GrandmasterP

Hello sunchild. A teacher is a good idea if you can find one. Not always easy, it depends where you live I suppose and what's available that you can get to. Here's a link to a free online book , it's by the Abbot of a Zen monastery in England and has a great chapter on different positions for meditating. http://www.throssel.org.uk/sitting-buddha-book QiGong suits me but there are so many ways to cultivate and so much on offer that you can spend ages shopping around and spend quite a lot of money too. It is interesting looking around at what is on offer for sure and maybe trying out some simple cultivation for yourself to see how it goes. One secular cultivation with very little spiritual 'baggage' at all is Mindfulness and there is a lot about that online. Here's a link and there's a 'stress test' you can do too. http://bemindful.co.uk/ Some like to try the stress test before doing mindfulness and see what they score then do it again after a while cultivating Mindfulness and seeing if there has been a change. Main thing is to do what is comfortable to you and take it easy at your own pace without 'forcing' anything. All success to your journey.

That edition of the book by Judith Blackstone linked to is for the " Revised and Expanded" edition. The Enlightenment Process: A Guide to Embodied Spiritual Awakening (Revised and Expanded) [Paperback] Judith Blackstone (Author). So how far did anyone get who bought the first edition I wonder? :-)

Rossiter, Phyllis. "I'm from Missouri--you'll have to show me." Rural Missouri, Volume 42, Number 3, March 1989, page 16.

How are we defining mindfulness here guys?

We've had a few sulphur yellow butterflies already. They are generally the first we see on a sunny spring day. Once it warms up and stays warm the Cabbage Whites appear. Those are our most common butterfly round these parts. Once the Buddleia flowers it becomes butterfly central in our back garden. They love Buddleia. We have white and blue all down one side.

You have Christmas Cactus outdoors MH? Wow! We have one indoors and up to last Christmas it made a nice display but we only had about three 'flowers' on it this time. It is about six years old and came in an indoor 'planter' basket as a baby plant. It fills its own ten inch bowl now.

" cultivation" to me is whatever we 'do' . So I cultivate QiGong Mrs GMP cultivates TaiChi. When I did MA we said we 'played' our style. We'd say " I play Bagua." I see 'cultivation' as a similar word to that MA idea of 'playing' a style...just a catch all term for whatever style or practice it is that we 'cultivate'. Bit like 'cultivating' a garden perhaps.... ' growing via tending'.

I've been tempted to do 'air guitar' at work before now. Not in the sort of job where air guitar is encouraged though. Maybe on my last day prior to retirement.

The 8 Pieces Brocade QiGong form is really easy to learn and has stood me in good stead for many years. I reckon it keeps me supple ( I'm 62) had to give up strenuous Martial Arts so took up QiGong after finding out that TaiChi was too much for me to remember. I could never dance either but Mrs GMP loved dancing and she took to TaiChi like a natural. It's about remembering 'steps' to some extent is TaiChi so maybe being a good dancer helps. QiGong suits me though. There are lots of cultivations out there and it is fun finding out what suits . If you can get to one then a skillful teacher is a real bonus. Learning from clips is OK but a good teacher can help you out 'there and then' whereas a video can't. Enjoy.

Thank you so much for those outstanding replies. I have 'liked' every one. It is good to know that it isn't just me. How I cultivate is 8 Strands QiGong standing form every morning when I get up plus Mindfulness breathing which is a modified zazen done sitting in a chair or on a cushion. I do the mindfulness breathing during the day for short periods ( mindful pauses) and aim to get half an hour minimum in at night before I go to bed. Totally agree that retreats away from daily distractions especially computers are excellent and I have managed a four day 'away' retreat every year for the last few years and love it. That's all I can manage away though due to work and home commitments. Guess I'll just plod on but plod on reassured by all your excellent and supportive comments. Thanks again, TTB is a super helpful forum with some super helpful people.

You got that right Chris D. 'Monkey Mind' here, no matter how mindful I strive to be when cultivating those old thoughts just pile up. Seems like, sometimes; there are thoughts and memories just waiting for when I start cultivating so that they can pop up. What I've learnt is to just let them be , observe them be aware of them non- judgementally and return to my cultivating. That is a constant. There's never one cultivation without attendant 'monkey mind' thoughts for me. Ever, but that said; I only have a beginner's mind.

Nope, not being facetious at all.It's clear to see when someone puts care and creativity into a piece of writing as you did in the OP. Mrs GMP, who used to edit an in- house staff magazine for the Post Office when she was training to teach, as a late career switch; used to teach 'creative writing for pleasure and profit' as one of her 'evening class' sidelines' and encouraged the students to keep writing, keep submitting and to celebrate everything published. They used to compose short 'fillers' for magazines and send those in. By the end of the course most of her students had seen their names 'in print' and been paid a small fee or won a small prize via their work being published in some periodical or other.

The inability to see reality can be a survival skill and here's one example of how.... I work until 9 pm three evenings a week so driving home in winter is in darkness, roads close to home are country ' B' roads and unlit. So I round a bend going about thirty miles an hour and two sets of headlights on both sides of the road are coming at me fast then on top of me. No way can I avoid a crash. It is curtains time until, next thing I am pulled up safe on the grass verge hard against the hedge and what presumably were two boy racers tail lights are long gone. Had I thought about my actions logically I'd have been dead. I do not know to this day how I got from being toast in one split second to being safe but shaken the next. Pure instinct and maybe a friendly 'guardian angel' ( thanks if you exist buddy). So, whoever that 'mega poster' referred to in the OP is....IMO said 'mega poster' is 100% right if s/he said what the OP claimed s/he said.

Right now I am listening to a puppy snoring. That is a sweet sound.

Delusion maybe? Dogen says: "You must realize that life-death is itself nirvana. We cannot talk about nirvana without life-death. Accordingly, the world of constant arising and decaying is itself the area of nirvana. Instead of trying to escape life-death, we must remain in this world and, using life-death freely, turn delusion into nirvana and the world of the Buddha..... If we understand that life and death are themselves nirvana, there is no need for avoiding life and death or seeking nirvana. Then, for the first time, there arises the possibility of freeing ourselves from life and death . . . when you no longer have the desire to reject life-death or seek nirvana, you can truly gain nirvana and free yourself from life-death." Dogen is maybe advising us not to resist the - whatever it is that- " resists the loss of identity" simply to observe it, let it go and to gently return to whatever cultivation we are playing.

"Essence must be dealt with directly without intermediary for one to assume its enlightening function. Evidently, these intellectualists are much too selfish to allow that." Looked at logically that seems a fair enough point the OP makes. ' Unmediated essence = enlightenment' Sounds good, but the devil's in the detail. Who, for example is perceiving 'unmediated essence' and at which stage of said perception does enlightenment 'happen' , how; and to whom? Presumably someone would have to 'report back' from such an experience in order to inspire for others, less fortunate; to strive to achieve enlightenment by similar means. What would they be describing and why would they feel the need to? Tricky one aint it?

Intellectualityisation maybe? :-)

Welcome sunchild. Beautifully written first post. More please.

Apartheid?

Buddha can you spare a dime? :-)

We're teetotal here. No biggie. Anyone enjoys booze then fair play to them it's just not something either Mrs GMP or I were brought up to. Tried it when I was in the army, seemed like an expensive way to get a headache. Each to his own though.

Some people like beef-burgers. Others prefer cheese sandwiches. We're all different.

Risible as a conclusion but tag on the word ' Discuss' and it might just keep a bunch of first year humanities undergrads occupied for an hour with little much required by way of input from their tutor beyond the occasional wise nod. I prefer "What is it like to be a bat? Discuss and support your input with appropriate online references." Give them 40 minutes clicking around the net then convene. That one can keep them at pointless busy work for a full three-hour session, including break; whilst I complete the day's crossword. :-)

I have QiGong 'teacher' pyjamas in a fetching black silk but seldom bother wearing them to cultivate in. The guy who taught me to teach the 8 strands has those as 'added value'. You pay for the training and get the pyjamas included whether you want those or not. They have white cuffs to the sleeves which is apparently the done thing for teachers. Also a big badge sewn on from the school I learnt in. No idea what that says as it's in Chinese. Might be " Look what we got this fat bald English guy to buy! ROFL" for all I know. I look and feel like a bit of a plonker in them if truth be told. What I do wear when teaching is a black polo shirt with the school logo on plus my name. Loose double pleat black Chinos for pants complete the ensemble. Saves changing at teaching venues.

"An unexamined life is not worth living." (Plato's Apology - recollecting the speech Socrates gave at his trial). Reflection is healthy. Maybe we're getting hung on that sticky 'I' - word Intellectualism. It is a concept that brings baggage , some folks, for one reason or another have a negative image of ' Intellectuals' hence a suspicion of ' Intellectualism'. We all of us think about stuff and some of us reflect, one way or another; too. No biggie - just think and reflect as any might choose to do. We can safely leave labelling to those who feel comfortable in categorising others in order to feel more secure in their own self appointed niche.