thelerner

My personal mantra practice, most often done in the shower, is more a canticle, thus longer than Indian ones. Like them its repeated, has sacred meaning and the vibrations themselves are important. From Rawn Clark's interpretation of the Hermetic tradition. His YHVH practice. Uniquely, it has you locate sounds on certain body parts as well as feeling/swirling other sounds around the body. If anyone's interested instructions are here- http://abardoncompanion.de/IHVH-Info.html I think everyone can benefit from a mantra/kotodama sacred sounds practice. For me they make the shower into a sacred spot.

In a Japanese Ki-Aikido sitting and standing the lower dan tien is considered behind and below the navel. But as you move around it also shifts, it also being a center of gravity as well as focal point. Wonder if the Chinese look for precision whereas the Japanese seemed fine with a looser definition, ie dan tien as Hara- thus when asked where it is might just pat his belly. Or maybe every tradition has a different location. So often a founder or great practitioner sets the philosophy and that's that. A definition is frozen for generations, where it was really one guy's opinion.

These days I just sit, keep my senses and mind open, things come, go and my mind settles. No particular focus points. Influenced by Adyashanti. Over the decades I've done other things. Started w/ counting breaths 1 to 10 repeat. For years. Later counting 100 breaths, than 500, takes awhile and much concentration. Doing KAP training I worked with a big rib expanding to stomach tightening breathing style. Being in Aikido my main focal point for years was lower dantien. Also slower breathing, in Ki-breathing it'd be a slow one minute breath cycle. Not easy, took months to get it. These days I still like using some breathing rhythms, most often an easy 7in7hold7out is easy and relaxing. A benefit is it makes both my regular breathe better, slower.. and when I meditate my normal breathing is slower and deeper. I studied qi gong and healing tao's microcosmic orbit. Got into circulation. After years I dropped it for simpler, breathing in and feeling/hearing my head.. heart.. lower dantien, and reversing the order on the breath out. That felt good, whatever kind of 'orbit' there was would have to happen naturally. Did it? Probably not. Sitting, I like half lotus or Indian style w/ legs a bit more spread. Inside on a zafu resting on folded blanket, outside I find tree stumps quite good. From Stillness/Movement I picked up keeping my hands together resting on my dantien. These days I'll keep them tucked, hammocked, under my shirt, touching the dantien area. Sometimes I'll do a slight bobbing motion. When its hot or I'm outside I'll keep my hands on my knees. A more open form. I've been meditating for over 40 years. Different styles, different aims. Of late moving towards simplicity. Doing more walking meditation, where I strive to balance staying out of my head, with having bright awareness. Senses opened up around me, without clinging and naming..

I'm Jewish, historically I tend to cringe at some of the comments when 'Abrahamic' threads pop up. Still, if it happens organically, it's fine, I don't think we need any kind of subsection or anything.

I agree and didn't like it for that reason. Maybe closer to the mark was What Dreams May Come. I found it genuinely touching and philosophical. Starring Robin Williams it explores an afterlife scenario. People are truthful and can live out their dreams, yet for Suicides their dark dreams follow them into the afterlife.

Not me. I don't see the need to blame the supernatural for the bad, ugly, selfish, evil that men do. Blaming things on the devil seems a way to slip human responsibility. Even in natural disaster or disease it feels like blaming a deity mitigates the need to build better, find the source because it's supernatural.

Bit of a comedy but Ricky Gervais's movie The Invention of Lying, had that exact premise. It was kind of a depressing world, everyone told the truth, often little unpleasant things that we normally wouldn't talk about. History and arts tended to be boring. The title character invents lying, and since it was new, everything he said was considered truthful. Hijinx followed until he could get a hold of his awesome power.

This came up in conversation and merits consideration- Taomeow said: You know what your problem is? You don't know thyself, and that means you don't know exactly what happened to you to make you into what you are now. And because you don't own your own developmental history, your origins, who and what and how has shaped you on a deeper inner level, you aren't conscious. That's why you can't choose or change a thing about yourself to any depth while others can -- which is to say, you are fully programmable. Anyone can fill your head with any which crap. Welcome to the machine.

I'm open to it, but have doubts about its reliability, ie the ability to do it consistently or on demand. Almost like it's a percentage thing, some people will have a higher percentage of hits, but nowhere close to 100% reliability. Such inconsistency makes study maddening. I was hoping by now we'd have greater proofs in the astral or dream state fields, not that I've researched it lately, in the past, there were amazing clues but nothing consistent. Certainly lucid dreams, dreaming while knowing your dreaming and gaining control is considered possible and learnable. Astral projection kinds of stuff, has tantalizing anecdotes but as far as I know, no easily lab reproducible on demand, proof.

From my 15 minute search on Google. Probably not. National Geographic, Government site, Space.com.. point towards no dangerous current pattern. Volcanic activity there is followed pretty closely. Could be wrong, but on my list worries, it's pretty low.. ie example there are 14 insect types that rank more threatening.

Your thoughts on meditation on the facial points and bones are interesting. I've seen people curl up into fetal positions and near unconsciousness by skilled neuro-head massagers. Manipulating the skull's plates seemed to have a powerful effect on their body and psyche. Seemingly regressing them to childhood.

The lady has to be up for it too. There's fun tantric and then there's wt??? tantric.

Forget where I read it, there's a Taoist technique for love making. It involves a rhythm of 8 short thrusts and 1 long/deeper one. You count out each set on a finger. Going thru both hands is 90 then you start again, mastery meant 8,100 strokes. When I was younger I worked on it for awhile. Later found being an American 3 short, 1 long worked better for me. Counting became optional too. Physically there is some advantage to using shorter thrusts for better control. Switching positions can also help make for a longer sessions.

Showing more money than sense I upgraded from Oculus Quest II to III. I like it. Not only is the resolution and processor upgraded but the new color pass thru gives more Assisted Reality style possible games and apps. I like zombie games and it allows you to map out a room, draw in a window, hallway and table and the zombies come at you from your living room. Likewise Pianovision turns your keyboard into a guitar hero set up where note flow down and you've can get a score while playing your own piano. Not only are you physically active but there are great opportunities for group play. Putting players into the same room. Fighting each other, or working together on board games like Chess or Catan, or DnD adventures.. I'm hoping the medium survives and this is an infancy. We'll see if it evolves in new interesting directions. For better interconnection between people, for elderly who can't leave the house or bed (its a great way to watch movies if you subscribe to streaming)

I've dropped this vipassana inspired preamble to meditation as being too intellect driven, but I think using it for a while did me good. Basically it's a long statement of what I'm not. I'm not my thoughts, they come and go like clouds. I'm not my emotions, I honor them and let them pass. I'm not my body, it is an intimate vehicle I inhabit. I am not my possessions.. I am not my family I am not my job I am not my past I am not my future.. (rambles on, depending on my mood) and finishes with I am breath and awareness. It's an in depth way of saying I'm not my mind and the multitude that comes with it. <huh indepth is not considered a single word and should be written as in depth or in-depth> Too bad, I like it alot.

There's loud thoughts. So loud I can't hear well, they're a voice or print in bold. As I write that LOUD voice dominates. There are waves of perception, echoing from emotional states. There are waves of perception from what I see, hear and body sensations/itches. Underlying worries and fantasies brought on by myriad triggers. Storylines, my mind seems constantly looking for prompts to build storylines from. Little dramas to pass the time Silence means the loud voice is gone, the others thoughts-judgements notices storylines quiet. Body sensations ignored. In meditation it takes ten or twenty to reach a state of it, can get deeper the longer I go. Likewise walking when I can turn off the thoughts and let my mind reflect the visuals and sounds without getting attached.

I've thought/hoped that the best way to God was through silence. Often the opposite of a great truth is another great truth. So maybe there are paths in awe and exuberance.

After dealing with our concept of God, is the next step asking 'What is God good for?' One of my favorite old timey rabbis, Nachman of Breslov said God was good for talking to. Beyond the prescribed prayers we need to get into a personal relation with God. We do that by talking to him daily, in our language, pouring our heart as well as what we'd talk to a friend, family or lover about. This is a bit of a dear diary God. This supposes a God who not a genii but is listening and in its way, caring. And if we listen back, we might pick up some wisdom. In Judaism there's a concept that the traditional Hebrew prayers are poorly translated into English. That they come off as too kiss-ass and buttering up the diety, whereas in Hebrew when done properly they are more mystical, focusing the person on the aspects of God to better feel the transcendance within prayer. That's what's drew me to Abulafiah's Kabbalah or its modern translation in Ecstatic Kabbalah. Looking for experiential knowledge through sacred sounds and prayers. His take on the vowels is very close to what I've seen in Japanese Shinto. Likewise in Christian sacred chanting. My shower practice is chanting Rawn Clarks YHVH canticle practice. Inspired by Franz Bardon's Hermetics but close to Abulafiah's system, it runs pretty deep.

My view is closest to Pantheism as a metaphysical idea broadly defined by (1) "God is everything and everything is God ... the world is either identical with God or in some way a self-expression of his nature" (Owen 1971: 74). Everything is God, and that can be experienced, not that I'm close, but it can be known in satori, in awe, at times of deep peace. I'm still working out if It's indifferent, if we're straw dogs, loved.. how personal God is.

I think the hope is both sides would do it, particularly the leaders. Get together, make a cup of green tea, carefully. Smell it, share it. Appreciate where it came from and the difficulties growing, harvesting and preparing tea. In such appreciation they find enough commonality to not need aggression. In any case tea is a poet's weapon, could be a powerful one, if used early enough. Before nationalism and extremists get involved. Weapons are tools, good to keep a variety of them. Tea between leaders at the right time and place is a good one. After all, tea has made and broken whole empires.

The book where I read that quote had this story. An American wanted to go to Cambodia (or was it Thailand) to to study with study meditation w/ monks. He was stopped at the airport, they said 'Don't you know there's a war going on. Why do you want to go there?' He said 'Making a cup of tea, I stop the war'.. and they let him in, to study. That's my recollection, don't recall which book but I've always love the quote. Peace starts with me. In the midst of chaos and potential violence, the person who makes and serves tea, may stop the war. I hear a large batch of spaghetti works too. addon> Maybe it was from a Stephen Levine book. In my 20s his book 'A Gradual Awakening' was my favorite. In any case I found this: “Drinking A Cup of Green Tea, I Stop the War” In the early '50s, Paul Reps, who was in his forties, had traveled to Japan en route to visit a respected Zen master in Korea. He went to the passport office to apply for his visa and was politely informed that his request was denied due to the conflict that had just broken out. Reps walked away, and sat down quietly in the waiting area. He reached into his bag, pulled out his thermos and poured a cup of tea. Finishing his tea he pulled out a brush and paper upon which he wrote a picture poem. The clerk read the poem and it brought tears to his eyes. He smiled, bowed with respect, and stamped Reps' passport for passage to Korea. Reps' Haiku read: "drinking a bowl of green tea I stop the war." (Thanks to Robert C., our new friend and fact checker for pointing out that the quote comes from Paul Reps). “If you want to understand what ‘making a cup of green tea, I stopped the war’ means, it would be something like this: mindfully I pick up the kettle, mindfully I walk to the sink, mindfully I fill the kettle with water, mindfully I walk to the stove, mindfully I put the kettle down on the stove, mindfully I reach for the knob! Mindfully, I watch the water as the fire begins to make it boil. Mindfully, as the water boils, I lift the kettle from the stove. Mindfully, I pour the water over the tea. Mindfully, I hold the cup to check the temperature. Mindfully, when it’s ready, I strain the tea leaves, and then mindfully, I drink the tea and feel the taste of it.”

Don't we all, at one time or another. Particularly of late. Yet revenge fantasies are probably negative. A little might be stimulating, exercise the imagination and blow off steam but too much and it's escapism. It's feeding the wrong part of ourselves that could be channeled into helping people (or ourselves) in real life. I write this knowing that I have the same problem. Also comic books wrap up in 20 pages the world's problems are pretty big and complicated. Like the thought if I had a billion dollars I'd end hunger in the US, and you find out the US already spends 119.4 Billion dollars a year on food stamps and another $5 billion administering. And Peace. Everyone wants it, heroes and villains, both think they can intimidate and fight their way to get it. Usually doesn't work. I try to draw the circle of influence closer. Give to Heifer which supposedly gives out two flocks of chickens each month to people who want and can care for them. And I garden, infront of my house growing tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers etc., Others on my block have moved gardening to their front lawn, which is good. For peace I write inflammatory commentary at the end of news articles. Don't think it's working much.

and if ever caught and sentenced, the practice comes in even more handy

On the spectrum of things I can be doing, my practice seems least harmful When a Tai Chi player was asked why he did his practice, he stated- The birds like it. I've found that to be true.

This actually comes up. You have- Li Ching Yuen- a Chinese herbalist who supposedly lived 256 years, through qigong and a diet rich in herbs including goji, ginseng.. he was reputedly married 24 times had 200 descendants, yet far as I know, they're not around. The man was real, dying in 1933 but the story becomes semi-mythic. Was his age real? If so it seems he didn't pass it on to his wives or kids. It certainly a good selling point for an herb seller to claim extreme old age as part of a sale pitch. I think Daniel Reid claimed on of his followers was a taoist who died young at 99. He could be lying or believing the lie. In Russia it wasn't unusual for people to claim an older age inorder to get pensions earlier. Likewise there was at one story of a centenarian who was debunked, while very old she was the daughter of the woman claimed she was.