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DarinHamel It is the desire for power that will hold you back. What have you found in your daoist studies about attachment? This is an honest question because I only read translations, and no that many of them either. What I have read suggests being in a desireless state, not prefering one thing over another, being in balance and harmony with what is (the dao) is "the way". I am not without money or power by the way, so I not fit your stereotype. Without attachment, things go pretty well it seems to me. I percieve a need. I use energy or money to fulfill it. Great. No biggie. No attachment. If I don't have enough, then I could dream up a way, a plan, to achieve it. Great. No problem. If it is beyond anything I can dream up, then it is accepted as it is, possibly studied with other plans forthcoming..... This is the natural way, yes?

It is not about loosing them or holding on to them, running away from them or resisting them. It is all about being aware of them. You only know what thoughts you are thinking when you are aware of those thoughts. You can only change what you think when you have come off autopilot and become aware of what you think. It is in awareness that thoughts loose their power over you. You see them for what they are. You realize the truth for yourself. Nobody can give you this, you must take it. I am paraphrasing some of the teachings I have been reading. These are not my words. They feel right, they resonate with me. I think they pointed me on the right direction. So I share them with you. I am willing to release and let go of my thoughts about the future and the past. In fact I am in the process of this now, as I continue to practice awareness of them. I can only admit, allow and accept the thoughts I am thinking when I have become aware of them. Only from that distance away from them, no longer immersed in them, can I allow them to work themselves out as I let them go. Of course if a thought has become a habitual though pattern, and from there become a belief, I must seperate it from my identity, my sense of self, my "I." This is not easy, it is hard to "give up" a part of my identity. But as long as it is a part of my identity my ego will drive me to protect it at all costs, and that will cement me in this time rut, this vivid dream of the tar pit. If I wish to be free of that I have to rip away all these thoughts that have become a part of my sense of self.

If you see thoughts as a dream/not real, are you prepared to give them up for good?

. I couldn't resist adding another story by Michael Moore. I can’t say that I've ever read anything before quite like the anecdotes of his life written up in his fascinating autobiography, "Here Comes Trouble". Even though I grew up in an age of widespread political awareness and protest, I'm ashamed to admit that I never actually stirred my stumps enough to get involved in any of them myself. Reading his accounts of the way he decided to “act” when he felt outraged by some of the social injustices he encountered, really drove home to me how much our society needs gadflies like him in order to have any hope at all of remaining sane and healthy. The story he tells below I found as an almost perfect example of just how much good can develop from one person having the courage to stand up and publicly say,….”You do NOT have any right whatsoever, to treat other people in this way !” I’ll let him tell his tale, in his own unsurpassable way : * * * Boys’ State I had no idea why the principal was sending me to Boys State. I had broken no rules and was not a disciplinary problem of any sort. Although I was a high school junior, it was only my second year in a public high school after nine years of Catholic education, and not having nuns or priests to direct me still took some getting used to. But I thought I had adjusted quite well to Davison High School. On the very first day of my sophomore year, Russell Boone, a big, good ol' boy who would become one of my best friends, took his fist and knocked the books out of my hands while I was walking down the hall between fourth- and fifth-hour classes. "That's not how you hold 'em," he shouted at me. "You're holdin' 'em like a girl." I picked up the three or four books and looked around to see if anyone had stopped to laugh at the boy who carried his books like a girl. The coast seemed clear. "How'm I supposed to carry 'em ?" I asked. Boone took the books from me and held them in the cup of his hand with his arm fully extended toward the floor, letting the books hang by his side. "Like this," he said while walking a manly walk down the hallway. "How was I holding 'em ?" I asked. "Like this," he barked as he mocked me, holding my books up to the centre of his chest like he was caressing breasts. "That's how girls do it ?" I asked, mortified that for the first half of my first day in public school, everyone had seen me walking around like a pansy. "Yes. Don't do it again. You'll never survive here." Check. So, half a day impersonating a girl. What else had I done to deserve Boys State ? Well, there was that time a few months later on the band bus. Boone had fallen asleep with his socks and shoes off. Honestly I can't say he had socks. But there he was, barefoot, his leg propped up on the armrest of the seat in front of him. Larry Kopasz had his cigarettes with him and it was decided that in order to solve the riddle "How long does a cigarette take to burn all the way down if being smoked by a foot ?" he lit one and placed it between Boone's toes to find out. (Answer: seven and a half minutes.) Boone let out quite a yell when the hot cinder of the Lucky Strike reached his toes, and he didn't miss a beat from dreamland to wrestling Kopasz to the floor of the bus, which caught the attention of the driver. (In those days, as most adults and bus drivers smoked all the time, student smoking often went undetected because their smoke simply went into the same smoky air we were all breathing.) Somehow I got implicated in this brawl, as Boone held us all collectively responsible. (On that same overnight band trip, we snuck into Boone's room to run another science experiment: "Does placing one's hand while asleep in a warm bowl of water make one piss himself?" Answer: yes. And this time we took a Polaroid so we'd have proof to hold against him should Boone, the bedwetting tuba player, turn us in.) But that was it. Seriously. I got good grades, was on the debate team, never skipped school and other than a skit I wrote for Comedy Week about the principal living a secret life as Pickles the Clown, I had not a smirch on my record. As it turned out, Boys State was not a summer reformatory school for hoodlums and malcontents. It was a special honour to be selected to attend. Each June, after school ended, every high school in the state sent two to four boys to the state capital to "play government" for a week. You were chosen if you had shown leadership and good citizenship. I had shown the ability to come up with some very funny pranks to play on Boone. Michigan's Boys State was held three miles from the Capitol Building on the campus of Michigan State University (the girls held a similar event called Girls State on the other side of the campus). Two thousand boys were assembled to elect our own pretend governor of Michigan, a fake state legislature, and a made-up state supreme court. The idea was for us boys to break down into parties and run for various offices in order to learn the beauties of campaigning and governing. If you were already one of those kids who ran for class office and loved being on student council, this place was your crack house. But after campaigning for "Nixon-the-peace-candidate" as a freshman, I had developed an early allergy to politicians, and the last thing I wanted was to be one. I arrived at the Michigan State dormitories, was assigned my room and, after one "governmental meeting," where a boy named Ralston talked my ear off about why he should be state treasurer, I decided that my best course of action was to hole up in my room for the week and never come out except at feeding times. I was given a small single room that belonged to that floor's resident advisor. He apparently had not moved all of his stuff out. I found a record player and some record albums sitting near the windowsill. I had a few books with me, plus a writing tablet and a pen. It was all I needed to make it through the week. So I essentially deserted Boys State and found refuge in this well-stocked fifth-floor room in the Kellogg Dorms. The album collection in my room included James Taylor's Sweet Baby James, The Beatles' Let It Be, the Guess Who's American Woman, and something by Sly and the Family Stone. There was a big coin-operated snack machine down at the end of the hall, so I had everything I needed for the week. In between listening to the records and writing poems to amuse myself (I called them "song lyrics" to make them seem like a worthwhile endeavour), I became enamoured with a new brand of potato chip that I heretofore had not encountered. The snack machine offered bags of something called "Ruffles" potato chips. I was amazed at how they were able to put hills and valleys into a single chip. For some reason, these "hills" (they called 'em "ridges") gave me the impression that I was getting more chip per chip than your regular potato chip. I liked that a lot. On the fourth day inside my NO POLITICS ALLOWED / FIRE AND RAIN bunker, I had completely run out of Ruffles and made a run down the hall for more. Above the snack machine was a bulletin board, and when I got there I noticed someone had stuck a flyer on it. It read: BOYS STATERS ! SPEECH CONTEST on the life of ABRAHAM LINCOLN Write a speech on the life of Abe Lincoln and win a PRIZE ! Contest sponsored by the ELKS CLUB I stood and stared at this flyer for some time. I forgot about my Ruffles. I just couldn't get over what I was reading. The previous month, my dad had gone to the local Elks Club to join. They had a golf course just a few miles from where we lived, and he and his line mates from the factory loved to golf. Golf, the sport of the wealthier class, was not normally played by the working class in places like Flint. But the GM honchos had long ago figured out ways to lull the restless workers into believing that the American Dream was theirs, too. They understood after a while that you couldn't just crush unions - people would always try to start unions simply because of the oppressive nature of their work. So the GM execs who ran Flint knew that the best way to quell rebellion was to let the proles have a few of the accoutrements of wealth - make them think that they were living the life of Riley, make them believe that through hard work they, too, could be rich some day ! So they built public golf courses in and around the factories of Flint. If you worked at AC Spark Plug, you played the I.M.A. or Pierce golf courses. If you worked at Buick you headed over to the Kearsley course. If you worked at the Hammerberg Road plant, you played at Swartz Creek. If you worked in "The Hole," you played the Mott course. When the factory whistle blew at 2:30 p.m. every day, our dads grabbed their bags from the car and started whacking balls around (they’d play nine holes and be home for dinner by five). They loved it. Soon working class became "middle class." There was time and money for month-long family vacations, homes in the suburbs, a college fund for the kids. Consequently, as the years went on, the monthly union hall meetings became sparsely attended. When the company started asking the union for givebacks and concessions, and when the company asked the workers to build inferior cars that the public would soon no longer want, the company found they had a willing partner in their demise. But back in 1970, thoughts like that would get you locked up in the loony bin. Those were the salad days (though I'm certain it was illegal to offer a salad anywhere within a fifty mile radius of Flint). And the guys in the factory grew to believe that golf was their game. The Elks Club owned a beautiful course that was not as crowded as the Flint public courses, but you had to be a member. So it was with some disappointment when my dad went out to the Elks Club to join that he was confronted with a line printed at the top of the application: CAUCASIANS ONLY Being a Caucasian, this should not have been a problem for Frank Moore. Being a man of some conscience, though, it gave him pause. He brought the form home and showed me. "What do you think about this?" he asked me. I read the Caucasian line and had two thoughts: 1. Are we down South ? (How much more north can get than Michigan?) 2. Isn't this illegal ? My dad was clearly confused about the situation. "Well, I don't think I can sign this piece of paper," he said. "No, you can't," I said. "Don't worry. We can still golf at the I.M.A." He would occasionally go back to the Elks course if invited by friends, but he would not join. He was not a civil rights activist. He generally didn't vote because he didn't want to be called for jury duty. He had all the misguided racial "worries" white people of his generation had. But he also had a very basic sense of right and wrong and of setting an example for his children. And because the union had insisted on integrating the factories as early as the 1940s, he worked alongside men and women of all races and, as is the outcome of such social engineering, he grew to see all people as the same (or at least "the same" as in "all the same in God's eyes"). Now, here I was, standing there in front of this Elks Club poster next to the vending machine. The best way to describe my feelings at that moment is that I was seventeen. What do you do at seventeen when you observe hypocrisy or encounter an injustice? What if they are the same thing? Whether it's the local ladies' club refusing to let a black lady join, or a segregated men's club like the Elks that has the audacity to sponsor a contest on the life of the Great Emancipator, when you're seventeen you have no tolerance for this kind of crime. Hell hath no indignation like that of a teenager who has forgotten his main mission was to retrieve a bag of Ruffles potato chips. "They want a speech ?" I thought, a goofy smile now making its way across my face. "I think I'm gonna go write me a speech." I hurried back to my room, sans the bag of Ruffles, got out my pad of paper, my trusty Bic pen, and all the fury I could muster. "How dare the Elks Club besmirch the fine name of Abraham Lincoln by sponsoring a contest like this!" I began, thinking I would lead with subtlety and save the good stuff for later. "Have they no shame? How is it that an organization that will not allow black people into their club is a part of Boys State, spreading their bigotry under the guise of doing something good? What kind of example is being set for the youth here? Who even allowed them in here ? If Boys State is to endorse any form of segregation, then by all means, let it be the segregation that separates these racists from the rest of us who believe in the American Way ! How dare they even enter these grounds !" I went on to tell the story of my dad going to join the Elks and refusing to do so. I quoted Lincoln (my mother's continual stops at Gettysburg whenever we drove to New York would now pay off). And I closed by saying, "It is my sincere hope that the Elks change their segregationist policies - and that Boys State never, ever invites them back here again." I skipped dinner, putting the final touches on the speech, rewriting it a couple times on the pad of paper, and then fell asleep listening to Sly Stone. The next morning, all speech contestants were instructed to show up in a School of Social Work classroom and give their speech. There were fewer than a dozen of us in the room and, much to my surprise (and relief), there was no one present from the Elks Club. Instead, the speeches were to be judged by a lone high school forensics teacher from Lansing. I took a seat in the back of the room and listened to the boys who went before me. They spoke in laudatory tones of Lincoln's accomplishments and his humanity, but mostly how he won the Civil War. It was the type of stuff the mayor might say at a town's Fourth of July picnic. Sweet. Simple. Noncontroversial. Few in the room were prepared for the barrage of insults about to be hurled at the Elks Club. Take William Jennings Bryan, add some Jimmy Stewart, and throw in a healthy dose of Don Rickles, and I'm guessing that's what it must've sounded like to the assembled as I unleashed my invective disguised as a speech. About halfway through my rant, I looked over toward the teacher/judge. He sat there without expression or emotion. I felt my heart skip a beat, as I was not used to being in trouble - and the last thing I wanted was for my parents to have to drive down to East Lansing and haul me home. I occasionally glanced at the other Boys Staters in the room to see how this was going down. Some looked at me in fear, others had that "boy-is-he-gonna-get-it" look on their faces - and the black kid in the room.. . well, what can I say, he was the only black kid in the room. He was trying to cover the smile on his face with his hand. When the speeches were over, the teacher/judge went to the head of the class to issue his verdict. I slunk down in my seat, hoping that he would simply announce the winner and not issue any rebukes. "Thank you, all of you, for your well-thought-out and well-written speeches," he began. "I was impressed with each and every one of you. The winner of this year's Elks Club Boys State Speech Contest is...Michael Moore ! Congratulations, Michael. That was a courageous thing to do. And you're right. Thank you." I didn't realize it, but he was already shaking my hand, as were about a third of the other boys. "Thank you," I said somewhat sheepishly. "But I really didn't wanna win anything. I just wanted to say something." "Well, you sure said something," the teacher replied. "You'll receive your award tomorrow at the closing ceremonies with all two thousand boys in attendance. "Oh - and you'll have to give the speech to them." What ? Give what to whom ? "It's the tradition. The winner of the Elks Club speech gives his speech at the closing assembly, where they announce the election results and hand out all the awards." "Um, no, I don't really wanna do that," I said, distressed, hoping he would take pity on me. "You don't really want me to give that speech, do you ?" "Oh, yes I do. But it's not up to me, anyway. You have to give it. That's the rule." He also told me that for my own good, he wasn't going to mention to anyone the content of the speech before tomorrow. Oh, yes, that's much better, I thought. Let them all be hit with it fresh, like a big surprise, the kind which has the speaker being chased from the great hall, his prize in one hand, his life in the other. After winning the speech contest, my night went something like this: "Fire and Rain," bathroom. “Across the Universe," bathroom. "Hot Fun in the Summertime," bathroom. And when you're seventeen and you don't have a car and you aren't prone to walking long distances - and you live in a state where mass transit is outlawed - there is a sense of imprisonment. That's it - I was in Boys State Prison ! By morning, I had said my final prayers and made a promise to myself that if I got out of this alive, I'd never cause trouble like this again. The time came and thousands of Boys Staters were ushered into the university hall. On the stage sat various officials, including, I believe, the real governor of Michigan. I took a seat near the front, on the side, and quickly scanned the place for guys who enjoyed being white. There was virtually no long hair here in 1971, and way too many of them had that clean-cut, disciplined, aggressive look that would probably serve them well after a year or two in the Hanoi Hilton, if not the U.S. Congress. You will have to forgive me for the order of what came next because the event became a blur. My basic survival instincts had kicked in, and that was all that mattered. Someone was elected lieutenant governor or attorney general or Most Likely to Be Caught in the Senate Bathroom Someday. Somewhere in the middle of those announcements I heard my name. I lifted myself out of the chair (against the better advice of my excretory system) and made my way to the stage. The few boys I made eye contact with had that bored "Oh, shit another speech" look on their faces. For an instant I felt like I was soon going to be doing them a huge favour. This was certainly not going to sound like anything they were used to in third-hour civics class. That much I knew. I ascended to the stage and walked past the dignitaries settled in their comfortable chairs. As I looked at them one by one, I noticed a man who was wearing antlers. A hat with antlers. It was not Bullwinkle and this was not Halloween. This man was the Chief Elk, the head of all Elks, and he held in his lap the Elks Club Boys State speech trophy. He had a big, wide smile, a smile more appropriate for a Kiwanis or a Rotarian, with more teeth than I thought humanly possible, and he was so proud to see me take the podium. Oh, man, I thought, this guy is about to have a very bad day. I hope they did a patdown. Unrolling my pages of paper, I peered out at the mass of newly minted testosterone. Sixteen and seventeen-year-olds who should have been doing anything right now – shooting hoops, kissing girls, gutting trout - anything but sitting here listening to me. I took a deep breath and began the speech. "How dare the Elks Club..." I remember it was somewhere around that point when I could feel a whoosh of tension in the room, hundreds murmuring, snickering under their breath. Please God, I thought, could some responsible adult come up to the podium immediately and put an end to this ! No one did. I motored onward, and near the end I could hear the cadence in my voice and I thought this wouldn't be half bad if I were singing it in a rock band. I finished with my plea that the Elks change their ways and, as I turned my head to see the crimson tide that was now the face of the Chief Elk, his teeth resembling two chainsaws ready to shred my sorry self I blurted out, "And you can keep your stinkin' trophy !" The place went insane. Nearly two thousand boys leapt to their feet and whooped and hollered and cheered me. The hollering wouldn't stop and order had to be restored. I jumped off the stage and tried to get out of there, my escape route having been pre-planned. But too many of the Boys Staters wanted to shake my hand or slap my back locker-room style, and this slowed me down. A reporter began to make his way toward me, notebook in hand. He introduced himself and said that he was astonished at what he had just seen and was going to write something and put it over the wire. He asked me a few questions about where I was from and other things that I didn't want to answer. I broke away and headed quickly out a side door. Keeping my head down and avoiding the main campus path, I made it back to the Kellogg Dorms, checked the vending machine for Ruffles, rushed to my room and bolted the door. The machine was out of Ruffles, but there was the Guess Who, and I turned it up so I could have some time to figure out what in hell's name I'd just done. At least two hours passed, and it seemed like I was in the clear. No authorities had come to take me away, no Elks militia had arrived seeking revenge. All seemed to be back to normal. Until the knock on the door. "Hey,” the anonymous voice barked. "There's a call for you." The dorm rooms had no phones. "Where's the phone?" I asked without opening the door. "Down at the end of the hall." Ugh. That was a long walk. But I needed Ruffles, and maybe they had restocked the machine. I opened the door and headed down the long hallway to the one public phone. The receiver hung dangling by its cord, like a dead man swinging from the gallows. What I didn't know was that on the other end of the line was the rest of my life. "Hello?" I answered nervously, wondering who would even know where I was or how to reach me. "Hello, is this Michael Moore ?" the voice on the line asked. “Yes." "I'm a producer here at the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in New York. We got this story that came over the wire about what you did today, and we'd like to send a crew over to interview you for tonight's newscast." "Huh ?" What was he talking about ? "We're doing a story on your speech exposing the Elks Club and their racial policies. We want you to come on TV." Come on TV ? There wasn't enough Clearasil in the world to get me to do that. "Uh, no thank you. I have to get back to my room. Bye." I hung up and ran back to the room and locked the door again. But it didn't matter. This became my first-ever media lesson: I don't get to decide what goes in the morning paper or on the nightly news. That night, I was introduced to the world. "And today in Lansing, Michigan, a seventeen-year-old boy gave a speech that took on the Elks Club and their segregationist practices, shedding light on the fact that it is still legal for private clubs in this country to discriminate on the basis of race …" The next day the dorm phone rang off the hook, even as I was packing up to leave. I didn't answer any of the calls, but I heard from the other boys that there were reporters phoning from the Associated Press, two TV networks, the NAACP, a paper in New York and another in Chicago. Unless it involved them offering me free food or an introduction to a girl who might like me, I did not want to be bothered. My parents were waiting outside in the car to take me back home. This much I'll say: my parents were not unhappy with my actions. When I got home, the phone continued to ring. Finally, a call came from the office of Michigan senator Phil Hart. He wanted to talk to me about coming to Washington. The aide said it was something about a bill that would be introduced, a bill to outlaw discrimination by private entities. A congressman would be calling me about testifying in front of a congressional committee. Would I be willing to do that ? No!! Why were they bothering me? Hadn't I done enough ? I didn't mean to cause such a ruckus. I thanked him and said I would discuss it with my parents (though I never told them; they would have wanted me to go!). I went outside to mow the lawn. We lived on Main Street, on a corner, across the street from the town fire station and kitty-corner from the town bowling alley. Over the din of the mower's engine I could faintly hear the honk of a horn. "Hey, Mike !" shouted Jan Kittel from the car that had just pulled up to the curb. With her was another girl from our class. I had known Jan since fifth grade in Catholic school. In the past year she and I were partners on the debate team. I loved her. She was smart and pretty and very funny. I waved. "Hey, c'mere ! We heard about what you did at Boys State !" she said excitedly. "Man, that was something ! You rocked it ! I'm so proud of you." I was ill equipped to handle the range of feelings and body temperature I was experiencing. I had absolutely no clue where to go with this other than to stutter out a "thanks." They got out of the car and she made me tell them the whole story, complete with the near riot I caused, which resulted in a lot of "right-ons !" and "far outs !" - and, yes, a big hug for my efforts. They were running an errand and had to get going, but not before she said she hoped to see me again that summer. "You and I will kick ass in debate this year," she offered, as I glanced in relief at the EMS unit parked in front of the fire station. "It'll be fun." They drove off and I finished the lawn. It dawned on me that doing something political had brought me both a lot of grief and a girl who stopped by to see me. Maybe I was too harsh on the class officer types who populated Boys State with their geek-like love of all things political. Maybe they knew a certain secret. Or maybe they would all just grow up to populate Congress with their slick, smarmy selves, selling the rest of us out at the drop of a dime. Maybe. The following year was not a good one for the Elks Clubs of America. Many states denied them their liquor licenses (the unkindest cut of all). Grants and funds became scarce. Various bills in Congress to stop them and other private clubs were debated. And then the federal courts in D.C. dealt them a death blow by taking away their tax exempt status. Facing total collapse and the scorn of the majority of the nation, the Elks Club voted to drop their Caucasians Only policy. Other private clubs followed suit. The ripple effect of this was that now racial discrimination everywhere in America, be it public or private, was prohibited. My speech was occasionally cited as a spark for this march forward in racial fixing in the great American experiment, but there were other speeches far more eloquent than mine. Most important for me, I learned a valuable lesson: That change can occur, and it can occur anywhere, with even the simplest of people and craziest of intentions, and that creating change didn't always require having to devote your every waking hour to it with mass meetings and organizations and protests and TV appearances with Walter Cronkite. Sometimes change can occur because all you wanted was a bag of potato chips. .

I have found that when I repress/deny something it can make its way into a dream.

I have been following this forum and practicing FP for some time ( a few years). Just got volume 7 a few weeks ago. Really like the forms and the energy. I don't get the "sleeper" result from the 50 20 10 one though. In fact, quite the opposite. I dream (lucid dreams) a lot. I may be sleeping, but staying aware while sleeping is something I wasn't prepared for . It reminds me of the results of one of the meditation techniques in Evan Wentz's Tibetan Practices book. ridingtheox is an inspiration btw. Much thanks to Terry Dunn and everyone who has provided their experiences over the life of this forum. Really cleared up some things for me.

But your "waking" life, is also a dream . What do you do to change your mood, energy and focus when someone off-centers you during the day? You can do the same sorts of things...

you won't meet a teacher in your dream unless you want to; there must be that connection; my teachers are happy with my report of my experience

I don't know if you are very deluded or you are joking. People who've completed the four visions can perform all manner of miracles and teach others. If you visit me in my dream tonight i will believe you.😊

Sorry Indeed, without wanting something or attempting to achieve anything at all, one would sit around doing nothing until one starved to death. And most people don't want that. But I think it all depends on how big one dreams to achieve..? If all I desire to accomplish in a day is eating an apple, and there's an apple on the tree outside, and I eat it, then I've had a good day. I've accomplished what I wanted. Seems simple. But if there had been no apples, I'd have been disappointed, and might've spent the whole day looking for an apple only to find that my neighbour had some really delicious oranges that he was happy to share. So, firstly, why not just eat what's there? Why fight for apples? And secondly, why dream for anything much bigger than that? One can be quite happy eating apples and oranges, until one decides that it's a better accomplishment to eat elephants and sharks. Most people in the world wouldn't consider eating an apple an "accomplishment" in the strict sense. To be considered a real accomplishment, it must be something impressive, like publishing a book or starring in a movie. But how do you know if the book is the apple or the orange? For sure. I do feel satisfaction on completing a beautiful painting, for example, but... it does depend on one's personal definition/idea of accomplishment. So many people wouldn't consider that an accomplishment. People are so obsessed with accomplishing "great" things, with making "accomplishment" their accomplishment, that I feel they've missed the point entirely. Why should helping someone be considered an accomplishment? If people forgot about trying to accomplish "great" things, there would be far less need to help people. In my opinion. What is something of "value" ? What is "amounting to nothing" ? Not accomplishing anything? Or not helping anyone? What if I'm born on a far away island in a village with just a few hundred people, and spend my whole life fishing and swimming and bringing up my kids? I never affect a great change in the world... have I "amounted to nothing", or have I just lived a fairly contented life?

:Title change to expand potentials: In Buddhist discussion I was reading how it is hard to get a cat to meditate - humans have a better chance of reaching "liberation" I'd say it is equally hard to get a human to meditate Are humans really superior to animals? in intelligence/ spiritual capacity I recall a very lucid dream in which I was having a very deep conversation with a cat, the cat was the teacher and showed me something very cool. I do not recall that conversation... just the feeling of it and what was shown/visual I felt the conversation was very important... this Cat is perhaps one of my greatest teachers... who can say... haha When I look into the eyes of a cat they bring me into a meditative like state...

I am seeking the ultimate reality because I see reality shape shifting so often. I have been grown up with science and after I discovered that life is spiritual as well and after doing yoga for more than half a year, I have seen strange things happen (miracles). So now my view of reality is even more changed. So I have started asking what the whole spiritual life is about. What is the reality? How does the world works? Is life just a dream? Why can people change worldy happenings just by their thoughts? What is the relation between inducing altered states by drugs and spiritual practises? Is there something as a God? What is the end of the spiritual life or does it change shape just like any dream? Various systems offer a ultimate reality, but for me it seems hard to find it. That is why I am still looking for it. You say we are already living in the ultimate reality, but what happens after death? In fact I am not rushing into a system. I have been looking for a good system for almost half a year. I just liked to receive taobummers' opinons on it. I received them and I am very thankfull for them. But still I think I just need to begin somewhere. The spiritual life is more about practising and not just reading This is why I think I need to begin with a valid path. At the moment I prefer KAP, so I think I begin that path soon. I have experienced with kundalini already for some time on my own, but I think I need a teacher indeed. However, there are no teachers in my place (Netherlands) as far as I know, thus distance learning seems to be a valid option. (http://www.kundaliniawakeningprocess.com) About my emotions. That is indeed sometimes hard. The hardest part are the wet dreams, because they are very dissatifying in it self, but they also increase sexual desire for the next couple of days. I usually fail after three weeks or so. Besides I sometimes disconnect from the world because my family and friends seem to live in a world which is based on illusion (as I try to find out what is not illusion) But on average, I have not really problems with my emotional control.

I see that two ways ; I 'myself' am an evoked spirit .... happily living those three things within Ungud's Dream. My 'spirit friends' seem happy ... I even made them a nice house and make offerings. Their 'work' has 'lifted them up' now they seem happier (less 'disruptive') with their tasks as they 'evolve'. The same goes for my feral pets. .... they just got to find a way to get on better with each other. [ Here the 'binding' - being 'feral pets' they are ' voluntary bindings' - now currawong will just come and sit beside me when he doesnt even want food ... we just hang out ... and he still does his 'job' fine. ... I have never been one to 'curse and bind by the names of God' ... I tried it a few times and the ones that I find do need that, I prefer not to work with. For my 'kin' ... and the 'spirits' and myself I prefer 'persuasion' and the idea that we are ' in the same boat together' ( oh .... I just remembered ... I saw that 'Life of Pi' movie for the first time last night ) As far as connecting all that to 'Superiors' in a local shamanic sense ... probably beyond the scope and time period of this thread.

Actually,...the perceived universe is much older,...but because sentient beings do see things as they are,...the future is unknown for the universe to be accurately understood. That is to say,...time is One,...evolution occurs as it does because the future already is. It is like a movie or dream, where a story leads to a conclusion. Without the conclusion, the so-called beginning would not know where to begin. One movie or one universal reality,...nearly the same thing. I am here now, because I must be, for Oneness to be One. Time is One. Not a past leading to a future,...that's not One. Sure,...without evolution, there would be no Marblehead,...and yet, without the reverse flow of forward moving things, there would be no Marblehead. Because of that,...ultimately,...Marblehead really has no free choice,...because the future of Marblehead already is. Time is one thing.

Edward, The subconscious mind is your sixth chakra (and third eye) which controls your five lower chakras… so when you “release dense energy blockages” in the lower chakras, you feel it in your subconscious mind… But to purify the subconscious mind, you must destroy the delusion in your subconscious mind…because it is the delusion in your subconscious mind, that is causing the dense energy blockages… If you raise the kundalini , it will temporarily purify your chakas and open your third eye, and it will temporarily push your delusion aside but not destroy it… your delusion will still control your subconscious mind, and will create the same chakra blockages as before… ………………………………………………………………………….. The only way to permanently purify the subconscious mind (6th chakra) is to destroy the delusion that controls the subconscious mind… and only the conscious mind (7th chakra) can do that by systematically turning the delusion into neutral awareness… First by learning to control the conscious mind, and turning off the voice of the subconscious mind…. Then by investigating, understanding, and letting go of anger and greed… and we never get angry again… (and righteous indignation is anger too) Then by reaching equanimity, and accepting other people and their beliefs just the way they are… their business is their business, and our business is our business… and we never have another argument Then by realizing that we are a “spirit (subconscious mind) with a body”, not a “body with a spirit”, and realizing that our “body” and “personality” (conscious mind) are not “us”, they are temporary just for this life… that our spirit (subconscious mind) is the eternal ‘us”… Then we hold our conscious mind in a state of “neutral awareness” (the middle path) until our subconscious mind accepts it as reality… and when we least expect it, delusion suddenly shatters amid loud rumbling noises, and flashing lights… and we feel as if we have just awakened from a long hypnotic dream… and the delusion now seems so obvious, that we wonder how it could have fooled us…We have purified our subconscious mind (sixth chakra) permanently and destroyed delusion, so there is no longer a voice of delusion… so now our conscious mind (seventh chakra) is blissfully empty, and all we can hear is silence…the sound of one hand clapping… Dawg

Walker, your posts are a treasure. People world never dream of walking into a pharmacy and picking their own antibiotics. How much more difficult is it to choose medicine from such a foreign system?

Before I start in... Spotless I have a sudden feeling of what I think is love for you. I am smiling, after reading what you have said. I think, if memory serves, I have always found you, more than anyone else, challenging. You are the bed of coals one must walk on, or the bed of nails one must lay on. Thank you for that! @all I have read the rest of your responses and I thank you. Now I have something to share with you. I am not sure I have mentioned it here previously, but recently, just a few months ago, when working with my dreams I found I could hear a voice inside. I have tested this voice, consulting it to translate a dream for another. I have an account at DreamViews for the subject of dreaming. They told me it was spot on. So as far as I am concerned this voice is not me. If it were to emanate from anywhere, have a location, it would be in the center of my chest. I sort of focus there to "tune in." Now I bring this up because my first response,whenever I have a problem, is to come here with it. Spiritually based matters primarily. It never occurred to me to consult this voice until last night. I struggled with resistance all day doing it, but I came to this voice with a number of questions, and I will share some of these, and its answers. When I am doing this sort of thing brackets [] symbolize stuff coming from me, parentheses () stuff that come from it which I did not feel the need to write down or simply decided to add later. A lot of forward slashes / to combine things. Hyphens - as a pause, break in thought or for emphases. Here: Why am I unable to manifest the things I need or want? You do not have faith. I keep telling you to have faith. Be faith. But you won't listen/are unable to hear. You must have faith in order for these things to be provided. You must know that you are receiving whatever it is you ask for. There can be no doubt, doubt = resistance. If there is doubt, throw it out! You must have faith, must believe, must know, that whatever you ask for is provided. But you are covered in fear, and doubt. You base this on your previous lack of manifesting an asked for thing. But they are built on one another. Those attempts did not work either because you did not have faith. When you received the coffee beans you had enough faith. Find a way to have faith, carry that faith with you. Like Indiana Jones stepping into the chasm, having faith there is a walkway there. You must have faith! Things will be much easier for you once you do. (That is all.) How do I manifest the things I need or want? By faith. It really is as simple as that. The universe will give you whatever it is you ask for, whatever you need or want. But you have to believe the universe can and will do this. You must have faith. You must live it, breathe it like air. Your whole being must be infused with it. There can be no room for fear and doubt. Your being must radiate faith, a confidence and a knowing that the universe can, does and will provide. This is the one great and universal Truth. You have been seeking the Truth for so long, well here it is! Faith, like everything else, must be practiced. It is a combination of confidence, trust and knowing. It is the thought that the universe provides returned to for so long that it becomes a belief. Once you believe the universe provides, and hold that feeling for a long time, it becomes/transforms into faith. Once you have held onto this feeling of faith for a long time, doubt and fear simply can not manifest in your experience. There is no room in which these things can grow. The tree you so often use as your example has faith. It is not a faith as understood by humans. Faith is independent of intellect. The tree's faith is a feeling, of the sun, wind and rain on its skin – its bark and leaves. It is the feel of dirt between its toes – its roots. When a tree feels these things it demonstrates faith. It grows, puts out branches and leaves. When a tree feels the lack of any of these vital elements it looses faith, and so dies. Faith is a feeling, one that must be maintained, for life and a connection to All Good Things. Without faith demonstrating in your life you will, like the tree, begin to shrivel up and die on the inside, the most vital part of you. Not in your physical body, not initially. Your physical body will follow suite however, it too will shrivel and die, because whatever happens to you on the inside – energetically – manifests on the outside. The lack of faith inside becomes the cause of the physical symptoms of death on the outside. You must have faith, it is vital! Absolutely necessary in order for you to thrive as an individual and as a person, even as a society. What is it you are having faith in? What is it you are developing faith in? What is it you are practicing faith in? Quite simply, that the universe provides. You can call the universe whatever name you like. Whatever name you give it, it always provides. Your faith in the provision opens you to that provision. It allows you to receive whatever it is you ask for. Without faith your receiving will be blocked or interfered with. Your manifestation will be incomplete, if its manifests at all. Only tree's faith in the sun, in the wind and the rain, allow it to open, send out branches, send down roots, sprout leaves and thereby grow. The instant tree is not living in faith it begins to die, period, end of story. How else do you think cactus survives in the desert? What other creature on earth has more faith than a cactus, that water, eventually, will come? So the cactus holds on, and it gets the water it needs. This is the kind of faith you must display, even in the harshest of circumstances, if you want to receive whatever it is you are asking for. (That is all - there is nothing more to say on this subject.)

A person who has no subjective experience/cosciousness cannot be subject to anything, he can only be an object in another's consciousnes experience. When you say that something is there, you say that you are having an experience of something, therefore if other people did not have an experience of that pod-person then they didn't. When we talk of objective reality, we are thinking and not experiencing reality. There is no such thing as objective reality, only consciousness which is neither objective nor subjective. But you make a good point about the fact that a real object can get you hurt while a hallucination cannot. For example you hurt your nose while bumping in the tree, just as I flew on mars in a dream last night. I didn't flew, it was just experience. Many patterns happened. It is like a fractal system, most likely. I don't have all the answers, a Taoist master would have known. Also, as a side note, neither chairs nor rocks are beings.

That's a good piece of advice,...but one that is likely misunderstood. People generally like their head,...it's what they like best about themselves. For most (99.9%),...happy is as the DiCaprio character in the film Inception,...where, at the end, he disregards the spinning top, and just wants to go to his kids, whether it's a dream or not. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdV9E9Xcb10

Hi Dawg, I decided to try your suggestion for meditation as my regular practice for a while. I have been doing 2 sessions per day, 1 hour for each session. For the first four days, after about 5 minutes in each session, a kind of wave occured and in the background, behind the focus on the sound of Buddho, I could see visions and what appeared to be dreams occuring. Actually, I recognize them as dreams because if I grasp at any one of them, I find myself in a lucid dream.. And it is typical to feel that "wave" take place which usually anounces that REM is about to occur. For the last couple of days the dreams/visions no longer occur. Instead, I'm seeing abstract patterns of lights in the background, beautiful colors and patterns. Nothing like I've ever seen before. I suspect that by maintaining focus on the breath and the mantra it is stirring up winds. I think that performing a mantra (even silently) is kicking in the throat chakra, which then creates the dreams and visions (these types of visions). I do admit, it is easier to maintain consistent focus on the objects of awareness (the breath and the Buddho) when they are combined because each new breath brings a new batch of thoughts, but if you are focusing on the sound of the mantra, the new batch of thoughts comes in and then goes out because you are not grasping at them. So, in a way, you are precipitating the natural dissolution and release of thoughts and visions too (when not focused on them). This is sort of like Dzogchen's remaining in the natural state. Is the point of this Buddho practice to purify the subconscious? What is the next stage past the abstract light patterns that I am seeing? Will they gradually slow down and fade away when I achieve shamatha? Will I need to drop the mantra at some point? Thanks..

I think death would be like sleep. You just find yourself in another dream.

Iain, If you do Sandhya at dawn and dusk, it puts your mind in a good spiritual place for the day, and a good spiritual place for evening and night… it will help you to make good karma most of the time… the feeling it gives you is like a tiny taste of the heavenly realms… When you die you will go to a heavenly realm, but still have samsara… All the people in the heavenly realms still have samsara… even the gods in the god realm have samsara, they were born and will die, and have made good and bad karma, and will reincarnate… only a few realms at the very top called the happy abodes contains people who will not reincarnate, but will experience awakening in that abode, and reach nirvana there… None of the gods own or control the spirit world… our subconscious mind which is our spirit is the part of us that goes to the spirit world… it sends us to a place full of people like ourselves, who will treat us like we treated other people when we were alive… that is why it is said that, “we will reap what we have sown… In the spirit world you speak to others by using telepathy… everyone can hear your thoughts, and understand exactly what you mean… it is perfect communication… and it is impossible to lie... if two or three of us spoke different languages, each of us would hear the other two in our own language… if I used telepathy to speak to a group of people who speak different languages in the physical world… all of them would hear me in their own language… I would be doing what is called “speaking in tongues”… The heavens are amazing, and not at all like anything I imagined… everything is solid like in the physical world… I have seen snow covered mountains… 17th century sailing ships sailing on a sparkling sea… day and night… I have driven around in a car through what looked like the leafy surburbs of Los Angeles… there are building of every period and date… castles built in the clouds… buildings that change shape and color as you walk through them… buildings that look small on the outside, but on the inside there is a maze of wide corridors with doors on both sides, and each door opens into a couple of rooms that opens out into a different world… I have even seen the Elysian Fields, the high heaven of the ancient Greeks full of people who lived more than two thousand years ago… the happy hunting ground of the American Indians, and the dream time of the Australian aborigines, and every other heaven is somewhere in the spirit world… the spirit world is vast and it contains many things that are not obvious… The heavens were created by the people who have lived in them… you can create things with your thoughts, so you sometimes see strange things… You can travel about in three ways… you can walk, you can fly, or you can instantly jump to any destination… I won’t describe a hell realm, or demon realm, or ghost realm, because from your words, I assume you will go to a heavenly realm when you die, then when you have used up your good karma, you will spend a short time in a mild hell realm to get rid of bad karma, then have a good birth… Dawg

Gerard, I laughed when I read your posts… because trolls like you are so transparent… It is obvious that all your spiritual knowledge is from books, and none or very little of it is from personal experience… you know the theory but not the reality… unless your knowledge is first hand from personal experience, it is just more delusion… you don’t understand Taoism or Buddhism, you just cherry pick this and that and take it out of context, and throw around words that you don’t understand, and have never experienced… if you wish to reach final awakening, you are on the wrong path… if you wish to reach awakening, you must systematically destroy the delusion that now controls your subconscious mind, which controls your conscious mind… that is the one and only way to reach awakening… (and raising the Kundalini will not do it, I have been there and done that… I know)… because it took the destruction of my delusion to reach permanent awakening… I destroyed my delusion and reached awakening in August 2011… and it really is like awakening from a long dream that you thought was real… I now Iive permanently in bliss, it was worth all the effort it took to reach it… it is forever… You cannot imagine how much your words reveal about yourself… you are unable to focus your concentration, which is necessary for a successful spiritual practice… you have low self esteem, and don’t like yourself… you are a troll on the internet in an effort to build up your self esteem… your greatest fear is the fear of death, you don’t understand that you can’t die… you are so deluded that you don’t even realize that you are deluded… you don’t even know what delusion is… and you lie to others, and to yourself, and unless you are honest with yourself you are in deep shit… The key to restoring your self esteem is to accept yourself and love yourself (compassionate love) just the way you are… and know that you are no better or worse than anyone else… and realize that if you can’t love yourself, you can’t love others… and if you can’t love others, they can’t love you… And get rid of the big ego… it blocks your spiritual development… and makes you sound like a fool… Also get rid of your negativity, it poisons your mind… and again blocks your spiritual development… Don’t worry about me, I have reached permanent nirvana… but you should be worrying about yourself… and doing something about it… Have a nice day…! Dawg

First of all, A BIG hello to rodgerj and thanks for sharing your experiences I am a new student under Mak Tin Si and decided to add a little to the thread since I've had some similar things happening to me. My own background is primarily in traditional Chinese internal martial arts, in particular the Yau Kung Mun system, where I am very fortunate to be a student of Sifu Garry Hearfield. I decided to join the Chi in Nature lineage primarily out of curiosity since I was enjoying the posts and information shared by Mak Tin Si and wanted to learn more about traditional Daoism. The first thing I noticed immediately after being enrolled was a change in my energy during my martial arts and chi gung training. It wasn't more energy, as much as a different "feeling" to the energy coming through. It has a slightly more dense sensation to it, very tangible. Another experience is very similar to what rodgerj wrote about regarding dreams. A couple of days after being entered into the lineage, I had a very strange dream in which I was greeted by a slim, elderly Chinese gentleman with a white beard and long hair in a pony tail. He immediately proceeded to pull a black "smoke" from the top of my head and when it was gone he explained that there had been a "demon" attached to my energy and that he had removed it. After that, I woke up. I had had a relatively restless night with only a few hours of sleep and was about to write the experience off as a weird dream with slight nightmare undertones. However, I felt very well rested and full of energy even though I had so little sleep. The strangest thing, however, is that since that night I don't feel cold anymore. I feel comfortably warm no matter the weather. For instance, this morning I went outside in the chilly winter while wearing only a t-shirt and soft pants to help my wife scrape the ice of her car windshield and I didn't feel uncomfortable at all. So there are definately some interesting things going on Kind regards HG

I'm curious as to how many are currently including entheogen use in their practices, supplementing/balancing with herbs/tinctures, or experimenting with more conventional chemicals. I was supplementing with adaptogens for about four months during a period of spiritual and physical fatigue - Ashwaghanda tincture, Rhodiola Rosea tea, Eleuthero tea, Schizandra capsules, and a daily mug of really strong Yerba Mate. Taking these together kept my energy levels stable while I went through some deep physical exhaustion and spiritual forgetting. I took several Chinese herbs and tinctures between then and now (at the recommendation of practitioners) for different conditions, to no avail. Fast-forward six months... I have a powerful fascination with brain chemistry (particularly neurotransmitters right now) and have been supplementing with CDP-Choline, a precursor to Acetylcholine, Thiamine (Vitamin B-1) for GABA levels, and Passionflower extract for Serotonin levels. The effects, and the chemistry of it are both beautiful. I express myself more easily, cry when tears need to be shed, feel joy when joy is needed, dream more deeply, think more holistically, and easily overcome mundane worries with laughter, creativity, and happiness. No current entheogen use - I suspect I have some serious work to do before those will come into my life again (I've strayed a bit this past year and a half). What, if anything, are you supplementing your life/practice with?