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Those consistency and consequential quality as a basis for 'existence' is all based on conventional view. They require you to establish them as truths, as existences, in order to establish the consistency. In reality, two instances of occurences are neither the same nor different - the previous day's instance of 'moon' is not the same as today's instance of 'moon'. Or today's weather is 'cloudy' and tomorrow is 'cloudy' too doesn't mean there is an entity called 'weather'. Just because they have apparently similar shapes or colours does not imply existence. In the same sutta: "What do you think, Anuradha: Is form constant or inconstant?" "Inconstant, lord." "And is that which is inconstant easeful or stressful?" "Stressful, lord." "And is it proper to regard what is inconstant, stressful, subject to change as: 'This is mine. This is my self. This is what I am'?" "No, lord." Toni Packer: A somber day, isn't it? Dark, cloudy, cool, moist and windy. Amazing, this whole affair of "the weather!" We call it "weather," but what is it really? Wind. Rain. Clouds slowly parting. Not the words spoken about it, but just this darkening, blowing, pounding, wetting, and then lightening up, blue sky appearing amidst darkness, and sunshine sparkling on wet grasses and leaves. In a little while there'll be frost, snow and ice-covers. And then warming again, melting, oozing water everywhere. On an early spring day the dirt road sparkles with streams of wet silver. So — what is "weather" other than this incessant change of earthly conditions and all the human thoughts, feelings, and undertakings influenced by it? Like and dislike. Depression and elation. Creation and destruction. An ongoing, ever changing stream of happenings abiding nowhere. No entity "weather" to be found except in thinking and talking about it. Now — is there such an entity as "me," "I," "myself?" Or is it just like the "weather" — an ongoing, ever changing stream of ideas, images, memories, projections, likes and dislikes, creations and destructions, which thought keeps calling "I," "me," "Toni," and thereby solidifying what is evanescent? What am I really, truly, and what do I think and believe I am? Are we interested in exploring this amazing affair of "myself" from moment to moment? Is this, maybe, the essence of retreat work? Exploring ourselves minutely beyond the peace and quiet that we are seeking and maybe finding. Coming upon clarity about this deep sense of separation which we call "me," and "other people," without any need to condemn or overcome. Most human beings take it totally for granted that I am "me," and that "me" is this body, this mind, this knowledge and sense about myself which so obviously feels separate from other people. The language in which we talk to ourselves and to each other inevitably implies separate "me's," and "you's" all the time. All of us talk "I" and "you" talk, we think it, write it, read it, and dream it with rarely any pause. There is incessant reinforcement of the sense of "I," "me," separate from others. Isolated. Insulated. Not understood. How is one to come upon the truth if separation is taken so much for granted, feels so common sense? Since existence cannot be pinned down, yet undeniable flow of appearances remain unceasing, reality is indeed illusory like a dream, like a magic show. If Salt and Atom is just a label, this means 'salt' and 'atom' does not have any real existence to it - in the way that there is no 'tathagata' in the five aggregates, or a real entity 'weather'. Anatta (no tathagata inside or outside five aggregates) contradicts Advaita, while emptiness of phenomena (no 'salt', 'atom' etc) contradicts the view of matter as having inherent existence. But that is on the ultimate level. I am happy to accept generally scientific explanations for most of the things on the conventional level (except when it comes to things like the origin of consciousness).

Xabir, thanks for your detailed response. Putting aside the atman/anatta questions for a moment, I want to address your understanding of what 'real' means. I am inclined to think part of this is a semantic issue. Are you saying that my experience isn't real/existing? I could grant that my experience is real in the same way a dream is. Both are temporary and when one wakes up from a dream they say "Oh it wasn't real". But the experience happened. So how isn't it real? So I would grant that when we perceive things in physical reality we are not perceiving their ultimate nature. But how is even an illusory experience possible if there is not some existing stimulus? How is experience possible at all if nothing is 'real'? Also,my other question about Greg Goode remains, which is why he chooses to focus on nondual teachings if he feels emptiness is a 'higher' truth? I know you're not him so you don't know but I'm wondering what your opinion is. Best!

Dear Adam. Thank you for your letter. I think perhaps I am living my dream, but it has not been without much suffering and hardship. To truly train in Internal Alchemy, our Yin Nature shall rise up at times and battle with us; until we are able to transform it to some degree. I think my path came into it's real test 2 years ago when a speeding car hit me and broke my spine, leg, crushed my knee and many other injuries. I was strapped to a hospital bed unable to move, wearing diapers, and having to be fed with a spoon. I had to make a choice to give up my dream of more than 15 years of study and practice following the Tao and the study of Internal Arts and be bound in a wheel chair, or heal myself. I recovered, and set out to follow my internal calling and dream. I had contact with my Alchemy Teacher, during this time in the hospital, and asked for a technique or methods of practice to aid me in my healing; as I was very afraid, and in a terrible emotional state of depression. He replied with a letter that contained one word: "Recover......" We all have the ability to heal or to follow Dao. We are composed of De, which is the active agent of Dao in this realm. It is like our well spring. Yet we all fall prey to the trap thinking there is something "external" or "outside" of ourselves that will aid us, or be a magic pill, an all knowing master, or secret esoteric methods of practice. There are many who make large volumes of money playing on this mental weakness of sincere students. There are no secrets and there is no magic........ The only real secret is daily practice. So one must learn the proper method of practice. Gaining a proper method of practice is a key. Having a teacher who has experienced the higher levels of Alchemy is a great help and inspiration; but not needed. There have been many cases in Taoism history and lore of adepts gaining high levels from their own personal efforts in self cultivation. We all come into life with different Karma and different spiritual attributes. So perhaps everyone will reach different levels based on these conditions. We just keep a sincere and pure heart and try our best. Dao Fa Zu Ren........... The Great Dao Follows the Way of Nature............ The thing I have learned is this: Know what is your job, and know what is the job of nature. In the first stages of practice, it may seem there are many exercises or methods performed. This is just "our" work to create a "proper" environment. We work to create the proper "conditions". We then must know when to stop, and allow Nature to Do It's Work. Many people teach the imagination and visualization method in the West. Trying to move, circulate and guide the Qi with Mind-Will. Yet think upon this......... If the method of Gaining Union with Tao depends upon your Mind-Will remaining unmoving and motionless. Completely still and empty.......... Then if the Mind-Will is involved in movement or imagination then how can such a condition engender the stillness or empty state? I have attached three things in my various posts. 1. Taoist Theory and Practice of Internal Alchemy Document. 2. Heart Mind Fasting Meditation 3. Eight Steps of the Silk Brocades. With these three documents, one can have all the tools needed to reach a high enough level in the practice on their own. Often it is best to practice on your own, where you are, and not worry about finding a teacher. As you practice these methods and make some progress and internal growth, you will naturally find a teacher to guide you further. It is a Universal Rule. When the student has made an effort to create the proper conditions, the Teacher will naturally come. With all my best regards. Sincerely, dao zhen PS. I will post some photos from China in my gallery, and you may enjoy the pictures. I only have about 2 or so weeks to be able to post, then must do other works. If you wish to visit China this year, I am happy to help you here also.

St Augustine had horrifically sensual dreams,...however, enlightened ones do not dream,...they woke from the dream, even while sleeping. For those who suggest they are lucid in dreams while sleeping, why aren't they lucid while so-called awake in the illusion? If someone is really lucid, are they lucid in the dreams they are having while they are so-called awake? Or do they "think" their subconscious is only active while the sleep,...as if there are no stars overhead in the daytime. V

blue eyed snake wrote: Mine certainly has both polarities, the whole spectrum. I have been dealing with issues of the heart chakra for some years. Physically not just 'spiritually'. I do not actually consider these unrelated because I believe the body/mind/spirit are really just different perspectives on the same group of energy. (Easy to say, harder to live.) I've had a really difficult time of it as I've had some serious blockage there. Not anymore. Kundalini cleaned me out one night, at request, which was quite lovely until the heart attack it inspired right after that of course (just what I asked for, perhaps not what I wanted). In any case, after spending years dying of an undiagnosed genetic heart valve defect, I then spent six months officially dying of it, but got surgery and four months later I am doing really well. It'll take me a couple years to develop the body systems to handle the 70% higher flow of oxygen/nutrients (good grief! no wonder all the docs were so amazed at how 'with it' I was despite those stats), and quite some time to get properly mobile again given three years of nearly bedridden, and to deal with a truly insane amount of edema slow to come off it seems. But it's all good now... it's all getting better though I have a long way to go. On the bright side, as the docs said in real surprise, my arteries etc. in the heart area where all totally clean but for that valve's problems. So at least there's that...! Since then I have not been meditating very well or often I confess, but I am still at a low level working on my heart and I think spontaneously my 'self' is trying to help, because I find that lately a few things from my past keep coming to mind and really bothering me. Stuff I haven't much thought about in eons and seldom think about. They are all things where people I was forced to be close to really, really hurt me. Thing is, I'm a pretty assertive personality and not particularly emotional (that is changing radically as I age but wasn't present until recently). So the number of people that have hurt me seems pretty small, maybe it's not. Most of my relationships have been positive and many life-changingly good. But there are five (I am 51, I've had some time :-) is that a lot?) who were all in job or avocational areas (nothing romantic, but the force of association made us very close and it became personal), and one past relative, so that's over a period of 35 years... even when I try to be objective, I simply cannot understand it. I literally have to invent in my head some hypothesized past life where I must have like, kidnapped and tortured them for years to account for anybody being so pathologically lying, intentionally devious, ongoingly evil and harmful toward me and so very personally, when I was actually so good to them (unusually so in most the cases), and totally believed in them (to the degree of refusing to believe indicators and others telling me of the problems, I gave them the benefit of the doubt). I believe that reality is a reflection (or rather, the actual embodiment of) my energy, so I "assume it's my fault" (I know that is the wrong perspective; it isn't about fault). Clearly, if something happens more than once (which with a list of five, it has, although of course all were very different in detail, though similar in nature in some points) then I am part of that energy, or all of it. I know the energy is rooted in me, and I want to take responsibility for that and not just blame others. But it is so difficult not to feel the emotion now. I think most of it, I felt then and suppressed and repressed, and now that my heart body issues have actually seemed to open me up a lot more to emotion, I am suddenly 'dealing with' emotion stored up over the last 35 years about this. I don't feel like I have anger or rage, but I do think hearing of their as-soon-as-possible and as-painful-as-possible demise would seem well deserved and make the world a better place, so obviously I am not at all clear with myself, I must have those emotions or how could I be that way. Consciously I still just feel horribly abused but mostly just so betrayed, due to my trust, and the surreal injustice of the situations. I realize their known pathologies are part of it. They all had literal extreme-textbook-degree pathologies, but some are the sort that are hidden as part of the pathology itself. Like reactive attachment disorder, which is mostly in kids/teens but does not magically vanish when people turn 18, it just makes them the most terrifying person short of kidnappers and serial killers to be loosed on the adult world. Because nobody ever suspects, why would you, that anybody would behave that way and it is self-protective (and well practiced, and pathological liars are the most utterly convincing people in the world). It's such a horrible condition, a psych friend told me all the mental health places he knows of in this region will take anything in a teen or young adult, suicidal, homicidal, you name it, but will not accept people with RAD. It is just that difficult to deal with and that scary... you can't fix it and it is about 100% certain to cause serious problems with the staff who have to work with them. It's like people are just broken and we should take them out and shoot them for the good of society or something. Another in my life was later diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic but I don't blame myself for that one! -- my father married her when I was young. I know the constant reminders -- I just keep thinking about this stuff when I haven't thought about most of it very often since it happened, some for decades -- is my inner world telling me this is energy in focus now, I need to deal with it. I do have some exercises the sun (an archetype whom I consider a friend) gave me that are kind of like a heart energy kata and help "push out" "stuck energy forms" in the body (in the heart area in this case). He helped me push out one that was very powerful, from a traumatic experience I actually had in meditation/dream nine years prior (can't recall which it was, my dreams are unusually linear and vivid, and I have visions, and I do imaginal meditations, so frankly it's really all part of the same spectrum for me), that had created immense grief and fear in me ever since. As the shape (that had about the size, shape and firmness of a peppermint patty :-)) pushed out of my chest finally, just as it started hitting near the surface, I was totally "In" that energy -- as if that event were happening literally in the moment but condensed in time, and I was literally wailing loudly in reaction to the condensed pain -- but as it passed out of me, then it was gone. Utterly! I still remembered the event but it was "Information, not emotion" after that. Wow. Just totally gone. It was slow though. I know I should do more of that (and I will) to help with these other things but every time I think of any of these people I had those hurts from, my sudden desire to stick a knife in them (still absent the conscious recognition of rage) interferes. :-) I used to think of myself like a jellyfish in air instead of water, and wind and emotion would "blow through me." It was a good exercise for letting go, especially when working to be calm with thoughts and not hold on to things... not so good at that now... and these things just trigger me. I fall into daydreams where oops. They accidentally die horribly. Haha! Too bad! (mwahahahaha) So far it's just not ending well for my enlightenment, suffice to say... :-( Any exercises besides "just let it go" -- obvious, but obviously not easy for me -- I'd be happy to hear from anybody. RC

Hi Bindi, ...maybe. I'm no expert at anything, but in my own experience, it's more like a sort of shallow spiral upward, where every spiral you gain another odd %, except, within that spiral, there are tons of places where you are 'missing spots' and some where you have more than one layer in some little spot. By the time you get a little ways up, which you (I mean me) may think is progress but is probably infintesimal LOL, from the top down it probably looks less like anything opaque or a road than it does a very low % array of white noise, interspersed with spots all over that run the spectrum from higher than average level to utterly empty. I run into the same things over and over and over again, but it always seems like "a new level of understanding." A new level of the spiral. Which reminds me of one of my favorite paintings, "Modern Shalott" by John Stephens: I loved that pic partly because I had once had a deep dream where (to summarize greatly) I was cared for by a part of my larger-soul working as a medical guy, in a cave up high, then run down a winding path in a rickshaw by another part (my twin/mate), then put in a small boat with my hands crossed on my chest and sent down a river. I loved the symbolism of that later when I thought about it! This pic made me think of it. RC

This is why I stopped doing it. I was literally writing novel length entries for the details and plots of my nightly dreams. On top of that, most of the content was inherently meaningless or recycled crap. I had that realization after I spent a week in solitude. No human contact, and meditating through most of the day, while the night would be entering into lucid consciousness. I noticed that my dream content in those nights was composed of stray thoughts I had during the day. If you don't have a method of dealing with the content of your consciousness (some meditation method), lucid dreaming is going to be meaningless, and you're just going to be dealing with your own projections and expectations about what you think should happen. The chances of doing anything real are going to be pretty slim. I think. What do isolated/enlightened people dream about? As far as I have read in certain Taoist lineages, nothing. Their consciousness is clean and clear, so their sleep is deep, restful, and empty. Any dreams they do have, since their consciousness is so clear, are composed of higher level energies that they are easily able to perceive. None of the sub-conscious crap that clutters most everybody else.

Same here. Lucid dreaming has changed my life at a deep level, being the most effective tool for personal growth. Even though I can only recall 10 minutes of lucidity a week. I'm improving everyday in both dream recall and lucidity. I don't recall as much as that though, hehe. I guess I do recall 5 powerfull and vivid dreams a night at some times where I hover in between lucidity and non lucidity. Sometimes the vividness of a dream deceives my judgment about the nature of that reality. Allowing me to challenge my ability to deceive myself in more powerful ways and thus also challenging my ability to conquer all the powerful deceptions, like overcoming deep fears, etc. One has just put an effort at lucidity and he or she already receives all the benefits. Thanks for the reference. I'll check it out for sure.

Hi guys, I just began studying Acupuncture at University and although I've been a huge fan and practitioner of Taoism since 2012, I'm starting to get a bit "oversaturated" with Chinese medicine and the sheer amount of theoretical knowledge in our curriculum. I'm halfway through my first semester and I'm starting to get sick to the stomach at the thought of having to memorize all the theory. With all due respect, a lot of it (TCM) seems to be slapped together in a kind of non-chalant way, is completely subjective and is at the end of the day, moderately effective at best. I find it bland and boring as hell. At least with science you get the excitement of discovering something new, but with TCM it's like studying religion. Yes, I'm viewing the pessimistic side of the coin, but I am wondering if I should just commit and/or revivify my relationship with TCM or choose another career path altogether... This is coming together with a deeper longing of abandoning all these so-called ancient traditions; ALL the religions, all philosophies, and dream up something much bigger and more embracing of our current times.

I'm interested in descriptive correlations and cross references to a point but one can also (more or less) get lost in them... An excerpt from Swami Krishnananda along these lines: "When a person rises above body consciousness, there is a serenity of experience. It is as if he is free from a drug effect into which he has entered and to which he has been subjected for long. Consciousness gets muddled on account of the influence of an external toxic matter due to which there is no proper thinking and understanding. As this toxic effect subsides, there arises serenity, tranquility and composure of experience. He feels as if something new has come into his life. He wakes up as if there is a new daylight before him. This is samprasada, the composure of consciousness which arises on account of the freedom of consciousness from bodily shackles. The moment this consciousness is freed from bodily attachment it rises upwards, as it were, like a flame of brilliance. It is the supreme luminosity. It is light by its own right, a light that does not require another light to illumine itself, paramjyoti. When one attains to this supreme luminosity which is one's own real nature, one is established in one's self. Then one is in one's true form. As we wake up from dream and recognise our true nature as being different from what we felt ourselves to be in dream, so does one recover one's real nature and shake off the old notions of connections with bodies, one differing from the other. One state of consciousness imagines that it is an animal, another state of consciousness imagines that it is a human being, and so on and so forth. Various states identify themselves with various forms of experience which are called the bodies. They may be animals or human beings or celestials. Whatever they are, those forms are cast off on account of Consciousness extracting itself from those shackles and it stands by itself as a liberated being. This is the Atman. The real Atman is that which is free from entanglement in any kind of form. This is the Immortal. It is the disidentification with the body that is the cause of immortality. This is what we call Brahman, the Absolute, ultimately the universal nature of this Atman. What we call Truth, about which we have been speaking up to this time, is Brahman Itself. We may call It the Atman or Brahman. It makes no difference. This is the Truth, because That alone is, That which is in all the three periods of time. That knows no distinction of the passage of time. That is perpetually what It is without distinction either in space or in time. That is the Atman, and that is what we call Brahman". Om

Perhaps, but then again Johnson might have just as much a chance. Oh wait, thats a pipe dream.

Here you say 'a room with a flea' this is you saying the room has a flea in it. How did you know it was there ? Oh yeah, look, you imagined it would be. Exactly the same is happening when you are making up the other stuff, you are confirming your own fallacy, it's a form of question begging. LOL so, if I say, in my little dream world there is no flea, then one could not have been experienced, then this is the same question begging. However I wouldn't argue that way. All we can say is that we experience a flea, or we didn't, in any particular place.

Hello everybody, and thanks for all the feedback. Reading through the feedback I felt the necessity to clarify a few questions. So here is the tags F.A.Q. Is the idea of letting an ontology emerge related to the use of ontologies for the AI people? Not really, let me explain better: The term Ontology has been used in AI pursuing a dream. The dream was to use them to make what is called the Semantic Web. The Semantic Web was the personal dream of Tim Berners-Lee. And since Tim has nearly singlehandedly created the world wide web (the internet was already there) this vision had got a LOT of attention, a lot of money, and a lot of development. But it never took off. That is not in full. Why it did not took off is too long to describe right now, but essentially it was a very top down vision, that would enviosion everything being well ordered so that machine could understand them as well as human. It did not fly because reality is not well ordered, and every human being divides reality in a different way. Instead a different vision took hold, what is now called web2.0. That thing for which Time's 2006 man of the year was You. The web2.0 was mostly made by hackers. Some now millionair. The semantic vision, was mostly made by professor. Nearly all still poor. The dialectic between the web2.0 community and the semantic web community would take up many many posts. So I will spare you. But I will post you to one article and one video. The article was some sort of groudbreaking post, that most web2.0 people have read, and mostly agree with. Yes, it has been criticised, but never totally denied. It really explain why ontology does not work as a general principle, in our society, for large topics, for many people. The aricle is here: Ontology is Overrated, by Clay Shirky The video instead is a funny video that shows better than many other the kind of mind opening that happen when you start to let structure emerge from the bottom up. The video is here: As such neither me nor Sean are suggesting to have an external ontology system, that would constrict people where would they write, or what to write. Sean might be more attent about what is written, but that is the ethical problem, and has nothing to do with the technical solution that I am proposing here with the tags. If the whole point is to reach our true nature, isn't all this too complicated? Well, actually the whole idea of the tags is to make something as easy as possible. Yes, it might be quite complex to program it. A bit like the internet is really complex inside. But then you can absolutely use the internet without losing your true nature. And then some of us have that technical mind as part of their nature, and this is why people call us uber geek. . In other words, reality is complicated, martial arts are complicated, internet is complicated. But you can live in reality, and use the internet without handling all that complication. And about being a martial artist, well, speak to Buddy about it. I am just a tao geek. Would the fact of giving to anyone the possibility to tag any post with any string imply that eventually no one will read my posts because someone tagged them as "off topic"? The fact of having tags appear will never force anyone to ignore a certain post. As such if the tag "nonsense" appears, this will not, cannot, take away a post. At least not in the modifications that I have in mind. Could with time someone program a search that stops him to read posts with a specific tag? Yes, of course. But we are here to open up possibilities, if some people chose to censor themselves it is not our role to stop them, right? Can Sean write something that would stop anyone from reading posts appearing with negative tags? Sure, but would Sean do it? He has shown to be quite against censorship (within limits of good manners). There are more effective ways to censor people, just by banning them, so any modification of this type would get very much discussed before being tried out. The tags are not here to solve the ethical problem but the ontological one. Giving us enough space to grow. Can a minority of people use tags to control the whole community? Let's suppose we have 4 type of people: a) people who would not tag, and would not use tags to search people who would tag, and would not use tags to search c) people who would not tag, and would use tags to search d) people who would both tag and use tag in their search Now I claim that there will be very few people that would tag, and not use tags to search. I mean, if you are making the (relative) effort to tag things, why would you not use the tags yourself. So mostly people who tag will also use them. But then when people start to use tags when they search, it is just a matter of time before they start tagging themselves. Things will never be tagged exactly as they wanted them, also to really be able to be sure to find back the things they need to tag. Only relying on other people tags is generally not reliable enough. It is like in delicious. Others tags can be good to discover something, but when you have discovered you definitly want to tag it yourself to make sure that you find it back. And the first time that you do not tag it yourself, and then you spend half an hour to look form something you will know that those extra 5 seconds were well spent. So essentially people will either tag and use tags, or not tag and not use tags. In this sense the possibility that a minority of the community starts to control the whole community through the tagging system is really non existant. Will the experience of the community become worse for the average person who chose not to use tags? No, it will be the same. The only difference will be that a list of tags might appear on the side (that link to some common search), and you will have the possibility to add tags. But I assume the basic window with all the new threads will still be there. Of course since the aim of adding the tags is to let the community expand beyond its current limits, the number of active threads might become much bigger. Why can't we just remain as we are, and let the community find its own balance? It is true that this community will always find its balance. If too many people will be posting the community will look as too complex, and no new people will join. Instead old people will gradually leave, until the community will reach its equilibrium again. We had this dynamic happen at the HT discussion board many times. But right now we are in the unique positon to be able to let the community grow, riding the wave. If this happens TTB might become the number one community on the web dedicated to inter school taoist meditation. This would mean that we get a direct experience on all the new school that will open up. And we get to be among the first to give some direct feedback. Also greater teachers will start postiong here. Already a number of instructors, sifu, teachers, and academics are writing here. But to make the place wide enough for all of them we need to make a space that can expand with the people. If not those teachers will just start to trample on each other foot, and eventually leave.

I have had numerous obe. The first one happened when I was thirteen.During a hockey match I was hit square between the eyes with the puck.The next thing I recalled was looking at this fellow sprawled out on the ice and everyone standing around him. I remember thinking "this poor fellow I wonder whats wrong with him?" Then I heard a voice tell me some very strange things,the last of which was "Look it's you".I then realized that the guy lieing on the ice was me and immediately slammed back into my body. For days afterwards I was in an altered state were everything seemed in slow motion.It wasn't until I had physical fight with one of my classmates that I snapped out of it. Another powerfull obe I had was when I lived at a lighthouse.This was a very isolated wild place (I truly loved that place) Besides interacting with my partener I had very little social contact for months.My days were spent fishing and roaming about in the bush. One night I was having a dream about being chased by someone. In the dream, I thought this has never happened to me and woke up in the dream.I recall my whole body began to vibrate such a wonderful feeling,the next I know I'am standing over the bed looking at myself and my partener.I could feel myself start to panic but stopped it and decided to walk down the hall. I felt like an invigorated happy ghost. I went outside and stood by the cliff edge and starred out over the sea which was dead calm and lit by a wanning moon. Suddenly in the distance I saw light shine, this light noticed me and came directly to me.This was a mistake on my part. The light turned into a malevolent being that straight away attacked me. The sensation when it struck me was like hitting a electric fense. The spirit then said it had come to take something that belong to my partener. I wondered what it could be I was then showen what appear to be a grey substance wrapped around a bundle of wires. I try to stop it but the spirit was far to strong and I knew I had to return to my body quick. With in an instant I slammed back into my body, the force of which lifted me phsically from the bed and woke my partener up. Her back was wet from my sweat and I was panting like a dog. After this obe I became sick,I lost weight and had very little energy. It took me three years to regain myself. My partener now has multiple sclerosis which is a disease wereby the bodys immune system attacks the protective mylin sheath around the nerves. It is essential to know how to protect yourselve if you are serious about obe,believe me we are not alone.

There is no 'thing' in the 'sky'. Whatever seen and felt are just shapes and colours and forms that are utterly insubstantial - dependently originated, empty, dream-like appearances. If we were to observe a red flower that is so vivid, clear and right in front us, the “redness” only appears to “belong” to the flower, it is in actuality not so. Vision of red does not arise in all animal species (dogs cannot perceive colours) nor is the “redness” an inherent attribute of the mind. If given a “quantum eyesight” to look into the atomic structure, there is similarly no attribute “redness” anywhere found, only almost complete space/void with no perceivable shapes and forms. Whatever appearances are dependently arisen, and hence is empty of any inherent existence or fixed attributes, shapes, form, or “redness” -- merely luminous yet empty, mere appearances without inherent/objective existence. The Buddha's rejection of the four extremes of existence, non-existence, both existence and non existence, neither existence nor non existence, is at the center of the whole emptiness teaching. So there is no such thing as 'existents' or something 'non-existent' since 'non-existence' here implies an existence that came into being and then ceases or enter non-being. This has nothing to do with nihilism - it is not a s statement about the non-existence of anything but merely the non-asserting removal of the claims of existents. This has nothing to do with escapism - there is no escaping from anything. Diamond Sutra: How should this Sutra be explained for others? By not grasping at appearances and being in unmoving thusness. Why? All conditioned dharmas Are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble or a shadow, Like dew or like a lightning flash. Contemplate them thus." Heart Sutra: Therefore, O Sariputra, in emptiness there is no form nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness; No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind; No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, objects to touch, or objects of mind; No sight-organ element, and so forth, until we come to: No mind-consciousness element; There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so forth, until we come to: There is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and death. There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, and no path. There is no cognition, no attainment and no non-attainment.

Hahaha, yeah, I agree with you, enlightenment is like a check-point on the way. But for most people it is so far fetched, demands so much disipline and sacrifice, that they wont even be able to dream about it being possible. And if they dream about it, the dream is mostly so distorted compared to the reality of it that it dosent look like enlightenment at all. It look probably more like ego ejaculation. Its like believing that the stars we see on the night sky is about 500m up in the sky and that we actually are pretty close to the stars. But Im up for a race towards enlightenment! What a great idea! Lets go! First to be enlightened gets the others as followers

I am on 4 weeks now. I do start getting sporadic sexual dreams aound 2-3 weeks in as well. Ironically this happened last night. There seems to be a catch though. The women I dream about are total turn offs. I am almost embrarassed to discuss this, but the dream I had last night was about a really ugly obese prostitue (trust me I would not make this stuff up, and if I did it would be Uma Thurman). I could not get into things and then in the dream my 5 yr old son walked into the room and I woke up shortly after. My guess is that my higher self is seing the reality of these illusions. The ugly harlot represents my sexual desires and my son purity and innocence. As for diet, here's my guess from a previous post I made: * I would also add to that list most of the stuff that Marena Lindberg recommends in her book The Orgasmic Diet: Oily Fish, Dark Chocolate etc... although I have a theory that this could speed up jing production which could be beneficial if you could tame the urges.

The 'there is hitting, bleeding, and hammer' is simply a conventional observation. Ultimately, there is no 'thing' that can be observed. Concepts is our imputation on appearances. Appearances are just like dreams, illusory, nothing real. The cause is illusory, the effect is illusory, which is to say that there is no real cause and no real effect. The 'conventionally observed' transformations in a dream does not make the [conventionally imputed] cause and effect of a dream real. This is why the Buddha said "Thus, monks, the Tathagata, when seeing what is to be seen, doesn't construe an [object as] seen. He doesn't construe an unseen. He doesn't construe an [object] to-be-seen. He doesn't construe a seer. p.s. "(One says), 'All these (configurations of events and meanings) come about and disappear according to dependent origination.' But, like a burnt seed, since a nonexistent (result) does not come about from a nonexistent (cause), cause and effect do not exist. "Being obsessed with entities, one's experiencing itself [Wylie: sems, Sanskrit: citta], which discriminates each cause and effect, appears as if it were cause and condition." [32] ~ Primordial Experience Also, Namdrol: The conventionally observed efficacy of karma and its results cannot be denied. But even karma is ultimately illusory. Nāgārjuna states: "Why? This action does not arise from conditions, and does not arise without conditions, therefore, there is also no agent. If there is no agent, how can there be an result which arises from an action? If there is no result, where will a consumer be observed? Just as the Teacher's emanation is emanated through his consummate magical power, if likewise the emanation also makes an emanation, there is again a further emanation; in same the way, though that agent performs an action, it has the form an emanation. For example, it is like another emanation created by an emanation making a [third] emanation. Affliction, actions, bodies, agents, and results are like fairy castles mirages, and dreams.

Dream on: Britain was deforested rapidly once Bronze Age axes became available. Fires were used extensively and often got out of hand, destroying hundreds of acres and the animals that inhabited those woodlands. Scientists have concluded that it was man that hunted the Mammoth to extinction and it was the American Indians that began the destruction of the Bison. Ancient man had midden heaps which would pollute water courses and kill off the life in the waterways for many miles. Man has always polluted, because man must utilise raw nature and convert it into products.

Why, thank you kindly. Nope to the first question. As for the second, not really trying to make comparisons. Just a bit of show and tell, is all. Sure, I've heard all sorts of less-than-stellar things about med school in the US from friends and family. I highly recommend that anybody considering any kind of medical work read The House of God--from what I've seen in western medicine hospitals here in China, I tend to believe that the author is not lying nor even exaggerating. But. Look. How to put it? The PRC is on a whole 'nother level. In the US and much or most of the west you can march in the streets in fury if your university is that bad and not only get away with it, but maybe even make things a little better while you're at it. Here? Here, to unite students to sign a petition complaining about the full-bore 100 dB broadcast of a Cultural Revolution-era exercise routine that the entire library is subjected to EVERY DAY at 10am, well, even that is taboooooooo, 'cause you don't wanna do nothing that has echos of 1989 coming off of it, even alls your doing is pointing out the absurdity of making hearing one's own thoughts downright impossible for ten minutes each day so that a red guard can screech at you to touch your toes. And nobody ever, ever, neverneverneverever stands up and does so, save for the one crazy lady who occasionally mans the front desk, and that's 'cause she was probably busy whipping real-life Dao bums with her belt in one hand a Little Red Book in the other forty years ago. And while you learn to shut up and wait for the tammany to run its course, you still silently wonder if making sure for ten minutes every day, in 2016, you still gotta sit back and let the red guard do her ululating, is an accident or something that's very much on purpose. I dunno. Nobody wants to talk about that sort of thing here. But let me paint for you a picture of a typical day in a Chinese TCM university classroom: "Professor" walks in. Boots up aged computer--these are never replaced and in ill repair (just like the foul toilets) because "the school doesn't have enough money," or so the apparatchiks who all drive Audis and Benzes tell me, "their skin smiling but their flesh not smiling." Aiya, I'm already digressing. Next the prof plugs in the USB card. Sometimes asks class what s/he is supposed to be lecturing on that day. Hopefully gets PowerPoint presentation loaded. PowerPoint presentation is dated 8 years prior. So blatant. It is just a copy-and-paste plagiarism of information that probably reads exactly word-for-word like the textbooks we bought, and if not the textbook, then it's just taken from some page on Baidu. Often (usually?) there are no diagrams. Often (usually) there are dozens and dozens of lines of small-print text filling slide after slide. The presentation has never been changed in all its 8 years, and will continue to be used to who knows when. "Professor" proceeds to drone on under the dim fluorescent bulbs until the bell rings. Anybody who is capable of reading aloud could do this job. If your prof is a ranking cadre, and therefore particularly cynical, then you may have to wait while he plays with his phone, sending messages and maybe even buying and selling stocks, upwards of 25 times in a class (yes, I have counted, many times... the fuck else am I supposed to stave off encephaloatrophy or whatever it is they're trying to give me over here?) Seven to nine out of ten students are either playing videogames on their phones, watching videos, playing with social media, taking dozens of selfies, or asleep. The remainder are passionate study-a-holics who are disgusted almost all of the time, except for the Korean study-a-holics, who betray very little of their inner worlds to anybody who is not Korean--I don't even know if they open up to each other. They say it's because they "understand Confucianism." Chrisamighty, well, my gasface proves I don't. Occasionally a question is asked. Answers range (in increasing churlishness) from (a) a re-reading of some sentence in the PowerPoint presentation to ( I don't know, to © that's not in my field of specialty, to (d, by now in openly sneering churlishness) you should already have learned that 3 years ago, to (e) please don't interrupt, I have to deliver this entire presentation to you before noon, and all of this information is going to be on the test. Phheeewwww. If any point is emphasized by a professor, 95% of the time you hear, "listen up, this is important, it's going to be on the test! The test! THE TESSSTTTT!!!" Oh, yes, the test--the TEST! Any emphasis on the actual clinic is almost unheard of. We one day will treat patients? Actual human bodies, that maybe even have hearts and minds inside of them? Then again, when you actually get to see the clinic, then you will know why the professors don't want to talk about the clinic any more than they have to. And to be fair, in a small minority of cases you hear interesting stories. There are a few diamonds in this rough, it's true. But, well, just as likely, when a prof strays from the PowerPoint, you get a nonsensical digression, which may or may not (no, just may), consist of self-aggrandizing anecdotes, like, "I went to Taiwan to teach and they all told me I'm quite amazing." Well, shucks, the Taiwanese are a famously polite people, now, aren't they? Finally, the bell rings, the prof skedaddles licketysplit, the class snaps out of its smart phone glaze long enough to pack its bags and wave cutely at each other, and the weirdos who give a fuck gather to share their bitterness for the ump-hundredth time before schlepping off in despair, reminding themselves, "well, at least I don't have to go $250,000 into debt to study here." For that is our mantra--now you know our secret. Experiences with the administration and the hospital "internship" are par for the course. Except with the administration to the churlishness is added reflex dishonesty and irresponsibility, and to the clinic, a mind-numbingly drone like attitude ("well, yes, we could tailor treatments to the patient like TCM says you're supposed to, but we're too busy for that. And more to the point, if I make up an individualized protocol on the basis of my diagnosis, and then something bad happens, then the responsibility is mine. However, if with every single cardiac patient I just use the exact same 'standard cardiac protocol' every time I do acupuncture, then even if the patient up and dies right there on the table, I won't get into any trouble, 'cause I was using the standard, and the standard is safe, because it's the standard. Standard, get it? Always go with the standard. I just use the standard and I'm safe--after all, patients killing doctors is a big problem these days, and I don't wanna get fired for doing my own thing, either--we've got rules here." Thank Hua Tuo for getting the doctor teaching us that day to at least be honest, instead of pretending to be doing TCM for the sake of wowing the foreign class, 肏!). Administratively, flabbergasting bullshit that causes you to once again push your expectation bar into uncharted netherrealms happens, at minimum, every week. Every fucking week, sometimes more often. No, really. Most recently? The mail box in the foreign students' dorm disappeared last week. With all the mail in it. Noone, not nobody, not noone in any department whatsoever, will admit knowing who eliminated the mailbox, and all the unclaimed mail that was in it. After much prodding and investigation, the mailbox returned, fetched from oblivion by a nice member of the custodial staff. The mail? Well, gone. All of it. Forever. But don't say nothing, don't lose your little smile, don't go too far with your protests, because you've thrown half a decade or more into this hole, and these vindictive little people, well, they're gonna remember it if you rub their nose in any shit, and they will just maybe fail to release your diploma when you're applying for a license a year down the line, and hell, they might even do that even if you never rocked the boat not one inch in all your years here, because really, most people eating from iron rice bowls don't give a damn about anything but gripping that next rung and slurping that next ass up the line (just a wee House of God reference for ya). So we all smile and nod and make that little polite Chinese "ah ah ah" sound as we ram our fury back into its nebbishy little cage, deep down, to not be the nail that sticks up. Oh, and that mailbox thing? You've gotta be either a fresh off the boat or princess-and-the-pea sensitive to let that get under your skin. That ain't shit, even though I do so wish I had my forwarded copy of Mother Jones to thumb through. Dag. Anyway, not being that nail, well, that's really what this is alllllllllllllll about, all of it, really. Going all the way back how and why TCM became what it is (again, watch Nugent Head's video on the history of modern TCM). The seldom-spoken reality never far from anybody's mind is that this entire sprawling monstrous edifice is a thumping, beating, quivering, metabolizing, metastasizing organic mass of Party power. It's that thing in Akira that Testuo turns into, except Kaneda just doesn't ever win, and it sprawls its guts over 1/5 of the world's population. Oh yes. And it's a Party that's damn fucking sure what it wants the smart, energetic, educated, potentially "empowered" youth of its realm doing in their dangerous years between the rigid rigors of only-childhood and the exhausting rigmarole of parenthood, home ownership, and the career ladder. By which I mean to say that the party-pooping Party wants to be damn sure that the yutes are not sitting around engaging in critical thinking, organization, or, Xi (our noble and glorious Xi Da Da!) forbid, expressing any dissatisfaction with the official China Dream and its enablers. And it just happens to be that those who run this university, are just those very same enablers--you'll only find obedient little cadres here. And so almost everybody--even a grand portion of the foreign students--just shine this shit and call it gold, and smile meekly and politely, and never be that nail, 'cause you know what, the scary thing about China today isn't that it really has to kill or imprison or disappear all that many people any more (save for, amongst the Han, a few rascally reporters and lawyers and Hong Kong publishers, and then a few Tibetans and Xinjiangese whose demise quite possibly comes in the form of a paradox--a quiet machine-gunning). Nah, by and large, the State doesn't have to work hard like it used to back when that lovely red guard work out tape was recorded. It did all that blood and guts work for so long and so well, and to boot has nowadays more or less mastered the internet, that people don't even need to see any bloodshed to know that it's best just to shut the fuck up and get busy carving out one's own little cave in the dungheap, 'cause suggesting that we might have more to aspire to than a lifetime of backbiting in a shitpile is anathema. Anathema that can get you rubbed out with the quickness. And even if it doesn't, well, ain't nobody about to take to the streets with you, so why waste time and breath you might better be using carving out your hole in the dung? So yeah, are any institutions in any lands perfect? Hell nah. Helllllllllll nah. But the PRC's brand of imperfect is something else altogether from what I ever witnessed in the three western countries I've lived in (the US, one in Scandinavia, and one in Oceania)--except for the "grey mass" that is the criminal justice system in the US, which I'm thankful to have only encountered as a white male US citizen, just as I am happy to have encountered this Red Mass as an outsider who can leave at any moment. Anyway, to tie this deluge back into what we've been attempting to talk about in this thread, well, let's just say that it's best not to have any illusions about what one is buying when one pays one's tuition fees at at a Chinese university of traditional Chinese medicine. And for those of you who might be looking for an acupuncturist, nor do you want to be under illusions about what you're paying for when you fork over your hard-earned and accept treatment from 9 out of 10 of the graduates of these institutions, a solid chunk of whom have firm and definite plans to emigrate to western countries. And I don't blame 'em--I just wouldn't let those fuckers stick a needle in me, 'cause a sizable portion of em haven't needled anybody more than 10 or 20 times in their entire five-year university careers, and that's real talk, word is bond!(!) Chinese medicine, with PRC characteristics. Yes indeed, yes indeed. Hot damn, writing that was cathartic. I need to go outside and do some Cultural Revolution gymnastics while I'm still feeling all spry and youthful, 步行者万岁，万万岁！！！！！

There seems to be some sort of a goal of the modern human world but no one can remember what it was. Back long ago, a peasant would do anything his lord would say and would work a whole year collecting food and getting ready for winter when he wont have anything to do but eat what was collected in spring. A knight, or someone more high up, would work for his lord going to war and personally for a few months, then do nothing and command peasants for everything else. Most high up lord would do nothing but command knights and peasants and get all the food and such. Now normal, not anymore a peasant, people work for their company for a whole year with some vacation time, while their lord CEO boss would do nothing. Everything is kinda similar and kinda different, but it doesn't matter, everyone just wants to survive and get more money and food. Everyone is just doing the same thing over and over again, and getting better at it. Everything is improving and growing, filling up the empty space with whatever. Native Americans had cities somewhere in the desert that they abandoned to live with nature. They kinda had it all figured out at that point. Then these new guys came with their own ideas and killed everybody. They kept growing all over the world after that. They had wealth and the rest of the world wanted some of that wealth so they joined the dream. Without these guys we could never have the world we have now. Maybe without this growing idea we all could have lived in nature. There seems to be something more important then nature, that's why we seem to sacrifice it. It can't be destroyed and so we use it as a stepping stone to the goal up ahead. We figured out how to mine mountains to find valuable to us minerals inside them. We build more and more and don't remember why anymore. This is exactly the story of the Tower of Babel. Everyone was building this great tower up to heaven where God is then languages were all mixed up, and it's obvious why. Imagine for centuries one people being stone masons who cut rock to be a part of this big tower and other people on the ground somewhere farmers. If a mason came down to ask for some food, farmers wont understand him because he will be talking about edible rocks or something. It's like a programmer trying to teach his grandma about computers. In the college he learned so much that he could understand the language of computer savvy people which is not understandable to an art student from the same college. Everyone was so absorbed in their own thing that is so important that they forgot about everyone else and couldn't communicate anymore and so they couldn't finish the tower. Internet is the same story, so many people from the whole world connect but don't understand each other and so they fight easily. The difference is from the Tower of Babel and and the Internet, and the whole world, is that even thought we don't understand each other and fight on-line, our towers still stand and still build higher. We could have stood on our own continents, with maybe some crazy vikings going to the moon or something, but we kept going. We were drawn together, to live to share to fight. War seems to be moving us somewhere with something we don't have yet, but will if we fight for it. We already have the world so no need to fight over it, information can solve what is left to solve. In these advance societies that we have, people fight over their own wealth. We are using that same wealth to build better technology. I have no idea what is inside this computer but it works and it's awesome! It has so many little pieces and elements from all over the world that allows it to work. It's like a big collection of wealth from all over our world. Another collection of wealth called space ships can move us to other worlds. They are not perfect yet but when they are, we will go to other worlds and collect more wealth from them. We will meet other alien to us kinds of people who will like our dream and will come with us to the other worlds. Maybe we will even meet other aliens that think the same way as us. It's a big tower we're building and sky is not a ceiling, it wont just end. Maybe we will forget again and stop for a while, but the time is not important since this is something so big that it transcends time and a century is less then a second there. One day we will take everything with our culture, ideas, music, and by just being there. Let's transcend space, we own everything where we are not. Time is not real anyway, why wait? It seems like we want more because we don't have it so there, I give it to you. With this knowledge you know that you own everything so don't feel guilty and live freely. Everything is possible so you can just forget what I wrote here. Once you've tasted what it's like to be big and own everything and be everywhere, become small again and feel what it's like to climb to the top of the tower.

I have been reluctant to post this due to all the shit flying about in regards to KunLun and didn't want to add fuel to the fire but here we go. After doing Kunlun for a couple of weeks I had a very vivid dream.I won't bore everyone with the details but it involved a run down house a very strong female prescence and Max saying to mean "You have to change your name." In the dream this seriously rubbed me up the wrong way.End of dream. Since then I have attempted to practise Kunlun but it no longer has the same impact infact if anything it seems to drain me of energy,so I had to let it go. Perhaps another day I will be willing to change my name

Won't do detailed reply from phone. What dependently originates is empty of any core, substance, inherent reality whatsoever. Hence, empty and illusory. Spontaneous does not mean causeless, it means no independent agent/controller. My life is like a lucid dream - dream doesn't cease but I do not conceive anything as real. Actions are non conceptual and spontaneous. Addiction is habitual craving. Craving requires object of craving, even if it is a sense of security. If there is no independent core, it means existence cannot be established. Existence requires an entity as a base. If an entity cannot be established, the four extremes of existence, non existence, both and neither don't apply. I only said you do not need to be enlightened to have powers. You derailed the discussion.

Which means they were not dead, "clinically dead" does not mean anything. Have you ever heard of a "vegetative state"? Do you know what vegetative nervous system is? Do you know where the "vegetative" word comes from? From "vegetable". Are your vegetables in your fridge dead or alive? What do you think, do they dream? Do they think? They think they are dead or alive?

When one says "just" a dream, I think its their view that a certain validity is, or would not be ,present. I think he did not apply this judgement. The passage, to me , shows us he equates the validity of either perspective relative to the other. We presumably know there is both the experience of the woken man ,and of the sleeping man.,, if we dispense with judgement about validity , there's no uncertainty in the view one would have, and it would be a moot point,, if the life we are experiencing is that of the woken or sleeping.