Apech

What is level 4?

Inoran, Hi and welcome. Many people have had these types of problems and gone through what you are going through. I suggest you do a search in the discussion forum and see what you can find. Otherwise you could start a topic on this. Good luck and take it easy. A.

play tricks on your mind it's dependent arising now nothing makes sense.

Too old? Why?

This is a very odd interview. He can't contact JC so he flies out and arrives unannounced - JC asks him strange questions like how old he is and then goes to the Bank (?) and then disappears for three days on a business trip. What exactly are we supposed to make of this?

Yes I completely agree. In fact in this is the answer to all Vaj's critique of Taoism as monist (whatever). This first section is very beautifully constructed so as to express non-duality by 'bouncing' the mind between dualistic concepts in such a way that they can never take hold and become definite 'things'. The difference is that Buddhism starts by analysing phenomena and reaches the conclusion that no thing has a self. While Taoism starts by talking about the non-dual absolute and saying that it cannot be expressed in words. This also differentiates from the Vedic Pure Objectless Consciousness because the Tao is both the named and the nameless and neither. Objectless-ness is not an issue.

You have to understand that it is hard to give advice on here without background and details - I got the impression that you had just started to do the breathing exercises. If you have done a lot of Qi Gong then presumably you have a good understanding about the channels and orbit. There are a lot of experienced practitioners on here - so hopefully further advice will come soon.

Well I agree with Scotty ... so suggest don't do any energy practices without guidance ... especially forced stuff. Take it easy ... you could just sit and watch breaths ... you need to do this first anyway ...

Exactly - just the way the polls work really.

Be careful - do you have a teacher? You should ask them. Otherwise - how relaxed are you - it is very easy to get energy stuck in the head. Are the headaches migraine type i.e. light in eyes and so on? Energy going down front is different feel to energy up back. Its more a question of letting it flow down without any effort at all. I sometimes use a visualization of roots growing into the earth from soles of feet. Each time you breath out the roots grow deeper and deeper until they reach the center of the earth where there is a pool of cool dark water. When the roots reach this then just let all the energy flow down into the water - like an earth wire. Could try this. Otherwise see a Doctor if headaches don't go away - just in case.

Hands off my pussy!

Gee thanks.

captured, unfolding the emerging butterfly is cupped in my hand.

You are right about the danger of course Stig but I wasn't doing what you suggest i.e. fitting one body on another - although I understand why you think I was. I don't want to derail your thread with this but I just wanted to make this point. Cultures generally have what you might call a cosmological view on how the universe is constructed. It is this to which both the I Ching and Lao Tse refer when they make statements about the nature of things. It does not mean that one work derives or depends on the other.

Oh gee Vaj are we all damned? I'm not sure that our salvation or enlightenment depends that much on our philosophical view. You are right, in my view, to distinguish between the Buddhist view and the Vedanta view - they are different - well if they were the same why would we have two systems and not one? But I am not sure that the consequences of either view are as you suggest. You sound a little, if I may say, like a born again Xstian at this point ... "Only I will be saved!" etc.

They definitely want global economic regulation - they said so after the credit crunch in 2008 - that is the sub-text of all that is going on with the G20, the Eurozone, the Dollar and the emerging countries.

Hi Stig, I've just been rereading Lynns translation with Wang Bi commentary - this is the book I studied all summer This one. Anyway I think I am wrong now - because Wang Bi apparently had access to a version (Mawangdui A. and B.) which is translated thus: So instead of having 'heaven and earth' and 'myriad things' it just repeats 'myriad things'. So the distinction is lost but not the meaning. The distinction is then between 'origin' and 'mother'. But I can still reconstruct what I was thinking from this. I am seeing Heaven as a field of pure yang - that is a luminous infinity whose light gives order. And I am seeing Earth as being the receptive (dark) substance that gives and sustains life - pure yin. The Tao then as origin is Heavenly and as 'mother' is Earthly. This is the underlying structure of the universe - but it is not the empirically observed universe because we do not perceive pure energy or pure substance we perceive mixtures or interactions >>> the 10k things. So referring to the Great Treatise (I am reading Wilhelms translation) the Earlier Heaven arrangement of the Trigrams places Ch'ien (the creative) opposite K'un (the receptive). This is saying that the primordial nature of the Tao is expressed like this - it appears both at once as an infinite field of light energy (Heaven) and the infinite substantial field of power which underpins all existence (Earth). (The other trigrams express other qualities but it would get too complicated to go into these.) The Earlier Heaven arrangement expresses the primordial nature and is thus 'unknowable' in the ordinary sense - while the later heaven arrangement is more experiential - which is why fire opposed water rather than heaven and earth. Now it is said that the origin and the mother arise together. That is there is no origin until there is a mother and visa versa ( a chicken and egg thing!?!). So we could say that because the Tao has this unknown/unknowable aspect (its true name cannot be spoken) it can be viewed as an origin - and because it allows/facilitates knowing/naming it is also a mother. I hadn't thought of the Hexagrams but if you look at those formed from Ch'ien and K'un they are 11. Peace and 12. Stagnation - in one the creative and the receptive come together in union = peace and in the other they move apart = stagnation (or perhaps barreness or non-productivity). Forgive the ramble (it makes sense to me!!! ha ha).

I think I am right then I think it means Heaven and Earth in the I Ching sense of the trigrams.

We're not very gay are we.

Hi Marblehead and Manitou, A great message and I can really relate to those personal comments. It is my impression that the world is getting faster and faster and people more and more busy. Its as if they are desperate to rush from one distraction to the next. Today in the UK they have announced the royal wedding of what's-his-name to his girlfriend. The News channels have gone hyperactive - I am sure there will be some spill over to the other side of the Atlantic. There will be months and months of endless nonsense and speculation ... this sums up the modern world to me. Yours gloomily, Apech

I agree its neater to stick to the form - even though it gets a bit tricky ... if we abandon it ... we might as well have a free-form poetry thread (which would be ok but this one should stick to 5,7,5 IMO).

You say just to be happy - as if this were an easy thing or a low ambition - I think finding true happiness is a very profound and sometimes difficult thing - an achievement in itself. I'm mean happiness and not just pleasure seeking by the way. Some would suggest the point of life is to seek liberation but this to me presupposes that you feel the need to be released from prison somehow. Others might say it is to do with gaining wisdom or power. I would say the purest expression of the purpose of life is that it is an opportunity to explore the possibilities inherent in being. These are infinite I believe and are like a vast undiscovered country full of opportunity. To go there you have to drop the small minded view based on greed, jealousy and hate.