Emotions are the path

[freeform]

8 hours ago, Bindi said:

my solution tackles the energy blocks directly by releasing unfelt emotions by allowing them to be felt. 

 

The alternative, attempting to solve emotional problems via a mentally chosen filter, in this case the spiritually accepted filters of compassion or oneness or non-judgement

Releasing unfelt emotions by allowing them to be felt is very tricky... at least the releasing part.

 

By feeling your emotion, you actually re-attach and strengthen its influence in your subconscious. It’s true that it’s possible to release emotions in this way - but only if you can be in a state of equanimity as the emotion comes up.

 

Equanimity is a pretty advanced state... the vast majority of people who think they’ve achieved it, haven’t.
 

They may have felt it for short periods while in ideal conditions... 

 

If you find the sound of cars honking while you’re trying to meditate irritating, then you’re nowhere near equanimity. If you’re distracted by anything - whether internal (eg pain in your back) or external (people walking around you) while you’re meditating, then you haven’t reached equanimity.

 

If you’re the monk that can burn themselves alive and not react to the pain and enter stillness as your flesh burns - that’s equanimity... But how many of us have achieved that sort of equanimity?

 

The Daoist method of releasing blockages, that I’ve been taught, is not by allowing them to express as felt experience while in a state of deep equanimity. It’s done very differently - it’s done by working on them directly at the level of Qi - not the level of the heart-mind.

 

Releasing anger for example is not felt as anger, but might be felt as heat moving up in the body and out of your hands. It’s experienced in a much more mechanistic way. You sense the effect of anger on your body, but you don’t sense the emotion at all. In fact, much of the time in practice you’ll be releasing stuck emotions without ever even knowing it... a little shiver here, a warm sensation there, a giggle and a yawn - all of these may well be releasing stuck patterns that were created by that strict catholic teacher or that bully at school - but you’d never know, because the content isn’t felt or experienced - all that’s felt is the movement of Qi.
 

If you have the zifagong process active, anger might express itself quite physically through your nervous system - you might spontaneously growl or flail around and shout... but all the while, inside you don’t feel a trace of anger (or any emotion) - you just have the awareness of your body doing these strange things.

 

If you feel anger, then you’re invariably creating an attachment to it at some level of your heart-mind.

Edited October 15, 2020 by freeform

[Damla]

On 15.10.2020 at 12:51 PM, freeform said:

 

Edited November 2, 2020 by Damla
Account closing

[Damla]

 

 

 

Edited November 2, 2020 by Damla
Account closing

[freeform]

11 minutes ago, Damla said:

Where is the monk in this case?

 

It's an example of what true equanimity means - which is the ability to enter a calm state of stillness regardless of circumstances.

And it's in reference to this famous photograph (not for the faint-hearted):

Spoiler

 

 

Edited October 15, 2020 by freeform

[freeform]

@Damla - it's nice to have a little music break in a serious discussion - but repeated posts that are unrelated to what we're discussing can derail a useful conversation.

[Damla]

On 15.10.2020 at 2:26 PM, freeform said:

@Damla 

Edited November 2, 2020 by Damla
Account closing

[Damla]

.

Edited November 2, 2020 by Damla
Account closing

[freeform]

4 minutes ago, Damla said:

Are you moderating?

 

No - just a fellow Daobum enjoying following the discussion at hand.

 

4 minutes ago, Damla said:

Can you move the post in hindu scriptual discussion

 

Again - this thread is discussing the role of emotions in a spiritual path. Not moderation - please take that up in the relevant part of the forum.

 

1 minute ago, Damla said:

my discussion

 

This isn't your discussion.

Edited October 15, 2020 by freeform

[Damla]

On 15.10.2020 at 2:32 PM, freeform said:

 

Edited November 2, 2020 by Damla
Account closing

[Bindi]

2 hours ago, freeform said:

Releasing unfelt emotions by allowing them to be felt is very tricky... at least the releasing part.

 

By feeling your emotion, you actually re-attach and strengthen its influence in your subconscious. It’s true that it’s possible to release emotions in this way - but only if you can be in a state of equanimity as the emotion comes up.

 

In my view unfelt emotions are split-off baggage, welcoming them when they arise in ‘the work’ and feeling them is respecting their emotional nature. When they are felt they have delivered their message and are then released. 
 

I did work with emotions within a system, it wasn’t random emotions arising and random feeling, I worked with a deliberate method that involved remembering and analysing a dream to understand it intellectually, and then letting go of the mental side and purely feeling the feeling. There is a certain equanimity required when feeling the feeling, especially because most stored feelings are the hard to feel ones, equanimity is needed to allow them to be felt, but I think your idea of equanimity might be a bit more austere, somehow allow an emotion but don’t actually connect to it in some way. This quite frankly confuses me. 
 

I agree with you that there is Qi work to be done and that it is valuable, but for me Qi work achieves different outcomes, it clears channels that have nothing to do with emotions, for example channels down the arms which can then carry Qi ‘current’.
 

2 hours ago, freeform said:

 

Equanimity is a pretty advanced state... the vast majority of people who think they’ve achieved it, haven’t.
 

They may have felt it for short periods while in ideal conditions... 

 

If you find the sound of cars honking while you’re trying to meditate irritating, then you’re nowhere near equanimity. If you’re distracted by anything - whether internal (eg pain in your back) or external (people walking around you) while you’re meditating, then you haven’t reached equanimity.

 

If you’re the monk that can burn themselves alive and not react to the pain and enter stillness as your flesh burns - that’s equanimity... But how many of us have achieved that sort of equanimity?

 

The Daoist method of releasing blockages, that I’ve been taught, is not by allowing them to express as felt experience while in a state of deep equanimity. It’s done very differently - it’s done by working on them directly at the level of Qi - not the level of the heart-mind.

 

Quote

 

Releasing anger for example is not felt as anger, but might be felt as heat moving up in the body and out of your hands. It’s experienced in a much more mechanistic way. You sense the effect of anger on your body, but you don’t sense the emotion at all. In fact, much of the time in practice you’ll be releasing stuck emotions without ever even knowing it... a little shiver here, a warm sensation there, a giggle and a yawn - all of these may well be releasing stuck patterns that were created by that strict catholic teacher or that bully at school - but you’d never know, because the content isn’t felt or experienced - all that’s felt is the movement of Qi.
 

If you have the zifagong process active, anger might express itself quite physically through your nervous system - you might spontaneously growl or flail around and shout... but all the while, inside you don’t feel a trace of anger (or any emotion) - you just have the awareness of your body doing these strange things.

 

If you feel anger, then you’re invariably creating an attachment to it at some level of your heart-mind.

I think there is an institutional fear of emotions that has also become part of the spiritual belief set, something along the lines of a patriarchal perspective that has dominated for the last couple of Millenia at least. I think things are changing now though, emotions and their value are being re-evaluated in the last 100 years or so. 

[Damla]

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Edited November 2, 2020 by Damla
Account closing

[Damla]

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Edited November 2, 2020 by Damla
Account closing

[ilumairen]

2 hours ago, Damla said:

They are immovable part of my point and and my discussion. I wouldnt put them there if they werent, i presume. You are free to move them as the moderator you are😊 Thank you in advance for that as well.

He is not a moderator, but I am.

 

Please stop derailing a thread where members were enjoying a thoughtful discussion. 

[ilumairen]

1 hour ago, Bindi said:

 

In my view unfelt emotions are split-off baggage, welcoming them when they arise in ‘the work’ and feeling them is respecting their emotional nature. When they are felt they have delivered their message and are then released. 
 

 

I am reminded of something TWR said during the dream yoga course regarding recurring dreams. It basically boiled down to them occurring because we were being a bad listener.
 

And as it relates to what you’ve written (in my personal experience), when “the message” (typically related to just that split off baggage you refer to) is heard/acknowledged/accepted and sometimes worked through in the “real world” they naturally stop occurring.

 

 

Quote

I did work with emotions within a system, it wasn’t random emotions arising and random feeling, I worked with a deliberate method that involved remembering and analysing a dream to understand it intellectually, and then letting go of the mental side and purely feeling the feeling. There is a certain equanimity required when feeling the feeling, especially because most stored feelings are the hard to feel ones, equanimity is needed to allow them to be felt, but I think your idea of equanimity might be a bit more austere, somehow allow an emotion but don’t actually connect to it in some way. This quite frankly confuses me. 
 

I agree with you that there is Qi work to be done and that it is valuable, but for me Qi work achieves different outcomes, it clears channels that have nothing to do with emotions, for example channels down the arms which can then carry Qi ‘current’.
 

 

In my practices, I noticed energetic expressions from largely forgotten physical traumas arising, and because they were so specific the originating incidents were much easier to recognize and trace - lending themselves to my ability to agree in part with what freeform presented.

 

The interesting thing was it seems what others perceived as my equanimity appears to have lent itself to a storing of energetics related to trauma. 

 

Quote

 

I think there is an institutional fear of emotions that has also become part of the spiritual belief set, something along the lines of a patriarchal perspective that has dominated for the last couple of Millenia at least. I think things are changing now though, emotions and their value are being re-evaluated in the last 100 years or so. 

 

I tend to agree.

 

Edited October 15, 2020 by ilumairen

[freeform]

2 hours ago, Bindi said:

I agree with you that there is Qi work to be done and that it is valuable, but for me Qi work achieves different outcomes, it clears channels that have nothing to do with emotions, for example channels down the arms which can then carry Qi ‘current’.

 

Your channels are your mind.

 

Clearing the channels is the same as clearing the mind (and emotions). Thoughts and emotions are intrinsically connected from the Daoist model. Every thought has an undercurrent of emotion - sometimes obvious, sometimes very subtle. This is why they talk of the heart-mind - not the mind and not the heart.

 

2 hours ago, Bindi said:

In my view unfelt emotions are split-off baggage, welcoming them when they arise in ‘the work’ and feeling them is respecting their emotional nature. When they are felt they have delivered their message and are then released. 

 

I do agree with this to an extent. The aim isn't to become numb to emotion or to ignore them. What you describe is a far more healthy approach than sweeping these things under the rug - or numbing ourselves in some way to not experience them.

 

2 hours ago, Bindi said:

I think your idea of equanimity might be a bit more austere, somehow allow an emotion but don’t actually connect to it in some way. This quite frankly confuses me. 

 

Equanimity is a big topic. So I'm over-simplifying - but it's not a case of not connecting to the emotion - it's closer to connecting to it to such a degree that you go 'through' them to the stillness from which they arise.

 

But without this equanimity, connecting to a stuck emotion or to past trauma - and giving these things your attention will invariably create attachment. It may well be that by giving these things your attention, you can change your relationship to it, or create different, more healthy responses - but that's not the aim for Daoist cultivation - the aim is to release all attachment. Not to make them healthier.

 

There's a difference in therapy or self-development vs spiritual cultivation. Often some therapy is necessary before cultivation begins - but their aims and methods are different.

 

For example in the Daoist cultivation systems I'm familiar with, you'd never pick a particular trauma to work with... Because firstly - your mind has its own ideas of what you think you need, but it's rarely correct... blockages work like constalations with different things supporting eachother. By picking what we'd prefer to be rid of, we miss everything else supporting this blockage. Secondly, by the act of picking a trauma, you're already building more layers of attachment to it (or aversion to it, which works to keep things stuck too). You're giving it a lable, you're differentiating it and making it more solid and 'real' in your mind.

 

The idea is that in the process of your training, stuck emotional patterns will be shed off by themselves, at a time and in a way that is correct for each of them individually.

 

So the result is that substantial changes happen without you even noticing. You simply forget about that traumatic event in your childhood... and all the beliefs, emotions, and reactive patterns of thinking and behaviour that were built up around that trauma just drop away - no fireworks, no 'closure', no forgiveness or reconciliation or understanding - nothing like that. You only really notice it when you're in specific situations that used to cause you issues, and you just notice that they don't anymore... in fact it's often your friends or loved ones that notice that something has changed before you do.

 

Edited October 15, 2020 by freeform

[Cleansox]

12 minutes ago, freeform said:

 

For example in the Daoist cultivation systems I'm familiar with, you'd never pick a particular trauma to work with... Because firstly - your mind has its own ideas of what you think you need, but it's rarely correct... blockages work like constalations with different things supporting eachother. By picking what we'd prefer to be rid of, we miss everything else supporting this blockage. Secondly, by the act of picking a trauma, you're already building more layers of attachment to it (or aversion to it, which works to keep things stuck too). You're giving it a lable, you're differentiating it and making it more solid and 'real' in your mind.

 

The idea is that in the process of your training, stuck emotional patterns will be shed off by themselves, at a time and in a way that is correct for each of them individually.

It is the same in the therapeutic system I use, although that is based on physiological principles rather than Daoist. 

[manitou]

4 hours ago, Damla said:

I love myseelllfff!!!!😍

 

 

Hi Damla,

 

You obviously are no stranger to the path.  You seem to have very good insight.  I think you will be a wonderful addition to this community.

 

One thing that folks insist on, is to not post when you're high.  And also to try to stay on topic.  Please read this entire thread, and see how beautifully it flowed up to this point.  You came in with a huge splash and got everyone's attention.  Now is the time to relax, go with the flow of the conversation, and add to this thread when you've got something pertinent to say.  I'm glad you're here - I think you'll really enjoy the discussions.  But it's not about getting attention.

[manitou]

20 minutes ago, freeform said:

There's a difference in therapy or self-development vs spiritual cultivation. Often some therapy is necessary before cultivation begins - but their aims and methods are different.

 

 

I think it's all one and the same.  I don't think true enlightenment can happen without the self-development (I would call it self-realization).

 

Some of us here have gone through recovery programs where the steps had to be worked (I'm sure you're familiar with these).  To get sober or clean (I've been sober 40 years) one has to find as many personality defects as one possibly can.  It's an actual 'inventory' of all the emotional stuff that gets in our way.  Once these blockages due to past occurrences are removed, that particular channel is cleared.  How to actually remove blockages to growth?  Very often amends have to be made.  One has to become very humbled and try to rectify harm that we've done others in the past.

 

To someone who's walked a spiritual path for a long time, this is not a big deal.  To someone who's walked the path of alcoholism or addiction (or any of the isms), owning up to our misdeeds and the bad dynamics we had created is absolutely overwhelming.  Especially since there was probably not much of a self-image to begin with.  But the strange thing about the path of recovery is that sooner or later it's no longer the path of alcohol recovery - it's the path of spiritual recovery primarily - and more than a few recovering ones have walked their way into enlightened thinking.

 

As I see it, enlightened thinking (or enlightenment) is nothing more than being in INNER awareness of who we really Are.  And then the responsibility of living up to our self-image becomes the path.  And then it becomes primary nature, in the long run.

 

 

 

[Apech]

16 hours ago, manitou said:

 

 

 

The truth about people.  

 

There's no right or wrong here, but it's all perspective.  This is the perspective I choose.

 

a)  That person I am judging over there is actually Me.  We are cells of the same body.

If I had been born when they were born to their parents, with their conditioning, I would do exactly the same thing that they are doing now.

c)  I can only recognize it if I have it inside of me too.  Otherwise I wouldn't know what it was.

d)  The black pupils of all of our eyes are the connection.  The connection with animals, people, insects.  It's all the same Consciousness but filtered through different brains.  A man's, vs. a rodent's.  We project our conditions from the inside out.

e)  There's no Good or Bad, nor Evil or Saintly.  If I ask a soccer mom what is evil, she could say the fellow down the block who sells drugs to kids.  If you ask the fellow down the block 'what's evil?', he'd say 'the SOB who ripped off my drug money last night".  It's all in how we choose to see it.  All of it.

f) I seem to have a choice.  I can choose to see things through the eyes of love (which does ultimately become the only practice left) and look at the dynamic behind the person or situation - and know that it's all part of the great Becoming, whatever that will be.   I know this because the action of the Dao is reversion. 

g)  It's a choice to view life as if the Divine were living within.  It's an enlightened choice for us.  The enlightened choice.

 

IMO

 

 

 

Yet again a beautiful post - and I cannot disagree with any of it.  But can I be that which you describe?  To be brutally honest - no I can't.  I have no intent to judge others but I do have an intent to distance myself from quite a few.  As per your point c) it is the case that I recognise it because I have it within me - but to have something assimilated in you is not the same as to operate it in the world.  We are encouraged to do good - and I try to - but to be good that is something else

Edited October 15, 2020 by Apech

[Apech]

14 hours ago, Bindi said:

 

Seeing the emotional ‘system’ as a channel that is blocked informs my perspective which cannot then be otherwise, ie., a blocked channel is not exactly a choice, and the consequences of a blocked emotional channel is inertia, and this outcome is certainly not a choice. My perspective rests on my personal understanding of the energetic subtle body’s design, and my solution tackles the energy blocks directly by releasing unfelt emotions by allowing them to be felt. 

 

You do, though choose to remove the energy blockage - which previously you chose not to.  But I won't belabour the point.

 

14 hours ago, Bindi said:

The alternative, attempting to solve emotional problems via a mentally chosen filter, in this case the spiritually accepted filters of compassion or oneness or non-judgement or [insert own], from my perspective seems to solve some of the emotional unease, and it can make you feel more successful in your spiritual endeavours, but these spiritual filters require these choices to be deliberately and repeatedly made  on the mental level. Perhaps this spiritual filter might become the dominant mental state, and to yourself and all those around you even, you can appear to have achieved a spiritualised outlook, but it isn’t ultimately authentic. Ultimately, these filters cannot remove the root emotional causes, so to me you’ve just learned an alternative mental strategy, one more in line with spiritual aspirations, but you can never let your guard down, you will still always have to catch yourself doing the wrong thing and correct it, no matter how rarely that is.  
 

Spiritual bypassing involves imposing on oneself higher truths that lie far beyond one’s immediate existential condition... Spiritual teachers often exhort us to be loving and compassionate, or to give up selfishness and aggression, but how can we do this if our habitual tendencies arise out of a whole system of psychological dynamics that we have never clearly seen or faced, much less worked with? -John Welwood

 

https://tricycle.org/magazine/psychology-awakening/

 

 

 

 

I see it more that you for instance start with a chaotic life, one without real purpose perhaps, and you decide at some point that you need to get your shit together.  To do this you make a personal vow (or a public one for that matter) to try to be better.  So you do adopt a code which puts you under pressure - actual pressure in your life to change.  This might be to be more compassionate and loving ... but then the difficulty, the learning curve is to understand what these are in practice and not just nice sounding theory.  The bypassing occurs I think when people prefer to sit in a room thinking about compassion or how to 'be nice' so that they can feel better about themselves.  This is useless at best and counter productive at worst.

 

 

[manitou]

39 minutes ago, Apech said:

 

 

Yet again a beautiful post - and I cannot disagree with any of it.  But can I be that which you describe?  To be brutally honest - no I can't.  I have no intent to judge others but I do have an intent to distance myself from quite a few.  As per your point c) it is the case that I recognise it because I have it within me - but to have something assimilated in you is not the same as to operate it in the world.  We are encouraged to do good - and I try to - but to be good that is something else

 

All I'm talking about is my own personal experience.  the imminence of alcoholism forced a reckoning, and the inner work was essential to stay sober.  I believe that getting to the place where we feel that we're 'good' is a lifetime work.  All I know is that I'm one heck of a lot better than before the inner work.

 

I talked to my brother yesterday.  I told him that for the first time in my life, I felt 'content'.  I've never felt content before.  Not even when I was married for 35 years.  It's a marvelous feeling!  Brand new for me.  The highs aren't as high, the lows not as low.  In fact, they're hardly there at all, come to think of it.  It's just contentment with a smile on my face.

 

I didn't take a particular path (other than alcoholism), so anything I've attained has been through self-realization.  As in, Who Am I, really?

 

 

[freeform]

1 hour ago, manitou said:

I think it's all one and the same.  I don't think true enlightenment can happen without the self-development (I would call it self-realization).

 

There are a few ways to deal with a wound.

 

It could be an open wound - still excruciatingly sore, sensitive, vulnerable to infection... This is the reactive trauma - if someone pokes it, we lash out and react out of pain... It's possible for it to be infected and for it to spread to other parts of us. The pain of it colours all our experiences. The choices we make and what we do is out of 'service to' this open wound.

 

Sometimes these wounds will heal up to some extent with time. It's like they're scabbed over, but still sore. They're still causing us to limp, but we've forgotten all about it. It affects our actions in the background - we might decide not to go on that long hike with that promising love interest because of the limp... but we don't connect it to the wound any longer.

 

We could work to heal that wound. That starts with finding it if it's been forgotten. We must deal with what caused it. We disinfect it and bandage it, we soothe it with some healing salve... We deal with the limp it's created.

 

When it's healed, it becomes a scar.  But now when someone pokes it, it doesn't hurt as much. We have a little more choice in how we react to the poking. We don't avoid going near it as much. In fact we might wear this scar as a badge of honour. It still affects our actions - but quite likely in a rather positive way. We might go out of our way to help those with a similar wound. We might teach our children how to avoid this wound in the future.

 

That, to me is self development.

 

But in the Daoist traditions I'm in, we focus on one thing. We focus simply on shedding our skin - layer by layer, until we become light.

 

(Become light is an important part of this metaphor - as it appears that many paths forcus on realising that we are light - in the alchemical Daoist traditions our aim is to become the light fully in this lifetime.)

 

There are plusses and minuses of doing things this way. In some way, having a scar can be a very positive lesson - it can help propel us to be better people. We might be kinder or more patient and understanding with people because we know that they also have sore wounds... we might be motivated to help others who suffered in a similar way.

 

The alchemical Daoist way is more about shedding everything. Including the kindness that comes about as a reaction to having healed a past wound. The idea is that eventually, as we start to become light, what shines out is pure virtue - or the five lights of virtue...

 

In the Daoist approach, the ideal circumstance in your story would be that you completely 'forget' that you were ever an alcoholic... like you might have a clear memory of it, but it would be no more pertinent than the memory that your first car was blue.

 

When I first understood this, I found it a little troubling to be honest.

 

First of all - I have scars. And I'm aware that they've shaped me and my behaviour in various beneficial ways.

 

Secondly - does this mean that someone who hasn't been a good person can simply shed their skin in the same way and not have to have a scar? (I later learned it's not that simple, of course).

 

There are definitely self development methods in Daoism. In fact martial arts training is one of the primary methods and Chinese Medicine (with all that entails) is the other. But in alchemical schools, self development isn't considered an end in itself... it might be required in so much as it might assist in actually going through the alchemical training - but to be healthy, strong, happy and virtuous isn't the goal.

 

[Nungali]

(not relevant now )

Edited October 15, 2020 by Nungali

[Bindi]

5 hours ago, freeform said:

 

Your channels are your mind.

 

Clearing the channels is the same as clearing the mind (and emotions). Thoughts and emotions are intrinsically connected from the Daoist model. Every thought has an undercurrent of emotion - sometimes obvious, sometimes very subtle. This is why they talk of the heart-mind - not the mind and not the heart.

 

 

I do agree with this to an extent. The aim isn't to become numb to emotion or to ignore them. What you describe is a far more healthy approach than sweeping these things under the rug - or numbing ourselves in some way to not experience them.

 

 

Equanimity is a big topic. So I'm over-simplifying - but it's not a case of not connecting to the emotion - it's closer to connecting to it to such a degree that you go 'through' them to the stillness from which they arise.

 

But without this equanimity, connecting to a stuck emotion or to past trauma - and giving these things your attention will invariably create attachment. It may well be that by giving these things your attention, you can change your relationship to it, or create different, more healthy responses - but that's not the aim for Daoist cultivation - the aim is to release all attachment. Not to make them healthier.

 

There's a difference in therapy or self-development vs spiritual cultivation. Often some therapy is necessary before cultivation begins - but their aims and methods are different.

 

For example in the Daoist cultivation systems I'm familiar with, you'd never pick a particular trauma to work with... Because firstly - your mind has its own ideas of what you think you need, but it's rarely correct... blockages work like constalations with different things supporting eachother. By picking what we'd prefer to be rid of, we miss everything else supporting this blockage. Secondly, by the act of picking a trauma, you're already building more layers of attachment to it (or aversion to it, which works to keep things stuck too). You're giving it a lable, you're differentiating it and making it more solid and 'real' in your mind.

 

The idea is that in the process of your training, stuck emotional patterns will be shed off by themselves, at a time and in a way that is correct for each of them individually.

 

So the result is that substantial changes happen without you even noticing. You simply forget about that traumatic event in your childhood... and all the beliefs, emotions, and reactive patterns of thinking and behaviour that were built up around that trauma just drop away - no fireworks, no 'closure', no forgiveness or reconciliation or understanding - nothing like that. You only really notice it when you're in specific situations that used to cause you issues, and you just notice that they don't anymore... in fact it's often your friends or loved ones that notice that something has changed before you do.

 

 “Your mind has its own ideas of what you think you need, but it's rarely correct”. I fully agree, but if I am guided by my dreams am I ‘picking the trauma to be worked with’? There is a grand design in dream work, it requires only that we follow it and work with what is presented to us at any point in time. 

 

FWIW I rarely have any dreams now anyway, it seems that what needed to be released has been. My subtle energy body now develops in its own predetermined way, I merely follow its progress, and occasionally do what is required to enable its unfolding. 
 

I don’t feel I am violating underlying Daoist principles. 

[manitou]

2 hours ago, freeform said:

But in the Daoist traditions I'm in, we focus on one thing. We focus simply on shedding our skin - layer by layer, until we become light.

 

(Become light is an important part of this metaphor - as it appears that many paths forcus on realising that we are light - in the alchemical Daoist traditions our aim is to become the light fully in this lifetime.)

 

 

What you have described here is the exactly the same thing as working steps of recovery.  But your description of the process, your succinctness and obvious understanding of what you're talking about is just about unparalleled in anything I've previously read on this site.  (Bow to you, my friend)

 

I am thrilled that you mentioned the alchemy as well, as that's what this all is.  Once we've peeled the onion and get down to the light, it's as though there is a chemical change that happens throughout the body.  I say this metaphorically, as I'm no scientist and I don't know if this is an actual or not.  All I know is that there is a fusion of sorts that happens when the layers have been removed, as far as we are capable of self-honesty.  I

 

The path inward is a painful process, when our sacred beliefs about ourselves are threatened.  It's harder than anything in the world to develop this kind of courage.  The courage to look someone in the eye, maybe someone you've been at odds with for years and years, and apologize for everything that I've done to add to this condition.    It goes unsaid that the other person added plenty on their side too - and in fact he may have even started the problem.  It doesn't matter.  It's not his onion we are peeling, it's ours.  It's our blockage we want to get rid of,  it doesn't matter that your foe can now consider himself the winner, if indeed he even noticed at all.  This is truly courage of a particular kind.  And if ego prevents someone from doing that, peeling the onion - then I personally believe that the result will be a halfway enlightened one, should their left brain ever make it to the desired result.  The other half of the brain will still be asleep; all knowledge would be left brain knowledge, learned from others.

 

When in fact, real knowledge isn't discovered.  It's realized.