doc benway

I’m deeply sorry for your traumatic experience here. I left the Current Events area after stepping down from the mod position. It is heartbreaking when people I want to like and engage with show their willingness to turn a blind eye to the abject terror others are experiencing due to loss of rights, loss of safety, loss of humanity, loss of validation. I will hold you in my heart, along with all people threatened by the current socio-political cruelty and the ignorance and apathy that enable it.

Don’t have the energy right now but thanks for the iconoside, I do prefer reality. Makes sense in a goal-oriented paradigm at least. I can’t say for sure, I guess it depends. You’ve got your visionaries, like Basquiat, Kahlo, Keats, Rimbaud, Saramago, Dickens, Zappa, Schoenberg, Herzog, Tarantino… so many autodidacts in the arts, and in spirituality… And for many of us a narrow and rigid focus is an essential step in the process, it certainly was for me.

Some of the best fighters I've ever encountered were street fighters with no formal training. To fight well you need to fight a lot, the fewer rules the faster your progress. Sure, training can help but experience is better. There are some exceptions of course, eg. the Gracie methods were unbeatable in the ring in the early days of MMA, they truly showed the value of a secret weapon in the ring, but not necessarily in the street. To chisel your body you need to work out, you don't necessarily need a trainer or specific routine, although one can help, no doubt. I never said no effort is needed, I said these things can develop naturally and spontaneously. One aspect of effort is our experience of resistance to an activity. When we do something we need to do or love to do, it feels effortless, regardless of how much time and energy we invest. When we hate what we're doing, or feel it is a waste of time, the tiniest bit of effort is exhausting. The point I am making is that too much and too narrow a focus, also too much effort, are not always a good thing. Some folks need and thrive on it, some do better with a different approach. Your experience is valid for you but not universal. What is meaningful in life and spiritual growth depends on the individual. The best way to achieve one's goals is also a very individual thing. Clearly, where you are at this moment in your life, you need structure and a narrow focus. Others, in other circumstances, may find far more meaning in freedom and a wide open perspective. There is little value, or validity when we project what we need onto others. Having trained in a credible Daoist system for about a dozen years, and a Bön Buddhist system for about the same, my experience is that both (rigid, narrow focus vs open, flexible perspective) can bring profound benefits with very different methodology. The other thing I've found is that both Daoist and Buddhist traditions embrace both types of methodology in different aspects of their trainings. Two things that are important for growth, regardless of methodology, are persistence and trust.

An alternative perspective - no one needs to teach a child to walk or run. It happens naturally and spontaneously, when they are ready - ziran. Wisdom can also happen naturally and spontaneously. In many ways, I suggest that it is the infatuation with “cultivation” and “energy” that can be dysfunctional and counter-productive for a lot of people

Me too

I always assumed that fascism, authoritarianism, and related atrocities were forced on a populace. It's now painfully clear that it is a choice and for me that is so much more disturbing.

I would suggest that it is bad for all humanity. The degree of ignorance and cruelty that allows human beings to support such behavior, even codify it into policy, is painful for me to come to terms with. The mindset that allows such actions requires dehumanization, suppression of empathy, and selective ignorance. Once these are in place anything is possible, none of it good.

No surprise. It's always there and waiting for opportunity and permission to be expressed more openly.

Rather than suggest a title, I'll suggest that you pick a title that speaks to your personal relationship to the topic. Why is it important to you? What does it mean to you? What image or feeling does it bring up for you? I think that personal touch is communicated to people and makes a difference.

Emily Dickinson Collected Poems, The Secret Some things that fly there be,— Birds, hours, the bumble-bee: Of these no elegy. Some things that stay there be,— Grief, hills, eternity: Nor this behooveth me. There are, that resting, rise. Can I expound the skies? How still the riddle lies!

Just finished Question 7 by Richard Flanagan. What a great read! One of the things I really like is how it was influenced by the Yolnju language, in particular its use of a fourth tense which is neither past, present, nor future, but more a suggestion of the continuity of life, living, and connection, outside temporal limitations.

When you “get it,” referring to realizing, direct understanding of, “the highest spiritual teachings” in Tibetan Buddhism, you realize it’s been staring you in the face the entire time. There’s never been a moment you were a hair’s breadth away from it, and yet you just couldn’t see it. If your karma is not right, you won’t get it, no matter how it is presented.

"Money is like shit. Pile it up and it stinks. Spread it around and you can grow things." ~ Richard Flanagan, Question 7

It seems to me that you have a very narrow definition of what is meaningful in an esoteric context. Each of us needs something different and unique to grow. I would agree that what we need, in other words what we have to work with, are what conditions are present for us in any given moment and we have limited control over that. I also agree that support of a community can be very valuable. At the end of the day, however, each of us has to do the inner work by and for ourselves. No one, not even the greatest teacher can do it for us.

In addition to the beauty of the game and its players, I also find great beauty in chess pieces, ancient, classic, and modern. A few years back, I purchased a set hand made by a Romanian chess master, IM Biró Sándor. They are unique, rustic, and very sturdy for aggressive players. The size differential between kings, queens, and "lesser" pieces is far less than traditional designs. The knights are particularly interesting and the pawns are HUGE. I think this is an homage to the often underestimated importance and power of pawns and "lesser" pieces. You can see the set here - https://caissa.ro/ChessSet/ It's been copied by a few of the companies in India that manufacture the majority of chess sets worldwide, called the Romanian Hungarian set but giving no credit, or royalties, to Mr. Sándor. The knight was used as a model for the World Championship competition set endorsed by the FIDE. I once lost my wedding band. I'd been at kendo practice that morning. Looked everywhere, went back and checked the locker. Scoured the car, house, everywhere I'd been that day. When changing clothes that evening, found it in the cuff of my jeans, it had accompanied me all day at my ankle, snickering. Another time I lost a pen that was very special, given me by my father. Could not find it for a year. One day it showed up on my front porch... just a little worse for wear.

I rarely listen to podcasts but recently discovered Poetry Unbound. I listened to a poem today on the way to work, The Seventh Circle of Earth by Ocean Vuong. It's not a very long drive but I cried most of the way. In other news, I generally don't drink much coffee but that has changed since discovering La Colombe's All Dark and finding my old Bodum french press.

Perhaps the most concise definition of religion I’ve read.

I’ll get a little crazy and combine and continue the thread: nothing can compare to the pleasure of hugging my guns, and my cats

blessed sanity has drown’d herself in the Gulf of Amerika

Seems to be a little better for me today.

Another consideration regarding secrecy I'd like to share is an extension of a point in my earlier post, fwiw. In the Tibetan tradition, one which did keep the "highest" teachings hidden for millennia, enlightenment is far more than the realization of the non-dual nature of being. That very realization can be a trap, which I think is one reason for the secrecy. Such a realization is important but it is simply a drawing back of the curtain, a human experience of the dropping of an obscuration or delusion, albeit an important one; a glimpse of the real potential of enlightenment but not the full fruition. This is the place where a lot of practitioners get stuck because it gives one the impression that there is nothing left to do. The truth is that there is everything left to do, meaning that in this particular tradition, from the moment of realization, each and every action in one's life has the possibility of being a manifestation of enlightened heart and mind, here and now, in human form. The proof in the pudding is do we, and those around us, see that happening moment to moment in our lives? Each and every action can be an embodiment of the four immeasurable qualities of empathetic joy, equanimity, compassion, and loving-kindness. This is the fruition of the Three Bodies - the body of emptiness, the body of perfection, and the body of emanation. Realization of our empty yet complete nature of Being is fulfillment of the first, maybe the second of those bodies; but we need to discover the means to bring these qualities into our lives through our relationship to others, that's the third body, the aspect of emanation. My teacher emphasizes exercising this "muscle" through acts of service to others and through channeling our connection to the source through creative expression. These are ways to see if the realization is sound and fruition is actually occurring. Enlightenment is not an on off switch, not a simple change in perspective in my view. At best that can be considered realization. It is an ongoing process that becomes the basis for how we live our lives. Only when these four immeasurable qualities are spontaneously and effortlessly occurring, and affecting those around us in a meaningful way, can we be considered to be on a path to Enlightenment. At least that's my admittedly flawed interpretation of what is taught by the Tibetan tradition.

I suspect it's similar to our limited understanding of gravity. We can't figure it out so we had a fudge factor, like dark matter/energy, that makes the equations work. I suspect everything is there serving a purpose we are yet to understand or discover.

Major problems for me, only occasionally able to log on and the Jeopardy theme plays during every change of page...

Now THAT’s the way to welcome the year of the snake!

tumble in the void kno way to apprehend true orientation