doc benway

Well spoken! My advice regarding the OP would be standing meditation. Very natural and comfortable posture. Open all sensory awareness - total yin. Feel... When the mind gets distracted, let the content go, relax, smile, return to now... Just feel and smell and taste and hear... - everything inside and everything outside.. Try and gradually build up to practicing this for 20 - 30 minutes, for most it will take a few months to do it comfortably. I think this is a good basic foundation for discovering perception of "energy"

This is a critically important point in developing awareness about ourselves. It doesn't really matter whether or not a reward is involved. I subscribe to Anthony Demello's view on charity. All charity is selfish - 100%. Until you see this, you are not in touch with what motivates you. There are two types of "selfishness" - 1. When I give myself the pleasure of pleasing myself - this is what we usually consider selfish 2. When I give myself the pleasure of pleasing others - this is what we usually call charity When looked at carefully, both are a form of pleasing oneself - one is just a bit more refined than the other. It does not mean that either is better or worse, good are bad, both are equally valid but should simply be viewed with accuracy.

The one technique that I feel is completely natural and not forced in any sense is awareness. It can be practiced anywhere, anytime, under any conditions. One can sit in awareness, stand or walk in awareness, work and play in awareness. Once awareness is practiced sincerely, all other practices pale in comparison (IME) Krishnamurti was very outspoken about the use of methods in cultivating spirituality. "The truth is a pathless land." His writings are essential reading, IMO. On the other hand, I am torn between two points of view when thinking of cultivating Dao and living in accordance with Wu Wei. 1. Our thoughts are an unnatural product of generations of conditioning and must be abandoned to commune with Dao 2. Our thoughts and minds arise from nature as have the generations of conditioning, and therefore should all be embraced I think the resolution to this conundrum is parallel to the Buddhist perspective that nirvana is samsara and samsara is nirvana. Until this is realized at the deepest levels, one is never liberated.

When I first started digging into Daoism, I couldn't really get too excited about the Dao De Jing or Zhuang Zi. I then read "When the Shoe Fits: Stories of the Taoist Mystic Chuang-Tzu" by Osho. It blew me away. It helped me to begin to understand how to approach Daoism in particular, and the entire spiritual journey in general. Highly recommended.

Lies, beneath black robes Innocence violated In the house of God

I think that identity is a very useful psychological construct that comes from a combination of things. One is our sensory apparatus giving us a reference for being a finite, separate, individual entity that can be identified. Then there is our social and cultural conditioning that creates a sense of where we fit in with others. Finally, there is our total store of memories and knowledge. All of this seems to contribute to define our image of ourselves. This image (or story, if you will) that we create is what I would consider identity. Not having a solid sense of identity could mean a lot of things I guess. One possibility is mental illness - depersonalization disorder is one possibility. Another possibility is having uprooted one's moorings with meditative practices. I'm sure there are others. I personally feel that it is valuable for a healthy psychological life to have a sense of identity and, at the same time, it is healthy from a spiritual perspective to see through the illusory nature of that identity so that we are not limited by it.

No question about it... Although old dead guys can give us some clues it seems. What a beautiful story.

I try to be aware. Not only does this include what is going on around me but, even more importantly, what's going on in me. I rarely pay much attention to breath. I pay attention to how I react to people, situations, and so on. What feelings and thoughts come up. How I respond. This allows me to act rather than re-act. If I don't pay attention, I tend to utilize and reinforce conditioned patterns which are not always the most skillful. If I'm aware and have an opportunity to watch my response and choose my actions, there is room for growth and insight.

I have Three Treasures, which I hold and keep. The first is benevolence; The second is simplicity; And the third is daring not to be ahead of all beneath Heaven. From benevolence comes bravery; From simplicity comes comprehensiveness; And from daring not to be ahead of all beneath Heaven Comes the ability of exhausting all infinitude. - Hu Xuezhi Benevolence, love, compassion - comes when the fundamental non-dual nature of being is experienced. When I experience my eternal nature , how can there be fear? Simplicity is emptiness and tranquility, the source of all. When I am empty, I am full of everything; but when "I" am there, I am full only of myself. To dare to not be ahead of all beneath Heaven; what need is there to get ahead of others? of nature? to make known my accomplishments? to be great? one who strives for greatness is never truly great. To accept, to yield, to be comfortable with now and not strive to become... All is well.

If we have a view, we are already clinging. Being a Buddhist is already separating oneself from Buddha.

Yeah man, I like thuscomone's words! And stan's I've been practicing awareness and acceptance for several years now and it has changed my life. I'm just gonna play with my new cuica for a while...

Kids deserve a lot more credit and respect than they are given - emotionally, intellectually, and psychologically. They are a great resource for learning to the extent that they remain unspoiled by adult delusions.

My favorite Charles Heston performance was in Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine"

+3 I think that the more open we can be to this approach, the more we are able to develop wisdom. This is one of the major problems with adopting a dogma or method to the exclusion of others. It shuts us down. This can be useful early on but at some point I think it is critical to open up to possibilities beyond what is encapsulated in any one frame of reference.

I think that the watcher, or the judge if you will, is the sum total of generations of social and cultural conditioning combined with our unique life experience. We have this complex image we have created that is all about what is ok and what is not ok and its completely entangled with our addiction to approval. Then this thought crops up and usurps the role of authority and comments on what we're doing or thinking or feeling. We then project this onto other people whose thoughts, as you pointed out, can never be known to us. And we project it onto the universe or our concept of god so that we get a little uncomfortable even scratching our asses in private. It's a long but liberating road to work through this stuff and deconstruct it. And just like modern science finds experimentally when it looks at matter, and the mystics find analytically and experientially working in the mind and body, as you begin to peel away the layers, it proves to be completely empty. Now I do think that a certain degree of social convention is valuable. It allows us to interact more peacefully and coexist with our disparate habits and ideas. But I think it's important to see it for what it is, a tool or a convention that has a specific and limited value. I spent last week visiting my family in Florida and was out on the beach every morning practicing - some sitting, standing, taiji, and some other stuff. And it was very interesting to pay attention to how my awareness would jump to other people as they noticed me. And how I was projecting all sorts of things onto them and how it would affect my practice, and how different it is when a pretty girl walks by vs a tough looking guy and so forth... All very informative.

Very well thought out and argued point overall. Thanks for that, and the chuckle!

So as not to interrupt the haiku thread: All of being screams in order that the rainstorm may soak to the bone...

The undisturbed flow A sign of prostatic health Where to go from here?

This morning I was thinking about another parable: Ch'ui the draftsman Could draw more perfect circles freehand Than with a compass. His fingers brought forth Spontaneous forms from nowhere. His mind Was meanwhile free and without concern With what he was doing. No application was needed His mind was perfectly simple And knew no obstacle. So, when the shoe fits The foot is forgotten, When the belt fits The belly is forgotten, When the heart is right "For" and "against" are forgotten. No drives no compulsions, No needs, no attractions: Then your affairs Are under control. You are a free man. Easy is right. Begin right And you are easy. Continue easy and you are right. The right way to go easy Is to forget the right way And forget that the going is easy. -Chuang Tzu This never gets stale for me.

I would agree that if the "dark night" is truly that, then by definition one's inner tranquility is seriously disturbed. We can talk about how this Buddha or that Sage would weather the storm and always remain tranquil and I think that is a fantasy. Being human involves both pleasure and pain. Times of pleasure and ease are a joy and are there to replenish us and give us something to hope for when times are bad. Dark times are when we are tested, challenged, and ultimately that is when we wake up to certain truths about ourselves and the world. Dark times are a time of growth, as unpleasant as they may be. I have not been able to keep my inner peace during very dark times. The sorts of things that helped me through are the following: -the knowledge of Yin and Yang, the dark times are only temporarily, they will pass -family and friends - now is the time to rely on them, ask for some support, be comforted by their familiarity and presence -allow yourself to be distracted by normal living - clean the house, cook some food, immerse yourself in some of the mundane tasks of living, they can be very soothing -see if there is anyone who needs your help, perhaps you can concern yourself with helping someone else through this tough time. That can create a very close bond and help you feel better knowing that you were able to help someone else. Good luck to you

For me, self-awareness has a quality of acceptance whereas self-consciousness has a quality of judgement. When I am self-conscious, there is a quality of anxiety, being concerned with approval, or meeting some expectations. Self-awareness, on the other hand, has a loving quality, one of observation without expectation, just for the sake of understanding. I really like Zhuang Zi's parable on self-consciousness: When an archer is shooting for nothing he has all his skill. If he shoots for a brass buckle he is already nervous. If he shoots for a prize of gold he goes blind or sees two targets - he is out of his mind! His skill has not changed. But the prize divides him. He cares. He thinks more of winning than of shooting and the need to win drains him of power. - Zhuang Zi When shooting for nothing, we are self-aware but not self-conscious. When a prize or a purpose arises, we suddenly are judging - is my shooting good enough? What if I lose? What if I win? And so on... I have been hampered by self-consciousness in the past. And it crops up periodically. I think that some of the surrendering has to do with letting go of concerns about the approval and expectations of others. This is why the attractive woman has the effect that she does. You care about her approval. We are all addicted to the approval of others. Learning to let it go is very liberating.

_/\_ _/\_ Purdy eloquent fir a coupla of Bums.

That is the only way... ... who else would you give that authority to? When we make a proclamation of measurement of enlightenment we are either... 1. Declaring ourselves the authority or... 2. Declaring someone else an authority and believing in their words... which I see as attachment, until you see their truths personally, in which case you need to kick it up to #1 3. Making a gratuitous assertion (ie verbal farting) Tough territory to navigate any way you look at it, I think. I try mostly to be guilty of 1 or 3. If I can't stand on my own ground, how can I stand on someone else's?