Ian

I've missed one day in the last twenty months. It's mainly unspoken emotional blackmail of me by me that keeps it going: it's just not negotiable because if I don't do it I'll hate myself so much that all kinds of ancient negativity will rush my fences. Some days it's easy, most days it just is, a few days I really don't want to. But it's like training a child: I know it's got to be done, so I don't bother to argue. The one day was at Glastonbury Festival: it had been raining for three days and there was nowhere sheltered to stand that wasn't packed full of dank, grimy, wretched humanity.

My friend (hello Mum!) gave up smoking nearly ten years ago, and it remains the single best thing he's ever done. In meditation he still gets the rancid smell of burnt tobacco coming out of his fingers from time to time.

I think it will depend on your method. If you heal by being open, you are certainly susceptible. But the only stuff that will stick is stuff that resonates with your own blocks. If you heal by sending energy, much depends on whether you act as a battery sending your own energy, or as a tube guiding environmental energy. If the latter, you are less likely to be depleted. I've had just a little training in healing. I'm advised, at this stage, to work on no more than one non-fellow-practitioner per day and to do maybe 20-30 mins of downward flushing chi kung afterwards. Hope helps.

I think there's an important clarification to make here. I don't think it's fair to assume that Mantra's comment "gross" necessarily implied any particular reaction to the topic of "man love" in general. It was "Make-up sex", with Cam, that he objected to. Based on his having met Cam, he may have specific objections. Just trying to be reasonable.

Wow. Yes. Thanks. I wonder how many times, on average, I will have to learn something important before it sticks.

Self and Tiny Beast acquired a small allotment a couple of months ago. After some assiduous labour the soil is starting to become visible and we're actually addressing how to go about using it. I want to grow lots of greens - kale, chard, spinach etc - for green smoothies, she'd like potatoes and brussels sprouts and sunflowers and so on. Question is: does anyone have any experience of vegetable gardening in a chemical-free fashion? Especially of biodynamic Steiner style processes, or weird shit like Sonic Bloom? Or any kind of link-up between taoist/buddhist attitudes in general and farming techniques? Seems like "cultivation" ought to be something that these traditions address. Also, any strong opinions on "no-till" mulching vs digging and planting? Yours with dirty fingernails, I

Thought I'd add an update, about a year on. So far, we've grown, in roughly chronological order, carrots, onions, potatoes, spinach and chard, beetroots, kale, brussels sprouts, globe artichokes, leeks, broccoli, celery and celeriac, a few more greens, and some herbs and flowers. Failures have been garlic - planted much too early, desperate to put something in the ground, one of the main crop spuds - never came up, cabbages - small and raggedy, and squash - only three, but apparently it's been a bad year for them all round. And we've suffered from a raging squall of whitefly, who are gradually succumbing to insect soap. We've just got a small patch in the communal polytunnel, so winter salads and carrots are going in now. And I've just planted four dwarf apple trees, some really cool hundreds of yrs old cultivars. The main fact I've noticed is we've got by fine on cheerful ingorance, sticking things in the ground at vaguely the right time of year and hoping for the best. So if you've got some land, don't let uncertainty stop you! Also it can be really good to plant seeds at home and then only transplant the healthiest plants on to the plot. And it really does help to thin out a crowded line of plants - you'll get more food overall, however it might seem otherwise. Perhaps even more importantly, for me at this time, than the free healthy food, is the chance to go out after work and do manual labour in the open on a gloriously pretty site. Total antidote to stiff neck and computer eyes. And some of the other people there are simply splendid. Recommended.

Tardigrades!

Thank you. Have ordered.

I'm interested to find out if any one knows any checkable resources on this subject. It is claimed in "The Heart's Code" by Paul Pearsall (and quoted by Mantak Chia in lectures) that an 8 year old girl was able to lead police to the killer of her 10 year old heart donor, by providing concrete information that could only have been known to the victim. Has anyone ever looked into this? Is the girl's name ever quoted? Was there any confirmation from the police that this was indeed how the murder was solved? I'm personally quite inclined to accept cellular memory, but when talking to beloved sceptics, I am forced to admit that all the evidence is distressingly anecdotal. Any help?

Re cell phones: I know a particular teacher who warns very strongly against cell phones. He says he can tell which ear people habitually hold their phones to by the damage in their energy field. Apparently the most dangerous times are when the signal is being established. So he advises to hold the phones away at the very start of calls when you're being connected, and also not to use them when driving or on trains, as the signal is continuously being re-established. He's also quite down on hairdryers. On a personal note, I had a notable experience on the last day of this year's retreat with Sifu Yap. I was talking on my mobile (=cell phone!) for about ten minutes before the afternoon healing exchange session, and when I was receiving healing a few minutes later, the sensation of the mobile phone energy was unmistakeable. It's very prickly feeling, with an unpleasant kind of heat, and as it moved down my arm it was gruesomely nasty. I sincerely hope I was getting rid of more than just ten minutes' worth, because if all that goes in every time I use the thing, it's got to be doing some serious harm.

Thank you. I think this is really important. And I've never heard it put so directly before. As Barry Long always used to say: "It may be normal, but it ain't natural!" Nobody wants to believe that sex is thought and love is presence.

"May I (or he or she) get what I need, and may it be as close to what I want as possible!"

I think the new version is good. I don't think the site is going to make people start practising: it simply doesn't have the tone of persuasion. It think it is, as you intend, a correction to what people are already doing. Carry on.

I have a couple of questions for Chris/mantra if he would be so kind. Firstly, I had a look at the book and the level one sitting practice. One thing I don't get is the raising of the heels. It seems to me, and I readily confess I'm no expert, that this makes it all less grounded and maybe pushes energy up through the kidney meridian. Can you say anything about what the purpose of raising the heels is and how it works? Secondly, and I realise this may be like a fish asking about the finer points of running, I'm curious to know how bliss leads to/is connected with awakening/enlightenment/karmic release/whatever it is we're all after. Do people not get attached to blissful states and then go to bliss realms and fail to cultivate? Or are there safeguards against that? In fact I'd love to know what bliss actually is. Is it a consequence of open channels and kind of physiological? Is it appreciation, desirelessness? Is there a difference? Anyway, glad the bums had a good one, will check Max out if he comes to England. Good luck to all.

Nothing whatever to do with porn. Was responding to Trunk's more general post with an extremely general one about just general humans and their everything. Spiritual paths and all that. If you go back to the context of the bit of the thread where Trunk's post was, then it may seem more appropriate.

Yes. Yes. Oh my goodness me yes. It makes me think about my parents' former dog. Every time my parents wanted to go out without the dog, they would wait until the last moment and put down a bowl with a few dog sweets on the other side of the kitchen. Every time the dog would agonise for a micro-second, then rush to the bowl and try to gobble down the sweets in time to get back to the door before it closed. Every time she would fail, often thudding against the back of the closing door. And something about that scene, the way the dog freely chose every time, and yet was utterly predictable, makes me think that there exists a perspective from which humanness can be viewed just the way canineness could be viewed by us then. A perspective from which all our different human behaviours are just as typical and just as similar as a billion different dogs finding different ways to dash for the sweet bowl.

Well, it's autumn. Gather energy (and nuts). Prune away the unnecessary. Prepare to go deep. That sorta stuff. Maybe.

I've noticed this before. It's like some part of us doesn't care what order time happens in and that part is one that changes at retreats and seminars. Though we're close to autumn equinox, too. That might help (and will doubtless make the coming weekend more intense).

We've been without a TV since July 1st and are really appreciating it. We used to watch Doctor Who once a week and all kinds of random rubbish. When Dr Who restarts we may go and see it at a friend's house, if Catherine Tate doesn't put us off. Or not. But generally, life is so much better without it. I used to tell myself similar things about documentaries and comedy and so on. But, honestly, we meet the natural world far more meaningfully on the allotment, and laugh better when it comes from our own talk. And now we do things. It may be different for you, of course. One size doesn't fit all. But if you haven't tried life without it, then I do suggest you give it a go.

What I've been taught, emphatically, is that to get even near to doing nothing, you have to do something that interrupts and replaces all the stuff your mind usually does. For quite a while. My suggestion would be to feel the sensation of your feet on the ground. Keep patiently returning to it whenever you notice you're not there. But there's plenty of alternatives.

Didn't suggest that "it" wasn't humble enough, suggested that "you" could, perhaps, usefully be humbler. (as could I, naturally, and many people.) I'm afraid I consider this directly and completely untrue. You are clearly inviting others to feel the same way about buddhism: what possibly other reason is there to state your opinion so lucidly and justify it so thoroughly? All you're really saying here is "please don't challenge my opinions because I'm a special case, albeit in some way not altogether clearly defined." If all you had said was "I don't like it" that's fine. Not challengeable. I don't like much of what passes for Buddhism myself, come to that. But you made several other assertions about the nature of buddhism, all buddhism, without qualifying them at all, and you should expect to be called on it. You can use Derrick Jensen's experience to suggest that all buddhists are hypersensitive and thereby imply that any disagreement in this thread must be the buddhists' fault, not yours, but that's just misdirection. I think.

Curious. Because I'm "doing buddhism" these days, with a buddhist teacher, and the process involves exactly having the attention in the body and doing the housecleaning. And the emptiness I'm crawling slowly towards includes everything and is certainly not lethargic. Would you concede that it might be more precise and a smidge humbler to conclude that you "did one version of buddhism" and that there are others?

It wasn't really the topic I was adressing, but good to know, nonetheless!

I can't think of any way to say what I'm thinking that won't be taken amiss, so I'm not going to say it. But I want you all to know that I'm thinking it.