de_paradise

Quality poster, genuine intentions. Enjoyed your authentic insights.

guess my question is how on earth does visualization 'meditation' even remotely compare to mindfulness based meditation. All I see the latter doing is just dunking someone into trance asap, and thus being a psychological tool to help calm ourselves. --no, it does more. one pointed focus on the image allows qi and the subtle body to become more active.Visualization=narrow focus. Alot of times what a non-cultivator knows as a trance is actually qi stirring strongly that it kind of disrupts the conscious mind flow. To the mundane world, a deep meditative state could be described as a trance or self-hypnosis. They are missing out. Another problem I see with this is how does visualization help listen to ourself when we are just picturing something instead of actually feeling it? --listening to yourself is not so important as relaxing or letting go into whatever comes up. Mindfulness of breath for example is an easier method to relax compared to visualization. Theres a trade-off, because with visualization you can do fancier things that guide the energy, but cannot with just letting go.

Giving authors their due for all the work they've done is going to be one of the biggest issues in the next few years as e-book readers become ubiquitous, and you can forsee every university student could download all their texts from file sharing networks, while the writers will lose incentive to write. I spent months reading and re-reading Bodri and Nan's book and it turned me from someone who just knows about yoga and few other things, to a spiritual cultivator with a grasp of where I am going and how to get there, so full of information that I had never seen or dared to believe before. To me it remains the most important and pivotal book I have read, as it happened concurrently with my Kundalini becoming active. That was extra fortunate to have a roadmap. 100 bucks is laughably cheap, and to pretend otherwise is ignorance. But then again, I have sent to my friend who probably got nothing out of it If you read his blogs, you will see he spends lots of money on getting other never before published cultivation works translated that he wont make a dime on. Who else in the English speaking world does this? I think it would be fair that if you downloaded the book and got value from it, then please make a donation. Whatever, its your karma.

It IS a great book and I recommend it to anyone, but you are being generous with someone else's property.

I rechecked the source of this article at oilprice, and conclude its mainly untrue sensationalism. So sorry about that. Lately in the media I see just focus on the good news, the capping, this is probably a concerted effort by the Dems due to the election runup. It would be quite ironic and sad if the oil gusher actually helps the GOP due to anti-Obama sentiment. A better source of evironmental impact is this: http://www.oceanleadership.org/2010/researchers-predict-oil-spills-long-term-travel-plans/ To be honest I care more about sealife dying than if some humans have to move to a trailer park up north because the land has become defouled.

I guess we will have to wait for the first hurricane to really find out. Personally if I lived in those areas, I'd be out of there already.

Finally a bit of truth from FEMA, bye bye Gulf coast, bye bye BP. http://www.nuwireinvestor.com/articles/fema-says-gulf-coast-disaster-could-cost-trillions-55548.aspx

The ETF such as GLD and DGP are composed of gold futures only. Im not expecting systemic meltdown to the extent that the markets stop operating, but if you are wary of that risk then physical gold is the only option. As far as gold shopping one does due diligence. I am not just writing this out for a lark, I believe we are at a very risky point in financial history, and urge those that have some kind of plans to start putting them in motion.

Exactly. On a related statistic, obesity is up to 30% in the Southern States. Its greed, like an illness. (reminds me of this episode of "supernatural" (check out the guy eating the fries near the end!) On a completely opposite side of what Americans are going through (fear, greed), we have Nobu Su, the billionaire shipping magnate who saw what was happening and responded to help. The funny thing is that this is so out of the bounds of what any American captain of industry would do, I see it reported in the press as if Nobu Su actually is doing this for a quick buck to capitalize on the spill. You really think a billionaire would cut holes in his new ship and sail it to the USA because he wants money? NO. HE'S A FRIGGEN HERO!!! Who is saying this? I havent seen any appreciation reports in the press, for the trouble he's taken to try to save the planet. Even if it doesnt work, it shows light-years more evolved behavior than anything I've seen out of the Americans. (sorry if that offends your long-held beliefs of American exceptionalism)

America is broken, its coming out in this spill and in the soon-to-be-in-the crapper economy. Its a culmination of an overly-greedy-screw-everybody-but me society. I just look at another example of a Taiwanese entrepreneur who made his tanker into a giant oil skimmer, and the USA has blocked it so far because it doesnt suction enough oil %, so its not environmental by law UNLIKE CHEMICAL DISPERSANTS which are totally ok. Im am just flabbergasted at it all, I am beyond words. Do these people need cattle prods for their brains to function?

Sloppy Z has got it. You can use any words to get the meaning across, its difficult to stop. Once you understand the tonality and pause and metaphor its easy. I often have sexually loaded discourse with women mundanely checking out my groceries, they often are absolute masters.

Sure guys. One's behavior is not static, its programmed or learned and can be modified. If the guy in the example was shy or had some kind of issues where he was taught the wrong way of behavior, but otherwise a fine fellow, this can be changed. We are pretty much saying the same thing, except this approach sounds more hopeful. Its funny how one can be on the same page and not know it until they think about it. Now I dont know if being great man means you have a woman or otherwise you are not great, suppose dont quite get that point. Have a great day though.

If you mean by crafty jedi methods you mean Mystery Method, Juggler, etc. Its not all that crafty or jedi, most of it is simply there to help explain to you how not to shoot yourself in the foot. Like if a girl sends certain signals, you can recognize and respond to them in the small little window of opportunity that is supplied, the so-called escalation. If you actually like the girl and she likes you its usually pretty natural, but if you just want to get laid by the chick at the bar, then you have to learn how to fake it, or reconstruct your personality so its real. So you know when to stop talking about your facinating motorcycle and grab her to dance, for example. And Cat, sorry, its a typical female point of view to think it all just simply happens, but for a male, he can go to a venue 100 times and nothing happens.

I normally skip the post if I scan the usual Buddhist jargon words like non-dual emergence of karmic conditionality. Its a shame really, because some of the Buddha thumpers have interesting things to say. Vajrahrydaya is really cool, but if he cannot lose the jargon, and use normal words or at least different metaphors, then that shows his understanding is only bookish or superficial, not having attained or experienced. I would invite them to restate their jargon, and if its genuine, it will shine through because truth shines. If they are able to restate the jargon, with a mind of relating to the overall topic of the thread, then we would be able to see that he has developed the sensitivity of a teacher. As far as Kunlun goes, after 2.3 years of practise, I have noted that in terms of qi and energy it feels something like a spin-rinse cycle, with really rapid intense flow in a particular way. Its in the stillness afterwords that I feel (and hear) the knots and blockages getting taken out, as the qiflow reverts to a kind of more normal way, and little alchemical happenings (like blissful temporary energy spike) might arise. And I'll probably grind through another few years because I have lots of free time, and have decided to put faith in Max, Jenny and those that taught her teacher. As far as shaktipat goes, I am as guilty as anyone in obfuscation the word it traditionally meant, but the reasoning is that the general public are so low-level, so crying out for some kind of push in the right direction--the experiential biological side of the path-- that you dont need purest of the pure super Maha shaktipat to be of benefit.

Feeling blissful warm yang qi is like a milestone on the path, as opposed to all the other stages before it. If you feel cold qi like and air-conditioner blast, perhaps that is an area of your body getting cleared out of a certain level of relatively impure qi, known as yin qi. But it is man who imposed this definition out of wanting to give some structure to the process. Im taking a guess here, but Shen would be more easily recognized by what it can do, ie. how it responds to various thoughts, than by some feeling of electro-blissy spaciness.

Ah, sorry, just the languaging of your initial post was quite critical, reminded me existentialist thought. In the case you just want to help, its an equalibrium that is difficult to find because we cant change other's values so quickly. Im sticking with "by example" and by under-the-radar methods, these can be developed. I have no social influence so Im just another of any competing views of "the truth", so directly convincing even one person is a futile grind, useless as you say.

You are victim of continual misplaced emphasis. Forget about others, and forget about them and forget their problems and their ways. When you catch yourself thinking about how much others suck for this or that reason, and what you want to say to them, forget it. And forget it, and leave it alone. Its a trap like a maze with no end. Your ego is acting like a mirror, and just leave it. Imagine yourself thinking about them now, and now chop the thought off. Practise stilling the mind like the proverbial zen monk who sits for hours, and keep the focus on yourself and your own mind. The unbearableness of keeping ones on focus on ones own mind is expressed by critizing others, its a trap and you have to stop it. Its a slow process.

Look on the bright side SM, in the old days claiming some supernatural ability and want to teach others would get you burnt at the stake or stoned to death. Nowadays you just get heckled by text.

wow, I'm so innocent I dont even know what people are upset about.

Interesting questions because I beleive that a pretty good guage of one's spiritual progress is how convinced one is, how much sacrifice one makes towards it. I've had quite a few stages, yet I see in how its possible to get deeper in the path when I look at how Shaktimama describes how she gave shaktipat, the deep relaxation and surrender, its like being completely convinced at a cellular level along with thoughts and convictions. Before I really got into meditations I was doing deep-trance hypnosis on a daily basis, not really for spiritual progress, but to understand the levels of mind and the possibilities. One time I blinked conscious during a sesssion, and during that time, I felt some kind of energy-granular type substance that kind of waved from my hand passing to my leg and then kind of disappearing. So that was a proof to me of an energetic level of body, and nowadays I know that level quite well.

There's also this small matter of the evolution. This vid has great symbolic meaning. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx364Lm53Aw&feature=related

When I live in Taiwan its easy to go vegan or pure vegetarian as they call it. Meals are generally veggies, rice and some kind of tofu product. Hundreds of other choices, never get bored. The only problem is I gain weight because its all so wonderful. Its heart touching in fact, to see a culture having developed and maintained this. Other countries struggle and pooh-pooh something that Taiwanese make easy. Sure you have to give up being a barbarian and risk giving yourself good karma, but you know, when I go into a non-vegetarian restaurant now I can see such a difference in the level of the people-when the food is about to be served I notice a kind of wolf-like beady eyes, kind of greed trance when theres a chunk of meat in front. In the vegetarian restaurants theres often Buddhist monks sitting in their garb, most other patrons are chilled out, and I think to myself, yes, this is the right kind of environment for eating. Taiwanese are professors and other most other countries are kindergarteners as far as vegan meals. One thing most people dont think of, is that a cultivator is not trying to be part of the natural food chain just because we happen to be wearing these bodies, but to surpass our animal-nature towards a being of pure energy. This is where a non-cultivator's understanding stops and crashes, but if you know that to be truth, then you can make your own decision as to whether your food choice can influence your cultivation progress.

ec Doing good things feel good because of the energy flows, its a payoff sure. It also helps liberate. In this way it looks paradoxical. In this thread, I am trying to offer useful advice and not complicate or philosphize. People who want to make spiritual progress can focus on what helps. You can try it or not, I have this experience to offer. Please hit someone else with your wonderful philosophy GIH (ie.dont respond because I wont), I took many Uni courses in ethics, it all seems to irrelevant now that I see the simplicity of the order of things by experiential knowlege.