thelerner

I'm willing to give it away for free. Just have to remember where I left It.

Who indeed. Carlos Castaneda. <so famous, the spell checker corrected me, then corrected me again on the word spell checker> I read him when I was younger. Enjoyed his spiritual/adventure writings, great author for opening up the mind to the esoteric. Certainly nowhere near as bad as Osho but kinda belongs, imo, in a similar category.

Today in a library's book store. They were selling for a buck, Osho's book of Zen. Looked inside, pop culture view but not bad. Fake and fallen.. these guys self destruct and hopefully don't take too many followers with them. that said.. due to some combo of psychology, conmanship and good writing they can produce some imo good insights**. Some baby but the bath waters poisonous. **Obviously controversial but I put CC into this category.

He was way out there. Interesting, strange, sincere, passionate, eccentric, obsessive, some practices had questionable morals (looking at you O's at a distance)..

As a dabbler over the years, here's what I've gotten out of it. One it's fascinating to read. It's combination of poetry, philosophy, practice and history (ie quotes) a great read. An underappreciated classic, bonus its also short. Also old, mysterious. Comparing and contrasting the different versions is like a treasure hunt. A damnable one since at times they can be pretty different. As a modern guy I look more for practices than philosophy. Even there, different translators seem to describe it differently, yet I see pieces of it in different energy arts. Anyhow, what I've gotten out of it is to practice (at times) with open eyes. Nothing radical there, half eye is common in Zen, and a few other traditions. But GF puts more explanation and emphasis on it. In that I see some parallels to Dzoghen. There's a gentle breath oriented circulation going on. I'm sure I've bastardized it but a gentle awareness- breathing in- head, heart, belly (comfortable hold), breath out- to heart, back to head. Feels good to me. Keeps my breath slow. Not really visualizing rather shifting my awareness of sensation. Has it done anything great for me? Don't know, maybe I'd be even worse without it. For me, it's a pleasant way to sit and drop my mind.

TT, aren't you arguing the book is useless for most people. It's pretty common in older traditions to have oral instructions that aren't written down. Doesn't make the books useless rather it insures people practice with lineage or high quality instructors to weed out undesirables. People with proper mindset can still 'get' the system but it makes it harder. As far as I know the GF hasn't been widespread with lineage schools. Which is too bad. It's language is flowery but its practice isn't that complicated. Seems like many Chinese meditation traditions use pieces of it. Too bad there's not a formal school that puts it front and center(as far as I know). If there was I bet it'd be more practiced and evolve into an easier tool.

I think yesterday's angels/demons become our modern day aliens. Archetypes evolving with time and culture.

Unless I'm woken up in the middle of them, I tend not to remember my dreams. I've worked on dream recall and lucidity with limited success. I'm not a natural whereas my sensei would serial dream- going back to the same dream world each night in a semi-lucid state. I think there's good dreams with solid messages and junk dreams that are more scramble of the unconscious. One time I attained lucidity because I was talking to an old friend, then realized he'd passed away, thus so I must be dreaming.

I don't mind fake masters, they're usually way more advanced than I am and can be good teachers. I don't like being ripped off though, so I'm more concerned with watching my wallet. I don't believe in flawless humans or putting anyone too high up on a pedestal. If someone's full of themselves I'll learn what I can, happy with one or two solid techniques and move on.

I agree with qin00b but have much sympathy for long time old school practitioners like Chidragon who dislike seeing terms and practices watered down changed to suit another culture. Formal class, tradition teacher, you watch your etiquette, be precise.. see and do. Maybe outside of class you can ask questions. With a modern synthesizer you ask questions, explore movements and metaphors etc. Both styles have benefits. With a traditional teacher you 'surrender' or have problems.

To me the benefit of the Idiots Way, or rather the Wise Idiots way is they live happily with uncertainty. Where smarter and cleverer people are 100% convinced of something, they are not. Not that they're skeptical, they have wiggle room, enough uncertainty to know things can be probable but not certain. Thus they avoid most 'isms or at least join but never die hard believers. I've seen very intelligent people get involved in cults and foolishness because their intelligence worked overtime to provide rationales. Especially when the hook is, only the smartest will understand this. Whereas the wise idiot lives with fewer thoughts and judgements. Very comfortable with- I don't know. addon> Think I'm halfway to becoming a wise Idiot.

Chicagoans have always been partial to Capone's advice- You can get more done with a smile and kind word than with a gun.. but it's best to use both.

I don't do ZZ regularly, but it is a world of lines. When I'm in one I'll watch my alignment, hit the position and stand still. For coffee, when I hand grind the beans I'll turn it into a kind of Pangu Meditation.. overhand right side, 26 grinds, left side, 26 grinds, middle 26 grinds. Probably the kind of bastardization that'd get me slapped upside the head in a respectable learning establishment.

Pang's book has the Golden flower is about 40 pages in the back. It goes through each chapter, using a fair amount of Chinese words and contexts. More than his Daoist Internal Mastery does. I agree with you on Osho, yet in this particular case I found some value in his writing, though considering his past, you do have to hold your nose a bit Speaking of pop and easily digestible, I found this interesting from David Kilpatrick, a talented designer trying to figure out the Golden Flower. https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/37570-golden-flower-thingamabobs/?tab=comments#comment-862716

Further down the rabbit hole is Wang Li Ping's translation, a relatively brief last chapter of his book- Ling Bao Tong Zhi Neng Nei Gong Shu. It's a translation by a deeply respected practitioner. It's opposite is the more 'pop' version from Osho, not a person I usually recommend but his translate is an easy read and directed towards Westerners with less Eastern jargon.

We've got some good indepth posts on Daodejing. Look around and be aware that ten different people spell it ten different ways https://www.thedaobums.com/forum/254-daodejing/

Welcome to the site. Sounds like a good traditional teacher. By the way what's the HSK?

I read somewhere that the GF instructions had an oral component- teacher to student. I'm inclined to agree. That there's an ingredient X.. missing in the instructions. Course I go back and forth over the years over what is The Light.. metaphor, awareness.. literal.

VF hope you feel better soon. I read about humming/Nitrous Oxide connection years ago. Might be something to it. Humming moves through our bodies, vibrating tissues.. different tones seem to connect to different places. Humming, sick or not seems very worthwhile. I enjoy guided meditations. When I was visiting my dad, he and my sister came down w/ Covid. I was lucky enough not to. I also listened to this hypnotic often, Unlock Your Life Cold and Flu healing. Not a miracle cure but I've found it useful. https://youtu.be/CK7Y6mTjtrc?si=Mgxt8CDDo85z9Kug

Amazon has a CD for the book, bit expensive at new $41, used $31. The author also has A Course in High Magick streamable on Sounds True also expensive for $39. Haven't read or listened to either. I've bought books in Kindle form and had my phone read them to me under the Alexa app. It's not as computerized as it once was, but its a far cry from a good reader.

I agree. Often our unconscious makes the decision and our brains quickly make up excuses to quickly agree. Not always and with logic and definitions we can learn our way out of it.

Well.. it was ad copy..click bait if you will. Still, In a few ways all philosophy is porn. There were many nights in college I'd fall asleep covered in library books. addon, for what it's worth, I wrote- The Dao Bums website (thedaobums.com) circa 2005, continues to do pretty well. With daily conversations on philosophy and life from members all over the world. Diverse mix with a special place for Taoist arts. This facebook doesn't represent the vitality of the site much. All reactions: 7Jules Omlor, Gerd Borchgrevink and 5 others 

I was pondering aspects of problems as a person gets deeper into meditation, stumbling blocks that turn into pits. As synchronicity would have it, I found an article in the Atlantic about the Dark night of the soul. The very subject I was thinking about. Here's the article- https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/the-dark-knight-of-the-souls/372766/ and here's a couple excerpts. For some this is a catastrophe and wondering about thoughts of members. " "I started having thoughts like, 'Let me take over you,' combined with confusion and tons of terror," says David, a polite, articulate 27-year-old who arrived at Britton’s Cheetah House in 2013. "I had a vision of death with a scythe and a hood, and the thought 'Kill yourself' over and over again." Michael, 25, was a certified yoga teacher when he made his way to Cheetah House. He explains that during the course of his meditation practice his "body stopped digesting food. I had no idea what was happening." For three years he believed he was "permanently ruined" by meditation.." ".. he finally felt awake. But it didn't last. Still high off his retreat, he declined an offer to attend law school, aggravating his parents. His best friends didn't understand him, or his "insane" stories of life on retreat. "I had a fear of being thought of as crazy," he says, "I felt extremely sensitive, vulnerable, and naked." "..Psychological hell," is how he describes it. "It would come and go in waves. I’d be in the middle of practice and what would come to mind was everything I didn't want to think about, every feeling I didn't want to feel." David felt "pebble-sized" spasms emerge from inside a "dense knot" in his belly. He panicked. Increasingly vivid pornographic fantasies and repressed memories from his childhood began to surface. "I just started freaking out,.." The articles find that this dark phenomena happens across the spectrum of meditative practices, appearing more in the most intense retreats. Treatment can take 6 months to 3 years to never. Having close access to a experienced teacher can prevent or help, but that is not the case in most seminars where students outnumber teachers 20,30,80(?) or more to one. In truth few have experience taking people down from this, and no amount of reasoning, philosophy or quotes tends to be a magic cure. To me, the best thing is preventing it in the first place. ie when things get strange or too heated, slow down or stop. Long walks, talks with friends.. ground and normalize. Yet, there are fruits to the dark night of the soul.. people can come out of it stronger, or ruined in a nihilistic 'everything tastes like dust' psyche. Glenn Morris who'd take people through Kundalini-esque experiences put heavy emphasis on staying happy, saying energy moves better through a happy system. This goes beyond New Age thinking. Imo, doing heavy duty meditation (& energy work) you have to be on the positive side of neutral. Because our conditioning our culture pulls us towards darkness. The average western has seen countless (10,000's) of murders, rapes, disasters on TV, and ofcourse real life in the paper. Our consciousness pooh poohs it and turns the page, maybe a deeper part of us does not. We have to be positive just to keep at neutral. Probably very positive cause its a rough nasty world. Otherwise entering the void, the darkness sucks like a black hole and we may not have the pull to escape it. So, that's the bad news. The good news is the cure is enjoying the world. Friends, family, good food, fresh air, blue sky, childrens smiles, a toddlers crooked walk. The world is full of every day phenomena of things going right. Learn to appreciate them. Smile when you can, in life and meditation. In the practice of The Secret Smile, one of the aspects is humor. Not just ha ha humor but seeing the foibles of the world with sympathy.. loving compassion. We laugh at sitcoms because of the foolishness displayed, we need enough space to gain some of that. It also helps to do some work that improves the world, be it charity at home or at large. Thoughts are fine, but imo like our psyche's the world and its problems small and large need a push in the right direction. A little consistent work, smiles, some hours, a donation, it all helps.

I don't credit past life hypnotic regressions, but I read a persuasive book quite a while ago about children who recalled past lives. Done by a university professor who had no skin or belief the game, ie not a new ager. He looked for and found young (<6y.o.) kids in the US who recalled past lives, not under hypnosis, but had memories. Where he could he tracked down details remembered and they'd often matched up to deceased. There were even cases where they remembered what killed them and the kids had marks on their body corresponding to the 'remembered' deceased. He had many cases in the US and when he went to India from his airport driver to most people he met, most took it for granted, ie it was well known phenomena there. With US and Indian kids the memories would fade as they got older. I'm sure there's many similar newer books. I think its real, yet it may not be simple re-incarnation but some other psychic action at work. Fascinating though. Just Googled 'book on kids who remembered past lives' and there are many titles, not sure which one I read a decade or two ago.

In my fraternity we had one member be the Naysayer. Their job was to vote against everything. It was an important position because being like minded friendly people we tended to vote together. Slowing things down and having a disagree-er kept us from falling into complacency. In this day and age pleasant disagreement and polite discussion is quite refreshing. addon> I read that an ancient Jewish custom was that if all the judges agreed on a verdict the person would go free because something probably wrong due to groupthink. I only mention it because I'd never heard of it and the coincidence of reading it so soon after posting a modern interpretation.