Another White Skeleton Infomercial

[sean]

I'm stoked you like the practice!  It's a gear that I've never experienced before. 

 

Those are great prices too--my little 4th quality 33" Mr Thrifty is decent quality--nice bones, the floating ribs are a bit tweaked but it's okay. 

 

I'd love to hear your reviews on WSM.

 

Well I don't have many profound thoughts on the WSM, I just enjoy the practice a lot. I've noticed a slight increase in energy from doing it the last few days. And I notice I am getting better and better at visualizing my skeleton, which in turn is increasing my visualization abilities in general --- I'm very happy about this as this is important to me as an artist.

 

Also, and perhaps oddly enough, I find it incredibly enjoyable to tear off my flesh in new and creative ways. Sometimes I do it "Buddhist style" as Bodri describes, imagining my flesh bloating, then oozing and collapsing and falling off. Once I let my flesh blister and then melt off. Often I just peel my flesh off like it's a suit. Today I remembered that I rarely dissolve my brain mass and I found this to be pretty powerful as it had the effect of briefly producing a distinct internal silence and an increased clarity in awareness (ie: crisper colors, etc). What I did was ... I "liquified" my body from the top down with emphasis on liquifying and dissolving my brain. I was surprised by a spontaneous visualization where my brain turned to fluid, drained down my spine and then got shit out right along with all the flesh of my lower torso, ass, etc. :shock:

 

The practice is an interesting disparity between what you would think would be disturbing imagery/visualization and the peaceful feelings of happiness and freedom it produces. Reminds me a bit of the effect that imagery of the "fierce" deities of Tibetan Buddhism have on me.

 

I have yet to focus on feeling like I am offering my flesh to other sentient beings. I have yet to do a really detailed visualization of whitening the bones as I don't have a poster or skeleton, I am just relying on my knowledge of anatomy from art school.

 

All in all, I enjoy the practice a lot and like that I can do it many times throughout the day informally, even at work .. especially the flesh tearing part. And I've also found it helpful in kickstarting my already somewhat established sitting meditation practice.

 

Sean.

[Yoda]

Nice. I'll try debraining! For the first time in years, I'm actually sitting and meditating--WSM has made it fun again!

 

My practice looks like it's shaping up with ZZ standing/sungazing in the day and WSM at night w/ everything else on ice.

 

-Yoda

[BobD]

Yoda - Debraining! Love it! That is a great word to describe it.

 

Sean - fantastic approach. I will also try that in my next WSM. Like you, I had never considered it before. I do flesh, blood, internal organs, sinews etc, but had forgotten all about the old brainbox. Awesome.

 

Both - Thanks for the links on herbs and skeletons. I will look into both if I have no luck looking locally after the Christmas rush has died down.

[sean]

Nice.  I'll try debraining!  For the first time in years, I'm actually sitting and meditating--WSM has made it fun again!

 

Here's some more spontaneous variations I've visualized:

 

Here's a fun one ...

I watched my scrotum and penis pulled out and snipped at the base with a pair of scissors. This was accompanied by the thought "you can never have sex again" ... and I allowed myself to feel what that would feel like. The disappointment, fear, etc. and I let it resolve Sedona-style until I was relatively ok with it in that moment.

 

Then I did the Washing the Skeleton White like the Kitchen Floor Meditation. First I saw the head of one of those older style rope mops starting at my feet and working it's way up just mopping the flesh off of my body. Then a really wet and soapy scrub brush starting at my toes scrubbed back and forth up my entire skeleton, scrubbing off all the dirt and making my bones glistening, glowing white. Then a hose washed off of the suds and dissolved and melted my skeleton.

 

Sean.

[RON JEREMY]

I watched my scrotum and penis pulled out and snipped at the base with a pair of scissors. This was accompanied by the thought "you can never have sex again" ... and I allowed myself to feel what that would feel like. The disappointment, fear, etc. and I let it resolve Sedona-style until I was relatively ok with it in that moment.

 

 

WHAT DA FUCK IS THAT MAN???? WHAT KINDA MEDDITTATION , CUTTIN ONE'S OWN SALAMI N HUEVOS??? ARE YA CRAZY NOW?

LOOK, DEATH IS BETTER THAN THAT, IF YA ASK ME WHETTER I RATHER DIE OR LOSE MY SALAMI, I *WILL* CHOSE DEATH, THANKS.

 

LEMME RECOMMEND YA A BETTER MEDDITATION: JUST COLLECT YER CHING N PROJECT A PEARL N EXPAND DA PEARL INTO A MAGICAL BODY ABOVE YER HEAD, THEN PROCCEED TO DRAW DA ANNATTOMY O DA BODY, DA FACE YA LIKE, THEN DRAW AN HUMMONGOUS ELLEPHANT COCK, THEN TWO SCARY BOWLING BALLS AS HUEVOS. NOW THAT'S FUN!!! THEN GO TO SLEEP N HAVE A LUCID DREAM N SEND DA MAGICAL BODY WITH DA ELLEPHANT SALAMI N DA BOWLING HUEVOS TO ANY CHICK O YER CHOICE, N ZBANG DA LIVIN SHIT OUTTA DA CHICK IN YER DREAMS, THEN SUCK UPP ALL O HER FIERY WATTER MEAN ENNERGY N LEAVE HER AS PURE AS MOTHER EARTH, WHILE YA GROW IN MEANNESS N LUST N WISDOM.

 

NOW, *THIS* IS A MEDDITTATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

BYE NOW,

 

RJ

[sean]

WHAT DA FUCK IS THAT MAN???? WHAT KINDA MEDDITTATION , CUTTIN ONE'S OWN SALAMI N HUEVOS??? ARE YA CRAZY NOW? 

LOOK, DEATH IS BETTER THAN THAT, IF YA ASK ME WHETTER I RATHER DIE OR LOSE MY SALAMI, I *WILL* CHOSE DEATH, THANKS.

LOL! I had a feeling you'd pounce on that one Ron.

 

Look, I'm not saying I would've been fine if that really happened.

 

Here's how I see it.

 

I think the identification I-am-my-body occludes awareness of Original Self, Enlightenment, whatever you want to call it. Really anything that is appended to I-AM is probably a description of an identity-addiction. But the I-am-my-body identification is very powerful IMO because it's built into our language; the way we typically talk to ourselves in our heads and the way others nearly always speak with us. It's also built into nearly all of the memes of society. It's so strong, often the mere thought that it might not be true is ludicrous and horrifying. So fear is added to the identification cycle. Clinging to anything that strengthens the identification becomes more desperate. Thoughts, feelings and behaviors that feed this I-am-my-body identification build momentum. Some patterns of clinging become so dense and out of control we call them addictions.

 

IMO, one of the most powerful ways to strengthen identification with body-as-what-I-am is to unmindfully engage in sensual acts. This is why I don't believe that it's as simple as just retain your Jing and you're fine.

 

Now, before you start yelling at me and say I'm moralizing, let me clarify. Because by sensual I don't mean pleasurable. I mean anything involving the ordinary senses. Mysticism takes a bad turn IMO when it confuses pleasure and sensation. They are not the same because pain is a sensation just as much as pleasure. It's not as simple as "just avoid the fun stuff". You can just as easily get addicted to pain, dullness, numbness, etc. as to pleasure.

 

So you have masochist Buddhist celibates with giant hemmoroids from too much sitting and marks on their bodies from being beaten awake during 6 hour Zazen sessions. And I don't think I have to go into how nutso Christians can be about their love of pain. Even their best mystics.

 

But I think us Taoist perverts make the opposite mistake just as much. Thinking that sexual-cultivation practices are a license to seek as much pleasure as possible. I don't think is the original enlightened intention of the practices.

 

I think the intention was to teach you how to indiscriminately say "yes" to all sensation and thus come to realize the true nature of sensation as being inherently empty despite the values we temporarily attach. This is perhaps the scariest, most disorienting thing about sensation; that it's just amoral feedback that has no value except for what we attach to it and how we react to it.

 

But can you really overcome an addiction that is blinding you to The Truth if you are still participating in it?

 

For example, can you overcome the addiction to smoking but still smoke every day? Chemical addictions alter the structure of your brain chemistry. If you are still smoking every day, how do you know you have overcome the addiction until you test yourself through a period of abstinence? Otherwise you're probably just rationalizing. Modern addiction theory even goes so far as to say it's nearly impossible to overcome powerful drug addictions without abstinence and the help of others because of the rationalization factor in a chemically altered brain. It's like trying to fix a broken tool with the broken tool itself.

 

Sex is arguably a drug as powerful as any. How do you transcend an addiction to sex if you are still participating in it?

 

This is one of the virtues of the right-hand path; it is practical and direct. Quit your body-identification strengthening addictions, your drugs and your sex, and deal with shit head-on.

 

But I am on a left-hand path. A path that includes sex. And I'm happy with that. But regardless of my present situation, I feel it's important to incorporate practices that "relinquish grasping and aversion". And I find that the practices that actually end up helping me the most are in this vain, ie: Sedona, emptiness meditation and now this WSM + my spontaneous improvisations. Because true there is only Now, but someday that Now may involve an experience of being brittle and elderly and blind and with a shriveled penis barely able to piss in a pot. And it would be nice if that were experienced more or less as just another phase of this strange journey and not the bitter ruin of my entire cultivation routine.

 

 

Sean.

[RON JEREMY]

MAN ONE O DA PROBLEMS O PEOPLE DONT HAVIN A REAL TEACHER IS, THEY TRY TO FOLLOW TWO PATHS AT ONCE.

WELL, WHILE THERE MAY VERY WELL BE INFINNITE PATHS LEADIN TO DA TAO, ON DA OTHER HAND, *YA CAN ONLY FOLLOW ONE AT DA TIME*.

 

IN PARTICULAR, YA CANT BE PRACTICIN CHI KUNG N SEMEN RETTENTION N ENNERGY PRACTICE N AT DA SAME TIME MEDDITATE ON CUTTIN YER SALAMI N HUEVOS OFF. CANT YA SEE DA CONTRADICTION? WHAT DO YA THINK IS DA MESSAGE YA BE SENDIN TO YER ORGANS???

 

THEY LL BE GETTIN FIRST DA MESSAGE *GROW, GET STRRONG*, N THEN DA MESSAGE *DIE, GET CUT OFF*. WTF????

 

I THINK ONE HAS TO PICK A WAY N STICK TO IT.

 

IF YA MEAN TO FOLLOW DA MAGICAL ALCHEMICAL WAY, THAT'S ALSO A WARRIOR'S WAY. THAT MEANS TAKIN NO SHIT FROM LIFE. THAT MEANS SURE IF AN EVIL ENTITY COMES FORWARD N CUTS YER SALAMI OFF, SURE YA WONT BE CRYIN BUT AT SAME TIME YALL BEND YER THOUGHT N CHI N DEVOTE YERSELF TO A) KILLIN THAT ENEMY O YOURS N RE-GROWIN YER SALAMI WITH DA POWER O YER WILL.

 

YER BODY WAS YER OWN *CHOICE* NEVER FORGET THAT. IT IS INCOMPLETE, YER TASK IS TO *FINISH DA ORIGINAL DRAFT*.

TO FINISH DA DRAFT MEANS MAKE IT INCORRUPTIBLE N EVERLASTIN N INVINCIBLE N INDESTRUCTIBLE. NOW THATS DA MAGICAL WAY.

 

IF YA TRY TO FOLLOW 2 CONTRADICTORY WAYS AT DA SAME TIME, IT IS LIKE YA BE PUSHIN DA GAS PEDAL AT DA SAME TIME AS YA PUSH DA BREAK. WELL, YA'LL BE WASTIN GASOLINE N YA'LL BRAKE YER CAR!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

THINK ABBOUT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

RONNIETSU

 

PS: IF YA DO CUT YER SALAMI OFF, I'LL BE TAKIN CARE O YER SISTER LEZ-LIE SO THAT SHE WONT HAVE TO STARVE OK???

[sean]

I hear you Ron. I think it's a valid criticism that I pull myself in different directions a lot. I'll meditate on that because I do think it fucks me up.

 

On the other hand, and I mentioned to you this before in an HT post along similar lines, I don't see a real inherent difference between "surrender" and "becoming one with Will". The latter is just a more manly way to word the same process.

 

My spiritual life over the past decade has been an ebb and flow back and forth from more overtly "magickal" practices to the more "mystical" and I think the ideal is to find a balance that is personal. But especially without the direct influence of a teacher, as you mentioned, it's hard to know when of are working a different angle because you are just bored and lazy or wether your Self is naturally striving for a needed equilibrium.

 

Sean.

[Yoda]

My skeleton is a badass mofo... he rips his flesh off him and casts it aside sloppily. I don't know how he does it, but he grabs his brain and flings it into the bloody slop. The flesh can't handle the radiation anyway. Don't need it either.

 

The warrior way is not about boohooing or defending your salami. When the gig is up you don't need your body anyways--it just slows you down. It's like in the movies when the good guy runs out of ammo in one gun, he can always get his hands on another weapon and party on. If he was overly attached to his gun his kleshas would get the better of him and he wouldn't notice the nice rock at his feet.

 

I am proud that I am able to cast my body and entire life away in 5 seconds notice per dream experience. If it happens faster than that, I'll figure it out afterwards like everyone else. 8)

 

-Yoda

[BobD]

I watched my scrotum and penis pulled out and snipped at the base with a pair of scissors

 

Hum. I think I'm with Ron on that one! I follow (and agree somewhat with) your arguments, but I don't think that this is something that fits well with my WSM

 

Then I did the Washing the Skeleton White like the Kitchen Floor Meditation.......scrubbing off all the dirt and making my bones glistening, glowing white. Then a hose washed off of the suds and dissolved and melted my skeleton.

 

Whereas this is one I like! I've tried it a few times and like it as a variation. The main difference it imposes from my imagery is that I see the bones glowing white from within (creating a kind of transparancy in the skeleton), but I have combined them (ie wash off the crud to reveal the glow from within) which works for me.

 

Thanks

[Yoda]

I agree... skip the scissors, but brushing the bones is awesome.