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Woops. Was quoting the russian guy presumably asking the reporter girl what the droprate on her pants was. Trust me, I know about droprates. Use to farm the Eye of Shadow on my warlock and epic mounts on my deathknight. I am on US servers so,.. didnt see that go down. Dreamworld..yes. And yes. And I agree, totally. Morpheous, "Have you ever had a dream you thought was real?" Butterfly Effect inside you.

Haha, trolls go way back. N btw, droprate is precentage of a drop. Low precentage gotta translate into more value, ofc. And for mankrik's wife, well you gotta have been a witness on WoW release barrens chat. Specificly Al'akir on EU. lol, haven't played wow for a long time! ^^ About Taoist as observers. Let me bring the dream world into all of this. Have you ever had a lucid dream, where you were suddenly realized you were the observer of all, and in a moment you got control over what you did and did not perceive. This is what the practices allow for you to do in the real world as well, but perhaps trough emotions? Hence the spiritual value instead of intellectual. "Tao cannot be named"

On possession -- it depends how the issue is approached. The emptiness is an eternal transformation of energy -- so that there are energy blockages but those blockages occur in response to something -- and when the blockage is cleared out then the blockage is transformed into a learning tool, which in retrospect was seen as a means to improve oneself. So Chunyi Lin teaches, for example, that if a person has cancer to approach the cancer with kindness because in that state of loving kindness then the blockages are cleared out. The emptiness is impersonal and since we are all energy which is constantly transforming then who we are as individuals can be seen as an open process of energy transformation. Still the means to clear out energy blockages occurs through this resonance of complementary opposites -- the yin and yang working in harmony. From the emptiness then spirit is created as light energy -- but the process of emptiness is a process of spacetime travel as well. So when we resonate with the emptiness then we can change our past by clearing out blockages -- and we can also see the future. Still if a person has a dream which comes true in great detail three years later (as I did) then the question is -- what type of individual self do we have? Is our future predestined? Or can we, by building up our sense of individual self -- as will power -- thereby communicate with our deep desires in our heart, which are actually desires that need to be expressed in our future. For example every day we process information on the basis of light -- at the speed of light -- but all this information is subconscious for the most part. If we experience something through light which is emotionally significant then that experience gets stored in our body as an electrochemical energy imprint. But through meditation then that electrochemical storage of spirit light information can be reversed and the blockage cleared out -- by transmitting light back out of our bodies. In that sense time is also reversed because the stress or whatever energy blockage during the day is no longer stored in our bodies. Usually people clear out these blockages through their dreams -- but in the dream state the processing of emotions is done in an automatic fashion which just stores or imprints the emotion on our lower body. Meditation, on the other hand, will exorcise the emotional blockage so that our minds are peaceful. The electromagnetic essence in our body is our spirit energy but it is focused on the heart -- so that our soul is deep within the heart chakra and that's where the past life spirit information is stored. So an energy master can then read our past lives as well. But this karmic information is also impersonal in the sense that if we do the training of complementary opposites then we can also burn off the past live karma energy blockages. It would take a lot of meditation to do so though -- fasting in full lotus. As we purify the energy centers then the body is transformed more and more into light energy -- and as that light energy intensifies by building up then it can create more physical matter -- so that in the end a new physical body can be created. But even that ability to create a new "yang shen" body can still become a type of energy blockage if the mind is attached to the body. The more spiritual power a person has the more the person resonates with the emptiness as an impersonal process of eternal energy transformation. The more spirit light a person develops the more impersonal the person becomes because the practice relies on this impersonal process of complementary opposite resonance. Still our natural self is in an emotional state of peace and euphoria -- from the heart-mind bliss -- which happens when we harmonize the lower emotional energy to open up the heart and when we build up enough heart chi energy to open up the third eye. After that then the emotional blockages can be released or transmitted out of the body as light transmitted out of the third eye. Still there is also the taking in of the jing life force energy as well -- so that the energy is always transforming, only now as a "macrocosmic orbit" -- going out of the third eye and in through the perineum. This is a type of shamanism so that a person feels in tune with their environment -- and there's communication with the physical matter and other life forms are the person. That's why the "small universe" practice is the best to "build the foundation" to open the third eye since the small universe or microcosmic orbit transforms or harmonizes the energy by cycling it up the back and then down the front. Then the full lotus will do that harmonic complementary opposite transformation only as a larger cycle -- out of the "self" -- into other people and then other peoples' energy back into the "self." The full lotus harmonizes that larger cycle of energy transforming from shen into jing and then into chi and back into shen.

The first chakra is establishing yourself-having all the basic needs. The second chakra is creativity and productivity-you need the basics in order to do this. The third chakra is being fulfilled-being able to live comfortable, as you want. This is not to be confused with the "American dream" or any other ideas of excessive luxury. You simply seem to be a man living at the first chakra, who is looking to advance to the third chakra level. I'm not saying you don't have comfort and that you aren't prosperous, but hopefully this metaphorical explanation of the chakra levels will give you comfort in knowing that it is natural to not want to stay in what I am supposing you consider a "stagnant" phase in your life.

haha yea i had this and posted about it awhile back. Mine appeared as a snake beside my pillow. It was neat in hindsight but pure TERROR in the moment. The fear in those situations isn't logical fear. I could see a cute kitten but still be scared. It's not what you see it's what you know it is. Like mine was a snake with big googly eyes. It didn't look to frightening but it's PRESENCE caused fear. I actually just had a dream last night where this guy i used to know introduced me to a "reptillian" as he called it. It was like yellowish green lookin humanoid, about my size, sleepin on the other side of my bed O.o. I screamed out and accidentally woke him up, then I apologized and woke up, lol. Wierd shit. Anyway its seems to happen most when you're on your back (according to what I read and experienced). I sleep on my side/stomach so i don't get night terrors very often. And before bed I always think happy thoughts, laugh and smile and pray to god/godess of love to be with me through the night. My theory is that negative entities feed off your fear and negative energy. So if you emanate love and child-like nature it's like a poison to them. As for what's going on...from an eastern standpoint...I'd say you're "shifting gears", sliding into another dimension or realm. When you can consciously do this it's called an OBE. I don't think it's a sign of spiritual progression as it happens to ALOT of people, but cultivating awareness in general can lead to this i think. My other night terror is when I woke up and rolled over but my physical body didn't move. I was in this light blue hologram of myself watching my physical body lye there. Then I started screaming and trashing and yelling for someone to wake me up, then I woke up. Oddly enough both night terrors happened when I fell asleep to "energy body, chakra clearing" tapes... Thats my story Peace -Astral -Astral

Can you see the Tao? haha. Nope. My blog is http://naturalresonancerevolution.blogspot.com -- I'm a luddite which means I don't have a camera, don't know how to load photos, don't like photos, etc. I'm at my mom's computer now as I'm helping her out today -- in full lotus shooting chi energy up through the ceiling into her. haha. So I sit in full lotus on the sly -- that's why I post online because using a computer is considered to be a good thing these days. So I can be typing while at the same time I'm in full lotus transmitting energy into my parents. haha. The "small universe" is a great exercise at first but after the macrocosmic orbit stage is achieved -- the immortal breathing -- and the third eye opens up -- then you want a good environment, a more harmonized environment, since you're more aware of energy blockages around you. So Chunyi Lin says you want to be in a place that has foxes and deer, etc. -- which my dad's house has. So I'm glad I moved out of the city -- and now I focus on healing my parents and then I help them out with some labor. I'm clearing 10 acres of invasive buckthorn with a pick axe -- digging out tree roots and clearing the thicket, etc. Plus I planted a garden and chestnut trees. Last fall I shaved my head before I went into a Buddhist monastery. But the monk who lived there didn't practice full lotus and his electromagnetic essence was stuck in his lower chakra -- he was a perv! That was way too bad because most men are not pervs so to have a perv monk is very unfortunate. Of course none of the supporters and uses of that monastery -- which was just a house set up -- knew about this monk's real electromagnetic status. I had to fast when I moved in there because my diet had been real bad as I was working a part-time nonprofit environmentalist job and then just literally scavenging for food. So I was sitting in full lotus and fasting -- but I needed about three days before my energy system would be running clean. Didn't get a chance -- the monk was trying to suck off my energy and then the main layperson supporting the monastery told me that sitting in full lotus and fasting was not Buddhism. haha. So I just left the place -- in the middle of the night -- biking off into the cold rain. Anyway since then I haven't cut my hair -- so now my hair is getting long and shaggy. I like the wild look -- I don't shave but I do trim my beard. I'm 150 pounds and 5 feet 11 inches. I'm blondish-brown hair with green eyes and I've always had females pursuing me. Unfortunately my jing energy is weak because at the age of 2, before I can remember, my mom was drinking martinis in the kitchen and she says she saw me walk down the sidewalk out of view. She said that my two older sisters (age 4 and 6) were down at the neighbors so she figured they would watch after me. Anyway she says I returned home with a scratch on my shoulder and I told her that an animal had bit me. I don't remember any of this but the result was I got 24 rabies vaccines in my stomach. At the age of 12 I realized that my extremities were slightly out of proportion with the rest of my body -- I was something of a runt. haha. Mercury poisoning -- my symptoms matched it perfectly and there was a good chance the vaccine as a mercury perservative. Still I always was in the top of my class for grades and I was on the homecoming court in high school, etc. I then focused on environmental activism but in high school my focus was on music and philosophy. I played soccer growing up and I went fishing everyday. I grew up across from a lake and I had a nice big house and yard and lots of old trees -- but still I was right in the city of Minneapolis. My dad was a "power attorney" and had been the assistant attorney general in Minnesota. So he is far right wing while I'm far left wing. haha. In 1994 I was arrested protesting nuclear waste storage on the Mississippi river and then in 2000 I searched my dad's name online, discovering that his first big win as a lawyer was when he worked for the nuclear power company in 1971 -- right when I was conceived and being born. haha. So I continued on in activism -- went to Hampshire College my first year (in Amherst Massachusetts -- experimental activist school for rich kids -- no grades). I dropped out because it was too elitist and I then worked in Alaska for 6 months, living in the wild training sled dogs -- and working in the fish factory. I was just south of Denali. Then I went to University of Wisconsin Madison and I lived in a hippy commune cooperative house for 35 people -- and I did tons of populist radical activism. I got my degree and moved back to the Twin Cities, taking a night job working for a nonprofit relay service for the deaf community. I did more activism and my girlfriend went to Africa for the peace corps. I worked on an organic farm, then I visited her in Morocco for a month -- going to the oldest, most traditional village in Morocco. By now I was studying qigong but not meditating yet. I saw Effie P. Chow -- and I was doing tons of research. That's when I had the prophetic dream that came true 3 years later in great detail. I had written down that I thought the dream would come true -- of my activists friends on the roof of a house holding an activist banner to protect a wooded area -- and standing with Native Americans. So the dream was in 1995 and it came true in 1998 when I saw a photo of the exact same dream -- a photo from the newspaper. In 1997 I got into graduate school at the U of Minnesota -- part-time school and then I worked in a nonprofit for human rights in Latin America, against U.S. imperialism. I moved into a house with Latinas and one of them, from Venezuela, told me how she had meditated with Chunyi Lin. At this time he was not known much at all. So then I went to Venezuela with my new friend from there -- in 1998 -- and that's when I had a near death vision in the Andes. My life flashed before me - and it was inspired by my love for my friend. My heart chakra had been real hot and so I had to sing at night to calm myself down -- in the Andes -- and then suddenly my brain just switched into this visionary state which I couldn't stop. So my life went before me but it was not chronological -- it was psychological. I was shown how something years later had resolved some other psychological conflict from years before -- and how it was all connected but not in a linear fashion. By that time I had been practicing Yan Xin qigong and I went to see a Tibetan lama -- and when I got home from his lecture which I had listened to with rapt attention -- I noticed that I thought I had a headache. Only it wasn't a headache -- it was a pressure just exactly in the center of my forehead! That really intrigued me -- activated from listening to the lama. So for my graduate research I was doing tons of activism still and I got the University of Minnesota to divest $1.5 million of stock from Total Oil, the French company using slave labor in Burma. That issue is still going through the courts in Europe today. And then in 1999 Chunyi Lin gave a presentation to my graduate studies class in spiritual healing. Since I had studied qigong already -- particularly David Eisenberg's book on Encounters with Qi -- and since I could feel his energy as I sat right up in front and I could feel this strong heat coming from him. I knew Chunyi Lin was the real deal. He still wasn't very well known at this time -- 1999. Now I was writing an activist op-ed column for the U of MN Daily newspaper read by 50,000 a day. I was now getting professor support and I was debating the lawyer who runs the University -- the presidents come and go but the lawyer stays the same. So the issue was the University's multi-million dollar contracts with apparel companies (Nike) using young female sweatshop labor -- people working in horrible conditions, barely paid -- in the third world. So finally after a year of meetings the University joined the Workers Rights Consortium -- I had organized a coalition of student groups and I had organized protests and then the President of the University emailed me asking me not to go on hunger strike. haha. Well I got to see the corruption of the University leaders directly -- and so I knew that the elite of society were fakes -- were parasites and thugs. So I dropped out of my graduate degree out of disgust. My parents wanted me to finish my degree. At this point I was working part-time at an environmental nonprofit. So I said I would finish my graduate degree if I focused on just taking the qigong classes from Chunyi Lin. I did a self-directed study in nonwestern African philosophy from the perspective of nondualism -- using the book "the Racial Contract" as the pretext. 6 months later I had achieved the Dharmakaya state described in chapters 9 to 11 in the book "Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality." The energy was too intense. I saw dead spirits, I had precognition, telepathy, telekinesis. I accidentally pulled this old lady's spirit out of the top of her skull and she immediately bawled nonstop for at least 15 minutes. I healed my mom of a serious case of "smoker's legs" so she no longer needed surgical stockings -- and that was the cumulation of me going 8 days on just half a glass of water. My mom freaked out as I was doing a spirit exorcism of her from my energy. A friend of mine also freaked out when we were hanging out and just chatting about stupid stuff -- but then even though he was 10 feet from me -- he suddenly say: "Hey what are you doing to me!" haha. He also took classes from Chunyi Lin later on but then he got married, worked full time and didn't keep up the practice, moved to California. Anyway once I had finished my degree I just kept working part-time at the environmental nonprofit because I supported the work -- but the place was taken over by the corrupt politicians due to the new campaign finance reform law. I still kept at it since there were really no other better jobs in terms of the type of working getting done. We got some laws passed at the state level -- working on clean water focus -- but the place got more and more automated and yuppified and sold-out. So the workers formed a union which pissed off the nonprofit and a corporate lawyer was brought in from New Jersey. haha. Then the working conditions got real bad and everyone was getting fired and the workers left were real paranoid and always fighting. So I just kept sitting in full lotus all the time at work. But ever since I had done my bigu fasting training for the third eye opening I had to be on a really pure diet. During my training I had been vegan and then I had gone salt-free. But after I got to the Nirvikalpa Samadhi state with the spacetime vortex spinning around my full lotus meditation -- then I was totally detached from body and mind. I had come back from the dead and I knew experientially that the body and physical reality were not real -- just a temporary shell. The true emptiness was neither healthy nor unhealthy -- beyond dualism. The Tao could not been seen. So after that I just ate whatever food, even though it caused energy blockages -- because people had been pushing bad food on me -- my boss would walk around the office giving everyone crap candy which I felt obliged to eat to kiss ass, etc. haha. Since I wasn't making any money I just said -- whatever -- people have no idea what is really going on so I'm just going to scavenge food. I was friends with homeless people who ate out of dumpsters and people all over the world have to survive off trash scavenging. Meanwhile in the U.S. everyone is trying to be all materialistic and yuppie without considering the effects of using so many resources. I was living in this real cheap room and my housemate was this old perv dude who would stare at me and then every night he would masturbate in our common shared bathroom -- which was right behind this paper-thin wall so I could hear him. More importantly I could feel his nasty energy as he was always trying to suck me off -- but that's reality. Evil is real - and so I just sat in full lotus as much as possible during the night to try to prevent him from sucking me off in my sleep. He would wait for me to fall asleep then prey off my energy. I lived there for 8 years -- again because I was making next to no money at a place I supported for the most part -- it was the best choice of bad choices. But things were getting worse. I was also reading one book a day, posting my research online and sitting in full lotus. I continued to take qigong classes off and on up till 2005. Meanwhile Chunyi Lin got a healing center in a suburb but then got another healing center in a really far out surburb. He had started out teaching in the city -- but now he was way out in the far suburb and I didn't have a car. Nor did I have the money for the classes. I was biking all winter in the cold -- and I wasn't maintaing the ascetic vegan diet anymore. In 2006 I was hanging with a book friend in McDonalds and I was in full lotus. I took to sitting in full lotus in public because otherwise females were chasing me down and hitting on me real strong -- sucking off my energy. So at night I would always have to try to reverse their damage but sometimes I wouldn't be able to since I was too tired or I had ate too much food. You have to reverse the sex fluids -- burn it off -- ionize it back into jing eneryg and then the jing energy has to go into chi energy in order to sleep safely. Anyway so I'm with my friend and were chatting away and I'm in full lotus and suddenly this young female stands with her backside right in front of me -- in front of my full lotus position. So she's 5 feet in front of me with her backside to me and when I look at her - she's a McDonald's worker -- anyway suddenly she lets out this cry and her back arches as this energy shoots up her back and at the same time I have an internal climax shoot up my back. So I just keep sitting in full lotus and try to pretend nothing happened -- but I knew what had happened. We had just had a mutual climax at a distance! The next day I returned to see my friend and this young female was behind the counter but not at the register. She was giggling in bliss when she saw me and she pushed her coworker off the register so she could serve me. At that point I knew for sure what had happened. So then I decided to test this out to see if it was real. I sat in full lotus somewhere else across from a female -- and sure enough we had THREE mutual climaxes together. After the first one she just put her head down on the table across from me as if she was going to take a nap. After the second mutual climax she raised her head and looked at me and then put her head back down. At the third climax she looked up at me but she had tears in her eyes. So I felt really bad about that -- but at the same time it confirmed what had happened. We had three mutual climaxes together. Anyway now I'm kind of freaked out but the next day I'm at a coffeehouse using their computer and I'm sitting in full lotus. So then this dad and his young daughter sit at the table right next to me. His daughter sits so she's facing me but I just keep typing and sitting in full lotus. Still I realized that my chi energy was shooting into her and then as the energy built up suddenly the girl threw her leg over the arm of the chair -- so that she was spread eagle facing me. Then she pumped her leg a couple times and then we had a mutual climax. And then she immediately threw her leg back over the arm of the chair and as far as I could tell her dad didn't know what had happened. Now I'm shocked at this but at the same time I'm thinking -- look I was here first. All I'm doing is sitting in full lotus and typing at the computer -- it's my body -- I'm not moving. But then the same thing happened again -- the energy built up and she threw her leg over the arm of the chair, pumped her leg and we climaxed together. Then it happened a third time -- but I'm thinking now hold on. This female is young yet she knows exactly what to do -- she's working me like a pro or something. Strange but twisted. So I'm pondering this -- and the next day I'm reading at BK in full lotus. Same thing happens. A dad and his daughter sit across from me and the daughter sits facing me. My energy shoots into her -- only now she and her dad are speaking spanish. Well I'll spare you the details but at this point I'm feeling kind of sick about the whole thing because I now realize I've entered into this secret world of female internal climaxes in public that I didn't know about -- at a distance -- mutual climaxes. O.K. so that was four years ago. Since then I continued to sit in full lotus in public -- reading a book a day -- and having mutual climaxes -- chi going out my third eye and jing going into my perineum - with several different females a day. Some females I had several mutual climaxes with at a time. A few females I had several sessions of mutual climaxes with. In those later cases then I realized the heart chakra really opened up and it was true love -- which was wild because I wasn't necessarily physically attracted to these females. I had some female stalkers but then I also started to get the Perv Attack as well. Finally I realized it wasn't just sexual energy that was transmitted -- I could read if a person was really sad and I knew it was from lung damage -- I could read this even from a block away if I had eye contact with the person. I would heal the person from a block away if I was in full lotus. I could do healings of liver anger blockages. Also pancreatic worry energy -- and also fear of the kidneys. So I was sitting in full lotus for hours every day -- usually in hour or half hour stints. I was doing healings but my diet was terrible. So I was also constantly leaching toxins out of my brain -- off-gasing bacteria from my lower body. I had to be on a really pure diet -- next to no food, vegetarian -- and here I was eating out of dumpsters or eating fast food! haha. I ate garlic as an anti-septic. I was biking everywhere and so I used up too much physical energy and so I had to eat too much to compensate for it. My coworkers would get regular healings from me and would come to me to get charged up. haha. Yeah it was out of control -- I would sleep in full lotus sometimes as well since my cheap room was contaminated by the perv attacks. Finally I had to quit my job because I smelled too bad from my diet and my whole department had been destroyed due to the office getting a speed dialer supercomputer deal. I was given a new job but it was a bad position and the office had been automated -- and the nonprofit wasn't really doing any activism anymore -- in fact it was rapidly losing money from having to lease the speed dialer and pissing off people from automated calling too much. Besides my dad was now a bad alcoholic and he needed my help -- he was also chain smoking -- in his mid-70s. I tried moving into the monastery -- it didn't work. So I biked up to my parents and have been doing full lotus healing and helping them out for the past year. It's been fascinating to see some pretty deep energy changes in my parents -- but it takes a while to clear out some serious deep blockages. Slowly my diet is better -- I finally did a 4 day fast which helped cleaned out my system from years of bad diet.

I think Lucky7Strikes will be the best person to reply you because he struggled a long time over this question. Nevertheless, here are some things for you to consider: From: J Sent: Friday, April 10, 2009 8:46 AM To: (xabir2005) Subject: On Free Will from Dharma Dan (xabir2005), I wrote to Dharma Dan and asked the question about Free Will. Below is his reply for your inforamtion: ============================================================================ Dear J, Thanks for your email. I have been working a lot so it took a little while to get back to you. Hello Daniel, I just read your blook. Your chapter on No-Self vs True Self is very good. I feel it is much better than the chapter on the same topic in the book Path with Heart by Jack Kornfield. Could you allow me to ask you a couple of questions here? According to this chapter, basically you don't agree with Advaita's concept of True Self and Oneness. Is this correct? Second, all Advaita people basically assert that humans have no free will. Here is a sample short article to show what I mean: http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/teachers/freewill_balsekar.htm I think this view is closely connected to their another view which is seeing this world completely as an illusion and dream. I think Buddhism's dependent origination is a better description for perceived reality. As I read some Buddhism books, when they talk about Karma, they all say humans have a choice to change the future course. I interpret this as saying that humans have free will in Buddism's view. Is this correct? If so, how does this reconcile with no-self/ego teaching? Best regards, I am a pragmatist, so I think that concept that help people are key. Tbe Buddha addressed this topic, and I agree with his answer. He said that when training in Morality assume free will, as it helps. Thus, you presume that you can make healthy choices about how to speak and act and think, and so you proceed with the notion that you are in control and can make yourself and your world better. When doing Insight practices, you do the complete opposite as much as possible. You assume that sensations arise on their own in a causal, natural way and as much as possible you try to see that aspect of things. That said, until concentration, mindfulness, and continuity of practice are strong, one makes a lot of effort to see things as they are and stay with the natural arising and vanishing of sensations. From an ultimate point of view, and from a strictly Buddhist technical point of view, there is no free will. All the sensations of effort and will are themselves causal, and thus, while there are definitely the impressions of free will, these themselves are made of moments that arise and vanish on their own according to the laws that govern causality. Helpful? Daniel ------------------ (comments by Thusness on Konomonte's questions) Thusness says: *komomonte cannot understand the question of free will this way. *he must first experience no-self and understand how subject/object view affect us then when he look at the question of free will, he will be able to understand better. *because when our mind and experienced are shaped by inherent thoughts, we see 'free will' as a form of freedom. Once we are able to go beyond dualistic and inherent views, we see otherwise. But we must also not lead to the wrong understanding of determinism for both free will and determinism are extremes. Me says: *oic.. Thusness says: *what did u write to him? Me says: *u mean previously Thusness says: *yeah Me says: *basically i said what u said, that things do not happen by chance or ramdomly or determined, but due to conditions. so there is no control, but there is influence by intentions and imprints. Thusness says: *yes *Dharma Dan's answer i also along that line. *It is causal. Me says: *icic..

Actualism is pretty good and their online resource and articles are worth going through, but there are some problems - particularly the over emphasis on the practice. Right view is equally important to achieve Realization. Even though Richard had realized Anatta, he under-emphasized the Realization part, over-emphasized the practice to induce PCEs (Pure Consciousness Experience - which is simply an experience but not the realization of anatta), and over-emphasized his achievement. Also, whatever Richard experienced is found in Buddhism even though he thinks he is the first in the world to realize/experience whatever he experienced due to a lack of understanding of Buddhism (see my 47 pages document titled 'Actual Freedom and Buddhism' about this at http://www.box.net/shared/sbyi64jrms ) I and Thusness do not think Richard has overcomed all subtle dispositions. Richard still actively have sex and have a smoking habit, for example. Though he claims to be above passions, we doubt so. There is a 'grayscale of no self/Self' as Thusness puts it. This grayscale could be the difference between Stream Entry to Arhatship. After maturing the insight of Anatta, afflictions may be reduced to a large degree (but not totally removed) and one may easily over-estimate one's achievement, but without going through all aspects of life, it is best we do not over-claim. As Thusness said, even after maturing the insight of Anatta to a high degree, one still does not eliminate the deeper dispositions. However, Thusness did talk about (from personal experience) transcending sexual lust since many years back. So yes, if you reach a very deep level of enlightenment, you go beyond lust. He also talks about fearlessness, anger-lessness, etc. However he recently told me that these are not totally removed (though reduced to a very high extent). As I wrote in the 'Actual Freedom and Buddhism' document: Update: Thusness just informed me that emotions still arise on some occasions, and that he has as-of-yet not completed his path, however emotions (if and when they do arise) recoils/self-liberates/subsides as soon as they arise. Still, my above mapping of the various stages of realizations and the observation that Thusness does not deny the ‘Buddhist 10 fetters/emotion-elimination model of enlightenment’ still stands valid. He also notes from experience that the momentum of the experience of pure sensate clarity without a self/soul in waking life will eventually carry on into dreams (even though he doesn’t dreams nowadays except when physically ill), and thereby allowing fears and negative emotions to subside in the dream state (PCE continues throughout the dream state and no affective quality/emotions are present therein). Even though he does not deny that there is a link between the experience of Anatta and the ‘freedom from emotions/passions’, he also warned people not to over-claim what they have attained. He seems to think that it is highly possible to be tricked into thinking that one has attained something (like total and complete freedom from emotions) prematurely after the realization of Anatta. He said that one has to go through life (and its hardships) before proclaiming such things, and that there is a ‘grayscale of no-self’ and we have to go through life to experience the many faces of self/Self in the forms of attachments. He thinks that it is very naïve to think that one has overcome all sufferings and attachments when one has not faced with tremendous hardships in life (without the hardships, of course everything is fine) – for example being nailed to the cross like Jesus Christ. We should not make premature claims because we simply have not experienced all scenarios in life. He also said that (after the realization of Anatta), it may seem like complete freedom from emotions where emotions and passions never arises at all, but actually there are deeper dispositions than just a matter of directness. In directness, there is no subject-object division or gap, there is no separation, and without this separation it is simply ‘too short’ to have time and too simple to have thoughts, and one might think that therefore it is final, as stated in the 7 Phases of Thusness’s insights. Nevertheless, Thusness Phase 5 still leaves traces. He also mentioned that in practice, one should be sincere about tendencies because it conveys the deeper disposition. For example, when I asked Thusness for his opinion on Richard’s self-confessed habit of smoking, active sex-life, etc, he talks about them as examples of ‘deeper disposition’ that will not be removed even after maturing the insight of anatta. In fact according to Buddha’s standards, if you are still having sex and smoking, you cannot by definition be an arhant since you have already transgressed 2 out of 9 principles (the third and the fifth) that an Arhant cannot transgress due to the complete end of fermentations and the ‘deeper dispositions’ and any subtle cravings that Thusness spoke of. (see http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an09/an09.007.than.html) By Buddha’s standards (the commentaries, and the modern masters, and Daniel Ingram all have different standards), I would say that perhaps Richard has only reached the level of Sotapanna or likely Sakadagami (first or second out of four levels of enlightenment towards Arhantship (complete liberation): see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sot%C4%81panna , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakadagami , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An%C4%81g%C4%81mi , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arahant). Having a realization of Anatta does not mean you have ended the deeper dispositions.

Heh! Gurumayi is able to appear in two places at once, I mean on a physically tangible level. HAHA!! My Rinpoche can manifest things from his dream into physical reality.. I mean physical artifacts. YAY! I've grown up with great lineages!! I'm so happy right now to know this... YAY!

Actually, I've experienced that the people in my dream state are just as real in an entirely different dimension. Sometimes my dreams are merely my personal projection and sometimes they are an interpersonal projection. You get into this when you get a little subtler in your meditation. Sometimes I'm just psychically communicating with people that are living on Earth, but through my dream state. You make a whole lot of assumptions based upon 5 sense perception. For you it's guess work, but there are others with their 3rd eye pretty wide open who can communicate with the dead and even see the dead as they move out of their body. When I saw my Opa (Grandfather) die last year, I saw lots of energy stuff going on, on a 6th sense level and all sorts of dimensions opening up for him when I focused on his eyes and went into his consciousness. There are beings that can, and do do things that you and your brain identity may think is delusion but is actual reality beyond this dimension. You should be more agnostic if you were more open minded. I've had too many out of body and inter-dimensional experiences to believe that. I call this at this moment, mass psychosis, limited identity, limited experience, BS!

Marblehead, this really depends on your experience. You have admitted in the past that you are not all that interested in dreams, which is fine with me. However, if you take a dismissive attitude toward the world of dreaming, you can't really make intelligent and credible statements about it in a debate. So when you state that the body doesn't rot away in the dream world, you really don't have a lot of credibility. I say the body rots in the dream too, you just don't dream long enough or pay enough attention to notice it. Things break apart in dreams and there is entropy in dreams. Broken eggs tend to stay broken in the dream world as well as in the waking world. OK, good! So we have some common ground then. If logical inferences are valid, it then becomes possible to infer spiritual reality, other realms, life after death and so forth.

Agree. Of course this can also be said in the dream. Not exactly. You seem to be implying that only direct empirical evidence is admissible in determining the truth of a statement. Ever heard of logical inference? For example, the scientists infer that the universe was born in a big bang. We accept this, even though none of us were there during the birth of the universe. But we don't have to talk about the big bang. A simple casual thing like tomorrow is a logical inference. None of us exist in the future. Nobody has traveled into the future to verify that it exists, and yet all of us unflinchingly believe in the reality of the future time without any direct evidence. That's logical inference again. You haven't proven this.

Gold and All, When I dream, sometimes I have a body and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I'm just a disembodied witness. Sometimes I have hands, and sometimes they melt away when I look at them. There is nothing consistent in my dreams. I don't think, for example, I dream of an entire world with a functioning economy: rather, I just dream the corner I'm in. In fact, when I leave the "limits" of my dream, I don't discover more dream, I tend to wake up. The God comment was more in line with the logic of Anselm than the substance. The main criticism I have against the brain = mind is that it is unclear how insentient matter can give rise to sentience. Clearly, there is some link, and there is a link between the eye and seeing.

Hi GIH, Okay. If you are attempting to prove something here I suggest that we stick with the facts, as best as we can understand them. In your dream, if you shoot yourself, yes, yu and all the people in your dream will believe that you are dead. However, when you wake up you find that you are not dead and that all the people in your dream did not exist in the first place so what these non-existant people think is of no value. Additionally, if you shoot yourself during you waking hours you (your body and all its parts including your brain, are dead. We know nothing, factually, of anything that happens to or with us after we die except that our body rots away. Every thought concerning anything else is only conjecture - nothing but guess-work. So without your brain you are unable to identify your Self. You have returned. Full circle. Game over. Peace & Love!

That's not correct. First of all, if you shoot yourself in the head in your dream, you likely wake up and to people in your dream you are dead, while to yourself you continue existing in the waking world. If you shoot yourself in the waking world, what happens next depends on who you ask. If you ask some people, to us in this world you are dead, but to yourself, you are reborn in another reality.

That's your experience then, eh? In my dreams I most often have a body, exactly like the body I use now to type. Obviously inside my dream body is a dream brain. Of course I don't see my own brain directly just like I don't see it right now. I assume it's there, just like I assume there is a brain in my head right now, even though I haven't seen it. "God" is a loaded word and tends to mean a whole lot. My object is vastly more modest than proving God. I only need to prove that I am not a brain. That's much easier to do for a number of reasons. First, ultimately I know what I am and what I am not, but I cannot say the same about God. Second, proving a negative is much easier than proving a positive. Thus proving that I am not something is vastly easier than to prove something exists, especially when that something is a loaded and weird term like "God."

First things foremost, I unlike you, in my day job, Clark Kent persona, am a registered nurse and case manager who has worked in psychiatric care and with sexual abuse of both children and adults. Also these Wikipedia articles are copiously footnoted if you have reviewed them. It's a time saver. Most people don't have the job experience and training to plow thru mental health and law journals or other sources if I were to reference them. I wasnt lecturing. I was sharing what I know based on my own experiences of being a nurse since the late 1980s and teaching in metaphysical, spiritual circles since 1992. And yes, like Kate, to me it felt like you came off as being contemptuous of the victims and showing lack of understanding. Sexual abuse under the guise of spiritual leadership is horrible. I once had a woman come to tell me how her well known guru came to her and wanted to teach her tantric sex for her own personal enlightenment because she was a favorite of his. He couldn't make their relationship public because he had taken a vow of celibacy. But because of her beauty and high spiriutal attainment he would take her into his own personal inner circle for teaching even if it meant breaking his sacred vows. Of course, she was shattered when he lost interest in her as an intimate partner. I have had my own share of spritual douchebags whom over the years want the fast track to kundalini awakening by sleeping with me. That is an old line given in the spiritual seeker dating marketplace. "You are such a goddess. I would worship you and we can become enlightened together if we become tantric lovers."You find a lot of these guys hanging out at tantric seminars. It's a variation on a line I heard in BIble College. "I had a dream and God told me we were supposed to get married." Douchebags. s

The real answer may be very complicated. We have brain like cells (neurons?) in our belly area. The heart and other organs seems to hold emotions. Still, you pump the brain w/ one chemical you get happiness, another depression; you cut out parts and the personality changes. You scream at a person who's dreaming and they wake up; scream at them when awake they scream back. Is it possible this brain is a figment of imagination? No, if shoot yourself in the head within a dream, you're fine. If you do it while awake, you're dead. Seems simple to me. So I think, the mind is mostly in the brain.. again the truth may run deeper. Michael

You must be referring to Qi Dao, also known as Tibetan Shamanic Qigong. It is very similar to what you call "Systema" because the latter was developed by many masters in Russia over a period of time. Some of those masters were trained in Qi Dao, for example my grandfather, who was the last lineage holder of Qi Dao. Of course, the KGB had no interest in his Dream Yoga, meditation and healing abilities; they just wanted the fighting skills. He taught that type of skills to a number of top-notch operatives, including a few spies and Stalin's bodyguards. As his grandson, I received a very different training that was more spiritually oriented. Later I became a Tibetan lama in the Bon tradition, so my focus is a bit different from that of Mikhail Ryabko or Vladimir Vasiliev, bot of whom I happen to know. In fact, both of them are spiritually inclined toward the Russian Orthodox Church, which probably makes a difference in their approach to fighting and other applications of the art. If you are interested in Qi Dao, feel free to check out my book Qi Dao - Tibetan Shamanic Qigong: The Art of Being in the Flow on Amazon.com. It is the first in a series of books on this system, but it will give you some idea about the most basic level of training in Qi Dao. There is also a companion DVD that demonstrates the first steps in learning how to be in the flow, which may not look very spectacular, but help develop a very strong foundation for any further training in Qi Dao or any other discipline.

I think this brain v. mind distinction is important and wanted to start a thread off of it. To respond, one might say: 1. In the dream, you don't necessarily dream that you have a brain. Also, dreams, unlike waking life, are inconstant, change at a higher rate, and fade away. I've woken up from a dream into waking life many times, but I've never woken up from waking life into a dream. 2. This second proof sounds like Anselm's proof of the existence of God, and I think is more due to quick wordplay than anything. I would like to see this one broken out into simple pieces.

This is actually very easy to explain. I have no idea why xabir wrote a book about it. Assume the eye is what sees. If that's the case, since you are not your eye, how do you see? You're going to say the eye has to pass the signal somewhere, right? Like into your brain perhaps? Visual cortex perhaps? OK, but since you are not a visual cortex, how do you see? Beyond the visual cortex, the signal in the brain is no longer visual in nature, and yet visual cortex alone cannot explain you seeing. Eventually, but with great difficulty, you'll have to say that it's the whole brain that sees and you will have to identify yourself with the brain. Of course by the time you move the function of seeing from the eyes and into the brian, you will agree that eyes are not what sees anything. Then you'll have a task of proving that you are not the brain. To prove that you're not the brain is a little more complicated, but not impossible. For example, in the dream you may have a dream brain, so does this mean you have multiple brains? One brain for waking and one for dreaming? Which brain is you? Then you may respond that only one brain is real, the brain you use now to read this, and the dream brain is a figment of this brain's imagination. If that's the case, I will then reply, if you accept that a brain can be a figment of another brain's imagination, then is it possible that this brain right here and now is a figment of imagination of another brain somewhere else? And you'll have nothing intelligent to reply to this. So basically there is no good reason, other than a lazy assumption, to think that you are a brain. There are other ways to disprove that you're a brain besides the one I've listed above. For example, you can examine objects of consciousness and conclude that no object of consciousness is what it is from its own power. Rather, all objects appear as they do due to some external-to-the-object context. Since the brain itself is an object of consciousness, since we can see it in the formaldehyde jar, we can refer to it in speech, like we refer to any other object, that means the brain is what it is only due to the external-to-itself context. So that means there is informational context outside the brain that is responsible for making the brain seem what it is. That means cognition is not happening in the brain, because cognition is precisely this awareness of context. So this is another way to prove that you are not the brain. So now you can be absolutely certain that eyes are not what see.

the hunters have come in a dream; not unkind, they just attuned to death

"Comments: this is the Realization of I AM. The realization of the True Essence of Being that transcends and is prior to all manifest. It is that Existence, that Self-Existing, Self-Shining Awareness, that stands prior to and witnesses manifest-consciousness. IT does not come and go, it is Pure Existence-Awareness that is Still, Unmoving, Abiding - the non-objective Principle of Awareness alone that witnesses the coming and going of consciousness, as well as dream, and deep sleep". From Xabir Well said Xabir Om

Interesting topic, I just commented on something related yesterday which I then updated into my Who Am I? e-book/journal: Found some quotations by Indian teacher Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, and wrote some comments in red: "Now the consciousness, when it gets involved with the body-mind, is the individual. It is conditioned by body and mind. Mind is concepts. Whatever it receives through the five senses, and is stored, that is the mind. And whatever the words that flow out, that is also mind. So when that consciousness is conditioned by the body and the mind, it is individualistic, a personality." Comments: this is the normal state of ordinary sentient beings, identified totally with their stories, mind, body, "I am this and that". "And I always tell people, you depersonify yourself by not identifying with the body-mind. When you do that, you are that manifest principle; you are no more a personality, you are only consciousness. When you are in that consciousness state, you are in a position to observe the mind flow, any thoughts occurring to you - you are apart from thought. You don't identify with that thought. Since you observe the body and its actions, you are not one with those; you are apart from that body. Thus, you are now in consciousness; this is the first stage. So when you are only consciousness, you are all manifest; this is to be realized. Then, provided you are, everything is, your world is, and your god is. You are the primary cause, the prerequisite for anything else to exist, whether it be your god or your world. You abide only in consciousness. In your attention, only consciousness should be there. That is the meditation." Comments: this is one of the four aspects of I AM: the impersonality aspect. It is seen here that everything is the manifestation of the Universal Source, the Consciousness, and no individual persons is involved in the doing/creating/manifesting/perceiving of life and phenomena: Impersonal Consciousness alone is that which manifests and perceives and animates all lives. A personal self as such is non-operational and non-existent. "Now the next step is - the question raised in the morning - are you in a position to observe consciousness? This is also the final step. When you are in a position to observe or witness consciousness - and, of course, the vital breath, body and its actions - then by virtue of that very observation, you are apart from the consciousness. So when you are in a position to observe consciousness, you are out of consciousness. Then you are what we call 'the awareness state,' the vijnana or jnana state. Is it firmly stabilized in you, or are you still wavering, vacillating?" Comments: this is the Realization of I AM. The realization of the True Essence of Being that transcends and is prior to all manifest. It is that Existence, that Self-Existing, Self-Shining Awareness, that stands prior to and witnesses manifest-consciousness. IT does not come and go, it is Pure Existence-Awareness that is Still, Unmoving, Abiding - the non-objective Principle of Awareness alone that witnesses the coming and going of consciousness, as well as dream, and deep sleep. For my case, impersonality is experienced only after the Realization of I AM - but why is Nisargadatta talking about impersonality first? I asked Thusness this question and he said the order does not matter. And yes, it makes sense - I remember in the past I had episodes of experiencing the 'Intensity of Luminosity' (one of the four aspects of I AM) even before Realization of I AM. Also, Thusness mentioned how Christians can experience the Impersonality aspect and have the experience of 'being lived' through prayer and submission to God alone (without going through the I AM realization). So there is no particular order, they are all important insights and complements each other. There is no 'higher' or 'lower' realizations, they are all necessary. The reason why Nisargadatta spoke of Impersonality as 'first step' is probably because that is how it unfolded for him, just as I would speak of the realization of I AM as 'first step' because this is how it unfolded for me. It does not have to apply for everyone. The important thing isn't about how it 'unfolds', since these are just some timeless facts that can be discovered/verified at any 'time' (actually, only discovered in timeless Now) with no particular necessary order. Stories of 'unfolding' are simply relative truths. -------- *(from an old post about the 4 aspects of I AM) Thusness told me that at present try not to talk too much about non-dual (to someone else in another forum) and he also talked to me about the deepening of the "I AM" in 4 aspects: 1) the aspect of impersonality, 2) the aspect of the degree of luminosity, 3) the aspect of dissolving the need to re-confirm and abide in I AMness and understanding why such a need is irrelevant, 4) the aspect of experiencing effortlessness. Impersonality will help dissolve the sense of self but it has the danger of making one attached to a metaphysical essence. It makes a practitioner feel "God". The degree of luminosity refers to feeling with entire being, feel wholely and directly without thoughts. Feeling 'realness' of whatever one encounters, the tree bark, the sand, etc. (see the next post) Dissolving the need to re-confirm is important as whatever is done is an attempt to distant itself from itself, if there is no way one can distant from the "I AM", the attempt to abide in it is itself an illusion. On the other hand, abiding in presence is a form of meditative practice, like chanting, and leads to absorption. It can result in the oceanic experience. But once one focuses on the 4 aspects mentioned above, one will have that experience too.

Hi Bob, Any room there to perhaps consider that joy and freedom is only relative to one's own measure of despair and entanglement? We have already found out that the hand of Nature is impersonal, and in all likelihood It bestows neither help nor harm. Its the romantic folly of the nature of Man to dream of exalted states of emancipation from whatever it is It thinks It is corralled in, attempting in vain to lift one's own legs out of the mud, when, funnily enough, there is no mud there to begin with. Chop wood, carry water. Some are more concerned with the quantity and quality of the forest, acquiring the latest wood-cutting equipment, and debating the purity of the water source. Much like one who attempts to shoot the moon down with a bow and arrows... never gets the mark, but effortful practice nonetheless. Its as if the modes of 'being' becomes the main, albeit mistaken focus, instead of simply resting in the beingness of being. Upon exhausting himself after much hard work, he may then begin to consider truly letting go and surrendering to the impartial flow of Nature. Usually this realization comes only after 40 to 50 years of fruitless attempts. By that time, much of the resistance would have worn off, but the way of Nature would have also ensured that one's zeal would also be equally diminished. Of what use is realization then? Better to understand now - do not strive too hard for what is ultimately elusive, let go, rest. Abide in the resting. All things unfold with or without Man's vain-glorious attempts at manipulating the outcomes of things. Of course, Nature would much prefer if Man would cease interfering... (do you still think unenlightened Man is still as wonderfully endowed as we all want to believe we are? I sometimes truly want to believe that humanity is fundamentally good, but that would be the ultimate delusion. So is the opposite assumption, btw.) Happy weekend folks!