Maddie

What I want to know is what exactly is EGO? I know this word gets thrown around so often, but what is it from a Buddhist point of view?

Hey my question would be is this a problem for your gf? To me it sounds like if she is communicating to him through meditation then shes not too upset by all of this. If that is the case then I don't see what the problem is. Is the ghost of her cousin actually causing any problems?

Something I've wondered about for a while now is the prevalence of flood myths in just about every culture world wide. Of course there is Noah and the Ark, but it seems that just about every culture no matter where they are in the world has their own version. Heck when I was an undergrad in Alaska I learned about the Eskimo version of a world wide flood and one chosen man who saved the day. What is behind these flood legends?

That part with the numbers made me think of a couple things. First it made me think of Taoist cosmology where first there was wuji (0), then tai chi(1), then that made yin and yang (2), then the three treasures of shen, qi, and jing (3), then five elements (5), and then the ten thousand things... The second thing that made me think of is something this website I've been checking out lately "Numerologist.com" said about the earliest known writing ever was a turtle shell found in China and what was written on it apparently was numerology, basically deciphering the universe with numbers and math.

I had to stop fasting today because I had to go into the student clinic and do some hours. Prior to going in my limbs felt so heavy that I could barely life them lol. One thing of interest was that one of the other students asked me if I had been out in the sun because I looked tanner or as thought I had more color in my face, but I had not been in the sun lol. Though doing it yesterday I feel was important because I feel that it really helped to tame that desire flare up. My only real concern with fasting is my Spleen qi. It tends to be a bit on the weak side as it is, and the last time I did a fast it crashed and was only restored when I went to our clinic and got some herbs for it. When I was in the church I used to fast often and I would pass out almost every time after about 24 hours. As I mentioned in my last post the morning meditation was also pretty intense as I was still fasting. This evenings was not quite as in intense in that regard, but on the other hand it seemed that it was easier to enter and maintain emptiness than previously. I also noticed that all my patients seemed to feel very good today after their acupuncture treatments, so that was nice, it seemed to be very efficacious. *Oh btw what is Pythagorean philosophy about?

I had this happen to me yesterday as well hmmm...

So day 2 of the fasting. I woke up feeling very "fresh" and light. Then I meditated and here is what I noticed this time. The desire aspect was not as much a factor like it was yesterday, but the thoughts that did arise were more grief/nostalgia related. This and yesterdays experience has made me wonder if the organs in my middle dan tien area / upper jiao are being.. um "exorcised" or something like that. Reason I say so is the two main organs in the middle dan tien / upper jiao area are the heart and lungs. The Heart's problematic emotion being over excitement, is what I was feeling yesterday. Today it was more past grief coming up, which is a Lung thing. Anyway so there was that. Also at some point during meditation I felt a dripping on my back. I reach back and feel and my back is just dripping with sweat, weird. Not sure why. I also felt a lot of buzzing/tingling in the back and front of my head and here and there all over. The last thing I noticed was again just some more insight into ego stuff.

This morning during meditation I switched up the mudras a few times depending on what I felt I needed, be it concentration, patience, to energize a bit ect... it helped a lot

I wonder how and where Atlantis fits into this?

Many people don't realize this but Tom Cruise is a Mo Pai master ....

Yea I'm not sure how long I'll fast, I guess I'll just try to listen to my body. But at the moment we have a week break between semesters so if I was to ever do it I suppose now would be the time, though I do have to make up some clinic hours so if it interferes with that too much .... I'll just see how it goes. Yea I am drinking water, but I have not been fasting all that long. Yea I can see how lots of meditation would be essential during such a process. I plan on doing quite of bit of that with my free time during the break. Otherwise the celibacy would either make me nuts or end, its as though I feel compelled to meditate when my body lets me know there is another build up of sexual energy. A few other things I feel are. 1. Loopy, dizzy, and kind of dazed and out of it. 2. A lot of heat, especially in my face. 3. Pressure, mainly in my upper body. 4. And sort of wired but in a out of it, calm kind of way if that makes sense.

Haha I'm fasting today due to the intensity of it all! :-). It was as though during meditation that something told me to. Also a few things I forgot to mention is that during meditation and even still now I keep seeing these white orbs of light floating around for a split second out of the corner of my eye, and then when I look at them they vanish, its a bit odd. At the moment I feel a bit loopy, and have a slight headache (which I almost never get). Though the desire aspect has diminished greatly. There was one point during meditation when the thoughts coming up shifted for a few minuets from ones of desire to realization of how much more ego motivated I was than I had realized, and that was right before the point when things began to settle down. It's nice to know there is someone out there who has been there done that so they know what your talking about, cause pointers and insight on a day like this are better than gold lol. :-P * the whole Garden of Eden topic seemed very relevant today. ** One more question. As this energy ascension/transformation takes place is it typical to have desire intensify like that? Is that what makes the practice of cultivation difficult at times?

Speaking of which, today's meditation was very intense and exactly in this regard. So as I had mentioned earlier for the most part lately desire has not been particularly much of an issue as I've been cultivating emptiness through mindfulness meditation. Well as far as today goes, I suppose it was something along these lines. So today desire was in full swing and intense. In order to try and deal with it as it was intense and therefore uncomfortable I sat for quite a while in meditation (half-lotus). So at the beginning I was focusing on the breath but the stream and intensity of thoughts coming up was strong, intense, deep, and persistent. It was just one after another, or one that lingered for an extended period of time. So I did my best to simply observe with detached objectivity. I just kept noting them as they came up. Well while all this is going on I also note that first I feel a lot of pressure in my head, all over. Then that lets up a bit and now I notice the sensation of pressure and buzzing in my throat and center of chest. At this point my heart is beating hard and I can feel it buzzing. Then that subsides and I feel it in my solar plexus. Then I feel it in my sacral and then finally sacral and root area in the perineum. At this point the loudness, number and intensity of desirous thoughts diminished significantly and then at about the same time I felt a lot of sensation in the back of my head and neck, like a lot of movement, buzzing, and tingling. It was at this point where my timer went off at about an hour and twenty minuets and I felt much calmer. I'm not sure about what happened as far as the finer details go, but I assume the emptiness was doing something with in me, or at least it certainly felt that way. It was rather intense and a bit confusing.

Is a meditation like Buddhist mindfulness practiced in Taoism as well? I ask because the only Taoist meditations I know of are not this type.

Makes me thing of the Genesis story of the Bible where man was basically put above nature and told to rule it, and then due to eating of the tree of knowledge feel from grace.

So interesting. Ok so that raises a few more questions. First of all what exactly is Pythagorean philosophy. To be honest my only real reference to Pythagoras is from brief references in math classes about his theorem. Beyond that I don't really know what he was about (though I have noticed Bill Bhrodi making a few passing references to him on his site). Also you mentioned that Taoism being older than the other solar/patriarchal religions that you listed is lunar/matriarchal based. Since I've read that Taoism has its roots in Shamanism would this indicate that Shamanism is also matriarchal? Or is that basically what the Bushmen were? I remember Chia in his book about semen retention (which I'm glad I don't do it his way anymore) has mentioned that a lot of what men, and society these days does is deep down due to a male fear of the feminine, because on a deep level they realize that in the end yin overcomes yang, or something to that effect. My ex-gf amongst other things spent some time as an anthropologist. She pretty much said the exact same thing as you in reference to agriculture when I asked her when and why things became the way they are now. I'm still kind of confused about this, but she said it had something to do with agriculture leading to cities and some how that led to male dominated society. I'm still trying to sort all of this out and make sense of it.

I realize this is probably a difficult question to answer, and at best might be speculation, but in your opinion what caused things to change?

Yea that's pretty much how it seems to play out as I'm doing it. I sit there and thoughts just keep coming one after the other. Sometimes the thoughts are more mental so I am aware of my mind. Other times the thoughts make me feel particular sensations in my body, so I just note that for a while until it goes away. Ect, ect...

Very interesting article. One part of it that I was particularly interested in was you mentioning the Bush men. I'm not sure how much you know about the topic in depth, but I've been curious lately as to what human being a long long time ago knew, and what they were capable of doing.

know of a good one to strengthen the body?

Yes I'm so glad you said that because this happens to me often during meditation. I'm meditating and suddenly I become aware of a few seconds of emptiness and then I'm like "oh wow no thoughts..... duhooo!" lol

Continuing the Shamatha vs Vispassana discussion I have a question. So as I understand it in Vispassana you observe your thoughts, whereas in Shamatha you focus on one object. Now again as I understand it in Shamatha as thoughts arise you note them and then go back to your point of focus (be it breath, counting, a word, what ever). But what happens if thoughts just keep arising the whole time, no matter how long you meditate (I'm talking two hours sometimes). With a non-ending stream of thoughts to note one after the other this almost seems like it morphs in to Vispassana by default. Is there something I'm not understanding?

Thanks for the link. Ha ha I'm feeling better today. Yesterday, at least the second half of the day I sort of got stressed out about meditation. Pretty much the whole week I had been doing lots of it no problem. And then yesterday I was meditating and really hated it, and then started to feel like I was doing it poorly, and then started to feel like I didn't have any idea what I was doing. I think I was pushing myself too hard and that was stressing me out. I really do more or less understand mindfulness, I guess I was just in a weird place. Oh life.....

Does this sound familiar to those of you who cultivate? "Ok I'm doing pretty good, getting the hang of this, learning a lot, oh crap I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know anything, ok its not as bad as I thought, alirght I'm doing ok...... ?? lol

Yes this I realize, what I'm wanting to know is if there is a mudra which helps that to happen.