally called Karma yoga, serving others to the best of your ability, opens your heart a bit. You realize there but for the Grace of God go I.

random thoughts.. hmnn, commanding the mind, you've already split yourself into two. Be like the commercial, Just Do It. Don't argue or rationalize; seek pleasure or to avoid pain (even if that pain is boredom), just do it. Act completely then relax knowing it is done. Lastly, mind controls mind, poorly. Start with the breath. Breathing evenly, accept all thoughts, slow the thoughts, focus on the act, focus on how it'll feel when you're finished, then ready set go.

Looks pretty old school, course there's no school like old school. If you don't get good answers here, ask directly to that site. There are probably hundreds of variations on classic Taoist and Chinese meditation and that's simply one of them.

I consider myself an environmentalist (on the lighter side anyway), but dislike extremists. Thus its good to know 100+ years after his dark predictions of natural apocalypse.. nature's brutal revenge in all its fiery frenzy- never happened. Humanity is going strong, more populous and living longer lives. Not that we shouldn't work protect and clean the environment. I wonder if his calls did any good in the 1910's and 20's? Novels like 'The Jungle' in 1906 by Upton Sinclair were important in showing how Chicago slaughter houses were dehumanizing workers and spreading disease. More on point 'Silent Spring' 1962 Rachel Carson was instrumental in waking people up the monumental smog and degradation that was building up. Did his call do any good? People were shocked when the TV show Mad Men set in the 1960's showed the mother after picnic telling the kids, to clean up by throwing the waste in the forest. Such action was common place back then. We needed the imagery of the Indian with the tear in his eye to get people's awareness. While we have a long way to go, people don't litter as much. Kids are, sometime obnoxiously in the forefront of the environmental scene. Maybe to keep things balanced we do need loud extremists to balance out the very quiet worst polluting offenders.