ion

That's why, in the U.S., some cities have Ecstatic Dance venues.

 

And Ecstatic Dance retreats --

 

I used to live in a little shack off grid on the big island. On the dirt/lava rd. that ran paralel to mine there was a place that held ecstatic dance over at my neighbors place. Not that place in Kalani though it was in Kalapana.

My place was tucked way back in the woods and the road was over grown but everyonce in a while Id get these people popping out of the jungle wandering up to my shack looking for the party because they forgot to turn. They used to startle the hell out of me.

Some more on natural farming techniques. This is a little about the live stock care, and I do not have any experience in this area, I hope to gain some soon. I have seen a natural farm piggery in Hawaii and spoken with people who have more knowledge then me about them.

Natural farm live stock are said to be healthier and happier then most live stock because they live they live a more natural, stress free life. From what I saw, the pigs were very healthy, mellow and quiet; not squealing, uneasy, pacing or always hungry for food. The piggery itself was stench free which is in accordance with the claim that its livestockeries are emission free.

Again, the main factor here is in the application of IMO's (indigenoud micro-organisms. And also what we've touched on here a little in discussing humanure.

Natural farms construct the animal housing by building a two foot high square encasing. Like if you drove some steaks in the shape of a square and then put up some strips of alluminum siding for the casing walls.

A housing is built on top with a roof designed to allow a certain ammount of light in to keep it natural and comfetable, but also ensures that by the end of each day direct sunlight makes contact with every square inch of the bedding floor.

Once the housing and roof ar built, the two foot high casing is filled with certain materiels and innoculated with IMO until it becomes a two foot deep animal bedding. First stripped deciduous sapplings are layed down in the square with IMO and sawdust wood chips. layers of wood chips sawdust and bio cahar with IMO fill the sqauare.

This giant slab of organic matter becomes fully colonized with IMO and is a living community that by way of its activity generates heat, a phenomenon known as thermal genesis. It also acts like a forest floor. Animal waiste like urine, spilled and lost food and excrement become food for the bedding and keep it allive. The thriving microbial community makes quick work of the animal waiste. They do not require cleaning which is a bummer for you if you like to use chicken waiste as a fertilizer. You can occaisionaly remove the animal waiste and use it actually, but the whole thing is more effective and functions better if you dont clean it.

The waiste helps the beding generate heat via thermal genesis. This will keep animals and poultry warm at night and in the colder months, and along with the sun, keep the temps just right and comfetable during the day.

Incedently the IMO will also keep the rootzones of plants a few degrees warmer. In the summer this is good because mulching is good, except that it cools the rootzone down. Mulching keeps the roots warmer in the middle so with IMO and mulch, the roots are warmed year round, or until it gets way too cold, but it can help extend the grow season by thermal genesis, plus by streangthening the plant.

When the animal poops on the natural bedding, its immidiately colonized. Do to propper decomposition, methane gas wont be produced and no resulting stench. All the runoff will become food for fungi and bacteria immediately and broken down into component parts and used for growth of the fungi. Just below the excrement, masses of mycelium will form feeding of its nutrients, as the excrement breaks down it will become completely engulfed by mycelium. Mycelial matts like this become food for poultry and pigs. After the stuff is completely broken down and converted into mycelial tissue and a bundle of fiber.

Also, because of their diets the animals have healthier digestive systems andd their intestined are reportedly, notably longer by several inches. Chickens arent fed crushed seed with antibiotics. They are given whole rice from the time they are chicks, green grass and have lactic acid bacteria and fermented plant juice incorparate into their diets, that along with the microorganisms, grubs and insects provided by their bedding help supplement regular feeing and keep their diet natural.

Pigs get a lot of protein in the natural wild and that is what their bodies have evolved to require. A freind of mine in Hawaii who hunts can tell pigs whove grown up with a lot of fruit/high sugar diets by living around and feedding off of suff on the ground in farmed areas, and a pig that his lived in more natural environments where there arent many fruit trees by looking at their organs. He says the more natural protien fed pigs are healthier and tend to taiste better.

Pigs root around the ground and for the most part feed on grubs and fungi. Iusually on farms their givven sugary starchy high carb feeds to fatten them up. They dont generally ge fed maggots worms and grubs or fungus, not directly and there is not much place for them to forage it out.

In the natural farming piggeries they munch on decomposing wood chips and saw dust, wads of mycelium and since flies lay eggs in the mycelium and other critters too, the pigs and chickens munch through out the day which also keeps the thing from becoming a mess of flies.

Occasionaly another layer of bedding needs to be applied. Probably needs to be watered at that point as well.

Generally, live stock are over fed but because of what they are fed they do not have strong digestive systems so they need to be fed more. The feed passes through the systems partially digested which leaves a rotting mess of anerobicly decomposing undigested poteines converting into amines givving off smells like cadavarine, and putricine. By having healtheier stronger digestive systems and incorporating pro-biotics, natural farmed live stock require less feed because it is thouroughly digested. It also has less natural stench and because of the imo floor it decomposes rapidly without givving off methane.

Less feed, plus supplementing their diets with fresh cut grass along with the grubs and bugs and the mycelium infeste wood keeps the animals stress free, comfertable and healthy.

I've partied alot in my days. I just turned 38, and I know Ill get some arguments out of this assertion, but I've been higher then all of you put togeather .

I've been in my share of cuddle puddles at 7:30 in the morning in the jungle room with a bass speaker two inches away from the back of my head more then once

But besides just getting high and partying I moved from california to new york city right when I got out of highschool and ended up working in the night club industry there for a few years, doing promotions mainly but all sorts of stuff. My job was basicly to party 5 nights out of the week, have a guest list and hand out drink tickets. Some of the places were pretty wild, trapeze acts half pipes on the dance floor, all sorts of charecters.

W had a party at my apartment one night with all sorts of people,showing up among was a group of people that were all aquaintances, they were these club kids that had gained some fame in the club scene and noteriety on talk shows like Geraldo, one of them was one of our drug dealer freinds; A few weeks later one of those guys (the dealer dude)got murdered by a couuple of the other guys and a couple years later they made a movie out of it where Mucaulay Culkin played Michael Alig, the guy who murdered the guy.

Right around that time the new york club scene had recieved a major blow when Giuliani bacame mayor and the DEA started raiding all the major clubs which were all owned by one dude, Peter Gatian who was selling all kinds of drugs through all the clubs I worked at.

When I was about 24 I moved back to California and became a little more down to earth but was still very much in to drugs and psychedelics. I started getting involved in drug manufacture synthesising GHB, and extracting compounds from plants, like DMT, mescaline, and growing massive ammounts of psychedelic mushrooms and growing ganja, but in all this I was getting out of partying and was beginignt ot use drugs more a s a tool, as a psyche-naut. At this point Im pretty bored with them all, lost interest. Watched people get busted using things for the wrong reasons, had helicopters swoop down on me which gave me pts syndrome and the only reason I ever got anything out of it was because of who I am anyway.

The most life changing and life altering experiences Ive had were not drug related but brought on by my ability to see tao and know its essence, That has expanded my mind and changed my life. Where drugs linked me to the culture, the tao ostrisizes me, causing me to live on the fringes...

I think my attraction to clubs was partly because of my natural attraction to drugs, and that my natural attraction to drugs is more of a natural attraction to altered states of consciousness, and becomming egoless. The egolessness I experienced on drugs was not what I was looking for though. I think because of who I am on my path, and cognition of pastlife experiences, and that my cognition is the result of past lives in meditation, that I have an attraction to drugs because now I know, that what I was trying to achieve with drugs was meditation delivers and will deliver further., at least in my own practice.

One of the things I learned and experienced working in clubs though really shaped who I am is the social aspect I experienced, not just at the parties , but I met alot of people and formed personal relationships with them from presidents of major record labels, like ones located in rockefellar center under Time -warner, Princes/shieks from the middle east, and all kinds of major players from many industries, famous people, the people that are running the fucked up show as it is, the rich, the powerful; I learned alot about tao. About how everybody uses it or is used by it. That the people who are the least familiar with its principle are utilizing its essense the best, but that you cant truly practice it to its fullest from those positions where it is easily seen at work.

It'd be fun to hit up a good club again just for kicks but I doubt there is much IO would gain from it at this point.

Digging is unavoidable some times, but natural farming points out the importance of starting a crop from seed where it will spend its whole life. Master Cho says, and I hadve observed this prior to experiencing natural farming so I concur, that a seed has alot of natural inborn potentiel that can be lost in pots or through transplaning; its original chi.

Plants started from seed have a powerful chi, and if planted in good soil it will grow quickly sending its root outward and down deep, the plant itself will quickly shoot up branching outward and stretching upward, but if the root is at all hindered, obstructec, or bound up in anyway, the plant, though it seems normal will never return to its original vitality; it will never express that vigor that was contained chi in the seed.

If a seed is sprouted in a pot, it quickly sends out a taproot that penetrates quite deep, the second the finest hair extending from the tap root toches the bottom of the pot its original vitality is hindered, the second any lateral roots find the perimeter its vitality is lost, so it is important to plant seeds on site with plenty of space around them, way more then youd think, and in good natural soil.

The vitality of original chi can also be lost if there are too many nutrients in the soil the seed is planted in. If it begins to uptake nutrients, it does not rely on the vitality of the seeds chi. Its growth will become a reaction to the chemical environment. So the seed is planted on prepared natural soil, once the seedling is forming real leaves picking up a naturlal momentum in photosynthesis and requires certain chemicals in surplus that is when water soluble calcium is adde, because the plant which is grown by chi and has developed inner streangth not dependent on the chemical environment can handle and benifit from a surplus of calcium during that stage, and the presence of the chemical will not alter the growth of the pllant in an un natural way.

But digging is unavoidable and at times required, so when it is one its done minamly. There are other methods besides using card board too. You can just chop down and lay the weeds on their sides, and or pile dirt over the choppe weeds or pile mulch. Gardens over run with weeds have sindly plants stretching and competing for air and light. This does not necessarily meen the weeds need pulling. Chop them down to the roots and use their bodies as mulch. Once the remaining plants have air all around them and begin to recieve the extra light, they will fill out fine and the roots of the dead weeds will decompose.

There is 1 method of tilling use in NF, where 1 or two centimeters of soil are tilled up, because one of the negative sides to tilling is it inevidably causes gazillions of weed seeds to sprout so many that it becomes unnaturaly thick with weeds, so we take advantage of that and till up a centimeter.

This causes the seeds to sprout, they are let to grow until they flower but before they go to seed, and the centimeter or two is again tilled killing all the weeds before they go to seed.

If you dont or cant have earthworms in your area, that is ok. Old roots and any and all of the other soil creatures will still aerorate your soil. Microrganisms aerorate soggy wt anerobic soils all the time. Natural farmers cultivate lactic acid bacteria and use it extensively through out the life cycle of a plant and in soil preperation, feeding live stock and people. Lacobacteria create hummus and aerorate anerobic soils, conditioning them for fungi to flourish which alone can prepare and aerorate the soil to perfection as far as roots are concerned.

Earthworms are exotic species were I live as they were killed off by the glaciers - so they are invasive. They also will eat seeds, etc.

 

So I take the earthworms out of my compost.

 

I don't till the beds of compost once I make the beds.

 

I rely on humanure for my compost source - I visited the most traditional Berber village in Morocco where humanure compost was the main way to grow all the plant food sources for the village for thousands of years.

 

So for $20 I can grow $1000 worth of food - retail price for organic. Of course I would never try to sell humanure-grown food - probably illegal. haha.

 

But Taoist wise - the sublimation and purification of manure and the lower emotions -- Mantak Chia calls this composting of the energy. So Mantak Chia makes the direct gardening reference to the energy cycling.

 

Yeah I don't rely on my garden as my main food source but it definitely saves me money - and also humanure saves money by not flushing the toilet - so you don't need to try to clean the sewage water and you don't need the electricity to flush.

 

So I just make sure it has composted a couple months at least.

 

Yeah Ion - sounds like you're a real expert! I was wondering what to do with my shells - since they are in my compost and garden but obviously did not break down .. turning them into calcium acetate is a brilliant idea.

 

I also just weed the beds but not around the beds and so then just cut down the growth and I figure that adds to the nitrogen source also.

 

But yeah I had a bumper crop last year as we had the earliest spring for Minnesota but this year was the latest spring! haha.

 

Still I put in more beds - I did dig out the grass for the beds but save the soil which is pretty much clay - and so then add in forest soil which I just haul in.

 

So anyway I love watching the bees pollinate - was concerned as we had a bee hive last year but it disappeared in the fall - not sure what happened. But some bees have shown up - I grew nasturiums -- and anyway last year I had hummingbirds in the garden all the time but with the snow we had in May - it scared off a lot of the tropical song birds. Just had a hummingbird show up around the house the past few days so maybe it will be in the garden.

Im stoked to hear you are using humanure. Its the obvious course for what we will have to do with our waiste and something Id like to try using. Master cho has a method for decomposing human waiste quickly where it is rendered harmless and perfectly safe to use on food crops.

Its pretty simple and involves innoculating with yeasts & lactic acid bacteria, letting it ferment, then adding IMO and allowing the imos to thouroughly convert everything.

I grew a crop of tobacco last year, 72 full sized plants over head in height each using up about 3 to 4 feet space around them for the bottom leaves. They were grown using natural farming practiced.. During the growth stage they were givven urine as their main nitrogen source, along with snail emulsion made from all the snails in the garden.

Yea, no till farming exists, and has been used a little here and there for grain fields and hay farms a bit, and a little bit with perennial plants and trees/vines like an apple orchard or a vineyard but orchards and vineyards that are left untilled, often began in tilled soi.l Generally the annuals grown on organic farms are grown in tilled soil, Whether or not crop rotation is practiced, or greenmanure/covercrops are used, they are generally tilled in with or without other fertilizers and ammendments. The natural farming guys have not only headwayed the concept decaes ago, but have taken it to all toogeather deeper places and higher levels.

In permaculture sheet mulching with cardboard and layering to build top soil instead of tilling is gaining more popularity, but they still like there tractors, and all though they do produce their own resources (per the definition of permaculture), they are not necessarily applying them in a natural way, or following the plants nutritive cycle.

Furthermore, permaculturists and organic farmers still use pesticides, organic though they may be, in natural farming there is a strict policy against the use of any pesticide, but other measures are taken, most importantly a stromg healthy plant in healthy soil in a balanced environment. They are not needed if those needs are met so thats what we do, plus use traps and attractants to detour any insects.

Hardly any one that is using bio-dynamic practices is using indigenous micro-organisms. They are generally buyng laboratory grown microorganisms, which are foreign to the environment they are being added to which is an imbalance and requires more applications. Using laborotory cultures, or any foreign cultures at all will never lead to an established forest like network in the grow area, and if the foreign species did, then it would be an invasive species which would caue a major imbalance.

In bio-dynamic farming with foreign organisms/bought product, it may have the effect of a plant food; a short lived effect ue to the enzymes and compounds contained in the solution, but the organisms will likely fail. With IMO's several years, virtual eons of topsoil growth and soilecological development can be the effect in a relatively short period of time, because the IMO's will establish themselves and form the microbial network of a developed woodland.

Thats some of what sets natural farming apart from organic farming or even regular permaculture, which is a much more organized and cyclic then organic farming which is just an organic mimic of old school farms and corporate farms.

Again, most cover crops are then tilled in, which in every way is contrary to naural topsoil and ecological development, and thus contrary to the philosophy of nature farming.

People who have not seen IMO in action will never under stand why its different then the stuff in their compost, or the mycorhizal stuff in their potting soil, or how its different then mulching.

IMO is an entire microbial community which has spent 1,000's of years adjusting to the subtlist of nuances in climatic features, and thrive best in the chemical and biological atmosphere. Not only are they adjusted to the environment, but they are also adjusted to eachother and any other microorganisms and various creatures of that environment.

IMO is not just a fungi, it is several fungus, yeasts, actinobacteria, lactic acid bacteia, & and many other microscopic or single celled organisms. As long as it has a nutrition source, moisture, and is out of direct sunlight and wind at least most of the time, these organisms will not die, but live and grow in your environment. If they begin to dry up or run out of nutrients they will go dormant untill it becomes moist, and by then there will be more nutrients.

IMO is collected, and then the culture is expanded on a massive level. You end up with a huge pile of glowing white fuzz that smells like a pizzaria or bakery and a box of crushed mushrooms, with a hint of ripening apples, then you double its mass on the same type of substrate. The pile of fuzz gets to be over 130F in the center and has to be turned regularly, and while it is thriving it is mixed with 1 part soil from the near by wilderness full of its microorganisms etc, and 1 part soil from the grow site which togeather equal the mass of IMO, and the three are mixed together. The IMO using its substrate as a nutrient source has the streanght and ability to thouroughly permeate and colonize the soil mix which not only results in the IMOs developing the enzymes to break down the components of those soils, but it gives them the chance to adjust to the microbial communities of the soils and so it develops the anti-biotics and compounds required to settle into the growing environment flawlessly.

And again, the IMO has absolutely no trouble setting into the soil and becomming firmly established. Only then can the mycelial network begin to establish itself.

The inputs made and used in naturall farming like FPJ, FAA, and even the calcium are both for the plant, and for the micro-organisms. I give my soil fermented ripe fruit, and fermented potatoes with sugartowrds the end of the plants life cycle. this is to maintain a healthy thriving microbial community in the soil and will all become hummus and contribute to the network wich in turn feeds the plant what it needs.

Modern farmers dont know plenty about soil, thats why most, even permaculture and organic farmers still till soil.

 

I'm interested in organic and natural ways of gardening, but this guy sounds like a quack.

I quote:

"Before the end of the war, when I went up to the citrus orchard to

practice what I then thought was natural farming, I did no pruning and

left the orchard to itself. The branches became tangled, the trees were

attacked by insects and almost two acres of mandarin orange trees

withered and died. From that time on the question, "What is the natural

pattern?" was always in my mind. In the process of arriving at the

answer, I wiped out another 400 trees. Finally I felt I could say with

certainty: "This is the natural pattern."

Is he saying he used his method of no pruning and wiped out 2 acres of mandarin trees (at a time when Japanese were starving?). Then wiped out another 400 trees! WTF how did he survive the lynch mobs? His theory if you expose children to music they won't be able to hear or appreciate birds singing or ponds gurgling is ridiculously over the top. I'd want to see evidence in pounds per acre that he knows what he's talking about.

Some of his ideas are good. Certainly no-til farming has been evolving since the 1940's and been gaining hugely in modern farms in recent decades. We're also seeing more farming w/ fewer 'rows'.

He may be thinking about old generations, but modern farmers know quite a bit about soil. If he thinks otherwise he's 30 years behind. All I can say is, talk to a farmer, you can find them at any farmers market, they're way more savvy then you think. Note, imo the suggestion they think soil is 'dirt' will be taken as a lunatic insult.

I'm a very lazy gardener, I don't trellis my cherry tomatoes, peppers or cucumbers. And I pay a price for such laziness in hard to pick, rotted, and less productive veggies.

 

I'm interested in organic and natural ways of gardening, but this guy sounds like a quack.

I quote:

"Before the end of the war, when I went up to the citrus orchard to

practice what I then thought was natural farming, I did no pruning and

left the orchard to itself. The branches became tangled, the trees were

attacked by insects and almost two acres of mandarin orange trees

withered and died. From that time on the question, "What is the natural

pattern?" was always in my mind. In the process of arriving at the

answer, I wiped out another 400 trees. Finally I felt I could say with

certainty: "This is the natural pattern."

Is he saying he used his method of no pruning and wiped out 2 acres of mandarin trees (at a time when Japanese were starving?). Then wiped out another 400 trees! WTF how did he survive the lynch mobs? His theory if you expose children to music they won't be able to hear or appreciate birds singing or ponds gurgling is ridiculously over the top. I'd want to see evidence in pounds per acre that he knows what he's talking about.

Some of his ideas are good. Certainly no-til farming has been evolving since the 1940's and been gaining hugely in modern farms in recent decades. We're also seeing more farming w/ fewer 'rows'.

He may be thinking about old generations, but modern farmers know quite a bit about soil. If he thinks otherwise he's 30 years behind. All I can say is, talk to a farmer, you can find them at any farmers market, they're way more savvy then you think. Note, imo the suggestion they think soil is 'dirt' will be taken as a lunatic insult.

I'm a very lazy gardener, I don't trellis my cherry tomatoes, peppers or cucumbers. And I pay a price for such laziness in hard to pick, rotted, and less productive veggies.

 

I'm interested in organic and natural ways of gardening, but this guy sounds like a quack.

I quote:

"Before the end of the war, when I went up to the citrus orchard to

practice what I then thought was natural farming, I did no pruning and

left the orchard to itself. The branches became tangled, the trees were

attacked by insects and almost two acres of mandarin orange trees

withered and died. From that time on the question, "What is the natural

pattern?" was always in my mind. In the process of arriving at the

answer, I wiped out another 400 trees. Finally I felt I could say with

certainty: "This is the natural pattern."

Is he saying he used his method of no pruning and wiped out 2 acres of mandarin trees (at a time when Japanese were starving?). Then wiped out another 400 trees! WTF how did he survive the lynch mobs? His theory if you expose children to music they won't be able to hear or appreciate birds singing or ponds gurgling is ridiculously over the top. I'd want to see evidence in pounds per acre that he knows what he's talking about.

Some of his ideas are good. Certainly no-til farming has been evolving since the 1940's and been gaining hugely in modern farms in recent decades. We're also seeing more farming w/ fewer 'rows'.

He may be thinking about old generations, but modern farmers know quite a bit about soil. If he thinks otherwise he's 30 years behind. All I can say is, talk to a farmer, you can find them at any farmers market, they're way more savvy then you think. Note, imo the suggestion they think soil is 'dirt' will be taken as a lunatic insult.

I'm a very lazy gardener, I don't trellis my cherry tomatoes, peppers or cucumbers. And I pay a price for such laziness in hard to pick, rotted, and less productive veggies.

 

I'm interested in organic and natural ways of gardening, but this guy sounds like a quack.

I quote:

"Before the end of the war, when I went up to the citrus orchard to

practice what I then thought was natural farming, I did no pruning and

left the orchard to itself. The branches became tangled, the trees were

attacked by insects and almost two acres of mandarin orange trees

withered and died. From that time on the question, "What is the natural

pattern?" was always in my mind. In the process of arriving at the

answer, I wiped out another 400 trees. Finally I felt I could say with

certainty: "This is the natural pattern."

Is he saying he used his method of no pruning and wiped out 2 acres of mandarin trees (at a time when Japanese were starving?). Then wiped out another 400 trees! WTF how did he survive the lynch mobs? His theory if you expose children to music they won't be able to hear or appreciate birds singing or ponds gurgling is ridiculously over the top. I'd want to see evidence in pounds per acre that he knows what he's talking about.

Some of his ideas are good. Certainly no-til farming has been evolving since the 1940's and been gaining hugely in modern farms in recent decades. We're also seeing more farming w/ fewer 'rows'.

He may be thinking about old generations, but modern farmers know quite a bit about soil. If he thinks otherwise he's 30 years behind. All I can say is, talk to a farmer, you can find them at any farmers market, they're way more savvy then you think. Note, imo the suggestion they think soil is 'dirt' will be taken as a lunatic insult.

I'm a very lazy gardener, I don't trellis my cherry tomatoes, peppers or cucumbers. And I pay a price for such laziness in hard to pick, rotted, and less productive veggies.

 

I'm interested in organic and natural ways of gardening, but this guy sounds like a quack.

I quote:

"Before the end of the war, when I went up to the citrus orchard to

practice what I then thought was natural farming, I did no pruning and

left the orchard to itself. The branches became tangled, the trees were

attacked by insects and almost two acres of mandarin orange trees

withered and died. From that time on the question, "What is the natural

pattern?" was always in my mind. In the process of arriving at the

answer, I wiped out another 400 trees. Finally I felt I could say with

certainty: "This is the natural pattern."

Is he saying he used his method of no pruning and wiped out 2 acres of mandarin trees (at a time when Japanese were starving?). Then wiped out another 400 trees! WTF how did he survive the lynch mobs? His theory if you expose children to music they won't be able to hear or appreciate birds singing or ponds gurgling is ridiculously over the top. I'd want to see evidence in pounds per acre that he knows what he's talking about.

Some of his ideas are good. Certainly no-til farming has been evolving since the 1940's and been gaining hugely in modern farms in recent decades. We're also seeing more farming w/ fewer 'rows'.

He may be thinking about old generations, but modern farmers know quite a bit about soil. If he thinks otherwise he's 30 years behind. All I can say is, talk to a farmer, you can find them at any farmers market, they're way more savvy then you think. Note, imo the suggestion they think soil is 'dirt' will be taken as a lunatic insult.

I'm a very lazy gardener, I don't trellis my cherry tomatoes, peppers or cucumbers. And I pay a price for such laziness in hard to pick, rotted, and less productive veggies.

What he is saying there about the orange trees is that like all other trees, if you never prune them to begin with, you wont have to maintain them ever again and they wont turn into a tangled mess that promotes disease, that you could even go away to war and when you came back your trees would be healthy.

Conversely, the moment you remove one bud from the tree you have to dedicatedly spend time and money yearly to mantain its state, and if you dont it will turn into a total mess requiring masses of wok and becomes susceptible to disease.

The natural aproach would be to never prune, not once, there fore yo dont have too. Once the trees are a few years old they are producing just as much fruit as if they were pruned.

The fruits can still be thinned and plant foods can be made out of the thinned fruits.

Similar to permaculture?

Yea, it is a form of organic farming and permaculture, but using nature as the model, following the nutritive cycle which means only applying nutrients per the stage of the plants life cycle rather then using a base fertilizer at the time of planting wdhich creates an imbalance. Plants have different nutrient requirements depending on how old they are, and what stage they are in. When they are very young, they need none, they have nutrients within the seed and cotyledons of the sprout that is perfectly adequate to grow into a seedling, even if there is no nutrients in the sprouting medium.

Once they grow a little older and have a few sets of real leaves and a few internode or branching sites, they can be fed. It is typical for nitrogen to start being applied to plants at this stage or even younger to promote a green lush appearence and to force the plants to begin photosynthesising more but this produced week plants susceptable to pathogenic molds, parasites and disease.

Plants at this stage have not yet fully come into being yet and should not be forced into work. Master Cho equates feeding seedlings growth fertilizers with getting drunk in the morning.

With natural farming, only home made liquid inputs are used, at the seedling stage the young plants are not given nitrogen but a water soluble calcium solution is made from ricewine vinegar and some sort of shell powder like old eggdhells or oyster shell powder. I used crushed abalone shell recently because those are easy to find on the beach where I live. The shell is pulverised, then the powder is mixed, 1 part powder to 10 parts vinegar. The acid in the vinegar reacts with the calcium and turns bubbly and foamy. Bits and pieces of dhell float to the top and sink to the botom over and over. Once the reaction stops the liquid is pouredd off and filtered. The liquid is now full of calcium acetate and can be diluted to 500 to 1000 times or 1tblspoon per gallon.

When the plant is totaly in its vegative stage we begin to apply whats called FPJ, or fermented plant juice wich is full of nutrients, phyto-chemicals, growth hormones and growth regulators. This is made from plants from the farm or from the local nature. Vegitative plants are also fed whats called FAA, or fish amino acids, similar to but different then fish emulsion.

When the plant begins to flower we give them a hommade solution of calcium phosphate made from saving bones from dinner, or finding them in a local forest. The bones are charred until they are black, then silver-greyish white. This charred bone is mixed with vinegar, 1 part charred bone to 10 parts vinegar. A reaction similar to the shell and vinegar reaction takes place, and when its over the solution is poured off, filtered and applied at the same dilution rate.

When the plant is fully flowering it is fed with a phosphoric acid solution which is made by collecting unripe sour fruits. Unripe fruits are sour because they contain high ammounts of various acids, phosphoric acid being one of the more abundant ones is what plants require to make lots of blossoms, lots of blossoms meens lotsa fruit sites.

When the plant is finishing up the fruiting stage it is given calcium again and diluted sea water at a couple of points as well.

This is the nutritive cycle and one of the things that sets natural farming practices apart from regular organic farming and regular permaculture.

Plus the no tillage rule sets us apart. Permaculture and organic farming are kind of vague and ambiguous descriptions and do not necessarily imply a natural practice.

Natural farming however is a precise methodology that strictly adheres to the laws and way of nature.

Im not sure of your situation cat, I know certain city dwellers like people in Los Angeles could certainly apply this philosophy and technology to their yards or roof top gardens, but in a New York type city it would be difficult unless you had acsess to a roof top, or some kind of actual space. Ive been using it with potted plants but the best results are when its done holisticly, and that requires some earth or a large enough raised bed, maybe 100gallon pots.

But a large part of a persons sucsess is based on soil ecology. In natural farming, the aim is to bring the soil to a natural pristine state. The soil of an old growth forest is a perfect example.

This type of soil has a massive network of mycelium and other microorganisms that delegate the nurients, recycle, circulate and distribute the nutrients. When a healthy soil ecology is in action nutrients are transported by fungi from one part of a grow site to another so that everything is being fed what they need as they need it.

Roots pick up nutrients when they are where the roots are. Fungi will transpot nutrients from remote locations to where they are lacking/being used/needed. If there is a defincy of nutrients in one area, fungi will transport it there. When a bear poops in the woods, the poop becomes colonised by forest soil microorganisms that creep up from within the arth. Once the bear poop is permeated with hyphae(fungi cells) the nutrients are at once being channeled and transported throughout the forest by the invisable network of mycelium beneath the forest. This network is actually several networks inter woven, each associating with the other in a healthy balanced way that maintains the life of a forest. Each of these networks is and has several miles of hyphae strands in every inch of soil and they span large areas equaling millions and millions of miles of underground channels where just as in a brain, information is being sent.

 

Four Principles:

The first is No Cultivation:

That is, no ploughing or turning of the soil. For centuries, farmers and gardeners have assumed that the plough is essential for growing crops. However, non-cultivation is fundamental to natural gardening and farming. The earth cultivates itself naturally by means of the penetration of plant roots and the activity of micro-organisms, small animals, and earthworms.

The second is No Chemical fertilizers:

If you give back to the earth what comes from your kitchen waste, animal waste and even your own waste products, there is no necessity for chemical fertilizers. People interfere with nature and, try as they may, they cannot heal the resulting wounds. Their careless farming practices drain the soil of essential nutrients and the result is yearly depletion of the land. If left to itself, the soil maintains its fertility naturally, in accordance with the orderly cycle of plant and animal life.

The third is No Weeding:

Weeds play their part in building soil fertility and in balancing the biological community. As a fundamental principle, weeds should be controlled, through being cut down and left where they fall, and not removed. Straw mulch, and ground cover inter-planted dense growing crops provide effective weed control.

The fourth is No Usage of Chemicals:

From the time that weak plants developed because of such unnatural practices as ploughing and fertilizing, disease and insect imbalance became a great problem in agriculture. Nature, left alone, is in perfect balance. Harmful insects and plant diseases are always present, but do not occur in nature to an extent which requires the use of poisonous chemicals. The sensible approach to disease and insect control is to grow sturdy crops in a healthy environment.

Also correct watering practices eliminate many problems as the immune system of the plants are lowered if they get shallow watering. The roots are prone to turning upwards which cause the plant to struggle and diseases get the upper hand.

Nature Does Not Change:

An object seen in isolation from the whole is not the real thing.

To the extent that people separate themselves from nature, they spin out further and further from the centre. At the same time, a centripetal effect asserts itself and the desire to return to nature arises. But if people merely become caught up in reacting, moving to the left or to the right, depending on conditions, the result is only more activity. The non-moving point of origin, which lies outside the realm of relativity, is passed over, unnoticed. I believe that even "returning-to-nature" and antipollution activities, no matter how commendable, are not moving toward a genuine solution if they are carried out solely in reaction to the over development of the present age. Nature does not change, although the way of viewing nature invariably changes from age to age. —

The One-Straw Revolution, by Masanobu Fukuoka.

 

Natural Farming (NF) has a concrete approach as to how best

to practice farming while observing and respecting the laws of

nature utilizing only what nature provides. NF has farming

inputs that are proven to be very effective in the cultivation of

crops. These inputs can increase yields better than the harmful

commercial fertilizers and pesticides. This chapter explain /

deals with the Natural Farming Inputs their preparations and

applications.

IMPORTANCE OF IMOs

Natural Farming produces a good yield when the land

cultivated has an excellent soil condition for crops.

Microorganisms play an important role in making soil good

for growing plants. These microorganisms can also be

collected and cultured.

Natural Farming promotes the use of Indigenous

Microorganisms (IMOs). The microorganisms that have been

living in the local area for a long time are best for farming

because they are very powerful and effective.

They have survived and can survive the extreme climatic conditions of

the local environment much better than artificially produced

microorganisms, which are cultured in some foreign or

artificial environment. And since they are already available in

the field, they are considered the best inputs for conditioning

the land.

Organisms that are found under the heat of the sun are largely

different than those found in shaded areas such as under the

bamboo trees. Dr. Cho advocates that it is better to culture

microorganisms from different areas in order to collect

different kinds of microorganisms (Microbial Diversity).

NATURAL FARMING INPUTS

It is also good to culture microorganisms at different weather

conditions and to mix different types of microorganisms.

In “Non-Chemical” agriculture practices we do not feed the

plant. We nurture the soil and the soil nurtures the plant

through the IMOs.

Microorganisms have two major functions in farming:

1. Microorganisms decompose complex organic compounds

such as dead bodies of plants and animals and wastes into

nutrients, making them easily absorbable by plants.

2. They can create compounds such as antibiotic substances,

enzymes and lactic acids that can suppress various diseases

and promote healthy soil conditions.

IMOs are used primarily to create fertile and healthy soil

condition that is ideal for farming and to prevent plant

diseases. In Natural Farming, IMOs are used in treatments

applied to the soil in order to improve its fertility and health.

Most farmers are unaware of what dirt is. They think its dirt, that its lacking and needs repleneishing. Its lacking and needs refortifying.

This is because they dont know how to plant into what they dont know what it is, so they reason with them selves that they need to dump nutrients , and furthermore, till them into the ground. This literaly destroys everything nature has built, in some cases over m100s of years, even millions.

Tilling creates a soil that becomes hard packed and requires more tilling. Tille soil loses water, and plants dont drink the water as efficently in tilled soil, so much of the nutrient rich water runs off and created the problems associated with fertilizer run off.

Tilling actually destroys and kills the mycelial network that supports everything from meadows to ancient old growth forests, and when fertilizers are tilled in whether they are organic or synthetic fertilizers, an environment that is not suitable for fungi to flourish in is created. Also the plants are weakened because the roots dont push through the soil, so when they reach the depth of the tillage which is usually 1 or 2 feet deep max, the roots can not penetrate the deeper untilled soil, so the roots will only get to be a foot or two in length, where as grasses like wheat and rice have roots that naturally reach 3 feet deep.

My method of no-till tilling is to laydown all the existing plants in the are to be cultivated either just by laying them over, using a weed eater or my personal favorite, the hand sickle.

After the vegitation is layed down, I water the ground and cover it securely with card board. All the vegitation dies and decomposes by fungi and bacteria. The area is filled with earth worms, the roots of the plants all decompose and the whole thing becomes compost and worm castings.

Soil like this is naturaly aerorated. The earth worms that are attracted and abundunt in and by this environment till the ground thouroughly under the cardboard, the roots of the plants that were there, leave the earth airy and rich with decompose organic matter and worm poop.

After a few weeks this area would be ready for. A thin layer of dirt is used to cover the cardboard which under the dirt will become fungi and worm food. This thin layer of dirt would then be covered with IMO watered then mulched, In a few days anything could be planted, the roots will easily penetrate what ever cardboard remains and easily grow through the rootzone area of the last crop or previous vegitation, but since it wasnt tooeasy, the roots are strong and will grow even deeper then the previous crops rootzone. If the roots of that plant are left to decompose, the next crop will grow deeper and deeper.

The IMO attracts even more worms and other organisms and ground actually swells up and becomes so airy that you can drive a rod through it, so your soil and top soil become deeper, yet also inflates, but it is all in a completely natural state, not tilled up with an altered chemistry.

Its very important to understand that there is no seat of consciousness, that there is no biological basis at all let alone a bio logical foundation for an ego/self.

If I were one who fancied the idea that ego was soul or spirit and that "I am god" or egos should be well fed and pumped up, then because there is no materiel/biological basis for it, I might say that it didn't matter that there is none.

It makes a difference. I mostly believe that "as above, so below" so to speak, and since there is no "self" biologicly, that is a point of interest. If there were biologicaly a self or an ego, a point in the brain where it was centered and came from, then I would have to question my beliefs as to the concept of self being a reality.

Stosh, I would agree with most of what you said, except Id take it further and say that every square bit of space IS sentient, and DOES have awareness.

Awareness and sese of being are not products of form or time, they pre-exist and trancend time matter and the physacal senses. They have their root in the stillness before time.

Is anyone else into this?

Some times I tell people Im a farmer/gardener/somewhere inbetween the two, when Im cornered and they ask me "So what do you do?".

Im not really an anything you can put your finger on as I suspect many of you are the same at least in essence if not also in expression. I dont ever work full time, or steadily/regularly, so I definitely dont identify with my career and my career is not my lifestyle, nor would anyone associate my "work" with , or to describe who or what I am.

Among the ever growing list of what I am, and am not, I am defiitly a cultivator and a planter. I have worked as a farmer, and I have also grown large food gardens for sustenance living off grid garden-farming as part of my daily routine of just being. Planted gardens in the wild, green house and indoor, and am a fairly decent ammeture mycologist.

Natural farming is something I started learning about a couple few years ago, and it fit beautifully into my way of life, and into my vision of what I want to do with my nature to grow things.

I have a vision tha Ive had since I was a kid about creating a setting of at least semi-self perpetuating food and medicinal plants naturalized into a natural landscape, where very little caretaking would be required.

Some of what is found in the natural farming philosophies and practice will make it more possable to achieve what I envision.

Natural faarming does not claim to be a taoist method of farming, but to me it is, and my aproach even more so, but un-like regular "organic farming" which is not a practice or defined order, the traditional natural farming practices are actual methodologies, with abelief that nature has a nature, and puts a stress on mimicing nature, and doing things naturaly.

Master Masanobu Fukuoka I believe is the originator of Nature Farming and author of a book called One Straw Revolution. There is also Korean Natural Faarming established by Mater Cho, who if I am not mstaken learned directly from Master Fukuoka. Korean Natural Farming is what I have been learning and am more familiar with; vs nature farming, Korean Natural Farming is a little more hands on/involved. We use micro-oranisms more intentionaly, but cultivate the stock from the surrounding wild and forests, IMO, indigenous micro-organisms.

Heres a little info.

 

Toward a Do-Nothing Farming

For thirty years I lived only in my farming and had little contact with

people outside my own community. During those years I was heading in

a straight line toward a "do-nothing" agricultural method.

The usual way to go about developing a method is to ask "How

about trying this?" or "How about trying that?" bringing in a variety of

techniques one upon the other. This is modern agriculture and it only

results in making the farmer busier.

My way was opposite. I was aiming at a pleasant, natural way of

farming [Farming as simply as possible within and in cooperation with

the natural environment, rather than the modern approach of applying

increasingly complex techniques to remake nature entirely for the benefit

of human beings] which results in making the work easier instead of

harder. "How about not doing this? How about not doing that?"- that was

my way of thinking.

I ultimately reached the conclusion that there was

no need to plow, no need to apply fertilizer, no need to make compost,

no need to use insecticide. When you get right down to it, there are few

agricultural practices that are really necessary.

The reason that man's improved techniques seem to be necessary is

that the natural balance has been so badly upset beforehand by those

same techniques that the land has become dependent on themThis line of reasoning not only applies to agriculture, but to other

aspects of human society as well.

Doctors and medicine become

necessary when people create a sickly environment. Formal schooling

has no intrinsic value, but becomes necessary when humanity creates a

condition in which one must become "educated" to get along.

Before the end of the war, when I went up to the citrus orchard to

practice what I then thought was natural farming, I did no pruning and

left the orchard to itself. The branches became tangled, the trees were

attacked by insects and almost two acres of mandarin orange trees

withered and died. From that time on the question, "What is the natural

pattern?" was always in my mind. In the process of arriving at the

answer, I wiped out another 400 trees. Finally I felt I could say with

certainty: "This is the natural pattern."

To the extent that trees deviate from their natural form, pruning and insect extermination become necessary; to the extent

that human society separates itself from a life close to nature, schooling

becomes necessary. In nature, formal schooling has no function.

In raising children, many parents make the same mistake I made in

the orchard at first. For example, teaching music to children is as

unnecessary as pruning orchard trees. A child's ear catches the music.

The murmuring of a stream, the sound of frogs croaking by the

riverbank, the rustling of leaves in the forest, all these natural sounds are

music-true music. But when a variety of disturbing noises enter and

confuse the ear, the child's pure, direct appreciation of music

degenerates.

If left to continue along that path, the child will be unable to

hear the call of a bird or the sound of the wind as songs. That is why

music education is thought to be beneficial to the child's development.

The child who is raised with an ear pure and clear may not be able to

play the popular tunes on the violin or the piano, but I do not think this

has anything to do with the ability to hear true music or to sing. It is

when the heart is filled with song that the child can be said to be

musically gifted.

Almost everyone thinks that "nature" is a good thing, but few can

grasp the difference between natural and unnatural.

If a single new bud is snipped off a fruit tree with a pair of scissors,

that may bring about disorder which cannot be undone. '

When growing according to the natural form, branches spread alternately from the trunk

and the leaves receive sunlight uniformly. If this sequence is disrupted

the branches come into conflict, lie one upon another and become

tangled, and the leaves wither in the places where the sun cannot

penetrate.

Insect damage develops. If the tree is not pruned the following year more withered branches will appear.

Human beings with their tampering do something wrong, leave the

damage unrepaired, and when the adverse results accumulate, work with

all their might to correct them. When the corrective actions appear to be

successful, they come to view these measures as splendid

accomplishments.

People do this over and over again. It is as if a fool

were to stomp on and break the tiles of his roof. Then when it starts to

rain and the ceiling begins to rot away, he hastily climbs up to mend the

damage, rejoicing in the end that he has accomplished a miraculous

solution.

It is the same with the scientist. He pores over books night and day,

straining his eyes and becoming nearsighted, and if you wonder what on

earth he has been working on all that time-it is to become the inventor of

eyeglasses to correct nearsightedness.

Here is some about Master Cho

 

Natural Farming uses methods that observe the laws of nature

and utilizes natural materials and products. It is based on the

principle of interdependence among all living things. It aims

to have a nurturing impact on the environment, in sharp

contrast to the disadvantageous effects that often accompany

modernized and commercialized agriculture.

The observance of the natural cycle and environment-friendly

agricultural practices applied in a modern setting refreshes the

established perspectives on farming and provides an

alternative to technology-intensive agriculture.

HOW NATURAL FARMING BEGAN

Natural Farming (NF) was developed by Dr. Cho Han Kyu at

the Janong Natural Farming Institute in South Korea. It was

originally intended to change the chemical-based and harmful

farming methods that were being practiced in South Korea.

Together with like-minded farmers, he converted his lifelong

studies and his own experiences into an innovative farming

system that not only promotes respect and care for the

environment, but also produces more with less cost and labour.

Natural Farming recognizes the abundance of nature and

utilizes indigenous resources for production. Its basic

philosophy is to maximize the inborn potential of a life form

and its harmony with the environment by not interfering with

their growth and development or forcing the crops to yield

more than what they can. Natural Farmers believe that the

best way to achieve top quality yield is to respect the nature of

life.

The NF methodology is based on the Nutritive Cycle Theory,

that guides the Natural Farmer on what inputs to apply, how

much and how often. Natural Farming applies the principle of

interdependence in which people should nature, instead of

surmounting it or undermining it.

Natural Farming is also envisioned so as to contribute to the

alleviation of poverty, disease and environmental destruction

by providing an alternative means of livelihood and food

production.

As a farming method that goes back to basics using materials

from nature and without force or chemicals. Natural Farming

guarantees its farmers healthy and strong products needed to

provide for their families and society. Natural farming

respecting the natural cycle of life is more than a farming

technique. It is a philosophy, a new economics and a way of

life.

STRENGTHS AND BENEFITS

Environment-Friendly: Its inputs are made from natural

materials, protecting the crops from harmful chemicals used

as fertilizers in modern agriculture. In livestock raising,

Natural Farming is considered a revolutionary breakthrough,

accomplishing the dream method of “Zero emission”. No

wastewater is emitted. Also wastes are recycled and converted

to resources.

Higher Yield: It strictly follows the Nutritive Cycle Theory,

using accurate amounts of substances at the precise moment,

nourishing the soil with right amounts of nutrients when the

plants or animals need it.

Low Cost: It helps lessen the farmers financial burden with

the use of homemade materials and making use of resources

from the farm. 2

High Quality: Better-quality crops and livestock is the

result of non-usage of chemicals those are harmful to their

production as well as the environment.

Adaptable: NF can be replicated in any region ingredients

and products used by Janong Natural Farming Institute in

South Korea can be substituted with the natural resources

distinct to each region or ecosystem.

Farmer / User Friendly: Methods are free of toxic and

poisonous chemicals, which are dangerous to a user’s health.

With Natural Farming, farmers cultivate their own substances

that truly provide the nutrients to the crops and animals, it also

helps without harming the plants, animals and humans.

Respect for Life: Natural Farming gives utmost respect and

care to the crops and animals following the natural cycle of

life. Better productivity and even better harvest can be made

when one nurses and gives attention to its environment.

 

Supposedly, the center of consciousness in the brain is located in the thalamus. I know that describing what consciousness is from a mental point of use not the real thing, yet I'd still like to and understand how it works from a conceptual point of view. The thalamus is located about 4 to 5 inches inward from the third-eye area. It basically acts as a relay station. All the incoming information goes there in a kind of back and forth rapid energy cycling maneuver. I guess what I'm trying to figure out is from a scientific point of view, what exactly is that center of awareness? How does it work? Is it just energy? Is energy aware? Or is energy itself awareness? When we focus I assume that the focus is initiated from this point… Does anyone else think the center of focus, the center of 'I'ness is located within the brain or somewhere within the body? Or, is it perhaps on some alternate dimension, some level of inmaterial plane? A point of emptiness/awareness that is constantly filled with sensory/perception information? I know that this is the age-old conundrum that the Buddha refused to answer.

I'm trying to explain the center of consciousness from an intellectual/theoretical point of view. If anyone knows any biological explanations for it that would be awesome. I'm just seeing if someone can bump me a sand-grain of knowledge upwards.

Consciousness/center of consciousness is 'reflexive.' Is energy just becoming aware of itself? Is it just that energy is being fed back into itself, and that's where it becomes aware of itself?

If matter and energy are the same (meaning that matter is basically crystallized energy, or slowed-down energy), then it seems that there are really only two things in the universe: energy and space (… Or space/time if we incorporate movement). So yes, here we have Yin/Yang.

So is one side awareness and the other side the object that one is aware of?

Can awareness exists without something to be aware of? Or are they inexorably intertwined?

re·flex·ive (r -fl k s v)

adj.

1. Directed back on itself.

2. Grammar

a. Of, relating to, or being a verb having an identical subject and direct object, as dressed in the sentence She dressed herself.

b. Of, relating to, or being the pronoun used as the direct object of a reflexive verb, as herself in She dressed herself.

3. Of or relating to a reflex.

4. Elicited automatically; spontaneous

That brings me to the next question:

When we use our focusing ability, i.e. as in one-pointed meditation, it seems that what's happening is that the energy is basically being rapidly cycled and intensified between the thalamus and the area of the brain (mind-map/mind-palace/mind-matrix) that contains the object of our focus. For example, let's say I am focusing on a flower… It seems that somewhere in our neural net lies all the associated IS-ness of flower-ness, combined with the specific shape of the flower we're visualizing. So the way I view 'absorption' is that all the other parts of the brain that aren't necessary shut down, and basically only certain neural nets are activated in an intense bioelectrical/bliss-state. The flower, the watcher of the flower, and the act of watching the flower become one, almost in a holographic kind of way. Every square picometer of energy juice/stuff = flower-ness/bliss. So it seems that, although energy= bliss, something else is experiencing the bliss.

Can anyone describe what this something else is? How do we describe something that apparently has no form, cannot be measured, cannot be observed (although it is the observer), etc. etc.

I am not looking for experiential advice; I am basically looking for a scientific explanation of what that seemingly empty space of consciousness is… Or is it just that the thalamus is where consciousness lies?

Is this consciousness something beyond the matter/energy that makes up the thalamus?

Buddha says that there is no self and I agree, yet it seems that there is a Super-Self AKA 'Self' - which is basically awareness wherever it is at...

I guess the whole point of this post is how can we describe awareness from a conceptual point of view, i.e. in a scientific way, instead of just saying 'It is what it is,' 'Just this,' 'Suchness,' etc.

By the time I got down to this point I realize that I was basically trying to describe that which cannot be described, and can only be directly known - which is futile, and so this whole post is pointless lol... I swear I didn't plan this! haha...oh well, better luck next time.

Oh wait… Here is a question I've always been wondering about: is Nirvana itself just a perception attainment? Is there really a self that can go into Nirvana? Still that same age-old question I know.…

Sometimes I wonder if this whole meditation thing is all just about finding bliss in the end…

Is it all just about bliss?

It makes me blissful to know stuff.

It makes me blissful to have a nicely-shaped body, health, etc.

So is it all about being in bliss?

Is it basically Satchitananda?

Being knowing feeling-bliss?

If there is something you need to know then - go out there and know it!

If there is something you want to be then - go out there and be it!

If you want to be blissful, see the first two and you will probably do alright, but if you want to be especially blissful, learn mental cultivation skills to make it so.

Be the bliss

Know the Bliss

Bliss the Bliss

Bliss Bliss Bliss

Bliss-cubed

Cube-bliss...no cube? huh?

Whats your source on there being a biological basis as a foundation for consciousness?

 

 

Things that I think I know- if something exists it is knowable, it is possible to gain understanding and insight into any field of existence. So I disagree that whatever force you are talking about is unknowable. I think the term unknowable should be discarded. I've heard lots on stories about people who are able to see chi, God, spirits, the levels of the "beyond"...etc. Granted I haven't seen or done any of those things, they still interest me.

It seems like your concept of existence, is what is percievable with our senses or technology(which is relative to our senses/comprehension). But what about these things like life force? life force as I mentioned earlier has scientist baffled. Science looks at a life form as a pressurised system of chemical reactions because it cannot detect anything that is not a product of materiel, and the forces generate by materiel. Scientist put all the right chemicals in the right ammounts in a conducive environment, yet they cant set off the reaction. It appears there is an unknowable undetectable force that is the catylist for the reaction, and it appears the energy is also required to maintain the continuance of the reactions, because if it is lost the reactions stop.

This energy that can be seen in action and that cannot be detected is much like the generative force that catylized existence from non existence that also can not be detected.

Mind, awareness, sense of being, like we discussed earlier are not a product of matter or form, they exist independently of existence and time. They precede and transcend these things, and are thus not limited to these things, nor are they limited to the five senses that are born of these things.

Mind is equipped to see and hear manythings that body is incapapable of. When people see gods and spirrits, they are "seeing" what cant be seen, yet it is being inturpruted through the contents of the consciousness. Like how the wind uses a tree to give itself form as it ruffles the leaves, so does the essence take on the form of a persons mind. If these people thouroughly cultivated their mind, they would see more clearly waht they are seeing. If they see a god insteadd of tao, then they project their ego because they have not reconciled with the truth about their ego, so they see god in place of tao. And gods instead of the plethora of awareness's.

A person can chew your food and shove it in your mouth, but they cant swallow it for you or do any of the digesting. This world forces a person to use, rely on and only believe in waht can be known throught 5 senses, we dome down our other dended and ddont trust our intuition. You have to use more then just the 5 senses to become aware, when you become aware, your 5 senses will be opened.

Realization is different for everyone. the word enlightenment, Id say is less relative, more specific, liberation to me would be pretty much unrelative, it would be no more rising of consciousness/sustained egolessness.

The unknowable is knowable, but unrelatable. It is non-relative, preexisting relativity and the 4dimmendions, not part of this level of reality thus not describable in relative terms. It is graspable, but not containable so undefinable, unlabaleable; its essence can be known in mind, reffered to but not directly transmnittable. This is why all who know it, can only express it in parable, poeticly or using physacal imagery to describe something unphysical as to make an analogy so that the person hearing may allow it into their own awareness...it can be pointed at and a person may say,"oh I see it" but it comes to them from their own mind, a product of their own awareness and thus it becomes a part of them, not something someone told or taught.

If you want to know theses things, you have to see them because noone can tell you in relative terms, when it does arise in your mind it will be you who drew it up and allowed it into your perception and awareness.

Very true what somtingwong pointedd out, it will destroy your current reality and change your life and you wont fit back in.

I could have sworn that you are jadespear ...maybe you guys have very similar psychic signature or something. Either way, none is alienated by anyone here. It seems a little hyper vigilant to say anyone is baracaing doors and shooting down even metaphoricly, it was a discussion that transpired.

Inquiry?

You are very persistent, Jadespear. I admire your tenacity. It has frightened away the spirits of the valley. Such is the power of inquiry.

To inquire is one thing, but of the subjects jadespear questioned the best answers come from within.

To interrogate in an attempt to have the other say something that you think will prove a point you already have is completely another thing.

Failure to succeed in gaining pride, assuredly makes one feel shame, and that keeps the frightened away.

Hello folks,

 

It's that time again. Here's Chapter 6. I look forward to hearing your comments.

 

 

Chapter 6

 

(Tr. By John C. H. Wu)

 

The Spirit of the Fountain dies not.

It is called the Mysterious Feminine.

The Doorway of the Mysterious Feminine

Is called the Root of Heaven-and-Earth.

 

Lingering like gossamer, it has only a hint of existence;

And yet when you draw upon it, it is inexhaustible.

 

 

(Tr. by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English)

 

The valley spirit never dies;

It is the woman, primal mother.

Her gateway is the root of heaven and Earth.

It is like a veil barely seen.

Use it; it will never fail.

 

(Tr. by Robert Henricks)

 

1. The valley spirit never dies;

2. We call it the mysterious female.

3. The gates of the mysterious female—

4. These we call the roots of Heaven and Earth.

5. Subtle yet everlasting! It seems to exist.

6. In being used, it is not exhausted.

 

 

------------

 

Aaron

The spirit of the valley/fountain never dies, because in its unactivated stillness is a field of latent potential. If the fountain stops gushing/ the valley stops over flowing and drys up, it is still all there as potential.

I read the tem "old yin" somewhere years ago and thought to myself that it was a reference to this state of latent potential, Im not sure if that is correct use of the term, because I read the term but dont know the definition.

My understanding is that the yin yang is actually yin-yang-yin which sort of translates to stillness-action-activity or potential-activation-expression.

I dont think this chapter is so much about the valley spirit in action, but is more about the stillness/latent potential of the mysterious female. When we look at an empty valley, its being is a reflection of the mysterious female, its becoming a lake and flowing out is an expession of the yins union with yang.

The Valley spirit in action is a reference to male and female union, not to the mysterious female. The mountains/watershed that create the valley, and the low valley itself is the mysterious female. The water (rain and in puring streams) that pour into the water by way of the water shed is male, the outward flowing streams from the lake the valley becomes is the female. But it happens all at once. So the perfect union of yin yang is this constant benificial life givving cycle.

So it goes mysterious female/potential(watershed)- male/action(incomming water)- female/activity(out flowing waters), take out the male, the activity returns to stillness/latent potential.

That the mysterious female is barely there at all is because it cant be said to exists. It only exists in spirit/principle. This is a direct example of its non-being creating its being, and its being creating its non-being.

The nature of the mysterious female(stillness-non-being-latent potential), is to be still;if something is put in it, it uses it up on route to returning to stillness-latent potential. As if it was the nature of a car to be in pristine condition, yet out of gas on the side of the road(mysterous female), so, if you put gas(yang) in it and turn it on its nature is to return to that state so it drives itself off full throttle(yin) to the fullest potential of the amount & quality of the fuel put in it's tank until the fuel(yang) is used up and the car is again on the side of the road in a state of stillness and in just as pristine condition(mysterous female).

With the original primordial yin yang, the yang is not limited, a reflection of its originator, the mysterous female, so yang is never used up and the yin can never be used up so it does not return to the said state of stillness, however all the activity there in, existence, life and everything are the result of mysterous female in a state of returning to that state of stillness.

In the world of form, the yin-yang of any form being or event would go Mysterous female(/stillness/potential), male(the action/active principle/cause), female(activity/effect), mysterious female (the playing out of the active principle/cause through effect, the using up of its energy and returning to the original state of stillness/ the not there, being there in potential).

Because the mysterious female is "barely existing" it appeares that all events start with the yang principle/ the cause, but it starts an ends with the original female.

This is why we should know the male but dwell in the female, we should be still and un assertive but receptive to action, spring into activity/let the action course through but add nothing to it, when its gone on its own we should return again to stillness.

A couple of weeks ago I was listening to a freind talk about how she thinks there is a spirit in her building which is a converted old hotel in the harbor where I live. It made sense to me that there might be because its such an old building and the area I live in has a dark history for the last couple of hundred years. In my experience with sensing spirits, it is not usually the spirit of an evolved or "happy" disposition. But I was suprised that I had never even slightly sensed one, even when I was living on her couch for a few weeks.

Just as I was thinking that, I saw what looked like 3 orbs, black and grey stuck togeather in a line drift by me in my periphreal vision. Id never seen orbs before, but have sensed "ghosts" on several occasions, and had mild interactions so to speak.

A few days later I was hanging out at her place. Me a guy and his girlfreind walked to the beach and had a conversation. The guy asked me if I have ever seen an orb so I told him about what I saw just a couple of days before. Some how we started talking about death and consciousness.

The next night the 29 year old guy died, and ever since then(July 3rd) I've been sensing the spirit of an old man lingering around the front of her apartment. Sitting on the porch Walking by the window out front but but when I look and focus, hes not there.

Great thread! Good stuff guys!

Thanks for the long winded response. But I'm going to have to disagree with you on your first point. Experience is not an illusion. It may be in the way that you are thinking of it....but I don't see how it is at all. When I eat food I taste it, it's not an illusion, when I am outside and feel the sun it's not an illusion. When I have sex and feel good, it's not an illusion. How is experience an illusion? You use so many pronouns that it is hard for me to understand what you are actually trying to say.

 

An illusion as in all of my senses are not operating the right way and are creating experiences? As in a skewed perception?

 

An illusion as in what? Illusion is a word to describe something you see but does not exist...

 

I don't see my feelings, I feel them. There're not illusory. By what exactly do you mean by using that word illusion?

 

Even if the ego is self created, it exists. It's not an illusion. It may come and go just like everything else but that doesn't make everything an illusion dude.

Thanks for the long winded response.

Its good to be thankful but the energy spent was certainly not givven to you. You came across as condesending, my sincerity was for the sake of the group I am a member of, information spreading in general, and per the subject of the thread I am participating in. So be thankfull, but be like Tao and keep it to yourself

But I'm going to have to disagree with you on your first point.

My first point was

Although experience is illusion, your experience of it's un-reality is very real and is reality...

.. Yet like all that it contains [it] is passing and will cease to exist because there was none there to ever have experienced it.

Experience is not an illusion. It may be in the way that you are thinking of it....but I don't see how it is at all. When I eat food I taste it, it's not an illusion, when I am outside and feel the sun it's not an illusion. When I have sex and feel good, it's not an illusion.

Simple minds take credit for such complex things. "You" are eating and tasting? Your not in control of any of the electro-chemichal reactions that make up your experience.

If you can not see how experience is an illusion "at all", even in the physical sense that everything is energy and all experience is had as a delayed and developed in the brain, then that is one of the major factors in your energy blockage.

When you say that "you" are the one eating and tasting are you saying that the body is ego, or that senasation is ego? If not, and you believe that consciousness is ego, then when you taste somthin'g nasty, why don't you try to get it out of your mind instead of spitting it out of your mouth?

Are you saying that ego is the relationship between body and sensation? What about the aspects of body that dont deliver sensation. Do they not happen?

It is more accurate to realize that the ego does no eating and does no tasting.

You are not doing the tasting. The body was doing the tasting before the ego's development was ever born. Babies unconsciously stick things in their mouths because they are assimilating organisms and their enteric nervous systems are processing chemical information about the environment. If something that is unconsciously/egolessly placed in the mouth of the body and it is too bitter, the tongue, in an electro- chemical reaction is pushed out of the mouth so that the aspect of the environment it was exploring gets pushed out all as a result of an electro-chemical reaction, the ego wasn't even there. The ego and even self awareness are a product of experiences that an egoless identityless mechanism was "experiencing" things before it was even aware that it was aware. Part of your ego is developed by the work your body was doing without you.

As far as having unique taste, that is because the body has both generic and unique needs, but you are born without preference for this or that; the human form does not have tastes and tendencies so that an ego can enjoy them.

Tasting the food you eat is only apart of the electro-chemical reaction that happens when a subtsance touches the tongue. As the food passes through the digestive system it is processed by the enteric nervous system. Lots of information on its chemical and nutritional composition and whether "you" like or want that food ever again is largely based on information that "you" were never exposed to.

There was a guy on a life raft lost at sea for weeks who survived so long because he was able to catch fish to eat. He had no problem catching them but he lost taste for the fish meat after several days of eating nothing but fish meat; he stopped liking it altogeather.

What happened then was that he found himself all the sudden finding the fishes eye balls,other organs and blood to be tantalizing, causing "his" mouth to water where as the fish itself was all the sudden revolting.

This ego who had likes and dislikes and and thought that these discriminations were part of its make up, found itself witnessing as through watching a movie in a movie theater, its supposed form and frame devouring raw fish, frantickly slurping up its blood and absolutely loving it. It was over ridden by unconscious behavior and its tendency to meet nutritional needs but again, it doesn't do it for the ego. He appearently didn't really like, or dislike anything and the ego was barely just a witness of the event.

Lotsa things happen to the body that the ego is unaware of because there are no nerves in certain area to message the experience to the consciousness and the ego is only aware of what the conscious is paying attention to. Not to mention there are no nerves wired into the ego for it to recieve the sensation. A cigarette smoker feels satisfied because nicotine molecules are similar to certain chemicals released by the brain as a reaction to having met a biological need. Cigarette smoke ingestion obviously does not meet any biological need. As a person feels satisfaction, the body is being fried and the ego thinks that it is a body that is satisfied by the smooth tasting smoke and that it is experiencing the sensation of satisfaction.

But satisfaction is not a sensation, or a reaction to sensation. Satisfaction is a chemical reaction that we think is a response to sensation, but cigarettes are harsh and the stimulating effect of nicotine is not a pleasent one. Never the less, europeans and their American decendents swore up and down that they smoked cigarettes for centuries because they liked it, before discovering the chemical nature of its addiction.

When Im getting ready to go somewhere I often times think I just remembered something I need to bring and Ill say something like "dont forget the keys", but then I inevitably do forget them.

Why is that? Its because my brain was actually impulsing my body to retrieve the keys from the counter at that moment, but my ego who has no memory distracted the flawless nature of my being and distracted it. My ego thought that it has a memory or that it has acsess to one and it thought that it was remembering the keys and told itself not to forget something that the body was just about to follow through with on its own. The impulse is blocked by a distraction and the keys aren't remembered at all. It comes to my attention that I don't have them when I get to the car.

How come egos only experience part of the body? The body reacts to the sun, when it is too hot the body moves for shade, the ego doesn't feel the heat, but it assumes that it must not like it so it says "the body is moving because I don't like heat". When the body is in tempreture conditions that are optimum for its function and health (VIt-D absobtion.), the body tends to stay put, but the ego who doesnt feel hot or cold assumes that the ego likes the temreture and it is staying because the ego likes the tempreture. But ego is not the body, or the bodies actions, or tendencies, and all those things are designed for homeostasis, not for the ego to like or dislike.

What the ego is is the shine on the apple, but not the apple, and its reflection is an inacurate one at that because it thinks it can think and falsifies what it experiences by judging and experienced a judgment.

You use so many pronouns that it is hard for me to understand what you are actually trying to say.

ok well, this-

But I'm going to have to disagree with you on your first point.

is not a complete sentance. Should we expect everyone to be writting in MLA format or what?

The ego is a developed aspect of the psyche; the psyche is also developed. In other words it is not a real thing that can feel any of what you just said it feel. Its like saying that your cosmology likes the way the sun feels, or that when someone builds you up with a false sense of confidence, that the false sense of confidence experiences this or that, and that it liked or disliked it.

Our actions and responses, where they come from and what causes them come from the same place it does with ants and spiders.

Do you think that ants and spiders have egos. Do you suppose that the same way that you said "ego in people is for the grater good, and survival purposes", is what causes ants to become so organized and selflesss that they all contribute to the greater good? Is that the product of ego?

I dont believe it is the product of ego that organises ants.

All the chemical reactions that maintain the brain and senses are uncoscious, not directed to or eminating from an ego. The sensation of this or that was recieved and reacted to long before you, your ego was born within the psyce, so who was feeling them then? Not you. Not an ant, nor a spider.

If your ego is an illusion, then the fact that it has a life and it is living one is an illusion. Since awareness and sense of being were never born they never die. Having a life, living one and comming to its death are all illusory concepts to describe the subjection that awareness and sense of being are under, but they are not under that subjection, only the ego who dreamed up the concept has a life and thus must die.

I'm going to have to ask you another question then. When you say "creation itself is an illusion"...what do you mean by that? Are you simply not acknowledging the fact that there is a physical universe in which we live? Or are you saying acts of creation, like creating music, creating babies, creating anything...are illusions?

 

Both of these make no sense in terms of using the word "illusion" because there has to be a "real" counterpart to describe something as an illusion...

 

My own awareness is not unborn, it exists within my body at this time. I was born, and therefore so was my awareness.

 

If there is no way to make sense of something intellectually, why do you believe it? Why do you espouse concepts that you yourself believe are not able to be understood? That's an illusion. You are the illusion my friend, talking all this nonsense as if it was real.

 

There is no proof either way of anything. So claiming to know is closer to an illusion than truth.

There is proof that ego is illusion. The brain doesnt have one. Thats like saying there is no proof that we dont have wings.

Awareness is unborn, and the awareness you are using is not yours, though it is subject to its form, position, behavior, and culture the awareness along with sense of being, will leave your ego and suffer no loss. The ego has become the object of your experience and that is why its an illusion. You experience only ego and ego is illusion.

Have you ever had a dream? Everything in it was just a dream. That looked like your mother or your son who died in that dream, but it was just a dream and they were just part of it.

"Oh but it was real! I felt the painful emotion, I cried because I lost them when they died in the dream!"

This is wrong, whether you felt the emotions, and whether you saw it with your own eyes and whether it made you powerfully sad and whether you cried buckets of tears does not make the dream not a dream.

If there is no way to make sense of something intellectually, why do you believe it? Why do you espouse concepts that you yourself believe are not able to be understood?

There is an energy in the universe so subtle that it cannot be detected, looked at or observed, yet I believe t exists. You can get all the amino acids enzymes and DNA, wrap it up in a nuclear envelope but it will just sit there. Scientist have tried to start it up with all the materiel parts, and in the propper construct but they cant get it to work.

The life force that illuminates us cannot be detected or sinthesized. If you and the entire feild of molecular biology cant detect, test or make any intellectual sense of something why do you believe it?

double post

Right I agree that I don't have to think to exist.

 

But I'm a little confused as to why people think subjective experiences are illusions....they may not be the whole picture, but an illusion?

It is not that each of our experiences are parts of a whole. And so it goes beyond being part of a whole picture. In fact what we experience is the absolute whole picture, but its a construct of our ego that we experience.

If 50 people are in a room togeather and something happens that they all see, it is possable that there will be 50 confllicting reports of what happened.

Although experience is illusion, your experience of it's un-reality is very real and is reality; your reality is my reality, what I am subject to as the "me" that you experience. The inverse is also true of you in relation to me. Yet like all that it contains is passing and will cease to exist because there was none there to ever have experienced it.

We compare concepts and cultural ideals to judge our field of observation/existence, then we live out our judgments and comparisons, their influences and effect, rather then the experience, but that all passes at the time of death, then death, a concept constructed by ego becomes reality and the Tao's sense of being, becomes aware of only that.

We project what we see, before we see it, and are only aware of what we project. Whether reality is a completley subjective concept of something that never is, or whether it is something that underneath the subjectivity is objective and really is

having egos, we experience existence as an ego defined contruct. Memories of events that don't live up to the ego constructed are often reconstructed and remembered differently so that they do.

Because there is an ego that everything is associated to as its processed, and defined by before it is projected, everything that is experienced is ego. All consciousness is ego everything is consciousness; rather then the sense of being becoming aware of & receptive to the experience of it's relative being, the ego principle/concept defines existence-reality & existence-being respectively as life, and the egobeing living the life. It does so from a state of complete confinement to it's construct, it experiences only what it allowed itself to construct, and what it constructs is constructed to validate its being.

But it never was. Ego is dependent on self awareness, self awareness is dependent on awareness which is dependent on sense of being; sense of being is dependent on nothing for its existence, nothing is dependent on the sorvereign principle, the principle of infinity which all things depend on for their existence,

The sense of being is why ego feels like it is, and ego reasons with its self that the sense of being is it's, Ego thinks that it is experiencing a life and so the sense of being belongs to it, dependent on it's existence.

The sense of being within me, and within you, is the same sense of being, it does not belong to you or I and does not have its orgins within (our) form(s). It is not confined to any time, place or being, it is its own being. The sense of being we all experience, precedes existence, space-time, and form, and the ego imposed parameters of life and death, as well as transcends them.

It does not arise or have its orgins within our being, it is not subject to our being and transcends the passing of our being, and so our sense of being never leaves us though the concepts of I, us, we, me and you do leave "us"; that sense of being here that the sense of self an ego are dependent on is still there always. The ego never feels it, but it associates it an processes it as its; but only the sese of being ever feels the sense of being, so when we pass and disolve, "we"(it) feels absolutely no loss. The sesne of being we all feel will still be felt, but without considering the concept of I, self, or other or the identities there in.

It does not have its orgins, and is not dependent on our form for its being, but with our form having come into existence, it finds itself within us and it's awareness is subject to our form and unconscious behavior. The resulting self awareness has its orgins in form and behavior, followed by position, and the ego has its orgins just on top of that.

The reality we experience has its orgins in ego, and our perception of the reality has its orgin in ego, and not in the form the ego claims as its own. Perception is subjectified awareness, our perception is subject to our ego, not the form, not the position of the form, or the absolute awareness of the forms position and its undefined experience.

Our perception of existence is our experience; our perception has its orgins in illusion and is an illusion.

"I think there for I am". Is un-true. Thoughts are a part of a developed consciousness at best, but tend to be redundant uncontrolable and subjective, also something I am subject to.

"I experience therefore I am" is also untrue, it is better to reconcile the falisity in the "I think therefore I am" myth with, "I have a subjective observation of an experience, there for I am a reflection of an illusion."