effilang

"This is precisely the problem that Bodhi Dharma ran into when you first came to Shaolin. The monks were sickly and in poor health, and his effort to find a solution to this was to come up with the qigong and kungfu that has made Shaolin so famous. " This is exactly what I was thinking about too. It seems a shame that there are still monasteries today that don't take advantage of the benefits of Bodhidharmas teaching. Still I'd love to get more input from other folks on this. Liberating the mind without the body. Liberating the body and mind as one after fusing them together.

Drew. Chip in please.

You are the observer on one end, while ultimate reality us on the other. You are connected and essentially the same. Between you stands something else, the collective of your sense consciousness. It's function is to obstruct the direct perception of reality, by distorting it. Like a light prism. This is why in BUDDHAOISM we are instructed to detach from the senses and cut off the 5 thieves. When the senses are out of the way you will not simply perceive original reality unobstructed, but you will realize your are one and the same and instead of experiencing reality, you become aware of the fact that you ARE reality.

Whether we do or don't do, or whether others do or don't do unto us, insofar as actions and volition are concerned, all living beings are in constant and uninterrupted interaction with one another. Whether we affect the karma of a snail by moving it off the pavement in order to protect it, but in so doing inadvertently stopping it from reaching its destiny of reaching the end of the pavement so that it can be reborn in a higher realm or by choosing not to put a wounded animal to its end, only to be witness to its full recover weeks later, whatever the case, we are interacting with each others karma, both in doing and in non doing. Ultimately, we are a part of a great unity. A fundamental organic mechanism, that pulsates with life. We are a result of how we and others have interacted with each other and with our environment. So if our actions are responsible for our karma, then nothing is accidental, rather events which take place in your life, no matter how serendipitous, are simply the result of others actions and inactions intermingling with yours.

Understanding duality makes the perspective of everyone's argument as amusing as your very own, and equally as right or wrong. Thank you for the mental gymnastics fellow bums. We learn through our experiences.

Mhm... But is avoiding, overcoming? Is it triumphing? Is it besting? Is it putting your character to the test? Is it the trial by fire that we need to fortify and refine our good virtue? One cannot attain wisdom by avoiding resistance and challenge, or your achievements will be an illusion of the self. You can land on the peak of a high mountain with a helicopter, but you will be of no use in helping those climbing barefoot to reach the top. Would this not be a selfish achievement to brag about?

Interesting. But why do you define the Need for money by the teachers current living conditions? By your argument then, it is immoral for a teacher to charge his students in order to save money to feed the poor and hungry or to build a bigger school. One with which to accommodate more students. Is this so? Can you not think u of any other good causes and people's sufferings that could benefit from the proceeds of the students funds? Is it that hard for you to see? It is man and his intention that makes money evil, not money that makes man evil. Money is inanimate and empty. You have the notion that money, which is simply printed paper is inherently evil and greed inducing by its very nature. Although, what it seems you have not seen, is that nothing has nature or quality until we endow it with such after perceiving it through the consciousness of our respective senses. The very same negative virtues which would make you commit immoral acts at the amassment of money are the very same that will produce evil in you again, should you acquire any matter to which power has been bestowed. This is not exclusive to money, it is general to the impressionable nature of human character. This once again illustrates that it is intention that matters most. For by intention we create that which we are and do.

You are missing the moon for the finger. The intent of your will is what defines the nature of the action. New age? Yes, about several thousand years old. There is a note able unction in the way we perceive what we imagine to be a good teacher. My notion of a righteous leader is of one who genuinely wants to help. The currency of this exchange can be in any form that they deem is of their need. Thus a teacher, as I said my charge you in money or in hugs, or in food, or in a new pair of shoes, or require of you to make a monetary donation to a foundation of their choosing. You have an incorrect concept of money. Money is a means of payment. A payment sprung from the motivation for gratitude, thanks and compassion. A student whom has a poor teacher, will naturally out of the good of his heart buy them food, clothes and shelter. These are simple necessities. The difference with conventional transactions is that nowadays there is plenty more in consideration of financial obligations than money, food and clothes. There is taxes, responsibilities towards parents and others in financial need whom are your care and numerous other reasons that make up ones private life. It is out of respect and courtesy that it is better to pay one directly so that they themselves can delegate the acquisition of their money. As to teachers in general, whether you pay them or it is for free, they can both still be false teachers, regardless of whether anything has been exchanged as a form of currency. This here once again highlights your misconceptualisations of money as a form or repayment. The foundational notion that we need money to survive by buying food and basic necessities is so crystal clear and evident in the world as a basic requirement, that one begins to wonder how it is at all that your are still arguing against it. Most interesting indeed. Please tell me more of this. I find your thought patterns most fascinating.

A good and experienced teacher will make you pay in more ways than one, but also, a teacher, whether good or bad in his methods of practice, cannot teach effectively on an empty stomach. You are being too soft in the view of survival. One must live in order to teach, and living requires food among many other things in a modern society, where you are already financially in debt before you are born. There is no shame or dishonor in charging for a service. If hugs were the currency of money, teachers would be giving out hugs instead, so long as a hug could buy food, shelter, warmth and clothing. It seems that you simply have a strong personal conceptualisation of money. Money is empty, but it is a simple necessity. Volitional intent is paramount in qualifying the duality of our experience. It is all dhukka. There is no right or wrong way to do a thing. A thing is done and that is simply it. It is our state of mind that is seeing through good or bad eyes. So long as nobody is hurt or mistreated or taken advantage of and the intention of the action is inherently good, even if it then leads to someone or things suffering, it is still a virtuous action.

You've misunderstood my intention because i did not convey it accurately. My meaning is that there are endless ways in which to walk the true path once on it, but 10,000 false paths surround it. You can attain profound insight through cutting grass with a hand scissors all day. This much I know. Any task with a combination of right mind and right intention will successfully tie up the sixth consciousness to allow insight.

I was meditating today and all of a sudden I had this urge to throw up. My stomach was completely empty, this is before breakfast. I've never felt this before. The urge came out of nowhere and I started feeling nausea. It was difficult just to get through to the end of the meditation but I did. The urge was so strong that i several times considered running to the toilet, but I knew if I did nothing would happen. I was just meditating on my ldt as always. I didn't change anything about my meditation. I did whole body breathing after that and it seemed to help disperse the sensation a little and subside it. Now that the meditation is over, I feel fine. Anyone experienced this?

Affirmation. Me Gusta.

The Tao is like a maze with 10,000 false paths and only one true path. Sure, you can enter for free, but that does not guarantee the most expedient arrival at the goal. In case you haven't realised, we humans tend to be short on time... When you are born into a life lucky enough to have the wisdom to achieve the path, you must be humble of this gift and practice both swiftly And diligently. To roll around the center of your palm your consciousness of the Tao, as if playing with dirt, is a disservice to this blessing as well as to yourself, and is a looking down on this privilege of LIFETIMES, born of arrogance and ignorance. All those who understand what I have written here, have a genuine love for the path and truly understand the significance of our awareness to it in this life.

Doesn't the Bum, Jesse, teach Tao Yin in Tokyo?

The second session I had was the same and the feeling again manifested out of my stomach and rose to my throat and made me want to puke. I told the Abbot that i didn't know what it was and why it was arising and that it came as a result of the emptiness and not any ideas. He looked at me like he always does, with this piercing gaze, that makes it seem as though he is not looking at your eyes, but through them. Then he said, it's ok. If you wanna puke, then puke, all the while walking away from me all jolly like he knew something I didnt, till he was several meters away until he added. "I'll get you a bucket". And he went and came back with a bucket. And all I could think was, this guy knows his stuff. So I entered the shrine room with my bucket among all the other mediators for another session. I was the only bucketeer. Long story short. The feeling didn't arise once until the very end of the session, but as soon as I noticed it, it disappeared. It was such a quick response. I have never experienced such speed in my life. It was like it was and wasn't at the very same moment. The end and the beginning of the thought were the same. Anyway. I asked myself. Did the bucket save me or did the idea of the bucket save me. Then it dawned on me, that both the physical bucket and the the mental bucket produced the very same result. They both allowed me to let go. But not in the simple sense you think, as in the comfort of the bucket being there. No. I was already previously trying to let go, but the desire to let go was making me cling harder, which was exacerbating the nausea. Then I realised that the idea of the bucket itself was transient and hence empty. And I concluded, that if the cure was empty and unsubstantial then the problem in the first place was empty, unsubstantial and unreal. 3 hours of meditation later, and it has not arisen again. PROFIT

I don't think that would be it as I have the same routine every morning. I have 4 hours of seated meditation before 12:45 PM I've never experienced it before, so I'm just wondering why now... I'm going to meditate again now for another 3 hours, and I really hope it doesn't happen again. It was a horrible feeling, but there was nothing attached to it. No memories, no events no ideas, it just came out of nothing and so swiftly that it took me by surprise.

Still waiting for mine Anyone in the UK get theirs yet? I got another email reply from JAJ. He said it is written wholy as a practical manual on alchemy, including purification practices etc. He also said at the end of the book he tells you what to do after you've become an immortal. Heh. Some of you here are saying it's not worth the money, but that's because you haven't read any of his books. The depth of information he has on subjects is literally out of this world. I wouldn't be surprised if he can contact immortals for instructions and information. While most other books just skim the top of things and others actually explain some things, if you compare similar subjects from another author with the same from Dr. Johnson, the difference is like that between the detail seen through a magnifying glass and an electron microscope.

You've been watching too much of The Secret... Manifestation is possible, but not with an empty energy reserve, and I don't mean Jing.

When the body is still the body creates Jing. When the breath is still the Jing creates Qi. When the mind is still the Qi creates Shen. When all three are unmoving the third combines with the second and then the second with the first to make one. Jing goes into an empty pot, it is like water. If you build an excess it will overflow and exit through the penis. Jing in a large quantity on its own can be harmful. Meditation without transmutation can be harmful. You must lower the heart of fire, the mind and the spirit below the pot (lower Dan tien) in order to heat the stove and bring the jing/water in the pot to a boil. The steam steam thus rising will be converted to Qi/vitality in the mco. This is how to eliminate sexual desire and transmute the jing to qi. If you cannot do this, forget about meditation.

I've been where you are and went the military route. After you make some serious breakthroughs during meditation, it becomes difficult to go back to life without everything seeming mediocre and distasteful. Either way. I am in a monastery now. We meditate 5 hours a day on schedule and the rest of the day, eat, meditate more and do gardening. I chose this path, because I strongly believe that it takes a rare and powerful type of motivation to coax a man into diligently following the path. It is not a simple thing and requires many sacrifices. However, so rare is it that we are blessed with this drive for spiritual cultivation, that if we find ourselves to be lucky enough in our present life time to be not only aware of it, but also have the know how of how to cultivate from a practical stand point, then I believe one owes it to himself and in the name of his liberation from samsara, to put everything else aside in this life and cultivate till your last breath. For who knows if you will be again bestowed with the same wits or interests or drive to undertake such a grand task. The task of your evolution. Maybe you'll be a frog for the next 10 lifetimes, who knows. You have to appreciate the transience of things and take advantage of what you realize and have now. Also.. About suicide. I've heard that if you commit suicide, you become a hungry ghost and cannot reincarnate until someone else gives up their soul to replace yours by committing suicide in the very same vicinity. As you can imagine such statistics can take a veeery long time to come about. So pick your exit methods carefully. Karma allegedly doesn't take very well to suicides. Either way. Don't be a sob about it, the choice is always in your hands. If you're unhappy with society, leave it. It's not rocket science. There are enough monasteries in almost every country to support spiritual development akin to the Buddhist and Taoist paths. Make a decision, but don't squander your life. I shit a brick just thinking about the bad karma you'd get if you did. Probably be reborn as a collection of warts on a pigs ass for the next 100 lifetimes Don't kill you. Meditate you. Empower you. Transcend you. Immortalise you.

Hey guys, There was a thread posted today that reminded me of an App, which I think some of you might find useful. It's called Insight Timer: VIDEO DEMO You can download it here for iPhone or Android: https://insighttimer.com/ You can search and join the group Taoist Alchemy if you like. It would be cool to do some group meditation sessions : ) Hope you find it useful.

How do you fine folks explain the Yang Shen and Yin Shen then? Or are we all just practicing alchemy for shits n giggles...

I believe that the ego does not exist until the the post-celestial state develops after birth. That means it is an organic, continuously evolving and growing construct. It sustains itself by reinforcing it's own belief structures. When original nature is displaced after birth, I think it is replaced by an empty potential, this is the raw spawn of the ego or consciousness. Since it grows with the growth of your own physical body and mind, it is there fore a result of the data absorbed by the 5 senses. It absorbs sounds when our parents utter our new names out, sights when we see, tactile feeling when we touch, smells and tastes etc. The ego is a data collector, and it builds new structures by combining the inflow of sense information and thus it creates constructs which exist within the confines of our currently accessible dimension. The ego, I believe is nothing more than these systematic units. I think of the ego as a collective of protein like structures, but instead of amino-acids, you have sound, smell, touch, taste and sight, all grid locked together to create our individual realities. This is why I suppose, people say reality is different for everyone. Well of course it is, we have the deaf, blind, dumb, the handicapped etc. It is only natural to assume that one persons sense of touch may be different, or that they may not hear as many sounds as you can, or that they may not see green the way you do. Yet, their reality is just as valid as yours. I've found due to all this, that the easiest way to deconstruct the ego, is to do so piece by piece. Sense by sense. It is not difficult, when you get use to it, yet people make a common mistake, by assuming that the EGO is one thing, like a John or a Lucy, like a brick or a ball, and because of this they look for one thing to eliminate, when it is in fact many things. Original nature is non-discriminative, it doesn't care what anyobodies opinion is about anything, whether it is good or bad, high or low, feminine or masculine. From this you can make a very simple deduction. Anything said or done or thought, that raises in you an emotional response, just feeling, any feeling, is therefore a reaction of the ego whom has just had one of it's "protein structures" or belief systems challenged. This is invaluable feedback to have, because it allows us to identify the ego immediately and without mistake, but even more to eliminate that construct. Hmmm.. ok. But how do you do the elimination? Well, the trick is that you don't. It is enough to "trap" it at the right moment and shine upon it your realization of its existence and it will fall apart of it's own. This reminds me of a saying I read long ago when I was around 11: " Laugh at the greatness of the beast and the beast will defeat itself." This method works well. Once you realize the ego is just a complex of sense data constructions, then there are numerous ways you can navigate to hack it down. Another way is to simply deprive yourself of sense data. This will also starve the ego and bring about clarity. This is a theory, but I think that if a person, by some chance were born without the capacity to taste, hear, smell, see or touch, they would not develop an ego at all and immortality would be very near to them with diligent practice.

Ordered mine too. Can't wait.

Any more reviews on this?