konchog uma

what is that sinfest?

the plant already knows what you need to learn don't ask anything go with an open heart and quiet mind and just listen. if you have to ask for something, ask for guidance, which the plant will give you anyway blessings to you

conjunctions of venus/sun and venus transits in particular are associated with higher love or "christ consciousness" to put it in christian terms. without meaning to sound too new-agey about it, its probably a great time to meditate, especially on the heart, or bodhicitta, or universal and unconditional love i hope everyone has a great evening

cool!

there are a lot of good discussions here on the neiyeh<sp>, the chuang tzu, and the tao te ching, which could just be a good place to start what is your interest right now? philosophy? diet? martial arts? qigong and energy work? sexual gongfu? chinese history? narrowing it down just a little will help people to help you with suggestions. welcome to ttb

lol right, if he was saying something radical and new i would be worried that he was a fraud i like his advice

so is celibacy

awesome! i don't know the daoist view on dying (try not to do it? LOL) but i have stared death in the face a couple times too and i think it is blissful to finally die. I don't think it is scary at all but very peaceful and fulfilling. I just want to offer encouragement to everyone reading this that death is fun and excellent, not some terrible loss (just loss of personality self and so on) but a wonderful gain. i think this is why it is called parinirvana by some. also, reading the tibetan, egyptian, hindu, celtic, etc books of the dead might be helpful. I have never seen the hindu or celtic ones, my teacher has a copy of hindu and he's mentioned celtic... um bardo thodol (tibetan) and egyptian are more widely circulated. i hope this thread takes off

i don't think there's an easy answer to that one. or a real answer that doesn't come from within your own heart. IME the best relationships come from cultivating a relationship with yourself that is healthy and loving and as full and rich as possible, and putting romance far from your mind. Not only is this the best for you personally, which is something one should never lose track of in their seeking intimacy, but from a romantic point of view, i think women are inevitably curious about those kinds of guys. That is to say, the kind who *aren't* overtly looking for lust or love or anything in between. Having a healthy relationship with yourself could be the most important thing in life, let all good things flow from that!

thanks michael, i was looking for the dao or the buddha nature of this thread but didn't find it anywhere tibet is an interesting buddhist state, in which, in the 40s, 1 out of 4 people were monastics, and the center of life and culture was the monastery. In spite of some backwards views but some modern standards (which i can understand and attribute to their remote locale) they had a very enlightened approach to living together as a community until the tragic cultural revolution. As far as a daoist state, that is an even more interesting discussion because there has never really been one of those. So for those who want to hypothesize about it, i would offer that there could possibly be one based on the sciences of correct relationship to nature and the leadership philosophy of the dao de jing (fill the bellies and empty the heads, etc). Its so wild to think about because its so far from anything that happens today with self interested leaders, peoples, and the huge amount of criticism that comes from everyone, both those who have experience in politics and those who are just armchair critics. Hahahah i suspect that it is well easy to be a critic and harder to lead people in a balanced and just way, or to manage huge shared resources in a fair way. I am so happy every time i see tibetan philosophy and culture spreading out in the world it really warms my heart to see that brand of vajrayana embraced by so many people! I encourage discussion of what a buddhist or daoist state would look like, what problems it would face (pacifism vs the red army... hmmm), and that sort of talk. I too think this has the potential to be a really interesting thread if it can keep from being derailed by unimportant and unnecessary side talk. Thanks!

yeah i had bad troubles why do you ask?

i have seen that stuff before but i dont remember what its called sorry its not carnelian or chalcedony or any other commonly known mineral if you ask me good luck, try sending a picture to a local gem and mineral dealer or shop and see what they say about it

In tarot its called the fool, and there are 22 "archetype cards" (major arcana or "trumps") but as the medieval churchian authorities cracked down on mysticism of all ancient kinds, it devolved into playing cards, and now theres just one... the joker good point you make there, its a powerful enough archetype to withstand that kind of persecution.. that says a lot about its universality. i dont think batman's joker was a daoist, but thats just me. Theres a big difference between psychotic crazy and skillful means crazy ala "crazy wisdom". but i don't mean to get into that.. just sayin

i think its awesome that LCY lived to 256 practicing daoist energetics, diet, and 8 pieces of brocade. you would think he would have some super secret qigong routine that was really esoteric... lol but nope its 8 pieces of brocade this book is one i always mention, and has a recipe for LCY's spring wine, an herbal vodka that prolongs life, in it... Daniel Reid's "Tao of Health, Sex, and Longevity".

fuhgeddaboudit

i tried it years ago and felt some energetic effects while fasting (with high dosages) not worth 60$ a bottle tho, and i'm not sold on lawrence gardner's "its manna, its the philosophers stone, it slices it dices etc" approach to monoatomic gold if i was going to spend 60 bucks, it would be on qigong or yoga or meditation teachings or something that would boost my energy and that was portable and internal and didn't rely on pills but on my own accomplishments

i like karma... lol its good to take responsibility for what happens to us. In the end its more empowering, and without that responsibility, i think we stay stuck in patterns of blaming others and generating the same karmic results! i don't think its good to think too logically about karma, but thats just me. I'm sure some people just think really logically about everything.. it just seems to me that in what could be an infinitely long lifespan (soul-wise) its nearly impossible to say what comes from what, and which lifetime. I do believe that we generate the seeds of experience based on our actions and especially our intentions. My school years were hellish, i liked to dye my hair and wear jewelry, listen to punk music, write poetry and make art, so i was (of course) a goddam communist faggot! Hahahha this was before MTV sold counter culture to the masses, so nobody was familiar with those behaviors in a way that they could put a convenient label on. (lol except the aforementioned...) i used to resent my bullies but then i felt bad for them cause they were stuck (and probably still are) in narrow minded hate based ways of thinking and relating to other humans. now i don't really feel much at all for them. Given a choice between being interesting and picked on for it, or being big and mean and small minded, i would have to choose the former, with all the abuse and angst of it, no question

cool thoughts... it means to me, even though objects exist, the underlying essence of them is pure energy. in the world of objects, there are all different kinds of objects, but in the world of energy, there are just a handful of kinds of energy. they are probably all one, but nobody really has proven that yet to my knowledge hopefully those physicists will get crackin on that good thoughts, there is more in common with things than there will ever be different (just like people), all the way up to the oneness of everything. When our minds realize that, a lot of dualistic discursiveness stops, and a lot of comparison and competition based thought, and poverty mentality stops. So its a really useful thing to contemplate. lol hard to talk about tho so what is there left? hopefully tranquility and insight, bliss and wisdom, and so forth. without all those opposites competing for "right" and "better" in your mind, there will hopefully be more room for all that stuff

neat topic yes anything is possible and perhaps they are abducting the dreaming body or astral body in which case things get a little fuzzy cause its like a dream but... there is something legitimate happening with ET/Extradimensional beings. There is something out there that flies around in fast ships and keeps tabs on humans and life on earth in general it would appear... so who can say what they are? they are very good at hiding their identity and motivations from us so its really just speculation. they are lucid dreams, they are from nibiru, they are from the astral planes, they are humans from the very distant future come to study their knuckle-dragging past, they are XYZ etc etc etc neat conversation, and in my opinion a bona fide phenomenon, but really, nobody is sure thats the wacky part

i will ask my lama. i appreciate you taking the time to try to field those questions. i had never really thought about it like that before. thank you for the book recommendation too. i find that reading helps, even when you're learning from a teacher and from experience. thanks!

thanks simple jack, that was a nice post in resting the mind without fabrication it seems like a clarity arises that lies behind or beneath the awareness of thoughts, bliss, or other mental activity. is this correct that the mind of clear light can be present with any state of consciousness, or that in converse, one could experience a state of bliss without that clear mind? just wanting to make sure i understand what Tsele Natsok Rangdrol is saying about mahamudra. i have been inspired lately to engage the more formless teachings and practices, namely dzogchen and mahamudra. there is a local dzogchen group that sits at one of the meditation halls i sit at, but they are for some reason not there when their website says they will be. is it something that i can learn from books? if so, do you recommend any books to begin with? thanks again

i used the DownloadHelper addon for firefox to download them from hardlights podcast page in mp3 format so i can listen to them anytime

you'll find more with a youtube search of "yijinjing" or "yi jin jing" than you will with "muscle tendon change" there are some neat vids there, happy surfing

cool question i like multiverse cause it reminds me that this universe might be one of many, like you mentioned i have been using that thought to kind of logically explore the idea that even the oversoul or atman is empty, dependantly originated so to speak, in buddhist terms. i feel like there is an atman, but i don't feel like it is the absolute and ultimate, i feel like it is like an atom in infinite space. i also have been exploring the idea that beneath quarks and superstrings perhaps there are tiny tiny particles of energy that are actually whole other cosmoses or universes in themselves, and that maybe our entire billions of galaxies worth of cosmos is just a speck in some other worlds substructure ad infinitum neat thoughts, ultimately semantic, and ultimately stupid to try to logic ones way around such vast concepts, but i think if they push the mind further and towards vastness and nebulosity more they are valuable