silent thunder

synthesizing

Mom

Yesterday I started a thread in my ppd and chose to hide it as it was unfinished, but it seems to have just disappeared as I posted it, never showed up as a thread in the list and when I returned to complete the thought, there is no hidden file in my ppd. Is this something anyone else has encountered? If not, perhaps I selected delete instead of hide. Just curious.

Thanks mate. It's working great now.

There's one every second Sunday on the south end of Torrance beach. Where is the one you attended today? Is it a regular group?

pivot

I just put a new skin on my djembe a couple months ago... she's got nice sound for a synth. haven't been to a circle in yeeears.

I deeply appreciate the sentiment shared in this thread. My practice is not about feeling good, though at first it was all about that. Although a bi-product of the process is one of saturating calm and an abiding compassion and peace... this comes seemingly only through and after systemic realizations of harsh, assumption blasting, belief disintegrating, painful realizations of my own self and socially created and maintained illusions. My process is about relentlessly and radically releasing assumptions and projections. Simple breathing, body awareness and presence in awareness. Not projecting, thinking, doing or seeking. More and more, it is about cultivating emptiness where my mental projections and beliefs are dismantled in calm simplicity and cannot take hold to become firm beliefs. Though this is after some years of intense pain and harsh, humbling realizations. I'm reminded of this quote: “Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It's seeing through the facade of pretence. It's the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.” Adyashanti

It's a hang drum kind of morning here in SoCal.

dinner with friends

sanguine

This Is It by Alan Watts Emptiness Dancing (reread) by Adyashanti Don't think of an Elephant by George Lakoff and Sacred Geometry: Philosophy and Practice by Thames & Hudson

I recall Master Zhou telling me if I used the inertia of his initial teaching (and the group we were with at the time) and continued to play the form every day, that in a year or so I could expect to see all my physical maladies and old nagging injuries fall away. I thought it hyperbole, but the undeniable paradigm shifting experience in his presence was motivation enough for me to pursue and practice every day for almost two years. Some months into the practice I realized that I had, for the first time, just completed the entire form, without experiencing a single physical pang or twinge anywhere, not a joint pop, or a momentary tension anywhere in my body throughout the entire form. Nothing in my chronic ankle (two reconstruction surgeries and a decade of pain), nor my residual chronic left shoulder (repeated tension pains from a work injury/reinjury), nor any other spot on my body was aching or overly tense. It was all just flowing with breath. He had spoken fact to me and I had doubted, yet pursued anyway and then experienced it. Now I'm still only 48, which is young by Taoist standards... but among my construction and grip brothers in the film industry I am known as something of an anomoly as they hobble about on this or that current or residual past physical woe. Simple, gentle motion and breath seems more and more miraculous as time goes on.

Your question reminds me of a moment that really resonated in a documentary I was watching where they followed the Dalai Lama around for a day. In it, he hinted that the current moment seems like a tiny length of individual time, but that time is an indivisible process that is only divided up by humans the mind. The now is eternal. I don't recall the question exactly, but the response still resonates with me. He said. "Current moment, current second, current day, current year, decade, millenium, epoch." It's all now. How we divide it up seems to be a function of our human memory and we seem to need to refer to the functional eternal present as past, present and future time and consider it to be separate... but any more, for me... like the universe and things that appear separate from me... where is the division functionally? It's one continuous soup. One wave (decade), or one drop of water (moment) may appear to be distinct, yet they are as much a part of the entire ocean as every other wave and drop. or at least that's how it seems to me right now... Great question to start the day LimA... Cheers!

Any more, I can't think of a place I've looked that wasn't saturated in it, whatever name it's given... divine, spiritual, mystical. All of it in every ordinary bit. It seems that i first encountered it within, before it was discerned without, but i can't be certain.

freedom of flight anyone?

what is real?

Ho'oponopono is my most relied upon ox/companion lately. Walking meditation which blends readily into breath/body awareness in all activities. Readily combines with Ho'oponopono and is a companion throughout the day at work/home/running errands. Embodying presence through awareness of the breath and body sensation/awareness has been a potent manner of decreasing the power of emotional spikes and releasing assumptions and attachments. There hasn't been a ritualistic formal practice for some time, but when the impetus arises, and the conditions permit, there are two Qi Gong forms I play, as taught by Zhou Ting-Jue from Dragon Gate. One revolves around emptiness, the other involves small orbit and qi compression and extension. Or I play Wu Wei Qi Gong and simply allow the breath and body to move to its own flow without form or thought of duration or end game. Dragon Gate sitting/emptiness meditation as taught by Wang Li Ping. Tree work. The majority of cultivation intention is in fostering awareness... then acknowledging conditions and mostly, radical release of attachment to outcomes and actions. edit to add: as I woke this morning, the image of the Kintsukuroi bowl... so prominent. like a veritable physical manifestation in my mind. kintsukuroi... mending broken pottery to bring use back to it and is appreciated more, for having been broken treasured now as perhaps not capable before the various teachers, teachings, insights, pursuits all contribute to the process of my kintsukuroi mending my experience of my self. so grateful for having been broken for if I hadn't experienced that... would I ever have arrived where I am now?

Where is the music? Where does it live? in the instrument? in the musician? in the listener? in the movements? in the air? in the ear? drums felt in bones, need no ears to be heard. is there still music there? so what is music? where does it live? where does music start? in the mind of the musician? or somewhere in the answers above? if I think about music, only in my thoughts, is that still music? is thinking music, music? does music end? just fade away beyond hearing and dissolve? or is it endlessly resonant... vibrating outward? is it cyclically resonant, so long as it has something to bounce off of? where does it live? what is music? who makes the music? who's listening to the music? Now, reread the above questions and trade the word music for Witness... This rang my bell yesterday when someone asked in another thread where the witness resides... it is poignant and deeply resonant for me, so I share it.

*bow* I so did not see that coming... I'd say you nailed it!

this usually makes me chuckle and nod my head in agreement

hmm. what is the sound, i wonder... of full lotus...

Wow, does this resonate with suspicions and tentative truths that orbit my awareness over the last decade or so... This concept was first introduced to me by a long time friend who has had this in his noggin since he was a wee lad in the Mountains of the Northwest. Can't wait to send this to him. He's going to flip to hear this guy sharing and laying out his ideas in such clarity. Thanks Mate!

Treasure indeed! When present and aware, ordinary seems an illusory concept to me. There is no such thing as ordinary... the most common gesture, a simple smile, the pouring of a cup of tea... is miraculous. when awake... ordinary seems saturated in miraculous.