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I'll just say that combining entheogens, or medically treatable mental illness with meditation (especially on retreat) is asking for trouble and should be carefully monitored by a mental health professional.

Ya think I'm bad, hope you checked out Suzuki, above!

Let's say hypothetically you're doing a type of therapy that involves entering into intense altered states of consciousness through whatever means, then talking it out. Could be breathwork, guided meditation, EMDR, entheogens, or whatever else. I'm no expert, but my understanding is that neigong and similar practices involve directly tinkering with your body and mind in their function and operation. Stuff like that will always run the risk of causing serious physical and mental health complications. Adding in a state of relative loss of control compounds that potential for harm. I'm sure it can also impact qi development depending on who you ask. Whether being in a therapeutic setting matters (or whether these things matter at all in general) is up to the teacher.

I have come to see the psyche not merely as a mind in the psychological sense, but as a layered energetic system populated by subtle forces. At the heart of this view are the subconscious emotional and mental currents, and deeper still, two complementary unconscious currents that I’ve come to think of as the Shiva aspects and the Shakti aspects. The emotional and mental currents we’re all familiar with, but the Shiva and Shakti currents are less obvious, so I will go into some detail about them. They can be recognized through many vivid symbolic pairs: Wildfire / Fireplace The dynamic blaze that consumes and transforms. The hearth that holds the fire safely, giving it purpose and warmth. Fish / Fishbowl The darting, elusive vitality moving through hidden depths. The clear bowl that contains, supports, shapes, and protects its motions. Cat / Dog The graceful, sensitive, easily startled nature that seeks comfort. The loyal guardian that stays close, watching over and calming. Fearful / Protector The trembling instinct that recoils from perceived danger. The steady presence that stands firm, offering safety. These pairs are not idle poetry. They illustrate how the unconscious houses instinctual forces that must evolve together. The Shakti aspect represents a dynamic, vital current — the drive toward life, transformation, emotional vitality, subtle creativity. The Shiva aspect provide containment, the instinctive intelligence that knows how to protect, restrain, channel, and nurture what would otherwise be chaotic. In each pairing: The dynamic life-force is untamed, vital, transformative. The caring containment is protective, shaping, enabling that energy to flourish without harm. They are co-arising: the wild needs the safe space to exist meaningfully; the container finds purpose in cradling the life within. If one seeks only to awaken the dynamic energy (as in a blind kundalini pursuit), without fostering the complementary instinct to contain and guide it, imbalance is inevitable. The system can flare into anxiety, delusion, or emotional overwhelm. This is why so many teachings stress that cultivation is not merely about amplifying energy, but purifying and preparing the mental and emotional channels first, so the deeper forces can safely develop. To purify the emotional and mental currents tangled by personal history, they must be witnessed and brought into greater flow. They are the first terrain of inner work, and through methods such as shadow work, dream exploration, deep feeling and understanding etc, their dysfunctions can be gradually resolved. Only then can the deeper unconscious forces, the Shiva and Shakti layers, find their ground. Importantly, it is the Shiva aspect that must awaken the Shakti aspect, otherwise containment will not occur, and the Shiva aspect in its turn has to first be activated by the flowing current of the emotional and mental currents. Recently, my dreams have begun to show me that when these two deep unconscious instinctual layers find each other and start to mature in their interaction, something new emerges. In symbolic terms, this is represented as a smaller, independent vehicle that will one day travel on its own. This resonates with images from Daoist Neidan (inner alchemy) where an alchemical child is born - an autonomous subtle body that eventually can separate from the main system. This smaller independent vehicle or child is the fruit of a long interplay between mature containment (Shiva) and vitality (Shakti). But the picture does not end here. Overseeing all of this is the witness self, the faculty of clear seeing that stands apart from the energies it observes. This witness is the part that learns to trust that the humble, instinctual containment field is capable of guiding the system more wisely than the anxious grasping of the conscious mind. It slowly informs the conscious mind, which may then serve as the executive agent, ruling not by force but by insight. In the end, I see the conscious mind, gently taught by the witness, becoming the wise steward of the system - allowing these deeper layers to do their work, neither interfering unnecessarily nor abandoning responsibility. Thus the entire architecture of psyche - subconscious, unconscious, witness, and conscious mind - becomes integrated. Each layer performs its unique role, culminating in a new life, an independent vitality born of the interplay between our deepest instinctual forces. A compact visual map (Divine / Mother/ Highest Source) ↓ Witness Self (objective seeing, clear awareness) ↓ Conscious Mind (steward) (makes decisions based on witness insight) ↓ ----------------------------------------------- | | Emotional Stream Mental Stream (Subconscious patterns & biases) ↓ ---------------------------------------------------------------- | | Dynamic Vital Force Containment Field (Shakti aspects) (Shiva aspects) - wildfire, fish, cat, fear - fireplace, fishbowl, dog, protector ↓ Interplay gives rise to: Smaller independent vehicle (new independent ‘entity’ directed by the conscious mind)

There's that whole path of Jhana phases in Theravada Buddhism. In Sufism, there are Stages (temporary) and Stations (permanent) that a dervish would go through. Probably lots of other systems have this too. In my opinion, I think it would probably be better to have a live teacher to check on your progress with this kind of thing, rather than reading a book and developing a set of expectations based on it.

@Mark Foote thanks for the likes for my posts above (the wuwei cat feels a bit left out ). I agree with that bit; it’s clear from your posts, you think a lot. As for the rest … it’s way beyond me.

Rūta Krau (Rūta Kraujutytė) is a Lithuanian artist whose painting series 'Vision' I really enjoy. My favorites are Visions 2, 6, and 5. On her website, she has this to say about her concept and process for the series: Vision No. 1, 2022 Vision No. 2, 2022 Vision No. 3, 2022 Vision No. 4, 2022 Vision No. 5, 2022 Vision No. 6, 2023 Vision No. 7, 2023

Yes, (e.g. in DDJ ch. 3) 虛心 (xu1 xin1) I empty my mind of all unwanted contents. Yes, my Soul takes control.

Said the man whose avatar is flying on a carpet...

views, practices, and beliefs are under discussion. not individual people posting.

What I said was: ...but yes, meditation itself, even outside of retreat can be dangerous from a mental health perspective. Meditation in therapeutic dosages WILL dig up your obscurations, emotional/psychological damage and much more. In fact, meditation IS psychedelic. You will see visions, have time distortions, unitive experiences and much more. In small doses it can make you more calm and less reactive, but in doses intended to be transformative it can cause significant cognitive dissonance at the very least. It isn't a bug, it is a feature. Retreats are where the rubber meets the road. As a meditator of over 30 years, with many retreats under my belt I have witnessed many people spontaneously burst into tears next to me as great traumas have arisen and often resolved, have to leave the retreat, or even have realizations. To learn more about the dangers of meditation and retreats some judicious reading here might illuminate: https://www.cheetahhouse.org/ I would appreciate it greatly if you could please stop assuming there is some malicious motive or intent in my posts. If you would like to address your concerns I would be happy to speak to you directly via messaging. _/\_

They said meditation retreat, not meditation in general. Psychedelics have their place. They can be incredibly useful if taken mindfully, especially with the guidance of someone who knows what they're doing. Intense retreats are not too different. Anyone that's predisposed to psychosis shouldn't do either of them. Anyone who's interested in spiritual growth/exploration/healing can derive benefit from either of them. These huge sweeping "all psychoactive substances are bad" statements are a product of US war on drugs propaganda. All that being said, they're still not compatible with every practice, which is why it's important to ask your teacher.

to say that psychoactive substances are no more dangerous than meditation is a red flag. a big one.

While similar in level of confidence and way of speaking, I don't think this dude is affiliated with the site I linked? He stopped posting years before either of the guys who run the site showed up here and talks about much more unhinged stuff than they ever do. Funny thread, through.

I don't have the answer you're looking for. But to add context to this "commandment," Saul of Tarsus (or possibly one of his followers) did write this to the church at Ephesus, and perhaps for some reason the congregation needed to be addressed in the context of martial relationships. But Yeshua's perspective was much broader. In Matthew 22:35-39 (and similarly in passages in Mark and Luke), he says: It seems strange for Saul, if he in fact wrote the Epistle to the Ephesians, to have focused on loving a singular person as yourself and emphasizing marital relations, when "Saul's teacher" spoke of loving all persons as yourself and emphasized communal relations, as did his apostles when they established various communities after Yeshua's death. My point is that from the Christological perspective, a husband or wife should be loved and respected not by virtue of being a spouse, but by virtue of being a creation and a child of God. In Luke 6:27-33, Yeshua is quoted as saying: If one has a spouse, they should absolutely love and respect said spouse, and we cannot love others if we don't have love and respect for ourselves, for we too are children of the Creator. But what spiritual good does it do to "love" a spouse while hating others? Love of a spouse should be an outpouring of "brotherly" love (itself an outpouring of the love of God), not a gift bestowed upon a person who is seen as a singular extension of the self, either in spirit or as "property," and certainly not as a means of providing salvation to the other. There's also a bit preceding the excerpt you included that says: How interesting that Yeshua is never recorded to have said this.

Everything I do is a complication of simplicity. Some call it "unenlightened action" but I prefer to think of it as "my journey."

Agreed. But the concept of divine is rather limited - being derived from a word meaning shining. That means there were eye witnesses to the divine entity "god, divinity, good spirit" in Hindu religion, 1819, from Sanskrit deva "a god" (as opposed to asuras "wicked spirits"), etymologically "a shining one," from *div- "to shine," thus cognate with Greek dios "divine" and Zeus, and Latin deus "god" (Old Latin deivos), from PIE root *dyeu- "to shine," in derivatives "sky, heaven, god." Fem. form devi is used for "goddess," also (with capital D-) for the mother god

The God Particle Within There is an idea in the spiritual traditions of the world that the divine is not separate, not distant, not a figure above, but a presence within. But what if this inner divinity is not only real, but also functional? What if it is not merely a state of mind, or emptiness, or spaciousness, or holiness, but part of our subtle architecture, a refined, intelligent essence working ceaselessly to restore wholeness? This deeper understanding shifts everything. It reframes the divine not as an object of worship, but as a mechanism of transformation, actively embedded in the very fabric of our inner being. Not metaphor. Not abstraction. But an actual medium: subtle, dynamic, and purifying. In this vision, the self is not merely a vessel for thought and experience. It is a structured field, layered, responsive, and capable of immense refinement. At the core of this field lies something subtle yet profoundly intelligent: a filtering presence that tries to separate what is real from what is reactive, what is timeless from what is temporary. It does not force, yet it governs. It does not shout, yet it clarifies. It acts like a crystalline thread, a current of luminous essence that brings truth wherever it flows. This essence is not born of effort. It cannot be constructed by the mind. It is never absent, merely covered over, almost silenced. But it can be uncovered, found beneath the sediment of old impressions. It is not ours to create, but ours to discover, when the more assertive aspects of the self begin to fall quiet and the deeper, subconscious forces awaken. What becomes clear is that this essence is not a static stillness or blank awareness. It is a responsive intelligence, one that gently and systematically purifies distortion. Like a clear stream flowing through a clouded vessel, it enacts transformation not through struggle, but through contact. Its very nature reveals and dissolves what is false. Its flow is the return to sanity. The mind may attempt to name this essence, to contain it within ideas. But I propose it is not an idea. It is a subtle reality, not merely an inner event or a shift, but the unveiling of what may be called the essence of God: a presence so innately pure and intelligent that its activation realigns the entire system of self around what is most real. It is the final key that unlocks the final process. For many, the longing for truth begins with a sense of absence, of something missing. But the God particle within is not technically missing. It is hidden. And it waits, not passively, but quietly, until the self becomes transparent enough to allow contact. What is required is not belief, not even faith, but recognition. The subtle pathways of the self must open, not to ideas, but to actual subtle function, until this ultimate presence is revealed and restored to its rightful place: to cleanse consciously, to filter, to complete the subtle body. In this view, the divine is not separate from the structure of self. It is its deepest layer, its most essential root. And it is useful, not because it offers escape, but because it offers ultimate purification and clarity. It does not require worship, only space. It does not demand sacrifice, only honesty. And it does not ask for distance, but intimacy. This is the inner essence that makes liberation possible, not as a singular event, but as a steady unfolding of what has always been within - not potential or emptiness but a specific causal essence, a liquid diamond consciousness, the God particle within.

i had to look up "entheogens" = psychoactive substances my own training (starting way back when 35 years ago with basic shamanic journey) across all modalities has always been avoid psychotropics completely. Because it is (a) asking for trouble, (b) causes irreperable damage to the etheric field, (c) not worth the risk, results can be obtained in a safer manner. Several teachers i have had over the decades have this as a condition of being accepted to train with them.

I vote for The Master and Margarita. Now I may be repeating myself since it came up before, in which case ignore the rest: I don't know if the latest translation (which is said to be better than the prior ones) can do it for you at all, hoping it's good enough to make an impression. For me, it's one of the few books I've re-read -- I usually don't since there's still so many unread ones! -- and not once but at least twice. I read it for the first time when I was 17 -- and then a decade or so later it was a completely different book, and then another decade later, a different book again. I don't know many that are like that. Most books you love in your younger years, you try to re-read later and find awful! -- at least in my case it's often like that.

This. The desire to make a good living and the effort required to do so are not separate from the stillness and silence of source.

to gnow or not to gnaw, that is the question... btw, without will one is like a leaf in the wind of uncontrolled mind, thus control is needed but not a heavy handed egotistical type of control.

So the human is expected to control its physical and emotional impulses but not its mental energies? Are philosophers included? What about heart energies? Are they to be controlled? Or is the heart to be still?

Tis true without lying, certain and most true. That which is below is like that which is above and that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracle of one only thing. And as all things have been and arose from one by the mediation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation. The Sun is its father, the moon its mother, the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth is its nurse. The father of all perfection in the whole world is here. Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth. Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross sweetly with great industry. It ascends from the earth to the heaven and again it descends to the earth and receives the force of things superior and inferior. By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world and thereby all obscurity shall fly from you. Its force is above all force, for it vanquishes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid thing. So was the world created. From this are and do come admirable adaptations where of the means is here in this. Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world. That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished and ended. — English translation of the Emerald Tablet by Isaac Newton.[12]

In the human we find the idea of the being who stands with feet on earth and yet has heavenly powers of reason. Its nature is what laws govern the human through its birth. And so whatever flows from it having a human mother and thus a human body and mind. In its conception as human, to its birth, adulthood , old age and death , all this is its nature. A mortal being with immortal scope, between animal and angel. Made by spirit but born of earth.

Thank you for the reply. I understand creeping vines as the continual narration of self even as the silence has begun. It never lets go. And trying to move it only brings it further to the forefront. Only allowing it to stop on its own does the attention focus. The physical effort to maintain a straight back aids in the efforts to keep attention on the quiet. When it slacks, the mind begins to take over. Sometimes sleep to come. This can not be forced. Practice it over and over again then it may take root. Follow the quiet and silence. Creeping vines and my mind holds onto a song I heard earlier. I can't stop it. Only thing to do is to let it go. Let it play until it loses it control. Return to the silence, .. to the stillness. Much like letting go of a ball on a hill. It goes because that is what it does. So, yes, I can relate but I still do not know this place to stop and rest.

imo enlightenment is the moment you stop listening to others and start listening to yourself.

imo they add stuff when they don’t understand the original and start philosophising about it.

imo there should only be six. As that’s the way Laozi is depicted when leaving on the water buffalo.

What is your goal for your practice? What do you want out of it? I have looked through most of website out of curiosity. In general I would say that teachings intended to get at the heart of what reality is, and TRUE transformation are relatively simple (but requiring some regular and dedicated work) and available everywhere, free. Teachers are also generally free, though some will take dana when offered to them. Most are looking for your dedication and intention to truly understand, not your money.

I think the sixth image is a reference to Gautama's third concentration: … free from the fervor of zest, (one) enters and abides in the third musing; (one) steeps and drenches and fills and suffuses this body with a zestless ease so that there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded by this zestless ease. … just as in a pond of blue, white, and red water-lilies, the plants are born in water, grow in water, come not out of the water, but, sunk in the depths, find nourishment, and from tip to root are steeped, drenched, filled and suffused with cold water so that not a part of them is not pervaded by cold water; even so, (one) steeps (one’s) body in zestless ease. (AN 5.28, tr. Pali Text Society vol. III pp 18-19) My experience: The water-lilies I believe represent the influence of the legs, the arms, and the head on activity in the abdominals, and consequently on stretch in the ligaments of the spine. The feeling of a combined influence of the extremities in the abdomen could be said to be like lilies of three colors floating under the surface of some body of water. The exact influence of each extremity remains unclear (zest ceases), yet with a sense of gravity and a stretch in particular ligaments, I can arrive at an ease. Gautama declared that the sages abide in the third concentration. I remind myself that the activity of the body in inhalation and exhalation tends toward coordination by the free placement of consciousness, and look for ease. (Applying the Pali Instructions) About the third concentration, Gautama said: “… by the fading out of rapture [zest], [one] abides with equanimity, attentive and clearly conscious, and [one] experiences in [one’s] person that happiness of which (it is Said): ‘Joyful (easeful) lives [the person] who has equanimity and is mindful’.” (MN 59, Vol II pg 67) The "consciousness-informed body" being the ox: I like the flute-playing. Also sort of like allowing the inflation of the air sack to displace the fascia behind specific vertebrae, whilst the three abdominals and the ligaments of the spine dance: From my latest post on my own site, beginning with a quote from a neurobiology paper: A key aspect of the bodily self is self-location, the experience that the self is localized at a specific position in space within one’s bodily borders (embodied self-location). (Journal of Neuroscience 26 May 2010, 30 (21) 7202-7214) In Gautama’s description of the first concentration, concentration begins when a person lays hold of “one-pointedness”, something Gautama also referred to as “one-pointedness of mind”. Translated into the language of the neurobiologists, concentration begins when consciousness is retained at the “specific position in space” of “embodied self-location”. The zest and ease of the initial concentration are a result of the effortlessness of the automatic activity initiated by gravity where one-pointedness of mind takes place. To drench the entire body with the feelings of zest and ease such that “there is not one particle of the body that is not pervaded” ensures that the consciousness retained with “embodied self-location” can remain “one-pointed”, even as the “specific position” of “embodied self-location” shifts and moves. There can come a moment when the experience of consciousness retained with “embodied self-location” becomes the experience of “embodied self-location” retained with consciousness. “Embodied self-location” retained with consciousness: But wait--there's more, including the six ginzu steak knives! Gautama described the "excellence of the heart's release" through the extension of the mind of compassion throughout the four quarters of the world, above and below, all without limit, as the concentration of "the infinity of ether". Similarly, the excellence of the heart's release though the extension of the mind of sympathy was the concentration of "the infinity of consciousness", and the excellence of the heart's release through the extension of the mind of equanimity was the concentration of "the infinity of space", or "the infinity of no-thing". Bearing in mind that Gautama also said: “Lack of desire even for the attainment of the first meditation has been spoken of by [me]; for whatever (one) imagines it to be, it is otherwise” [Similarly for the second, third, and fourth initial meditative states, and for the attainments of the first four further meditative states]. (MN 113, tr. Pali Text Society vol III pp 92-94.)

A stranger thing someone from Holland sent ( they say in the original language , it rhymes ) A 'Christmas Song ' about rabbit for Christmas dinner ... I have to say I was NOT expecting the content . 'Flappie' It was Christmas morning 1961I still remember it so well, my rabbit's cage was emptyAnd mother said that I wasn't allowed in the shedAnd if I'd play sweetly, I would get some goodiesShe had no clue either where Flappie could beShe would ask daddy, but because he was busyIn that bike shed, I should look for Flappie for another hourHe must certainly be somewhere on the grassBut I did lock the cage securilyLike I did every eveningI even went back last nightI don't even know why I did thatI had stood in front of the cage for a long whileAs if I knew then what I know nowIt was the first day of Christmas 1961We were searching for Flappie, and dad just searched alongNear the trees and the water, but not in that bike shed'Because he couldn't be in there?' And I shook 'no'We searched together, together until it was time for coffeeThe family having coffee, but I didn't want anythingI was thinking of Flappie and how cold and freezing it could be at nightMy head hung down quietly, crying fat tears of sorrow Because I did lock the cage securilyLike I did every eveningI even went back last nightI don't even know why I did thatI had stood in front of the cage for a long whileAs if I knew then what I know nowIt was the first day of Christmas 1961Dinner was noisy, but it didn't bother me muchI was thinking of Flappie, my own little FlappieWhere could he be? I couldn't eat a biteWhen after the soup the main course'd arriveMy dad said extremely funny: "Look Youp, here is Flappie!"I still see that silver tray and there he was in three piecesFor the first time I saw my dad as a horrible man!And I went to bed shrieking and poundingFirst spend an hour crying on the coversStood cursing at the top of the stairs one last timeAnd screamed: "Flappie was mine!"Stood in front of the window for a very long whileBut the cage just stood there forlornIt was the second day of Christmas 1961Mother still remembers it so well, dad's bed was emptyAnd I said that she wasn't allowed in the shedAnd if she'd play sweetly, she would get some goodies