Encephalon

I am entirely convinced of the efficacy of SFQ, but as you know, I am also a Chu Nei Kung practitioner and haven't yet taken the time to squeeze SFQ into my evening routine. My Nei Kung energy flow is awesome and my evening meditations are deeply satisfying, so I'm being pretty selfish, although it's my suspicion that our NK practice will accelerate the SFQ when the time comes.

Well, if I had it to do over again, I'd get a nursing degree and my bush pilot's license and move to Alaska, but the CogScience Dept. at UC Berkeley would be cool as hell. George Lakoff teaches there, and of course Joanna Macy lives in Berkeley too. We're weird out here on the Left Coast, but we think.

Thanks. You're fast!! I think we're headed in that direction.

Well said. The closest thing that westerners have to the Paticca Samuppada is general systems theory, which ain't no cakewalk either, but for those willing to put in the work, Joanna Macy's "The Dharma of Natural Systems: Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory" is such a thrilling spiritual and intellectual carnival ride that you'll be changed forever. "The individual self...appears as a process, a pattern of psycho-physical events. Because it is formed through sensory, affective, and cognitive interaction with its environment, it cannot be abstracted from its context in nature and society. In the Buddha Dharma this view is integral to the teachings of the Khandas, the causal relation of the nidanas, and the doctrine of anatta. In general systems theory it is basic to the concept of the open system. As the person processes and transforms food from the natural world, so also does the person self-organize by processing and transforming and exchanging information derived from the community." (1991:184). Pretty exciting shit, eh?

Whoah. You haven't been cleared for posting yet. Important docs are still pending. You should have already received a formal release by email for - credit report background criminal investigation federal fingerprint submission (DHS, TSA, and FBI) polygraph. That doesn't even include the requisite lab work, including blood profile, CBC, stool sample, drug and STD screening. Until then, there's not much you can do.

vortex, on 02 August 2010 - 10:52 AM, said: ...Now, if anyone can tell me of such masters who have attained sustained abilities (alchemical stages, healing ability, etc) by using entheogens...then let's hear it??? We need to update our Emoticon library to include a smileyface that is bashing it's bloody brains out on a brick wall after trying to make simple and uncomplicated points. NO ONE is saying that you need to ingest drugs to become spiritual masters and healers. It's a stupid point, I don't believe it's been argued here, and if it has, I was speedreading too fast through all the bullshit to recognize it. The point that should be made is that entheogenic ingestion, with as much as a single episode, has the POTENTIAL of inducing an experience that temporarily dissolves the psychological barriers between self (small s) and non-self. It is a process of depersonalization that has the ability of suspending the illusion of separateness and isolation that are characterize human consciousness. I might point out that this experience of depersonalization and the ensuing experience, however imperfect, of a shared and interdependent reality apart from the human ego is a profoundly moving one and if it is even remotely akin to a raw and unfiltered experience of Indra's Net and the ecological reality that defines it then it's pretty fucking valuable and worth further controlled study. The results of hallucinogenic therapy for patients with terminal illnesses attest to this. It's just a thought, but I'm wondering what we could discover if we zipped up our pants and curtailed the practice of endless, pointless metaphysical speculation just long enough to understand how a truly ecological consciousness would manifest in the absence of a false self. This is the subject of the Paticca Samuppada, the intellectual content of the Buddha's enlightenment, that part of his intuitive realization that can be expressed in conceptual terms. We should get serious and talk about this some time! Nah. Too much work.

Well said. I would include as essential reading "Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals" by Huston Smith, and, if you're in a patient mood, Smith's youtube 30 min. interview on the subject. The following is a publisher's blurb for the book: From Publishers Weekly Religion scholar and "missionary kid" Smith discovered psychedelic drugs in good company, alongside Timothy Leary and the crowd at Harvard that experimented with LSD, mescaline and psilocybin in the 1960s. In Cleansing the Doors of Perception (the title a play on Aldous Huxley's cult classic The Doors of Perception), Smith argues that while psychedelics can illuminate the religious life, these drugs can not induce religious lives. Therefore, Smith concludes, religion must be more than "a string of experiences." If drugs cannot replace religion, however, they can aid the religious life, when psychedelics are used in the context of a larger religious commitmentAas with the Native American use of peyote. But this provocative inquiry into the relationship between drugs and religion is overshadowed by Smith's unreflective strolls down memory laneAsuch as his description of the Good Friday experiment of 1962, when a group of Harvardites popped psychedelics and attended Good Friday services. Smith says it was one of the most spiritually meaningful days of his life. I for one am grateful for my few psychedelic experiences. They were always and consistently spiritual, positive, and enjoyable, so there was definitely a recreational side to their use (ooooh... heavy confession....) but for some, as Smith says, one trip may be enough to shatter limiting beliefs and render a broader identification with reality and the interdependent fabric with which it is spun - spunt - spunned!

Yes, this question has been answered. Special thanks to VcraigP, mjjbecker, Ya Mu, and all the rest. "Thread is dead." -- TTB coroner.

Pretty gosh darn good sound advice, there, for sure.

My apologies. Thank you for clarifying this point. Failure to make that important distinction was cumbersome of me. Have you gotten ahold of the "Eternal Spring" Chi kung dvd?

Is this a language barrier incident, or have I completely failed to clearly present the goal of this post?

I immediately regretted using the "ladder" analogy cuz I'm all about lateral connectivity rather than hierarchy. (I'm up to speed on the intentional community movement and have participated in at one time, but I'm not a radical egalitarian either.) My own learning curve through this subject will be through some of the basic works on eco-psychology, More Capra, and, someday, "Integral Ecology" (Wilber-ordained ecology studies) Other than that, I'm gonna concentrate on getting rich and moving to BC.

I agree with all this, but I would not jettison the western intellectual tradition entirely. We should still try to get a liberal education, if not to be a sage then at least to rid our mental universe of misinformation. I think it was Deng Ming-Dao who said that knowledge should proceed from simplicity to complexity, and then return to simplicity. But in this journey we should learn all we can about ourselves and our world. In fact that's how Stephen Batchelor defines one dimension of spirituality - a ceaseless process of curiosity and questioning. You can still "intervene" in society in a wholesome fashion without being a zen master or Taoist priest.

Ah, but there's the rub. There are competing ideas regarding the role of human agency in the natural world. I'm not too current on the argument - it's worth looking into - but I've subscribed to the idea that since human beings have self-consciousness and the technological capacity for manipulating their environment, they occupy a slightly different rung on the natural ladder. I believe "Scholar/Warrior" by Meng Deng-Dao delves into this subject matter a good deal, but Fritjof Capra probably offered the most accessible explication in "The Tao if Physics" and his more recent "The Web of Life." The ancient Taoists held the human intellect suspect but developed their intuitive powers to a degree that, as Capra says, rivals the explanatory power of the modern scientific method. Pretty cool shit, eh?

I had my overheating phase in July of 2009, about 19 months into my nei kung practice. I had to shave off my beard in April of that year because a rash on face started to develop, the first time I had ever had a skin issue. By July it was hot as hell in Los Angeles and my entire upper torso was cooking. My acupuncturist told me westerners typically overheat with chi kung, especially because of the western diet. I've been able to contain the face rashes with occasional Desonide ointment but the real trick is to clean the excessive salt and sugar out of your diet. I've also been taking schizandra for months now and it's done wonders. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18515024 Looking back with what I've learned in here, I would have to say that I overheated myself at the time by practicing my nei kung as usual but introducing Tidal Wave Chi Kung by Gary Clyman into my afternoon repertoire. No wonder I cooked myself! No more Clyman.

If I understand correctly that too much yang gives birth to yin and vice versa, then this whole consumer culture will give birth to a much smaller, less consumer-oriented culture. A lot of the urban theorists/planners like James Kunstler and the New Urbanists as well as the peak-oilers have already teased out what this will look like from a land use perspective, but it boils down to three elements: a revitalization of the national train system (not high-speed rail, just comfortable diesel-electric, with transit-oriented developments; a revitalization of the urban core, hi-density, modest size dwellings, super-insulated (rammed earth or other high (r-80) construction; and a return to downsized agriculture (greenbelts surrounding the cores). Prognosis is good for a lot of areas that have adequate water supplies and greenbelts and inhabitants who have green skills. Prognosis for places like Los Angeles and much of the Southwest is pretty poor. We'll see, won't we?

Nice explanatory power. Like I said, my nei kung instructor never mentioned MCO, and actually got a little indignant when I told him about it. I'm a synthesist and have always had a knack for research and pattern recognition. This served me well in college and work but I'll readily concede a shortfall if it has rendered my Taoist learning curve a little bumpy. I enjoy my Taoist library nevertheless, except for the Chia material. Okay. Could you kindly do me the favor of sharing with me what you know about the background of these movements/postures? This is the system I practice after 20-30 minutes of Embrace Horse. It takes me another 30 minutes to get through the nine movements. Thanks in advance. Straight out of The Book of Nei Kung by C.K. Chu - http://www.amazon.com/Book-Nei-Kung-C-Chu/dp/0961658606/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1280282357&sr=1-1 EMBRACING HORSE 30 min. RIDING THE WILD HORSE PLAYING P’I P’A THE COMPASS DOUBLE DRAGONS LEAP FROM THE SEA RHINOCEROS GAZES AT THE MOON RIDING TIGER PHOENIX SPREADS WINGS HITTING THE TIGER OWL TURNS HEAD

I suppose I would have to include myself in this population. I suppose the most articulate voice of this school of Buddhism would be Stephen Batchelor ("Buddhism without Beliefs" and "Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist"). I think those of us in this camp would feel comfortable with calling ourselves secular humanists as well as Buddhists, and would take issue with rejection of the doctrine of reincarnation as an embrace of nihilism or a belief that nothing matters. There is still plenty of room for moral and ethical theory in a humanist view. I have asked the question of why people cling to an idea of a permanent or isolated self, and I'm not entirely sure the answer has arrived, but I guess I'm obliged to explain why I embrace the opposite view. And my reason for rejecting an independent self is because secular Buddhism (and much of the Buddhist psychology that has emanated from the last 50 years of east/west dialogue), postmodernism, and modern psychology have made a more compelling case for a constructed identity than an immutable one. But have I given into nihilism? I think that's a stretch.

Thanks. I was trying to introduce a little levity, but honestly, I'm beginning to feel like someone who has trifled with something too important to mess with. I am after all, a beginner and should summon more humility.