GrandmasterP

I'm sure that everyone who has ever loved and been loved can identify with these beautifully heartfelt lyrics.

As long as you can find the stuff that was moved, if itvwas spirits that moved it then it's more likely to be someone attracting attention from spirit than anything 'dark'. We have a chap at the centre a widower and after his wife passed for quite a while she moved a framed photo that was on the mantlepiece from one side to another quite regularly. He'd go to bed with it on the left and when he got up it was over to the right side.

Easy to say " Don't worry" but if you are worried then that's what you are.Thing is though you are taking steps to find out which cultivations work for you and that's good. If something doesn't work then you can try something else. If you are physically out of sorts then a medical professional is your best bet and look upon cultivation as 'complementary to' not 'instead of' qualified medical advice. Always best to check with your doc too, if you are under one; about any physically or mentally strenuous cultivations to make sure those are OK. Here's a really simple cultivation that I guarantee will help you to feel better. http://cdn.franticworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Three-Minute-Breathing-Space-meditation-from-book-Mindfulness-Finding-Peace-in-a-Frantic-World-128k.mp3 It only takes three minutes. All good wishes to you for every success.

Tarot cards are best wrapped in enigma. :-)

With regard to samadhi in Shikantaza practice, samadhi does not refer to some state of unusual concentration which some folks sometimes seek to enter in various forms of meditation. Zazen Samadhi cannot be entered or left is located no where and every where, leaving nothing out rejecting nothing alive, and unbound by need for attaining to some deep mental concentration or absorption or stopping of the mind effortless awakeness all ordinary phenomena already awakened when known as such no need to flee into the minds dark cave in search of it ordinary mind as awakened mind when known as such this ordinary never just ordinary. Could be we are using 'samadhi' as a catch all label here to describe quite different things. What our brother ChiForce is calling samadhi is for sure 'his version' of samadhi - what it means to him in and through the tradition he is cultivating. Referentially valid samadhi that is too hence our friend is 'right'. Other versions of samadhi are available as per that one I just cited. Whatever gets anyone 'there' is the right way for that person. As long as we don't use our personal preference as some sort of universal benchmark then it's all good.

I love onions but onions really do not love me.

I started out in judo as a kid then played bagua for years cos we lived near a great dojo. Also had a few years playing eskrima. That was very therapeutic, whacking six bells out of opponents with a stick. Too old, slow and creaky for any MA now so I switched to QiGong. Fancied teaching 'walking cane self defence' to seniors until I found out how much the insurance company wanted. PI insurance for QiGong is £60 a year for half a million cover and no excess. TaiChi without weapons is £300 double that with ( specified) weapons. For Walking Cane SD they wanted an extra £1,200 with a £1,000 excess. Hence very little WCSD gets taught in the UK.

MA is tops. Any style cultivated diligently is better than no style plus you get to meet new people at the dojo.

Yes. You are right. As are our Pure Land cousins who know that... "Kyogyoshinsho, Shinran describes in spiritual rather than material terms the 10 benefits for those having true faith in this life: What are the 10 (benefits)? They are (1) the benefit of being protected by unseen divine beings, (2) the benefit of being possessed of the supreme virtue, (3) the benefit of having evil turned into good, (4) the benefit of being protected by all the Buddhas, (5) the benefit of being praised by all the Buddhas, (6) the benefit of being always protected by the Buddhas Spiritual Light, (7) the benefit of having much joy in mind, (8) the benefit of acknowledging His Benevolence and repaying it, (9) the benefit of always practicing the Great Compassion, and (10) the benefit of entering the Group of the Rightly Established State." And all that from cultivating Nembutsu. Winner! :-)

Many thanks. Lemon juice I take with my cuppa tea. Balsamic Vinegar I love. Looking out for cider vinegar with the Mother in and will see how that goes.

How very dare you! We have the best judges that money can buy.

There are some right grumpy old gits about though. I do lawn bowls as my only competitive sport these days and at 62 I'm a youngish player. Whilst 99% of bowlers are cheery old coves you do meet the odd miserable sod. Get one of those on your rink and they seem to try and bring everybody down to their own sorry level. Fair enough we all have aches and pains and sorrows , maybe more so as we get older. That said there's no call to be laying ones gloom or proscriptions on anyone else.

Anguttara Nikaya (3:102; I 260)..... "If, monks, there were no gratification in the world, beings would not become enamoured with the world." ... "If there were no danger in the world, beings would not become disenchanted with it." ... "If there was no escape from the world, beings could not escape from it. - But as there is an escape from the world, beings can escape from it."

" To make a virtue of necessity." ( Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona). The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. (Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray). :-) Our Zennist and Tantra chums tend to be at it like knives at all ages. There's a 100+ year old Rinzai Roshi in the USA ( Leonard Cohen's Roshi) who has been a very busy lad by all accounts. Depends who one chooses to listen to I suppose. Only the life denying paths deny human nature but even those tend to differentiate between love and lust. Those semen retention lads on here puzzle me no end. Same with the 'celibates' over on DW. Why bother to beat yourself up when you are at your best and freshest? Just wait a while and once you hit 60 that stuff, quite naturally; becomes a breeze. Takes all sorts I suppose. :-)

But is all this true?" said Brutha. Didactylos shrugged. "Could be. Could be. We are here and it is now. The way I see it is, after that, everything tends towards guesswork." "You mean you don't KNOW it's true?" said Brutha. "I THINK it might be," said Didactylos. "I could be wrong. Not being certain is what being a philosopher is all about. (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods).

+1 Sometimes all the outward labelling and learning dogma, sutras, spells, scriptures or whatever is just a distracting means to an end. The end being to keep the mind occupied, busy thinking it knows lots of stuff and thence the ego is constantly 'fed'. Simple is best.

Tumble dryers don't have high spin settings. What you need is a good industrial spin dryer or a front loading washing machine. BTW that dog is thinking...... " Dryer .. Schmyer. Just wait 'til you find out what I did in the laundry basket.'"

Now there's synchronicity at work. Just read the first fascinating post here and was about to post about cauliflower and here's your post. I've been pegging the leaves closed over the top of our overwinter caulis. That helps them heart up and keeps the hearts blanched. I use wooden spring clip clothes pegs. Two caulis only in a long row kept throwing off the pegs. I changed the pegs but every morning up to now for this past week or so those two threw the pegs off. Today Mrs GMP found some slugs in each of those two caulis. Just little chaps. I reckon those two caulis were 'telling us' they had a slug problem. ( They don't now!). All the others in that row are fine, no slugs. We've checked.

Me too? Is that extra- spiritual as in ' beyond spiritual' or 'outside of spiritiual' OR 'Super- Spiritual' as in more spiritual than we ( westerners) can imagine? OR Just an extra 'dimension' that we ( westerners) don't know about?

If you won your case against karma in court then that would definitely have been meant to be. Hence, and at that point; karma would be deemed to have 'won' thus acquitted; and you'd be stuck with all the court costs. ;-)

We do move forward and being able to talk about past stuff to a skilled and trusted listener is super- useful rather than bottling it all up and making ourselves worse. Might not be for you but the MBCT link via that hyperlink in my sig may be of interest. Either way Unseen- Abilities best wishes and all good luck to you for continuing positive progress.

Yep - 'fluxed' pretty much describes parts of today's world. :-)

Saatchi might pay you good money to put that in his art collection.

In fairness to teachers , having been one for a while now; good teachers tend to facilitate individual floursihing. The 'guide on the side' rather than the 'sage on the stage'. Of the two definite 'adepts' I've sat with both those guys transmitted as much, if not more; in the silence between words than via any direct 'teaching'. Of course it was my subjective 'reception' of said 'transmission' that did the trick. In that sense the 'adept' was a catalyst to and for whatever was occurring north of my own neck. I take adept simply to inidcate someone who is adept ( especially good) at whetever they do. Regular teachers can correct your cultivation there and then and coach one from wherever it is you are hence IMO those are more useful than books or DVDs. Each student is different and everyone learns at different speeds and in different ways. An experienced teacher knows how to dirrerentiate delivery to meet individual learning needs.

Opinions please as to... 1: The "Primordial State". 2: Mr and Mrs Old as teachers. 3: The opinionated mind. 3a: Psychodynamics on internet fora. Discuss. :-) Most excellent thread as a great resource to get first year Philosophies of Education undergrads thinking and talking. Cheers guys, you've saved me some prep.