sean

Hmmm... I'm not experienced enough in it yet to really make a good comparison. It's really fun and similar to BodyFlow in some ways but trains skills more specifically transferrable to BJJ in my opinion. Supposedly it's based on observing animals in nature and on the DVD Alvaro does all the forms in really cool, tropical locations. It's funny you should ask about this right now because my teacher just flew Alvaro Romano into Oakland and I might take a private class with him tommorow if my freakin' legs stop burning from the half a million hindu squats he made me do last class.

Even better!

I don't get it either. CST does import "culturally specific" terms, ie: yoga, prasara and now chi kung (qi gong). It looks like this is just part of a marketing strategy since these terms are not really being explicitly defined and (unfortunately) open discussion of what these terms are referring to is clearly not permitted on the forum.

Motorcycle gang party in Oakland, and one of my BJJ instructors is in there somewhere ... beating the crap out of some poor punk. East syyyyyiiiide!

Peregrino, awesome review of Kurz's material! cloud_recluse, I've only heard positive things about Yin Yoga. There is also a guy on here named irkk that I know has some experience with it. Sean

Awwwe, fuck you guys. You're just getting old.

Dear God, Please grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Amen.

[edit]Discussion split from Cam's journal to allow fuller discussion without overrunning his journal I'm probably around 30 effortless days of "retention" right now. And Lezlie and I are very sexually active. I am also very sensitive to my energetics (what is/isn't working, etc.) which is why I've been so careful approaching brahmacharya. IMO the real proof of how bad-ass your practice is, is wether it works when you are fucking.. Can you remain in pure silent empty bliss consciousness when you are fucking a beautiful girl? Or dancing? or doing jiu-jitsu? or eating a delicious meal? As I've said a million times I believe that retention without opening your orbit is worse than pointless, it's harmful. And I don't think emptiness practice alone automagically handles this opening process and there are dozens and dozens and dozens of recorded, highly imbalanced emptiness-warriors that support my point. Just think of all the Buddhist and Hindu masters who have come to the West from their secluded, extreme emptiness emphasized environments only to realize their root and sacral chakras are completely unintegrated into their awakening and they start molesting 17 year old aspirants or becoming alcoholics because they practically cannot help themselves. Then look at Plato, he is intuitively drawn to work his root chakra continually ... he is cultivating his lower chakras because emptiness alone won't do this. Period. Emptiness practice is a masculine impulse. For freedom. For silence. For peace. (At lower levels it's a mere desire to detach, be left alone, die.) The feminine impulse is to merge with and become Light. To shine. To embody. (At lower levels a compulsion to be noticed/appreciated constantly, overfixate on life/manifestation). Tantra, Bhakti and karma yoga come to mind. Not everyone will be drawn to practice both approaches equally, which is fine. But one is not better than the other. Emptiness practice is not the only legitimate Yogic path. The test of a fully awakened being is their ability to be comfortable w/ both expressions. Not necessarily masters of both, but not completely out of the water with, or dismissive of either. This is more vital to integrate if you really want a girlfriend and a relationship as an integral, tantric path. Otherwise, like many great unbalanced teachers and traditions, you will not really respect her impulse toward God. You will find a girl to patronize and wonder when you will leave for your heroic, male, cave-on-the-mountain journey will begin. Sean

I've stumbled across something that is probably incredibly obvious to others here, but really new for me. I'm not sure I can even really explain it very well, or exactly how/if it relates to this thread, but I'll take a shot at it anyway. Ok, so to go into emtpiness, into an experience with the causal, we typically still our bodies first. Then we find a focal point. Sometimes the meditation has no focal point, as in shikantaza. No focal point, in a way, is also a sort of focal point in there is at least a subtle emphasis on not consciously maintaining a focal point. Another common point of focus is the breath. Another is mantra, which is what I use. So we gently train our minds to basically rest our awareness on one thing. It's not really so much about concentration, or contracting our attention to our chosen focus. It's more like gently holding an expanding space that continues to include our focus, even as the focus itself opens up in the space. Ok, so here's where it gets really obvious. Anything can be a point of focus. More specifically I am realizing the value of using various centers of the body as focal points. So for example, I am experimenting with just holding my awareness in my lower torso, the LTT, which includes the belly, gentials, anus, lower back and everything inside of course. So I am using this physical area of my body as a focus to drop into the causal. What I am finding interesting about all this is not so much that any part of my body can be used to take me into emptiness, but my experience that taking parts of my body with me into emptiness is a form of alchemy! Right around now is when Trunk should come in and rightly slap the shit out of me and anyone else who thinks this is news btw. So I've been playing with doing more formal, timed, emptiness meditations starting with the LTT as my focal point. It feels like I am opening the density of specific forms to make room for the wisdom of the formless. Some kind of strange paradox like ... dipping the LTT into emptiness, so that it can open up and allow more room to be full with emptiness. One caveat is that I'm not sure I would be having much succcess with this technique were I not to have established my ability to stay with a point of focus and move into emptiness with mantra first. Mantra practice occurs in the mind, closer to the formless, so maybe an easier bridge for beginners. Also mantra can conveniently interrupt thought and bring your attention to the empty space between thought. Also, using the LTT as a focal point for meditation might be a bigger challenge than mantra to a beginner for other reasons. First is that it's a broad physical region of the body that the mind may not know how to hold as "one place." Second, there could be trouble even just accessing sensation in this area. This region is notoriously repressed, and even a frequent site of stored trauma that could come to the surface through the clear awareness of meditation. So a natural resistance to premature resurfacing of trauma may cause another layer of distraction. So this is probably an intermediate meditation for reasons similar to why I think genuine moving meditation, moving meditation that actually brings one deeper into an embodiment of emptiness, is advanced. Sean

Keeping things simple the last month. Textbook Yogani really. Spinal pranayama Spinal bastrika pranayama IAM Mantra Inner Silence Samyama Savasana Still playing around with other things, but that is all that's really been consistent lately. Sean

Yes, this is what got me scared. I think I was reading Steve Maxwell over on Dragon Door talking about how he felt a little pain in his inner ligament on his knee but he ignored it and kept pushing and a few months later, snap. Ouch. Heheh. It's not super common, but in English sometimes people say that they are "bathing in some emotion", or that they are "up to their ears in some emotion" and it means what you would think. That they are immersed in that feeling. So, translation, when I see people doing full splits, I feel like I am taking a bath in jealousy. Speaking of Yoga anatomy, Yoda, or anyone, I was checking out this DVD Anatomy for Yoga by Paul Grilley, the guy who created Yin Yoga, a very Taoist friendly form of Hatha Yoga from what I hear. Looks like it covers mostly skeletal anatomy but it looked really good. Cheers, Sean

GrandTrinity, I think you'd be really surprised about BJJ. Jiu-Jitsu means gentle art. Ideally it can be a way of ending conflicts without needing to resort to strikes unneccessarily. To use Tai Chi or Kung Fu, or boxing for that matter in a situation where someone is really trying to hurt you, I think you end up needing to execute powerful strikes until your opponent is basically physically crippled from further attacking you. I think all the styles have their unique merits, and I do think BJJ is actually very much in the spirit of the Tao. Actually, one of my BJJ teachers has a Masters in philosophy, quotes Lao Tzu and says the Tao Teh Ching is the only book you really need to study. Sean

Uh oh. Violent flame war between Yoda and Cameron to ensue. *sips green tea and watches from the shadows* Sean

I just bumped into an interesting ethical thought experiment. You are the captain of a ship. The ship has gone down. Now there are 10 people in a lifeboat, including yourself. But only 7 can fit. You are the only one that can properly navigate the boat to safety. You have to decide which three people to throw out or all 10 will die. How do you make this decision? What criteria do you use to make this decision? Why? Can you think of sets of people in which this decision would be very easy? How about setups in which it would be excruciatingly difficult? It's a wisdom question, in the sense that there is no real answer, but holding on to it contemplatively continues to unfold insight. Off the top of my head, stream of consciousness here's how I would approach the decision. First I would think about my actual ability to enforce my decision. If there is a six foot, ripped boxer on board and he's an asshole and probably in the overboard category but he is going to fight me and possibly throw me overboard (killing me and inevitably everyone else), then obviously this is consideration. So my first consideration would be who can I actually physically get overboard? This might lead to another layer of complexity, such as keeping a group of three friends onboard that I know will help enforce my decision to throw the boxer off, even though one of the friends I think is somewhat despicable. But if I throw the friend, the other two are less willing to help me chuck the boxer, and the boxer is the biggest lowlife on the ship. At the same time, I would be prioritizing who I most want on and off based on who could be helpful or a hindrance in returning us to safety. For example in case we were to get into trouble and I were to become injured and need help navigating, or if I knew I needed to steer us to a remote island and there was a hunter on board, or an expert on edible wildlife. And conversely I'd be thinking, who might hinder our return to safety, starting fights, eating to much food, panicking and lowering morale, etc. One thing that would definitely put someone in the onboard category would be if I had a positive personal relationship with them. Liking someone personally would most definitely make it very difficult for me to throw them over, even if I thought they were close to the worse hindrance to the safety of the mission. If there were female lovers of mine, damn, I think logic would start taking a serious backseat. Next to personal relationships, I think the next most important criteria would be the person's ability, in reality or as a perceived potential, to positively impact the world, and who, in reality or potential, may most negatively impact the world (this would include just taking up space and consuming ). I think the rest of the decision making would mostly just be me feeling through the details of the situation, probably entering into silence, praying and using my intuition to make a final decision. Setups that would be easy. 6 boddhisatvas and 3 meth addict rapists in their 50's. Setups that would be very difficult. All 9 are family and friends. How about y'all? Sean

One of the conditions is that you are the only one that can possibly navigate the boat to safety, so you must stay and you have to make a choice ... and quickly! water is spilling into the boat and sinking it, and sharks are swarming everywhere!

I am filled with gratitude for this place. I set it up on a whim one day and now it's been and continues to be such a rich source of growth for me. I feel like I've met a lot of great people ... I can't think of a single person here I wouldn't want to have in my home ... and also made some great friendships as well. As a community I think we really just keep evolving every day. I've gotten a lot of thanks over the years for setting this place up, but really truly I feel overwhelmed with gratitude that I can host such a wonderful group of people. Thanks for making this place so special. And thanks hajii for starting this thread so that I could gush. Sean

YES YES! And take it all the way. This is the third stage. This is Brahman is the world. This is where you realize, even when you are not realizing, that you are already an expression of your True Will in every moment. There is no other choice but to be. Because "you" is relative and also a mental distinction. And part of this Great Perfection of True Will is for "you" to have confusion, is stages of moral development, is being uncertain about True Will, is having glimpses of True Will, is thinking intellectually we can ever be separate from True Will, is realizing that even though we already are True Will this doesn't abdicate the difficult, messy, painful process of being human in a crazy world ... and really trying to answer for ourselves what right and wrong and good and evil might be ... as a living Yoga of ethics. Emptiness is Form. True Will, Love, Truth, Freedom ... the Absolute is so so infinitely huge it actually holds these experiences of hate and confusion and relativity and and feelings of separateness and chaos and laughter and sex and death. I used to have this unconscious fantasy, I think it's probably common among occultists, that goes something like: True Will is "out there" somewhere in a far away land with different rules ... somehow we need to align ourselves with it ... and when we hopefully do one day, we will "obtain" True Will for good. Then all of our need to think and work our way through complex decisions and terrible moral issues will vanish and all of our actions in each moment will automatically transcend conventional morality. I don't buy into this anymore. True Will and little self are not separate. There is nothing you can do to separate yourself from True Will. Every single thought and decision you make is your True Will. And this is even the case when you think otherwise. And this truth doesn't make it pointless or meaningless to try to find your True Will. True Will is big enough to "contain" freedom to makes choices ... to hold (as itself) free will. Experiencing the truth that you are your True Will and could never be otherwise, could also be your True Will. And the results of this immersion into True Will could be part of a path to a higher expression of morality. It sounds like you are using doubt as a spiritual path much like Crowley prescribed. It's the path of "that is not true. that is not true. that is not true." I think it's a choice that has more to do with temperament than reality, but I guess at a certain point of immersion we have to, in your case perhaps ironically, have faith that our chosen paths will take us all the way. Osho talks about how Tantra is like saying yes to everything "and this is God. and this is God. and this is God." Different strokes I guess. Ahh, I believe I've gotten myself gloriously confused now as well. "I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening; I drank and danced all night with doubt and found her a virgin in the morning." --- Uncle Al Sean

YES! Exactly, exactly! Ethics as a living Yoga. Perfect. I think we can empirically validate a very real cause and effect relationship with various actions and their effects on our minds and hearts. This is what makes a daily meditation practice for me so so important because I get to tune in, twice a day, with the state of my mind and how it is being influenced by my decisions. In my own practice I have noticed what I might describe as a dense, thick mud swirling through my perception ... full of incessantly loud babbling of thoughts ... and this mud occurs in my mind when I act in various selfish or egotistical ways ... But it makes it's entrance subtly enough at first that I wouldn't notice unless I was tuning in through quiet, reflective meditation to really deeply feel how this mud occludes the bliss of truth and silence in my being, and how it tries to build on it's momentum to ultimately really cut me off from any common sense in my behavior. This is why I really resonant with the way Yogani describes meditation as a process of cleaning mud off a window. Yoga really is about this. Cleaning mud off your window so that the Light of Being can shine more clearly into the world. Nondual teachers that strongly emphasize the absolute, like Adyashanti, Eckhart Tolle and Gangaji ... they tend to focus more on the fact that, on the deepest deepest level, we already are Light. Truth is what holds (and is) both "light and mud". And, maybe paradoxically, I think it's actually this nondual state they are pointing to that (at least appears) to clean the mud of our windows in our Yoga in the world of form. Sean

Welcome Jonah. 10 years of chi kung, that is impressive.

Welcome. I dig your handle. Trunk, the writer of alchemicaltaoism hangs out here a lot. Really great guy. Heh, and I think you stole his avatar. Sean

Lezlie and I have gotten a lot out the Hendricks relationship books. We'll have to check out this Ecstatic Sex for sure, I didn't realize they put out something like this. Thanks for the tip Michael.

Great great post cloud_recluse. I have a similar experience of my "core", inner silent bliss, emptiness ... whatever we want to call it. My experience is that it is far far far from being a kind of nihilistic void. One way I think of emptiness is like the wetness of water in the ocean. Dipping into our core is like a wave quietly reflecting on it's nature as being wet. The wave doesn't "get" wet. It just is wet. And so is the whole ocean. And none of the waves or even the stillness of the deep is any wetter than any other part of the ocean. Wetness is just an intrinsic quality of the substance of water's being. Then I also think of how wetness is not separate from either the movement or stillness of the ocean. Emptiness is nondual with the pulse of life it contains and interpenetrates. So emptiness actually moves with life. It's not something separate we can point out and label and say, "ok here is where emptiness, the space of absolute beyond qualities lives. And then over here is manifestation". Emptiness literally is form. Our core is this whole world, our pain, sour milk, paychecks, parents, pocket lint, government, stars, and bad dreams. This is why engaging in the world is alchemy ... spiritual communion. And I think it's in this sense we can try to discuss qualities of emptiness, by perceiving how and guessing why emptiness unfolds holographically as manifestation. In my own view I think emptiness breathes manifestation as an act of infinite, irrepressible falling in Love. Sean

I think the majority of the world is probably in a fundamentalist mindset that is very much in need of recognizing what you might say is the intrinsic relativity to any perceptual position. It's a painful painful stage of development to grow out of. Fundamentalism of any sort, if you think about it, is actually a kind of idolatry. It's the worship of a superficial, frozen image as if it were Complete Truth. So it's obvious that a fixation on certainty is unhealthy, but, to me at least, it's also obvious how uncertainty and confusion can be equally unhealthy fixations. Uncertainty and confusion can be a great place to escape when you want to avoid making tough decisions. It's also a convenient way to avoid having to believe in anything. Beliefs often requires us to have the courage to stand up for our perception of the truth in the face of painful consequences. Think of the lone man in front of the tank in Tiananmen square. Just think of the passion and conviction of this man. Think how easily this man could have just thought, "Hmmm, do I really have it so bad I should risk my life? This is really confusing". Governments do thrive on keeping people confused and uncertain because it can prevent activism. The absolute is just a figment of the relative's imagination. And also the relative's imagination is just a figment of the Absolute. I think both should be held in our hearts and minds equally. And we can hold both even while we live in the world with our relative personalities and conditioned preferences and karma that make us more suited and even compelled to favor "one side" of the expression. The world is Illusory; Brahman alone is real; Brahman is the world. The sense in which I meant that my map may be more inclusive than yours, is that it seems that your tendency is to strongly favor the first line of this koan, rarely speak of the second, and frequently downplay and even argue against the third. Another way of saying the same thing, in my own much less poetic words, might be: The map is not the territory. The closer one looks at the territory, the less and less one can say anything with absolute certainty about the territory. By surrendering to uncertainty completely, one can experience the Absolute within which all maps and territories arise. The Absolute alone is the territory. The territory is the map. Of course this is another map, but I think it points to an experience. What do you think? I'm interested in your thoughts, this is a great conversation. I think philosophical inquiry like this can be a form of Jnana Yoga, a practice in itself, when approached contemplatively btw. Cheers, Sean