liminal_luke

OMG -- can´t believe you´re here again Yoda. Welcome back!

Teflon, actually. I tried hugging Jeff for awhile. About a year later tried again with somebody else from the group. For me, the practice just didn´t stick.

Dwai -- This comment surprises me so I wonder if you´d be willing to expand on what you mean? As a former massage therapist, I´m a pretty body-oriented guy (though woefully unathletic). I believe that much of what is currently a little cuckoo with the world today stems from alienation from our bodies and that bodily awareness is the way through. Seems to me that the tendency to divide the world into "body" and "mind" and "spirit" as if these are truly separate categories is misguided. Some people talk about a body/mind connection. I´d go further and say that they are not only connected, they were never separated in the first place. Basically body is mind is spirit. The emphasis is different perhaps but go deeply enough into any area and the others come along. That´s why I don´t look down on body oriented practices as unspiritual: they may not talk a spiritual games but they´ll get there. Also, psychotherapy that focuses primarily on talk often flounders when bodily sensation is neglected. Perhaps by "cult of the body" you mean practices that are aimed at molding the body for aesthetic aims? I don´t think there´s anything wrong with that either, per se, though I can understand how yoga purists might balk.

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It´s my position that a person can accept the world just as it is without sitting on a log and falling into a quiescent stupor. Now if only I could convince Waterdrop of this fact. Clearly I have lots of work to do if my goal is acceptance because I am not a bit accepting of Waterdrop´s stubborn pseudo-logical intransigence. Why doesn´t he see? Waterdrop has appeared in my virtual world, like an mischieviously errant angel, to show me how judgmental I am, how strongly I cling to the idea that people should be and think the way I want them to be and think. Darn you, Waterdrop.

You should always wear socks but they must be dirty and with holes -- to be in touch with the energy of the earth.

I don´t have much experience acting without ego (OK, any) but I´ll hazard a theory about such action anyway: the less active the decision maker, the better the decision.

I can´t figure it out either, Waterdrop. All I can tell you is that the happy people here on the board, the people who´ve made a lot of progress with their spiritual lives from meditation -- progress is arguably the wrong word but whatever -- those people do plenty.

Logically, it makes sense that contented people wouldn´t do much, but if you look around you´ll see that´s not the case. Happy people everywhere are busy baking cakes and building houses and making scientific discoveries. It´s the depressed ones that are in bed sleeping.

Sign me up!

It´s tough making positive dietary choices in the midst of a pandemic but who wants worms? I´m in the very beginning stages of a deworming regimen now.

People naturally want to do something that gets results. If you´re not feeling satisfied with the results you´re getting, then by all means try something else. I´d hesitate, however, to make the categorical statement that practice X is no good. Such a pronouncement assumes that you have the sensitivity and awareness to recognize what´s going on or not going on in your body -- and few of us do to any great extent. Often great practices work invisibly. Or else they work very visibly at first and then go through phases of seeming invisibility before the benefits emerge once again. It´s like a train moving through a tunnel: when the train enters the tunnel you can no longer see it from above but it´s still moving.

It´s really sad to me when people say this virus kills just the old and the already sick and therefore we shouldn´t worry so much, as if having lived for some years or already having some illness makes a person´s life less valuable.

People could tell you what they think your upper jaw tension relates to, but I think you´d be better off doing your own self exploration. As you focus on releasing tension in the area, however you do that, what comes up for you? The answers you get for yourself will be more meaningful and more accurate than anything anybody could tell you here.

Try reading the forum with sensate focus.

I don´t know about sex with Dakini´s but this mantra works with human beings: Would you like to go have coffee with me? For added power try adding these extra three syllables -- I´m buying. In my experience this mantra doesn´t lead directly to sexual intercourse (though if you´ve got the karma, who knows), but it begins a process that can lead there. Repeat many times.

@Earl Grey For what it´s worth Earl, I don´t see you as someone whose "setting up shop" on the forum. I see you as someone who cares a lot about cultivation, has educated ideas of how people might best go about it, and cares enough to offer guidance to newcomers -- all good things. I´ve no idea whether or not you´ve offered your teaching services to others here for money or not, but even if you have I don´t see that as a bad thing. Nothing wrong with offering your time and expertise. The implication of this thread feels like that you are motivated primarily by money and I just don´t get that feeling from you. I doubt anybody else does either. If Spotless thinks you are "setting up shop" here on the forum, well, that´s a misperception in my opinion. He says he´s awakened and I believe him but I guess awakened people can be wrong now and then -- why not? At the same time, I have great respect for Spotless and his views. I think he cares about cultivation and wants to share his knowledge and experience, just like you. It will be a great loss for the forum if he´s truly gone.

While some of us are likely more challenged than others, I´d wager we´ve all had some extra stuff thrown at us lately. I, for one, have not been at my best. My hope is that we can all give each other a little more slack.

If I had my druthers, this board wouldn´t be a place to talk politics. If we´re gonna talk politics -- and that seems inevitable -- I´d prefer we leave personal attacks out of it. I didn´t mind so much that people liked Trump. I minded that they belittled those who didn´t share their opinion. Turns out the lefty crowd is just as willing to belittle those who don´t share their opinions so I guess we´re about even in this regard. Heated passionate arguments about issues, political and spiritual, is potentially useful. Insults, sarcasm, ridicule -- not so much.

I´ve often wondered...if donuts are bad for us, why did God make them taste good? Now I´m told sexual intercourse foments karmic entagelements, an assertion that leads me to ask another question -- why did God give men testicles? It´s a tragic one-two punch: the donuts put an end to this life while the sex ensures that future lives will be shit as well -- lovely. I can only imagine what psychospiritual calamity my creator plans for me given my predilection for lavender-stuffed eyepillows and Bach cantatas. Is no sensory pleasure safe? I´m an ecologist at heart, which is to say that I believe in connection above all. Human beings are connected to other species, and all of us connected to the earth; everything coexisting in a colassally gorgeous and fragile web. Ecology. Connectivity also means that physical processes are inseparable from psychological and spiritual ones. Our minds works by positing divisions, but these divisions dissolve like mist under the torchlight of Awareness. Matter, mind, spirit -- just names for different aspects of the same cosmic enchilada. So yeah, do our sex lives have any bearing on our spiritul lives? Yes, of course. But please don´t tell the Bible toting conservtives, the California hating Trump supporters, the one man/one woman marriage crowd. They´d only use this truth to shame us. Shame is way more harmful to the spirit than casual sex. Given enough lifetimes, I´ll deal with my backlog of sexual karma. But sexual shame? That is a bummer of a different magnitude.

Before and after I do a practice I´ll often take a moment to connect energetically and express gratitude for whoever taught me the practice and the entire lineage beyond. Sometimes I´ll ask that the practice be for my own highest good, or that good come to others through my efforts. My experience is that this kind of prayer is surprisingly effective. I don´t think it would work, however, if I´d knowingly ripped anyone off in the learning process.

Thanks for the heads-up, Sean. And good luck dealing with all the challenges being thrown at you lately. It´s likely little consolation, but you´re certainly not alone. I agree with Gatito and Thelerner that Trunk is an excellent choice. Just in the nick of time, I´d say.

Good question! Can you narrow it down a bit? I assume you also want fun and interesting -- in addition to hard and doable -- and what that is for you is going to be highly individual. My mom goes crazy for spinning wool into yarn that she then uses to knit sweaters. Personally, there´s no quarantine so severe that I could be persuaded to take up spinning! Just thinking about what you value and would like to learn about or improve is likely to get you moving again out of a motivational rut. One idea is to go back to something that you used to do and gave up, perhaps prematurely. Is there something you were passionate about as a child, adolescent, or young adult that got pushed aside with the demands of family or business? Perhaps now is a time to explore anew.

True. Personally, I´m finding it difficult not to engage with threads and people who aren´t good for me here. Part of me is attracted to the drama of it all but then I find that my time here has dragged me down rather than lifted me up. It´s perhaps not so different from reading Coronavirus news. As important as it is to stay informed, it´s easy to overdose on scary stories. I miss the mods. The forum with mods is like a healthy buffet with grassfed buffalo burgers, organic powergreens, and no distracting icecream sundaes to tempt me. Without mods, it´s like you have to pass through a Snicker Bar factory just to get to a carrot. Yes, it´s possible to do. Yes, it´s my responsibility to say no to that Snickers and fill up on the roasted carrots hidden in the corner PPF. But hey, I´m human. This stuff is hard.