thelerner

Greetings spiritmovesyou. That sad story is beyond my experiences. Hope outside most members, what a horrible situation. Thus any advice you get here will probably be highly speculative. Have you been involved in the whole scenario of curses and protections etc.? I've been cautioned against it. Entangling oneself in such beliefs can be dangerous. It'd be interesting to hear others viewpoint. <course as I wrote that, a black fly came at me(its winter), I swatted, it fell to the ground, placed a tissue on top then squashed it. I'm willing to play Life as Dream scenarios for many things, but for negative happenings, I usually won't play that game. Not wanting to plant things in my subconscious> We're an eclectic philosophy forum for learning, discussing and cultivation. Below are 3 important sections: Our Rules, The Insult Policy and our 3 Foundations. Before you join give them a read. Most of it boils down to being respectful. No name calling or trolling. Post as if your mom's looking over your shoulder. Discussion and arguments are what the board is about. Keep it civil, don't get personal. Don't be a troll or one issue zealot. We're here for good conversation and making some friends along the way, to be a community. Jump right in, start threads, ask questions, look for interesting threads and post your (relevant) thoughts. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. TDB team At your leisure, please review-

That reminds me, one of my favorite healing meditations is Gile Marin's Bone Breathing guided meditation. No stripping the meat off yourself, rather it slowly, over 30 minutes has you light up your skeleton, relaxing and I'm guessing very healthy. In that the bone marrow is a source of red/white blood cells.

Nice, good blog section. Reminds me of the old magazine Classical Martial Arts.

maybe try- Meditate in a less comfortable position and keep the eyes half open, staring a foot and a little infront of you. Sometimes meditation means falling into a trance state. Keep the awareness sharper with a straighter back, and a half eye open stare, it might keep you more alert and focused. Might help with thoughts coming and going by.

Hi Asim, amen, Welcome to the board. We're an eclectic philosophy forum for learning, discussing and cultivation. Below are 3 important sections: Our Rules, The Insult Policy and our 3 Foundations. Before you join give them a read. Most of it boils down to being respectful. No name calling or trolling. Post as if your mom's looking over your shoulder. Discussion and arguments are what the board is about. Keep it civil, don't get personal. Don't be a troll or one issue zealot. We're here for good conversation and making some friends along the way, to be a community. Jump right in, start threads, ask questions, look for interesting threads and post your (relevant) thoughts. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. TDB team At your leisure, please review-

Hi snailmale, I'm more familiar with zhan zhuang standing meditation then wuji. Wuji seems to have a little bit of movement within, very interesting. It'd be great to have a thread/topic exploring it. I'm sure people would love to hear about Taiji training in China and if you've found any group practices with the same flavor here in the States. Very glad to have you on board. We're an eclectic philosophy forum for learning, discussing and cultivation. Below are 3 important sections: Our Rules, The Insult Policy and our 3 Foundations. Before you join give them a read. Most of it boils down to being respectful. No name calling or trolling. Post as if your mom's looking over your shoulder. Discussion and arguments are what the board is about. Keep it civil, don't get personal. Don't be a troll or one issue zealot. We're here for good conversation and making some friends along the way, to be a community. Jump right in, start threads, ask questions, look for interesting threads and post your (relevant) thoughts. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. TDB team At your leisure, please review-

It's interesting how many religions have enlightened tricksters. I don't think Abramic ones have a similar figure. Or do they, some saint shaking things up? I'd say the devil plays that role but the enlightened trickster is not malicious.

Hi Ghostexorcist, I think many people here dream of going East, teaching English and visiting exotic sites. So, to many of us, you're living the dream. It'd be fascinating to hear more about your travels. Welcome to the board. We're an eclectic philosophy forum for learning, discussing and cultivation. Below are 3 important sections: Our Rules, The Insult Policy and our 3 Foundations. Before you join give them a read. Most of it boils down to being respectful. No name calling or trolling. Post as if your mom's looking over your shoulder. Discussion and arguments are what the board is about. Keep it civil, don't get personal. Don't be a troll or one issue zealot. We're here for good conversation and making some friends along the way, to be a community. Jump right in, start threads, ask questions, look for interesting threads and post your (relevant) thoughts. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. TDB team At your leisure, please review-

Yeah, the pulling/pushing of such big muscles, as well as tugging and releasing fascia throughout the body is.. stimulating. I find whole body shaking, often done as warm-up to be an excellent simple QiGong all by itself. Do it for 10, 15, 20 minutes and it gets pretty deep.

Ah Gadgets, what separates man from beasts, and hard earned money. New Gadget- percussion massage gun. Pretty good. Surprisingly powerful. Pounding goes right thru to the bone. Kinda like a massage, from a robot, who doesn't particularly like humans, but isn't at the 'kill them all' stage. Old gadget, my Spoonk mat. Like a yoga mat w/ 1,000s of plastic 1/3 inch tall spikes on top. Used to be painful when I first laid down on it, then release into relaxation. After years, it's all relaxation. It's like acupuncture, from a blind man, who makes up for lack of sight w/ lots and lots of needles.

Not the only path, but maybe a needed ingredient. As people above have alluded too, the point is not to leave your meditation on the zafu.

Hi Zhang, a warm welcome to the board. I look forward to your sharing. We're an eclectic philosophy forum for learning, discussing and cultivation. Below are 3 important sections: Our Rules, The Insult Policy and our 3 Foundations. Before you join give them a read. Most of it boils down to being respectful. No name calling or trolling. Post as if your mom's looking over your shoulder. Discussion and arguments are what the board is about. Keep it civil, don't get personal. Don't be a troll or one issue zealot. We're here for good conversation and making some friends along the way, to be a community. Jump right in, start threads, ask questions, look for interesting threads and post your (relevant) thoughts. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. TDB team At your leisure, please review- 1 Xantios responded to this

If you miss it, it's coming back in 800 years.

my wife had panic attacks. It can be a tough nut to crack by yourself. It's as if a deep program, a stupid one is running and you're powerless to stop it. What helped her was finding a behavioral therapist who prescribed awareness of the triggers, relaxation techniques, a few self hypnotic scripts and strong muscle relaxants. The good news is, once they stopped, they've been gone for good. A few times she felt them coming on, used all the tools, body relaxation (piece by piece) and took a muscle relaxant. It didn't many disruptions to stop the programming. You could replicate some of it. Check online for some good yoga nidras. They are excellent for learning relaxation techniques. see https://www.yoganidranetwork.org/downloads for many free samples. See if any connect to you. Think about the triggers, be mindful of them. See if you can get a prescription of muscle relaxants or see the strongest over the counter. Good luck.

as long as this is about locking threads.. let's see if it works.. Be better.. don't hold grudges and don't let old enmities spread thru different threads.

That Original Post from August 2018, was Lemur's 3rd and last post on the site. Which is too bad. I wonder if you'd have better luck going to Michael Winn now. He's at Healing Tao USA. He runs classes, has videos. I enjoyed the classes I took with him years ago. Lately some of his views are a little too out there for me, but I enjoyed and learned much from his Basics courses.

Also, what does it say about us, if we spend our time worrying and speculating about other peoples sex life?

Greetings Friendlee, Welcome to the site. Sounds like you have many stories to tell. When I see my old martial art friends who still practice I realize how far I've fallen. Its as if each year away, takes away one year of practice and conditioning. I don't know about the skill and timing, but the conditioning comes back. We're an eclectic philosophy forum for learning, discussing and cultivation. Below are 3 important sections: Our Rules, The Insult Policy and our 3 Foundations. Before you join give them a read. Most of it boils down to being respectful. No name calling or trolling. Post as if your mom's looking over your shoulder. Discussion and arguments are what the board is about. Keep it civil, don't get personal. Don't be a troll or one issue zealot. We're here for good conversation and making some friends along the way, to be a community. Jump right in, start threads, ask questions, look for interesting threads and post your (relevant) thoughts. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. TDB team Read and review Our Rules: Please take a moment to review our Forum Terms & Rules detailed below. If you agree with them and wish to proceed with the registration, simply click the "Register" button below. To cancel this registration, simply hit the 'back' button on your browser. Please remember that we are not responsible for any messages posted. We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message. The messages express the views of the author of the message, not necessarily the views of this bulletin board. Any user who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact us immediately by email. We have the ability to remove objectionable messages and we will make every effort to do so, within a reasonable time frame, if we determine that removal is necessary. The content is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of content found on the website. You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this bulletin board to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, spam, obscene, profane, threatens or incites violence, invasive of a person's privacy, nor of denigrating and/or erotically suggestive avatars, signatures, links and pictures, or otherwise violative of any law. You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by this bulletin board. -Mal Rules & Use 7/22/11 Our Insult Policy- Read it, Live it Basically No personal attacks. It is totally fine to vocally disagree with a person's opinion, technique, politics, approach, lifestyle choice, etc. But no insulting (or links to attacks) of individuals, nationalities, genders, political preferences, lifestyle choices, etc. While this may sound restrictive and categorically un-Taoist, I believe it is a useful guideline to help us stop for a moment and think about how to present our perspectives intelligently without just flinging unproductive rudeness at each other. This way other members can receive value from your perspective and you can gain clarity by reasoning out why you initially felt compelled to verbally put down someone else for being different. No one, including the originating poster, gains anything from statements like "So and so is a complete moron", etc. If you have an opinion and you believe it's relevant to a topic at hand, post it as constructively as possible so we can learn from you, debate with you, ignore you, whatever. If you can't abide by this simple constructive guideline, either create your post in a PPD or expect it can be moved. This is our mini-octagon here for those of you that insist on a more primitive breed of taoist war. TheDaoBums' Three Foundations: Eclectic, Egalitarian, Civil. TDBs' Cultural Context and Founding Principles ver.2020-Jul-16 The purpose of this document is to concisely state the most fundamental framework principles that give TDBs it's distinctive shape. This is not "all the rules, permutations, etc", just the steel beams. TDBs exists in the general field of "The Search for Truth". The Usual organized formats (schools) for The Search tend to have: 1. focus exclusively within a school 2. hierachical learning structure, hierachical ability to speak TheDàoBums' founding principles form a deliberate cultural counter-point: 1. run independently of any school, which allows a more eclectic atmosphere 2. conversational learning, egalitarian ability for members to speak TDBs' social format is "cafeteria", not "classroom". It's part of TDBs' premise that, broadly in culture, these two formats are necessary, distinct yet complementary. TheDàoBums has a strong egalitarian ethic in that it's whole purpose is to provide a civil very open context for member conversations. However, its governance structure is mostly top down; it's not a democracy. - admins - own / run the board - moderators - enforce rules - members - converse TDBs' Conversational Context: 1. At TDBs member participation in conversation is non-hierarchical. Meaning, members have equal ability to talk regardless of level of knowledge, achievement, or status / credentials of any kind. TDBs has an underlying ethic of valuing the communication of each person. 2. TDBs most basic rules about conversation are around civility. While TDBs provides room for, encourages, lively, often vigorous and sometimes rough and tumble, debate ... that is balanced by protecting decency and sensitivity towards each other in such a variety of instances that no set of specific rules could ever adequately cover. A moderator's basic role is to moderate members' incivility toward each other in conversation. Members support this process by 'reporting' offending posts A fictional example of how 1&2 shake out: If there's a TDBs debate about music between Mozart vs a beginning piano player, and it becomes heated enough that reports are generated for moderator consideration then, still, "level of knowledge, achievement, or status" are not basis for moderation. Civility is, applied equally to each member. It's up to each member, not moderators, to sort out the truth (and other questions of quality) for themselves in conversation. Moderators just keep the conversation civil within reasonable limits. For issues of staff bias, members can contact the current admin. The staff (admins, moderators) also deserve and have protection against incivility and against abuse of staff resources. Staff protection is enforced at the discretion of the admin, lead moderator/s, and by consensus of the moderation team. The admin also has broad discretion to protect the civility and resources of any aspect within TDBs e-community. signed, - Trunk, author & past admin - Sean, owner & admin of TheDàoBums

Hi Schrodinger, It can be a major blessing when you find an art that works for you. It's not just matter of finding a good art, different things connect to different people. You'll find a wide variety here, with their proponents and critics. Look around, use your best judgement and when it looks good. Commit. Welcome to the site. We're an eclectic philosophy forum for learning, discussing and cultivation. Below are 3 important sections: Our Rules, The Insult Policy and our 3 Foundations. Before you join give them a read. Most of it boils down to being respectful. No name calling or trolling. Post as if your mom's looking over your shoulder. Discussion and arguments are what the board is about. Keep it civil, don't get personal. Don't be a troll or one issue zealot. We're here for good conversation and making some friends along the way, to be a community. Jump right in, start threads, ask questions, look for interesting threads and post your (relevant) thoughts. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. TDB team Read and review Our Rules: Please take a moment to review our Forum Terms & Rules detailed below. If you agree with them and wish to proceed with the registration, simply click the "Register" button below. To cancel this registration, simply hit the 'back' button on your browser. Please remember that we are not responsible for any messages posted. We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message. The messages express the views of the author of the message, not necessarily the views of this bulletin board. Any user who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact us immediately by email. We have the ability to remove objectionable messages and we will make every effort to do so, within a reasonable time frame, if we determine that removal is necessary. The content is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of content found on the website. You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this bulletin board to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, spam, obscene, profane, threatens or incites violence, invasive of a person's privacy, nor of denigrating and/or erotically suggestive avatars, signatures, links and pictures, or otherwise violative of any law. You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by this bulletin board. -Mal Rules & Use 7/22/11 Our Insult Policy- Read it, Live it Basically No personal attacks. It is totally fine to vocally disagree with a person's opinion, technique, politics, approach, lifestyle choice, etc. But no insulting (or links to attacks) of individuals, nationalities, genders, political preferences, lifestyle choices, etc. While this may sound restrictive and categorically un-Taoist, I believe it is a useful guideline to help us stop for a moment and think about how to present our perspectives intelligently without just flinging unproductive rudeness at each other. This way other members can receive value from your perspective and you can gain clarity by reasoning out why you initially felt compelled to verbally put down someone else for being different. No one, including the originating poster, gains anything from statements like "So and so is a complete moron", etc. If you have an opinion and you believe it's relevant to a topic at hand, post it as constructively as possible so we can learn from you, debate with you, ignore you, whatever. If you can't abide by this simple constructive guideline, either create your post in a PPD or expect it can be moved. This is our mini-octagon here for those of you that insist on a more primitive breed of taoist war. TheDaoBums' Three Foundations: Eclectic, Egalitarian, Civil. TDBs' Cultural Context and Founding Principles ver.2020-Jul-16 The purpose of this document is to concisely state the most fundamental framework principles that give TDBs it's distinctive shape. This is not "all the rules, permutations, etc", just the steel beams. TDBs exists in the general field of "The Search for Truth". The Usual organized formats (schools) for The Search tend to have: 1. focus exclusively within a school 2. hierachical learning structure, hierachical ability to speak TheDàoBums' founding principles form a deliberate cultural counter-point: 1. run independently of any school, which allows a more eclectic atmosphere 2. conversational learning, egalitarian ability for members to speak TDBs' social format is "cafeteria", not "classroom". It's part of TDBs' premise that, broadly in culture, these two formats are necessary, distinct yet complementary. TheDàoBums has a strong egalitarian ethic in that it's whole purpose is to provide a civil very open context for member conversations. However, its governance structure is mostly top down; it's not a democracy. - admins - own / run the board - moderators - enforce rules - members - converse TDBs' Conversational Context: 1. At TDBs member participation in conversation is non-hierarchical. Meaning, members have equal ability to talk regardless of level of knowledge, achievement, or status / credentials of any kind. TDBs has an underlying ethic of valuing the communication of each person. 2. TDBs most basic rules about conversation are around civility. While TDBs provides room for, encourages, lively, often vigorous and sometimes rough and tumble, debate ... that is balanced by protecting decency and sensitivity towards each other in such a variety of instances that no set of specific rules could ever adequately cover. A moderator's basic role is to moderate members' incivility toward each other in conversation. Members support this process by 'reporting' offending posts A fictional example of how 1&2 shake out: If there's a TDBs debate about music between Mozart vs a beginning piano player, and it becomes heated enough that reports are generated for moderator consideration then, still, "level of knowledge, achievement, or status" are not basis for moderation. Civility is, applied equally to each member. It's up to each member, not moderators, to sort out the truth (and other questions of quality) for themselves in conversation. Moderators just keep the conversation civil within reasonable limits. For issues of staff bias, members can contact the current admin. The staff (admins, moderators) also deserve and have protection against incivility and against abuse of staff resources. Staff protection is enforced at the discretion of the admin, lead moderator/s, and by consensus of the moderation team. The admin also has broad discretion to protect the civility and resources of any aspect within TDBs e-community. signed, - Trunk, author & past admin - Sean, owner & admin of TheDàoBums

exactly, that is the point Twain the satirist wanted to get through. Cause its seems easy to see, yet in war time all to common. Even now, in politics, reading the comment sections in the more extreme news sources we see calls to arms, death and/or imprisonment to the other villainous other side. I think we all have to be on guard not to engage in it ourselves, especially during dark times. We've been raised to reduce complex situations into hero vs villains scenarios. Assuming quick solutions to long term knotty problems. Mark Twain had another story, The Mysterious Stranger, where 3 kids meet a stranger who performs miracles and brings there dolls to life, and to a bloody end, they watch, he laughs. The seemingly sentient dolls were his play things. Is he the devil? A god? Twain leaves us wondering. I think Twain wrote a few versions of the story.

Twain did it first (1905).. https://warprayer.org/ has the full story including- <being Mark Twain, a pacifist do I need to add it's Satire?> “..Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle—be Thou near them! With them—in spirit—we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it— For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."

I tend to treat old enemies the same way I do dark entities. Ignore'em mostly, leave'em alone, give'em no heed. Without providing drama and attention, they usually wander on to people who'll give it to them. Most of the time, enemy is a title I give things having a bad day. At another time, we'd get along.

Hi Charlesjordan, my thoughts are beware of going from extreme to extreme. It's good to go slow and work on 'better'. On the mundane. We don't 'chop wood and carry water' only after enlightenment. We do it before. It's figuring out our necessary jobs, and how to do it well. Hell, I just figured doing laundry once a week, not when absolutely positively needed, is the way to go. Not esoteric practice but the things we need to do each day to make our lives better. Glad you realize drugs are not great solution. Using marijuana every day as a teen is probably bad. One's brain is still developing and for all its positive affects, MJ can be a powerful demotivator. Good idea taking a break from drugs and extreme practices. Like allergies, finding solutions might be best by doing less, then adding things and seeing how they feel. I don't remember Lush Lemur here. The only person I see of that name only had 3 introductory posts. I hope you find some good answers here. Welcome to the site. Here's something positive. You know what's been good for my 'jing'. Kettlebell swings. While its a whole body kind of exercise, the hip/hinge movement, seems to add to the pelvic strength, inner and outer, imo. We're an eclectic philosophy forum for learning, discussing and cultivation. Below are 3 important sections: Our Rules, The Insult Policy and our 3 Foundations. Before you join give them a read. Most of it boils down to being respectful. No name calling or trolling. Post as if your mom's looking over your shoulder. Discussion and arguments are what the board is about. Keep it civil, don't get personal. Don't be a troll or one issue zealot. We're here for good conversation and making some friends along the way, to be a community. Jump right in, start threads, ask questions, look for interesting threads and post your (relevant) thoughts. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. TDB team At your leisure, please review-

FWIW, as a Jew, imo, the Jewish concept of God has changed and evolved. Definitely not the same as as biblical times 3 or 4,000 years ago. Nor 2,000 years ago at the time of Jesus. Which tends to be where Christians have sorta locked into a bit. Jewish theology is seeing God as awesome encompassing all space and time. We live.. within.. and the essence is within us. Cosmic yet personal. The prayers that seem somewhat 'kiss ass' are in modern terms meant to put us in a state of resonance. We're not buttering up God calling him great and mighty, rather we're praying the words to get our minds around the nature of Godliness. Some might go further and say Patriarchs are a focal points for certain ethical values, rather then the actual people in the bible. <Certainly the bible can be awful, bloody, superstitious.. a number of negative 'isms, but twisted around enough pretty decent wisdom can be squeezed out of the lemon.> Course it depends on your rabbi and how things are taught, but historically the torah's read w/ the idea of Pardes.. that there's 4 main levels of understanding with the literal one being the lowest. ie- Peshat (פְּשָׁט‎) – "surface" ("straight") or the literal (direct) meaning.[1] Remez (רֶמֶז‎) – "hints" or the deep (allegoric: hidden or symbolic) meaning beyond just the literal sense. Derash (דְּרַשׁ‎) – from Hebrew darash: "inquire" ("seek") – the comparative (midrashic) meaning, as given through similar occurrences. Sod (סוֹד‎) (pronounced with a long O as in 'lore') – "secret" ("mystery") or the esoteric/mystical meaning, as given through inspiration or revelation.

Hey @Steve can you set up a PPD for @Spaceofawareness ? Thanks.