Brian

What will be will be The future's not mine to see Que sera, sera

"The hair thing" is a vanity, an egoistic attachment. Additionally, it is a symptom rather than a root problem. Just food for thought...

A Brazilian times, I think. Not sure how many that is, exactly, but I think it's a lot!. Less than a googol, though.

The "ask" or permission for some types of "help" can be implicit in the teacher-student relationship.

I'm not the person who said it but it does apply to the healer as well. Using "the thinking mind" to manipulate energy is a self-limiting path.

Oh, I'm not disagreeing! Just pointing out that there are pharmaceutical treatments for stress (as well as for many other "'light' mental disorders") and they can be highly effective when used appropriately. My observation, though, is that most physical treatment is best viewed as a means to address a symptom until the root cause can be addressed by other means -- much as a tourniquet may stop the bleeding long enough to allow a severed artery to be sutured but isn't an appropriate long-term solution.

Intent (not visualization) is a part of energetic healing in some systems, too -- typically only when asked to help.

Ummm... Benzodiazepines? Just to name one family of molecules.

You're older, shorter of breath and one day closer... To die, perchance to...

Oh, no... I know how this works! You say it's gonna be a fair 2-on-1 Stooges battle but then, after we swim to Australia, it'll turn out you've got a "friend":

Are you attacking me?!?

You'd probably be better off making the request here -- It is more likely to be noticed by a Moderator.

Listening & Stillness-Movement. All day, every day -- and sometimes while I'm asleep.

Their de are different.

My dog thinks so, too.

Click your name in the top-right corner of the screen and select "Account Settings". You'll find it there.

Oh, I wasn't trying to say "This is 'wu wei.'" I was only describing how I would instinctually have behaved.

If I were the only person involved, I would not have filled the bird feeders, I would not have killed the blacksnake or prevented it from eating the baby birds, and I would not seek out the rattler but would kill it the second time I find it in my backyard because it is an existential threat to me (and my dog). I am not the only person involved.

Thank you. I am, too.

The graphic provided by redcairo in this post from the "Talk Trump" thread seemed worth linking to here...

Yes, I think so. It is difficult, sometimes, to retain awareness that non-duality and duality are not mutually exclusive -- duality is "real" at the same time that non-duality is "real." Within the context of non-duality, the ten thousand things are illusory and the discriminations between them nonsensical. Within the context of duality, the ten thousand things are real and the choices we make are significant. Both ideas are simultaneously valid and meaningful. It is difficult, as well, to understand the interrelationships between the ten thousand things and the impact the ripples of our choices might have. A very simple but real case in point... Back in May, we had a blacksnake hanging out in our backyard. We have a very large old blacksnake out front but this was a much smaller one, maybe 3.5 feet long. He was hunting baby birds in the nests around the house which have become much more numerous this year because we started filling the bird feeders which had been empty for several years since the previous owners had moved out of the house. I shooed him away from the nest above the light fixture over the side door but, about two hours later, we heard frantic bird cries from the second story eave on the corner of the house. My wife was very upset and I quickly climbed a ladder with a "snake stick" in my hand. The two parents were attempting to defend the nest but this same snake had already killed the two babies and was trying to eat one. This time, to assuage my wife, I killed the snake to prevent it from going nest to nest. I apologized to the snake beforehand, I cried as I killed the snake -- and apologized to the birds as well. (I don't think either the snake nor the birds understood my words.) Yesterday, my wife heard the Plott hound going crazy in the fenced backyard. Coiled up on a rock was what appeared to be a juvenile timber rattler, striking repeatedly at the dog as it tried, in turn to get this unwelcome (and quite dangerous) intruder. My wife managed to call the dog off and get him back in the house but when her nerves had calmed enough to go back out, the snake was gone. We don't know whether it lives under the rock or the big pine tree next to it in the back yard, or whether it wandered into the yard from the woods beyond the fence, but we cannot let the dogs out loose in the back yard until the whereabouts of this snake are known and, if it seems to be a new resident, it will not be for long. Blacksnakes eat rattlesnakes. Would we have a rattlesnake in our backyard if I hadn't killed that young blacksnake? I don't know. If the rattler had killed the dog, would I have been responsible? My wife, who is a heart patient, had chest pains as a result of this incident. Did my choice cause her additional damage? If she had suffered another heart attack, what role might I have played in that? What about the decision to fill the bird feeders which attracted the birds which nested around the house (and the chipmunks & such, too) which attracted the blacksnake? It is all quite entangled, you see.

All of them. Some seem more obvious than others.

If we practice puffery and listen to our own noise, we neither grow nor hear. When we work to increase our vibrational frequency and practice listening in stillness, we begin to perceive the resonances and harmonics which surround and pervade us -- and we can begin to understand our influences as simultaneously emitter and receiver.

I used to believe that, since everything is "of the Dao," nothing is against the Dao. A few years ago, however, I was experientially disabused of this concept. The ten thousand things are not undifferentiated; all choices are not equal. Our choices matter and the energetic ripples from our decisions extend far beyond our physical awareness.