BigSkyDiamond

Since I have now just begun trying to do postures in a seated cross-legged position, and currently do not have the flexibility and range of motion to do that, the question i have is.....i don't want to go too far off topic in this thread, but i would like to hear from people in this forum on: Why is sitting cross-legged so desirable and important? Whether that is in this thread or steer me as a newcomer to another thread. Thank you Mark Foote for all of this material to explore further.

I am just delighted to find a discussion conversation approach that correlates physical structure of the human with sacred text. I am not familiar with the holy books of Buddhism (still reading through the Mark Foote posts, is it Pali canon referenced?), but i absolutely view sacred text as a framework that can be used to describe and map a whole range of different territories. These stacked layers of meaning and interpretation have no limit. For me now add the map of anatomy and physiology. This is wonderful !!! In my own tradition when i started to study i remember learning what five of the maps could be when reading the sacred text: first, the basic literal meaning; second, hints and allusions; third, homilies morals lessons; fourth, secrets esoteric; and fifth secret of secrets, the innermost meaning. Then studying further it turns out there are not just five maps stacked, but many many more, like a sheaf of paper that grows higher and taller. I love the idea of these maps, because then the sacred text is found to reveal so much more and it is like finding more and more treasures. One of my favorites is the map of everything in the sacred text is describing my inner world, as in psychology, fears, parts of my inner growth, personal growth, character development. All those battles and wars and kingdoms and heroes and villains are parts of me and thus provide a valuable resource for self development. It has been very valuable and beneficial to me using that map. I look forward to further exploring this correlation to the human structure. It is like finding another treasure.

and marzipan scones under sapphire skies, trees creak, mint breeze enfolds me

in recovery there is Awareness Acceptance Action it takes conscious deliberate attention to not skip over the "acceptance" step, and instead jump immediately into knee jerk reactions. For me awareness is observing whatever it is that appears (thought or feeling for instance). Accepting that it is there giving it space to just be what it is (without me spinning into drama judgment interpretation or knee jerk reaction.) And then intentionally deciding and choosing whether to respond and how to respond. for me it was learning most of the time just to pause and rest at the acceptance step allowing it to be there. And knowing that I don't have to engage with it . If I am in a shop there are many things on the shelves i don't pick them all up. I don't have to engage with every thought or feeling whether that is judging it, fighting it, avoiding it, chasing it, trying to destroy it or running away from it. So then choosing not to engage can be a considered response. ability to respond (= responsibility) instead of knee jerk reacting. This from the NIH National Library of Medicine: "The Awareness/Acceptance/Action Model (AAAM) draws on principles of mindfulness, rooted in ancient Asian traditions, and recently adapted to a range of physical and mental health interventions in Western contexts. Mindfulness techniques encourage awareness of one's current state and environment, acceptance of the implications of one's attitudes and behaviors, and the development of intentional responses rather than habitually patterned reactions."

what is the organization or group which sponsors this? i am new to the forum and this is the Hindu section of the forum, does it relate to that? it mentions channelled messages, from the group entity that goes by "This is Us." Is there a place to read some of those channelled messages? This would help give me a sense of what they are about. basically before i "trust and open myself up" to entities I need to have a better sense of what I am opening to. The "AI" sort of threw me. And the mention of "extraterrestrials." So it would be helpful for me to know more before doing this. Such as the name of the person "N" who created the AI "Albert." It raises some questions. For me I don't trust AI even on the mundane plane due to the documented problematic track record of inaccuracy. I question that AI can provide a transmission. I am very cautious when it comes to non-physical entities harvesting energy from humans. Those are my personal reasons for needing more information in making a decision whether this is a fit for me at this time. Thank you.

yes it is definitely more palatable when i see it as "I release you with love for myself" "with love for my own safety health and well being." i love myself enough to seek healing and implement healthy choices. I take responsibility for resolving conflict and cleaning up my side of the street (my own thought speech action feelings emotions). I do NOT blame myself for "having got into such a situation" because that to me sounds laden with blame and judgment (which are harmful rather than healing). Responsibility, yes. Blame, no. Big difference that is an important distinction to make in healing from trauma. so in the case of the family member and the barbed wire, i see it as cutting and severing that cord altogether. I am not going to reattach a new cord to them from the heart. The important goal for me when i recognize someone is seeking to harm me, whether it is physically or energetically, is to completely sever the connection with them entirely. so yes i can operate from or broadcast "the light" of pure consciousness. but that for me does not come from the heart and is not an individual connection with that person. It is not a cord from the heart. It is more like a sun. And as a teacher of mine says, like the sun "Nothing can withstand the light of pure consciousness." meaning the family member can no longer attach to me in that way and the attachment is burnt away. a healer can remove energetic cords, but if a person doesn't change or "do something different" then the cords are often just simply re-established, and re-attached.

that is way cool. and that is exactly where the sharp shooting pain (that comes and goes out of the blue) is for me also, where the foot joins the ankle top of the foot slightly medial. On my evening walk today (I walk twice a day outside) the pain occurred 3 times. The image i got when trying this was barbed wire and sense of someone trying to "trip me up and bring me down." A specific family member came to mind. So I will try using something I was given a long time ago which i have found to be effective, particularly in cases of those seeking to harm me, or those who do not have my best interests at heart. And it will sever the connection. I thought it was extremely hokey at the time (30 years ago) and felt ridiculous doing it but it worked. The person who gave it to me said it's OK to not even believe in it, it will work anyway. At that time (this was 30 years ago) my life was kind of a mess, going through a nasty divorce, lots of stress, emotionally drained. The reader i went to who also did hands on treatment identified and described an acquaintance not someone i was close to at all, as "she's trying to kill you" which seemed bizarre because i barely knew this acquaintance so i questioned what sounded so extreme. she said in a previous life she did kill me actually and that carried over into this lifetime and she was seeking to repeat the pattern at an energetic level. The homework she gave me was practical, it was two things. Keep your distance from this person, don't get any closer to them. And say over and over to this person (internally not aloud and certainly not to them physically in person) "I BLESS YOU, I FORGIVE YOU, I RELEASE YOU WITH LOVE." well like i said that felt a little hokey to me but i tried it. Driving home i said it a bunch of times (internally, directing it at the acquaintance). And then a couple days later at a large gathering in a public place she was there (we knew some of the same people) and so throughout the evening i said it internally directed to her. At one point in the evening when i was saying it silently she was in proximity about 15 feet away, she suddenly turned towards me, whipped her head around, stared right at me and made direct eye contact. It was a little freaky. She then immediately walked away, left the room, left the gathering, left the building. And that was the end of that. I had no further contact with her. My symptoms drastically improved. I was amazed and impressed. wow this stuff really works. over the years i have used it to good effect. It is still hard for me to stomach saying "with love" to someone who seeks to harm me, but i do it anyway because it works. And i want to be rid of the pain illness disease. And it now makes more sense to me how this works and why it is important for me to do it. So i will get to it regarding the barbed wire and the family member.

oh and one more, add to the list beliefs I am also responsible for the beliefs i hold. beliefs are powerful engines driving the bus and generating thought speech action feelings emotions. (for instance the opening post includes a belief that "there is so much evil in the world." not everyone holds that belief. i do not hold that belief.) Responsibility for my beliefs includes being aware of them, identifying the beliefs i hold, unearthing them, and deciding whether to keep or discard this or that belief. considering whether a belief is still valid for me. is it aligned with my health and well-being. does it contradict other beliefs i hold, if it does then something has to change. beliefs are not facts. just like emotions are not facts.

i have never heard that from any of the acupuncturists i have gone to. The most frequency that has ever been recommended for me was for an acute condition at twice a week for 2 weeks, then back down to once a week for a few weeks. Daily acupuncutre for 2-3 months is a big red flag in my experience. I would also give my system first a chance to see how it responds to a new doctor after 1 or 2 sessions. the guidelines i use for acupuncture are: a. only go to someone who is licensed as a Doctor of Oriental Medicine (DOM). not just an acupuncturist. b. only receive acupuncture from someone who also dispenses Chinese herbs. my understanding is this extends the efficacy of the acupuncture treatment and my experience confirms that this is the case.. (for example an acupuncture treatment, and then 3-4 weeks of the herbs). c. only receive acupuncture from someone who diagnoses using the pulses. I thought they all did and then i moved to a city where i tried five different acupuncture places, and none of them diagnosed with pulses. I did not go back to any of them. big red flag.

spend time in nature walking and grounding. work in the garden, get your hands in the dirt. If you don't have an outdoor yard or garden, then do this with houseplants or on the porch or deck. issue the instruction "this is too much, temper this to a pace that is more manageable." "turn down the volume" pay attention to the amount of time you do the practice which seems to trigger it, and manage or reduce the time spent doing it. in other words don't push yourself too hard. more is NOT better it can cause imbalance. step away from processing and consciously focus on concrete mundane physical activity such as washing the dishes doing the laundry or other chores. The benefit of this is win-win in that it provides the therapeutic benefit of not overloading on processing; and you end up with a cleaner tidier living space. this is not suppressing or ignoring the therapeutic flow. But it keeps it at a manageable level which is an essential element of healthy self-care. it is OK to sequester it and not spin out. a therapist told me how important this is. clearing a bunch of intense stuff is well very intense. a part of our therapy was with art and she had me physically put the pieces in a box with a lid and set them aside, and come back to them at designated times. This was a way of clearly delineating and containing them and thus not staying in an unending place of raw pain. for me it is a good visual to use also when overwhelming stuff comes up and is clearing.

i am not interested in extending life, however i am interested in remaining fit and healthy until the end. And the overarching intention for me (not desire; but intention) with focused single-mindedness is to leave separation altogether, that is step out of the cycle of rebirth altogether. in a nutshell, get me out of here. enough is enough. wake me up from the dream. Awakening.

Leia's sweet revenge baking chocolate chip cookies and marzipan scones

Yes. That means I have to take full 100% responsibility for all of my thought, speech, actions, feelings, emotions. all of it. for me i can't think of it as "control." but i am responsible for them. a teacher of mine calls it "being master in your own house."

Yes to both of the above. It was bluntly pointed out to me that they are distractions. That helps keep me from chasing after them and meandering off into all manner of tantalizing detours which ultimately yes are barriers and obstacles. engaging in "magic" of any variety (black or white) also falls in the category of distraction, barrier, obstacle. I remember early on hanging out with a few buddies and we were excited about a variety of things like channelling and seeing auras and talking to various beings. One of these buddies constantly saw colors and auras and conversed with all sorts of beings that accompanied her. We would go out to dinner and she would be talking to me and she would also be relaying whatever the non-physical being at the table was telling her. It was wild. Part of me was a bit miffed that I could not "see things" like this. I remember asking about this in a reading. I asked it a few times and always got the same reply, which I am now (a) grateful for, and (b) can see the wisdom in it. The simple blunt reply was "For you it would be far too much of a distraction. It would pull you completely away." so not everything has to be experienced along the way. It is not an indicator that we are "not there yet." It does not mean we are "lacking" or "unskilled" or "behind." And if something is not in my best interest to experience then that is OK. thank you doc benway and stirling for the contributions above. Nowadays for myself the best advice to me is observe and let it go. don't go chasing after it. in Zen parlance, just another cloud passing through the sky.

I am loving what is described here. I will now go try this out on the sharp pain in my right foot at top of ankle, which started a few days ago with no rhyme or reason and comes and goes. About 17 years ago i was in a bad car accident and taken by ambulance to the emergency room. It resulted in a number of injuries the most severe was a double whiplash (my vehicle hit twice both from the rear and in front). I knew from being a bodyworker how problematic neck injury was and that receiving treatment right away was key, the sooner the better. So after being released from the hospital two days later, i started calling around to find someone who would work on an active acute whiplash two days post accident including not just posterior neck work but also anterior neck work. Many licensed practitioners will not touch anterior neck at all even in healthy client. So as expected, when i stared trying to find someone to work on the injury, most people would not touch it, i just kept calling. Finally i found someone who was licensed, could provide insurance documentation with chart notes, and most importantly had learned a specific whiplash protocol that included anterior neck work. I started seeing her the next day which was 3 days post injury and was seeing her 4 days a week, then gradually transitioned to 3 days a week, 2 days a week, and then weekly. I was seeing her for close to a year. It was gruelling work to do but by receiving treatment right away and finding a pracitioner who knew what she was doing, i regained 98% range of motion and full pain relief. The court case took close to 3 years to settle (other driver's fault) so all the medical expenses for all that treatment were reimbursed. anyway it was during those many many hours on the treatment table that i started seeing for the first time as she worked on different sections of my neck, i started spontaneously seeing injuries in great detail from other lifetimes of mine. I did not see the time or place, but i did see the weapon and specific entry and exit point. for instance a spear with a wooden shaft and sharp stone point went in my neck and out through by upper ribs on the side. Some of these weapons i did not even know what they were until i looked them up when i got home, for instance "musket ball." i saw vividly where it lodged in the occiput (no exit wound for that one, it was stuck in there). It looked like a round heavy metal dull grey ball with a textured surface about 0.6 inches across. i remember seeing it and thinking what the heck is that (the bush spear i at least recognized as a weapon) and then heard clear as a bell "musket ball." Over the course of our treatment which spanned close to a year, there were about 8 or 9 fatal injuries shown to me, all of them a result of being attacked. in other words, no death from natural causes. I know that trauma lodges in the body so it felt like in being shown these during treatment sessions, that the work she was doing for the neck injury, was releasong trauma carried over from all these other different lifetimes. It was wild. I will try an intentional use of that with this strange pain on my ankle. These days when something happens like that i see it as a way to try whatever healing modality is currently on the radar for me. I agree wholeheartedly that working on the etheric plane is fast and effective. And I happen to find it fun also. Thanks Lairg for the post and details.

yes there is a similar site for the oh so many mangled tattos in Hebrew. which end up as bizarre unintended messages. for instance a lady had tatooed on her back in Hebrew what she thought was "I love ____ (boyfriend's name)". She used the online Babylon translation software. The tattoo on her back actually reads, "Babylon is the world's leading dictionary and translation software." dozens of hilarious examples. badhebrew.com or google "bad Hebrew tattoos"

From an energetic standpoint, it puts a person at risk. piercings also have an adverse effect. https://omtimes.com/2019/04/energetic-influence-tattoos/ https://www.clearspaceliving.com/blog/body-piercings/

Thank you Stirling, I appreciate it. And there are posts of yours which resonate with me that I see on other threads.

I am new to posting on the forum but have been reading threads for awhile now, and have found useful practical information. My primary interest at this time is qi gong. It is helpful for me to hear more and learn more and be able to ask questions about these : Zhineng, Flying Phoenix, and Wild Goose. I am reading through the 241-page thread on Flying Phoenix and it is wonderful. Thank you everyone for sharing such helpful contributions.

Thank you Giles, I am enjoying your posts when i see them on other threads.

Thanks Pak Satrio. While waiting for the Flying Phoenix DVDs to arrive, please can someone confirm this is the order for the first five standing. I want to be sure to do them in order, since my understanding (reading this thread!) is that more effectively builds the energy. This is the order I am doing them and i definitely feel it building successively and cumulatively within the session. When I do Bending the Bows 18 times (a post on this thread mentioned that) it turbo charges everything. By the time i get to Wind Above Clouds, one time doesn't feel like enough and i really want more. But that could be because by the end of the practice session (60 minutes) it feels so pleasantly charged. gazing at moon bending the bows holding peach holding pearl wind above clouds i will send you by message the link I am using, it is a set of 3 on you tube. He mentions Terry Dunn as the sole source at the beginning of video 1. Thank you.

yes i wholeheartedly agree !

It is unclear to me what is meant by "existence" above . Please clarify. Thank you. If "existence" refers to the physical universes and everything in them, then for me that is the 10,000 things. This includes physical human beings. That is the downstream physical byproduct of the upstream non-physical Source. What decision triggers the appearance of the first universe? it is a passing thought. consider a plane of reality where whatever is "thought" instantly becomes "real." Have you ever stood on a balcony or cliff or rim of a canyon and for an instant imagined falling off? Then you stepped back and went along on your hike and with your day. You saw it was a bad idea and did not go there (did not fall off). You remain unharmed and whole (whew) in your physical life, glad that it "did not really happen" though you imagined perhaps the crashing and rocks and pain and bloody bits. You wondered about it but also recognized it was not real. The physical unverses and everything in them are like that. A passing thought for instance "what would it be like if there was a plane of reality so dense that i forgot the truth of who i am [unborn, unformed, unchanging, always was, always will be, no beginning, no end] and thought i was separate and even denied that Source existed" and boom instantly there was physical universe and everything in it. or universes for those who subscribe to the multiverse variety. What decision results in the removal of that universe? As long as a person is attached to the belief that separation is real (physical universe and everything in it) then they are stuck in the dream. When we are in a dream, it feels very very real. Systems in place such as karma keep us coming back over and over. We also have systems (fortunately) that act as a map to shows us the exit door, the way to step off the repeated cycle of rebirth. To step out of separation. What happens to a dream after you wake up? well it wafts away. and we have the sense of relief whew, that was a bad idea. let's say on the cliff you "fell into the dream" of falling off the cliff. and that dream was a very scary dream, it felt so real. the pain the agony the suffering. and it kept happening over and over. maybe you even recognized at some point hey this is a dream. how do i get out of this dream. wake me up. get me out of here. it's like that. that's when we start paying attention to and taking seriously how do we step off the wheel of karma altogether. It is called "Awakening" for a reason.

i'm not sure what is meant above by "existence." why does there need to be a "wish to achieve" ? being just is.

yes, which is why "before thought" and "before thinking" are so delightful and so appealing. being the big clear sky and not the passing turbulent stormy clouds. (i am currently reading and adore the teachings of Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn)