Sexual Alchemy: Duality and Non-Duality

[Trunk]

Michael's online article on Sexual Alchemy and the Neutral Space

 

I'm only part way through this, and have to post the link here already. You guys gotta read this. Sean, especially, I know you're going to find this very interesting.

Edited February 2, 2006 by Trunk

[Cameron]

Awesome new post from Winn about the 3 finger technique. Yoda, this goes right to our conversation about it the other night. More reason not to use this technique from the Winn.

 

http://healingdao.com/cgi-bin/tpost.pl?smessage=5409

[Ian]

Michael's online article on Sexual Alchemy and the Neutral Space

 

I'm only part way through this, and have to post the link here already. You guys gotta read this. Sean, especially, I know you're going to find this very interesting.

 

 

From the article:

 

This information .........was given to me as a result of my spending some years deeply probing a celestial immortal ...........

 

Now that's what I call research!

[thelerner]

From the Winn article - This information .........was given to me as a result of my spending some years deeply probing a celestial immortal ......

 

The question is where was he probing and with how many fingers?

 

Haven't read the article yet.

 

Michael

[Trunk]

Awesome new post from Winn about the 3 finger technique. Yoda, this goes right to our conversation about it the other night. More reason not to use this technique from the Winn.

 

http://healingdao.com/cgi-bin/tpost.pl?smessage=5409

I asked Winn for permission to post that one at AlchemicalTaoism.com, permission granted. So, now its in the Healing Love section. Thanks to Matthew, thanks to Michael.

[GrandTrinity]

This article by Winn is really out of this world...sheds so much new light into this important topic...so much to think about...I am still reading but throught I would post this quote:

 

"Wilhelm Reich took it further than that and actually came up with a theory which I am quite certain was stimulated by Eastern theories, the theory of orgone carrying the sexual energy. And his theory was that orgasm was the center of the universe. And that basically we are all gravitating towards orgasm."

 

I new about Reich and Orgone but I didnt know those interesting components of his philosophy, a very good one, indeed!

 

And, of course, the last paragraphis is great:

"We can begin to realize we are actually reproducing ourself each moment. Accept that you actually have your male-female poles flowing in harmony and you are having sex all the time. Would you feel so frustrated? You might think, "Wow, I've already had 23 and a half hours of sex, do I really want to have this extra half hour of sex with you honey? I might be getting too much here." I am kidding, of course. The cosmic whole body sexual vibration overflows effortlessly into physical sex if the energetic alignment with one’s partner is proper. "

 

So Winn now seems to be stressing more about the opening to the universal orgasm rather than just a full body orgasm during the real act, and the finale.

Edited February 5, 2006 by GrandTrinity

[sean]

[Cameron]

Never heard this before. What is the difference then, if any, between Jing chi and just Chi then?

 

Jing are your balls, chi is your lower abdomen and shen is your heart. Why do you have to make everything so complicated?

 

*Nods assuredly at his stupid and overly simplistic view of Taoism*

[allan-in-china]

Never heard this before. What is the difference then, if any, between Jing chi and just Chi then?

 

Jing are your balls, chi is your lower abdomen and shen is your heart. Why do you have to make everything so complicated?

 

*Nods assuredly at his stupid and overly simplistic view of Taoism*

 

Lol!

 

Actually I think what you are thinking is actually quite correct. Why does everything have to be made so complicated?

 

Where the majority of people are, learning about this stuff, is quite useless in my opinion. Why? Because it is only making an impression on an intellectual level. Taoism isn't about being an intellectual.

 

Find the best tai chi chuan master in the whole world, and they can tell people the subtle details of tai chi, and using qi to throw people, and all the other interesting things you can do with it. But is this going to help the person? At the end will they be able to go and do that? Not likely, they will probably just have a headache and be yawning from being given too much information that they have no possibility of applying to their life.

 

All of these things will present themselves through meditation, and thinking about them will just give you expectations, which isn't helpful (for me anyway) in meditation. What I find useful is asking can I feel the truth in this? If not then it isn't appropriate for me, whether it really is true or not.

 

I believe the only real learning is done in feeling, not in the head.

 

But people love to have intellectual discussions, they're fun right? I certainly get caught up in it quite often myself...

 

Anyways, just my rambling, if you feel truth in it use it, if not...

 

If it helps, to this point (practicing with one teacher since late 2002) he has never talked about jing, qi, or shen in any detail, he has given me only what I needed, and nothing to get me thinking and caught up in my head, meditation already presents enough troubles without me adding to it...

 

Allan

[Trunk]

The thing about that article that struck me is that it set out sort of three layers (I'm paraphrasing & misquoting, haven't read it in a while..):

1. The physical body, which will always want what it wants.

2. Energetic body, in which there is some potential for male-female aspect development and balance within one person.

3. Formless.

 

Kind of basic stuff, but he said it in a way that illuminated some things more for me. Especially the part about there being all sorts of compromises along the way amongst those three parts. Part of my deal is that I got access to some higher states early on my path, and they are so strong and compelling, its like, "I want this all the time". Its so stable strong clear when you're in it. So, a lot of my path has been about supporting that. If I could've been celibate and stabilized in that, would'a done it. But there is a process, and compromises of working amongst the layers to keep it healthy, yaddah-yaddah. Really, having some experiences set me out on a path to get the details worked out between here and there, for integration and stability.

 

All really obvious when I put it out like that (feeling a little stupid), but there's been plenty o' stress challenge teeth nashing.

 

So, for me, the article was really pertinent.

[allan-in-china]

All really obvious when I put it out like that (feeling a little stupid), but there's been plenty o' stress challenge teeth nashing.

 

So, for me, the article was really pertinent.

Trunk, I'm sorry I wasn't trying to say you were wrong.

 

I was just trying to say to Cameron that he is right too.

 

I can only talk for my own path here, I don't and can't understand anyone else's path, so please forgive any mistakes.

 

My path is very simple, I have two meditations which I do everyday, then I do tai chi chuan. So for me the article makes no difference, it will change nothing for me. I will still do my two meditations everyday, and I will still do tai chi chuan everyday.

 

If I were doing many meditations as with healing tao practitioners then an article like this may encourage me to tune the time I was spending doing one meditation, or maybe I would make some other sort of changes. I am not walking that path, and do not understand it. I gave it up because it didn't work for me. That isn't to say it is wrong, I just can't handle it...

 

I remember a time when I loved to read articles like that, but now I can't...

 

For me simple practice that I don't even have to think about is what it is about. I have found with nothing in my head (but awareness?), knowledge presents itself, I don't go anywhere for it, and I have the benefit of having a teacher who if there is anything that I must know, he will just give it to me at the right time. Sometimes in meditation a question will arise, then either be answered or dissolve and I will know it is unimportant.

 

People practice dream yoga, sexual practice, this that... I practice two seated meditations, and the sexual practice has come on its own, and I am starting to regularly have strange experiences waking up in dreams, or waking up in my body and finding I can't move, I've had an experience of falling into my body from sleep, but these things are all just side effects of the path I've been walking.

 

I have found the only compromise I've had to make is to give myself up, and let the dao live me. But I haven't fully realised that, in fact my realisation of it is extremely shallow. To me the more simple the realisation the more truth it has for me.

 

Please don't assume from any of this that I am far down the path, because I am not. I'm experiencing a few beginning stage things, and my teacher's realisation is so far beyond me I cannot comprehend it. The further I walk the further I realise he is ahead.

 

Let me reemphasise that I don't understand anyone else's path.

 

A lot of guys here seem to walk an intellectual path, and I think that can work too, it's just I've never met anyone who has realised themselves by working on details and goals, but I'm sure it is possible.

 

My path has just been letting go of anything too technical, making the meditation my own, and letting it be, letting myself be.

 

I won't say anything about your path, except that I don' t understand it, and I hope you forgive any lack of humility.

 

Before I was walking my path I had a bit too much psychic sensitivity I guess, when I walked in crowds I became very uncomfortable picking up on other peoples feelings - I became shy, I could tell a lot about a person from looking at them, and I had some strange meditative experiences when I was young like feelings of movement and space in my body, strange sensations, strange tastes and feelings that have only started to present themselves again now. (My teacher has said I practiced in my last life, but he has a great sense of humour and I have no idea whether he was joking or not.) This is why I work to keep energy grounded and lower in my body, my sensitivity and vulnerability is greater than a lot of people, so I work to keep my energy down. Thinking too much would cause too many troubles. Thinking too much is part of my makeup, and something that through my meditation work has improved significantly (though I have so far to go).

 

Allan

[rex]

A lot of guys here seem to walk an intellectual path, and I think that can work too, it's just I've never met anyone who has realised themselves by working on details and goals, but I'm sure it is possible.

 

 

Hi Allan,

Welcome to the forum, good to have you around! Most mystical/experiential insights are rationalised and systemised into an ism of some sort. I think the apparent intellectualism of guys here is more down to the limitations imposed by internet communication and the forum discussion format.

 

Rex

[Trunk]

Allan,

 

Nice to have an additional simple-path-walker on board.

 

Trunk, I'm sorry I wasn't trying to say you were wrong.

 

I was just trying to say to Cameron that he is right too.

 

I can only talk for my own path here, I don't and can't understand anyone else's path, so please forgive any mistakes.

Wow!, I've been out-polited. lol.

Relax, its all good here.

 

Trunk

[Yoda]

I'm not fully grokking Winn's article, but it reminds me of Tibetan yab-yum drawings. (woman sits on the tantric master's lap while having sex drawings)

 

Incidently, a lot of people consider this to be an actual physical sex position, but it's intended more on a subtle energetic level as referred to in Winn's article. Lamas have asked that female practitioners be drawn in the seated meditation position with a mini male practioner sitting in her lap to show that this alchemy is the same for either gender.

 

Chia and much of Taoism seem to focus exclusively on the chi/pranayama dimensions of practice. It's nice that Winn is starting to connect the system to more mystical, meditative dimensions.

Edited February 12, 2006 by Yoda

[sean]

Contemplative study and debate has played a central role in the maturation of literally every single spiritual path. Taoists are no different and have written volumes and volumes and volumes of meticulously argued, deeply intellectual philosophy. Philosophy, the pursuit of wisdom, was at one time almost universally considered inseparable from genuine spiritual practice. Contemplatives to this day are often still required to read and memorize enormous quanities of spiritual material. Saturating the manifest mind with fingers pointing to the Truth. Learning the rules before they think they have transcended a need for them. Through contemplative study and debate, intellectually sound worldviews are discovered which in turn shape cultures, religions, spiritual attitudes and the "common sense" of generations to come. Just think of any great spiritual person and I guarantee you they were also a great philosopher.

 

I think one of the problems is that spiritual philosophy has been a fish out of water for several decades. One of the reason for this is that it simply didn't anticipate the sharp, globally informed, relativistic intellectual structures of the critical, post-modern philosophies. So lately, spirituality bridging modern culture has mostly stuck to meditating, having private mystical experiences and quietly drawing a line in the sand between spirit and thought. We lash out at or ignore philosophical inquiry, or prematurely buy "new physics" attempts whole hog and just go back to sleep. But it's going to take more than that to forge the intellectual structures required to hold and sustain spiritual wisdom culturally. It's one thing to bliss out on your cushion and walk around the part with a smile on your face. It's another to penetrate and transform the dense dense structures involved in the way we do business, talk to each other, the way our government operates, environmental and foreign policies, etc., etc.

 

There are three major Tan Tiens; Power, Love, Wisdom. Cultivating Power involves some hard work in learning to protect yourself, developing self-esteem, etc. Cultivating Love requires hard work in learning to think of others, put others before ourselves, etc. I hope we haven't gotten so new age we forget Wisdom which involves much hard work in thinking, analysis and debate. And obviously all of this requires hard work in balancing overactive/underactive centers.

 

Allan, it's funny though, I have similar symptoms as how you described yourself in the past. I burn my head out all the time, and I probably do think way too much. It's good that my acupuncturist has me doing standing meditations these days and she has told me to stop reading 12 books at once so we'll see how that goes.

 

Sean

[neimad]

i went to see a this woman isira today for some counselling to help me out of the rut i have been feeling i have been in.

 

she was really something else, very intelligent, spiritual and loving.

 

we were discussing concepts and acceptance. the problem with spiritual or philosophical concepts is that they encourage duality, perhaps they create a split between thought and between practice.

 

something like "this here is the thought or concept that i base this here practice on."

 

can you see how now there is a divide between the two?

 

concepts are all well and good, but they take away our ability to just be present. to be, which really is in great part the ultimate goal....

 

by constantly reasoning everything out, by analysing, intellectualising, philosiphising... we are giving power to the divide we have ourselves created between us and the universe or the god-force or whatever you want to call it. the point is we create this divide ourselves and we perpetuate it by constantly feeding it and giving it power.

 

i just brought this up because someone mentioned about simplicity.

 

it is simple and being in a state of enlightenment or bliss should be simple too.

 

sean said this: "Philosophy, the pursuit of wisdom, was at one time almost universally considered inseparable from genuine spiritual practice." and maybe this is the way it should be too..... there is no divide. the philosophy is the practice and the practice is the philosophy.

 

i don't know if i am making all that much sense, my head is still reeling from the conversations with isira and the thoughts haven't had a chance to crystallise properly.

 

but i leave you with this....

 

"the entire ocean is contained within every drop."

[Cameron]

While we are on this topic what do people consider to be the great philisophcal works? Obviously we all know Tao Te Ching but there are so many enlightened books to read. I am just becoming interested in this as a practice or source of wisdom.

 

For Yoga, I here Patanjali(sp?) was an enlightened Master and one of the original Yogi's. His stuff sounds cool. Ken Cohen mentioned that he had an experience and then read about it in Patanjali's writings.

 

My guess is most of the high level stuff, whether Patanjali for Yoga or Dogen for Zen or Lao Tzu or Jesus or Mohammad or Buddha, change and evolve as your consciousness raises.

 

Maybe we should start a book club for spiritual books? Everyone pick there favorite book or something they have been meaning to check out(of a philisophical or spiritual nature) and we can read them over the course of the year and have philisophical dialogue/dharma combat type situations arise.

[allan-in-china]

Contemplative study and debate has played a central role in the maturation of literally every single spiritual path. Taoists are no different and have written volumes and volumes and volumes of meticulously argued, deeply intellectual philosophy. Philosophy, the pursuit of wisdom, was at one time almost universally considered inseparable from genuine spiritual practice. Contemplatives to this day are often still required to read and memorize enormous quanities of spiritual material. Saturating the manifest mind with fingers pointing to the Truth. Learning the rules before they think they have transcended a need for them. Through contemplative study and debate, intellectually sound worldviews are discovered which in turn shape cultures, religions, spiritual attitudes and the "common sense" of generations to come. Just think of any great spiritual person and I guarantee you they were also a great philosopher.

 

Sean, here I am in complete agreement with you. But I also have a feeling many people are putting the cart before the horse.

 

If you look at the way Wang Liping was trained in Opening the Dragon Gate, you will see first he was put in a room, and had his belief system and world view completely wiped clean, his mind was empty after phase one. Then they started building again from scratch.

 

A lot of what I've seen is we are building, without cleaning. Cleaning can't be talked about, it is just done.

 

My belief is having a conception that certain things exist is important, but you don't need to go and read other people's views of them, because that will twist your worldview to match theirs, and theirs isn't necessarily right. (Though further down the path this is probably very important and useful).

 

A student of my tai chi teacher's teacher told me about reading tai chi magazines, "they are useful for getting an idea that certain things exist, but knowing that thing exists is enough, then you go and experience it yourself". In fact you will find that the dao de jing is almost a roadmap for understanding tai chi chuan... and vice versa...

 

I can only talk about my training over here, whenever I say "this happened in my meditation" my teacher will just respond "yes, that can happen, that's normal, keep going". He never tells me what it is, why it is, etc. And I believe that is because I have too much junk to wipe clean first.

 

My teacher is definitely a philosopher, and he talks about the dao and theories and many things a great deal with different people, but with me because I am learning from him, and because I am quite early on the path, he only discusses things that are critical to practice.

 

When I asked him about wuwei which people (including him) could probably write books about, he just said "for you, at the moment, it means sitting and doing nothing", because that is all my level of experience can reach.

 

He's told me many stories about different people practicing meditation, and their successes through patience. He's told me many stories about what sort of people succeed on the path, and the importance of virtue. He's told me what sort of practices are useful and important for beginners.

 

In the future when I've reached certain meditation milestones, I'm sure that the philosophy will be turned up, but I believe emptiness comes before developing knowledge.

 

The only thing I can say for certain is, my thinking and desire to read this sort of article reduced with meditation. After I had reached a certain level in my meditation, I realised this isn't important for me now.

 

From the dao de jing:

My interpretation of these isn't necessarily correct it is very possible I'm using them in the wrong context, but open your mind to the possibility, may I be right?

(I'm using the Lin Yutang translation here.)

 

chapter 65:

The ancients who knew how to follow the Tao

Aimed not to enlighten the people.,

But to keep them ignorant.

The reason it is difficult for the people to leave in peace

Is because of too much knowledge.

Those who seek to rule a country by knowledge

Are the nation's curse.

Those who seek not to rule a country by knowledge

Are the nation's blessing.

 

chapter 53:

If I were possessed of Austere Knowledge,

Walking on the Main Path (Tao),

I would avoid the by-paths.

the Main path is easy to walk on,

Yet people love the small by-paths.

 

My belief is emptiness is the first stage, when emptiness is realised, then knowledge can be built.

 

Hope I've added something for you here. Taoists do build specific skills such as sexual practice, moving qi through the meridians, opening and closing the meridians, astral projection, etc. but usually they do it after they have a firm base in stillness and emptiness. I believe this is because once you have this base, you can understand the true simplicity and source of the specific skills, whereas before they all seem very much like "by-paths".

 

I personally have yet to meet a taoist who practices in the way the majority of western practitioners do, every single practicing taoist I've met has been practicing stillness and clearing the mind first...

 

But there are many who I haven't met.

 

Just in response to Cameron's post. I do actually like many spiritual works, and I think they are valuable. I just don't like technical specifics, this is from deep feelings (and as I was saying before I meditated this stuff really interested me). The quote from Dirk's newsletter posted by Ian was like music to my ears.

 

The works by enlightened people really interest me. From the taoist camp dao de jing, zhuang zi, lie zi. Outside I'm not very widely read, but there are many works that are quite beautiful. You will see they usually don't talk about any technical details, they talk about ways of looking at life and are usually much more simple, that to me is beautiful.

 

And I do believe your realisation of the meanings change as your consciousness changes and you have more experiences that you can recognise in their works.

 

But just because things don't work for me, doesn't mean they are wrong, that is just where I am at the moment, and who knows, when I reach the next milestone whatever that is, maybe this stuff will really start to strike up my interest again.

 

Allan

[allan-in-china]

There are three major Tan Tiens; Power, Love, Wisdom. Cultivating Power involves some hard work in learning to protect yourself, developing self-esteem, etc. Cultivating Love requires hard work in learning to think of others, put others before ourselves, etc. I hope we haven't gotten so new age we forget Wisdom which involves much hard work in thinking, analysis and debate. And obviously all of this requires hard work in balancing overactive/underactive centers.

 

Allan, it's funny though, I have similar symptoms as how you described yourself in the past. I burn my head out all the time, and I probably do think way too much. It's good that my acupuncturist has me doing standing meditations these days and she has told me to stop reading 12 books at once so we'll see how that goes.

 

Sean

 

Sean, thank you for your input here, I'm sorry if I am a bit harsh and come across as being too sure of myself in my replies, I suppose that is just where I am, and it will sort itself out in time. In the meantime, I'll try to temper it a bit...

 

I believe that burning your head out and this sort of thing is due to a lack of grounding, I think intellectual discussions may be possible further down the track, but that significant amounts of grounding and clarity are necessary first.

 

But I guess it just goes back to the thing a taoist from a mountain said to one of my friends, "Everyone finds the dao when they are ready", so I guess the thinking too much (if it exists) will just disappear when the time is right, and who knows it may reappear when the time is right...

 

I personally found that with strengthening my body, and this, for me, was through tai chi that I was able to not burn my head out, and was able to go back to shopping centers and crowds and handle myself.

 

I agree with the three centers idea, but I believe it is also safest to do it in that order, power then love then wisdom, filling from the bottom up. At the moment I am somewhere between the power and the love parts. In my experience if you take on everything at once, then you will achieve nothing, if you focus your efforts, you can break through.

 

To be honest I definitely used to be a 12 book at a time reader, I found a good method from my wife, if I find a bit of the book I don't find interesting I'll just skip it and move on, that way I don't get sidetracked. And when I come back to the book for another reading, I may be ready for that section. Before I needed to read cover to cover, now I can give it up a little. Though I've always got my trusty dao de jing on my table...

 

I think certain things are important for some people at certain times, and other things aren't.

 

Allan

[sean]

Allan, I don't sense a harshness from your posts at all.. you seem very warm-hearted and your insights are totally cool, completely even-tempered and most welcomed. I've been meaning to respond more in this thread I've just been super busy moving to a new place. That is a cool tip with the skipping sections of books you are not digging at the time. The one trick I picked up recently is really similar, basically I just skim my eyes over the pages, going at whatever pace my interest level creates ... so there could be a block of pages that I just skim really rapidly and haphazardly, picking up the information I want and then there are pages that really catches my eye, something interesting and I slow down and chew on it ... and everything in between.

 

Catch you later

 

Sean

[sean]

Ok. I'm back.

 

Great posts!

 

"Philosophy creates dualities." "Cart before the horse." Hmm... In my opinion dualties are usually already the reality before the philosophy. Philosophy just addresses them head-on and brings them to the surface. So the seeming overcomplexity of a philosopher is just that their demons are no longer hiding ... much like the neuroticism of someone going through a rocky kundalini awakening.

 

Admittedly, a good chunk of modern, academic philosophy has lost track of it's transcendent potential. Combined with Western seekers's fascination with, and often misreadings of concepts like "no mind", philosophy is thrown out with the bathwater along with thinking along with ego. But beliefs, thinking and ego are just objects of the Self like body, emotion, food, community .. and are not destroyed by enlightenment, just recognized for what they are.

 

I think philosophical inquiry and contemplative study should be treated like any spiritual practice. One that can be overdone, underdone, done poorly and even done wrongly. In the philosophy behind the various branches of Yogic practice, it's said that not all temperaments are suited for the extremities of certain limbs. Some people might find their Way mostly by raising bhakti through song and devotion and helping others without a strong need to pursue and purify an intellectual branch.

 

I believe a good method of philosophical inquiry can bring some painful shit to the foreground. All these terrible contradictions in our thought, speech, emotion and behavior are brought to light, yet we still often feel powerless to change them. These are dark nights like any genuine path. I physically feel when I am overdoing intellectual practice, or worse, indulging in pseudo-intellectualism in a sloppy or compulsive way in which it hardly could be called a practice anymore.

 

From a radically non-dual position, often espoused by teachers in the guru "talking schools" of Advaita Vedanta and Dzogchen, philosophy is shown to be mostly bullshit, and so is practice ... we don't need any of it, we are already Perfect right this moment. Yet for some mysterious reason we find ourselves in a state of forgetfullness where we don't think, feel or act from this awareness. We are deeply convinced in the very tissues of our bodies that we are a separate being, that our story is mostly accurate, that what we think is basically true, that progress is possible, that there is something that can be attained, etc. This is the dilemna we are in. It sucks in a lot of ways, it really does just suck. But the sooner we can be present with the painful paradoxes that we are living in, some of which are bound to be intellectual, the sooner we can work to find a path to freedom.

 

IMO we are all always proposing and promoting a philosophy. By every choice and non-choice we make, the values and beliefs our decisions spring from, who we befriend, what we say, even our aesthetic choices of clothing.

 

The most common philosophy I see in people I talk to in America is actually an anti-philosophy. Across the board from "average Joe's", post-modern academics, businessmen, artists, new agers to fundamentalist Christians there is this common thread of disinterest in thinking clearly and rationally weeding out contradictions and inconsistencies of thoughts, beliefs and actions. Unfortunately I don't think the transrational is found by avoiding the difficulties of moving through the rational.

 

"The main transformative task in the world today is helping people to get to the "rational" level of consciousness; most folks are still mired in mythic-membership belief systems (like old-style religion) and are thus not capable of reaching agreements to solve things like the ecological crisis." via Stephen Dinan

 

In closing I have to disagree with a linear power-love-wisdom trajectory. I think we need to dynamically cultivate all three simultaneously. If you have a good teacher that you trust who is holding the intellectual structures of a wisdom tradition for you, nourishing you with that wisdom over time and in tune with your development ... than IMO you are in an ideal place where you can relax your mind a bit and not worry so much. Still, I think there is valuable work to be done in discovering a post-post-modern, philosophy that is aware of it's ridiculously immense limitations yet serves as a live map of very real territory. Honestly I don't think many teachers are doing this work, as legitimate as they may be in other areas. It's a tall, messy order not unlike vowing to save all sentient beings. Asking big questions and not settling on little answers, even when the painful limitations of the grasping mind and false self seem unbearable.

 

Sean

[allan-in-china]

Not going to reply to anything specific, I just felt it was necessary to write something here so here I am...

 

This will be fairly random. These ideas are all my own, and probably completely incorrect, but all from experience, except where I attribute to others.

 

Ok power/love/wisdom I actually lost my stillness in response to this one, so what I wrote above was crap. And I think actually dividing between them is mostly crap also, they are all part of one spectrum. What I was responding to was lower/middle/upper dantian but the way I responded was crap in this case also, taoist practice focuses generally speaking on the lower dantian for beginners, and for me focusing on the lower dantian with a visualisation actually filled my lower dantian, then started filling the middle dantian, and after that was full it started pumping energy into the upper dantian, and this hasn't filled yet, so actually dividing was stupid of me, I just focused on one and the rest fell into line.

 

Please note the above has nothing practicable in it.

 

Ok I'm going to get out of my experience and throw something in for interest here: my teacher said most taoist practices start in the lower dantian, some start in the upper dantian, and a few start in the middle dantian, but starting in the middle is rare because without really great guidance you can cause sleeping troubles which will generally speaking stuff up your life. Sleep is probably the most important thing in the world for ordinary mortals.

 

Back to my experience:

 

Ok, the intellect is to me a tool. It like all tools can be used for good and evil... What divides it? Our own inner feelings in my experience. Like I said a lot of the intellectual stuff used to really interest me, but now it has dropped. Am I in a lapse? All I can tell is I found truth inside myself and that helped me see truth and non-truth outside of myself. I believe this will be useful for your life purpose questions.

 

A few years ago I asked my teacher if I will know why I was born where I was, and why everything is the way it is, he said with time and practice, it will become clear to me.

 

I think there has probably also been some misunderstanding of what I wrote based on the responses, this is partially due to my inadequate ability to communicate, and partially due to the inadequate ability of words to describe feelings, which is all our intellect seems to be to me, just another protocol/interface/connection between our emotions and the outside world.

 

My teacher has encouraged me to study philosophy: specifically the dao de jing, zhuang zi and lie zi. He himself is in the process of rearranging a book written by a taoist in the song dynasty for his own personal use, so philosophy is definitely important in his and my worldview.

 

Intellect is also a great tool when used well.

 

Another area where I think misinterpretation arose was my dividing between wisdom and intellectualism. To me wisdom is correct use of the intellect, and intellectualism is incorrect use. So once again either my fault, or the fact that we all attach different meanings to the same words.

 

I also think talking about some things that people can relate to is valuable, like Dirk uses the idea of 4 different parts of a person, because we can all relate to that, as he himself said, in the 4dim work they know of 7 but find most people can't relate to that, I ask, what value is something that people can't relate to? Yes what people can relate to will change over time, and so does it's value. Ok I'm theorizing, getting intellectual, my definition of intellectual, is anything which isn't in my truth, fairly limited definition admittedly...

 

So I'll keep my philosophy coming from the dao de jing, zhuang zi, and lie zi until I find I need something more, but I'd imagine that will be quite a few years away...

 

By the way I like what neimad wrote about simplicity. This is pretty similar to my philosophy, but I think when I reach a certain level of stillness I may have interest in what I currently call intellectual things, probably because by that time my depth of experience will have increased.

 

Ok hope that helped, like I said I could be completely wrong, and I did get too intellectual (my version) here, showing I need to get back to my stillness, and shut up. I'm going to try to keep my opinions to myself until I at least have some experience in things. But feeling like I'm right is nice for a while.

 

Good luck,

Allan

[allan-in-china]

Just a quick thing to add, have you read stephen coveys 7 habits, it talks about something like a circle of influence, and a circle of interest (or something like that can't remember exact terms). Ideally the circles should be the same size, interest too big - wasting your mind power, interest smaller than influence - wasting your ability. They should both grow slowly together.

 

Something like that, covey explains it a lot better than me.

 

Allan

[allan-in-china]

Ok, the intellect is to me a tool. It like all tools can be used for good and evil... What divides it? Our own inner feelings in my experience. Like I said a lot of the intellectual stuff used to really interest me, but now it has dropped. Am I in a lapse? All I can tell is I found truth inside myself and that helped me see truth and non-truth outside of myself.

 

Just a quick clarification because I'm realising emotion isn't easy to convey in a written medium...

 

When I said good or evil... My meaning was in a helpful or an unhelpful way, used in a way with or used in a way not with the dao.

 

When I said helped me see truth and non-truth outside of myself, this by no means indicates that I have any idea when someone is lying, I think it is feeling the depth something is coming from (emotion, or deeper), but I could be wrong, I've only discovered it a little and don't by any means understand it, and it is not consistent yet.

 

I wrote something to clear up mistakes, and filled it with new mistakes... Argh.

 

Allan

[Smile]

Hi Allan,

Very nice post- it was a pleasure to read, and I can certainly relate to that.

Nowadays, simplicity is a major theme of my life. In life and in intelectual knowledge.

Max