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In my own experience, there are many passageways in everyday life to the "spirit world". Most of those we are unable to recognize. Falling asleep, or fading out of ordinary consciousness, you may get a small glimpse. It is mostly challenging for us because of our identificaiton with the rational mind. So if I am able to get glimpses, the method is to become abit like Peter Pan. Decide to let go of your ground of reason, and become "in-sane", in a way, meaning stopping the feeding of rational thought, our greatest delusion. Then suddenly you fly. This can be done contemplating a piece of art, music, a natural scenery, when in deep connection with a loved one, when emerged into an activity. Forget about doing it intentionally, and forget about using drugs. I personally remember these instances vaguely, and I think it is important not to remember them so well. The most vivid was an awake dream I had on a retreat where my master was delayed, and we were playing around with many of his practices as we were waiting for his arrival: (I found it amusingly poetic at the time). I sat and was told to focus on a challigraphy. I struggled, and found the whole thing abit stupid and boring. Maybe 5 minutes before the session was over I finally let go, and whommm... I was flying over snow. It was Mont Blanc, as I recognized it. I ascended upward high above the glaciers, higher and higher until I reached the summit. Then it started again with lightening speed, upward, again and again. And then I had a strong emotional reaction and something passed. I don't know if that was bit beside the point, but I considered the mountain as good a spirit as anything. h

I think I understood what the ghosts were from Mak Tin Si's explanation already. If I have not understood it, then my misunderstanding is going to become apparent later on when I try to say something about ghosts within Mak Tin Si's framework. I myself do not rely on that framework though. I am curious about other people's frameworks, at least sometimes, and I want to see how other people live within their framework and what flavor their life has. It's not an either-or relationship for me. Perspective is part of nature. It's not unnatural. Mind in my view is primordial. It's not something in the brain. The mind is something without characteristics. You can think of the mind as the highest abstraction or the ultimate meaning or one's true or "high" self, or many other names. The mind is not the same as the mindset. Mindset is a structure that resides within mind. It gives shape to experience and it introduces somewhat stable "laws" and relationships and so forth between and about phenomena. Mindsets come and go, but the mind is always present. The mind plus mindset is what makes terms like "time" and "space" have meaning. Without these two, terms like "time" and "space" would have no meaning and could not be experienced. Since mindsets, from the ultimate point of view, can be picked up and dropped like one would a man's tie or a woman's earrings, it makes sense to not take on a mindset just because it is traditional, but to take it on consciously because it is either good or beautiful, and one can do so creatively. If no one teaches a good mindset, you can make one. To do this you need to have a lot of wisdom, but this stage is not unattainable. Anyone who makes wisdom their number one priority in life can attain sufficient wisdom to become creative at the ultimate level after some years or decades or at most a few lives (in my view). In other words, once one is determined to go in that direction, it doesn't take too awfully long. I'm explaining this to give you an idea of where my questions are coming from. The mind, and even the silliest and dumbest mindset are not unnatural. They are natural. People often believe that their minds and thoughts exist extra-nature, outside nature, and somehow impose, rape and violate nature. I don't believe that. It's possible to create an experience of disharmony and clashing energies, but all that is still completely natural, because nature is all-embracing and so is mind. And I have seen physical manifestations since I was a child, but I don't believe that physics is the ultimate truth. Somehow I was able to rise above my perception and my original beliefs. I will not die with the same beliefs I was born with. I'm not saying it's good or bad. But it's a possibility. I personally like it for myself and I wish other people would become aware of the possibility of consciously molding one's core beliefs. Most people sort of take for granted their core beliefs about reality. I guess that can be OK and fun. It's part of dreaming. But consciously molding core beliefs is also a valuable part of dreaming. There is regular dreaming and lucid dreaming, innocent dreaming and dreaming on purpose. I see it as all good and cyclical. I think the flavor of one's dream/experience/life has to change once in a while. What if you already had 1000 lives where you see roughly the same things and believe roughly the same things? Is it enough yet? Are you tired of the sameness yet? For me the answer is yes. Maybe seeing spirits and believing as you do is something you've only been doing for 10 lives and so it's still cool and fresh. I don't know. ----- To Stigweard and TheWhiteRabbit: Thank you! That was interesting. Stig, your square gives me more questions than it gives answers. Why square? Why only 9 squares? Why that order of numbers? Needless to say nothing there seems intuitive to me and it makes no sense. Why is hun on the left sude, west, and po on the right side, east? Why can't hun be north or a corner? I just don't get it. It's obvious to me that the square is arbitrary, and that's fine. But! If you make a system like that, it better have some interesting and elegant properties. However if the system is arbitrary, but is not intuitive, and has no interesting properties and no elegance, then I don't think it's a good system. It is subjective, but that's my take on it. The magical square appears clumsy to me.

I'd love to ask questions for those who can consistently see into the spirit world. How often do you see spirits(ghosts?) What do you think they are? Does that differ from what you were initially taught or does it confirm earlier teaching? How has it changed your life? Would you consider it a third eye experience? Do you consider dreams and dream work to be another portal into seeing the spiritual world? Last question What is good and what is bad about it? Thanks, I look forward to hearing your answers. I'm hoping this focuses the discussion away from theoretical and into what people actually experience. Michael

Hun & Po TaoBum Topics: Hun, po and other obscurities A question about the Hun and the Po Taoist Terminology ghosts, what do you think ghosts are Taoist Afterlife External Links: Taoist Models of Hun and Po, Part One Taoist Models of Hun and Po, Part Two A note on Hun Po (souls) Hun and Po Yin and Yang souls Fueling the Dream Spirit Po: The Metal Spirit Shen in Neo-Confucian Discourse CHINESE BELIEFS OF DEATH Return to Index (NOTE: Ctrl Click opens a new browser window)

You like to hear yourself talk. I wasn't talking about enlightenment, I was talking about wuji. Truth speaks for itself. Keep living in your dream world of words. Your talking around your own obsticles that the rest of us don't share. Physics are truth. rAicu-IPjMw

Don't you Canadian Taoist sleep ? My first thought was I have no personal proof of ghosts. Just second hand from people I've met here. On deeper reflection I had a dream of a good friend and room mate who had died. In the dream we talked then I remembered he was dead, realized I was dreaming, we may have had a few more words and the dream ended. A ghostly visit?? maybe or just as likely a dream of a dear friend. There was morning I was woken up by my mother and my first words to her were "Is Grandpa dead?" He was. Again ambiguous, he'd been sick, I'm sure I saw concern on her face. So its not really proof of anything. I've read some articles (mostly Michael Winn's) on Huns and Po's and it seems like a really complex system. Too complex for me. I like things simpler. I'm still trying to decide on one soul. Mixing me up w/ 7 or more feels needlessly schizophrenic . I did read a book on Childrens reincarnation that had fascinating, factual stories of proofs on young kids remembering past lives and the facts checking out. Some had birth marks suspsiciously like death wounds suffered by there past life. Ultimately the kids mostly forgot there old memories and life for them was the same as anybody else's. A few months ago I had a very realistic dream about dying. (& I rarely remember dreams). I'd just read a book from an author who was severely paralyzed and had died before it was published. In my dream I was also paralyzed and blind. I was being kept alive by a machine and I can hear the outside world. I heard the decision to turn off the machine. I thought , 'No', I felt a wire being pulled out of my chest and realized I had only a few breaths left, a few more heart beats. I let the panic subside, made my peace and looked for what was to come. So the dream didn't end badly, it was infact profound. I suspect its how I'll handle my own death when it comes. What happens after the body dies, I don't know and the trap of too much speculation means I'll create a filters and expectations. If its a chance to know a real truth, I'd rather see it clearly, as close to its reality as possible. Michael Ready to embrace God or kick the devil in the balls if he gets too close

When I say ghosts don't exist in my (little) world, I mean I'm oblivious to them. I don't see them. I don't bother them, they don't bother me . If they are there or not it doesn't particularly make a difference. Even if you could produce a ghost it would be hard to know what it was. Its that much harder when I can't see the darn things. I've had conversations with people here I respect and they've told me they see spirits and stuff. I believe them. I don't know how much good it does. I never liked the Chinese thought of earth crowded w/ hungry ghosts of dead, clamoring for food, a sort of unseen zombie movie going around us all the time. With no proof one way or another I rather hope the world's designer was a bit more compassionate. I have a similar problem w/ Christianity; a creator who dooms most of his creation to an eternal hell would inspire anger, horror and rebellion in me. Such a being had better keep its power and never turn its back to me. There's an interesting correlation between the Tibetan book of the dead and some Jewish beliefs. Both have soul's confused after death for a few days. But once the spirit has settled in they go where they should. One part of my practice is a giving away meditation. Reminding myself I am not- my body, not my thoughts, not past, future, emotions, giving up my name and all things. Its like putting a toe into the water of an ocean you know you will one day swim in. Beyond the I don't Know, my religious thought tends to be one of union w/ God in death. Not as my thoughts, but perhaps a closeness to the Buddhist Satori, oneness w/ all things, again there are Jewish parallels. Which may I add posits all good people go to heaven regardless of religious affiliation, least thats what the reformed and orthodox rabbis I've talked to have said. There may well be an active spirit world close to but not visible in our heavy dimension. Jewish writings acknowledge it but say its best left alone. Franz Bardon works come w/ some fascinating descriptions and I think serious dream work (ala Bruce ) gives a path to study it. Yawn, late night ramblings.. Michael

Ghosts and spirits don't exist in my (little) world. Whats I find fascinating is long time practitioners here see them and accept them and consider them almost matter of factly. Even when their practices are totally different there is a commonality of dimensional intrusion. Its as though threre is a line of experience that people cross, a mystical teaching understood-and a new world is opened to there view. I'm not sure that having that view neccessarily effects anything in our common world, but the fact that its so widely seen through the spectrum of different practices points out that it is real. Course that reality is still filtered through the persons experience and expectations. So I suspect one persons ghosts are another persons aliens, one persons angels are anothers evil spirits. maybe.. In his dream workshop tapes Michael Winn constantly spoke of no expectations just see whats there. A hard trick to pull off. Michael

Another perfectly expressed key truth. I know what you're saying is true, but only through the workings of logic. All these spiritual paths which exist world-wide, would not exist if there was no actual experience to back them up. One of my deepest regrets is that I have so far never myself experienced any of these "certain moments", as you call them,... despite being utterly convinced for the greatest part of my life that these windows do occur. I have had some wonderful drug -induced experiences, (one of which being so strong and clear that it may well have been a glimpse through),... but drugs are unfortunately an unreliable friend that I just don't wish to use any more. They're more like a dream than reality, and only diminish one's faculties for continuing the search in the 'straight realm'. The sadness I find is that living the straight life, there's just no more 'highs'. Just a lot of turning over tentative chains of logic in an attempt to understand this existence we are all part of. Being locked into 'mental detective work' has all the life thrillls of an 80 year old jigsaw puzzle addict in an old folks' home. I long for at least a glimpse through one of those windows that so many others have undoubtedly seen through. Just some encouragement to keep one picking up the next piece. ThisLife .

I agree. I also like MTS's stuff. But it's got to be done correctly and we don't need to have discussion flooded again. Why is there an ego resisting the personal practice area or resisting using a single thread...? Phore, excellent dream, thanks for sharing

this reminds me of a dream i had i was driving along the road. I pulled over my car. I was in a rural setting. on the side of the road there was a large field with a country home setting out in it. there was a fence around the property. There was a wooden gate on the fence. I knew that this was the "dragons gate". whan i passed through this gate i would be enlightened and immortal. I punched the gate. my hand went through the wood. The gate came off of its hinges and was barely hanging by the latch. At that moment i heard a siren and saw flashing blue lights. A police officer pulled over and grabbed me. "looks like another punk kid out vandalizing property. I dont know why you guys are so obsessed with this gate" I realized that even though i considered my actions noble, to the people living on the property I was just one in a very long stream of individuals who had an obsession with vandalizing their property. naturally the police would be waiting to catch the next guy who tried to break through the dragons gate. who was right in that situation? in my perspective i was right. in the families perspective i was a pest. Would it have been right for me to attack the police officer for just doing his job?

I used to think so too. But I've had numerous dreams that became so intensely and viscerally moment-by-moment "real", that I was worried I was getting permanently stuck in another dimension. And so before I'd forget that it's just a dream, I would make myself wake up in every one of those dreams. I've learned one thing -- there are no limits. None of any kind. Everything is literally possible. It all depends on mind. Every time I have let my mind loose, amazing things happen with the same certainty as a falling rock hitting the ground on Earth. Every time the limit has only been what I am willing to tolerate and not otherwise. The manifestation is limitless and always at the ready. I feel it lapping at the shore of my sanity at all times. The only limit is not the mind per se or the power to manifest, but only my willingness to accept and live with what I can instantly manifest and its consequences. Now, since we are talking about mindset, there is a real problem here. The problem is that my mindset is not "just because". It represents my intent! So I can't just throw it away. It represents my values, my hopes, my fears, all my ideas and all my knowns. These are not worthless things by any means. Vice versa -- they are the most precious. And if I give them up authentically, it's not because I apply some rote technique to them. Hell no. It's because I contemplate them and I gradually and authentically realize that my values and my dreams are changing. Then the process of giving up my old mindset is effortless and authentic. There is no rote to it. No technique. It's a living heart. It's alive. It's not a robot. It's alive. It's not a machine. It's alive. My mind is alive. I am alive. There is nothing automatic in me. I have habits, but those are also living. They are not machines. What is this? This is me moving my identity further from the mechanistic and closer to the lively. This way is toward freedom, toward unconstrained life, toward the mastery of belief structures. When you see a picture of a woman on the screen, the screen has no woman in it. But you feel like there is a woman there. Why? Because there is a woman IN YOUR MIND. In fact, it's all like that. There are no external objects at all. It's all just mind impressions dancing around. Solidity, materiality, can only be taken on faith. If it's not taken on faith, it can never be proven. When you think you see a wise teacher, how do you know that teacher is wise? Maybe the teacher is a moron. You know it because the wisdom is always, forever, IN YOUR OWN MIND. You could never recognize wisdom in another person if you didn't first have it in you. This is why foolish people follow foolish teachers, and wise people follow wise teachers, and those with the unexcelled wisdom follow no one at all.

Your learning to swim! Great job! Often times complete stillness brings your perception to this point of body mindness. You just waded into the pool where your feeling the basic currents. Welcome. Sensory Isolation can be as simple as sitting in a pool of body temp water. That will induce a dream like biofeedback loop. It can be very simple to find yourself in these naturally altered states that are windows into the multidimensional nature of the human race. Yes, practice makes you high, on life. I'll wag my finger but only if you wag your tail and make some ripples! The only altered state you should be "concerned" with is the one that blinds you from real body awareness. Long term tv and computer use is the worst IMHO. The rest is hearsay from naysayers who fear what can not be catagorized or dfined. Be a cup, the water is the cup. Be a saucer, the water is a saucer. Some like it wet. 5L_Ws11qgkM

gold, I've had similar dream experiences. When I was more into LD, I would look at my hands. For a while, my dream hands would melt. Then, eventually, after studying my hands all that time, my dream world would create it. No melting hands. When I meditate and am sleepy, I often "fall" into dreams for a few seconds. Over time, I've come to see that the dream image and the "real world image" are in essence the same. Stephen LaBerge has said that being awake is dreaming with conditions, i.e. the world. Dreaming at night is dreaming without conditions. Still dreaming, either way. With one exception that I've seen: dreams lack continued sensory clarity. When awake, there is a continued, moment-to-moment level of sensory clarity that is different from dreams. I don't think you can watch the seconds tick, one at a time, for a several minutes in a dream. Either the sensory clarity will fade or the dream image will shift. This is of course my experience, and yours might vary.

As I promised, I will share what happened to me. For the record, I haven't really been convinced of anything in life except one time. That's not to say my opinion hasn't shifted. I shift my opinion from time to time as a result of discussion. But it's never the kind of "wow" shift; it is rather moderate. I have experienced some "WOW" moments, but those were not because someone proved something to me, but because I realized that something was possible whereas previously I didn't have an opinion on the matter. One such WOW moment was when I read that life is a dream. The thing is, I never thought that life was not a dream. I just never thought about it, period. I just lived life without thinking what life might me. I was like on auto-pilot. I had all kinds of problems and I always dealt with all my problems in local manner using the local knowledge available. I never tried to take a larger view of my life and beliefs. I never tried to step back, until I was 20 or so. So when I read in "The Power of Dreams" that naguals thought of life as a dream, I thought, WOW!! I mean, it's not like I did not agree with it and now I agreed. But it was like I have now began to consider this for the first time in my life, and the implications were staggering and mind blowing. If life was a dream then....THEN I WAS LIVING LIFE WRONG. That was my thought. I thought, if it's a dream, then I have a lot more possibilities in life than I have ever previously imagined. So the first thing I did was I learned to lucid dream. In my lucid dreams I decided to test everything for myself. That's how I am. I don't "practice" anything. Instead I explore possibilities. My practice is reflective even when I actually do things, I don't do them just to get better at doing them, but I do them to find something out about myself and about my life. I only do things to find wisdom and not to actually do a thing to get it done. The one exception to this is when I play games or just aimlessly fool around, which I think is also good to do from time to time. So what do I do in my dreams? I check to see how the dreams are. I used to think that dreams were truly very different from waking experience. I used to have an extremely firm belief that there is no way anyone could ever confuse dream with reality. I don't even know why I thought that! I just did. I don't think I had any evidence to think that, because I never tested my opinion! I just thought so. So finally I couldn't "just think so" and I had to put it to the test. I checked all kinds of common beliefs about dreams like "you can tell you are dreaming is the clock is wrong", or "you can tell you are dreaming if the light switches do not work or work funny", or "you can tell you are dreaming if everything looks fuzzy or rainbow-y", or "you can tell you are dreaming if you pinch yourself and feel no pain", or "you can tell you are dreaming if you can't read books" and so on and so forth. There is a quite a big list of things that either I've heard of and thought reasonable, or that I just believed on my own without any specific reason to believe them. So I check all those. And what happens? Well some things seem to be true at first, but....then BAM, a dream happens it's no longer working! For example, I would look at a clock in my lucid dream to see if it's showing garbage information, and it does. OK, so it's true that clocks don't work in dreams. Then I try it the next night and BAM, the clock looks completely reasonable. I think UH OH... UH OH... that test is not reliable! Let's try pinching myself. Ok I pinch myself and I feel no pain... PHEW.. ok pinching is a reliable test of dreaming! Phew.... then BAM, couple nights later I can feel pain in my dreams too. UH OH!! Crap... pinching doesn't work. Turns out it's possible to dream of pain too. Let's try other things. To make a long story short, all my tests eventually failed and I began to worry. If any of you are laughing, I hope you enjoy yourself, seriously. But it was very serious for me at the time. I thought I was losing my sanity. I thought, "What if I can't tell dreams from reality?" I mean, on one hand I like the idea of having many possibilities open, but on the other hand, I didn't realize how much attached I was to the idea that there was this solid, comfortable, unchanging place I called reality where I may suffer, but I know how it works, and I know what to expect, and it exists objectively regardless of my mind and I exist there and basically "I know what's up". So if life is a dream, then while I gain many more options in terms of manifestation, but then I seemed to be losing my comfort in solidity and objectivity. All this culminated in me, one time having a totally wild experience. It happened very simply. One time I wake up. And I need to get ready for work as usual. I am taking a shower. I get dressed. I am almost ready to head out the door and then....I WAKE UP AGAIN. F****CK!!! @#$@#@@ WTF??? I was so shocked. What is this? I have to take the same shower, get dressed, etc... I did everything two times in a row and I was a little worried that I won't be able to leave for work because I might wake up one more time and have to do it all over again. Luckily I didn't wake up a 3rd time. After that experience I realized there is absolute NO WAY, none, zero, nada, zilch, nie, null, no way I can tell reality from dreams or waking from dreaming or any such thing. And this came into a serious conflict with everything I had previously believed about reality and life. And it got so uncomfortable for me, that I had to, for a while, abandon all spiritual practice. The funny thing is -- I felt intuitively that I was causing all these experiences using my intent. I felt how I was creating all that, and I felt how if I didn't like it, I could stop it easily. So I stopped and my life returned to "normal". I didn't know this, but it turns out I really had a strong belief in the difference between dreaming and waking reality, and while theoretically it sounded good on paper to think of life as a dream, when I actually manifested some consequences of that, I was very uncomfortable.

Dreaming is an out of body experience. When you dream, your consciousness goes to your astral body and your astral body goes to the inner world. I've been told that when you have been practicing advanced meditation for a long time, you'll be able to exit your body consciously. I have not yet experienced this because I'm still relatively a beginner. Although I have had a few less noteworthy experiences. The closes thing to conscious out of body experience I had was during meditation, sometimes my entire body would go numb and it feels like I'm riding a sort of vortex. This is just a split second experience but still half scary half fun. The most unforgettable was when I went out of bed to go to the bathroom. When I tried to switch on the light, my finger went through and I panicked. And then I suddenly found myself in bed again. I realized then that I had an out of body experience. Other times I just had lucid dreaming where you're dreaming and you know you're dreaming. This happens to me occasionally.

Control your emotions - equality/equanimity and follow the little girl's advice in smile's story. I once had a dream to buy gold, so I did. Made a quick $5000.

I am struck by the many attributes we tend to give our fellow beings... steriotypical or extraordinary... We seldom let ourselves get the true sense of who we deal with, or admire or think about or even just dream about... For me - the greatest similarities between any juxtaposed people is that we assume so much without actually taking the time to let the other folks we are interested in actually express themselves to us in any meaningful way... So much is illusion when we presuppose... We play more tricks on ourselves than others play on us...

"Life, existence, is happening all by itself in this moment. It is a flow of energy. Stress arises because you try and control this moment. You resist this moment. And the greatest way you resist this moment is through the identification with thinking. Thinking is always about the past or the future. By being involved with the thoughts, you avoid the present moment all together. You avoid life itself. You live in a mental world that only exists in thought. It is a dream world and it is a completely different reality to life in this moment. If you let go of control through the acceptance and awareness of what is in this moment, suddenly the mental world with all of it's conflicts and desires stops being real, and you experience life itself. There may be fear because the 'you' as the controller does not exist outside of this mental world. But when you realize this 'you' as the controller is the source of all stress, you become willing to give it up. Then you truly feel alive, as life itself, nourished in the eternal radiance of unconditional peace. Nothing dies in this process. Rather it is an awakening to true living. You discover what you truly are. Blessings, Kip" Discover How to Awaken Yourself To Your True Nature of Unconditional Peace By Visiting the Enlightened Spirituality Website

A great movie about Aboriginal dream time: "The Last Wave" Australian. Stars Richard Chamberlain. 1979.

This is all a dream dont wake me up plz it was yust getting good

I am as real as you are, but I may be no more than a butterfly's fleeting dream

So we live in a matrix. My body and the world is not real. When I reach enlightenment I see the world as one, and I will laugh and laugh about how reality really is. Ramana Maharishi said we never know if others are real. I think Hinduism says that life is only a dream and you have infinite potential. I am just on the path, so I don't know how reality is, but I wonder. How real are others? For example: I play a game with 50 participants, after a lot of praying to God and hard work I will be the winner of that game. Is this according to the law of infinity? I mean, because we are infinite we choose parallel worlds in which we win the game instead of others (like in dreams) Applying quantum physics this could be true?? (because every one is a center of a universe) There are infinite possibilites already existent? I don't get it. It seems that others are real, but sometimes I don't think it seems so real to me. For example, people can predict the future. I have seen weird things happening during Tarots game. This was an answer I got from a spiritual friend: The world is in you. It's a projection of yourself. As you save yourself, you save the world. Thus I think he means others are not real. But this will be a weird question for you, because either I am unreal or you are unreal or we exist in multiple universes at once?

So you made up this system based on dream qi kung? Who has been your current teachers that are alive and living beings, I dont know if that is on your site and please forgive me if it is. Ape

Your a marketers dream!!! lmfao