-O-

But he has assumed the role and the authority... not wanting to be called this doesn't make the responsibility go away. Part of that responisbility is to have very clearly defined boundaries between "teacher" and "student" with precisely defined expectations and a healthy distance between the two. If these things are not in placed and constructed with comprehensive foresight then situations EXACTLY like what just happened WILL happen. Unfortunatly to do this and assume the responsibility in this way, means sacrificing a certain innocence about human nature and relationship dynamics - one that I think Max is reluctant to do (don't blame'im for that). At the end of the day it is (and should be) a very rare occurance to have a student become a friend and in some fields where there is an inherent inequality of emotional power in the relationship, to be friends with students is an unethical thing to do (as it blurs the lines between the roles and leaves the weaker of the two, the student, vulnerable to great injury). (think of the doctor patient dynamic, therapist/patient relationship)

It is also important to note that even the cream of the crop have acted badly a times. We all have our moments both good and bad.

...double post error...

Hate to bump this thread.... but look how this is effecting the Lum reputation... the TTB thread is making its rounds through the MMA community (that would be Mixed Martials Arts not ... er uh Metaphysical Martial Arts) ... http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?p=2241069 (listed under the "Martial Arts BS, Fraud, Investigations, and Standards" forum)

Director, Interactive, and Associate Creative Director in the advertising world (with a focuss on-line and integrating on and off-line process and strategies) Leon - do you write ad copy? For that matter have any of you writers on the forum sold out to the ad dollar yet ?- if so drop me a line I am always in serious need of good copy writers who actually use punctuation and proof read their copy before sending it.

What I have found over the course of practices that move alot of energy - especially through the head - is eventually you can't "try" or "do" to move it. THis will just coagulate it up the energy and cause immediate ill effects (like pearcing headaches). So eventually you reach this sort of paradox - the practice is to move the energy, but you can't move the energy with any effort (or direct effort). What eventually happens is your effort gets lighter and lighter until it really isn't an act of doing - but rather just intention. But this can be interpreted in some pretty mamby pamby ways - so what I mean about "just intention" is akin to reaching out for your coffee cup, or your fingers moving across your keyboard. If you observe (or more precisely contemplate) how you move your body, your eyes etc. there isn't any mental, discersive effort - no direct conscious thought - just a very immediate and very quick "intention". Once this opens up then haveing set procedures or processes or techniques become mute - because at this point all the techniques do is define and hold an intention (or more accuratly distract the logical mind in a way that the intention is retained long enough to manifest). And things really take off when you then execute your techniques from this place of intention. You can practice very intricate, complicate procedures by simply calling up the intention - it becomes effortless. Of course if your mind has a tendancy to wander then this is hopeless and you do need to be intimatly familiar with all of the details fo the practice before you an practice this way. Yi gong is good this way as it is operating at this level from the begining.

Thank you too, all of you !!!

Granted, the hindu idea of the Buddha being the 5th vajrasattva becomes popular and all Budhist temples are converted to hindu. Now there are 10 times more people agrueing with Taoists over the tennets of the not only the Vajrasattva but every other Hindu god as well. Thanks! I wish I had a pterodactyl!

I have found staring at a wall to be very helpful in many ways to explorations in contemplation, intention and meditation... In fact I tell most people who ask me about meditation to give it a try. (seriously) (Perhaps this could be a new mystery school - the Way of Wall Stareing - or Stareing Wall Wu Wei... but it seems to me this has already been done a few years back [or a couple milenia ago] ) <-- this is the whole technique...err or this is the Stareing Wall Transmission - it is what makes it all possible.

Granted! Everything is now well... a water well that is! All landbased life is dead and submerged under water. Thanks! I wish I could wish a great wish!

Let me clarify - a dead end in regards of this lesser awakening I'm refering to... the reason I feel this way is, although with therapy we can dislodge being stuck into a certain identification/behaviour/belief what have you - which is the process of softening and dismatling the ego - in the process of doing this and immediatly after is the repair or restructuring of the ego and it all ocurs in a reflective state so.... it is not so much "knowing oneself" as much as "knowing about myself" - so in terms of mediative work I find the process works in the opposite direction. (and still think it has great value in its own right) ...edited... Let me try that again.... psychological insight, as best as I can describe it from the context of our conversations is... through reflection we can reveal limiting perspectives and the insight gained from that is really creating a less limiting perspective. And this new perception is built in the reflective mind - so although we are now less limited than before and we have an experience of moving beyond a limiting percpetion, awareness has not moved beyond the reflective state. We have traded one structure of thought for another. And by doing this as one structure is dismantled another (although less limiting) structure is built during the process of revelation- so it will never cultivate awareness beyond the bounds of thinking and reflection (or ego). Where with "practicing awareness" (by returning to present moment awareness - physical senses) - when perceptions rise - we acknowledge this as a form of thought (or another object with in awareness) then perception is traded for awareness/observation - then awareness can build beyond the structures of thought. This is because the perception, prior to acknowledging it as a structure of thought, is the context for observation/awareness. At the moment we acknowledge the perception for what it is (a strucutre of thought) it stops being the context (or boundary) for awareness and becomes an object with in the context of observation (or present moment awareness) - thus awareness can then cultivate beyond the bounds of perception - it transcends. This is not to say that therapy is not helpful or useful it is just different - it is trading one reflective perception for another less limiting reflective perception. By doing this the ego grows in its ability to cope with the world by being able to make connections and association which were not there before and gives the experience of the maliablity of the ego (or impermance of the ego) - but it is still all reflective perception. So through therapy we learn to know about ourselves - while through awareness we get to know self though present moment awareness.

IMHO - if I can't come to observe it for myself then it isn't much good to me (it ends up just being something that someone told me that I then assert as a truth) And I can't remember anything that far back - maybe 2 years old at the youngest. And this is consistent with biology and psychology which states we're not physically able to create memory prior to this... so I don't wrestle with that.... this to - to me- reinforces to the idea that we are not born with an ego. We may have genetic tendencies - but this is not self awareness nor ego... ego occurs after or the point where we're able to form lasting memory (no ablility to recall - then there is no ability to reflect - therefore no ego). Which leads to the next idea which is... the root of illusion - or the inital spark that drives us into ego and illusion can not be a personal assault to the self... it is not an assualt on the ego which propells us into some twisted nature or corrupted consciousness - but rather the other way around. The root of illusions is what set in motion the development of an ego... to me this means that, although important work to do, psychology or engaging our personal deamons is a dead end. It will only keeps us cycling around inside the strucutre of, or process phases of the ego.... So if there is pre-egoic existence, egoic existence, and the possible liberation (trans-egoic existence) then perhaps the ego is simply one step on the staircase and to be in a trans-egoic place - then this place is contingent on the egoic space... (and would imply that trans-egoic is a natural phase and thus naturally we have a momentum towards this state - because of this - for me - my practices changed from trying to "accomplish" - to getting out of the way of what is and always has been happening naturally).

I think the assumption that we - as mere mortals are not able to discern - is to buy the story (or drink the cool-aid) - and thus keep us unable to ever discern. Everytime I have seen these sorts of things happen in a community there has always been some consistency. 1) The emphasis on respect - yet when you discern what it is they are asking for it is really subordinance. 2) A high focus is on the people and not the teachings (think of how we all know the names of the players in these dramas - if all of that mental effort was focused on the actual teaching then how would all of this be different) 3) The people who hold the "respect" or authority eventually or occassional behave very badly - like calling out the other in this thread - or faking deaths - or calling people energetic vampires or a doppleganger etc. etc. etc. at some point the celebrities are involved in the creation of the drama. For me what it really comes down to.... are these people and their actions (as a group) really people I would want to emulate? Or better yet - If my child behaved this way, how would I feel about them (pride shame)? This is not about discerning the actuality of realities as "real" - this is about collapsing reality against very obvious emotions - like jealousy - control - anger - betrayal - there is nothing "other worldly" about these discernments. All psychology here - without a doubt in my little mind. Whatever happen to "keeping it real"?

Spirit Dao (sp to obscure the reference)

Well, just from the little information that an be found on this site regarding this lineage there is... 1) faked deaths vs. the dopplegangers (take your pick) 2) earthlings, reptiles, and other sundry creatures 3) being kicked out of school for loosing a stareing(sp?) contest with teacher and thus fled the state 4) impropreities with students 5) spiritual attack... From the outside looking in, why would anyone want to have anything to do with SSTT, KL, SD, or anyone else associated with Maoshan? There are both teachers and renengades here at TTB let me ask you the value of understanding how to teach and its importance? Is it enough to just know what to teach or should a potential sifu/master whatever have some education on group dynamics, interpersonal relationship etc? Have any of the teachers here educated themselves in this regard? My thinking is Yu Ma and Vajrasattva are both pretty real and level headed guys so my take is they wouldn't encounter this kind of nonsense - but is that due to personality type? Why, in settings like University, colleges, knitting classes, or the art of clog dancing; do these types of student/teacher dynamics not occur as commonly as they do in this area? My thinking... the tao of transferrence/counter-transferance, the teh of projection/counter-projection haven't quite emerged in eastern wisdom.

Equanimity to all object in the field of awareness - all things weighed equally without emphasis or disregard - no pushing or pulling... no one thing which awareness stops to to investigate and this "experience" emerges... By trying to not color wth the ego or conditioning - then ego and conditioning become more important and have more focuss than say the lamp shade... lamp shade & ego - all weighed equally... in this place there is no distraction which pulls us out of meditation because all that is coming and going in and out of awareness is the meditation... and but "to do" this - attempt to do this with effort or intention is impossible - all one can do is give in, surrender, let go o the tendancy to resist or participate with what is going on.... expereince is something that comes after when we attmept to communicate it.

Anyone speaking on my behalf - implied or otherwise needs my permission - or I would be upset. I reference Toledo because Hata makes a reference to a *REAL* Max (opposed to a false max - one could presume). When mister hata entered this forum, I as many others too, gave him the benefit of the doubt - showed proper respect. As far as I am concerned he has earned my disrepect... I unlike many others, who wish their life to only be about a bed of roses, occassionally don't let people off the hook for the realities they are creating. Mr. Hata is not reflecting well on his elders, not reflecting well on his students, nor is he reflecting well on this forum. In fact Lino, I am in actually trying to help the man. I really don't care what he says about Max or Kunlun... but ever post he writes I get this pit in my stomache and the thought runs through my head "If he new how he is coming across I don't think he would do it" in fact if he ever does have lucity around this in the future I'm sure he will regret - not nessesarily what he is saying - but how, and how he is being about it. He may have a sifu title - but all I see is foolishness. Mr hata to me is a straw dog - because today I choose his folly to engage - tomorrow is another story.

None - that is why your title and claims hold no water with me. I am talking to you as a member of a forum who is just trying to cause shit. Your titles, belts, lineages etc are irrelevant - your words and actions are not. You do not have my respect because, behind your fascade of respectfulness you are being very disrespectful. I would be ashamed to be a student of yours after reading your posts. This is the impact you are having on the reputation of the men you hold in high esteem. You sifu hata are a straw dog.

I believe I read somewhere that Max consulted his "aunties" in Hong Kong regarding RP - So RP may have nothing to do with Lum's (just a thought). Sifu Hata, are you in contact with PH Toledo? Honestly your words are always referencing Moon and Lum and at this point any comment you make I find to be incredulous - if Moon or Lum have issue which they would like to raise publically then perhaps they should formally do so. Do you have permission, consent from Lum/Moon to speak on their behalf? Are they wanting you to publically address these things for them - if so be clear - no more allusions? Or do you have another MA demonstration coming up that you would like promoted? Travel deals?... You come of as some one with mixed intention who tries to pretend to be respectful and sincere - but is very obviously hostile and gossip mongering (and very intentionally doing so) - just come out and say what you have to say. Make the accusation you want to make - cause, dude, you are coming acorss as someone with emotional issues, who is too much of a coward to stand in the drama he wants to create. Either start your meds again, or say what it is you want to say with out the politically correct two step. Own it!

What I am getting at is in this expereince the ego does not dissappear - it simply becomes another object (thought) with in the sea of objects - and yes to experience that object as self you will need to be separate. What I am leaning towards is the center of persception is no long centered on that self but rather the ongoing, ever-morphing act of perceiving - and that is not on the other side of some ego destruction but rather happening right now as simply your awareness of the post. The "True Self", "Buddha Nature", "Divine Nature" is, right now, the present moment awareness of the post - consciousness. The only thing that changes in us as we have this experience is the experience itself. This is why I say the ego is one step toward this and not something to get rid of to achieve it. The mystical definitions are just that, mystical, because the intellect has not caught up with the rest of experience. Once the experience is completed to a totality - the mystism drops away and it becomes very simple - then of course a whole other mystery opens up. Yes, in the moment this is occuring "I AM everything" is the expereince because the "I" is being experience throught the conscious awareness of "everything" - and no I don't believe we create the world with our awareness. Nothing magical here - simply phenomenology.

I'd like to chime in if that is okay... A few years back I had to put allot of thought - or rather evaluation of my own experiences - in this regard. It was an effort to drill down what I really had come to understand/know due to meditative practices versus what I thought I knew because of something I was told... versus what I was told which fit meditative experience. So... I don't believe that we are born with some enlightened "true" self which is somehow corrupted by society or conditioning etc. And I don't believe we are born with an ego either. My feeling is we are born with a set of faculties of awareness (eyes, ears, touch etc.) and the information gathered through these faculties has no context/meaning. And we ramble around, driven by sensory impulses and experience the world as touch (rough versus soft etc), sight (color, shape), sound (load, quite etc) . As enough information is gathered a distinction of these things emerge. On the level of barbaric physical senses these distinctions are quite easily made - it is not complicated- and can occur just from trial and error. Essentially no ego is necessary to experience roughness, softness. However more complicated (and ultimately intangible) distinctions require some sort of ego perception... Let me back up - I don't define the ego as just the self - that is the personality - which is one object within the ego. I feel the ego has a twofold nature - one side is the "world" the other side is the "self" - where the horizon of our conscious awareness is the "world" and as we move toward the center of the envelope there is a line which states anything inside of here is "self" anything outside is "world". And these two sides are intimately interwoven and interdependent on the other. (the "world" defines the "self - the "self" defines the "world"). So the "world" is the horizon of awareness and with in this envelope there is another boundary which separates out the "world" from the "self". I think at some point, when enough neurons are firing or enough data is collected... at some point we find our "self" in the "world". So let's look at this as an example of making more complicated distinctions (but still a pretty straight forward one). To find our position within a space - say where you are standing with in a room... we take in data of the objects in the room through our very basic physical senses (sight sound etc). We can say "I am three feet to the left of the chair, and two feet in front of the lamp - I am eight feet away from the back wall". To come to this distinction we MUST have a "self" in which to reference the objects in the room - and we can only find the "self" in relation to these objects. So say there is a chair directly in front of us with a table behind it (which we cannot see) and a flower vase on the table (which we can see) [this is a more complicated distinction] - we may have difficulty in seeing where the chair ends and the flower begins - this is a confusion - a tension experienced (a distinction which hasn't emerged, yet is important regarding our location in space). To make the distinction of the flower's location versus the chair's location all we need to do is simply move slightly left or right. In doing so the flower's position to us changes slightly differently than the chair's location. In changing our own position we come to the different distinctions of distance for the flower and chair -(by changing our "self" we have come to a new definition of "world"). Now in order to be consciously aware of any of this we need to recreate the situation. We do this first by positing a "self" within a perception in the mind - then posit each object in relation to the "self" position. So we have found ourselves in the world as "three feet to the left of the chair" - but we find the "world" as "the chair is three feet to the right of me". So raw - unhampered - awareness is world first - self second. Conscious awareness is "self" first "world" second. By creating this perception (of which is always posited around the "self") , the "self" becomes the context/meaning of the data collected (and thus critically important). And to become aware at this level necessitates a "self" vs "world" perception - or an ego - it requires us to create an ego to be able to distinguish relationships of objects in our field of awareness (in this case the relationship of spatial location). So this distinction came about because... 1) we collected data through raw awareness - Awareness 2) we recreated that data in our minds as a perception - Perception 3) we return to our awareness, holding the perception in mind to "reality test" the perception. - Intention. If the perception is wrong, inaccurate - the initial tension felt (from the emerging distinction) is not released so we return back into the mind - recreate or modify the perception (and we do this by modifying the "self") and then return to awareness to "reality test" again. It is a conditional test loop. The returning to awareness while "holding" this perception is "intention" or intentional awareness (awareness under tension or with a forced direction/definition) so... 1)awareness 2) perception 3) intention... if by executing 3, 1 and 2 do not match then we repeat the cycle until the tension is released (or the intentional "holding" of perception is no longer needed - because the distinction is found in awareness... and the distinction does not require an "ego" to be clearly aware of it. So the caveat is... what happens when we are in the middle of this test loop and the moment passes - or the object we are attempting to distinguish is intangible (not found in the physical senses)... we return to awareness and the object we are attempting to reality test is gone? We are stuck "holding" the perception... and the accumulation of these held perceptions becomes the specific definitions of "world" and "self". This "holding" is physical not psychical thus the body is important in allowing these perceptions to be literally "let go" and is felt in the body as simply "resistance". We then believe these perceptions to be "self" and then begin to defend it (because it is critically important to our conscious awareness) which keeps us in an never ending test loop from 1-3. Thus the importance of not defending the self, going to confessional, destroying the ego etc, becomes our means of growing into greater awareness - and I believe that there is a constant momentum naturally towards this - however until the "self" is distinguished as an object with in perception (or a perception) then we continue to stay in this test loop. And "suffering" is the result of working in opposition to this natural momentum. The information which we have collected through raw awareness which does not have or has not been assigned a context or meaning then floats around in awareness, but not with in conscious awareness and thus exerts a pressure onto conscious awareness (or felt as the pressure which we are resisting and suffering). And this information which has no context in conscious awareness is the unconscious or subconscious (as per its definition). Here is a completely different thought. Just as there is the idea of an collective unconscious - of which our subconscious is an individuality which lives within this collective - perhaps "self" is the individuality which lives within a collective consciousness where we experience the collective as cold hard objects like the ground, or the walls of our room... (sorry for the length and the spelling). ..edited to add. So meditation on emptiness is not the practice of creating a contentless mind - or even a mind that is not thinking.(as thinking is yet just another object with in the field of awareness). It is the practice of being conscious of objects within awareness without the context/meaning layed over top of it - and this is achieved be letting go - surrendering - intentional effort applied to observation and letting go - surrendering - resistance to what is being observed. The end realization is; "self" is consciousness which can only be experienced in present moment observation free of resistance and intentionality.

...

...more please, sir. :-)

Dude... you know how to live!