Maddie

For me it would have to be a very short book haha. I don't do horse stance (at least not yet) but I did have something interesting happen today. So I meditated a lot today, after several hours my legs started to hurt from being in half lotus for so long, so I did a combination of walking and standing meditation. Well when I start to do the standing part I have my hands by my side in wuji posture and when my palms face each other its like they are two magnets pushing at each other and my hands push out away from my sides and kind of float at an equal distance from my sides lol. Then out of curiosity I force my hands back to my sides and when I relax my arms they float out again and just stay there lol. It felt like magnets.

I just watched the first episode, it was very good. I used to watch "A Haunting" a lot which was on the discovery channel.

Haha I just finished feeding the hungry ghosts this evening and then came in and saw this lol.

Yea I noticed in the past when I was in a relationship with a female they would often be upset if I did not ejaculate in them. I'd try to explain that its not good to over do it, but they didn't care they just wanted me to do it lol. I got on xbox again after having not played it for a while and once again noticed that after being online with xbox after a while I felt the de-conversion process starting. So I'm getting off xbox and am going to do some more meditation. All those young males tend to want to pull me down to their vibration ugh. Speaking of meditation for what ever reason it seems like my ego is resistant to Samatha. It seems to prefer to do a meditation with some kind of form. The idea of just watching the breath and mentally saying Budo over and over rubs ego the wrong way lol, BUT I had already done over 2 hours of other meditation and when I finally did Samatha THEN I felt all sorts of stuff start happening. Previous to that it didn't seem like a lot was going on. Weird. Ok so now time to go and to some more Samatha. Brodi says to do one practice you like and one you don't like. He says its the one you don't like that is really making progress for you. So apparently Samatha is my practice I don't like lol, but I notice that if I can just get myself to do it after a while it feels great. Ego is a weird thing.

Sure. So basically the ancient Chinese considered the human body a microcosm of the kingdom. So the heart was the emperor as it housed the Shen/mind/spirit. Everything else depended on the emperor issuing good orders and providing clear direction. The pericardium was likened to the captain of the emperor's guard. He decided who could and could not have access to the emperor. The small intestine was considered to be the wall around the forbidden city. It also was meant to protect the emperor, and like the guards at the gate of the forbidden city it decided who could come in to the city. The outer most layer was the san jiao or triple burner and this was likened to the great wall that went around the whole kingdom. So that's the whole fire element network. The Lung is considered the prime minister. Containing the Po or corporeal soul which is our animal nature it was meant to handle the routine tasks as to not bother the emperor with such trivialities. The Liver is the general and contains the Hun ethereal soul. The general is responsible for strategy, plans, decision making, problem solving and direction. People who are very angry and ruled by passion (as this is the emotion of the liver) are likened to the general throwing a coup against the emperor since the righteous mind of the emperor no longer rules the kingdom. The Spleen is the minister of the grainery. This is kind of like what Joseph did in the bible story in Egypt. He made sure the kingdom had enough grain stored up to eat, thus the spleen can tend to worry lol. The Kidney's are the minters of energy. Its their job to store and distribute energy. Kind of like the department of energy in the presidents cabinet.

Cool lots of interesting points. Yes understanding how things really work from an energetic perspective make things make more sense. When I first got on TTB's I used to speak in terms more of meridians and qi and elements but that didn't really seem to click with many people on here so I actually changed gears on how I explain things to a more western way of articulation cause it seemed when I made elaborate posts on organ qi interactions and conversions almost no one seemed to know what I was talking about, but then someone would post a post about how to pick up lots of chicks if you just fondle yourself the right way and everyone was game to talk about that lol. So yea it feels like the point am at now is that when I feel like I'm beginning to feel a little bit of shen being generated that's like the precise moment my roommate will show up and "try on and model slutty outfits to see if I think her bf would like them" lol. But anyways the reason I want that shen is because I've found that when I'm doing Vipassana that the depth of my insights seems to be directly related to how much shen I have at the moment. If before I was beginning to see deeper into the nature of reality after my roommate models for me and then turns on some music and does pelvic thrusting dance moves in front of me my shen seems to be diminished and for the life of me I can't get those same insights until I sit in meditation for a good length of time and rebuild that shen, at which time she usually shows up again lol. Something else I've noticed as I convert more qi is that it seems like people become increasingly easier to read. For example the girl who asked me to go to lunch with her after clinic yesterday (this is the same one who put her hand on my back in class last week). Well I just know that she is upset about something and i feel that its probably her relationship (I don't know how I knew this I just did). Anyways so when we go to lunch sure enough she starts telling me how upset she is with her bf and so on and so forth. Then again I felt that what she wanted me to say was something along the lines of "oh man what an A-hole that guy is, I can't believe he treats you like that ect...). What I did instead was teach her the liver meditation lol, but she actually seemed to appreciate it. She tried it for a min or two at the restaurant and said she felt better from it and would do it on her own, and she looked happier too. The girl who I went to diner with on Friday kept making little sexual jokes at first. When it was time for me to drop her off and I was driving again I just knew that she wanted me to invite her over (and no that's not just me being some arrogant guy, cause I also knew that the girl I went to lunch with yesterday did not want me to invite her over, she just wanted some attention, so I can distinguish lol) but I just bring her home and say good night lol, then go home and meditate for a few hours lol. So anyways the point is, is that I thought that to have such a clear read on people like that you had to have your third eye open, but I guess just building up qi to a certain level accomplishes some of that? Also what you said about qi making people a bit confused at first. This seems to be the looks I get lately. Like this befuddled look as they are trying to figure out what's going on lol. Yea I've also noticed that pervs seem to definitely have a different flavor to them. Their energy seems more dirty and also I've noticed the energy of a perv also seems to be way more angry. I guess I don't understand why this topic rubs some people the wrong way? It seems to explain so much.

The whole popularity thing is based upon our mental conditioning. I've been looking into the five skandhas lately and meditating and its been very useful. So basically we make these metal constructs based upon our senses. The five skandhas are form, sensation, conception, volition and consciousness. So as far as the popularity game goes this is kind of how it plays out (I actually spent a long time meditating on this yesterday lol) Form: You identify yourself as being your body, and you identify other people's bodies in the world as being them. Sensation: Your sense organs are what allow you to detect form, to know its there in the first place. Conception: Conception takes sensation one step further and you then interpret what you see. Volition: Ok this is where it gets tricky as far as social status goes. So all our lives we have been exposed to all this conditioning through media, movies, advertising, culture, friends, social peers and groups, and family values. It's our volition that adds value and judgment to all of this and its value that makes the popularity game go around. So basically this game exists because in step one for what ever reason (listed above) we give ourselves relatively less value comparatively than we do to other people that we classify in our system as "more valuable" than us. Often due to our culture and conditioning this tends to be someone of the opposite sex. Now since we internally determine that this person has more value and I have less our conditioning and value system tells us that in order to have value and thus feel good about ourselves we must get that value from that person who has more value than us. Our mind then forms plans and tactics to get that value from that person or group of people. If our plans succeed (and the definition of success is also determined by our conditioning) then we feel good because we got what we wanted which is value. If our plans fail then we feel bad because we feel that our value is less. The irony is that the only place that this exists is in our minds. This has no "real" objective form. Even in our minds it is not who we really are as we are not our thoughts, but it is our conditioning that we obtain through the five skandhas. If we can go in and realize that our thoughts, that our conditioning is not us, and dissolve these mental notions that do us no good, then basically we just stop playing the game and all the conditioning that once stressed us out is no longer applicable.

Hmmm ok this is shedding some light on something else that has been happening (aside from my roommates display behavior lol). So I'd been pretty happy cause I'd been meditating a lot and all those desire episodes had subsided substantially so I'm all like "yay I feel content and peaceful". Also what I noticed was that as I continued to meditate more that not only did I feel pretty peaceful but also the occurrence of having my energy sucked off lessened. So I was happy about that, as I was less tired. It was at this same point when not just my roommate but other female friends at school seemed to up the ante as well. So I got invited out to diner Friday night and lunch yesterday after clinic by two different female classmates. Now on the surface nothing out of the ordinary happened as both of these girls are simply friends and classmates and they behave themselves more than my roommate does lol. But what I did notice was that during the conversation while eating that talking to them, but especially while making eye contact was nice as in these pleasant sensations that are hard to explain in words. Judging from their facial expression I assumed they were having a similar experience. But the point is whether its my roommate now exposing more of herself to me or classmates going out to eat with me it seems that whereas in the past all of them would simply siphon off my energy while sitting next to me, now they are all going through more elaborate measures to do so. So what I'm wondering is if this indicates that further sublimation during meditation has made the energy into a state that is more difficult to take or sense than before thus explaining why more effort is made now than before?

In my last post I briefly touched upon how the bible came about. After Constantine decided to consolidate power under the church at Rome church councils were held to determine a standardized canon. This was necessary because there was no standardized canon amongst Christianity and therefore no standardized set of doctrines. In fact for example prior to Constantine the idea of reincarnation in the west and in the churches was common. Some churches thought of Jesus as a deity (this was more popular in the Greek areas where the notion of a god having a son who dwelt on the earth was not uncommon) other churches taught that he was a prophet (such as what Mohamed taught later) and so on and so forth. Some Gnostic churches didn't even think he existed as an actual person but was always pure spirit. At this time there were many gospels, and many epistles and other books. Various churches held some while other churches held others, but there was no standard universal cannon. Anyways so naturally since Constantine wanted to unify the empire all these various doctrine and texts were a problem. So in 325 AD the Nicaean council was held where all sorts of rules and doctrines were decided upon. Also at this time it was decided what the standardized canon was going to be. Naturally the books that supported the agenda of power consolidation and spiritual hierarchy were included and those which did not support that cause were not included. Even that canon was different than what is commonly known as the bible today as throughout the ages various schisms and reformations further modified the bible which is why the eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and protestants all have slightly different versions of the bible. So as to your question about why the bible emphasizes what it does about God and the method of salvation is because it was meant to set up a spiritual hierarchy that both created the problem and also provided the solution in order to keep the masses of the population in order and dependent on the system. The same formula most major systems of control use in some form or another. The chief elements of this were... 1. The problem. The council gave us the doctrine of original sin thus establishing the problem that all human beings are born sinful and damned because of Adam and Eve's original sin. 2. The solution. A. God in his infinite love and compassion for his fallen creation sent his son to pay the penalty for man's sins by the means of a sacrificial death which would then create the cause and conditions to forgive man's sins and thus save him from eternal damnation. B. The means of application [here is the actual method of power implementation] is that Jesus established a priesthood based upon his disciples and commissioned them to administer his salvation through the various sacraments, such as baptism, communion, confession, intersession and so on. So this priesthood became the method of escaping damnation and entering into eternal salvation. So if you were a good little Christian and citizen of the empire you had the priests go to bat for you between yourself and this royally pissed off god who had to constantly be convinced to not bbq you. But if you were not a good citizen then you got excommunicated when meant eternal damnation. So yea that's the how and why of the formation of the bible and the various church doctrines that went with it. It was an elaborate means of political power.

As I was doing Vipassana today I focused a lot on the five skandhas and began to break them up and see how that this thing we call "self" is actually just a term we come up with for the functions of the skandhas. Well anyway specifically I observed how that form was observed by sensation and then how that was further refined by conception. When conception led to volition I then saw how things really got interesting. This is where judgments arose about the value we place upon things due to our conditioning. And then of course consciousness causes us to be aware of the results of our volition. Well out of that what was particularly noticeable was the volition part of it, and specifically the values and judgments of society and how we take those on as part of our conditioning and then mistake that and those thoughts for being "us". It was interesting to differentiate that we are not our thoughts. Anyways I saw how so much of my behavior and choices was/is based upon the level of value that we place upon something. Because we value something we seek after it, and when we get it we feel good because we have added value to ourselves and if we don't get that we feel bad because we think that we have lessened in value. Of course the real crux of the issue was to realize that these values are built upon a "self" that does not even really exist, so therefore the legitimacy of these values seemed to diminish.

Hmmm it seemed that my roommate tried this tactic today. So she came home after work and due to previous experience I was expecting her to suck off my energy, but for what ever reason that did not happen this time, I'm not sure why. What did happen instead is that she was playing with her navel which required her to lift her shirt above her navel and then later so conveniently lean over with her loose fitting shirt so her boobs hung out, and then turning on music and dancing provocatively around, so a definite change of tactics. Anyways she had to leave promptly as she had made plans with a friend. So what I noticed by the time she left was the beginnings of the deconversion process as I found myself thinking more of women and slightly less content with my previously happy solitude. So I went and meditated for a while until everything got back in order. So I'm assuming that since I got better at not allowing my energy to be siphoned off, she upped the ante?

I realize I'm analytical, this is a trait that the Buddha encourages, so yes of course I notice that I do it because I do it to myself constantly lol, its how one develops insight. My analysis isn't what is making you upset though. If analysis made people upset then other people to whom I offer insight would also be resentful yet many people are grateful as they apply the insight to their specific problem and it helps them to solve the problem. Granted I notice females tend to respond this way more often than males, and this is probably due to their yin (receptive) nature. What in actuality is making you upset is your perception of what I'm saying, your conception of its content, your volition or judgement of its meaning, and your consciousness or awareness of this process, thus the five skandhas in action. Most likely due to habit and conditioning even this insight (which I'm speaking of now) is going to produce anger within you, but this does not have to be the case. Rather an alternative reaction to such insight as opposed to an anger reaction could be a wisdom reaction. That is these teachings of the Buddha can be applied to ones life to reduce suffering. My point of view was never one of "outside" and "above" but I won't argue that you perceived it that way. I assure you my motive was not one of condescension or judgment but rather I was trying to be helpful. So like I was saying in my previous post, anger held onto not only causes the one feeling anger to suffer from the emotion directly, but that particular vibration repels the very object of one's desire thus producing further feelings of anger and frustration. So understand me pointing out this trend is not my thinking that I'm better than you, but after having first realized it in myself through introspection I'm attempting to point it out to you so that you can step out of the very pattern that frustrates you. Hope that helps. I'm not going to say any more about this.

At least you have cogniscience of the effects of ego so you have that going for you so that's good. There is this guy at my school and he does not have cogniscience of the effects of his ego upon him and he is one miserable frustrated bloke. It's doubly frustrating because you watch him go around frustrated and suffering but since he refuses any attempts to offer insight into the effects of ego and his great amounts of repressed anger the suffering continues. So basically what is going on with this guy is very typical of the common frustrated beta male pattern. He has a lot of unresolved ego issues which lead to smoldering repressed inner anger. This anger expresses itself in subtle and minor body language and facial expressions which he is unaware of because its on a subconscious level and he refuses to look within. So its a vicious catch 22 feedback loop. He puts people off because he has repressed anger and because they get put off he becomes further frustrated just adding to his repressed anger. In the past I tried to help him by pointing this pattern out with the hopes he would become conscious of it and thus resolve this issues so he could be happier in life, but the difficulty with this is that because he has such large amounts of entrenched repressed anger this causes him to perceive any attempts to help him as a threat to his ego thus causing him to react with more anger thus deepening the pattern. Realizing that this was his tendency I decided that the most compassionate thing to do in his case was to say nothing as to not add the repressed anger that is entrenched within his liver. Another unfortunate condition of this situation is that the liver is the general in the ministerial system classification of the organ network. Being the case it is most related to our sense of "justice". If too much smoldering wood element qi stagnates with in the liver our sense of justice will become corrupted and instead of having an appropriate understanding of cause and effect which would be taking appropriate responsibility for our actions (true justice) it causes us to have a "false justice" in which we place ourselves in the victim role even when we don't belong there. When we then feel like a victim for the effects of our own causes this further reinforces the negative feedback loop of a dysfunctional liver perpetuating the cycle. Unfortunately because this negative feedback loop is so deeply entrenched with in him it is likely that it will continue to cause him considerable suffering for some time to come.

Well I did ask

I don't understand why you would resent someone trying to help you? You came to this thread presenting a problem, this problem causes you suffering. I wanting to help you alleviate this suffering offer a remedy. What is there to resent in an act of compassion such as that?

well I am studying medicine lol

So basically you already get it. As you've already stated women do find you attractive but what messes things up is what is in your mind. So then the answer isn't to keep fruitlessly doing what isn't working and getting the same results i.e. hoping to get a woman. Since the problem is in your mind, then it is in your mind that you need to go and sort out the problem. This is done with meditation. Now its up to you

Lol ok. oh btw don't worry its good for you to clarify where you stand with guys cause this is usually how it goes. Girl says: I like you (shes thinking what a nice person and friend this guy is) Guy hears: I'm like so totally head over heals in love with you and want to have your children like right now.

Oh of course, I'm not saying they all are wanting to hop in the sack with me, I'm sure many of them do just want to hang out as friend (thank god lol). I'm simply talking about pure attraction, whether it be lovers, friends, pals, colleagues what have you. Here is what I'm getting at though, whether its people wanting to date me or simply befriend me I've noticed it picks up more as I meditate with celibacy for longer periods. In fact it seems like sex isn't even necessary. Lately these days simply in conversation with a girl I feel all these electrical tingly sensations all over (feels nice actually) and judging from the expression on their face they seem to be feeling it to or at least something similar. So its not about "sex" its more about the qi and how it feels (it makes simply having a conversation pretty fun lol). I sure hope I'm not coming off sounding like an arrogant prick lol, I'm just reporting simply what happens, my experiences.

I don't know what if any practices you do, but based upon I saw you post I'd definitely recommend doing mindfulness meditation and explore all those things you said you feel about yourself regarding relationship and intimacy issues. If you look at them long enough with detached observation they will dissolve of their own accord.

Good question. One upon a time I was actually a seminary student. Then I became a history student which ended the Christian chapter of my life lol. Ok so here is what happened. Around the end of the 3rd century AD the Roman empire under Constantine was on the decline. Up to this point Christianity has been a scattered collection of various sects with various beliefs and texts and was persecuted by the empire as subversive. Constantine was concerned about the decline in Roman power and was looking for a way to strengthen, unify the empire more firmly under his control. The senate liked to argue, the governors of the provinces were subversive and the pagan religion was buffet of gods and goddess from countries all over the world, so none of these approaches seemed like a good way for Constantine to consolidate power. The Christian church in Rome had a very linear and narrow set path to personal salvation and damnation. This consolidation of spiritual power through a linear hierarchical system appealed very much to Constantine so he decided to unify the entire empire under the religion of the church at Rome. So he came up with the story about seeing the sign of the cross before battle and being told that he would be victorious under this sign. After that all other religions were banned and everyone had to become a Christian. As at this time there were many various Christian sects and as Constantine wanted consolidation this would not do. So in 325 AD he had the heads of the various churches throughout the empire meet at Nice in France for the Nicaean council. Basically what happened was that the way the church of Rome did business (more specifically they way they now did business under Constantine) became the unifying way all churches had to do business. The rules were made, and the books of the new bible were chosen. Basically after the Nicaean council all power was ultimately funneled to the new "pope" or big papa in Rome who oversaw all the other church leaders, and of course the pope was the emperors stooge. So now basically to go to heaven you had to do what Constantine ... um I mean the pope... um I mean what "God" (wink wink) wanted, and to not do this meant to be excommunicated from the church and thus look forward to an eternity in hell. So yes back to your original statement, yes Christianity as most of the world today knows it was designed to suppress and control the masses. Hope that helps shed some light on things.

Brilliant!

Anatta has been at the forefront of my mind the past couple days as I'm trying to wrap my mind around it. I'm also trying to reconcile the remaining 4 Skanda's with the notion of Hun in Taoism. To me what it seems like is that the consciousness that survives death in Buddhism is similar to the Hun soul in Taoism as it is the part of us that survives death. So what I'm wondering is if the term "Hun" is simply the Taoist label for the 4 Skandas.

Sounds like good info, I agree with it more or less.

Yup that is how it works, especially if your celibate and meditate. Yea the same stuff happens to me. I'm celibate and meditate and not only don't try to meet women, I try to avoid them (as not to get distracted from my meditation). So case in point, last night I get asked out to diner with one girl from school, today I get asked out to lunch from another girl from school. This is just with in the last 24 hours. I don't try to woo them, in fact I try to avoid eye contact and anything but the most innocent of conversation topics. When your celibate and meditate you develop your qi, and this just draws people to you like moths to a flame.