moment

6 hours ago, Klinsly said:

Just saw this the other day nice little painting of what's beyond our physical sight.   "The Invisible Path" by Tuco Amalfi

 

 

 

He is new to me also.  Very good! He does not really fit into any category.  Interdimensional, supernatural, mixing of realities, very creative.

Your lungs collapsed, and the machine, unstrained,   

Did all your breathing now. Nothing remained   

But death by drowning on an inland sea   

Of your own fluids, which it seemed could be   

Kindly forestalled by drugs. Both could and would:   

Nothing was said, everything understood,   

At least by us. Your own concerns were not   

Long-term, precisely, when they gave the shot

—You made local arrangements to the bed   

And pulled a pillow round beside your head.

    And so you slept, and died, your skin gone grey,   

Achieving your completeness, in a way.

 Excerpt from “Lament” by Thom Gunn.

Battle of Issus-- Albrech Altdorfer

View of Toledo-- El Greco

Have you ever opened yourself up through the playing of Conch shells?

                                              -- me

“Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears.”
― Rudyard Kipling

 "The lies we tell other people are nothing to the lies we tell ourselves.”

                                       ― Derek Landy

“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.”

                                            ― Saul Bellow, To Jerusalem and Back

“Happy is the man who can recognize in the work of to-day a connected portion of the work of life and an embodiment of the work of Eternity. The foundations of his confidence are unchangeable, for he has been made a partaker of Infinity. He strenuously works out his daily enterprises because the present is given him for a possession.

Thus ought man to be an impersonation of the divine process of nature, and to show forth the union of the infinite with the finite, not slighting his temporal existence, remembering that in it only is individual action possible, nor yet shutting out from his view that which is eternal, knowing that Time is a mystery which man cannot endure to contemplate until eternal Truth enlighten it.”
― James Clerk Maxwell

1 hour ago, waterdrop said:

As i asked before about the need for isolation when training in qigong  and got the reply we need to isolate or else the yang qi  escapes to the earth (  the yin qi moves freely and that is what should happen)  and that you still  get benefit from training barefoot on the ground you lose some of the effectiveness (if i remeber was told something like 15%) 

...  So  the question is  what is a good isolation material  - what works what not :

How thick the material should be ?        ( 0.0001 cm / 0.1 cm  /  0.5 cm /  1 cm  / 2 cm  / 5 cm / 10 cm  ) 

What material it should be ?         ( rubber ?  cotton  ? )

Are shoes good ?    are tai chi shoes good ?  are slippers good ?   

Are socks good enough ?     what about really  old socks that are worn out  - can they work too ?

A bed sheet on the floor  -  a very thin one (is it too thin?) ?     

A bed sheet folded a few times ?

Can i use a towel i have    ?   or is a towel  too stimulating on the feet   so in that sense it takes off your mind from inside your body ? 


* Where i live its warm  -  if anything i go barefoot  just to cool a tiny bit , the house tiles which are granite porcelain are ab it cool   - but if i stand in place after a few seconds where i stand will be warm as well


(  I ask about material for isolation but if someone wants to say his views  about the subject of isolation its great as well -  about the need for isolation ,  about how it effects us ,  about how much it effects our practice etc)

It matters so much, on where your emotional and energy balance is at the time.  Too much energy? stuck energy? Feeling too aggressive? Great anxiety? Then barefoot for awhile is best, until you cool down( go more yin).

Feelling too passive? cold? depressed? Then 1-2 centimeters of rubber should be fine.  You feel balanced, fine? on top of the world!

Then whatever feels best is great!

After my last post here, I thought I would contradict myself and stir up a little shit in the process:

“A molecule of hydrogen....whether in Sirius or in Arcturus, executes its vibrations in precisely the same time. Each molecule therefore throughout the universe bears impressed upon it the stamp of a metric system as distinctly as does the metre of the Archives at Paris, or the double royal cubit of the temple of Karnac. No theory of evolution can be formed to account for the similarity of molecules, for evolution necessarily implies continuous change, and the molecule is incapable of growth or decay, of generation or destruction.... We are therefore unable to ascribe either the existence of the molecules or the identity of their properties to any of the causes which we call natural.”  
― James Clerk Maxwell  

2 hours ago, ilumairen said:

 

 

Perhaps owing to your own sense of guilt and hence suffering, you become more aware of suffering around you, which your mind then paints stories around. Then your internal fight and struggle with yourself is “mirrored” or “projected” onto the world around you. Thus, reinforcing your guilt and suffering, and basically trapping you in a hall of mirrors where everything relates to, and reinforces, said guilt and suffering - which in turn relates to this sense of “no escape” you are experiencing.

Maybe escape will come with breaking these funhouse mirrors of distorted, self aggrandizing, and basically self flagellating view?

 

 

Well said!

7 minutes ago, Takingcharge said:

Ok so i have a question, How do you know if you have an issue with entities?

 

ive been having some really strange things happening, 

 

ive heard a voice talk to me a couple of times

 

When  i lie down i keep seeing  this imagery. Outfar ahead i see these shapes  Through a kind of window a hole i am seeing through. Slowly moving in closer to me  they have nasty and disturbing faces they keep moving in closer untill  they are basicly right in front of me, infront of the window i am seeing them through, they then enter my space and they begin making  noices n laughing n taking up room in my personal space

 

i also have very weird hypnogogic imagery as i go to sleep where i keep seeing strange and bizarre faces appear in the darkness it also seems  like theyre speaking to me

 

 

 

this is extremely different from my normal hypnogogic imagery and i basicly never had experiences like this, n definatly not consistently

 

 

 

i am Also not an energy meditator

and i dont have any mental illness

 

 

this is kind of worrying me its really bizarre and a couple times it freaked me the f out!

 

how can i know if theres something going on here?

And if so how do i protect myself and get rid of them?

 

my other question is,   Are readings safe?

a person offered to do a reading for me

but if he has dark things around him can they hop over to me when he does a read?

 

that doesnt seem like a good plan to me

 

do, how can i know for sure?

if so what do i do about it?

 

thanks for your time

 

Are there any top-notch traditional-- meditation centers,  chinese medicine practioners,  and/or accupuncturists, near you?

There is nothing permanent except change.

Heraclitus

Glow of Hope – S L Haldankar

3 hours ago, virtue said:

Neurological issues are connected to kidneys in terms of Classical Chinese Medicine. Do you practice anything strengthening your kidney and jing? Good Zhan Zhuang practice can do wonders to improve these.

 

Good sleep and healthy lifestyle are extremely important for preserving jing and shen like thelerner wrote. Neglecting the basics of healthy living affects health very negatively so I hope you these already well covered.

What virtue says is excellent---and well covered---- partially--- means:drink a lot of water. Try to keep your urine clear.  That is the only measure that you will ever need, as far as kidney chi balance is concerned.

Walking in the woods, on animal trails, through mildly rolling forested hills, with a walking stick, no matter what the weather is.  Doing it silently and leaving no trace behind. Stopping halfway through, to do Ba Duan Jin and Tai Chi. The whole circuit, 45-120 minutes a day depending upon your schedule.  Done 5-7 days a week, this will completely change your life--- guarranteed! *

*Set your phone to emergency calls only.

59 minutes ago, virtue said:

Budding Daoists. Bums be theyselves!

 

An apocryphal anecdote from a former member:

 

 

  On 12/17/2019 at 6:13 AM, Starjumper said:

"I don't smoke pot much any more either, but the miracle youth drug from China was/is the preferred plant medicine for the Taoist Shamans of old.  In fact, the oldest known writing in the world is from a Chinese Shaman, from around 7000BC (or 7000 years ago), which was titled "Ode to the Green Bud."

Starjumper and I have shared history in Seattle.

I am much more interested, in your experiences and ideas on the subject of this thread.                                               

2 hours ago, steve said:

 A thread devoted to all things cannabis.

 Not everyone’s cup of tea, perhaps, but a rich and varied topic nonetheless.

 

 

 

 

That is some fine looking weed! What strain is it? 

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

People tell me that Christianity can be an authentic spiritual path and I believe it.  Unfortunately, my personal experience of those who profess Christianity has been profoundly negative and shaming.  Maybe I´m just unlucky?  Do parents in predominantly Buddhist countries tell their children they´re bad people for not believing in the doctrine of, say, dependent co-arising?  I wouldn´t know.  My personal history thus far has been peopled with tyranical believe-or-else Christians, an attitude I haven´t found so much in yoga classes or studying Tai chi.  Jesus may be loving; the members of his church are decidedly less so. 

 

Many years ago I went on a pilgrimage walk to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.  It´s a nominally Catholic trek although people of all spiritual leanings undertake the journey.  You can´t help but see a lot of crosses along the way and I actually came to find the image meaningful, although I didn´t subscribe to Christianity then and don´t now.  To me, it seemed like the intersection of horizontal and vertical lines mirrored the alchemical intersection of fire and water I´d learned about in my Daoist adventures. (This potent mixing is repeated once again, to my mind anyway, in the triangles of the Star of David.  But that´s another story.)  I felt a sweetness that went beyond words in the paradoxical intersection of horizontal and vertical that is the cross.  

 

But that was then.  During the following twenty years I´ve reverted back to the ornery anti-Christain you see before you today.  Live and learn -- or not.     

Christ's teachings were, hijacked and perverted, by a succession of opportunistic, power mad, bureacracies.

1 hour ago, Nungali said:

 

 

Well,  yes, I DO have better things to do than try to be a bit understanding and  find  'another reason'  for your attitude and tactics of late - of which, I am not the only one here to notice and comment on .

 

 

Okay then , I shall simply ask you ;   whats wrong with you lately ?

 

 

Good !

"your attitude and tactics of late - of which, I am not the only one here to notice and comment on ."

You got that right!

55 minutes ago, Toni said:

Stoicism for me is very precious. I would recommend the book Enchiridion to everybody. It is a short book written by Epictetus. In it he explains the difference between the vulgar and the sage: the first seeks outside his happiness or his misfortunes, while the sage knows very well it is all within.

 

It is a great philosophy for the endurance of all kind of hardships, always with serenitude and tranquility.

In my opinion, the greatest leader of all time, was the great Stoic Marcus Aurelius. I f we had his equal as President of the USA now, we would become great again.  Sadly, there is no one visible, anywhere in the world, who is close to his equal.