thelerner

I'm more interested in seeing the advanced students rather than the master. They show if the system is learnable. Same with the martial arts, it's not the sensei you'll become, if you're diligent, it's the senior students under them. Are they talented, are they balanced? Or in the case of this thread, do they have similar 'powers'? The masters have given their whole life to the system, huge sacrifice. Top students give a few hours a day, everyday for decades.

You Are a country man. I'm still waiting for the alley cat that prowls around my house daily to bring me some restaurant coupons.

Not too esoteric but I rinse my mouth out vigorously a few times a day. After meals and whenever I'm in the washroom I'll rinse and spit til no teeny bits of food appear. This should also de-acidify my mouth, hopefully slowing or halting cavities. A bit more esoteric when I do a yoga-nidra relaxation routine at night- where you slowly relax parts of the body, I'll end by energetically circling my gums a few times, slowly in both directions. The hope being where you put your attention/chi blood and healing follow. I expect at my low level its a minor thing but do it a couple hundred times a year and it might add up to something. At my last dental visit a few days ago my dentist was surprised at the health of my teeth. Something that did not always happen in my youth since At 7 I learned a quarter would get me fistful of jelly beans.

Ya know, today is national Deep Dish Pizza day, not kidding. just what the US needs, <sarcasm> I hope we have a national Off-the-Grid weekend. Turn off or minimize all things electric for the weekend. What'll you do, what'll you eat, how will you entertain yourself and the kids?? Figure it out, you'll be the better for it. guess I'm describing the Sabbath, the one day a week when the Jews go Amish. Orthodox ones anyway. For the Amish I guess it'd be a day of.. What are those English playing at?

Can't a country boy live in a house, have a 9 to 5 job, and still practice homesteader skills? To me a country boy enjoys quiet and outdoors but doesn't have to be a mountain man, hermit or living off the grid. It's about the spirit of independence. Strong, capable, resilient.. enjoying nature and having skills. So, imo, it's still possible, in degrees, for anyone, even city folk, who don't mind learning new things and getting their hands dirty. It doesn't mean they can live off the land, but they can get closer to it. Here in the US that spirit is strong in many Western states especially Alaska. With it comes a host of possible problems, boredom, drugs etc. but many rewards too.

I think it can be a big help but works better when it's accompanied by Dharma/wisdom talks from the lineage. We tend to run into the same bullshit- self created and the stuff the world throws at us. Wise men from every tradition have good thoughts on how not to step in it. addon: I think what makes it change a person's character is integration. My sensei used to say 'Don't leave your Aikido on the mat'. After a meditation session the assistant teacher once said 'This is the feeling you should have when you do Aikido'. (just another reason why you don't see much of it in MMA ) When I'm good**, the sense of peace I get from meditation stays with me. ** only good 3 random hours each day.

when I get my horse and buggy, you're the first person I'll go for a ride with.

Raises hand. I'll take the extra horse. I'll need it for my stuff. by the way, anyone got a spare wagon??

I assume if you searched her posts you'd find she was sending curses left and right. Odds are they're a nasty ignorant person looking for attention. That kind of threat only comes from an insecure immature person. Studying a real art means discipline and maturity. In other words imo, you have nothing to worry about.

At the extremes most analogies break down, but in everyday life its good to stretch the mind. I'll do stretches of Life as Dream, ie see dreams as important signals of of synchronicity and life as more dreamlike..symbolic if you will. That being said it I don't assume the car heading towards me will vanish magically. Life as Dream is a hard metaphor to live with long term, for me. Similarly the concept of No good/No evil breaks down in extremes, we generally aren't living there. The world is more tic toc mundane and stretching our mind to be less judgemental, less desire is a welcome state. The movie Pleasantville had its hero describe the concept well, at the end of his 'enlightenment' journey to his mother who complains to him 'It's not supposed to be this way" and David replies back "It's not supposed to be anything. Hold still." (Funny checking on the quote I didn't remember the Hold Still part.) Big part of our struggle in life is that damnable 'It's not supposed to be this way'. While its good to call shit, shit, we over do it, and label, judge and compare too much, to our detriment. It's made us anxious, fearful and neurotic. To take a break from that mindset is imo a good thing and not easy. We can turn to Tao/zen/meditation/right thinking or Drugs/stuff/distraction. I generally flip a coin.

Since there's not that many grandmasters and monasteries around, it makes sense to learn from a book; create the discipline to establish a solid dedicated practice. Then when you have the time and resources, go for deeper training with a reputable teacher. Hopefully your practice and training will show. Funny thing is those within monasteries and under the grandmasters leave them to do long bouts of solitary practice. Maybe the Most Whole can also do well in civilian life as well as monastic. We probably grow a little stronger facing and overcoming the pressures and fears of everyday civilian life. Hopefully we make time enough for everything.

This is probably a naive question. Do people end up eating the fruit and food they put out on a shrine?

a blast from the past.

Letting go of past history, it's pretty brave to put up videos showing and sharing yourself doing your daily routine.

If you wanna start now, let me suggest a 3rd choice- http://thesecretofthegoldenflower.com/ I like it. Note that my browser Chrome called it an unsecured site. Not sure what that means but I've been there several times.

Problem I see is when a society over popularized this, it can lead to calling anyone different, that you don't like, has mental problems a witch, warlock, possessed.. as they could when bad luck, sickness and disease appear. Not saying it's not true but used without wisdom, knowledge and compassion it can lead to pretty dark things. How should we feel about psychics who's main gig is pointing out astral beings feeding on their new clients and the money charged to remove them?

Never understood the prevalence of mystical pictures with fractal imagery and figures full of eyes til I tried psilocybin mushrooms.

All depends on how high a bar you set for masterhood and enlightenment. If one has spent decades dedicated to their practice, living the path, are sincere, knowledgeable but have no siddhis or powers. Are they false? To me, no. I set a low bar for enlightenment. It can be psychological state where a person moves smoothly through the world without much ego. And/or a physical state where a person has achieved an inner orbit of esoteric energy that brings greater vitality and insight. Yet no outer powers. Others want demonstrations of powers and siddhis to prove masterhood. By those standards Mastership is quite rare and maybe laden with fraud.

When doing a lineage art, you follow the rules. Might be a teacher sick, busy or some other mundane reason, which could change. I've enjoyed the regular version of Pangu for its simplicity and feeling. Vortexes here, vortexes there, vortexes everywhere. I learned it from Michael Winn of Healing Tao before I knew anything about its history, thus not considered 100% accurate by the founder's lineage. Never knew there was an advanced version of it.

g_)*d(&*^! double post, yet perfect example.

I'm willing to give it away for free. Just have to remember where I left It.

Who indeed. Carlos Castaneda. <so famous, the spell checker corrected me, then corrected me again on the word spell checker> I read him when I was younger. Enjoyed his spiritual/adventure writings, great author for opening up the mind to the esoteric. Certainly nowhere near as bad as Osho but kinda belongs, imo, in a similar category.

Today in a library's book store. They were selling for a buck, Osho's book of Zen. Looked inside, pop culture view but not bad. Fake and fallen.. these guys self destruct and hopefully don't take too many followers with them. that said.. due to some combo of psychology, conmanship and good writing they can produce some imo good insights**. Some baby but the bath waters poisonous. **Obviously controversial but I put CC into this category.

He was way out there. Interesting, strange, sincere, passionate, eccentric, obsessive, some practices had questionable morals (looking at you O's at a distance)..

As a dabbler over the years, here's what I've gotten out of it. One it's fascinating to read. It's combination of poetry, philosophy, practice and history (ie quotes) a great read. An underappreciated classic, bonus its also short. Also old, mysterious. Comparing and contrasting the different versions is like a treasure hunt. A damnable one since at times they can be pretty different. As a modern guy I look more for practices than philosophy. Even there, different translators seem to describe it differently, yet I see pieces of it in different energy arts. Anyhow, what I've gotten out of it is to practice (at times) with open eyes. Nothing radical there, half eye is common in Zen, and a few other traditions. But GF puts more explanation and emphasis on it. In that I see some parallels to Dzoghen. There's a gentle breath oriented circulation going on. I'm sure I've bastardized it but a gentle awareness- breathing in- head, heart, belly (comfortable hold), breath out- to heart, back to head. Feels good to me. Keeps my breath slow. Not really visualizing rather shifting my awareness of sensation. Has it done anything great for me? Don't know, maybe I'd be even worse without it. For me, it's a pleasant way to sit and drop my mind.