rideforever

People have to be met where they are, or they will not be able to bridge the new understanding with their existing structure .... it takes a good heart to meet someone where he is and make the effort to bridge your understanding with theirs. The mother of the universe. Perhaps it can be frustrating sometimes, but with clear perception then the frustration should ease, and there is just the job at hand in the universe at hand. Whatever work needs doing needs doing, however high or low, it is always a pleasure to serve the growth of understanding in the universe.

You are intelligent Stosh, but can you use your intelligence to find the answers you need ? Can you use your intelligence to open ways and means of progess that might yield something ? Even in a deeply imperfect situation, can you find a strategy for making some progress ? If you are smart enough to find fault with things, can you also use your smartness to create order from the situation ? Not everyone has much intelligence, but they have other things. Whatever we have it we must help it to flower so that something comes of it.

A channel ... is itself empty yet it guides, yet it is full. It is as if not there, but without it nothing would flow. From ego to channel.

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Between the eyebrows. If you are calm, meditative, rest there, ... what is there ? When people talk of the heart in their chest (the heart centre), they might say they "feel their heart". The feel some warm feelings there, but there is something more ... they feel themselves. They feel identity. Do you see ? They feel firstly an object - the feeling of the heart, but there is something extra there, they feel the subject identity. That is at the heart. And at the eyebrow centre ... how is it ? Is it similar, with a different flavour of feelings, but in principle the same ?

Can we bring it into being.

It's done ! If there is a discussion at hand and I feel I can contribute something then I shall, then hopefully people would be interested, and I could express the ideas clearly and without frustration or agenda and really communicate, that would be good, that is my personal goal. Today I was thinking that people are where they are and need to grow from where they are ... new knowledge must be connected to the old, otherwise there is no bridge. This is one of the reasons that just expressing something to everyone doesn't really do much. It's not part of where they are at, what they are interested in, or what they can bridge. The old adage about leading a horse to water .... it's quite violent to think that you can dump your ideas on people and they will lap it up ... even if they are true ....growth is more sensitive and we have to respect that people are moving in the direction that they are moving, and it may be very different from your own. Can you contribute to somebody where they are at ? Maybe, maybe not. Inspiration and love is more easy to contribute than other things.

Hmm, I am thinking of learning Liuhebafa. Today I have just been looking through about 8 versions from different people. It's giving me a headache, they all look completely different, are they doing the same form ?- difficult to tell. Different direction, differnt number of movements, different energetic movement. Helen Liang, well at least she is athletic and puts some vigour into it, looks interesting, at least she appears to be trying to do something. Not sure about these old guys or overweight guys moving slightly - it's a bit navel gazing isn't it ? Jeez really not sure what to say. There is a devil on my shoulder sometimes saying this is all BS. I really don't know.

"There is suffering". The First Noble Truth. But is there ? That's one hell of an assumption to lay as your foundation rock. "Things are bad". But are they ? Why not these alternative First Noble Truths : #1- Fuck, I Exist #1- I Am, I Can, I Love, I Hope #1- Yeah, I had a really shit day today so I am interested in the meaning of life And then there is this Dependent Arising 12 links 6 skandhas. The analysis of the state of man. But ... which man ? It is like decoding the human genome DNA. But .... which man have you decoded, my DNA is not that DNA. Do you know that different men are different inside ??? Certainly a realised being has a different inner state than an ordinary man. But ... the Buddhists never talk about who's state they find to be Arising Dependently, because they don't understand that there is a difference between an ordinary man monkey and a realised being. And so the entire conversation, sounding so erudite, having so many numbers in it, so high - minded .... is actually very silly, and people lap it up and repeat all the nonsense to each other. If you are empty, what will you do, stare at your navel ? Or fill yourself, explore yourself, bring something into being. Will to Be. Or will you shrivel up with a book that reinforces your hopeless sense of nothingness. If you wish to Be then you can Be. But anyway, I have enjoyed my experiences with Buddhists and have gained from them, mostly the format of the practices are relatively immune to whatever nonsense people are saying. It is sad though that a man who arrives at a centre looking for help whether it is a Buddhist centre or a medical centre .... will receive a very low level of help, and possibly something far worse; being told that you are empty, is utterly destructive and false. But that is the sadness of human society. May people be blessed to be met one day with love, hope, and intelligence.

¯\_(⊙︿⊙)_/¯

Maybe the best answer is how can I learn existence's lessons quickly ? Asking whether worrying is suffering is one step removed from the lesson .... feel the worry and let it flood through you do not jump away just feel it, let it flow through you deeper and deeper, feel the pain anxiety whatever it is soak into you, let go and feel. When the storm finally clears, you will be changed.

Buddha made the 8 jhanas with the 2nd ascetic he studied with. But it wasn't what he was looking for, then he left and went walkabout. Sitting under a tree one day he remembered something from his childhood.

I would strongly guard against full lotus. Strongly. Truth be told it is better simply to sit in any comfortable posture which allows your belly to be free and your back straight for an hour. Perfect pose is pretty good and generally comfortable, personally I sit Burmese with my back against my bed, and can meditate quite well in any posture, sometimes half twisted in bed on Sunday morning at 5am, my body doesn't move but I begin. Yes there may be modest energy benefits in full lotus, but that is a minor point compared to the violent nature of the pose and the violent nature of the mind that thinks realisation is a kind of self-torture .... hey it works when I go to my office job, right ? Maybe you can continue with the shaving of the head, sleeping in a wooden box and flailing of the back with a whip, and other religious masochistic tendencies. Nope it's all wrong. Please just relax and be kind, it's only you inside that you are looking for. Similarly with mudras, they are of only tiny tiny help. You will never realise with these gimics. Where is your heart ? Where is your soul ? Where is your calmness ? Where is your trust ? If these things are in the right place then the energy of reality will light you up like the Sun. You have only to ask with a good heart. Sit down with your dog by the fire and relax, let go and let go and let go. It's relatively easy to destroy your knees with full lotus, in deep meditation you just hear one of your knees pop, as the meniscus tendons or ligaments buckle and then your gait is never the same again. Sometimes the damage means you cannot cross your legs again. Perfect pose (where you slip the front part of one foot between the calf-thigh of the opposite) sitting with a cushion, is very stable and comfortable and allows for good blood flow into the legs. Oh, and the idea that you just grin and bear it and one day it will improve ... this is absolutely the wrong approach. The only thing that will improve is your repression of the pain. The posture is there only to facilitate your inner state, stable, calm, easy breathing, spine supported, far as I know taoist masters often sat on a seat with feet on the ground no crossing of legs and then stood up and did standing meditation, then maybe lying meditation.

Some unnecessarily beautiful poetry and music was included in Lam Kam Chuen's series on Zhan Zhuang :

Hello. I was always and still am inspired by the path of Siddharta Gautama, it is a beautiful and meaningful story and I remember it often. I have spent a lot of time on Buddhist retreats, and studying their philosophy and practice, but today I understand it differently from many, as I understand many things differently from others. I understand "what it is". I remember being at the very excellent International Meditation Centre in Chippenham (UK), and in the evening a story from a large book of traditional stories was read out ... it was an opportunity to relax and listen after a whole day of Shamatha practice. This story was about Buddha laughing when he saw a couple who had destroyed themselves through drinking. My ears perked up - why did he laugh ? Alcoholism is not funny. I spoke with the teacher about it in his study the next day, I said "why ?". At first the teacher didn't understand what I was talking about ... apparently no student had ever approached him to clarify a story that was read out. On a subsequent retreat I had a confrontation with the same teacher about whether I should "think" about Vipassana or just do it. I left that retreat on day 2. But the question was very important, relating to the correct use of intelligence and also Sila, finally I have found answers. I have confronted quite a few people, sometimes publicly, sometimes making a fool of myself. And finally I found the answers I needed. Likewise Buddha also left situation after situation, teacher after teacher, until he found answers. He worked, he exhausted himself with work, he struggled with the Demons of Mara, and he touched the Earth. That is Buddhism to me. Gurdjieff was a on a train once with a student and absolutely exploded at the train conductor creating a huge confrontation with passengers and staff all rushing into the carriage to break it up. A second later he was total calm and invited them all to leave, then he sat down calmly with his student as if nothing had happened. A lesson. We are all so goddam afraid aren't we. But the whole show is really for us, we are supported in every conceivable way, the air, gravity, the sun, our hearts ... it's all for us.

I have BKF's Dragon & Tiger DVD, it's really incredibly good. With a soft black background you have 2 students side by side, doing the movements with a soft voice over from BKF. It builds things up progressively, going through each of the 7 movements, with the students performing and BKF adding some details with the voice. In the middle section there are refinements. Then there is a section on transitions (more refinements). Then the entire thing is done at normal speed for 10 minutes. Then there is a section moderated movements for people with injuries. Well it's just about perfect. I also have BKF's Heaven & Earth, which is much older and quite grainy. But he has the same type of progressive approach. Firstly the movement is shown. Then next section is on breathing. Then a section of expansion contraction. Then a section of body position. Then a section on cavities. and so on. Again an excellent presentation. His books though are like many, they are TOMES or tombs, they are painful to read. Why use 5 words when 500 will do. As if the student is expected to be so retarded that every micro-breath has to be spelt out. Impossible to use. What is the point of doing the movement at all if you can't learn through your own feeling of it. Mantak Chia's are even worse, they are unstructured tombs with an impossibly endless list of practices carefully mangled with a sort of index then an extended index with pictures, then an extended extended index with more pictures and practice notes, then the whole disaster. omg what is wrong with this guy. "This is certainly not the way." IMO there is no knowledge that is not immediately embodiable and embodied. Anything not embodied is simply a curse to have in your head, data lodged up there rather than reality. And all knowledge has to be connected to your existing knowledge, otherwise where is the bridge, you must grow from where YOU are. That way you grow your tree from where it is, you can't attach new leaves to mid-air. But much instruction is mental, just tombs of downloaded vomit, the collection that this teacher has filled himself with and needs you to know about. This is not a teaching manual or practice manual, but a bucket. Another DVD (online instruction) I recently had the misfortune to witness was by a high minded teacher of Dragon Gate Taichi (and I may add some of Ken Gullette's are like this ). With the first movement of the form, the teacher sort of stop and starts the movement continuously so that he can regurgitate all the practice notes and any funny stories. So on the video you see him stop start, then talk, stop again, then start .... meanwhile as a student you have your arm hanging in the air for 5 minutes as he remembers some story of a cat and this old guy, then he starts again ... but only for a little bit ... then some more practice notes ... then starts again ....and just one more story and .... finally ... finishes ... the .... fucking .... movement. Well my laptop was lucking it didn't take a closer look at the pavement 3 floors below. What is wrong with these people ? Are they idiots ? What they teach, what the actual effect is .... what gets embodies by the student .... is a completely broken movement, shattered by continuous stoppages ... and also the anecdotal stories become enmeshed with the broken body movement. That is what actually happens to the student. Because you are not teaching the movement as it is to be performed, but continously breaking it .... and the student is copying that breaking. That's what goes in. Surely this can be improved.

I have the sense that a great sage may speak about many things, the 5 elements for instance, and so people imagine that by hooking onto those things they can enter the state of the sage. But it may not work like that, that's why it is important to read about the history of the teacher himself, his life and journey ... tells a very interesting story with key moments, characters and experiences. What is it that he actually did to arrive ? Not what comes out of his mouth now. In the TTC, the first lines admonish intellectual understanding. Then he talks about many observations of nature how it works ... the darkness within darkness. How does it work ? Don't just walk past as you are rushing to 5 element practice .... would you not like to look and see ... what does it mean ? When the wind blows through the tree, what can be understood ? What can be felt ? Is it teaching you all the time ... as you watch don't you have an inspiriation of the meaning behind ? Laozi feels .... what is behind ... the mystery of the darkness within darkness. He observes, and insight comes, and then the feeling of an origin or the underlying thing. The Tao that is small but from which all springs forth. If we are to enter into the same state as him, maybe we should do what he appears to be doing. When I do 5 elements qigong, I would like to have this in mind. If there was something else very important to say, Laozi would probably have said it. Like he said, the Tao is very small.

People are attracted to sources of power, they feel they will get something from them. So they go see what is going on and listen. And then the misunderstand. Instead of stretching their intelligence up and struggling, they hear only what makes sense to them ... at their carnal material nature, they translate the teaching into their carnal understanding. Why were the gnostic gospels removed from the Bible ? Because the were not understood by coarse people and the gnostic material drew suspicion. Why was A Course in Miracles re-edited in 1976 with many important ideas removed ? Because they were not understood ... And so you are left with a path that looks deceptively like the original, except the original light and spirit has been removed by the 1st generation students. Why has advaita gone from being a devotional gurukul transmission path, to wise-acreing about concepts over cappuccinos ? Because it was not understood, because people were not prepared to do the work and did not really need to do the work, they were there to have an easy life, sound important and feel pleased with themselves. Perhaps the first stage of degeneration is omission through non-recognition; and the 2nd stage is wise-acring. As a new crowd arrives at the tradition, and the light has already been removed, the new crowd starts to explore the material in an intellectual way because .... nothing is happening. Nothing is happening because the 1st generation students deleted all the light, and so the 2nd generation students receiving an empty meal start to have a look in the mental realm for answers. False Compassion : Masturbation of Feelings : Insect Oneness Jesus gave 2 commandments : the first was to Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, body. And the second was to love your neighbour as if he were yourself. But when I have heard people repeat Jesus's instructions, they conveniently omit the 1st instruction. They just talk about love and compassion etc... Why ? Because that is quite comprehensible to apes, who know about caring for people. Unfortunately without the 1st instruction it is all carnal and meaningless. If you don't love God (have a bridge to the light) ... then your caring is animal. After a while the students start to notice that loving your neighbour does not bring salvation, so they .... begin to try to extract more juice from loving your neighbour ... now they wish to love everyone and everything and imagine they will save the world and so on. Which is not what was intended and just fantasy. They exaggerate the 2nd instruction because they didn't hear the 1st. When the teacher doesn't know Several teachers (Nisargadatta, J Krishnamurti, UG Krisnamurti, Mooji, Adida) have stated at the end of their lives that nobody understood them, nobody got it, or very few. And so we have to question whether teachers actually know themselves how to teach, it appears to be a separate skill. Eckhart Tolle for instance struggled since he was young, going here going there, sleeping rough, trying this trying that. Finally he arrived at realisation and he teaches The Power Of Now. But .... that was not his own path. He cannot teach his own path because it was a big mess. So he made something up that might or might not work, certainly it was not how he awoke. Often the teachers are simply describing their state, like describing a summit ... .but that is not a path to get you to the summit. It is quite sad if a teacher speaks for 40 years and nobody is awakened. Osho says at the end of his life : "I leave you my dream". Dream ? Where are the instructions ? Bye thanks a lot. Jesus's early years are concealed, and Osho similarly sought to dismiss it ... in order to project a superman image. If you saw the pain suffering stupidity and banalness of their early journey perhaps students would not be impressed. Another thing I have noticed is that teachers always assume you are a beginner and want you to start at the bottom, but this may not be the case at all. Humans don't really assess their own state, and few teachers can either. So how can we do something positive then with this information : - always go to the source, read the words of the teacher yourself - study the life of the teacher himself, what choices did he make and how does it compare to your own choices - regardless of what the teacher says try to feel his state and invoke a transmission, even from a photo or song - assume that most wise-acres that follow do not understand - demand results from anyone you follow Active destruction Many teachers/groups seem to be looking for an easy life, where you can hug and screw or wise acre all day long, wear strange clothing and burn incense, and convince yourself everything is great ... rather than the light. Such groups actively destroy teachings and are suspicious of what is real. You can say that such people are at a level of consciousness where they wish to explore friendship and various things and so choose the umbrage of a spiritual tradition .... in other words they are doing what they need to do for their own journey .... but it results in the destruction of a tradition. Eating from the King's table I suppose you can say that the Light percolates into this world, and the progressive eating of the Light is how it carried into the dark world. Like Chinese whispers, each generation repeating the words with a little less light ... until what is left has no light in it, and un-differentiated from the darkness. Another mechanism of transmission into the dark world is when a being lifts himself up to hear with better ears and himself becomes lit up like a lighthouse.

Yesterday I put a lot of material down in several forums, it's been on my mind for a few years and I wanted to put them somewhere on the internet ... that's why I joined this forum. It is quite strenuous to write it all out, there was a lot of things, doesn't always come out smoothly. Certainly I expect people who enjoy churning concepts to death to not appreciate being disturbed. A few years ago I wanted answers, couldn't find any, and I would have appreciated the explanations I laid out. They were not discovered easily.

I love the music from the 80s, it was wild and free, people just did whatever they wanted and went for it. Wow was it great. Free.

Self-enquiry is a practice that yields communion. It is not a concept that you wise-acre about as you slowly die. It is a practice. Meaning you feel the source of consciousness and identify yourself with it, whilst surrender to it, and this has the effect of bridging you and the source to make a communion = new being bridge. All real beings exist as a communion with God, as a bridge.

There is no "Christian Belief System". Jesus said LOVE the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, body and soul. Not believe, LOVE. Belief is when you refuse to love, you refuse to feel, and you refuse to practice. Any belief you choose from any "system" will similarly lead nowhere. Jesus said when you pray, pray like this : "Our Father who art in Heaven ..." He is giving practice instructions. Anybody do them ? Or just ship to trendy Buddhism ? Let me tell you they likewise are not practicing, they argue over other concepts. Christians go to church because they feel. If they feel often enough they develop confidence, then maybe they believe.

As the student is talking, the Zen master in front of him realises that the student is just a parrot, and gives him a wake the hell up lesson. Talking is void : Is it, or is it only when you are not present. Is Rumi void ? Is J Krishnamurti void ? Is your mother void ? No because they talk when they are present, and so Truth is conveyed inside the words ... the words are very close to Truth itself because they are close to Truth, the concept are close to Truh. In your own life I am sure you have noticed that when you are not present, everything that comes out of your mouth is BS. But when you are present you can make some sense. Concepts are of no use: Well ... even that is a concept. Meditation is a concept. Is it of no use ? Of course it is of use. When a mountain climber climbs a mountain, is the map of no use ? Is the map the mountain ? Is he climbing a map ? No, it's quite simple. You take a look at the first bit of the map, the you climb the first bit of the mountain. Afterwards you have experience of climbing, and then you read the next bit of conceptual instructions - as you have experience you can understand more. Then you climb a bit more. Then you take a break and read instructions. Then you climb a bit more. Concepts + Climbing, step by step. You are all there ever is : Really ? What if you want to become a surgeon and go to medical school. After 5 years you quality, your learning and experience has changed you, you are unrecognizable now Mr Surgeon. Where did this change come from ? Is it still you - or someone else ? Did nothing change ? Everything changed because you made it change. If you had not gone to medical school your Doctorship would have been a potential that never flowered. It is you but a you that through your own work you made appear. If the Skandhas are empty, then fill them.

And what if you could say something about "it" ? Do you think that would help you ? If I tell you a nice story about God .... of what benefit is that to you ? It is of Zero benefit. Talking like this is for people who don't practice and enjoy asking the wrong meaningless questions. Can you talk about the summit of a mountain ? Sure you can, if you wish to .... it overlooks the land, it's high free and has mighty fresh air. Then you can talk a hell of a lot about how one gets there, the practice, inspiration, technology, realisation and surrender. One has to have authority before one can say anything with authority. Buddhists : oh dear we can't say anything, there is nothing except emptiness, nothing happened and nobody was there, nobody can teach and nothing can be .... oh please do shut up. You are so depressed. Okay I am being rude sorry. It's true though, Buddha himself was not depressed, he was practical and worked and then he arrived.