Apech

29 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

I don´t know.  It looked to me like it was melted under a broiler in an oven but I suppose there´s more than one way to melt one´s cheese.  Never mind me, today I´m operating with half a cauliflower.

we call it grilled in the UK - broiled sounds like boiled!

Just now, Apech said:

Broiled?

oh you mean grilled!

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

 

Looks delicious.  I´m of the opinion that anything topped with broiled cheese is delicious -- but that´s not an unpopular opinion.

Broiled?

3 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

Maybe the beauty of having all these "brains" is that we can change what we think without staying strictly in our head.  There´s a gut-brain axis?  Good!  Let me change my thoughts by eating differently.  Movement works too as well as various cultivation practices.  Getting the right kind of sunshine can have a profound effect on the kind of thoughts associated with a bad mood.  It´s often easier to change thoughts indirectly -- by working with the systems that effect the various brains -- than trying to strongarm thoughts on a cognitive level.

If you had half a brain you could make cauliflower cheese:

15 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

In her youth, Zazen sometimes gets up and walks around.  By the time Zazen is in her 80s she still walks just fine, thank you; but, especially after prolonged sitting, she can be a bit wobbly for a few steps until she gets going.

And the Lord said : pick up your zafu and walk.

And she did walk and the people were amazed.

Plotinus said:

“This is the life of gods and of godlike and blessed men: release from all earthly bonds, a life that takes no delight in earthly things, the flight of the alone to the Alone.”

26 minutes ago, MadePossible said:

I'm looking preferably for direct quotes mentioning the involvement of Hun and Po in the neidan process. Their concepts seem so abstract that it's hard to understand what their function is.

 

Sorry if this has been asked before, I tried searching but it seems the search function doesn't work? It returns with zero results when searching 'Hun and Po'.

 I will let those more learned than me answer about hun and po  - but the search function on here has always been weak and sometimes it’s better to use google to search - something like ‘the DaoBums hun and po’ might work.

32 minutes ago, old3bob said:

 

hmm, then again thoughts can be like a viscous circle if one can never take a rest from them...we are not thoughts we are really more the energy flowing through thought forms that come and go...granted it is great to have things/thoughts controlled/organized as much as possible.

 

See my second paragraph 

Thoughts are your friends.  They help you recognise, organise and understand both your internal world and the external world.  Without them you would be lost.  Thoughts are your ally, your companion, your way to wisdom.

If your thoughts are conflicted, chaotic, relentless, annoying, repetitive, banal, seemingly pointless.  Then it you that is imbalanced, conflicted, stupid or mixed up.  Find stillness and balance and your thoughts will be healed.  But do not criticise them or disown them because they are your friends.

Oh but, you say, reality is non-conceptual.  True.  Absolute reality is non-conceptual in that it cannot be grasped through concepts.  But then again is there anything that is not the Absolute?  If there is then it is not the real Absolute.  The Absolute is the ultimate subject of your thoughts, if those thoughts are taken to their ultimate conclusion.  To define the subject we use the often misunderstood formula:

S = S + P(n)

where S is the subject and P is the predicate of the subject (to the nth term).

Or in other words the Absolute = the Absolute plus everything.

Chew on that!

Hi and welcome.

1 hour ago, Cobie said:

I'm sorry for your loss.

 

 Thanks I miss him.  We had six cats but only one left

4 minutes ago, Cobie said:

Look, now he’s died his hair 

(probably so Nungali can’t find him) but the grumpy look gives him away.

 

 

I had a cat that looked just like that - he died a couple of weeks ago.

9 hours ago, seedling said:

Hello mods, could you change my username to seedling?

yep - done.

Rather amazed to find this is in the National Library of Medicine ... and I'm not saying I endorse this interpretation but ... here it is:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6649877/

What’s this thread about, again?

lol

(already multiple splits from original)

1 hour ago, liminal_luke said:

 

Cool cats rarely follow rules,

or get good grades in public schools.

They cultivate an air of mystery,

not for them the one two three.

So Apech´s drinking wine in Portugal,

and not concerned with us at all.

Let alone the great cat Bastet,

who surely deserves her own sonnet.

 

meow

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bravo.

40 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

Science is fascinating, so I can´t fault those who make it´s study their life´s work, though there are certainly ethical landmines to be navigated -- and some navigate them with more humility and grace than others.  But I like to think there´s a special place in some unfathomable lower realm for those who know nothing of science themselves but proudly declare "I believe in science" in an attempt to coerce relatives and friends to make a given behavioral choice.  Not that I´m bitter or anything. 

Science is nice,

and science can stop you,

From doing all the things in life you’d like to.

If there’s something you’d like to try,

If there’s something you’d like to try,

Ask me I won’t say no how could I?

Not strictly relevant but I managed to reduce my intra- ocular pressure from 21 to 16 by palming, acupressure and massaging round the eye sockets.

4 minutes ago, Nungali said:

 

It is my understanding ( which may not have been the ancients  ?  )   that   a God ... or 'their Gods' are also  defining a 'field' ' ie.  things that 'relate '  to them ' a particular  image , color, animal ,  energy or force of nature , even perhaps originally an area of the NIle valley ( nome ) .  Is there any accuracy in this or is this a later  'hermetic'  concept ? 

 

That's a good observation and ties in with Egyptian thought, I think.

4 minutes ago, Nungali said:

 

 

'The Egyptian Enlightenment '     ie   maintaining that conscious awareness of this   ...... it a buzzzzzzzzz.   heave you read Normandy Ellis' transliterations ?  Some passages,   IMO , she really captures this essence .  

 

 

 

I think I read her some years ago - but I can't remember too much.

4 minutes ago, Nungali said:

In some ways , so is that daily x 4 Sun adoration .... the Sunset one is death, obviously , and after that you go to sleep  .... but then ( after some practice ) the body has been 'drilled'  to  wake up and 'resurrect ' oneself for the midnight adoration / meditation. 

 

Most 3rd degree initiation rituals  and subsequent practices are also 'practice for death' . 

 

Yes.

4 minutes ago, Nungali said:

 

I have noticed that most of the indigenous groups here do the opposite .   people want the ka ( 'spirit '  .... generally , most indigenous do not like to talk openly about this stuff  so its vague and general  ...or it has adopted or incorporated more modern ideas )  to dissipate . Its a tradition with some never  to mention their name or look at an image of a deceased person , they think  that will cause them to hang around here and that spooks them .   In some ways their mortuary traditions seem the opposite .

 

this comes up all the time on our media ;

 

Gosh, interesting.  But is the taboo to protect the process or a real fear of the dead?  I mean they may think something is going on, a process which can be damaged by attention and so it become taboo to speak of it - if you see what I mean.

4 minutes ago, Nungali said:

 

Thanks for the time and sharing of knowledge you are putting into this    

Sorry for the terrible typing - I just read through it and realised I skipped a few letters

1 hour ago, forestofclarity said:

Mod note: ants vs birds moved here: 

 

Migration?

10 minutes ago, Sahaja said:

The young man feels his strength and believes it will never end. The old man feels his end but remembers  his strength. The sage just listens and smiles to himself.

Old man shouldn't feel his end, he will go blind.

One mistake which many make, including myself at times, in talking about gods is to say for instance Nut goddess of the sky, Ra god of the sun etc.  Strictly speaking gods are entities and not one dimensional like this.  The way that the Egyptians expressed this is to say for instance that the sky is the Ba (soul) of Nut or that the sun is the Ba of Ra.  As the Ba is a luminous entity which prjects forms of itself.  You could say that the sky is an expression of Nut.  In fact the whole cosmos is in this way seen as being composed of the Bas of the gods.  Nothing is dead or unalive, everything that exists is an actve expression of divine power.

When the Egyptian built sacred spaces, a tomb, a temple or even a coffin, the ceiling is the sky, the floor the earth and the walls are the pillars of the air god Shu which hold the sky from the earth.  S on our stele the body of Nut stretched overhead is exactly this idea, that a sacred space is formed which reflects the very structure of the cosmos.  A microcosm reflecting the macrocosm. 

So what is taking place?

The funerary rites were said to be good to be done on earth (i.e. when alive).  So in many ways the daily practice is a death rehearsal.  This is because on death the various constituent parts of being which make up a person are separated and become in a way clearer and more visible.  There are five main constituent entities which are important.  The body (heart), the ka, the ba, the shadow and the akh.  The Egyptians had other possible entities like Ren, the name' but they are not so important here.

On death the body ceases to function.  In mummification four main organs were removed and preserved in jars and the rest of the body was treated so it would not decompose.  The main organs were associated with the sons of Horus, the four cardinal points and four protecting goddesses arranged in a pattern like a mandala.  The mummy became a kind of anchor for the post mortem process.  Closely associated with the body, the Ka (often called the double) would remain close by the body.  For the Ka not to run down and dissipate offering were made and spells repeated.  This was done by priests called hemka (literally Ka servants).

At the same time as the energy of the Ka was being preserved, the body is being identified with the undying primeval god which is either Atum or Osiris.  This means two things were happening concurrently.  The Ka-energy which is ultimately solar is being 'boosted' by offerings and the attention of the ka priest ; and the substance of the person was being merged with the primeval substance of Nu in the form of Atum or Osiris. 

The heart of the person is then weighed - which we have already discussed. 

Then the Ba is released and travels to the East (from out of the West) together with the Shadow.  They see the sunrise and have a non-dual experience seeing their identity with the sun.  Then they return and reunite with the heart and the ka.  The most important part of this being the union of the Ba with the Ka.  This if done successfully gives birth to the Akh which is then free to come and go as it pleases.

Obviously there is a lot of detail missed out in this quick summary but this is the essence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emblem_of_the_West

2 hours ago, Nungali said:

What about the colored squares,  in lines that  divide the whole thing into three  parts ?  I was assuming they are decorative  but there is also two vertical different ones under the sign for the west , what is their significance ?  

As far as I know the horizontal patterns are decorative or possibly to show the top and bottom of a wall.  The verticals lines below the semi circle are just part of the glyph of the West ( a bird perch).

2 minutes ago, Lairg said:

ElectroMagnetic Radiation is all around you - with very little safety testing ever done, and then mainly by the industry

 

 

Ah ok thanks.