Apech

It’s a many splendored thing.

rust in peace …

What is this thing called love? This funny thing called love? Just who can solve its mystery? Why should it make a fool of me? I saw you there one wonderful day You took my heart and threw it away That's why I ask the Lord in Heaven above What is this thing called love?

Did the Chinese invent Marmite (vegemite) or Weetabix?

What on earth are you talking about?

Christianity is so weird.

Apech of DaoBums with magic staff

Yep it’s an actual photo!

Amorim was very good at Sporting Lisbon but the problems he faces at United I think may well be too much ( but I hope not).

I’m a Spurs fan and this brings nothing but false hope and despair 😀

They are priceless but free.

I have several - would you like to choose?

wouldn’t it have been cheaper just to get the wife to dig the whole thing?

I agree with your last point. I tend to avoid abstruse arguments about soul and self and non-self because in the end all will be revealed on true realisation or insight as we go along the way. I treat karma partly as common sense, in that actions produce results and the results tend to mirror the original act. So in terms of conduct I should try to do wholesome things to get wholesome results - to provide better conditions for myself and others. This without agonising over what particular action produced which result - as the whole thing is like tangled hair. So it just gives a reason to behave better. Beyond that of course the subtle body is distorted by emotional charge resulting from past actions and experiences. Sometimes parasitic energies are attracted like bugs onto negative karmic states leading to repetitive circular energy states (like addiction or obsessive thoughts and so on) which is dangerous and hard to deal with. Emotions and emotional states have to be addressed (but without becoming indulgently self focussed) and the knots undone. Kundalini? Well that's difficult but I see that as a special or extra energy released when you begin to see through to reality - it's important not to force it but it will come when awareness and primordial substance are linked.

" All these details appear in various books of the Old Testament. Here’s a sampling ..... https://www.thenotsoinnocentsabroad.com/blog/descriptions-of-gods-body-in-the-bible I just assumed he looks a bit like me.

There’s a yoga practice called five fires.

I've never been keen on the idea of transcendence as it seems like an abstraction to seek something always above. But I have to admit the idea exists and has some legitimacy. For instance it is often true that if you have a problem in life which you are struggling with, the way to see your way through it is to go above it. Just as a general in an army might climb a hill to see the battle laid out before him, so he can see the best strategy. It speaks to the idea of hierarchy - that we live in a world of levels - and that there is an ultimate, an ultimate good for instance. There is a 'tree' of powers beneath whose boughs we sit, so to speak. Also the Buddha went beyond - gate, gate, para gate, parasamgate, bodhi soha. etc. So yes I guess that in the end I subscribe to a transcendent truth. I much prefer the idea of integration. In fact I would suggest that even the absolute is to be integrated - so it is not an abstract but a kind of core of truth which magnetises the other aspects of being to be integrated. In fact, the very reason we are searching at all is because of the living nature of the absolute which is 'within' us. Like a heart. To integrate there has to be a template but not one of our making. A natural template if you like, such as the structure of the subtle body for instance which we do not wilfully or mentally create. It just is. Most systems seek clarity and talk of disturbing emotions. But in tantra those emotions are also wisdom. And wisdom in the Buddhist context means prajna, which in turn means prior or pre- knowledge. In other words the emotions reveal to us our nature seen from a certain perspective. At first, I think, we do have to make some space between our emotions and ourselves - just enough to be able to see clearly and to not become a cork tossed on the ocean. But that is just a preliminary stage to help us get settled. Thereafter we have to be more intelligent and creative than that. The way through the emotional tangles is the way in. Which is why, I think, that distancing emotion becomes bypassing. There is also a mistake I think about non-dual 'just sitting' or resting in the natural state. It doesn't mean just relaxing or every 'yoga' class would be a Dzogchen class (which they patently are not). The key I think is the union of two aspects - the luminous (awareness) and emptiness (substance/power) ... I see this as a kind of ultimate alchemical act. Like the fusing of oil and water - somehow making ... or allowing perhaps ... that which is aware in us and that which is energetic come together such that you can realize that one exists in dependence on the other and that they are truly non-dual. To achieve such a feat requires the work of total integration - without which the whole thing will fall apart since ordinarily our beings cannot bear this great mystery. I hope this makes some sense to somebody.

Some things go bump in the night.

Gosh what a fantastic thread - it has given me a lot to think about. Thanks to everyone esp. Bindi for their contributions so far.

It’s embarrassing to admit but when I go to funerals I often get an erection …. mourning wood.

slightly disturbing