peter falk

read two trees mention of our extensive discussion of sun gazing and was wondering if anyone has any analogous practice for moon gazing? would this be a balance of yin and yang. a sort of external alchemy?

i think at first i was all about the lists and the thinking and th eremembering. but then, as i went thru the practice, i learned to let go and let the shen guideme and give me what was inportant in the moment. eventually i got into dialogues with the shen. you can read about this in my blog, or you can read some of sean's stuff which has pretty amazing close encounters of the third kind with his shen.

wow! that 's like, a really old website. musta been written in html 1.0. no graphics at all. only plain text files. so though tehre is nothing visually enticing about it, the info there is pretty fuckin cool.

which link is this again? obviously from a topic i didnt read......

and speaking of sulfur, you can burn it too to purify and drive away bad entities. doesn't smell as nice as smudge or incense though. but if ya dig pyrotechnics.....

i think the solve coagulae also refers to the work on the ego. that is what fragments us. if we were pure consciousness we'd be, well, pure consciousness.

a friend is someone who is painfully honest with, who says the things you don't wanna hear. this helps you develop spiritually. it's also someone who knows what's up. for example, i broke up with mrs. columbo last week and a number of people offered congratulations. well, maybe congrats weren't in order, but they definitely could see it was a good thing.

i agree. just had a great primordial this morning. it doesn't banish. it gathers and neutralizes.

in western alchemy, at least. but i believe the use is highly symbolic or metaphorical and i haven't decoded all that shit yet. it might symbolize the semen, because we burn sulfur in order to transmute lead into gold, the lead being ego and the gold consciousness. like i said, i'm not sure. that book seanb has on hermetics might ahve something. interestingly, sulfur is one fo the chief constituents of cinnibar, which is central to chinese alchemy and the pill of immortality. the other chief constituent of cinnibar is mercury, which is also central to western alchemy.

From Initiation into Hermetics by Franz Bardon that looks like an awesome book!

i agree. older is not necessarily better. and it's often worse. i think the error results from our efforts to find spiritual roots. when it becomes an intellectual or metnal exercise it turns into a historical thing. then we argue about history and authenticity. but really it should be a spiritual exercise in which the internal roots, the roots within our own psyches in the spiritual world, are searched for. the roots are within our soul.

i understand michael winn only sleeps about 4 hours a night. i remember researching monatomic gold for a while and they talked about how with pineal development you naturally become nocturnal and then they related this to myths of vampires and various other mystical types that move around at night. i think you need a certain amount of alchemical development to become nocturnal, i.e., the hormonal system, for exactly the reasons neimad states--we depend on the sun to stimnulate hormones. through alchemy you develop the internal sun which lessens your dependence on the external sun.

so are you an asshole, a dick, or a pussy?

ya don't have to limityourselfto the four cardinal directions either. i like using northeast a lot--the direction of the unseen and eternal, the ancestors, transition between worlds. that's actuall from some native americans, but i find it works with daoist practices. there's other directions too--sw, se, and nw. i find the nw and se can be full of negative enegry sometimes, but that doesn't preclude you form working with them. there could be resons for going there. experimetn. have fun. tell us what ya find.

one more recommendation: team america: world police. it's a marionette movie by the creators of south park and one of the funniest fuckin movies you'll ever see.

season six of south park, josie and the pussycats, and charlie and the chocolate factory. i also like to chillout with the discovery channel or national geographic, but they're not as good in asia as in america. tonight i wantedto watch a special aobut the super volcano under yellowstone park that could undo the world as we know it, but i have to forego the pleasure as canadian thanksgiving is today and a friend invited me for dinner. also, there's baseball. looks liket he cards and the chisox for the series.

neimad says: "physiologically speaking we are not designed in any way whatsoever to eat meat. however there are those people who through their family line have developed a stronger stomach and the ability to digest meat properly. this is not all and probably not even half of people out there." this is wrong. if anything, humans arent designed to be vegetarians. most vegetarians, that is herbivores, have digestive adaptations that are completyely absent in humans. for example, the most successful herbivores, the ungulates, have multiple stomachs. humnas do not. others have enormous stomachsand bodies to contain them--such as elephants. among the birds, witness the goose, among the biggest birds precisely because it eats nothiong but plants. it also ahs to eat and shit constantly and continuously. it you look at primate species that eat exclusively plant matter, they spend all day eating and the rest of the time sleeping in order to conserve energy because plants are basically not very nutritious or calorie rich. the same can be said of other herbivorous mammals like the sloth, it's life style and reputation are due precisely to being vegetarian. this is not to say that the behavior of one species should be a certain way just because another species is. it does indicate, however that there are certain universal adaptions to the same survival strategy in evolution. anotehr thing missing in humans that is common in herbivores is the jaw muscles and dentition, as i think chris or somebody pointed out. the otehr things humans lack are the bacteria essetnial to the digestion of cellulose that other herbivores have. all in all, evolution has adopted humans to an omniverous existence. but evolution has also given us big brains that enable us to adapt thru intelligence what we can't thru genetics. hence different diets work for different cultures all over the world. traditionally, eskimoes eat no plant matter whatsoever and live perfectly healthy lives on meat and blubber alone (this lifestyle has faded in recent times). hindus on the other hand are often vegetarian and live healthy lives. althought the physiological evidence presented by vegetarians is often specious, it does not denegrate one's choice to be vegetarian, as long it can be done in a healthy way. btw, the chinese probably eat more pork than anyone, and all parts of the pig, many of which are of marginal food quality, and almost nobody here looks piggish. i've never seen such a wonderful and abundant collection of slender figures and tight little asses. nice legs too.

" You can observe a lot by watching " --yogi berra " If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be " --yogi berra "Think! How the hell are you gonna think and hit at the same time?" --yogi berra "You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there." --yogi berra "Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded." --yogi berra "Why buy good luggage? You only use it when you travel." --yogi berra "You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." --yogi berra

then start getting to know those elements. see them. give them each a face or a shape, something that will make each one unique. notice if they are different from "the real you," the permanent center of gravity that acts as observer and spiritual guide. you can even enter into dialogue with them. it can be a form of meditation or just reflection. moment to moment, or setting time aside during the day to do it. make an inventory and develop relationships. s ee which ones work together or cooperate. soemtimes you can even diagram it on paper.

rosetta stone will teach you to read chinese, while at the same time speaking it. it will be easier to read if you know how it sounds. rosetta stone has both simplified (mainland china) and traditional (ancient, taiwan, hk, macau, and overseas chinese) characters. if you wnat to learn to write as well as read, good luck! it's hard. but there are books that will help you learn how to correctly draw the charcters and the proper stroke order. cantonese and mandarin use the same writing system. in fct, the writing is identical, only the pronunciation differs. in mainland china, they use the modern simplified writing. elswhere they use the traditional writing. old texts are written in traditional, so you may wnat to learn that, but you can also find them in simplified characters. the two systems are probably 80-85% the same, and once you learn the system of changes, you can go back and forth between them with relative ease for over 90% of them. for speaking, mandarin is easier to learn. for reading, it doesn't matter. they'll both be the same. there is no way to transliterate cantonese into english. Yale came up with a system but it only uses six of the up to 10 tones. it's perfectly functional, but you'll struggle a little with native speakers. the system they use in hk is only marginally useful. the mainland pinyin has become the international standard for romanizing chinese and i recommend you learn it. also because within your lifetiem mandarin will probably become the world's second language. Rosetta stone will help youlearn to read faster than just a book with characters in it. trust me on this, i've got two and ahlf years of experience trying to learn the language. back up the rosetta stoen with writing. if you've got lots of money, hire a tutor or take a university class in mandarin.

begin with this: observe yourself as much as possible during the dy. specifically, your reactions to things. what makes you mad? what makes you happy? what makes you disgusted? what makes you horny? what makes you annoyed? after you've observed the external thing that evokes your emotions, switch to seeing the internal element that is so responding. do not assume automatically it is something good or bad. observe it objectively. just do this day to day as much as you can. ideally it sould be a constant state of awareness. realistically it will occur in flasshes or for short sustained periods. as you get into it, it will start to drive you crazy. you'll see things you never say before and things you don't understand. when it starts to make you crazy, when you are lost in the wonder and awe of it all for what's inside you, post to this forum and we'll continue.

i find it's best not to meditate.

well, my computer just rebooted itself in the middle of typing my reply to this. computers ion china don't act like they do in the rest of the world. nevertheless, i'll try again. i suppose we could define the observer as anything we want to. as such, the observer offered by some schools or systems is a sham. that doesn't denegrate the authentic observer at all, and it is known by various names in various systems. as far as michael winn's comments, i do'nt differentiate between the immortal fetus and the observer. any true, conscious observer must be neutral by nature, or yuan in the taoist terminology. later the immortal fetus becomes the immortal child, an even wiser and more powerful observer. some schools say you have to struggle for years to develop this. in some cases that's true. but not always. i for one was born with it and can remember it's presence as far back as i can remember anything. admittedly, some people never develop it or care to. psychopaths for example. the observer is basically unconcerened with the external world (as i use the term), except insofar as the external world is out gymnasium or arena for psychological (includes spiritual) discovery. the obvserver is concerned with the internal elements that keep us isolated from our true selves, from dao. by observiung them, we are then able to purify ourselves further and expand our consciousness and increase our relationship with dao. this is traditionally an important partof alchemical work in both east and west, though the models for approaching it differ. the key to understanding the observer is that we are currently polarized with the external world for the gratification of our senses. the part of us that is like this in soime esoteric tradtions is called the ego. accept this and don't get bogged down in semantics. as i use the term ego here, i am referring to the part of us that is polarized for an affinity with the world of sensual gratification. this ego is comprised of thousands of different elements each seeking it's own gratification and aggrandizement. as we serve it's desires, we further our isolation from the dao. as we diminish the ego, we increase our community with the dao. in the HT system fo michael winn, he gives specific and powerful tools to deal with this. i don't know about mantak chia since i've never had him as a teacher. this ego also isolates us from our fellow humans. the vast majority of people choose their friends and acquaintences based on how wellthey facilitate the gratification of their earthly desires. very few choose their friends based on how they push them spiritually to evlove. so, the observer plays an important pivotal role in this awakening in that it shows us the elements in ourselves that we must transfor, that we must repolarize with the dao instead of earthly desires. bear in mind that i am not talking about one's moral sense, which is bvased on an external ethical code. i'm talking about a spontaneous internal element from which te emerges as we contionue to evolve. this is not the intellect deciding to follow the ten commandments oir the buddha's right conduct. it is something deep and personal that has nothing to do with moral codes or religion. i've rambled enough. perhaps i'll say more about this later since it's a topic that deeply interests me. but my nonergonmic arrangement here has my wrists and fingers sore.

the pure consciousness, or as neimad said, the real you. it is essential to develop this "aspect" in the work if you areto ultimately get rid of the ego. that work starts with self-observation, and it is the observer that does that.