Apech

Best so far - what's the answer?

or mortgage brokers, whose derivatives have dropped. Things of no value. (answered my own haiku - sorry I was bored.)

Is that a koan?

God is everything but everything is not God. If you are reading this: "Are you here because of me, or am I here because of you?"

No I, no world. Where do I look to find the origin of the mind?

Your name. Who is writing this?

In most people awareness (or the mind) is already scattered. Learning to settle the mind and concentrate (in an effortless way) is something everyone has to learn. You may find that the feeling in certain parts of the body is quite intense because of previously established patterns, habitual ways of being and perhaps energy blockages. It may be necessary to do something specific to change this (for which you need the guidance of a competent teacher). But otherwise you need to 'set the intent' of settling the mind in a restful and yet aware state on the lower Tan Tien (if that is your practice), notice the various other feelings in the body, thoughts and emotions and so on without following them - and return gently to the object of your focus when you realise that your mind has drifted. I agree with the poster above who suggested the breath as the focus of your meditation as this is the most widely used starting point.

I took the five terminally ill people from the second question and threw them onto the railway line in the first question. After being hit by the train the five people stopped asking for new organs - so I released the healthy guy to get on with the rest of his life - free from guilt. The six people I saved on the railway lines took me out for a drink to celebrate but got upset when I said that having spent the evening with them I was beginning to think I had made a bad decision ... how's that for ungrateful? eh?

If you have a teacher then you should go and discuss this with them. If not - it is important to maintain your practice. So if you set out to focus on the lower Tan Tien but get reactions in other parts of the body, then just note those feelings but continue to focus on Lower Tan Tien. Gently move your attention back to the point of concentration. You need to be relaxed but persistent. The throat centre is important though and you might want to look up exercises specific to it.

Silence. My dog has Buddha nature but won't come when I clap one hand. Why is this?

Er ... haven't you forgotten a certain island off the north coast?!?

Hi Yoda, Thanks for the questions Yoda. The Phoenix has its origins in the Egyptian Heliopolitan sun worship and was seen as the creator god (Atum or Ra) or his 'ba' (soul). The bird depicted in Egyptian iconography is the grey heron (Ardea cinera) and was called by the Egyptians 'Benu' (sometimes written Bennu). The name Benu is related to other terms such as 'ben-ben', the original mound or hill from which the creation took place. This mound was symbolised by the obelisk and the pyramid. Also related is the word 'weben' which means 'to rise or to shine' and refers to the emerging sun at dawn. As I think you know, the pre-creational state was imaged as a watery darkness called the Nun. The Egyptians had a number of images and symbols which were designed to reflect the way in which the created world emerged from the waters of Nun. One of these involves the Benu (Phoenix) as the soul of Atum flying above the waters and settling on the first mound (ben-ben) and then crying out. As it cries all that is to be is distinguished from what is not to be. And so the created world emerges. If we see reality as a field of vibrational energy, then we can say that before a perceivable world exists, all possible forms are co-mingled in the field in a way which means that equal and opposites cancel each other out. You can compare this with the idea of destructive interference in physics. If you superimpose two sine waves of equal amplitude on each other so that the peaks of one wave coincide with the troughs of the other, you get a flat line. What's interesting about this is that the slightest disturbance to this equilibrium allows the energy of the waves to burst through into activity. You can see this phenomena in turbulent seas where 'flat water' is the most dangerous. The symbol of the Phoenix refers to the phase of creation when form begins to stand out from the Nun waters. Hence the long legged heron who stands out from the wetlands. The cry of its voice is the breaking through into time of the vibration potentials held in the void. The separation of what is to exist form what is not to exist. The word 'exist' itself gives us a clue about this because it literally means ex-ist (out - stand), to stand out from the background. For a form to exist it must stand out form the field of energy which creates it. The name Phoenix comes from a Greek word for 'blue'. When the Egyptians drew the Benu they used a blue pigment, so the Greeks saw a blue bird. The Greeks traded with the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians originally from what we now call the Lebanon (Tyre and Sidon) were a great sea going and trading nation who spread along the North African Mediterranean coast, including their main city of Carthage (see Hannibal). One of the things they traded was a blue dye - hence the connection in the Greek's minds of blue dye with Phoenician - thence Phoenix. As a symbol of the birth of the sun (and creation) the Benu also is a symbol of rebirth. "I go in like a hawk, I come forth as a Phoenix" says the Book of the Dead of the afterlife. Its connection with the sun gives also the connection with heat and flame. Greek writers like Herodotus recounted the story of a bird which rose form the ashes of its fathers funeral pyre (in Heliopolis). The nature of these stories, to me, suggests a Persian connection, or possibly Indian - but I only know the Egyptian side of this. Suffice to say the 'inner' function of the phoenix is to do with renewal and how rebirth occurs after the shedding of the exhausted accumulation of past experience. As a philosopher said (not sure which one) "All universes are formed from the debris of prior universes." It incorporates all the Egyptian ideas/truths about renewal and the cycling of energy. The issue of the Indian/Chinese connection is difficult because there are two possible types of connection. One is historical in the sense of the history of ideas - and I have no idea if such a connection exists. The other is the 'truth' that image of phoenix resonates with an inner function of power (or spirit) which is universal and so you can have phoenix type images cropping up in different cultures and their similarities doesn't necessarily suggest a single historical origin. Dragons? Well depends what you mean. No actual dragons as we know them in Ancient Egypt but plenty of reptilian and amphibian - also composite deities - and perhaps most significantly serpents. Including serpents with legs and wings - which is not far from a dragon really. In the Underworld Books of the New Kingdom, like the Am Dwat you find serpents like Neheb-kau who have legs and wings. (see pic). I know that dragons in the West are sometimes called 'Worms' and 'Serpents' so it is possible that the Egyptian winged serpent was more or less the same thing. Now in terms of the hawk/scorpion and phoenix/dragon connection I can say this. The serpent Neheb-kau is said to be the son of the scorpion goddess Serket (or Selkis, Serqet). They are both specifically associated with healing, especially the recovery from stings and bites or scorpions and snakes. Serket also has a similar relation to Quebehsenuef, the son of Horus with a hawks head, so you can infer a connection between Neheb-kau and Quebehsenuef. I am not sure what the dragon/phoenix relationship is in Chinese mythology - so I think we have come to the end of my understanding ... ... hope this fills some gaps anyway ...

Obviously it all depends on what exactly is wrong with his back - but I injured my back anout 6-7 years ago and the advice then was that for 99% of back pain the therapy is physio + exercise. I used physiotherapy, yoga and massage - which relieved the severe pain. I still get probs if I don't exercise properly - tai chi is good to keep back moving. If he is sedantry then it is prob postural. First thing though is to get proper diagnosis which might mean a scan.

shout wake up you fools! Next time you see some bankers or mortgage brokers.

might be a long wait no fish are biting today seagulls are circling.

Ah well - if I had to choose I'd go for Karmapa - nice though he is, the DL is a political figure.

I will wait for the headline: Immortal creature wiped out by pill collectors ... who's immortal now?

As I understand it, and I am not a scholar of Hinduism so forgive any mistakes, what we understand today as Hinduism is formed from the Aryan Vedic religion (Brahma, Vishnu and so on) which was introduced into the sub-continent from the North around 1000 BC. The vedas being a set of ritual texts, most notably the Rig Veda which set out the way in which the ceremonies celebrating the gods were to be practiced. These were supplemented by commentaries which interpreted the nature of reality and divinity and added to the original texts. This religion is hierarchical and the brahmins are the priest caste. They became the rulers through invasion. However before they arrived there was already an indigenous religion which can still be seen more in Southern India and is more focused on nature and fertility and from this the various Bakhti (love) religions emerged such as Ganesha and Krishna. Within the vedic philosophy various strands emerged from metaphysics to science and one such strand was yogic thought e.g. Patanjali which is based on mystical union with the divine (Ishvara or Shiva). Also connected is the non-dualistic philosophy of Shankara's Advaita Vedanta which basically says that reality is universal consciousness (Brahma) and the 'self' or Atman is 'not different to' Brahma - hence the possibility of union. There is some debate as to how much Shankara was influenced by the Mahayana Buddhist Madhyamaka or how much it was the other way round. But you can see similarities between Advaita and Zhentong (Buddha-nature schools). Obviously there are clear lines of connection historically from Buddhism to China, along the silk route by the Bodhidharma and so on. And it could be argued that Buddhism is a kind of reform Hinduism but the problem with this idea as a link between Chinese thought and Hindu thought is that the Lord Buddha specifically stated that while the gods (e.g Indra) exist, they are earth bound powers and should not be the objects of refuge. The aspiration to a god-like state which any union with a deity implies is seen by Buddhism as a dangerous step which will ultimately be followed by a fall from grace to the lowest states of existence (because of the vestiges of pride which would be attached). Taoism seems to me, and I bow to true scholars for correction on this, to have arisen independently in China as a separate strand of 'religious' thought and not in connection with influence from outside. The reason it was able to fuse or merge with Buddhism or at least live comfortably side by side with it is, at least in part because of the 'impersonal' way in which the ultimate is seen (the Dao, the dharmakaya). This is very different to saying that god is a person and that person is the ultimate. This is of course what Judaism, Christianity and Islam also try to say as well. So if we are to take the Raja Yoga type view that all gods are really one god then we have the same view, that of monotheism. The problem with monotheism is that it is a kind of concealed duality. If God is a supreme being and yet evil and suffering exist them how can an absolute good encompass evil and suffering? INn fact the Advaita Vedanta is an attempt at a solution to this problem. Having said all this, you could argue that none of this matters really. That any differences are just based on limited understanding. That we have to speak in relative terms of god or not-god because we don't really understand the ultimate which is inexpressible anyway. If the Absolute is ineffable then anything we say about it is only a way of talking and cannot be properly communicated. All we do is end up arguing about approaches. There is no doubt in my mind that an enlightened yogi, a bodhisattva and a Taoist master would have no conflicts between them.

For those outside UK - please note that the Daily Mail is basically a right wing propaganda rag.

My etymological dictionary says that 'hope' is from the same root as 'to hop' 'a leaping, or to leap, with expectation.' And desire is from an expression which means: 'to cease to see - and regret the absence of' So hope expresses the desire to jump quickly to a new state of being, while desire means that you crave something that you haven't got. Both are distractions from the here and now. Desire is the root of suffering (we are told), while hope suggests you being lured by an idea of what you would like.

That's interesting - thanks. It kind of explains why people find social networking so engaging - although I have to admit I have never got into Facebook even though I have a page I hardly ever got there - actually I come here instead!

Study about the great wizard-shrine? Come on give us a clue - why these words?

future past present I will be, I was, I am, Now and now and now.

"Great shame about the study!" said the wizard, "no shrine!"

Just found this - downloaded pdf. It looks good and reads really well. If nothing else this guy can really write. I love this direct cut-the-crap style. Only read the first few section though.