thelerner

The best doctor I saw for my back said ultimately strength and flexibility will be.. if not the cure, the biggest help. Needless to say a surgeon recommended surgery, which I didn't do.

The story was from the actual rabbi who lived it and show cased good men of religion talking together. Your re-writing does the opposite.

I've had back problems in the past. Last couple years its been pretty good. I credit doing a few deep squats in the morning as very helpful. I grab the sink for stability and squat as low as I can, stay there, shift my butt a little, get up and repeat 3 to 5 times. Somehow the relaxed deep squat sit has allowed me to touch my toes for the first time. In Michael Winns Fundamentals one of the moves really helped, -Crossing the Ocean. Simple short Chi gung movement. You stand like a person about to do a racing dive, legs bent, bending forward at the waist, arms straightened infront of you. You straighten up and your arms move like they were paddling water behind you. Then you get back into the 'dive' position and repeat a dozen or so times. Perhaps more easily seen than written. In any case the rhythmic bending and motion usually made my back feel better. My final tool is Spoonk mat (there are many other on the market). Like a yoga mat for sadists, it has 1,000s of little ¼ inch plastic spikes on it. Lying down causes a bit of discomfort, even pain at the beginning but as you lay, you gain nice relaxation. A bed of nails for Westerners. Great for when my back is acting up or I just want to get deeper relaxation.

Like a wedding, everything's old, everything is borrowed, everything's blue. I like the story of a rabbi, going to a meeting in Phoenix who went to the top of the roof to say his morning prayers. There was another man up there, a native American. The Jew got out his Tefillin and intricately wrapped the leather around his wrist and arm ending with the leather box between his eyes. The Indian got out a medicine bag opened its contents and both prayed, chanted, bowed towards the East. Afterward they talked together. Learning about the medicine bag and tefillin. The nature of the others prayers and both saw much similarities. Judaism being so old, you can find shamanism, you can find mysticism, meditation. One mistake I think Christians make is they don't realize the depth and length of Judaism, instead they picture it frozen in biblical times. Whereas Judaism shifted from temple oriented to rabbinic oriented nearly 2,000 years ago. You had greats like Rabbi Akiva in the first century re-defining Judaism and our practices, prayers and relation to God. Stuff like if the Sanhedrin rule the death penalty once in 7 (some say 70) years, they should be considered blood thirsty. I've always found the writings of wise rabbis over the millenia a better source to learn about Judaism than the bible/ torah, which always struck me as amalgamation.

I think the question contains the answer. We reclaim our lives by starting to care about things. Preferably things under our control.

The facebook group is pretty lame. I just tried to brighten it up with some philosophical pornography.

Sometimes I think being lazy and letting things go by is about a third of Taoism. . 48 Thelerner is a play on my name. Way back, before the internet age, before the earth was covered by billions of AOL CD's I logged onto AOL with a 300 baud modem and tried to join it. It took 4 tries before I found a name it would accept thelerner.

Two days ago I went to a Thai restaurant in Florida. They had, not a waiter but robot server. Four feet tall, wheels, emoji head made of dots, body with trays. It's come to your table smiled. Asked you to pick up trays on its middle with a manga style voice. Recognized when the trays were gone and rode back to the kitchen. My son looked it up and found they cost $16,000. Here it is- In the spirit of Kruschev- When the robot revolution comes, we will provide the electricity. P.S It came 50 years ago, we just didn't notice at the time. & they took our jobs.

same, but I skipped over accepting things as they are and jumped to not giving a damn hmnn perhaps a Paladin , a hard class to play correctly.

I don't know if there's any god or universal mechanism keeping track of our actions. Often I doubt it, but What we sow, We reap is pretty common sense, usually. To personally act as if karma matters is a good way to live. Yet blaming karma for other people's misfortunes is imo a bad way. Thats a contradiction but it's what I got.

My personal mantra practice, most often done in the shower, is more a canticle, thus longer than Indian ones. Like them its repeated, has sacred meaning and the vibrations themselves are important. From Rawn Clark's interpretation of the Hermetic tradition. His YHVH practice. Uniquely, it has you locate sounds on certain body parts as well as feeling/swirling other sounds around the body. If anyone's interested instructions are here- http://abardoncompanion.de/IHVH-Info.html I think everyone can benefit from a mantra/kotodama sacred sounds practice. For me they make the shower into a sacred spot.

In a Japanese Ki-Aikido sitting and standing the lower dan tien is considered behind and below the navel. But as you move around it also shifts, it also being a center of gravity as well as focal point. Wonder if the Chinese look for precision whereas the Japanese seemed fine with a looser definition, ie dan tien as Hara- thus when asked where it is might just pat his belly. Or maybe every tradition has a different location. So often a founder or great practitioner sets the philosophy and that's that. A definition is frozen for generations, where it was really one guy's opinion.

These days I just sit, keep my senses and mind open, things come, go and my mind settles. No particular focus points. Influenced by Adyashanti. Over the decades I've done other things. Started w/ counting breaths 1 to 10 repeat. For years. Later counting 100 breaths, than 500, takes awhile and much concentration. Doing KAP training I worked with a big rib expanding to stomach tightening breathing style. Being in Aikido my main focal point for years was lower dantien. Also slower breathing, in Ki-breathing it'd be a slow one minute breath cycle. Not easy, took months to get it. These days I still like using some breathing rhythms, most often an easy 7in7hold7out is easy and relaxing. A benefit is it makes both my regular breathe better, slower.. and when I meditate my normal breathing is slower and deeper. I studied qi gong and healing tao's microcosmic orbit. Got into circulation. After years I dropped it for simpler, breathing in and feeling/hearing my head.. heart.. lower dantien, and reversing the order on the breath out. That felt good, whatever kind of 'orbit' there was would have to happen naturally. Did it? Probably not. Sitting, I like half lotus or Indian style w/ legs a bit more spread. Inside on a zafu resting on folded blanket, outside I find tree stumps quite good. From Stillness/Movement I picked up keeping my hands together resting on my dantien. These days I'll keep them tucked, hammocked, under my shirt, touching the dantien area. Sometimes I'll do a slight bobbing motion. When its hot or I'm outside I'll keep my hands on my knees. A more open form. I've been meditating for over 40 years. Different styles, different aims. Of late moving towards simplicity. Doing more walking meditation, where I strive to balance staying out of my head, with having bright awareness. Senses opened up around me, without clinging and naming..

I'm Jewish, historically I tend to cringe at some of the comments when 'Abrahamic' threads pop up. Still, if it happens organically, it's fine, I don't think we need any kind of subsection or anything.

I agree and didn't like it for that reason. Maybe closer to the mark was What Dreams May Come. I found it genuinely touching and philosophical. Starring Robin Williams it explores an afterlife scenario. People are truthful and can live out their dreams, yet for Suicides their dark dreams follow them into the afterlife.

Not me. I don't see the need to blame the supernatural for the bad, ugly, selfish, evil that men do. Blaming things on the devil seems a way to slip human responsibility. Even in natural disaster or disease it feels like blaming a deity mitigates the need to build better, find the source because it's supernatural.

Bit of a comedy but Ricky Gervais's movie The Invention of Lying, had that exact premise. It was kind of a depressing world, everyone told the truth, often little unpleasant things that we normally wouldn't talk about. History and arts tended to be boring. The title character invents lying, and since it was new, everything he said was considered truthful. Hijinx followed until he could get a hold of his awesome power.

This came up in conversation and merits consideration- Taomeow said: You know what your problem is? You don't know thyself, and that means you don't know exactly what happened to you to make you into what you are now. And because you don't own your own developmental history, your origins, who and what and how has shaped you on a deeper inner level, you aren't conscious. That's why you can't choose or change a thing about yourself to any depth while others can -- which is to say, you are fully programmable. Anyone can fill your head with any which crap. Welcome to the machine.

I'm open to it, but have doubts about its reliability, ie the ability to do it consistently or on demand. Almost like it's a percentage thing, some people will have a higher percentage of hits, but nowhere close to 100% reliability. Such inconsistency makes study maddening. I was hoping by now we'd have greater proofs in the astral or dream state fields, not that I've researched it lately, in the past, there were amazing clues but nothing consistent. Certainly lucid dreams, dreaming while knowing your dreaming and gaining control is considered possible and learnable. Astral projection kinds of stuff, has tantalizing anecdotes but as far as I know, no easily lab reproducible on demand, proof.

From my 15 minute search on Google. Probably not. National Geographic, Government site, Space.com.. point towards no dangerous current pattern. Volcanic activity there is followed pretty closely. Could be wrong, but on my list worries, it's pretty low.. ie example there are 14 insect types that rank more threatening.

Your thoughts on meditation on the facial points and bones are interesting. I've seen people curl up into fetal positions and near unconsciousness by skilled neuro-head massagers. Manipulating the skull's plates seemed to have a powerful effect on their body and psyche. Seemingly regressing them to childhood.

The lady has to be up for it too. There's fun tantric and then there's wt??? tantric.

Forget where I read it, there's a Taoist technique for love making. It involves a rhythm of 8 short thrusts and 1 long/deeper one. You count out each set on a finger. Going thru both hands is 90 then you start again, mastery meant 8,100 strokes. When I was younger I worked on it for awhile. Later found being an American 3 short, 1 long worked better for me. Counting became optional too. Physically there is some advantage to using shorter thrusts for better control. Switching positions can also help make for a longer sessions.

Showing more money than sense I upgraded from Oculus Quest II to III. I like it. Not only is the resolution and processor upgraded but the new color pass thru gives more Assisted Reality style possible games and apps. I like zombie games and it allows you to map out a room, draw in a window, hallway and table and the zombies come at you from your living room. Likewise Pianovision turns your keyboard into a guitar hero set up where note flow down and you've can get a score while playing your own piano. Not only are you physically active but there are great opportunities for group play. Putting players into the same room. Fighting each other, or working together on board games like Chess or Catan, or DnD adventures.. I'm hoping the medium survives and this is an infancy. We'll see if it evolves in new interesting directions. For better interconnection between people, for elderly who can't leave the house or bed (its a great way to watch movies if you subscribe to streaming)

I've dropped this vipassana inspired preamble to meditation as being too intellect driven, but I think using it for a while did me good. Basically it's a long statement of what I'm not. I'm not my thoughts, they come and go like clouds. I'm not my emotions, I honor them and let them pass. I'm not my body, it is an intimate vehicle I inhabit. I am not my possessions.. I am not my family I am not my job I am not my past I am not my future.. (rambles on, depending on my mood) and finishes with I am breath and awareness. It's an in depth way of saying I'm not my mind and the multitude that comes with it. <huh indepth is not considered a single word and should be written as in depth or in-depth> Too bad, I like it alot.