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ad hominem is quite simple,....attacking an opponents character, rather than answering or discussing their argument. ad hominem occurs very frequently on TTB. My personal view is that those who use ad hominem are closed-minded, hollow-hearted, bully-types who are so deeply indoctrinated by fear, that they lash out against everything that shines light on that fear. Trent Reznor has a song that is sort of a test as to whether you're a person who uses ad hominem: right where it belongs See the animal in his cage that you built Are you sure what side you're on? Better not look him too closely in the eye Are you sure what side of the glass you are on? See the safety of the life you have built Everything where it belongs Feel the hollowness inside of your heart And it's all right where it belongs What if everything around you Isn't quite as it seems What if all the world you think know Is an elaborate dream? And if you look at your reflection Is that all you want it to be? What if you could look right through the cracks would you find yourself - find yourself afraid to see? What if all the world's inside of your head Just creations of your own? Your devils and your gods all the living and the dead And you're really all alone? You can live in this illusion You can choose to believe You keep looking but you can't find the woods While you're hiding in the trees What if everything around you Isn't quite as it seems What if all the world you used to know Is an elaborate dream? And if you look at your reflection Is that all you want to be? What if you could look right through the cracks Would you find yourself - find yourself afraid to see?

This is from Teacher Dao Zhen. Much wisdom here, I probably quote this twice a year. Some things he recommends are simple, but simple is..relative By Dao Zhen On Sexuality and retention I think for serious students, this is a big hurdle to overcome. It is best to not get into the habit of gaining depression when an emission happens in sleep. It is natural, and go slow and do not force anything, nor become obsessed with "saving" jing. Keep practice, follow solid methods and guidelines. With time, all will become secure quite naturally. I have found the following to be a help for me in my practice. Yet this is by no means advise from an expert, as I have very little experience. In the tradition I am learning, it is generally accepted that a serious student is celibate. - Points to help prevent emission during sleep - 1. Change conditioned habits and patterns in regards to viewing and interacting with women - on the street, and in the manner we speak and deal with them in public situations - If we flirt, and have playful interaction with women, it may stir things up quite a bit, and cause trouble during sleep. Honor and respect women as your sisters in Tao, yet do not view them as sexual objects, nor project sexual fantasy on women. 1-a. Do not view pornography video, magazine, or sexual movies. 2. Diet. Do not over eat, and do not go to bed while full. I have found it best to eat the last meal of the day around 5pm or so. Also in the tradition I am learning, it is thought best to follow a simple vegetarian diet, with no spice, garlic, onion, scallion, chives, and cilantro. 3. Do not have very heavy blankets on the body that will create too much heat when sleeping. 4. Do not sleep on the stomach. Sleep on the back with one leg crossed over the other – hands resting below the navel, or on the right side with one leg tucked behind the bottom leg at the knee level – right palm cupping the ear – left palm below navel area. 5. The most important point I have found that helps is to sit for 1 - 2.5 hours or so in proper seated meditation practice before sleep. This is perhaps the most important point, and will yield the most results. In this tradition, we have a method to transfer Jing to Qi that is taught. It is termed - "Lighting a Fire", or "Burning a Soft Fire". It is very effective, and yields the effect of the Jing being transformed to Qi, and really is like something burns away and evaporates. There is great warmth generated in the Lower Dantian area that moves, and steams upward during the process in a manner that is very pleasurable and uplifting. One is left with a feeling of great expansion, and the sign that the Jing has been completely transformed, and it is safe to sleep is one has a feeling like a vast, expansive, clear blue sky. The sign that one has made some gain in transformation of Jing over a period of time, is generally one will stop to have dream activity. There is a great stillness in the sleep state, and no real strong dream activity. This is also related to the pattern of the Metal conquering Wood; Or the Po suppressing the Hun during the night. When the Hun is suppressed by the Po, it wanders away from the sphere of the liver, and the resulting experience is dreams. As Jing is transformed into Qi, and the Hun is strengthened, there is less and less dream activity during the sleep state. One sign I have also come to notice is that if I was lazy and just lie down for sleep without practice, there will be a feeling of something stirring in the lower Dantian, like a movement, or maybe even a worm or something is really moving and stirring. This is a sign that one will experience an emission during sleep, and it is important to have a strong will power, and sit up and cross the legs and sit to Burn the Soft Fire. It is also a good idea to get into the habit of getting up from sleep at any time in the night when you awake and there is a stirring in the sexual organ, or a strong erection. Just sit up, cross the legs, and lightly gaze over the Lower Dantian area and sit in stillness. In this system, they also teach a standing method of body movement, contraction and breathe retention in the first stages to strengthen the lower gate, to help prevent the emission during sleep. This stage does not last forever. It is as if the body and being is at first in a habit to let the liquid flow out, and loose the essence. Yet with slow and steady practice, the body and being learns another way. It becomes the natural state to preserve the essence, and no loss is experienced. It is an investment of time. So it takes a strong and steady will power. Constant and steady daily practice over a period of time. Persevere.

very interesting stories, thank you everyone for sharing... when i was a child in america, i imagined monks in saffron and yellow robes, looking tibetan, before i knew the difference between different kinds of monks. The images i would conjure of monks while sitting in my room are still very clear in my memory. when i was 14 i wondered what monks did when they meditated, so i sat down and closed my eyes with my legs crossed. I remember sitting there until i was unable to imagine the room or recreate the scene in my minds eye. There i was floating free in space with no reference points. I was hooked! when i was 16 i learned to lucid dream, and read the DDJ for the first time, and a mess of other books like carlos castendeda series and basic buddhism books when i was 18 i was meditating 2 or 3 hours a day, getting up sitting a little going to work coming home sitting a lot eating showering going to bed. It was very unstructured and uninformed, but i was unwinding myself and making progress. I had a spiritual sickness that year and woke from it a fundamentally different person. I consider castendeda to be fraudulent but the experience i had bears remarkable similarity to don juan's description of one who loses their human form to remain just a human mold. Who can say... when i was 19, after studying taiji and kungfu under a daoist for a few years i went travelling, a self styled wandering daoist, living out of a backpack with a bedroll. I saw much of the united states and had a merry time until i was hit by a car at 20. That experience was accompanied by a near death experience which was directly out of the Bardo Thodol (the so called "tibetan book of the dead"... it actually translates as "the inbetween state which liberates upon contact") which i hadn't read yet. when i was 21, having been changed by the NDE, i was having an incredibly hard time healing from a bilateral tibia fibula fracture, and trying to figure out why i could not go back to being the "worldly" (lol) person i was before my NDE. I read the bardo thodol and realized that there was a map for the territory i had stumbled into, and beyond. when i was 22 i took refuge in buddhism under Ontul Rinpoche, a Drikung Kagyu and Yangzab (drikung dzogchen) Tibetan Buddhist lineage holder, and started sitting with a local Drikung Kagyu sangha every chance i got. I started taking my dharma seriously and while the years between then and 30 were characterized by vacillation between heavy involvement in sangha and my own solo exploration sans group, i continued to make progress when i was 30 i doubled down again, met my ninja teacher, and, inspired to become "invisible", started cutting out the inessential things and people that were holding back my spiritual progress. when i was 34 i joined TTB and started posting (i don't usually post much if at all on forums) and learned, among other things, that the NDE had wakened my kundalini... so i started working with that energy with the help of the kuji-in my ninja teacher had showed me, and with shaking practice now at 36 i feel i have a firm foundation in meditation and and building an ever-firmer foundation in philosophy (which i neglected to study for a long time, being turned off by academic approaches to spiritual practice, and preferring to just sit). hope that wasn't too long i left a lot out

Hello everyone! How do you personally interpret Wu Wei - non-action? Do you see it as being passive, phlegmatic, "going with the flow"? Do you see it as being so skilled in something, that it becomes natural for you to do it, without effort? I believe Wu Wei can be accomplished by great practice and learning in a field. When you have a goal or a dream and you are set on it, you must act based on what's most natural to you and what seems to be the easiest, non-agressive and natural way. I don't think Wu Wei denotes passivity or having no plans or goals, but just that you accomplish those things in the most efficient and elegant way. It's simmilar to Occams razor - we examine and accect the simplest, most elegant theory. Wu Wei is accepting the most elegant and simple, most natural action to accomplish something. When one has attained Wu Wei, one does the right thing without much thinking. It is natural to him. It is a higher state of consciousness. It can be called enlightment. Am I on the right track? What do you think? Thanks in advance! --- P.S. If there was a simmilar topic or if this is the wrong subforum, I apologize!

Thanks for the responses. Some of you mentioned the MCO. I forgot to mention that I do the back also, but instead of up I do down. So I start from the top of the head and go down the back (instead of up), ending in the perineum. This is in addition to starting from the top of the head and going down from the front. I never ever send anything upward to the head. But regardless it doesn't really work very well, and when I start from the top there is always more and more heat I have to send down again. I find that the most complete way to "ground" is to do nothing for a few days. No heavy exertion, either mentally or physically. Basically sit on my ass and watch football on the telly. But it takes forever. I'm looking for a fast switch that I can just turn on and off. It turns on with frightening ease. I remember over the weekend when somebody cut me off in traffic. I had an instant surge of road rage. And it took a fraction of a second for heat to literally shoot into my head. A fraction of a second!!! But sending it back down, well, exercising, walking, eating meat, etc, those things take some time to do, and its never complete. I think that walking barefoot works because it forces attention to the soles of the feet, sending heat there. I don't do that anymore. Instead, I just heat up my feet directly, I''m pretty sure it does the same thing. Jumping also seems to be a quick fix (I think it acts on the same principle), but again it's not complete. So as of right now the only thing that I have found to be 100% effective is a few days of inaction, which is simply too slow for my liking. I hope this whole thing won't take too long, but I already have some interesting results. I had a very strange "dream within a dream" last night... perhaps it had something to do with me sending all that heat to my neck???

The Communist dream... after all these years seems to have finally come to full fruition // To completely destroy the beacon of light, innovation, freedom that was the USA many, many years ago... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXg2WsNCrW4 I wish all true patriots the best of luck and deliverance from this wickedness...

I was wondering: Do blind people perceive psychedelic trips just like anybody else? Do people who were born blind, too? Do the latter have visual dreams? Has the amount of visual experience before someone becomes blind an influence on how much they dream visually? I'm curious about all those connections.

I walked through a store in my dream last night and picked up a bottle of apfelwein, and your name was on the label. but I got interrupted and had to leave, so I didnt wind up getting to taste it

Check this out too http://www.amazon.com/Internal-Family-Systems-Therapy-Guilford/dp/1572302720/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1360083810&sr=1-1&keywords=internal+family+systems+therapy+by+richard+schwartz Very close to what Seth is referring to. I tried the Seth version last night. After that I had a dream in which (literally) people were arriving in a boat and by car to come see me. I 'knew' it was because I was doing this stuff. So I did another session this morning. But I found I felt exhausted and had to sleep after it. So I wouldn't pick a day on which you don't have time to rest after.

Even though you described it as rhetorical, I thought I would respond... There are basically two types (levels) of energy based transmissions. They are mind-mind and light-light. An example of mind-mind would be an astral visit or sometimes a vivid dream. A light transmission from a master/guru is beyond the ability of the mind to percieve, and is based in the "heart". Usually, the understanding creeps into the conscious mind over a period of time. At the "physical" level! a transmission is usually from speaking or found in writing. But, a master/guru "transmits" on all levels, no matter what the medium. So for those with the "capacity", they can receive a light transmission from reading a book (or holding an object). Best wishes, Jeff p.s. The paper (human consciousness) is the same for all traditions. The information and level/strength of transmission is not. Also, I have found that the key in any transmission is the "openness" to receive it.

hmmmm I will update some informations gathered these days... first of all, I talked again and again to my aunt, and she is quite certain that the gasping sound emited by myself was actually while EXHALING the air, and not trying to desperately inhale.. exatly, she said that I was laying down with my belly downwards, in a position that remined my of a semi-bhujangasana pose, and whle raising my head I was emiting those creepy sounds. Another thing that I noticed, acutally now I am quite sure that this physiological effect IS indeed a result of the pranayama and meditation practices. I am quite sure of this because of my experience of last night, in which I had a very strong and vivid dream, very archetypal indeed, and woke up with a sudden gasp of air (as if the dream had occured in the time while by breathing had been suspended). Interestsing enough it was mid night when I woke up of the dream, midnight being the best time inwhich the unconcious is active. When I woke up after the "dream" I felt very detachd from te external world, all my prolems seemed trivial (which, I believe, means that at that time my libido was introversed, which made be feel detacehd from the external world). Now I am again atached to it, which means I guess that my "kundalini raised, and fell", that is, that my "libido" became introverted (in an esoteric sense) and then fell again to the external world. Anyways, I will continue with my practice, and hope everything goes alright, and avoid doing too much exercise not to tire my much, and, if I have night emissions, I will abdicate from the practice at least for that day and eat alot of nourishing food, fruits and vitamins, to recover the lost energy. I really feel that I am close to death in those experiences, and am afraid that I can "leave my body and not come back" if it is too much weak. But I think that Death itself is a major factor or a major "ingredient" in all yoguic and inner taois practices (isn't immortality the conquer of death?), s that means that all the alchemists deal with Death or "the death factor" quite close, and it is, in deed, possible that the "Great Experiment" or the process of awakening spiritually resulis in permament death if the Adept is not cautious enough. I say that based on information that adepts of Hatha Yoga should not emit there semen "because they may die". It makes alot of sense to me now... Again.,... when my breath stays very weak, I feel as if I am dying, I think that if the body is not strong enough, the person undergoing this processs can really die... Kind of reminds my of the folks that die sleeping "like a bird". my weak breathing patterns had ceased during the days in which I stopped my practice (about 4 days in duration). I will did further still into this and will reply soon..

Something tells me we're missing a few details leading up to the dream... Was there a natural connection from birth? Maybe you have related this on TTB somewhere(s) else. --- I would only say that I did not come to Taoism but an understanding of Tao from birth. But no immortals have visited me yet. In a nutshell: Literature and poetry was always my love. Here are those writings which have most affected me: Those in bold the most. - Greek: Sappho, Callimachus, Homer, Euripides, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Sophocles - Romans: Virgil, Horace, Catullus, Ovid, Juvenal, Martialis - English: Blake, Milton, Chaucer, Pope, Shakespeare - Metaphysical poets: Donne, Marvell, Cowley, Crashaw, Herbert - Italian poets: Ariosto, Boccaccio, Dante, Petrarca - Existentialist: Camus, Husserl, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Sarte, - Chinese poets: Bai Juyi, Du Fu, Li Bai, Li Qingzhao, Li Shang-Yin, Meng Haoren, Qu Yuan, Su Dongpo, Tao Qian, Wang Wei - Zen- Bodhidharma, Huike, Sengcan, Daoxin, Hongren, Farong, Huineng, Shenxiu, Mazu Daoyin, Huangbo, Dogen. I didn't relate how I came to an understanding of Tao... Life; reading; experience. I left out any daoist writings... by the time I read the DDJ, right after my Zen period, it was all too obvious. It was a great 'duh'. I felt nothing was added except organized understanding. But it was like coming home. I would need to list the ancient chinese text separately as to its influence if that detail was wanted.

Laozi came to me in a dream-vision and said, in Old Slavonic, "Some things yield to flowery speech and there's no harm in that, but other things, be silent about, for the supreme power gave us comprehension not toward many words but toward many silent omissions." I didn't know who he was and mistook him for the Protopope Avvacum, a 17th century Russian church reformer. What he said in Old Slavonic I later discovered to have been the opening of TTC (he had to resort to an obsolete language which I happen to understand so as to render the exact meaning of the obsolete Chinese usage, because the stylistic peculiarities of the original do not correspond precisely to those of modern Chinese, let alone any other modern language.) Now, whenever I invoke an immortal or a deity, the first thing they sometimes tell me is, "wait... aren't you that silly cow who thought Laozi was a Russian troublemaker, a guy with a horrible temper who denounced everybody and everything, from his church superiors to Siberian shamans?.. What a blunder!.." -- and then they usually laugh their heads off. It's not easy to get an immortal whose memory is infinite to forget a faux pas...

Aside from Mike's suggestion (a good one). I can only tell you what I do and what works for me is to take the time to wake up. Just like there's a transition from waking to sleeping as you fall asleep (hypnogogia) there's another one from sleeping to being fully awake. Some people with disturbed sleep also have difficulties with the transitions (so if you have apnoea, that would disturb things quite some) and IME sometimes a 'bad' dream is all it takes to make me wake up anxious with no real awareness of the content of the dream but awareness of the state of my nervous system. So basically I've learned (still learning!) to wait it out. Usual caveats of awareness etc. I know it's tempting to kick myself into 'get over it' mode and force a shift but I'm trying this way. I don't know which is 'best'.

Good suggestions. I would recommend not focusing so much on what you do when you get up, but rather what you do and don't do before sleeping. I have found that adding a second meditation session at night before I go to bed helps my sleep, my dream lucidity, and how I feel upon waking up. Even if you can just rest the mind while in a decent meditation posture for a mere 10 minutes I bet it will help. If you can do 30-40 minutes, then all the better but start small and slowly get into it. I would avoid tv, passionate discussions, and news a few hours before sleeping and be mindful of what you expose yourself to on the internet at night. In the morning try some of the "hold a posture for many minutes and breath yoga" such as iyengar, not the modern crank up the heart rate style yoga, then have your meditation session at night right before you go to sleep.

Chinese Daoism is part of the Dao that can be told by the Chinese. Western Daoism is part of the Dao that can be told by westerners. The reason why you are unclear about America being the land of the free is because it is the American Dream. American citizenship gives you the opportunity to realize that dream. To make it happen, you need the Three Treasures of the American Taoist: self-reliance, love of abundance, and dare to be first in the world. Since you love him, here is the King and his dream:

Has anyone have experiences with mirror gazing? I recently experiment with it. The wikipedia says it's dangerous without guide of a guru. I think the best guru is within. So I tried it anyway. I just stand to look at my own reflexion in the mirror in low light. After a while, my reflexion face become blur. If I continue staring, I hear a buzz sound intensified in my ear. I feel that I should do something. But I don't know what to do. I just continue looking. Then my reflexion disappear from the mirror. After a few seconds, my image come back into the view again. I'd feel totally aware of my own body, alert and calm. It's different than my normal dream like meditation state. I'd love to know more about this. Thanks.

When I say that the world is a dream, you should not mistake it and confuse by thinking that everything in the world is a dream. If you analyse your wife and child, their souls and gross bodies are real. But their subtle bodies which are made up of feelings (gunas) are unreal. The vessel (gross body) and the water (causal body) are real. But the waves in the water (subtle body) are unreal, which constitutes the whole drama – dream. All the actors and the materials used in the picture shooting are real. Only the story, dialogues and the feelings expressed like attraction and hatredness are unreal. The Advaita scholars misunderstand here and say that the entire world is unreal.

but sometimes we wake within a fantastic dream to fly among birds

Hi K, I think you may somewhat misunderstand Buddhism (confusing it with Vedanta). Buddhism does not believe in "extinction", but instead the realization of "no-self" which is often confused. The "extinction" point is one of the big distinctions of Buddhism and a Buddha. The concept of "individuality" does not cease and the sutras are very specific about the risk of that happening. Below from the Lankavatara Sutra... “When it is said that all things are egoless, it means that all things are devoid of self-hood. Each thing may have its own individuality-the being of a horse is not of cow nature-it is such as it is of its own nature and is thus discriminated by the ignorant, but, nevertheless, its own nature is of the nature of a dream or vision. That is why the ignorant and the simpleminded, who are in the habit of discriminating appearances, fail to understand the significance of egolessness. It is not until discrimination is gotten rid of that the fact that all things are empty, un-born and without self-nature can be appreciated.”

hmmm just sharing some thoughts here. From my perspective maybe you can relate etc. I dont know what is happening to me, Im finding sleep very difficult, and doing spontaneous movements im just pulling sick qi out of my heart wildly, the last few days feel like my ego has died and keep thinking about living a long life etc which is in some ways kind of purifying but at the same time kind of depressing. When you do a lot of practices or whatever and all the shit comes out of your heart, I think thats where it comes from. It probably needs to be transmuted to light otherwises all the opened up can of crap is just floating around your body and depression..I think edit: I guess long life thing is a dream an illusion out of touch with reality

That is what the Heart Sutra instructs on,...although having an excellent commentary, like the Heart Attack Sutra, is even more helpful. What cannot realize the void, is that which arises from the skandhas,...the 5 aggregates. The Heart Sutra is explicit on this. Thus you must access another way of seeing. I'm not a teacher, but will be glad to dialogue on the subject as you uncover the process. Everyone puts their boat in the water so-to-say at a different point. For me, I realized early on that I will never understand Who I am, without the awareness of When I am. Doing so alters your complete point of view,...it acts as an absolute bodhicitta lojong or means to truth realization. Some absolute bodhicitta lojongs would be: *Treat everything you perceive as a dream. *Find the consciousness you had before you were born. *You will never understand Who you are, until you realize When you are. *There is no Present in time. *Between meditations, treat everything as an illusion.

Love Only Waits on Welcome. If you wish for love, don’t focus on love,…uncover all the barriers you built against welcome. In Buddhism, welcome is seen as the dharma or highest quality of a person. Real love does not avoid,...perfect love is not coddling,...authentic love shines it light on all the barriers (beliefs) that people have built againt it. True love is honest,...honesty does not tolerate dishonesty. All beliefs are dishonest. All beliefs are barriers to love. 　 A Lojong proverb says, "find the consciousness you had before you were born." To realize that, it is suggested to first recognize that everything we perceive is a dream. Through treating everything between meditations as a dream, all anxiety dissolves, because what's there to worry about,...as the Lojong says, "there's nothing real about our confusion." Thus, through the release of worry comes ease, and through ease the depth of a woman (Aphrodite) no longer frightens us. A frightened man fears Aphrodite. Men, as author Tim Ward says, "wants the foam, the aphros of Aphrodite, but not her depth." Men do not want the wisdom of Aphrodite to get inside them. "They want to watch her on TV, see her on film, or better yet as a porn star, so there's not even a face to remember, just body parts." I feel most people are frightened of love. Welcoming love can make everything one thought meaningful to be meaningless,...a realization that all hopes and fears are irrelevant.

To me, that is the most important thing,...to simply recognize that our perceived living situation is relative. Such a mindset allows for the uncovering of bodhicitta,...to honestly observe everything perceived as a dream. IMO, only through impeccable honesty can one realize the Tao,...which is synonymous with the Tathagata. Lao Tzu said, "the Tao doesn't come and go." Buddha said, "the Tathagata does not come and go."

True, Good fun... hmm I really like that movie too... I believe that people create their own heaven / hell... that these things... predate any religious institutions and that seekers have stumbled upon these realms... and simply did their best to explain From memory (it has been some time) the wife... created her own "hell" not because of any religious beliefs... but her own attachment / emotional trauma (that became cyclic / downward spiral) and maybe her disbelief... landed her in such a place. I don't remember any strong religious overtones... very little if any. The cure to her hell was to forgive herself / and to believe in something greater than herself. hmm... I have read accounts of people crossing over.... Buddhists see Buddha, Christians see Christ and so on... These beliefs / expectations all shape... As I said before... you make/ create / realize your own being/ dreamscape I have wondered if... .(At the upper level of this density, there are no limits to our desires) an Atheist... desiring no "afterlife" etc... does dream of oblivion... until such time their consciousness stirs again... I think Robin Williams was a great selection for that film... + his other films... The playfulness.... suspending disbelief etc In terms of dimensions... I believe they are all within... take this orange slice for example... So the skin of the orange would be the 1,2 dim the fleshy white part would be the 3rd dim and so on... until the center / the zero point. ? edit: this is very basic / sketch more or less... of what feel at present... working model.