Sunya

excess energy isn't your problem, it's excess desire. it's all in the mind. energy follows mind. control your mind and energy will follow.

Time Space Knowledge series http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/syltguide...WGA96TM5EEN8ZC4

i'm a big fan of Robert Bruce. his energy body development and OBE projection writings are great. i sincerely think he cares about helping people to evolve, but recently i saw that he is endorsing the Q-link, so I asked him why.. here's what he said here is the marketing more here http://www.glidewing.com/astraldynamics/q-link_home.html what do you guys think? anyone with actual experience of it that can share insight? it costs 100$.. that's a lot. it better be DAMN good for that kind of money.

yes that is Drew...he lives in a completely different world from the rest of us.

you literally have a price on your head? what did you do?

yes, and it will pass. what do you mean this will be your last year?

http://www.myspace.com/marco.benevento check out -> seems so long nancy

you can do Vajrasattva practice http://www.fpmt-osel.org/meditate/vjrstva.htm what did you do? as long as you didn't kill anybody, you'll be okay. even if you did... the effects of actions are always temporary. there is always opportunity for overcoming limitations and breathing in wisdom. I make mistakes often..but everytime that happens there is more and more motivation to practice and evolve. don't be hard on yourself

I used to get that same exact pain during a meditation retreat, right in the middle of the back between the shoulder blades.. it was unbearable. I no longer get it, and I believe the problem was posture. though yoga and qi gong won't hurt, like others here have suggested, but I think your problem is strictly posture. go to a Zen center and ask for posture alignment,, them Zen folks tend to have the best posture imo. What do you do with your hands in meditation? try the cosmic mudra http://www.mro.org/zmm/teachings/meditation.php make sure that your hands are not touching your lap, and your shoulders are not slouched forward nor tightly held back. over time you will find the right balance where your muscles aren't too tight nor too lax. great advice, i've had to do the same exact thing.. mindfulness of posture throughout the day.. mine was god awful! i concur that the issue is posture. i also have found great benefit in doing standing meditation simply 'wuji' stance. I did it everyday in my backyard at night during the summer, though it's no substitute for sitting meditation, I found standing meditation great for fixing alignment by relaxing into the stance and letting the body fix itself. oh I forgot to mention: the biggest and best improvement that I made in my posture (which might be your problem) is learning to tilt the pelvis up, and bend the lower back out. I learned this through standing but you can learn sitting to, when you sit on your meditation cushion (you have on right?) make sure you're almost on the edge of the cushion and then bend your lowerback out and tilt your pelvis up, and then relax into that. If you don't do this then you'll put a lot of pressure on your upper back and that's probably why you feel pain. find a good qi-gong teacher and they will teach you this and how to stand properly, very recommended.

well, there is no time in Buddhism.. that's what I meant. there's no beginning or end. Norbu Rinpoche refers to samsara as infinite.. but I have heard the argument that samsara will end. This doesn't make sense to me though because what then will all the Buddhas do since their activity is compassion, what then if there are no longer suffering beings? dunno. I think the argument that samsara will end depends on a finite number of beings, but if there are infinite beings then samsara will not end.

happy birthday Drew quite an interesting vid.. watching now. maybe u can start a new thread about it? i think others will find it interesting

yea... Taoism is not too popular actually, but there are other spiritual paths which you'll probably be open to as well. Most spiritual Westerners tend to be universalist which is an all encompassing view of spiritual traditions being all more or less the same.

srsly? very interesting. what item are you talking about exactly? did you try the Q-link before? curious if you felt anything with it. i'd be interested in trying this item that you've had good success with. the Q did nothing for me, and I'd be curious just how a charged powerful item actually feels, but i'd be wary of wearing it. There's no way to know what it's actually doing to you. I'm not saying it's harmful, but it might not be actually beneficial either. for example, it might prevent negative forces but likewise prevent positive forces. Or... it could open up channels but leave the energy scattered, or it might just keep the energy in only one place preventing free natural flow of energy. Just some thoughts.

Where do you think you can meet people that have these qualities in your area? perhaps... yoga classes, meditation classes, buddhist centers, qi gong classes, sitting groups etc. ? You can find buddhist centers in your area using this -> http://www.buddhanet.info/wbd/ Maybe search craigslist for meditation or qi gong, or ask around at new age stores. That might actually be a great way to meet people, by searching around for a meditation center or group. You can simply go to book stores or new age centers and ask people if they know about where you can learn to meditate; you might be surprised that a lot of people have interest in the subject so this would be a great way to start a conversation, even if the person doesn't know anything about it.

I wish I lived closer.. thank you for the recommendation

Are you kidding ralis? Seriously? You're the one at fault when it comes to disrespect, and the PM I sent you was actually in response to your continual disrespect toward me. I simply told you to stop targeting me and participate in the actual content of the discussion. I'm sorry if I used the word 'fucking' to stress how mad I was, but you did make me fucking mad. I try to be cordial during debates and I don't jump on people like you do, (except Marbles, but we both have fun and are respectful). I find it amusing that you are turning my attempt to stop your disrespect (by privately PMing you) into an attack on yourself, that's odd man. I know you're older than most here but you sure are acting like a child.

here's just one example:

I agree. Seems that Drew went trough the A&P (read: Daniel Ingram) and thus attaches his new found bliss to his teacher (SFQ) and method (full-lotus) This is sweet I guess but personally I find this incredibly annoying. Plus its a bit detrimental to SFQ since anyone with interest in Master Lin will read Drew's babbling posts and conclude that the program leads to extreme imbalance. If anything Drew is only hurting the reputation of Spring Forest by attaching himself to the program. You should be a lawyer because you're just using rhetoric to redefine what 'spam' means. I think everyone here will agree that we are not talking about email spam where the same message is sent over and over again, but rather spamming by posting something similar over and over again. It doesn't matter if Drew gets money for it. If I replied to every new member and told them that they should buy a certain book and practice with a certain teacher, then I would (rightly) be called a spammer as well. Santiago does not do this, and we are not talking about starting individual threads specific to a paid program, but rather replying to new members and sending them to a certain program or mentioning the program in every post.

yes it can, because samsara and nirvana are not two separate states. all mindstreams contain the seed for enlightenment, buddha nature, and this makes enlightenment possible. all actions lack a doer, but they are not all selfless. Like I explained before, selflessness is the quality of the action. a selfish action has the intent to better an illusory separate self and is conditioned, while a selfless action arises from the true nature of mind, emptiness. there is no reality separate from experience.

what sort of qualities would you like your friends to have that they lack?

I agree. Don't cling to the past, be like water and flow There's alotta people out there, I'm sure you can make friends easily.... I can feel your vibes and you seem like a totally awesome person, maybe some fear/insecurities keeping you from expressing that?

Freedom means unconditioned action. Selfless means not having the intent of bettering the illusory separate self. All actions are not selfless; selfish actions are conditioned. Actions that are not free, that are conditioned, are determined. In an absolute sense, all actions lack a doer but this does not mean all actions are selfless. It's all about the source of the action. Samsaric actions arise conditioned by delusion, but 'nirvanic' or selfless actions are not conditioned, they arise directly from the true non-dual nature of mind which has the qualities of wisdom and compassion. There is no such thing as free will in Buddhism according to your definition, but actions can be indeterminate if they are not conditioned by illusory delusions. Such actions arise spontaneously once the illusory ego gives up grasping and surrenders to the true nature of existence. When this happens the roots of conditioned actions are uprooted, and all actions are free and liberated. Like the Taoist 'wu-wei', no-action, which signifies unconditioned spontaneity.

Dwai isn't Buddhist, he's into Vedanta, and I think it's extremely ignorant to not want to learn Sanskrit terms for the sake of communication, a very American attitude (and I'm American). Especially since this is a spiritual forum not the Opera book club, and not just a Taoist forum as you keep barfing. Not everything has to be translated for you, especially on a topic dedicated to a Buddhist sutra, so why not do some simple homework? It's not difficult to google. There's nothing special or untranslated about any of the words here. In fact there is a whole wikipedia article dedicated to 'anatta'