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I think a dream forum would be better for this topic. But I thought you guys would have some input that would be unique and different. If anyone has anything to add i will be glad to hear it. Thanks.

"Heavenly Empress Wangmu rewarded him with a vial of elixir that would make a person immortal and allow life in the Heavens. Hou Yi’s wife, Chang E, was known for her beauty and kind heart. Out of his deep love for her, Hou Yi gave the elixir to Chang E for safe-keeping until they could share it when he returned from hunting. An evil man, Peng Meng, spied this through the window. Three days later, when Hou Yi left to hunt, Peng broke in with sword in hand, planning to force Chang E into giving him the elixir. Chang E quickly put the vial to her mouth and swallowed all its contents. As soon as she had swallowed the elixir, she floated off the ground. She dashed out of the window and flew toward the moon. When Hou Yi returned home that night, he learned from the maidservants what had happened. Tearfully, he looked up into the night sky and called out the name of his beloved wife. At that moment, the moon became especially clear and bright. Hou Yi saw a shadow of his wife who was looking down at him, also in grief. Hou Yi set up an altar with incense in the garden. On the altar, he put the sweet cakes and fresh fruits that Chang E enjoyed most. Then, he held a memorial ceremony for his wife in the moon. It was the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar year. The news that Chang E had turned into a celestial being and was living in the moon spread fast. Many people arranged altars with incense in the moonlight and prayed for the kind-hearted Chang E, the Moon Lady, to look after them." Hou Yi was desolate, mourning his beloved wife he ate little and hunted no more. The sun in revenge for its 9 brothers took special pleasure in burning him during the day. The weather was cool and soothing during the festival of the 9th moon of the lunar year. Prayers and obeisance were spoken and colorful sweets were left at the ancient well in the middle of the village where seeing the reflected moon was believed to offer great fortune for the coming month. Neighbors came to the desolate hunter's house bringing cakes and singing songs to lure him out. But the house remained dark and he would not come. Twenty eight days later came the festival of the harvest moon. Clouds covered the heavenly body's ascent and the celebration was subdued. More calls and pleas were sent to Hou Yi's dark house but none came out. No reflection shone in the old well. The celebration which in olden times lasted through morning waned early. By midnight the last villager left, backing into there house, eyes up looking for the moon. The door to Chang E's house opened. What came out would be recognized as Hou Yi. It was a pale shadow of the man; old, pale and dessicated dressed in dull sack clothe. The figured moved slowly to the village well. At the well's edge it arm moved the colorful moon cakes away to make room for a seat. Sitting he bent forward and looked into the depth. He stared until his braced arm trembled, then his whole body and there was the imminent danger of falling in. Still he looked. His reward at first was slight. A dim diffused light and that gave him strength. It grew brighter into the full moon; then sweeter into the face of his beloved. As the vision grew closer he felt it must be a dream, had he fallen in and this was death. The face below spoke "I robbed you of immortality. I am so sorry my husband" He spoke gently back, "My mourning is not for immortality. It was for the loss of you". "Kiss me my husband, there may still be a few drops of elixir on my lips". There lips touched. He felt his old strength return and the sack cloth he wore became longer, fine and colorful. The sleeves expanded to take on the colors of cakes perched upon the village well. And he rose. Since then on certain nights when the conditions are right you can see Hou Yi's arms like a rainbow, held around the moon. And Chang E allows herself to be diminished a little each day, until she appears like a bow, in honor of her husband. A bow pointing at the sun as an eternal warning, never to hurt her husband or humanity again.

Ya Mu, I have been dreaming about Stillness Movement Qigong, even though I never gave it much thought before. Upon awakening from a dream and having this on my mind, I decided I should go ahead and try it out, even though I already have a lot on my plate. Do you have any recommendations or guidelines for internal martial arts practitioners who want to practice Gift of the Tao? Like, is it good to keep practices separate, or is it okay to do the exercises before/after Xing Yi/Bagua/Tai Chi practice? Thanks

Seems to me that trusting your self often means going with your programmed imprint/ the aquired not self. I don't think the dream about the navel is about people and stomachs in general. No body part or section of the body is "bad" with "bad" chi. The belly is where you breath from, where you were fed in your mother from, and the location of your enteric nervous system/abdominal brain where intuitive matters are computed, and even where dreams come from. There is nothing disgusting about the stomach as a rule, it is almost like its own being.

_/\_ a fix to the extra syllable in the second line is humbly suggested -- e.g., "anyone? no one? time, tell!" Dream of a dark well, with dark fish on the bottom, means you are pregnant.

A few further thoughts... One of the aspects that seems to particularly strike your waking self in relation to the dream is the kind of sociopathic quality of the murders. You don't feel guilty. Interestingly, sociopathy itself is itself a kind of numbness. A person should feel something--guilt, remorse, etc--but instead feels nothing at all. It's very common for people to treat themselves with less concern than they treat others. We often do things to ourselves, ie murder, that we'd never do to other people. Is there a way you are hurting yourself, perhaps even killing off parts of yourself, that you haven't, until now, been aware of? Are you numb to your own self-harming tendencies? Just a thought to explore. Liminal

Who are annoying? anyone? no one? time will tell. dream of a dark well

I Love Eckart Tolle. I have most of his books, DVD's, CD's and podcasts. I love his sense of humor, his clarity, wisdom and calm. I must admit, Eckart does not have a regimented practice routine and it was hard to find something to practice, but his book "Practicing the Power of Now" has very powerful practices which I think he 'borrowed' from ... Buddhism.. This next practice is one which I practiced for an hour a day for two months a few years ago. Towards the end I had to stop because I would go to bed at night and although my body went to sleep, my awareness remained alert throughout the night. I got tired of watching myself sleep, listening to myself snore, and watching the cloud of the mind have dreams. I had become a 'point of view', separate from the world of forms.. This practice even brought on huge kundalini eruptions by practicing samadhi on the feeling of the inner body.. I would compare it to Goenka's practices as described in "The Discourse Summaries".. The second practice that Eckhart mentions is also very powerful practice, and it is similar to what the Dzogchen practitioners refer to as 'fresh awareness'. It is the awareness that occurs when you first see an object, before the conceptual mind has time to grasp it, before the conceptual mind applies its labels.. This type of awareness is clean, clear, crisp and pure. The practice consists of moving your line of sight every split second or so so that you are looking at a different scene every split second. The mind has no time to label or grasp. Once I did this practice as I walked in the woods, shifting focus every 1/2 second. Well, about 20 minutes after stopping the practice, I suddenly found myself looking at the outer world like it was a dream. My consciousness had receeded into an area about 5 feet behind the body and it felt like I was sleep walking or something.. Personally, I found his talks about the pain body a bit of a chore as I prefer practices, not self-psychology, but I still rate Eckart Tolle as someone worth listening to. I am grateful that Eckhart took the time to share his knowledge with the rest of the world. TI

Sifu Terry, I can see how the name 'Vedic' might spur a lot of charlatanism. I own a textbook on 'Vedic Mathematics' that is, according to seemingly objective fact-checkers from India, not Vedic at all - just a set of clever but useful tricks invented by a modern Indian mathematician. The author claimed to have taken a set of 16 mathematical sutras from 'the Vedas', the source of which he can no longer produce. I would like to know your opinion on Vedic knowledge that is demonstrably Vedic - like certain mantras from the Rig Veda. I have been chanting the Mahamrityunjaya Mantra, mostly while working and before bed, for the last month. The first night I did this, I had a very profound dream in which I was forced to confront my fear of losing attachment to my body. Would you include this type of practice in the context of your comment, or did you mean specifically Vedic (and Buddhist) elements that have turned to book-learning and lost their substance? Forgive the ignorant question, as I haven't really delved much into the world of mainstream/degraded/modernized Buddhist/Vedic religion, and your comment was a little surprising to me.

It's just my experience that bad qi comes out of the navel. I experienced it once in a dream, visibly like a fog pouring out during practices and filling the entire room...and in waking life I feel that it happens as well, but not visibly (at least to me). It's like a detoxing of the body and mind. For a more reliable source of this information (it's hard to trust the experience of someone who is just a fellow bum)...Mantak Chia teaches Chi Nei Tsang. In that method, you open the "wind gates" to release stagnant qi, by massaging gently around the navel. At a higher level of it, the practitioner puts their elbow on the wind gates, and the sick qi travels from the elbow up the forearm, and shoots out through the fingertips. So that's also saying sick qi leaves through the navel. About age. Imagine going to a nursing home, and putting your head near the navel of someone there. It's just kind of a disgusting feeling, I think, for anyone (especially if you've been to a nursing home before, yuck)...that feeling you have is reliable! Nothing against old people...everyone ages. Their bodies just aren't working optimally like a young person's. Over 50 isn't elderly by far, but I think most people that age will admit their bodies don't work as well as they used to...unless they're really masterful in their self healing. Trust how things feel to you.

I have been listening to Elvis most of the day : Amazing grace A little less conversation All shook up Stuck on you The devil in disguise The impossible dream

Dear Ones, it happened again. I was in a very vivid dream and I wake up, I try to remember everything went blank. From one second to another. How come? I dont have Altzheimer so I demand to be able to remember them. Maybe you are also already aware of the fact that what we call our "dreams" is basicly just our bodily consciousness disconnecting from our body and being in one of our other bodies. For many this is the astral body. For few this goes even more deeper. You can put effort into consciously falling asleep. This requires you to have an insane focus and from what I have read not many people can do this. Regardless it is truely something special which I personally want to achieve in the near future. But this requires some excess amount of energy in our system. Meaning one has to have a propper lifestyle of cultivating energy and not blowing it away during the day, falling asleep totally tired and exhausted. Light food in the evening and early nights are best for doing so. Now, whenever I can I also put effort into remembering what happened during my body fell asleep. But like written in the first line this does not (yet) happen very often and I get a little frustrated. The curiosity of understanding this part of our reality is so strong that it lets me quickly get over my lack of rememberance. Shall we put effort into remembering our "dreams"? If so, why? What benefit is there? And why do we have in general such a hard time remembering what happened? Does this happen purposely or is this yet another lazy attitude what we had mastered in our childhood? Curious, let me know what I obviously dont know. All the best!

All deeper considerations aside, vitamin B-6 deficiency interferes with dream recall. Take it on a regular basis half an hour before going to bed and you may see an improvement. It is safe to take MUCH higher doses than the RDA, so experiment with what works for you. For synergistic effects, make sure you take a multi-B with this too. Good luck.

Dream Mahasiddhi travelling players have come, lantern shadow show. The girl 'Emptiness' beckons from by the curtain now it's time to dance. I have three good friends bodhisattvas all, we drink! forgetting ourselves. A bead of red wine On your lip, gives all away we are lost, my love.

Looking at the taobums time, this post occurred around the time I had my dream last night. Weird.

hey not my cup of tea personally. I have a different theory that says that the 'masters' of certain traditions who claim to have stopped dreaming, have become so 'unbalanced' in regards to their emphasis of waking consciousness over all else, and so certain of the primacy of their 'conscious mind' over the unconscious, that they just stop dreaming as they have completely devalued and detached from any content from within. I think there is a great deal of hubris in many traditions with their obsession and prioritisation of the conscious mind, which is really only a blip produced by the magnificent unconscious... In my book, the genuine older traditions were a journey into the world of the Inner, which is why trance work, dream states, oracular teachings and so on were mastered.

Wonderful thank you. I already incorporate this for the most part but I do not want to touch entheogens any further, at least for the moment. Since it seems to stir up anxiety of loosing compeltey grasp to "this reality around me" which leaves me with an aftertaste of wanting to jump off a bridge, althou I must say here that I had suicidic thoughts once in my youth but never again. Maybe I just conceive so much of the mess around me that I think it's all me... well part of me anyway but too much of... me. They reveal such beautiful, wholesome and for some reason very female parts of me and at the same time a sense of falling or crumbling away in a vortex of unmanifested "something" ... that feels so unpleasant. I guess I should incorporate more mediation into my lifestyle, not touch sclerotia or mushrooms ever again due to their sinister nature and look more forward to higher/denser DMT-components. In my eyes it's a very good start for someone who wants to remember dreams if they are interested why they wake up and suddenly feel exhilarated or with an utterly comfortable and warm feeling in the stomach or chest region. This interest in wanting to know more is fuel to the fire that will bring one in a deeper understanding. To be honest with you Seth, I personally want to experience dreams as vivid and as clear as my waking life and I know it is possible. Doesnt it, right? For me the same. It's like the manifestation of our thoughts into matter, words on paper brings them out of our "heads" and makes room for new experiences, while at the same time this does not make us forget, rather lets us recall that information easier. At least for me. Also and alternatively when I speak it out loud. I can recall things easier this way instead of keeping it all in my head. We are not far away from this level. It is really easy. Easier than one would think. This has a certain term in india and asia I believe aswell. It is the deepest state of relaxation one can achieve. Consciously! You simply lay down on the floor, best not on a bed. You can get a cushion for the head. Then you rock yourself into "sleep". You breathe in from your toes up to your head and breathe out from your head into your toes, while you observe any stiff parts in your body and clear them. When you are starting to feel you are completely relaxed, you solely focus on the breath and get yourself as calm as humanly possible. When you are new to this, the next steps might be super unfamiliar to you and you might bring yourself totally out of balance. At least that is what I did in the beginning and heard many many others did so aswell (since it's is so foreign): Your body starts to vibrate. From what I know this does our spirit to bring our energetic body in a certain vibrational state, preparing it literally for lift off. Like said this is the part where most fail, because this also lets your heart rate increase and you must be with your breath and calm yourself down. For me several times at the beginning the heart rate was like it wants to jump out of my chest. Remember also that the heart is the gateway to higher dimensions. My uncle has said similar in his practices. So much seems to go out solely from the heart, it's fascinating since we think only our brain could be capable of it... not at all. The next step is also know as the next obstacle. Two huge obstacles before everything starts your body starts to stiffen up. This also can happen before going in a deeper state of meditation. Our body seems to do this because shortly before waking up in the morning again, our consciousness must find an easy way to land and re-attach itself into our physical body. Aswell as this helps the body to completely relax. While in this stage, your breathing feels like something very heavy lies on your chest. This feeling can be very unpleasant at the beginning because one tends to panic because the mind thinks the body does not get enough air. You can consciously only breath very, very shallow. But this is basicly what your "body does" by itself all night. And then when you continue after this stage of consciously falling asleep, at a certain point you feel yourself in another body. Not breathing and very light. Like being in a "liquid" lighter than and less denser than water. Which can be quite scary for some people and that again, flings you right back into your bodily consciousness easily a third obstacle. After this you are most likely already in your astral body and can travel what we call the astral plain or the astral dimension. In the outmost layers not different to our physical world. You can meet your neighbors, they mostly dont see you, or you can interact with other astral travelers. You can fly and I heard you can also "teleport". Switch locations via thought, thinking it up. This is a normal way of travelling in any higher dimension, since there is no "physical distance". And then, the deeper you go, the deeper you "dream". This is apparently what we do all night. Can we meet God/Tao/Source in this way? I am pretty sure, with enough training. Training? Yes, training because to get into higher dimensions and that means closer to Source/God/Tao means having a higher vibration. The physical realm vibrates rather slow and each time you have to accelerate your vibration to get into higher places of conscious waking. Much of this can already be done during your day. Prepare yourself for the night, so to speak. I personally believe by mastering this, one can achieve bodily immortality. Since you regain so much from it. You and your body can regenerate in such complete ways, it is truely something we have to bring to a broader audience at one point. And yes, energy cultivation like Qi Gong or Tai Chi and other forms help wonderfully to get one further. Like it is said in Taoism: To grow as spirit and become (in my terms: realize one is) immortal. And with this, all western illusionary ideas or thoughts of "death" dissolve, naturally and effortlessly. All the best and thank you very much all of you for sharing your experiences! Let us all wake up!

For purposes of ... wild speculation There are some interesting aspects to Fascism that I believe would be beneficial to our current situation.. Particularly the concept of Autarky... Thoughts? Is there a way we can expand / develop these ideas? Into a 21st c working model or use it to develop a new system of governance? I was thinking of starting another thread - "Create Your Dream Government" or something haha... and have forum members develop/ experiment / play with a potential new system of governance. But I wanted to cause a little (more) commotion haha ////// Fascism was influenced by Saint-Simonian utopian socialism that accepted private property and had criticized the legacy of the French Revolution that fascism also has done.[11] Fascism advocates a state-controlled and regulated mixed economy; the principal economic goal of fascism is to achieve autarky to secure national self-sufficiency and independence, through protectionist and interventionist economic policies.[10] It promotes regulated private enterprise and private property contingent whenever beneficial to the nation and state enterprise and state property whenever necessary to protect its interests.[10] Autarky is the quality of being self-sufficient. Usually the term is applied to political states or their economic systems. The latter are called closed economies.[1] Autarky exists whenever an entity can survive or continue its activities without external assistance or international trade. Autarky is not necessarily economic. For example, a military autarky would be a state that could defend itself without help from another country. Autarky can be said to be the policy of a state or other entity when it seeks to be self-sufficient as a whole, but also can be limited to a narrow field such as possession of a key raw material. Etymology The word "autarky" is from the Greek: aὐτάρκειa, which means "self-sufficiency" (derived from aὐτο-, "self," and ἀρκέω, "to suffice"). The term is sometimes confused with autocracy (Greek: aὐτoκρaτίa/aὐτaρχίa "government by single absolute ruler") or autarchy. Libertarian theorist Robert LeFevre used "autarchy" and "autarchism" in the sense of self-government to describe his own political philosophy and to distinguish it from anarchism. The symbolism of the fasces suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break. There is a scholarly consensus that fascism was influenced by both left and right, conservative and anti-conservative, national and supranational, rational and anti-rational.[35] A number of historians have regarded fascism either as a revolutionary centrist doctrine, as a doctrine which mixes philosophies of the left and the right, or as both of those things.[36][37] Fascism was founded during World War I by Italian national syndicalists who combined left-wing and right-wing political views. Fascism as a form of tyranny One of the most common and strongest criticisms of fascism, is that it is a tyranny in practice.[220] Fascism is commonly regarded as deliberately and entirely non-democratic and anti-democratic.[221][222][223] Scholar on democracy, Anthony Arblaster has recorded fascists' policy claim about the ideology supporting a form of democracy, but Arblaster regards the claim as a deliberate lie and empty rhetoric, claiming that fascism never intended to put such claims of democracy into practice, and thus he categorizes fascism as non-democratic and anti-democratic in practice.[224] However there have been scholars who have rebuked this common critical view. Scholar on fascism Walter Laqueur says that fascists "would not necessarily accept the label of 'anti-democratic'. In fact many of them argued that they were fighting for a purer and more genuine democracy in which the participation of the individual in politics would not be mediated by professional politicians, clerical influences, the availability of the mass media, but through personal, almost full time involvement in a political movement and through identification with the leader who would represent the feelings and sentiments of the whole people."[225] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

And the USA which is said to be a Democracy? (Though suppose to a be a Republic?)... and Capitalist? Just word games really... USA is also a Communist Totalitarian /Welfare State / Wealth distribution which is only enforced on the majority (communism keeps the masses suppressed while the ruling elite (capitalist) suck the life out of the land and people. ^ So as per image... with slight amendment // The top is capitalist and the bottom is communist/ slavery The capitalist are parasites and the masses are brainwashed into being communist host. Capitalism is the "American Dream"... it's that small glimmer of hope that keeps the masses into thinking one day they will break free if they work really hard.... but the capitalist elite parasites trapped the masses into a communist system taking the wealth of the individual by force and redistributing either to themselves or into fruitless projects... keeping the masses and the state in perpetual debt (slavery). Ahaha... sooo, you could say that Communism is a Capitalist system?? yeh?

*** The tunnel, the train, the plane crashing into that, the alarm clock... Dream... *** Birds of paradise Hushed garden of evermore Amber persimmons

I find it easy to remember dreams if I have an interest in them. One sure way to remember a dream or two a night for me is to read up on lucid dreaming.

Your welcome. There are aspects of existence that go beyond research and comprehension. Belief is a bandaid we place over our ignorance to give ourselves the illusion of understanding and security. Fine details explaining how meditation can be helpful in this matter - That's something that could fill quite a few books but I'll try to be very concise. Most of our lives are spent looking at the world through our thoughts. When we do that, we are subjecting the world to a very sophisticated and very biased and programmed algorithm that's rooted in our conditioning. It's a product of our ancestors, our society, our culture, our teachers, our government, and so on. That algorithm is a complex filter that applies labels, preferences, and judgments on everything that is taken in. The system is a self consistent story that is essentially the story of our world as we experience it. The story and the algorithm are completely contained within our heads. They have virtually nothing to do with reality. So when we look at the world outside (or inside) we are really looking at an image created by our programmed image of that world. And that image is a very poor approximation that cuts off any possibility of deeper understanding. One example - I see something small and brown fly past the window and make a particular noise and I say to myself - sparrow. Oh, that's a sparrow - I know all about that. Next.... But how much do really know about it? How much do your really know about that particular, individual living creature? Do you know anything about it's life, it's experience, it's physiology, it's consciousness? Do you know what distinguishes it from other "sparrows"? Is it possible that there is more there than we can find in an encyclopedic entry? Another example - I bump in to someone I work with. Oh, that's Dave, I don't like Dave - he bumped me out of that promotion last month.... What do I really know about Dave? Is he happy? Is he ill? Is he a concert musician or a rapist? If I gave him a chance, he could turn out to be my best friend. But I know Dave, I don't like him... nothing will ever change. Same with everyone we meet. We make a quick assessment and judgment, based on the algorithm, slap on a concise label and the we "know" that person. And that "knowledge" sticks with us forever, unless something dramatic happens to shake it loose (which is extremely rare - how often do we markedly change our impression of a person?). So our intellectualization and "understanding" of the world inside us and around us is a sham. It's a very sophisticated story that we continually tell ourselves over and over and it forms the basis for our entire life. It's useful from a practical point of view but it's extremely limiting and it is what separates us from reality and Nature. It is our fall from grace. We never interact with the world, just with our image of the world. We never interact with other people. Our image of our self interacts with our image of the other person... It is an ongoing dance of thoughts, preconceptions, assumptions, and expectations. And the narrator never lets up. It's always there narrating our story because without the narrator the story would fall apart and we would have no security. So meditation gives us the opportunity to see the narrator for what it is and to possibly open ourselves up to what is rather than sleeping through life wrapped in the dream of our story. It takes enormous patience and dedication and the only way a person comes to see this for themselves is if they get dissatisfied or disillusioned with the status quo. And they have to be deeply dissatisfied because it's usually a difficult and slow process of breaking down the story. This is why it tends to occur most often in people who have been through profound and serious trauma. And all of those words are just about worthless. The only way to have any idea of what meditation can teach is to sit down and do it, preferably with some expert guidance to make sure you're on the right track initially. And there are plenty of excellent resources out there for the Buddhist methods, not so much for the Daoist methods...

If your not resting in awareness in the waking bardo then there's not much chance of doing it in the bardo of sleep and remembering afterwards. Forget about dreams and dreaming. Work on your waking state, your daily practice. Once this is strong, the dream practice comes naturally and effortlessly. Not only will you have recall, but you will start to become aware that you are dreaming while you are dreaming which will start to open up a whole new world of practice and exploration.

Why would it be the highest practice? I would think that at Norbu's level, the normal daily state would be the same as dream level (or meditation).

http://thetaobums.com/topic/31630-dream/#entry476595