lotusbud

I was just about to marvel approvingly, out loud, at the use of upper case AND lower case!

What this guy says makes so much sense to me. What bothers me is that crystal. The laziness that most people fear will balloon into one big life failure is a need for rebalancing and healing. I see this most in education where people are told "you must learn this subject and then these concepts at this time" rather than following their curiosity. Too much will kill one's desire to learn. So if we let all children quit school will they just stay home and eat candy all day while watching cartoons? Yes, for a while. That excitement has it's day and then turns into avoidance. Watch the video games wither, the tv drone, the junk food sour, and you leave a big emptyness. A gaping chasm. The kids call it boredom, I call it the mother of everything. Anyone know where I can get one of those crystals?

I think this is fantastic advice. I have to say that 7th Day Adventists and Jehovas Witnesses don't have reputations of thinking outside the box. You are likely encountering a lot of fear and weird assumptions. I get a lot of worry from my parents about tai chi and medititation. They usually just have no understanding of what it is I am doing and what my goals are. My advice would be not to discuss the esoteric traditions of Christianity with them, that is for you to explore but will likely confirm their fears that you've fallen prey to some evil cult. So definitely don't start talking about the Cloud of Unknowing with them. Talk to them from a place of common ground. What you can do is address their concerns. Usually their biggest fear is that you are replacing the gospel "you are a redeemed child of God" with something else "you must do whatever to be saved". Make clear to them, if it is what you believe, that enlightenment or unity with the Tao, however beneficial they may be, are something different than and not a replacement for Christ's work and message. The other fear is of posession. What sort of practices are you doing? They don't involve trying to bring about posession do they? If they do you really need to rethink all this. :-{ I'm guessing not though. ;-) Most meditation practices actually develop concentration, awareness, clarity etc. All virtuous things from the Christian perspective and things that should actually discourage possession from their point of view. Self examination is good, surely they agree. Cultivation can be thought of along the lines of hygene and exercize. Like brushing your teeth. De-mystifying what you do can go a long way to helping them accept that this is not somehow abhorant behaviour.

This is a common feeling to anyone trying to learn any advanced skill. You are obviously hungry for more. Channel that energy into examining your practice. Don't take for granted that you know something, but go deeper, look deeper, look honestly at what is really happening in your movements. If you have a million questions that is a good thing. Don't worry about getting the answers from your teacher, follow the questions and see where they lead you. This will produce results. Your teacher will see the improvement and lead you in the right direction or give you correction if you go off on the wrong path. Also I recommend against thinking that your progress is grinding to a halt just because it isn't apparent. Sometimes it's like a seed germinating underground. Remember, the brain learns quick, the body is much much slower

Hi Unconditioned, Laziness happens to be one of my favorite topics. I've been working on it a lot for a long time. And while I haven't overcome laziness completely I've improved a lot. Here are some of the practical things that helped me: Take care of yourself. Start from the center and gradually expand outwards. Try to understand the problem on the level of the universe and your body simultaneously. The end goal and right now have to blend. Meditate. Eat a healthy balanced diet, and less rather than more. Get some exercise. Nourish all your social relations and especially take care of your parents. Maybe volunteer. Find out why this relates to laziness. List what is hanging over your head: doing taxes, clearing debt, writing a thesis, getting the car fixed, unfinished novel, forgiving that person, returning that favor.... Whatever it is you have to clear it off. The less of those things you have the more your momentum will change, they are chains. Change your environment, find a better place, move the furniture, get rid of the furniture, throw away 5 things and give away 5 more on a regular schedule for a while. Reduce, reduce, reduce! In short be good at letting a lot of things go. Be good at losing. Find out what you want. What can you contribute to the world? When you have an answer, make it clearer. Find out what is the very next step. Whatever it is you are doing, try to achieve a very clear result. Try to make clear a beginning and an ending. For instance, if you are learning something from old posts on this forum narrow your focus and after spend 15 minutes writing a quick and dirty summary of a topic for yourself. With questions for further study. If you are unwilling to do this do you really have enough interest to be wasting your time on it? At the same time, run from perfectionism, just do your best without fuss and move on. If you put a timer on for 15 minutes daily and tidy things up, in a month your whole place will be clean, (provided you don't have kids). When starting something you have been avoiding I have found it helpful to become fuzzy. Fuzzy and unclear. Become plain. You have been thinking about why you hate doing that thing or what you would rather be doing. It's actually easy to let a bit of fog descend so that you can focus on the task at hand. Who is it doing the task anyway? And who wants to delay starting until a snack and a cup of tea is had? Slowly develop routines. You will probably try to accomplish too much once the wave of motivation hits you. It isn't going to be that simple. Do things at a steady pace and welcome the rest when it arrives but don't search for it. Believe that the change is actually taking place right now. Be optimistic about that slow and subtle change no matter how small and enjoy it because it is going to change your whole life.

Pranaman, your situation sounds so similar to what I went through while I was still living with my parents. In my own case it was a long time before I accepted the idea that you are the only person you can change. Please don't ask your parents to read Siddartha or to stop eating flesh. We try to change others because changing ourselves is hard work and we can be lazy sometimes. You want your parents to change because you love them and want to care for them, and yes it is very important to honor them and live in thanks to them. But they are YOUR parents, not the other way around. They are your origin and you are who you are because they have helped bring you here. All the positive changes you make and your new ways of seeing the world and living ARE your thanks to them. So find your own feet, your own strength. You can explain why you do the things you do but don't expect them to change. You may not realize it but they have probably had their own long journey full of change to today from the way their parents raised them. I began to revere my mother after I uncovered how sick and backward her own childhood was, how much pain she went through, and realized that she had really changed her destiny and mine for the better by changing all her sick ways of thinking and transforming them to optimism, by becoming joy. That said, you are their child and they will see themselves in you. You can definitely find ways of resonating with them. For example your father's sense of thrift that makes meat appealing might change if he knew more about how that meat is produced and how industrial meat production externalizes costs on taxpayers and the next generations. (It's important not to accuse them of anything, just give them the facts and at least they will understand your choices and perhaps be proud of you for them even if they don't change themselves). As far as your mother's "addiction" is concerned, perhaps you can offer to cook one course for the family periodically. There are plenty of really tasty veggie meals they might like and incorporate into their diet. Start with what they eat that IS healthy and go from there. I should say again, don't do all of this as a great service to them. Do it for yourself. Take care of yourself and make sure all the positive (and difficult) changes you make are supported by yourself. Your whole family will benefit from your cultivation. Don't doubt this. I was just reading how people can affect the variable heart rate of others even in a different room. We are sharing energy all the time.

Yang 108 all the way!! I'm really loving this right now and feeling like a lot of progress is happening. And oh, the metaphors it evokes for all maner of concepts and teachings. I've definitely got to write more about it. I think I'm going to go practice right now!

Happy birthday! May you become younger, softer, lighter every year!

Last year I kept daily records of my practice experience and after a few months a clear pattern surrounding the lunar cycles was apparent. Always the days before and after are a bit of a wild ride. I never thought of fasting and or eating less on those days, just practicing more, taking advantage of the extra energy to do some vigourous exercise... I'm definitely adding this to my routine. Thanks y'all!

Dennis Lewis has a book titled "The Tao of Natural Breathing" which is a good primer on breathing, only a few pages on reverse breathing but some good pointers.

The lungs are bacically shaped like cones or pyramids pointing upwards. Every tiny bit they expand downwards their capacity is increased by quite a lot. I find it a fantastic guide to how much tension is in my body (and mind). Has anyone mentioned the skin?

Man, I want something like this on a t-shirt...

I don't think you can say there is a "right" time (unless of course you mean right now). It is fun to experiment, keeping in mind the body's cycles and different organs ebb and flow. I also read somewhere that for every decade of life the average body's circadian rhythms move one hour earlier.

I built my own computer and put some thought into making it quiet. It's definitely worth it! After working many hours on a noisy old sun workstation that sounded like a helicopter it was heavenly. Easy ways to go about this: - Go with bigger fans that turn slower. For the power supply, case and cpu, big fans rule! - I found a found a copper heatsink to replace the fan on my graphics card. - It's fairly trivial to find switches to lower voltages on most fans. - If you aren't a gamer you can sometimes getaway with underclocking. There are some pretty crazy homebrew water cooling systems out there on the web. Then of course there is the most taoist of computer practices: shutdown! The quiet is so good!

I don't think there is any conflict with meditation and procreation. Even sexual expression is not a problem. Desire on the other hand....