thelerner

Hi Vee, using live chat can be hit or miss. The best way I've found is to Post "Let's go to Live Chat today-I'm there now". Its nice conversing w/ people you've only read posts of. I find it miraculous you can converse at the same time w/ people in New York, Arizona, Germany etc. at the speed of light and a mouse click. I encourage people to try it. Its a great way of connecting. If you can't get it running by downloading the latest java software try another browser. Michael

I generally feel the teacher is more important then the art. Beyond the teaching the presence and wah of a great teacher can be profoundly life changing. So watch a few classes, talk to a few students. Michael

Hmmn, What I learned from the story was the story was 'never donate both eyes, one should be good enough' : Michael

Here's a link (loonng) to the dark side http://home.att.net/~meditation/Osho.html I've read through a few of his books. I liked them. They didn't strike me as deep, but they were good. There certainly seemed to be dozens that he wrote. I had one book on various meditations -Lunchtime Enlightenment(?) by a student of his who loved him. It was a good book and I'm sure he helped her and many other people. But that dark side is pretty black. I'm sure he had juice, but it he ended up going down a corrupt path. Michael

Got my book (from Lulu) yesterday. Just opened it. I'll start digging into it today. Phoenix in November would be fantastic. So close to Taos. Hope we get the details asap and we get good get reports from the seminar. In the books introduction it does state the "one hour = hundred years", Then goes onto to say training a couple of weeks and nothing happening. Which is fine, normal. You don't want to treat practice like a street drug. If its only bliss and you still kick the dog and worry about the Worrisome then its not worth it. Its a distraction. Same thing about making a T-shirt smoke by pointing at it. Healing oneself and others is imperative, replicating a 99 cent lighter is low level optional to me. Michael

I hope this isn't a tangent but when I think of 'sitting in forgetfulness' I think of a Vispasanna exercise. Here's how I do it. Before I meditate I think upon; I am not my body, I am that which inhabits it. I am not my past, that is just old patterns and memories. I am not my future, that is needless projection. I am not my thoughts, they are like clouds passing through the sky, phantoms. I am not my emotions, I acknowledge them and let them settle like ripples on a pond. I wish to go into the deep silence. I run that more or less through my head each time I do empty meditation. These days I've gone from a warm up of counting my breaths in rounds of 1 to 10, to counting 50 breaths(using 1-1 to 1-10, 2-1 to 2-10 etc.) before letting them go and just sitting. Yours Michael

There is a Healing Music series of CD's that has samples of various sacred and new age music. I like musician's Deuter's stuff. Some of his pieces are like musical trance inducers. I like tibetan bells. An aikido dojo I went to had a really large one. When played properly you could hear bells rhthyms circling within it. The effect reminded me of helicopters blade. There's an illusion that you can see the blade circling, but you can't. Large tibetan bell circles the sound inside to create an amazing effect. An interesting chant series is called the The Magic of IHVH. Its on ABardoncompanion.com. It starts simple and builds up. I like it a lot and its free. If you're of a Jewish background or interested in Kabbalah, the book/cd Ecstatic Kabbalah has some great chant practices on it. Amongst other things it gets into vowels and where their sounds hit the body. It parallels Shinto Kotodama (sacred sounds) somewhat. I haven't done it, but I think Chia had a chant the kan and li practice, which did you have you chanting the baugua somehow. You could probably google it under the Healing Tao site. Michael

7:30 a.m on Monday. I wait for light to turn green. It does. I surge ahead, one of a crowd of people waiting for the light. Three body lengths ahead of me is the umbrella man. Today his umbrella is staid dignified black. To me he is stranger number 6,045 in a city of 7 million strangers. The sky is sunny. 7:32a.m Tuesday. I walk my usual route. The umbrella man moves northward ahead of me. Today his umbrella is multicolored, like a Monet painting. Its partly cloudy, a soft wind from the south. No chance of rain. 7:31a.m Wednesday. He has a children's umbrella. It is plasticky yellow and curves down. It's two cartoon eyes stare at me as I walk behind him. Another sunny day. 7:40 a.m. Thursday. He's walking beside me. Today umbrella is adult and disconcertingly red, almost a blood ochre. For the first time in 8 and half months eye contact is made. One step, two step three step..he's still looking at me. He's tall, gaunt, 40ish I'd guess. His stare makes me speak in self defense, "Why are you caring that umbrella?" I ask. He considers and says "Because somewhere in the world its raining". I slow down. He walks ahead. Minutes later he's blocks ahead. 7:25a.m. Friday. Today he had a black golfing umbrella. It was huge. He kept it partially undone to keep from hitting the people along side of him. It hung above him like a pyramid. I asked "Why that umbrella?" "Because I cannot carry a cave around." and he kept walking. For the next two weeks I ask him the question. Each time I get different answer. They're terse, humorous, maybe philosophical. Two weeks later 7:28 Monday. Its raining. I wonder if I can spot the umbrella man in a crowd of umbrellas. I'm early and I stand by a light post so the commuter crowd won't drag me away. I see him, he's across the street waiting for the light. He's hunched over, his coat pulled partially above his head. He clearly doesn't like the rain. And No Umbrella! I can't help by smile at the sight of him. As he crosses the street he sees me. He straightens up and pulls his coat down. Accepting the rain. As he approaches I have to ask him the question, "Why no umbrella?" "Remember last Thursday's answer?" he says. I didn't. He smiles and walked away. By the middle of the day I remember. It was, "So I can gallantly help a young lady on a rainy day." So,..he gave it away. Month after month I'd see him. Different umbrellas, different answers to my same question. Our paths only matched for 3 blocks. I followed him further one day and found out I was not unique. He had other regulars who would ask a question and get a short witty enigmatic reply. One day before I asked the question, he asked if I'd like to join him for a cup of coffee. "Yes I said" This was certainly worth missing my bus for.

Sorry I missed you Matt. I wish there was a sound you could send people to signal live chat. I wonder how visible and/or audible it is when you have a new message. Catch you later. Michael P.S. Maybe this weekend we could arrange a large live chat group. Its been too long.

I've found your story inspirational. You found a system, worked at it steadily for ten years and reaped an awesome reward. The posts from your introduction were very informative. Anyone interested in a Healing Tao success story should read them. The question is; how much is due to your disposition and long term hard work- and how much is due to they system itself? Michael

Many systems use healing sounds. In Japan there is the Shinto Kotodama system of sacred sounds. The founder of Aikido Morihei Ueshiba considered it one of the sources of his power. An old Kabalah system uses the vowels and links them to areas of the body. Aaay top of the head through Oooo lower stomach. Most systems seem to agree about the heart area being Haahhhhh. Being familiar w/ the sound and locations allows you listening to sacred chants on a physical level. Feeling where they hit and light up parts of the body. Michael

Maybe even Email if you put your hand on the Screen I can't make the seminar. I ordered the book though. Michael

You've convinced me enough to buy the book. tempted to price out airfare to California that week too. Michael

I liked doing the sounds in a circular seasonal way. Heart/summer w/ Haaah, circling to lungs/fall -SSssss, Kidney/winter Chuuuuuuw, Liver/spring SHhhhh. I'll cycle through them imagining the seasons and the organs. Like American culture I tend to forget about the taoist late summer/monkey spleen. Michael

Get more sleep. Really, we force out bodies into patterns regardless of seasons and stresses. Try getting a few extra ZZ's. Personally I love the twilight area between sleep and waking up. I get in some nice meditation in the area where my body is still asleep but my mind is uncluttered and just waking. Michael

I'm w/ Celtic Dragon. The shock treatment gets attention, but turns people off and has little results. We do need to be concerned w/ animal suffering (*confession I omnivore) and try to leave a smaller foot print on the Earth. I've had Veggie friends get involved in more radical aspects of animal rights and they'd end up sullen and depressed. A dozen times a day 'animal concentration camps' were in there face. I have respect for Mythmaker and only wanted to say to balance passion for the cause with happiness in everyday life. Michael

Three pretty depressing topics in a row, Mythter. Visit a happy site, watch some kids play, see a comedy. There's no saying bad things don't exist, or we should close our eyes to them. But spending too much time wallowing in darkness we can't do anything about is bad for the soul. The whole news industry out there working under the philosophy what bleeds leads. It ignores the billion good boring things happening daily. There's a whole lot of things going right out there. There might even be some good in things that appear bad right now. Time will tell. Sometimes all you can do is grin, bare it and enjoy the ride. Michael

He was The Man of his day. Bringing stories of foreign travel to American masses in Innocence Abroad as well as his many speeches. He brought science fiction w/ his A Yankee in King Arthurs Court. He was born during Halleys Comet and predicted correctly he'd die when it returned. (thats the legend, not sure if its true). There was a story of a mesmerist coming to his town, hypnotizing someone and having them drink vinegar as if it was water. The story goes Twain volunteered next, drank the vinegar w/out blanching. He told his brother he wasn't hypnotized, he did it using sheer will power. Anti war, anti slavery, anti conformist, anti religion, enemy of hypocracy's of all flavors. He was quite a man. Yours Michael

Great mirror er I mean article. Michael

Don't let the granola crunching crp of The Secret make a dark place seem darker. Finding a new job is always hard, you will find one and you'll be a lot happier in it then the old one, if for no other reason, hey its a job and there's money coming in. Sending out touchy feelly energy is okay, but don't expect wishes to turn to lottery winnings (IMHO), but you have to believe hard (& smart) work and effort will pay off in the end. The best thing you can get off this site is ideas for setting up a practice. Take a look around here. See if any of the various practices people are mentioning click w/ you. If they do, set up a daily practice around them. Even if the job scene is turning stale, you can find a source of growth and inspiration in a daily practice. Which can spread some light into other areas of your life. The Green One's (above) Personal Practice discussion is a particularly good place to find myriad wonderful practices that are possible. I'm opening up a fortune cookie for you right now. Let me look inside. Get up, start moving and good luck and lightness will come to you; the fortune cookie says it Also your numbers are 23 32 546 65 89 Yours Michael

I think everyone inhabits the Tic Toc world, where we eat, sleep, crap and make a living. Where a cup is a cup, a table is a table, and a falling tree makes noise cause thats what happens when something hits something else. How many people know, live, participate in the Spirit world. Where entities dwell, the dead walk, and deities hold realm? I don't know if its a fraction of one percent or maybe more. I'm not talking about a theoretical belief, but experiential. I'm certainly not one of them. I'm thoroughly indoctrinated in Tic Toc, but being in this community and the things I've read, make me question, maybe yearn, to know the real truth. What do I mean by the Spirit world? Another dimension that we can have access to. A reality happening beneath our own. Unprovable, but it can be observed. Explorers religious and new age have explored it, come up with similar views though they use different language. A Bardon Franz commentary is that until you cross a line, the entities you meet spring from archetypes in your own subconscious. But cross that line and they are real. Real as you or me. Hmnnnn. How to know? Is it a matter of time on the mat? A system like Bardon's? I recently purchased the book Invoking Angels, which involves getting to know the 'top' angels in the Judaic framework. Where does imagination give way to another reality? and how do we tell the difference? What do you think? and what other realities do you experience? Michael

I did a colonic once. It was okay, lots of stuff came out. I thought the yoga practice Cam mentioned of drinking one and half quarts of water first thing in the morning had a similar effect. But I needed to be close to washroom for the next two hours. For a couple of years I did Daniel Reids fast, which had you taking the bentonite clay and psyllium(&lemon distilled water, little bit maple syrup). Bentonite is a new experience in bad tasting. I found some capsules that had psyllium and bentonite in them. Much easier to take. These days I'll take a round or two of psyllium(metamucill) the first couple of days each month. It insures bathroom breaks are smooth and fast. I should probably do some sort of internal fall clean up. Michael

I'm just an aging rocker. When my hip hops its usually means a trip to the hospital. Music is art and art is about expressing emotion. If you like hip hop and it hits you in the heart or gut its not a bad thing. Good hip hop is spontaneous and alive. Maybe thats how to survive violence. Spontaneity-moving w/ the flow, without preconceptions, open to all the possibilities of the moment. Very taoish. Michael

da da da dada. da da da

I did some Kaishan Mountain gi gung a few years back. A golden bell style. It was fun. I just got to the beginner level. During demos the instructors both ladies would invite people to hit them hard in the stomach. Practice involved a standing guided meditation. Rubbing an herbal formula on your stomach (before and after practice). Hitting areas on your stomach area quite a few times. As weeks went by you'd hit harder and harder. I quit just when I was ready to advance to wooden brick stage (that is hitting myself w/ a wooden brick(that had been prepared in herbal solution)). The advanced classes looked very masochistic, w/ people getting hit by others w/ hefty sticks pretty hard. But it was mellow group. The practice was to strengthen and awaken the internal organs. Supposedly it was a rare authentic style. The head (who I never met) muck a muck was supposed to be an amazing powerful mystical fellow. If you're interested in walking on the harder side you should check it out. Michael There was a tapping routine from the breast bone down and along the lower ribcage that I got from them that I still use. They also had a wonderful and unique guided Longevity meditation, it went from lighting up the bone structure (which is common enough) but also regressed you back to a new born baby, then up to a healthy 180 year old then back to your own age. It has you feel both ages at the same time. In between it has you sitting a pine forrest w/ your animal friends. Nice, as I said definitely unique.