MudLotus

Got to love a tune Hundred samskaras echo Stones' Goats Head Soup rocks

in praise of the OM seven syllables and then absolute silence

Mapquest, me baby Banana leaf bed on branch Me Tarzan, You Jane

where is there to go coffee stains on map don't show longitude of Is

Time to raise a sail Bailout failed, waters flood deck Higher ground within

Its an office storm Cold shoulders in marble halls My cauldron burns hot

Following the Tao Ticker symbols fluctuate Paper slips swirl by

stream of swirling piss foam bubbles pop one by one empty, contentment

Thunder from below One eyed trouser trout smiling Pocket rocket's glare

Rubberneckers stare Lone writer responds to self Mallet hits chi gong

Drink in sweet nectar Drunken philanthropist sings. Rubberneckers stare

My mind is fertile Buddhists fermenting in Tao Sake bombs wake dead

Thus spake mYTHmAKER Tom's Toothpaste in mouth foaming Window pigeon sings

I researched this pretty intensely and have been very happy with what I decided to use. I recommend the Tersano Lotus Water Treatment system. It is based on the same ozonation technology used by municipal water treatment centers. You put the carafe with tap water on the base, it ozonates for 6 minutes and then is run through a hefty carbon filter. The water comes out very clean and it takes out chemicals, heavy metals and kills parasites. I love it. The water is not distilled so it is not as inert and lifeless as true distilled water seems, but it gets very clean and tastes pure. What very purified water of any kind then lacks is minerals and while some may say distilled water is not an issue, I beg to differ. Drinking distilled water in small quantities occasionally won't hurt you, but I would strongly discourage you from drinking it on a regular basis. The body does have a different response to denatured water. I have a high quality distiller I use for very specific purposes requiring water solutions with zero impurities, but I see no reason for most people to have one. I discovered a product called ConcenTrace which is easy to find online. I add 5 drops of this natural mineral solution (from the Great Salt Lakes) to each carafe produced by my Lotus Water Treatment system. I then add one or two drops of Grapefruit Seed Extract which is a well-established natural anti-microbial agent. This mineralizes the water and gives it a perfect water flavor. You basically have water that you'd pay through the nose for with some chic bottled mineral waters. It is delicious and refreshing and you get a nice method for getting your mineral supplementation in a ratio that is close to what you'd get if you lived in a pristine natural environment with an uncompromised water supply. The Grapefruit Seed Extract allows you to keep the water at room temperature without bacterial growth far longer than you would normally and the modest amount is also a good intestinal aid (just don't overdue the extract, because it can burn in its concentrated form. For instance, you can put one drop on your toothbrush, no more, and you'll have no plaque growth in your month for almost a day.) I just looked up the Lotus system on Amazon where I bought 3 of them and discovered the company Tersano just changed their business model from retail sales to a sales agent network this past week. So it looks like this great product will still be around, but if you want to get one of the retail ones left out there you better act fast. This is what I got via Google's shopping search: http://www.google.com/products?q=tersano+l...&price2=150 I'd buy some extra filter cartridges too. You'll need a few a year if you use it every day. Cheers, Mud Lotus

going to China !!! pack ping pong paddle. Who Knows? kosher meal chosen

It's Donna Summer! In immaculate white pants Hell's Angels disco dance

mud, lotus then blooms fast clouds in still pond below see turtle watching

forget your towel original nature clean as mists rise, art forms (Cheers!)

there we are as one fruit bowl on counter, fragrant fly lands on peach, farts

Thanks for the Ramana link. Don't know the man who wrote it. I will make time to read it soon. So many people out there now, so many thoughts on the dharma. Good quotes. Nothing to add, just enjoying the words. ML

Drew, Everything you just wrote is accurate IMO. Much of the Neo-Advaitic stuff out there feels like jiffy pop to me. I'm sure there is value in many contemporary teachings, but maybe my bias is that it is really hard work to let go! So like you say, Ramana put in his dues. He didn't just imagine himself a corpse at 16, woke up and he was somehow magically done with the work of cultivation. He kept going and deepened his realization and knowledge further. I actually bring up the notion of the "doer" not because I cling to its persistence even in a non-dual state, but because it seems to me that a stabilized attainment of the non-dual is a rare state so few achieve. Perhaps then the doer then is no longer an operative concept, but I'm sort of agitating a little to question whether people really want to get too attached to the idea of not doing while they work their way to a perfectly realized non-doingness. I'm simultaneously trying to take responsibility for my sadhana while also divesting of the layers of self-identification that make me feel I have to "own" that responsibility. That is why I threw in the notion of en-joy-ment, because it is possible to get so caught up in dense inquiry that you miss the view during your journey. But the study and inquiry is great. Totally encourage it, not enough people do it and try to feel their way through everything. Balance is good, hence push, glide. Regards, ML

Thanks, yes OK. I am not really meaning to say there is a result and a true self and that is eternal, so on and so forth. I was merely reflecting on the continuation of presence as it is experienced when you meet someone awakened. And then when they are dead and gone and perhaps it persists. Not just for them, but for you. I was alluding more to the aspect of something along the lines of Will that directs consciousness even after liberation from all forms personal Self-Identification. Can not a person achieve realization of non-duality and still continue to be Acting consciously to do things such as fulfilling Vows? Just curious, because sometime I read comments such as yours and wonder if the implication is once one realizes there is no real self that that somehow means there is no doer. And I'd say there is still a doer of things, just one not self-identified with it as self. But there are still actions and values emanating from a specific source of awareness, some kind of individualized consciousness, just one more unified with the All.

Drew. No need to parse arrogance and patronization from a compliment. Isn't there room for exchanging thoughts without attributing inflated egos to those who respond? Is this not a place to have dharma discussions? Maybe it is not my predisposition to assume what you imply, but I did not see any claims of perfect wisdom being offered, just genuine responses. Regards, ML

Hmmm, maybe it is important to acknowledge that discernment is always an important part of any advanced practice, is it not? If in your state you start to lose referentiality such as to what is Tree or You and what is Mind or Observing Mind, does that become evidentiary proof that you are empty, have experienced emptiness or that things are inherently empty? Are these still conceptions? Is not inquiry always dependent on some degree of witnessing mind? So WHO is the perceiver of these THINGS or NON-THINGS? If it is nobody, is that a NOBODY with any singularity of mind at all? I'd say so. And if that witnessing mind, the discernment to purify consciousness and transcend to higher states is actively engaged, will it dissolve upon reaching some Omega point? I doubt it. So if everything is in flux and not really there, but just so then how is it a conscious entity persists beyond bodily and egoic formations? I don't know if there a provable answer to any of this. Perhaps something in the universe is conscious and transmutable. WHO IS THAT?

As part of the digestion of the terms and concepts under discussion, I'd like to throw into the hat this one: En-Joy-Ment which I do believe is something that occurs when truly at ease with things as they are. I believe it is an important notion that allows for pleasure and happiness to be fruits of attaining higher degrees of awareness. It is important in my estimation to be able to enjoy life and to take some of the weight of seeking and inquiring off your back so that as you become more at peace with your status as a human being seeking equanimity you also do not slip into the traps of nihlism or narcissism. It is of no help to you or of any service to others if you try to obliterate your SELF in your quest to awaken. You are still as you are and your value to others can usually be measured pretty accurately by your gratitude for being alive and ability to experience and share that which you enjoy. So surrendering yourself to some void or whatever people may fantasize is never necessary to be who you are. Nihlism does not take you very far and it certainly is not enjoyable. And becoming overly obsessed with the how or why or proving the efficacy of pursuing awakening may find you falling in love with your answers, with your supposed accomplishments and while your energy may be soaring and you think you're in love with the cosmos, you may just be so vain as to develop a god complex and who is going to enjoy you then? Maybe your groupies, but then you'll have to keep them in line when the natives get restless. Just some thoughts on the en-joy-ment of What You Are and What Is. I believe you may wake up and lose identification with your self, but it may help to enjoy the process of being and inquiring along the way rather then gripping your mind and heart too tightly in the quest for gnosis. Push and glide is what I say. Push hard to know, then relax into it and glide for a bit.