steve

@Summer San ti shi is a wonderful practice. I’ve let my xing yi training go except san ti. Here is an old thread you may want to read -

A wonderful image with a haunting blue by Odilon Redón

I love the Blue Madonna by Carlo Dulci for a tatoo

My favorite Dostoyevsky novel is Crime and Punishment. To be honest I’ve been in a reading slump lately.

One of my all time favs. Like reading an epic painting.

A novella by the same author - A Bride at Every Funeral and a Corpse at Every Wedding - very moving and beautifully written, and inexpensive

In my experience cannabis can be a support in some ways to finding deeper connections between things that may be hidden, to connect with repressed or suppressed emotional energy, to heighten physical sensation and experience in physical activities like zhan zhuang, taiji, qigong, running, and so forth. These are nothing more than my experiences, ymmv. On the other hand I also think she is a bit of a trickster. Sometimes those connections and experiences are exaggerated or misleading and only have significance due to the altered perception. She can also be very controlling for some, be aware of the possibility of psychological dependence. When it comes to specific methods, like Qi cultivation or tummo for example, there is a lot of specificity. and precision in the methodology so I would caution that the altered perception and processing can potentially be an obstacle or cause deviation. You may think you have made some major progress only to later find it was not as significant as you thought at the time. I agree with those who feel that each of us has to tread our own path and must explore different things along the way as we all need different things at different times and no one, including good teachers, have all the answers. On the other hand, when engaging in well defined, traditional paradigms, deviation from the time tested and proven formula is more likely to result in deviation when it comes to the outcome. If you are blazing your own trail through trial and error, mixing of paradigms, learning through books and videos, and so on then I don't think it is as much of an issue. Best wishes on your path.

Thank you @silent thunder And @Apech please be aware this is not permitted here.

I highly recommend: Original Tao: Inner Training (Nei-yeh) and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism by Harold Roth

Awareness can mean different things in this context. It may mean being very focused and concentrated on a particular activity to the exclusion of all else. It can also refer to maintaining a more fully open connection to whatever is happening in the present moment. Two activities I find are particularly well suited to integration in the latter sense are running and taijiquan. I believe this to be the secret sauce in taijiquan and other internal martial arts. With practice it is possible to integrate awareness with any and all activity, even sleeping, dreaming, and dying. This is the foundation of the practice of dzogchen - recognizing and developing stability in clear and open awareness and then integrating that with every possible aspect of life.

IMO this is a profound and comprehensive teaching. _/\_

Here is one perspective - When people speak of their own enlightening or awakening experience, they tend to describe it in a variety of different ways. Sometimes it is a massive, all in one experience, sometimes sequential and progressive. No two descriptions of the experience(s) are exactly alike. The descriptions do have similarities but the specifics are often very different for different people, even those in the same tradition. The reason for this is that what a person is describing is not an objective thing, condition, or state that can be labeled as enlightenment. They are describing the subjective experience of release or dissolution of whatever was limiting or blocking them in that moment from a more accurate and comprehensive sense of 'self.' Consequently, every individual's enlightening experiences will be unique to them and defined by precisely what was obscuring a truer sense of their 'self,' as will be the path they take to 'get there.'

Many thanks to @silent thunder for turning me on to Khruangbin. Really enjoying them lately, there is some cool stuff going on here.

No... Fine art

Not odd at all. FWIW I also don’t have time to follow threads fully so I often comment based on the OP alone or a handful of responses at most. While it may be unskillful, superficial, even disrespectful, that’s me…

Hi Bob, The icon was because I thought you were joking. Does the word nipple offend you? Or the idea that one might accidentally brush up against one? I’ve been on both sides of that experience. I chose that word for a reason. Nipples, like people, can be very sensitive, shoulders not so much. Stepping on a toe causes pain but brushing a nipple can be titillating or offensive, depending on context and intent - just like our words here. I think it’s an apt metaphor and will let it stand. My apologies if it makes you uncomfortable, that was actually part of my intention - not to offend you personally but to demonstrate how words can be powerful and contextual.

FWIW, my opinion is that long time lurkers should speak up when and if they please. My primary motivation and guiding intention in modding here is to help make this a place where people can feel welcome and supported to discuss sensitive topics related to their spiritual path without fearing ridicule and harassment. As wstein pointed out there is always a small number of people here whose posting style, intentionally or not, shuts others down. Perhaps I’m guilty of it sometimes… This is probably unavoidable in an open, anonymous community. So AFAIC lurk for as long as you want my friends, those I know and those I never will. Enjoy your time here, if you can. Enjoy my words or despise them as you see fit. If my silly ideas help you in some way, that is a blessing for us both. If they hurt you in some way, my sincere apologies. All we can each do is our own unique and beautiful dance, accidentally stepping on the occasional toe or brushing the occasional nipple…

I do think there are similarities. Both give you permission to enter the mandala of the divine. Through tantric empowerment you may become and express the power, the enlightened qualities, of the empowering agency. Sadly that approach is rare, but not entirely absent, in Christianity. I encourage reading Demello who describes the sublime empowerment of awareness in the Jesuit process. And there are clearly negative aspects of both types of indoctrination as well.

Queen Omega

It’s only a platitude when you objectify and conceptualize it. It is not an attainment, that idea is what makes it seem so far away. It is always here and now. Nothing to attain at all, it is already complete and perfect.

All beings are said to have innate buddha-nature. That is, their essence is primordially pure and perfectly complete. Nothing needs to be added or subtracted. The only obstacle is a failure to recognize. They need do nothing, change nothing whatsoever to realize/actualize this other than simply to recognize the truth.

Buddhism actually does say that everything is perfect in a very explicit way - the path of dzogchen. The word literally means great perfection, referring to the fundamental, primordially pure, unfabricated state of being - our inherent essence. There are three major paths in Mahayana Buddhism and this is one. The other two paths and the Hinayana don't necessarily accept or agree with the dzogchen view but it is an important part of Bön and Buddhism, generally referred to as the highest or most precise, and most elusive, view.

A thorn wouldn’t be painful if the foot is numb… Taiji is a great example regarding problem solving, many ways to address issues, including simply walking away when that is an option. The “no longer a ‘you’” is precisely the type of solution I’m referring to. This is what is meant by emptiness. When we genuinely find that we identify less with that sense of ‘me’ many problems are far less problematic. This is the source of the result you are questioning. The main reason my mind isn’t likely to change on the topic is that I am living with and benefiting from the effects of the practice. I’m not so much cherry picking as simply not getting too engaged in theoretical concerns and conceptual analysis. I don’t reject rules or logic, they certainly have value and an important place in my life, I simply don’t find them useful when it comes to my spiritual practice. In this arena they can be limiting rather than enlightening. My practice doesn’t require rules, this is the point of it in fact. Through practice I’ve seen changes in my life and attitude that reinforce the practice. Very few rules are necessary once some degree of familiarity is there. Thanks, I feel I owe that to the very practice and associated benefits being discussed in this thread.

Sorry... I appreciate you pointing that out. A few kilobytes refers to a few written symbols here setting someone on fire. The canoe is an abstruse reference to Zhuangzi (the empty boat parable) and then I tacked on an affirmation of Dao's nondual nature.

I think that if people want you to feel bad they are actually addressing a part of themselves that is triggered. We only know our reactivity, our assumptions and expectations, you have little to do with it… a few dozen kilobytes is all. You’re the canoe, ……and the lake and the breeze and the rest of it of course. They need to work out their shit, you yours… often using each other to work on ourselves completely unaware. Awareness of it harnesses great power!