Into the void..

[kyoji]

Hello fellow bums,

 

I would like to start off a thread dedicated to the void. I don’t have a ton of knowledge on the actual alchemical process unfortunately, but I have a pretty good beginners grasp of the heart of daoist philosophy, and am also quite interested / familiar with Buddhist ideas mainly ch’an / zen.  I have a very rudimentary sitting practice , and have a hard time sitting for more than 10-15 tops, 2x a day.  I am slowly increasing the number but some days are much easier than others. 

 

At this point your probably asking what any of this has to do with the void?  Well for me, the idea of the void/ emptiness / sunnyata was  such an abstraction that I couldn’t really conceptualize it ( go figure ).

it was spoken about so often in the literature, but was so elusive to me. Until the day I visited it.. or at least believe that I did.

 

Last December I met a lady in the business of plant medicine, who happened to have some changa.. a smokable Dimethyltriptamine containing blend. She knew I had a handful of prior experiences with psilocybin mushrooms, that I treated very sacramentally. They really opened my eyes to so much more, and were got me interested in Buddhism / Daoism / Tantra in the first place. She warned me that this changa was a completely different can of worms, but thought my head was on my shoulders enough to see what this plant blend had to offer me.. it it offered me everything and nothing all at once.

 

a few weeks after meeting this new friend, and being gifted the plant blend,  I decided I was ready to go. I had my apartment all to myself, I got comfortable, prepared with a bit of meditation, and lit up... 

 

The result was like nothing I ever expected.  I was completely gone before I could fully exhale. Before I was fully gone I had a brief moment of great energy dispersing through my body like lightning, before feeling my body go completely limp and feeling like I had floated out from my flesh prison!I Floated to... nowhere ?

 

I was in what I feel like was the tranquil turmoil, or the ancestral not yet arising... I hadn’t read about these concepts in daoism until after this “trip” and I want some insight from some of you with more experience than I, on the way. I was in complete darkness but I felt i could see. My life flashed before my eyes, and I felt every little bit of my human experience in one big yolked soup of raw emotion. Slowly I started losing everything. The names of my loved ones and their faces, words, numbers  .... everything, every shred of my worldliness. It was unsettling, and I tried settling into it, and I did until only one thing was left,  my awareness of absolutely nothing. I thought I had died.. But at the very moment everything settled, there was this.. hesitation. and everything started shaking unstably inside of this void. There was ringing during the whole experience, and it grew louder and louder as the void shook until this white light started chasing itself in a circle, like a dragon chasing its tail.  This circle would not complete itself, and I felt like this weird broken circle was unique to me somehow. I felt a familiarity at this stage and like I had been there before. The next thing you know the ringing reaches its pinnacle in volume and frequency.. but the shaking of the void halts, and the white light that makes up my little broken circle,  then turns into a completely white silouette of a man in full lotus, and it started shaking again until there is an explosion of only whiteness, and the next thing you know I am back in my room, just sitting. I tried scratching off these scales I saw all over my arms, to no use so I just stopped trying to. They looked light that of a dragon or snake.  I had one of the greatest laughs I’ve had in my life, followed by a ton of cathartic crying and reflecting on the experience. 

 

Energetically I feel changed ever since,  as I can perceive the energy moving through my body randomly, like I could when I was a kid. There were some blockages cleared, but not all of them, and I guess that is why I am here. I need to cultivate without the use of anything other than my practice, food and water. I know that psychedelics have served there purpose but they have run their course in my life and I need to put in some real work. I had one experience of spontaneously healing my mothers wrist shortly after the experience, but I didn’t even know what I was doing. Something came over me that I can’t take credit for, but worked through me somehow, and I healed her wrist after cortisone shots and painkillers failed to relieve her. I feel like I am meant to heal, but that it is a capability that most if not ALL of us have on some level even if we have forgotten our capabilities. 

 

I know this was a very broad post, and probably comes from...

 

1) my underdeveloped understanding of a lot daoist / Buddhist teachings due to my young age, and lack of exposure thus far 

 

2) and the futility in trying to describe mystic states with mere words

 

however, I’m just trying to create some dialogue and see if anybody can relate to my experiences through experiences of their own.. no matter whether they were induced by prolonged fasting , meditation/cultivation practices, entheogens etc...

 

i also want to hear from some people on what the void, and emptiness means to them, even if it has nothing to do with anything that I’ve said..

 

 

I may very well be misunderstanding The nature of the experience I had, but I can’t deny the after effects on my mind, my body, and my awareness. I am not ready to die, but the fear of death has subsided more than I ever thought possible, and I feel very.. free. 

 

This place was beyond time.. beyond distinctions. I feel like it is ultimately what gave way to us and what will be left when all else is said and done...whatever that means. 

 

I need some some kind of orientation towards these experiences that come over me, and not even so much control them / the energy as much as understand and develop a relationship with it...

 

 

hoping to find some help along the way, through you all.

 

 

 

Thanks for taking the time to read over my ramblings, and I know that all of my knowledgeable brothers and sisters in dao will give me plenty to contemplate on these matters.

 

kindest regards,

 

kyoji

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 8, 2018 by kyoji
Fixed some spelling errors 🤷🏿‍♂️

[silent thunder]

Powerful stuff, fascinating topic... thank you for sharing.

 

I recall an experience of full conscious awareness in void.

It's the only real taste of separate I can say I've ever experienced.

It was wholly, radically terrifying at the time.

 

Conscious awareness arose in void. 

No objects anywhere, no universe... anywhere.

no universe possible...

 

even as my same familiar usual conscious awarenes was present... there was nothing.

 

pure. infinite. nothing.

pure voidness

pure absence... utter and complete 'unness'.

 

Not only was there nothing... there could be no thing.

 

It was horrifying in the extreme... utterly alien.

 

When awareness snapped back into body, the weeping was a combination of the remaining aweful experiential sensation of pure separation from the manifest and simultaneously a previously unimaginable level of gratitude as the palpable knowingness, the pure sensation of the unity inherent in beingness unfolded in awareness.

 

All previous notions of duality and unity, utterly unfolded into something previously unimaginable.

 

The waves of that stone being dropped in my pond still resonate now.

Edited September 7, 2018 by silent thunder
reworded a senseless sentence, to hopefully transmit some semblance of sense. :)

[Marblehead]

This will likely be my only post in this thread.

 

Leave the drugs alone.  You are only fooling yourself when they are used.

 

[voidisyinyang]

f you do a very strong DMT-based plant medicine - like formosayahuasca while in full lotus for 4 hours nonstop there is a very loud AUM sound that is spontaneously heard emanating from the heart.

 

This AUM sound is called by Master Nan, Huai-chin, the "conversion of jing to qi" as the opening of the 2nd chakra.

 

It is the sound of OHMKARA - the heart accessing the Yuan Qi on the right side from the formless awareness energy of the universe.

 

So that is why it is said AUM is the sound of the universe.

 

Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality calls it the Tiger's Roar - and so the left ear is the Yuan Qi as it is the right side vagus nerve that goes to the right side of the heart from the reproductive organs - the unmyelinated vagus nerve that is the reptilian vagus nerve.

 

So then the mantra Om Mani Padme Hum - means "Jewel in the lotus" - and that is the secret of the fire in the water of the qi within the jing - as yang qi is yin shen.

[kyoji]

On 2018-09-07 at 7:03 PM, silent thunder said:

Powerful stuff, fascinating topic... thank you for sharing.

 

I recall an experience of full conscious awareness in void.

It's the only real taste of separate I can say I've ever experienced.

It was wholly, radically terrifying at the time.

 

Conscious awareness arose in void. 

No objects anywhere, no universe... anywhere.

no universe possible...

 

even as my same familiar usual conscious awarenes was present... there was nothing.

 

pure. infinite. nothing.

pure voidness

pure absence... utter and complete 'unness'.

 

Not only was there nothing... there could be no thing.

 

It was horrifying in the extreme... utterly alien.

 

When awareness snapped back into body, the weeping was a combination of the remaining aweful experiential sensation of pure separation from the manifest and simultaneously a previously unimaginable level of gratitude as the palpable knowingness, the pure sensation of the unity inherent in beingness unfolded in awareness.

 

All previous notions of duality and unity, utterly unfolded into something previously unimaginable.

 

The waves of that stone being dropped in my pond still resonate now.

This is something very similar to what I experienced.. making sense of it and reorienting myself afterwards was quite difficult, but the ripples from that big splash have yet to cease. 

 

Was this state you attained reached through deep meditation?

 

thank you kindly for sharing with me, dear friend.

[kyoji]

On 2018-09-08 at 1:18 AM, voidisyinyang said:

f you do a very strong DMT-based plant medicine - like formosayahuasca while in full lotus for 4 hours nonstop there is a very loud AUM sound that is spontaneously heard emanating from the heart.

 

This AUM sound is called by Master Nan, Huai-chin, the "conversion of jing to qi" as the opening of the 2nd chakra.

 

It is the sound of OHMKARA - the heart accessing the Yuan Qi on the right side from the formless awareness energy of the universe.

 

So that is why it is said AUM is the sound of the universe.

 

Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality calls it the Tiger's Roar - and so the left ear is the Yuan Qi as it is the right side vagus nerve that goes to the right side of the heart from the reproductive organs - the unmyelinated vagus nerve that is the reptilian vagus nerve.

 

So then the mantra Om Mani Padme Hum - means "Jewel in the lotus" - and that is the secret of the fire in the water of the qi within the jing - as yang qi is yin shen.

I can only speak to what you say here anecdotally, but there was a process when I came back to my body in which I could feel blockages in my heart being cleared drastically and rapidly, and there were also physical pains / aches that subsided and have not returned since. The ringing was also a very deep aum sound, that was echoing and reverberating through me.... although not the me that I had previously known... thank you for this information.

 

would you recommend some of the books above for someone  just starting on the way? 

[silent thunder]

49 minutes ago, kyoji said:

This is something very similar to what I experienced.. making sense of it and reorienting myself afterwards was quite difficult, but the ripples from that big splash have yet to cease. 

 

Was this state you attained reached through deep meditation?

 

thank you kindly for sharing with me, dear friend.

My experience was seemingly spontaneous.  This was decades ago when I was in my twenties and at that time I had no formal stillness/sitting practice, yet the experience occured when I had become very still and relaxed at home, in the small hours of the late night/early morning.

 

At the time, my only pursuit was rather intense dedication to Shao Lin and Jeet Kun Do practices.

I had no formal stillness/sitting practice yet, but this experience was a major catalyst in moving toward stillness pursuits.

[Integrated]

Taking a shortcut via drugs probably work, but you are forever dependent on them to get back there.

 

Also as Jung pointed out, what do you do with it when you come back?

His message was simply, "Beware of wisdom that is not earned!"

 

This is expanded upon in this video:

 

 

[voidisyinyang]

2 hours ago, kyoji said:

I can only speak to what you say here anecdotally, but there was a process when I came back to my body in which I could feel blockages in my heart being cleared drastically and rapidly, and there were also physical pains / aches that subsided and have not returned since. The ringing was also a very deep aum sound, that was echoing and reverberating through me.... although not the me that I had previously known... thank you for this information.

 

would you recommend some of the books above for someone  just starting on the way? 

yes study the book "Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality" - you find it free as pdf and word searchable format in Archive - the full text version.

[ralis]

59 minutes ago, Integrated said:

Taking a shortcut via drugs probably work, but you are forever dependent on them to get back there.

 

Also as Jung pointed out, what do you do with it when you come back?

His message was simply, "Beware of wisdom that is not earned!"

 

This is expanded upon in this video:

 

 

 

Who comes back if at all?

[kyoji]

On 2018-09-07 at 8:30 PM, Marblehead said:

This will likely be my only post in this thread.

 

Leave the drugs alone.  You are only fooling yourself when they are used.

 

It was one of the most liberating experiences I’ve had in my life and I wouldn’t so simply boil it down to me fooling myself, but I do plan to leave them alone as I don’t think they have any purpose for me at this point in my life. 

 

These sacramental plants have been used by sages and seers across the world for time memorium  and I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if there is a history of an almost shamanistic and responsible useage of entheogens in some daoist circles. If something has the potential to make you remember who you are after forgetting for so long, I think it needs to be respected.  However , there is a whole lot of risk involved also. especially if you are not at all prepared and I do understand that, which is why I consider myself lucky. I am not dogmatic and I don’t think there is ever a one size fits all approach to anything exactly. These experiences, especially when substance induced makes some people uneasy and weary of them having any purpose or efficacy whatsoever. I do think however that with proper precaution and orientation towards these experiences, they can be very useful.

 

i’m glad you’re about sobriety and true practice. I grew up around users and their negativity, and always told myself that i’d never be that way.I was a very aware child, but I became like all the people around me even though it never felt very good. Prices are paid to simply fit in. I didn’t know what to do about what was happening to me, It’s all I knew of this world. I watched myself turn into something that i hated. I’ve done a lot of dumb things in my life and made a lot of mistakes, but I don’t feel that these entheogens were one of them. They helped me drop away so many years of trauma, addiction, neuroticism and abuse, that I would have spent thousands that I don’t have trying to fix, to talk to someone who would probably resort to prescribing me Prozac... 

 

Instead of the happy pills I decided to radically face my fears and let all the of the delusion fall to the wayside. 

 

 

I respect your path, and think that drugs aren’t the answer in and of themselves. But these ones were a catalyzing variable in my path, and now I need to cultivate with simple foods, a physical practice paired with sitting and detachment. That’s where you, my brothers and sisters come in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[kyoji]

1 hour ago, Integrated said:

Taking a shortcut via drugs probably work, but you are forever dependent on them to get back there.

 

Also as Jung pointed out, what do you do with it when you come back?

His message was simply, "Beware of wisdom that is not earned!"

 

This is expanded upon in this video:

 

 

I agree with you completely, but I think when you abandon the higher self for long enough you really need something to shock you back into remembrance.

 

in the family i live in, along with the culture, I never would have started seeking for these systems of thought/practice without the need to have some kind of understanding/orientation towards my experiences in the mystic.. 

Edited September 9, 2018 by kyoji
Incomplete thought

[kyoji]

6 minutes ago, ralis said:

 

Who comes back if at all?

: - ) 

 

[Integrated]

5 minutes ago, ralis said:

 

Who comes back if at all?

 

I'm unsure if I quite understand what you are trying to gleam from me with that question.

Only dead men or people in hospital beds stay longer than their body can sustain them.

As for names of people coming back, the threadstarter is a good example.

If you had a deeper reason to ask please elaborate, maybe you see the void differently from me.

 

Just now, kyoji said:

I agree with you completely, but I think when you abandon the higher self for long enough you really need something to shock you back into remembrance.

 

Yeah sure, as Jung pointed out, if one is very low in unconsciousness, then a glimpse of something higher might be useful.

But too much wisdom without real life experience to counter it, is something that can eat you alive.

[Marblehead]

6 minutes ago, kyoji said:

It was one of the most liberating experiences I’ve had in my life and I wouldn’t so simply boil it down to me fooling myself, but I do plan to leave them alone as I don’t think they have any purpose for me at this point in my life. 

Great post.  It seems you have taken the time to honestly look at your self.  I feel this is very important when we thing we have been walking a path that is not necessarily good for us.

 

[Marblehead]

7 minutes ago, kyoji said:

I agree with you completely, but I think when you abandon the higher self for long enough you really need something to shock you back into remembrance.

Good meditation can do the same thing for us.

 

[kyoji]

2 minutes ago, Integrated said:

 

I'm unsure if I quite understand what you are trying to gleam from me with that question.

Only dead men or people in hospital beds stay longer than their body can sustain them.

As for names of people coming back, the threadstarter is a good example.

If you had a deeper reason to ask please elaborate, maybe you see the void differently from me.

 

 

Yeah sure, as Jung pointed out, if one is very low in unconsciousness, then a glimpse of something higher might be useful.

But too much wisdom without real life experience to counter it, is something that can eat you alive.

It did eat me alive for a few months while really trying to integrate the experience into my daily life.. I experienced brief psychosis and some other strange side effects briefly, but most of the effects were desirable. 

 

The points you’ve presented i’m actually in accordance with. Unfortunately i didn’t have a near death experience to catapult me towards the great mysteries like c.g. Jung did, but the dmt was close enough for me , and I think had a very similar purpose on my way. I don’t plan on using these modalities as I think they will be a hinderance for me at this stage.

[kyoji]

11 minutes ago, Marblehead said:

Good meditation can do the same thing for us.

 

I know this, and am working to ameliorate my current sitting practice. I live a very meditative life, but have a feeling my sitting practice needs to really be developed. Not in disagreeance about this whatsoever. On my way out of the void I was told that I mustn’t come back unless it happened without drugs. It gave me a good scare, and “it” knew it, but was entirely in my best interest and was benevolent towards me. 

 

If you have tips, or advice on where to look for meditation training, feel free to let me know what has worked for you on the way. 

Edited September 9, 2018 by kyoji
Incomplete thought

[Daemon]

20 hours ago, ralis said:

 

Who comes back if at all?

 

 

And who (if anyone) went in the first instance?

 

☮️

 

[Integrated]

21 hours ago, kyoji said:

It did eat me alive for a few months while really trying to integrate the experience into my daily life.. I experienced brief psychosis and some other strange side effects briefly, but most of the effects were desirable. 

 

The points you’ve presented i’m actually in accordance with. Unfortunately i didn’t have a near death experience to catapult me towards the great mysteries like c.g. Jung did, but the dmt was close enough for me , and I think had a very similar purpose on my way. I don’t plan on using these modalities as I think they will be a hinderance for me at this stage.

 

That is interesting, you where lucky that your inner self knew that you shouldn't keep up the practice.

Many are not that lucky, many do not even manage to get out of psychosis, that is a big feat all by itself.

Cause when you enter psychosis, you are losing grip on reality, and start to not really care if you live or die.

Caring for life again, can sometimes be an insurmountable obstacle, cause someone who really don't care anymore,

cannot be convinced back into the light. When they have stopped caring for it,

they just want their fall into doom to be as interesting as possible, so to speak.

Of course there are several levels of psychosis, and one usually don't lose all anchors to life at once.

But pulling up even one, makes the strain on the others that much harder.

 

At least that is how I usually think about it in terms of metaphors.

I've never really gone that deep down, but I have been as deep that I considered pulling some of the anchors free.

But, I saw sense at the last minute and turned around every time.

So most of my understanding comes from common sense and a lot of theory, Jung/Freud etc

 

I did have a near death drowning experience when I was seven myself, I wonder if that changed me somehow,

cause all the weird social shit in my life started happening mostly from age 8 and onward.

Maybe I became too wise for my age and hence my peers.

Wisdom can be a double-edged sword indeed.

But as Echart Tolle says, the more one suffers the more motivated one is to evolve consciously.

I have a lot of motivation to push me through all the weird shit I have taken on lately.

[doc benway]

21 hours ago, kyoji said:

On my way out of the void I was told that I mustn’t come back unless it happened without drugs. It gave me a good scare, and “it” knew it, but was entirely in my best interest and was benevolent towards me. 

 

The "it" is that knows is not other than a deeper knowledge in you.

It's good to trust that inner voice.

 

 

21 hours ago, kyoji said:

If you have tips, or advice on where to look for meditation training, feel free to let me know what has worked for you on the way. 

 

What has worked for me has been to find a connection to a credible teacher and lineage, to slowly cultivate trust in them through seeing positive results of practice, then to devote myself to the fundamental practices over a long period of time, always returning despite the normal ups and downs of life. 

 

I find it valuable to have the guidance of "one who has gone before" when exploring such unfamiliar territory and I wouldn't trust that to anonymous posters in an online community. It's worthwhile to take note of the reliance on shamans by indigenous communities when working with entheogens and reliance on gurus when working with meditation in wisdom traditions.

[kyoji]

1 hour ago, steve said:

 

The "it" is that knows is not other than a deeper knowledge in you.

It's good to trust that inner voice.

 

 

 

What has worked for me has been to find a connection to a credible teacher and lineage, to slowly cultivate trust in them through seeing positive results of practice, then to devote myself to the fundamental practices over a long period of time, always returning despite the normal ups and downs of life. 

 

I find it valuable to have the guidance of "one who has gone before" when exploring such unfamiliar territory and I wouldn't trust that to anonymous posters in an online community. It's worthwhile to take note of the reliance on shamans by indigenous communities when working with entheogens and reliance on gurus when working with meditation in wisdom traditions.

Yes I had the feeling that it was just myself, but the ineffable nature of these experiences make it hard to speak about clearly. It was like an ancient me... almost like an avatar. Very strange but powerful stuff, especially the way it mocked me lovingly : - ) 

 

 

one who has gone before is not easy to find in Ontario I hate to say, which is why I ask people about their teachers and methods in hopes of travelling to find a master in the future. 

 

I couldn’t agree more about the importance of a guide / friend in these practices... almost more so in shamanism. This last experience was a very close call and I experienced temporary insanity while dealing with some uncovered repressions. Would never consider doing this again without a guide/shaman, and even then I think I will benefit much more from sitting meditation.

 

thank you for your contributions to this thread : - ) 

 

 

kyoji 

[voidisyinyang]

20 hours ago, kyoji said:

Yes I had the feeling that it was just myself, but the ineffable nature of these experiences make it hard to speak about clearly. It was like an ancient me... almost like an avatar. Very strange but powerful stuff, especially the way it mocked me lovingly : - ) 

 

 

one who has gone before is not easy to find in Ontario I hate to say, which is why I ask people about their teachers and methods in hopes of travelling to find a master in the future. 

 

I couldn’t agree more about the importance of a guide / friend in these practices... almost more so in shamanism. This last experience was a very close call and I experienced temporary insanity while dealing with some uncovered repressions. Would never consider doing this again without a guide/shaman, and even then I think I will benefit much more from sitting meditation.

 

thank you for your contributions to this thread : - ) 

 

 

kyoji 

 

You can get long distance phone healings to "feel" the non-local energy - try http://springforestqigong.com or http://guidingqi.com

 

[Rocky Lionmouth]

Hmmm.

The thing about these experiences (i’ve had a couple while stone cold sober and a couple while crisply baked off some trippy white strain of weed) is exactly what you’re already describing: they rush on you and while it happens it’s all good and fine no matter what the experience itself brings out emotionally, but afterwards you can spend half a life trying to come to grips through your every-day mind.

It sorta turns everything to a before and after. And one treacherous thing is the wish or compulsion to try and repeat that experience. It has passed, you got a call from ”somewhere” and your Dao-mind answered it. You put the phone down already, that is good. Now dont build a universe from a single glimpse of something that is basically impossible to describe.

 

I’ve long since quit smoking weed and went through a couple of ”shedding” periods where i disillusioned myself from a longing for some magical shift and that nauseously naive hippie-perspective i was trying to force into existance. Then i shed some more and some more more over the last ten years and i started treating seemingly revolutionary experiences or flights like taking a shit.

 

Defecating is everyday, sometimes it feels painful, at other times its a relief, sometimes its intense, sometimes pleasurable, sometimes urgent etc etc.

I’ve never heard anybody say they just had a life-changing dump-session, i’ve certainly had dramatic ones but they are faint memories that say little extraordinary about poopage or the central essence of excrement that other ”run of the mill unsurprising shits” dont say also.

 

I think your experience was radically important and good for you, it gave you a whole perspective on basically everything i guess, but leave it be now. The change happened, you saw and lived a void and chaos, blockages were undone, it was cathartic and traumatic enough to leave you psychotic for a while. You passed that so that in itself is another transformation. Now you are doing other stuff and have transformed who knows how many times since! Keep going.

 

Beware to let experiences that register high on certain scales become a new type of blockage.

 

Daoism is said by some scholars to have sprung from the wu-shamans and their practices, there’s a whole thing about wu shamanism and stuff thats pretty interesting.

 

But daoist roots are not the practices of today. Zazen is good stuff, kung fu of either internal or external beginning helps, everything can be used.

Alchemy is not what it seems, it keeps dressing up in weird robes and seems to talk a lot of woo-weird-woo but thats just to keep those who arent ready for it chasing after that something.

 

None of us can really know the Dao, i think. There is no way to have a glimpse and then understand it, thats impossible. It can not be named and it cannot be described. Naming and describing are part of the conditioned/post-heaven mind, that empty awareness is the gate to the pre-heaven stuff, beyond that gate you gotta go live it. Its by practice they unite, not by understanding.

Like chan-speak uses ”realization” because approaching the reality and living it is far more productive for us all rather than understanding it.

 

I think at least, who knows really?

 

Btw, GREAT thread and read folks, thanks!

Edited September 12, 2018 by Rocky Lionmouth
Added something about shit for clarity in the shit-comparison.

[kyoji]

19 hours ago, Rocky Lionmouth said:

Hmmm.

The thing about these experiences (i’ve had a couple while stone cold sober and a couple while crisply baked off some trippy white strain of weed) is exactly what you’re already describing: they rush on you and while it happens it’s all good and fine no matter what the experience itself brings out emotionally, but afterwards you can spend half a life trying to come to grips through your every-day mind.

It sorta turns everything to a before and after. And one treacherous thing is the wish or compulsion to try and repeat that experience. It has passed, you got a call from ”somewhere” and your Dao-mind answered it. You put the phone down already, that is good. Now dont build a universe from a single glimpse of something that is basically impossible to describe.

 

I’ve long since quit smoking weed and went through a couple of ”shedding” periods where i disillusioned myself from a longing for some magical shift and that nauseously naive hippie-perspective i was trying to force into existance. Then i shed some more and some more more over the last ten years and i started treating seemingly revolutionary experiences or flights like taking a shit.

 

Defecating is everyday, sometimes it feels painful, at other times its a relief, sometimes its intense, sometimes pleasurable, sometimes urgent etc etc.

I’ve never heard anybody say they just had a life-changing dump-session.

 

I think your experience was radically important and good for you, it gave you a whole perspective on basically everything i guess, but leave it be now. The change happened, you saw and lived a void and chaos, blockages were undone, it was cathartic and traumatic enough to leave you psychotic for a while. You passed that so that in itself is another transformation. Now you are doing other stuff and have transformed who knows how many times since! Keep going.

 

Beware to let experiences that register high on certain scales become a new type of blockage.

 

Daoism is said by some scholars to have sprung from the wu-shamans and their practices, there’s a whole thing about wu shamanism and stuff thats pretty interesting.

 

But daoist roots are not the practices of today. Zazen is good stuff, kung fu of either internal or external beginning helps, everything can be used.

Alchemy is not what it seems, it keeps dressing up in weird robes and seems to talk a lot of woo-weird-woo but thats just to keep those who arent ready for it chasing after that something.

 

None of us can really know the Dao, i think. There is no way to have a glimpse and then understand it, thats impossible. It can not be named and it cannot be described. Naming and describing are part of the conditioned/post-heaven mind, that empty awareness is the gate to the pre-heaven stuff, beyond that gate you gotta go live it. Its by practice they unite, not by understanding.

Like chan-speak uses ”realization” because approaching the reality and living it is far more productive for us all rather than understanding it.

 

I think at least, who knows really?

 

Btw, GREAT thread and read folks, thanks!

Keep going I will... I don’t have any desire to try and recreate the experience anymore, but I did want more than anything to go back at first. 

 

I actually see a fair share of similarities to daoism in some shamanic cultures, so it is interesting you say that. Would like to delve into Wu-shamanism a bit. Know if any good reads on the matter ?

 

you’re absolutely right about naming and describing. This experience made the most sense to me when i stopped trying to put it in a box with a label on it... the futility, or limits of words became so apparent to me during this experience. We fight and bicker over HOW we say things as opposed to fighting over what we are trying to express. These things are tools and approximations and are not totally real. The way i was given an almost wordless transmission is the only way to do justice to the ineffable... however some people do a pretty good job of it when they come down. They write down all of their experiences and realizations, die, and their work becomes bastardized, turned into a religion and you know the rest. But most people don’t understand these sages and holy people because they have no real frame of reference, and the ideas become very abstract when they shouldn’t be. 

 

 

“The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?”

 

 

 

Also, What did you mean by letting the event turn into a blockage ? How would this work ? I don’t fully understand the nature of blockages and hope you share some more of your thoughts on the matter with me : - ) 

 

 

thanks for for your contribution to the thread, my friend. I’m enjoying this one as well!

 

 

 

 

Edited September 12, 2018 by kyoji