tianhui

Well, thank you for your thoughtful consideration. I have no idea where you stand in you interests and practices, but please allow me to say that this "field of gold" has many types of persons with a great range of ideas and motivations. If we can keep close to the bones by always coming back to asking what is it that we are really after, what is it that we really want, then we can better get though the various infomercial thickets that surely lie ahead. Respecting the efforts of all those from the many traditions before us, looking objectively as possible at the common denominators, using your own light, seek out what is actually true.

With your "No buts about it" An ji push, there is little room for discussion. My little one ounce of resistance is quite overcome and I will let this discussion pass with the maker of myths carrying the day.

But I am feeling a slight pressure from your peng, perhaps you would like to extend even further.

Ohh Myth Maker, don't you play push hands? The going back and forth is relaxed and each finds enjoyment in seeing a nice move executed by the other. Working with each other by working against each other, both find their way to a "better place". Shoot, Tian Hui, I think maybe you just did a cool neutralization.

Well, I would agree with the implied proposition that absent suffering there is pleasure. That is because the nature of our being/essence/hsing probably is with the positive content of consciousness and bliss. So if no extraneous suffering is being introduced we should be happy campers. But, are you willing to go further with this line of thinking. If pleasure is agreeable to you, why settle for a little if there is a lot available right under your feet? If the conscious experience of pleasure is good then wouldn't super conscious experience of bliss be preferred. Well, maybe we are already together on this point, but if not, I encourage going for the "gold". The world has evolved many techniques for going for the gold. What they seem to have in common is cultivation of the abeyance of thought with retention of awareness. This would be because thought (like suffering thoughts) clouds the transparency of awareness (our actual inner nature) and such clouding temporaraly separates us from comprehending/remembering the true extent of this root nature. Nei Kung is one of the techniques created by the Chinese to bring thinking to emptiness so that we can "see" into our Tao nature. To settle for lesser goals is to overlook the value of the jewel you are holding in your hand.

Looking about the world of motile creatures, it seems that without exception they are motivated to avoid what is harmful to their continued homeostasis and seek what is helpful. Higher organisms get equipped to sense this environmental pressure as pain and pleasure. So surely, your central point must have some validity. But, the repetition of the pleasure stimulus tends to diminish the pleasure as the creature adjusts to the new normal. If pleasure seeking is the central point of your Nei Kung, I am thinking your ardor may flag prior to it's natural culmination. The Indian traditions reveal the ground of being as having the three qualities of existence, consciousness, and bliss. You identified the third as an attractant. Maybe the first two are also attractants. Like, wouldn't you rather have more consciousness rather than less?

All right! Feels like a very fine point held at my throat. To deny would be to diminish my position, to accept would be to lose the day. Trapped, I do appreciate the experience.

Hi seeker. Why not just give us the benefit of why you practice? What need to add that ouchy part. Adding horns to the hare, why imagine pain on top of the situation. Or does your tantien actually feel uncomfortable, maybe from too much attention? Be nice now, I'm just saying "Hi", Tian Hui style.

Hi Mr. Gauss. Your so stated objective appears magnetic enough. I especially go for the "assimilate myself to the cosmic" part. But I can't get a clear grasp on why a measure of truthfulness would determine whether I would or would not stay alive as long as the universe stays alive. I mean what is the physics that would explain a process like getting "eternal life" as output from truthfullness as input. No disrespect at all intended, but it just doesnt ring as true in my "ear". Ditto for Compassion Ditto for Tolerance Are these really your own thoughts that you are presenting here?

Ahh, empty lobby, empty minds, medicine for the affliction.

"To half quote Sinfest - get out of the lobby and move into your tan tien" Everything seems to have it's time and place.

"Games games games all from the head" True enough.

Haha, yes sinfest it is getting a little slipper round here. A lot of trying to cut two into one when iff we just totally leave two to be as it is, one is at hand. Thanks for reminding me that effortlessness has it's wondrousness.

Hi there in Paradise. On your second point, I have no quarrel with the vast collection of devices established, by the Indian traditions and their Buddhist aftermath, for penetration of the egoic veil. But in my sorry view, they are primarily preparatory in character and are most useful for those who are attracted to them. Of course many authentic teachers encourage all to follow a kind and restrained lifestyle. On your first point, the "no", we can have a much longer discussion I am sure. I dont think it was about one monk, it was rather the point of schism between the Northern and Southern schools of Chan: whether gradual or sudden, whether to sit and wipe or to fully and dynamically act out of self nature with a completly unified dhyana and prajna (no wiping required). The sixth patriarch, from who all surviving Zen schools decended, did not engage nor encourage sitting practice. Also, I would take lengthly advantage of the the lifetime of expression by Rammana MahaRishi who firmly established that "be as you are" is true, not false, and that such insight proper probed is the most direct path to the goal. The I of the I, the wiper himself is already complete just as he is: wanting to strive and persevere, paradise already attained. Hey, the Y is helping keep a lot of peeps out of demential and early onset. Whats to knock about bodily health. Makes peeps more more prone to be nice (and compasionate).

Reality being all inclusive, who could actually stand outside it to say "failure"? So, no, I honestly cant go to a state of failure. I would describe myself as more like perennial rather than driven. So I am always coming back to these issues but I think you can see that I dont carry them about in a soaking heavy fashion. Yes, entirely so. And, you may then add then, what is my attraction to all this discussion? Like the rest of the natural world I move with the gradients.