thelerner

Simple yes, clear.. they can be a little ambiguous sometimes, especially the first course, but there's a facebook site that's pretty good on giving answers and lots of youtube videos and solid articles and podcasts. I'd also agree with strong and healthy. Best of all its presented as a ten week course, and there's much happiness and satisfaction when one finishes it. Plus you've gained some solid breath skills and cold adaption. I highly recommend it, with a caveat to be careful doing the breath retention pushups, especially if you're older, out of shape or have had high blood pressure. So great method, but not really a cultivation system but a nice supplement. Not traditional tummo either but for cold adaption it does a good job. And most of us will face severe cold a couple times a year, one may as well make friends with it.

The practice/tradition you choose, should mold you. Odds are you won't become the teacher, but you will become similar to their students. So look at them closely. The integrity of your practice will decide whether you become like their best.. or worst.

Nothing but respect for John McCain, the man and his life. I think his letter sums it up nicely.

I try to get full enjoyment from my vices. I do the crime and know I'll do time for them. The real problem is when people have a vice and fool themselves into thinking that it's not. I'm leaving perfection as a goal for my next life or the one after that. addon> circling back to McCain; he had regrets, and wasn't to proud to acknowledge and learn from them. I don't think you get to greatness without that.

and I watch too much. Its not that it necessarily makes me stupider, but it makes for a busier buzzier, more judgemental mind.. and that is its own kind of dumb.

Lately I've been listening to guided meditations from the youtube channel Unlock your Life (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm3z_id9UHQYdqflJMjgQnA) They're very good. She has some interesting specific ones on Cold & Flu 'feel better' and Pollen & Allergy feel better. Don't need them now but it'll be interesting to see how they work when I do. I downloaded and am listening to her Third Eye/Chakra meditation, its very relaxing. I enjoy the visualizations and it the feelings it leads me to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml4835R9Ajk&t=26s My wife's boss had a gastric bypass and it seems like a very stressful, life changing procedure. It works (fast) but at the cost of much comfort and sacrifice. It was interesting that the site had Hypnotic gastric bypass guided meditation. I downloaded it and listened to the full thing twice. I liked it, and since then made a shortened 9 minute version of the end part where it explains that from now on you can only eat to a moderate fullness, ie level 6 or 7 on 1starving to 10stuffed scale and not eating again til your hungry, ie 3 or 4 on the 1-10 scale. I've been listening for a week and half. I'm down a few pounds and I'm mostly eating much less, half sandwiches. I'm hoping to keep listening for another month or two. After all its just 8 minutes and its there to remind me that I have an imaginary scar and I feel full faster then before, and its a bad idea to stuff myself. I should eat slower, appreciate every bite, but never eat beyond moderate fullness. So, a good life style kind of eating program. I'll see if it works, I think the daily listen helps its effectiveness. Here it is- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDvSV0y0SHs&list=PLqktjn8c06SxO1f_1xZgJoTsi4rBF_jH1&index=1 In a post today I mentioned my philosophy that guided meditations/hypnosis/yoga nidras/biaurals, should be viewed as a supplement and not a substitute to 'just sitting' meditation. While enjoyable and at times very deep, you're not facing your mind like you do during regular meditation. The point of many of these is to learn the 'state' so that you don't need to listen to the meditation anymore.

I'll put these under easy and potentially powerful. Here's a link to a thread on guided meditations. The first one from Barry Long is excellent on getting to know and control your mind. I like the CSM, Center of Stillness meditation, many of the others are fun. As a caveat, man can't live on guided meditations alone. Sooner or later one has to face ones own mind and ride that monkey til only one is boss.

yeah, its funny and paradoxical, but I often think in imagery, yet I'm poor at visualization. In a few of my meditations, particularly Rawn Clarks Archaeous, element, practice. I 'stack' elements on myself, waist = earth, belly- water, heart is sun, head is heat/awareness. Then as I continue to sit or stand, hopefully by a lake or pond, I try to feel those elements and there interactions within myself. Lately I'm using a long Chakra meditation, where I'm establishing a red earth chakra in the perineum, a jeweled orange floating on the water as my dantien 2nd chakra, a hot jeweled lemon in my solar plex.. so I'm using similar imagery now. Playing with it, then letting it go and feeling. It's much better outside, where earth water air sun is real and I'm part of it. When just sitting keeps the elements in place.

I get mountain, lake, sky, sun.. but that's probably residual imagery from my guided meditations. My mind is probably not fast enough to get to the real me.

Welcome to the site. I hope at some point you can tell us a little bit about Korean Soen Buddhism. We have quite a large Buddhist following here and its nice to learn about the different sects. I for one never heard of Soen before, it'd be interesting to read about its influences and differences.

You're wrong, modern videos with people you can answer questions would be powerful evidence for many. As the decades go by you might need more then old videos from people who are incognito or dead. Sooner or later people will ask if you show what its done for you. And no amount of trolling sites, claiming yours the only 'Real' art is going to prove persuasive. Every cultivation art says if you practice with integrity you'll see results for yourself, no faith needed, just practice. If there was a.. never mind. You're right, its all about the JC videos.

and the 'evidence' you have is the old JC videos? ok

Can't help but think that the 'best you can do' is present 'evidence' of your groups abilities. Showing multiple, modern practitioners performing might well be more persuasive then very old videos of a foreigner. Undoubtedly it wouldn't persuade everyone, but it would persuade some. Kind of feels like a cop out. You realize I myself have telekinesis, and pyrokinesis and speed reading skills, but I can't show them to anyone because some doubt JC's skills. If everyone believed in him, then I'd show them off, but uh, I won't because of JC. Plus making a video is so much work these days. Does that inspire much confidence in my abilities? addon> I don't think this would be an issue if it weren't for basing your arguments that 'you're real' on JC videos.

Don't try to hard to understand wu wei, rather look for it in life, the times you're able to do things simply and in flow.

Course the fact that its real means that if JC could do it, other people doing his system for many years could too. They just have to buy or rent a camera. Or its real but non reproducible. Or people can show very old youtubes of JC performing but are forbidden to show themselves doing anything similar, but they could if they wanted, but choose not to. ** Ofcourse one spiritualist here conjectured it was a spirit thing; that for higher level 'stunts' you needed a spirit entity to assist. Thus in the later youtubes you have JC talking about messages from the spirit elders giving him directives. Perhaps without that connection don't expect to do 'stunts'. That is not necessarily unique, religious Taoism (& many family chi gung styles) are based on connecting to lineage spirits for its higher level stuff. ** I myself can invisible and have many hours of video showing myself in a state of invisibility.

With a practice as potentially catastrophic as iron crotch, one should probably have an experienced instructor who can give feedback or very very careful conservative instructions. You really don't want to screw things up down there. If you're looking for the physical side of gi gung, there's Golden Bell/Shield and Iron Shirt systems out there, but again, do your homework, talk to students, be careful. Many 'packing' chi exercises can cause imbalances, and have come under increased scrutiny about potential hazards. These things are best done with live teachers. We've had a fair share of 'these techniques screwed me up badly' threads over the years.

Not a widely done practice. We used to have a member Max who did it. I expect you're up on cautionary tales and know to move slowly. On a (pop) Western basis I think it was Mantak Chia who popularized it in the West, so his site might have more info. And for the sake of humor and because I can't resist- my genitals are heavy enough, without the weights

Here it is:

I tend to think intolerance is a product of a fearful mind. I think tolerance takes bravery, walking up to that which we fear, getting to know them. Sadly the internet can play to the closed mind, you can find many sites that celebrate ones bigotry. But if you take the time to talk to people, listen to them, in general we're not so different. We rob ourselves of meeting great people when we shut our minds to groups based on race, religion and sexual preferences. Out of curiosity. I can understand being intolerant towards things that can hurt you, but in your mind how does homosexuality hurt you? Are they robbing you or beating you up? In your mind do they hurt the economy? Are they bigoted, and insulting towards you? There are real threats out there- violence, greed, corruption, pollution, fear and paranoia.. there are forces that threaten civilization but I don't see sexual preference, as one of them.

Responsibilities. As Spiderman said 'With great family comes great responsibility'. and not coconuts; hammocks, innovative hammock design and workable terrariums custom decorated using 3D printing. There's beaches here in the Midwest. Rum drinks too. I've been enjoying hanging out at the Oliva bar off Ohio beach. No waterfalls though. Still, one can carry the Hawaiian spirit in ones heart. And get there eventually. :errata I was just looking at a nice design of a tri hammock, made with a base of 3 large concentric rings. Cool, but I'd rather see more half concentric rings and with fabric strung between two full length half circle. That could collapse, be side by side, or one lifted up to provide shade.

I get the feeling being taught tolerance of others is an abomination to you. Course I'm assuming lessons in tolerance for gays and lesbians is what you consider 'being taught to sodomise'. You realize accepting homosexuals as normal people with the same rights as everyone else, doesn't 'turn' kids gay? Sex between consenting adults isn't a bad thing. Its generally none of our business and almost a sexual hang up to be obsessed with others love life. Similarly, imo, people own there body. While some things are stupid, they have the right to make modifications that they expect will make them happier. Some people go through life thinking they were born the wrong sex. Sex change operations are painful, long and expensive, its not done on a whim. If such a profoundly difficult procedure adds happiness and completeness to their lives, why not be happy for them?

I didn't want to make this post about me. It's good to ask general questions, see what people think about various topics. But, what do I want? Some of that's in my bottom 'signature'. Course that's materialist, kinda stuff, life in Hawaii, doing something creative, serving drinks and making creative hammocks and terrariums. Plus Hawaii is a bastion of esoteric arts, a real meeting place between east and west. Not that I've ever been there. Cultivation wise, after initial decades of energy stuff, I simplified to a years of just sitting. Now I'm a bit more active things. When I sit, I'll do a few cycles of counting to 10, then a little bit of Golden Shieldish cycles of breath moving energy down from 3rd eye to dantien, then breath quietly, then just sit. Lately I'm using a guided meditation on opening the chakras and 3rd eye area. I don't want anything too crazy, just a slow road to superior health and happiness. No powers or siddhis, rather self control and positive mental attitude. I guess I have smaller goals. Seems like Bardons Initiation Into Hermetics is too ambitious for me. I'd like to get through a couple of Rawn Clarks programs. I tend to start and stop them at random. Here are the 3 I'd like to pursue in his words(http://abardoncompanion.com/csm/contents.html)- Rawn’s Self-Healing Archaeous describes a self-healing technique that evolved over a number of years and which I personally have found extremely beneficial. Although written a couple of years after the CSM, it shares much the same history — pamphlet, very obscure journal and then posting online in 2001 and recording in 2002. With the Archaeous however, the recording was broken down into a series of nine “Lessons” which progressively guide the listener deeper and deeper into various applications of the core technique. The Self-Healing Archaeous techniques have become very popular in the past decade! Here I present the original 1997 article and transcripts of all nine audio “Lessons”. The Magic of IHVH-ADNI, known commonly as TMO, is very close to my heart and feels to me to be my most important contribution. Of all my work thusfar, TMO has certainly had the greatest impact globally with thousands of practitioners worldwide and more engaging with it every day that passes. I was first introduced to TMO (in a somewhat more rudimentary form than I present here) in the late 1980s under circumstances I will not describe due to their very personal nature. Over the decade that followed, I practiced incessantly and gradually refined the technique. In 1998 I finally found voice to share TMO through an article titled “Attending The Unity”. This too was published as a pamphlet and appeared in the same very obscure journal. And as with the CSM and the Archaeous, it was posted on my website for the first time in 2001, however instead of garnering practitioners at the time, it generated a huge amount of curiosity and questions all of which prompted me to create a series of audio “Lessons” in the TMO practice. The nine TMO audio “Lessons” are my most popular recordings. Shortly after the release of the audio “Lessons” the TMO Working Group was formed to explore the possibilities of using TMO in a group context. The TMO-WG is still going strong with members from across the globe engaged in regular group work. As it turned out, TMO is ideal for group work! Here I present the original 1998 article and transcripts of all nine audio “Lessons”. Additionally, I have included three more recent articles which describe further developments in TMO. If TMO interests you, then I strongly recommend that you download the free audio files by visiting my website ABardonCompanion.com. Know ThySelf was created in 2006 in an effort to clarify experientially (instead of just intellectually) the meaning of the term “self” in an Hermetic context, specifically a Bardonian context. It was presented as a series of three audio files in which the listener is guided through a process of self-recognition. It too has proved quite popular and I’m always receiving requests to continue the audio series! Here I present transcripts of the audio files.

Magic's not my thing, but I found this site, approachable and interesting. Plus great graphics and cartoons and dare I say insight? https://ultraculture.org/blog/2015/11/13/psychonaut-field-manual/ Looking through it now.. its interesting. Glad it gives many warnings. Fine line between gaining power and madness. Be real real careful with such things.

I'm a pragmatist. We're paying money now, in terms of food stamps, subsidized housing, huge emergency care bills. There is a chance that in some cases a UBI would be a similar payment and could spark the independence needed to rise out of poverty. That's what this man posits. It's worked in a small town Canada. Don't know if it'd work in the US, but it might be worth some trials to find out. I understand some think living poor or on wellfare is the dream. I suspect for many or most, its not. That they'd like to find alternative. Here's the video. Worth watching.

I'd say it means if its raining and you don't have an umbrella, you smile and say, What the Hell. Part of that smile is because the rain is good for something.. like flowers, trees, grass, glasses of water. And one gets wet, then one dries off, no big deal. The world has shit, but it also has sun and children, laughter and tears. You have to enjoy the contrast and when you can flip something around and add a little light to the world, you feel good. Lots of opportunity for that, and it beats staring into the abyss 24/7. I'm much closer to dog then God, but dogs aren't so bad. Some of them are great.