Encephalon

It seems that just about anything you could say about Clyman is true. My instructor recognizes his talent beneath the bravado; his chi kung is powerful. If you grab a copy of T'ai Chi Classics by Waysun Liao, Clyman's original teacher, you'll see where he got his ideas. My first round back in the late 2000s was successful, and I've had conversations here in TTB where it has been observed that once you open up your meridians and can direct chi with your mind, and then stop, the ability doesn't go away entirely; it sort of falls into a dormant state. So I'm happy with my progress in a week and a half. Millions of people admired Bruce Lee. He was an arrogant dragon but created something of value for the world. I guess I treat Clyman the same way.

I brought up the subject of group study of The Art of War last spring and got a lukewarm reception. Perhaps more of us have acquired an interest in investigating the role of strategy in our personal and professional lives. Below are my copies. I plunged in first with the Cleary translation and moved straight to The Art of War - Spirituality for Conflict. At the very least, I can derive from these two that egocentrism on any level, be it personal or on the field of battle, is THE recipe for failure. I welcome everyone with a sincere interest to join in. Regardless of expertise, I hope we can bring some small measure of scholarship to the endeavor, to be open to the insights of various interpretations without preconception. Regards, Scott

I came in here for the first time in months and found this topic and VOILA! went to the website and found a MIDI music class for the music workstation I just bought. Incredibly fortuitous timing! Thank you!

In the six hours since I posted this I've tried to understand and examine my reasons for doing so. I had second thoughts to begun with. I imagined other bums rightly asking themselves; WTF? He's 60 years old and he hasn't figured anything out yet? Good riddance. and of course I wanted to avoid the appearance of petitioning for sympathy. Those are really, really gross. After more mulling, I've concluded that some of this had to do with the nature of today's news cycle; when asked about the chances for an orderly transition of power, Trump dumped it in everyone's lap; He's really not into ballots, doesn't trust them, thinks there will be an orderly... wait for it... "continuation of power." Yep, that's a line that sends most people I know opening up the liquor cabinet or reaching for their stash. That's great advice and cheerful feedback. Thank you. My only regret is that I spent decades studying geography and communitarian movements throughout the world, and now that the US is on the verge of giving birth to 21st century fascism, I don't have the means to secure the very model of sane and sustainable lifestyle, in community, with other likeminded souls. I'm intensely disappointed by this failure to act on my heartfelt convictions, (but it's not if community life is cheap and readily available. It's actually really expensive to launch.) Selling three screenplays, or beaking into the Net industry would change things dramatically. I haven't thrown in the towel yet. I HAVE managed to paint myself into a corner and if I hold my aspirations dear, I have to comport myself like a zen master. Pursuing enlightenment at this point might just be the most practical choice for solving problems.

Greetings Bums - In terms of my own self-assessment, acknowledgment of epic personal failures, disastrous examples of poor judgment, and a general pattern of being subject to the limits of trauma and negative unconscious conditioning, I'd be mighty curious to know of any insights that may have eluded me. Despite a hapless journey that closely approximates that of the Fool, I have two success stories; I've maintained exceptional health, and I managed to squeeze in a pretty good education. Now that I've got a handle on the corrosive effects of childhood trauma, I've been able to transmute a lot of learned pessimism into learned optimism and positive expectation (huge lesson/huge victory). And, combined with ten years of brain entrainment, my imagination is exploding. In combination with fitness training, nei kung, and the resuscitation of imagination, I feel the best years of my life are ahead of me. There is only one issue that's giving me pause; my imagination, my original superpower, is truly exploding. My assessment of what is possible continues to change every week. I feel like I'm sprinting before I've even pulled up my pants and tied my shoes. Any original insights? High levels of fitness, extremely low levels of stress, good education, brain entrainment rewiring the neo-cortex like a brand new hard drive, and the knowldege and experience of gathered from 60 years of being dragged around the surface of the earth by the power of my own curiosity. Something's gotta give, right?

I use the acronym DREW to organize my day - D - domestics; all chores pertaining to being the househusband. All shopping, cleaning, cooking, assisting my child while she's in cyberschool, all errands and appointments. When time management meets energy management, all domestic conditions get met AND I get my own life. R - reading; I'm focused on one book a week, a four-year reading plan designed to create a second BA by filling in the gaps of my formal education. Right now the focus is on Russian history and the Russian future, Buddhism, select biographies, and some hard science. Reading scores very high on the list of activities that can foster the FLOW state, and I'm deleriously happy when I'm so engrossed. E - exercise; not nearly as ambitious as I used to be, having just turned 60, but I absolutely do NOT allow myself to skip a workout. Strength training, rebounding, dog-walking up the hills, elliptical training for cardio. This is critical stress management, absolutely essential. W - writing; 4,000 words a day. I'm trying to stay on the same pace as my daughter's cyber-class, which gives me 3.5 hours of writing, broken up by ten minute breaks and lunch. When this word count is accomplished, I rejoice. One or two 20-min brain entrainment sessions now replace formal meditation practice. It's not a perfect act of replacement, but for now, it's the healthiest thing I do for brain-mind health. I also try to maintain a short daily piano practice, mostly scales and agility exercises, but this opportunity often eludes me. I don't yet have an acronym that includes music. Maybe I'll need another one some day. When these elements fall into place I go to bed with the contentment that comes from a productive day.

Has anyone else used this meditation? I was introduced to this a few years ago by a Ken Wilber workshop and it felt wonderfully liberating. Of course, like many other adventures in stupidity, I stopped doing it. I love the clarity of KW's writing. HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS LEVEL 2: TRANSPERSONAL WITNESS EXERCISE (SOUL/SUBTLE LEVEL) "Distinguishing marks of the transcendent self: it is a center and expanse of awareness which is creatively detached from one's personal mind, body, emotions, thoughts, and feelings."; "transcend and include" your body and mind/ego As long as you are chasing experiences, including spiritual experiences, you will never rest as the Witness. (Witness = external observation of your own ego) Begin with 2-3 minutes of bodymind/centaur awareness "Slowly begin to silently recite the following to yourself, trying to realize as vividly as possible the import of each statement:" (repeat several times) "I have a body, but I am not my body. I can see and feel my body, and what can be seen and felt is not the true Seer. My body may be tired or excited, sick or healthy, heavy or light, but that has nothing to do with my inward I. I have a body, but I am not my body." "I have desires, but I am not my desires. I can know my desires, and what can be known is not the true Knower. Desires come and go, floating through my awareness, but they do not affect my inward I. I have desires, but I am not desires." "I have emotions, but I am not my emotions. I can feel and sense my emotions, and what can be felt and sensed is not the true Feeler. Emotions pass through me, but they do not affect my inward I. I have emotions, but I am not emotions." "I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts. I can know and intuit my thoughts, and what can be known is not the true Knower. Thoughts come to me and thoughts leave me, but they do not affect my inward I. I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts." Affirm as concretely as possible: "I am what remains, a pure center of awareness, an unmoved witness of all these thoughts, emotions, feelings, and desires." "If you persist at such an exercise, the understanding contained in it will quicken and you might begin to notice fundamental changes in your sense of 'self.' For example, you might begin intuiting a deep inward sense of freedom, lightness, release, stability. This source, this 'center of the cyclone,' will retain its lucid stillness even amid the raging winds of anxiety and suffering that might swirl around its center. The discovery of this witnessing center is very much like diving from the calamitous waves on the surface of a stormy ocean to the quiet and secure depths of the bottom. At first you might not get more than a few feet beneath the agitated waves of emotion, but with persistence you may gain the ability to dive fathoms into the quiet depths of your soul, and lying outstretched at the bottom, gaze up in alert but detached fashion at the turmoil that once held you transfixed." Choiceless awareness "If you are at all successful in developing this type of detached witnessing (it does take time), you will be able to look upon the events occurring in your mind-and-body with the very same impartiality that you would look upon clouds floating through the sky, water rushing in a stream, rain cascading on a roof, or any other objects in your field of awareness. In other words, your relationship to your mind-and-body becomes the same as your relationship to all other objects. Heretofore, you have been using your mind-and-body as something with which to look at the world. Thus, you became intimately attached to them and bound to their limited perspective. You became identified exclusively with them and thus you were tied and bound to their problems, pains, and distresses. But by persistently looking at them, you realize they are merely objects of awareness – in fact, objects of the transpersonal witness. 'I have a mind and body and emotions, but I am not a mind and body and emotions.'"

Thanks for posting this. It's triggered all sorts of ideas. The subject is immense; there's no shortage of resources and advice. "Becoming a Writer" by Dorothea Brande is a classic and the closest thing you can get to a seasoned professional guiding you along the way. The process is spiritual and psychological and there's nothing more gratifying than sticking with the practice long enough to see your improvements, to see your own confidence growing, to go from self-doubt to a firm faith that this process can be learned. "Letters to a Young Poet" by R.M. Rilke is a treasure for writers of all abilities but for beginners there's nothing more inspiring and instructive than the first one. Doing the "Morning Pages" as described in "The Artist's Way" by Julie Cameron works for a lot of people. 15 minutes of free-writing first thing upon waking, every day. I've been doing them for over two decades now. This lights a fuse for greater creativity throughout the day. "Writing as a Way of Healing" by Louise DeSalvo is extremely helpful for personal growth as well as writing. Apparently, dedicated writing practice can be just as therapeutic as psychoanalysis, and a hell of a lot cheaper. If you can make use of audiobooks I would highly recommend "On Writing" by Stephen King. I have this on my iphone and listen to it regularly. You'll save time by internalizing his wisdom. "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield is The Hot Item for writers and artists of all stripes. It is freakishly insightful and seems to become more so the more you read it. I also have the audiobook version and never tire of listening to it when I'm in the car or walking my dog. Christ, I could go on forever with this...

Just finished - https://www.amazon.com/Murderers-Mausoleums-Riding-Between-Beijing/dp/0618799915 Just started - https://www.amazon.com/Hope-Circuit-Psychologists-Helplessness-Optimism/dp/1610398734/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+hope+circuit&qid=1598160732&sr=8-1

This technique was originally conceived by Ramana Maharshi. Simply put, it's a form of meditation that seeks to eliminate the identification of the seer with the instruments of seeing. And it does require healthy ego-strength to be effective as intended. We can't reconstruct our "self" without safely and mindfully deconstructing it. I took the SuperHuman Operating System - https://superhumanos.net/ - a few years ago and was lucky enough to get it for $250, and the value I received was limited by my grosser levels of emotional immaturity and psychological baggage. I'd love to take it again! KW is not a perfected being but the work that's been made available to mere mortals is profoundly liberating when practiced as intended.

That wasn't my experience. As Wilber points out, "If you persist at such an exercise, the understanding contained in it will quicken and you might begin to notice fundamental changes in your sense of 'self.' " From this I infer a process that develops with time and consistency. To me it feels more like a reimagining of self, the harnessing of the power of imagination to dis-identify with mental objects, so I quite naturally felt these were topics to be explored rather than mere affirmations in the service of self-hypnosis.

Maybe you've never considered the implications of escaping the shackles of your unconscious conditioning and ego-identification or the critical role this stage of development represents.

Genius sees patterns in the world. Madmen impose them on the world.

All these are top priorities for saner life, simpler life, healthier life, the antithesis of consumer capitalism Yes, I hear you, Carl. The one piece of technology that I find indespensible in a world of ubiquitous noise pollution is my cordless, noise-cancelling headphones with a gentle white noise track playing a loop. A dramatic reduction in irritability. I have to assume that this was an enormous inspiration for the pioneers of the Back-to-the-Land movement of the 60s and 70s.

I've secured a basically free and limitless supply of CBD oil, more than I could or would ever use. The THC content is enough to be synergistic with the CBD without causing your imagination to leave your focus in the dust. The dose for that elusive sweet spot where imagination and focus are neck and neck changes over time. We could have had this figured decades ago if the political will was there. As a 60-yr-old I could justify using this daily for relief from join pain but that's trouble begins. It is an exquisite reward for those of us who keep in good shape; the body-mind fusion and general sense of "effortless effort" is an exhilarating feeling and doubles to completely blow any anxiety or negative thoughts out of the water. But the moment I get too used to this and turn it into a daily escape, the magic fades, the negative self-talk creeps back in, and my productivity plummets. Ah, the perils and rewards of cannabis consumption in the 21-st century. I'm convinced of its value in assisting people who need to reconnect body and mind. That's essential, IMO, to at least acquire the level of athleticism required to burn off your stress, and to evolve you've got to burn off more stress than you take in. An herb that can assist people in helping them make that essential mind-muscle connection seems pretty handy. Cannabis may have nothing to add in support of higher states of consciousness and advanced meditation practice, but for assistance in tuning up the carcass, it seems ready to help.

Do you still believe in Copernicus? We talked about this years ago. Some believed that the earth was the center of the universe and some believed that was nonsense. What’s your opinion now? Opinions matter! More than facts! The Oracle of Rosarita is clear on this. I consulted Her yesterday and was advised that our journey through life ultimately depends on a critically precise ratio of fiber to lard. Second-guessing this decree invites disaster. I’m wondering if people are truly free of spurious notions about heliocentrism and can put science in its proper perspective. Only sages can dismiss the western intellectual tradition and free themselves from the burden of objectivity. Only the wise can maintain the posture of unhinged, reflexive skepticism and have the courage to reject the heresies of the scientific method. Copernicus was a fraud. The earth is the center of the universe. His sad devotion to that ancient religion of mathematics and astronomy is no match for the power of a 16-ounce can of frijoles refritos. Beware the meddling influence of imposters, infidels, and vegetarians.

Hi - It seems like I've wandered into a conversation already in play. My focus is on the literature of the subject matter, nothing more.

Steve - A new thread on the psych of conspiracy theories would be a good idea. It's a fat subject.

Excellent points, Steve. Thanks for the links. I regret losing track of an excellent source on the intellectual structure of conspiracy theory indulgence, but if memory serves, it had something to do with the process of becoming reflexively skeptical of just about everything. This is consistent with the younger people I work with in the restaurant industry. They don't really believe in anything; they are mostly against everything. No political center of gravity, just a reflexive animosity to social institutions and those who work in them.

Just to be clear, this was an exercise in satire, an oppportunity for a little bit of fun. I wasn't actually suggesting that Copernicus was a fraud. I was making the argument that questioning the very real horrors of coronavirus and believing otherwise is tantamount to bringing the heliocentric solar system into question. The scientific method is actually something human beings are exceptionally good at, despite the current wave of anti-intellectualism washing over our shores. It's not the only source of knowledge, obviously, but the best method we have of examining objective reality. The Dalai Lama is on record as saying that any element of Buddhism that can be demonstrably falsified by science is an element he is prepared to cull from his beliefs. If he can manage it, so can we all.

https://www.amazon.com/What-Buddhist-Enlightenment-Dale-Wright-ebook/dp/B01L008J88/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=what+is+dale+wright&qid=1596484278&sr=8-1 I bought this book years ago after enjoying his previous book so much; tremendous scholarship combined with readibility. I expect the same from this one. Anyone care to assemble a reading group for this title? It's still a bit expensive. https://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Paradigm-Shift-Rodney-Smith/dp/1611801265 This one has come down in price. I'm down for a reading group for this one too. I haven't thought through the guidelines beyond a reading pace of one chapter a week to allow for discussion. let me know if your're interested. This is serious reading.

"I know a Jewish joke to that effect. A poor guy from a little village comes to the rabbi and tells him, god has forsaken me! In my house, I only have one room where we all live -- me, my wife, our four kids and my elderly parents, we're all cramped into an impossibly tight space and there's never any peace and quiet, not for a second! And now my in-laws have lost their home and have moved in with us! Can you help? The rabbi says, do you have any barn animals? Yes, a couple of goats, a dozen chickens, a milk cow... Take the goats in to live in that room with you. What?! Do it, you'll see that god hasn't forsaken you. A week later the same guy comes to the rabbi and says, with the goats in the house it's even worse! No room at all for anyone, and it's a madhouse! What should I do? The rabbi says, take in all the chickens! A week later: Take in the cow! End of the month, the poor man comes again, weeping so hard he can't get the words out. The rabbi says, Kick out all the animals immediately!! And a week later the guy comes again, happy and smiling, bringing some eggs and some homemade butter as a gift of gratitude. You were right! God has not forsaken me! My house is so spacious now, so calm and peaceful! Thank you!! " This is priceless! Exactly what's going on of late; let's introduce the caging of children opening up wildlife preserves and sanctuaries to mineral exploration cuttin off health and food benefits in the middle of a pandemic inflamming race relations abandoning our allies abroad embracing authoritarians abroad practicing crony capitalism destroying the credibility of expertise creating an information environment that trashes the role of objective truth and knowledge la de dah de dah and Voila! something else is born into the world.

This could be a fun exercise. Or not. Either way... I once read that the modern political spectrum was created by the French Revolution. if you were for the aristocracy, you were a conservative. If you were for the peasantry, you were a liberal. While there are some who are firmly and ideologically committed to one end of the spectrum or the other, I believe it is generally agreed that most of us can plot ourselves on multiple points of the left-right spectrum. I am firmly in the socialist camp, or what in Scandanavia is referred to as a social democrat, because I feel this is the most consistent political expression of interdependency as I've come to understand it through the lens of Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism. My spirituality is defined by the way I feel connected to all phenomona, and I approach ecology as the science of the reality of that interconnectedness. One writer once referred to conservatism as a "potent idea," the presence of which is critical to a healthy society. Conservatism is the acknowledgment that human qualities we admire such as wisdom, courage, imagination, and athleticism and others are not equally distributed throughout the species. Some people are more talented than others in different arenas and should be rewarded. Beyond a few parts per million, conservatism quickly devolves into rationalizations for favoritism and a toxic individualism that dismissed the critical role of a healthy public sector. I confess I am less informed about the dark side of modern liberalism. Identity politics, victim consciousness, submitting oneself to purity tests when pursuing elective office come to mind. Liberals are feckless and hide behind the facade of fake egalitarianism in order to show the world their 'advanced' ethical development and concern for the commonfolk, but all they end up doing is wasting time trying to find consensus when a critical task requires they immediately send in a Navy Seal Strike Team. A great deal of the "warrior" literature from the east, especially the Samurai material, makes it clear that balance is paramount; martial prowess must go hand in hand with civil and aesthetic development. Trying to ascertain which is more important is like trying to guess which wheel of a bicycle is more important, but as the saying goes, "It is better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war." There are critical distinctions here between Buddhism and Taoism that should be teased out pretty quickly by the TTB crowd. I think it was Deng Ming-Dao who said "The quality of the scholar is awareness. The quality of the warrior is readiness." I'll just open this up and see what percolates!

I wish I were better at attributing my sources - this most likely came from Ming Deng-Dao again since he's such a terrific writer - or maybe it's from the TTC - if a particular condition is your goal, create it's extreme opposite. Inevitably, balance gets restored. In the most optimistic scenario, we will have an opportunity to fix a lot of broken elements in our culture, not that we will sieze these opportunities - that's another matter - but there does seem to be positive movement in some areas. The pandemic has revealed these broken elements like nothing else; the folly of our healthcare system, the food and agricultural sector, transportation and land use, the Department of Education and just about every department in government that's been tweaked into absurdity. There could be a window of opportunity - a new generation of Americans who have nothing to gain by acquiescing to the spectacle of consumer culture and Trumpism. We've been flirting with American fascism for years but it looks like we'll reject it this fall. But it probably won't be the most gentle transference of power we've ever had.

"My time at University, taught me one really enduring and useful thing... how to teach myself, or rather, how to learn. When my time there was done, then my real education could begin in earnest." Exactly. I have taken Deng Ming-Dao's point about education and knowledge seriously; knowledge should go from simplicity to complexity and then reverse course, returning to a state of simplicity, which I assume means that after we've sampled tens of thousands of ideas and concepts over the years we begin to recognize the deeper and more refined patterns that connect, some sort of grand reconciliation that explains the plethora of phenomena with the least amount of assumptions, amendments, preconceptions. On another note, I'm having a ball reading works that fuse different subject matter and enrich them in the process. Titles like "This is Your Brain on Music" "Origins: How the Earth Shaped Human History" "The Secret Life of Dust" "Why Buddhism is True" "Inside of a Dog" "Hitler's Pope" "The Soul of an Octopus" I was never lucky enough to take courses that were specifically interdisciplinary, but I did have a few professors who were adept at teaching this way. Fortunately, there is no shortage of titles written in this spirit. Back in the 90s I moved out to Maharishi International University in Iowa, the campus for the TM - transcendental meditation crowd, and their curricula was almost exclusively interdisciplinary; math and consciousness, literature and consciousness, biology and consciousness, etc., theorizing how pure consciousness manifests itself mathematically, biologically, physically... Unfortunately, it was a hopelessly dysfunctional community and I left after six months, but there were plenty of valuable lessons to be gained nevertheless.