unmike

While I understand why some of what he says is quite difficult to grasp, especially for someone typically more oriented to the Taoist, practical view versus the Buddhist, stuffy seeming one, he's quite right about the way dependent origination is the lens through which to view the Buddha's words on these matters. This is almost entirely impossible without first having had a direct experience of dependent origination. Intellectual grasping will always be simply that. It took an accidental, Chia fueled tantric fling for me to really feel it, not just "know" it. Your mileage may vary. As for learning to perceive the awareness outside of what people traditionally call their "self" or "ego", the best advice I've ever found comes from the Vipassana tradition. Connecting your every experience to the subtle emotional effects and anchoring to the breath will do wonders for your illusions about selves and the way people live!

Similarly to this view, I'd like to posit another choice: I believe it works, but only in that it is a tiny, warped picture of the mechanism. They hit on some gold, certainly, but their elaboration of the process is juvenile and misleading. Besides, it speaks nothing to the morality behind the actions one takes and makes. When the head and heart are not in the right place, this power still functions, but its outcomes are less than wholesome.

Seconded! Would love to see what the marblemaster wrought.

I'm headed to the Indiana workshop in a few days. That work?

Candida is actually a necessary bacteria in the blood that only gets out of hand when sugar isn't transported out of the bloodstream quickly enough. This happens when the sugar molecules, bloodstream walls, and everything else is coated with a layer of fat that prevents sugar from getting out, blocks insulin receptors, and the normal sized colonies suddenly get out of control. You may consider trying a raw, fruit and sprout heavy diet, especially one low in fats, as this will likely ease the issue, help with your digestion (these are the easiest things on your digestive tract as well as being cheap, simple, and raw so that you get the enzymatic benefits, as well), and probably affect your mood positively. A positive outlook and some measure of progress will do wonders for your state, no matter what the ill. Keep us posted!

Some of us Angelenos have already skipped time zone. You guys mind snagging me on your way through Iowa? I promise to help you dispose of your greens properly. =D

Cholesterol is a necessary functional chemical in your body, assisting with all sorts of enzymatic reactions. It's a massively useful helper molecule, despite the demonization western medicine has given it. Your levels of it, however, are a function of genetic factors, yes, but moreso of dietary ones. Many foods with the right kind of mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated fats will help to increase levels of LDL and decrease HDL, while keeping your overall cholesterol levels healthy and low. Sad to say, but the Standard American Diet is completely to blame. Eat to heal, don't supplement to stave off.

Hi, all! Planning to attend the Indiana event and staying through the medical qigong portion on Monday, and wondering if any other bums are looking to split room costs. I promise I don't bite (unless requested). So excited to finally get to meet some other bums and fellow practitioners!

The only scalar technology I've ever played with resides in my torso.

Solidarity! As for the issue at hand, vicodon't affects more than just the pain channels it's supposed to, and its efficacy suffers in the long term. Weaning is difficult. Synthetic. Blah blah... Marijuana is natural (unless you live in California...) and affects things more varied than the simple pain mechanism. It relaxes and eases tension, especially emotionally, when compared to vicodin, which can precipitate edginess and impatience.

That's what gong is all about! Our DNA is in a dynamic relationship with our environment, behaviors, and other life patterns that influence the way it expresses. Changing any one or combination of these factors results in new and varied things being coded for. Two weeks of eating something and your body starts making those metabolic pathways more solid at the expense of certain other, less frequently utilized ones. We play with our sleep cycles similarly, affecting things as varied as melatonin regulation and dream content. Beyond that, we do relaxation and breathing exercises to calm the cortisol and adrenal responses, paving the properly alkaline environment for certain other genes to come into subtle alignment. The nature versus nurture argument is and always has been off the mark, assuming a false dichotomy when really it's a complex unfolding feedback loop in a dynamic dance between the two. Naturture!

It's all about signal, in both placebo and homeopathy cases. When someone is healthy and things are functioning normally, the cells are all sending normalized, homeostatic signals to each other, not just through the nerve network, but via hormones, and weak level UV light (biophotons). When injured or out of balance, they send out signals similarly out of wack. Many times, the best treatment can be to restore proper signal and signal flow, that the body will re-normalize, instead of focusing on how things are broken and hopeless. Modern researchers like Masaru Emoto have shown that water is an amazing signal carrier molecule. Homeopathy functions under the principle of taking an effective treatment for something and diluting it so drastically that literally nothing is retained from the original, save the positive signal. Placebos elicit a similar, but twofold approach: first, they give the recipient tangible "medicine", thereby relaxing them, removing stress, and allowing all systems to function more effectively, including those that repair; second, they allow the patient to "cheat" the positive signal. We are such amazing machines!

www.erowid.org Your go-to resource for chemical queries.

This is something that crops up occasionally, regardless of our age. It happens when we act in a way untrue to ourselves, whether for a single moment or for an entire life. Regret is the outcome, and far reaching effects distract us from our now, and from important, if a bit nonlinear truths: We live, die, exist, or don't right now so being upset and wishing for a different past denies our present, despite any positives it may hold at the moment or within the futures it carries. Abandonment of those potential successes dooms us to a downward spiraling languish very difficult to escape. Instead, recall the story of the man who found a wild tempered horse that broke his son's leg and saved his life. We never know what will happen next, so we must learn to treasure every experience for what it can teach us, though at the time it may be impossible to see the lessons and possibilities it contains for us until much time has passed. In my case, I am learning to relinquish my attachment to the naive ideas of what perfect and real love would be like, generated through a lifetime of hopeless romanticism. My love is a mandala all her own, the dimensions of her being that have taken me beyond the ordinary (and already blessed) life I'd lived before her presence blur the line between reality and unbelievable fiction of questionable caliber, and synchronicities abound. The person closest to you is the one who can affect you the most, and in my case, the way she feels and acts often play upon my insecurities unintentionally as she is simply being true to herself. Tricky is finding a balance between accepting her for who she is (because that person has helped me blossom more than any before) and knowing when to ask her to alter her behaviors for my sake. I struggle with regret over a plethora of things because the words or interactions didn't conform to the plans and notions I'd had from earlier in our journey together. In the end, none of them matter because I could not be who I am or where I'm going any other way than this. At least the fact is familiar, I've lived it before her, and I know I can again. More intense emotions and energies, higher difficulties, greater challenges...Harder, yes, but the rewards are equally outrageous. Why not be a cowboy now?

Learn as much as you can about whatever substance(s) you decide to put into your body, and if you do go far enough to try them, start slowly! The powers of the mind and those chemicals which alter its function are profound. Caution is advised for all fellow psychonauts, because the only guidebook to your innerself is your outer one. Keep in mind that the various psychoactive compounds in common use today have wildly different effects, and one must pick the poison they are most suited to. Positive experiences are possible with all of them from LSD and psylocibin to ketamine to MDMA to accidental endogenous DMT flushes to salvia divinorum. Each of those does different things, brings forth characteristic emotional and physical responses, and carries with it a host of qualities the others do not. Salvia especially is tricky for its tremendous amounts of fear and rapid onset, coupled with an enormous intensity despite its brief duration. Some are entirely synthetic, like LSD (not necessarily worse for such, simply a quality it possesses). Some are completely natural. DMT, for example, is able to be smoked, injected, or imbibed via ayuhuasca, or triggered through high level Microcosmic Orbit practices (accidentally, as in my case). With all of them, care and cautious sensitivity to yourself are necessary, though its impossible to relate to someone what tripping is like before they've had a chance to experience it themselves. This means a positive environment and trustworthy companion(s) are of utmost importance. Beyond that, small dosages are best, because the multifarious effects of said substances are often difficult to deal with, and experience at lower intensities can help ease one into the skills necessary for dealing with a total world meltdown. All of this said, these substances are only that. The results, whether positive or negative, lie entirely within your responses to their actions. They can be a great trap for many, and the lure of a quick, easy enlightening is large. Ultimately, though, their capacity for good is equally huge. Happy travels and good luck!

The Vipassana tradition of S.N. Goenka has some pretty excellent advice for this precise question. The article is worth serious contemplation and multiple read-throughs. Lucid, simple, and well supported, my own practice draws largely and successfully from the advice contained within, though I originally came across this information through the book Beyond the Breath, written by a student of this lineage. Long story short, we vacillate between the polar extremes of repression and inability to express our emotions properly and the opposite problem of expressing them in unhealthy ways or inappropriate times. There is, however, a happy, measured middle way. We can learn to let go of our ill attachments to unfair expectations in the moment to moment bustle of our days. This frees us from the two issues above, letting us experience whatever we happen to experience physically and emotionally, without the added suffering our expectations and clinging breeds. Key to unlocking our hearts lies in the tangible link between our emotional state and breathing patterns. Once agitated and sundered from the present moment by some disturbance or other, our breathing halts or disengages from its likewise calm. At the same time, some sort of sensation grips our body. These are the clues we utilize to keep ourselves on track when we falter through anger, excitement, or otherwise. The result of all this tracking and relaxing is a conscious letting go process that, strangely, detaches us from the normal effects we experience from each of the goings-on of our days while somehow allowing us to experience things more clearly, fully, and without undue stress. Aloofness affords us the ironic advantage of better vantage to our reactions and actual feelings. No repression. No lashing out. Serenity. Stillness. Void. Has anyone here ever done a retreat from this tradition? I've been debating doing one for some time now, and looking to refresh my practice. edited for spelling issues

I do! I do! As far as the proper way to stretch and tear the fibers goes, a few tricks are required. Firstly, you MUST be adequately hydrated. This keeps the tissues properly lubricated and keeps them from breaking in the wrong places. Secondly, the warmer they are, the better, as the viscosity begins to resemble a gel or jelly more than stretchy fibers acting in concert. Hatha yoga takes massive advantage of this and derives similarly massive benefit. Thirdly, and very importantly, the proper stretching is very slow, very relaxed, mediated by deep and slow breathing before/throughout/after (to keep the body properly alkaline an environment so the tissues will break and heal properly and timely), and always in a direction of stretching along the meridial axis instead of oblique to it or even a compression of it. Compression breaks WILL NOT yield the piezoelectric charge that stymies the osteoclasts NOR encourages new fiber production, but will require your body to expend energy to deal with your broken bits in a lose-lose "what am I doing to myself microscopically?!" bad person shame necessitating kind of way. To sum: LUBE, HEAT, and GENTLE/SLOW/PROPERLY EXPANSIVE STRETCHING = build your meridians like a champ Spring Forest Qigong advocates a fun and simple warmup practice of feet flat on the floor, gentle, knees-bent bouncing for a few minutes that actually helps to subtly stretch your main front and back lines, followed by a few minutes of the same while slowly twisting your torso back and forth to stimulate the spiral lines. Super simple. Super quick (5 minutes will do you wonders, especially barefoot outdoors). Worth it and a half. What begs more research is the relationship of stretching NOT enough to tear the fibers for building up, but simply to take these charged fibers and warp them during the movement (via stretching and even simply deep breathing). This, from my own admittedly elementary understanding, creates a dipole, generating an electrical/magnetic field made stronger with each fiber recruited in such a way. A thread to follow sometime later this weekend about unity (free energy) devices, will hopefully begin to demonstrate that the human body is the most readily available and easily utilized version thereof. As well, I am deeply interested in the functionality of dynamos and what they bode for these concepts. tl;dr: electrical circuit created by the body's meridian system among other things = cheating at the universe edited for typo D:

Further reading and science on the subject can be found at the Anatomy Trains website, for starters. A search hereabouts for biophotons/piezoelectricity will also net you fun results, as well. The meridians are the leaping off point for understanding why yoga and qigong are so effective, when done properly. Stretching them in such a fashion as to shear the fibers neatly, in the way they were designed to, creates a tiny charge on each one, signaling the osteoclasts who come along to clean up NOT to cannibalize them. They are repaired, fortified, and multiplied by the osteoblasts that follow. Done daily for a length of time, the collagen fibers grow thick and numerous, creating a dense electrical net not unlike a capacitor. In your abdomen, where these paths all link and cross, the fibers don't run in a single direction - instead they run in multiple ones, densely packed together and interwoven. This battery is useful for doing all sorts of fun things from transmuting your sex hormones to Jon Chang style parlor tricks.

Only allows those of us with UCSC accounts to read, I believe. Alas... Must credit Watts with transitioning me from West to East so seamlessly that it couldn't have gone better any other way. I owe the man a tremendous debt, for his work was the initial impetus for my life toward the bodhicitta.

In my recent studies, I've had the exact same issue. If anyone could illuminate the issue for us, that would be massively appreciated!

Saturday morning, hustling across town to assist my lady's father with some business matters, I managed to eat serious pavement and snapped my right collar bone. The break separated severely, and the doctor fitted me with a brace that helps pull my shoulders back and down. She said that angle lets my pectoralis reincorporate my snapped collar bone. I'm bummed about the lack of physical activity, as well as my main method of transportation being denied to me. As with all things, the trick is seeing the lessons the Tao is trying to edge your way. This time "off" should afford me extra hours of meditation (which have been sorely lacking) and tons of walking. What I'm curious about is anyone's experience with broken collar bones, how that affected their practice, and what I can do to make sure my healing goes smoothly. Are there certain foods/supplements I could ingest that promote bone health/healing? I'm already vegetarian and considering eating fairly raw during my healing (I know that not forcing enzyme production is a major way raw eating helps to tax the body less). Sometime over the next few days, I'll be going over my SFQ level 1 materials with my lady so she can help that way, too. Anybody have any other pointers or feedback?

Like you, I have an interest in nei gong and healing, but like Surfingbudda, I currently live in Los Angeles, and would like to support bringing Ya Mu to LA this summer for a workshop. He seems almost too good to be true. Please check his page and website out, and give his book and system a try if you resonate with him.

As a neutral, disinterested third party, I think goldisheavy is being criticized a bit unfairly (though I haven't read every single post of his in all other threads, admittedly). He is trying to convince people to have open discussion and perhaps further our understandings. Alwayson, I'm happy with this thread, but your gross oversimplification is, at best highly misleading, and you either know this or really ought to. gTummo requires, from my readings, far more than what you say it calls for. There are a series of progressive visualizations, eventually culminating with imagining a shell of tiny, angry, red-faced demons becoming a literal suit of armor over your skin. Even so, without any guidance or training in the area, how can a gTummo layperson such as yourself hope to understand the subtle mechanisms at work? Of course you don't believe. You've no experience with it.

So much great reading lately! Thanks for the links, and may the force be with you.

Spring Forest Qigong level 1 suggests urinating within 30 minutes of completing your qigong does risk you losing some qi. Apparently you can help by clinching toes and lifting your heels. This activates the six leg meridians.