三江源

the tao that can be explained is not the tao..

 

as it is your concept of enlightenment is pretty immature..

hi bodyoflight, it would be kind of you to elucidate so that my immaturity can be cast in light and so potentially transform.

~I like the Maslow list, I like Maslow, I first stumbled across him when I was 15 and it was a great intervention in my awareness to find someone making sense! What a relief! And what I notice about that list right now is that it is about balanced adaption and growth within ordinary awareness.

1. Realistic orientation

2. Acceptance of self, others, and the natural world

3. Spontaneity

4. Task orientation, rather than self-preooccupation

5. Sense of privacy

6. Independence

7. Vivid appreciativeness

8. Spirituality that is not necessarily religious in a formal sense.

9. Sense of identity with mankind

10. Feelings of intimacy with a few loved ones

11. Democratic values

12. Recognition of the difference between means and ends

13. Humor that is philosophical rather than hostile

14. Creativeness

15. Nonconformism

And I think now that enlightenment - much as chop wood carry water applies - includes a fundamental inclusion in permanent perception of what would be considered 'non ordinary reality'. I guess 8 could (and might not) include this.

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Thanks for sharing cat!It is so interesting to read of others expiriences ,instead of quotes,it feels real.

Mine feeling was heat in my belly and sadness that was beyond any tears.

It did seem huge for me too, out of proportion .

My nerves got connected and lightness starting pumping through me.It is heart learning to flow whatever situation and entering into silence.

I have read something very interesting by Irina Tweedie saying about women carrying all sadness of the world due to inherent indentification with creative force and abuse they went through through centuries .

Personally I feel as if there is sort of "energetic pools"(for a lack of better explanation)that one draws from,they could be made out thoughts and empowered by them so they are almost like an entity of some sort.

It is like an addiction to overcome drawing from energetic pool one is used to,and this is becouse of DNA and ancestral QI too.So much reprograming,as it is about big shift in a perspective.

de_pardise yes forgivness is a way to go.Nice to hear that.Uncomplicated,real and it feels good.

Thankyou for sharing, too,sun. About the reprogramming.. YES x100!

Tis like an old road that we know how to travel is inbuilt in us, and we are reversing out of it and building a new pathway.

I recently was offered the opportunity to reflect on my past and work on dissolving "hate" towards another. However, it was through a third person, who was involved, that this came about.

 

He basically admitted to wronging me in the past by being with my girlfriend. I had forgiven him long ago, and it offered me a chance to tell him, which likely brought him some relief. However, it reminded me of just how much hate I had stored for that ex-girlfriend, still to this day. Its take some time, but using the tools mentioned in this thread have helped me to understand the root cause and work on releasing those feelings.

 

Perhaps one of the more "enlightening" aspects of this exercise has been the humility brought upon by not being as "spiritually advanced" as I thought I was, not even close. That revelation, in and of itself, has also opened doors to a higher understanding about the ego, etc. I love little these little journeys of exploration.

 

To those on the path, both learning from, and teaching each other, thank you for all you do to make this world a better place.

Great to hear, Art. Congrats! and thankyou.

yeah, there's going to be a whole lot of people who are going to be of the "pics or gtfo" mindset...

 

we could have a long thread debating wether the pics are photoshopped or not.

RIP Bin Laden.

Hi Cat,

 

I was just thinking if such a practice would do more harm than good in this instance?

 

Breathing out 'negatives' and breathing in 'good' only serves to reinforce a false sense of self-importance, which is, i can see, what got him to this angry spot in the first place.

 

I could be mistaken, but i think in a lot of people with anger issues struggle unnecessarily due to being overly touchy and sensitive - couple this with some cravings lurking beneath, and its a recipe that often result in a splattering mess, after which the job of cleaning up only serves to sompound and exacerbate the matter.

 

The underlying cause that may need looking at may have to do with being stuck in the 'child' state too much, too often. Demanding attention yet deprived of it when young (or getting too much sometimes can hurt too) can result in a lot of anger and resentment.

 

I am suspicious of any practice that say self comes first, is all.

 

As an afterthought, if he was studying meditation with me, i would ask him to attempt exercises which would speed up all his anger, until he boils... right to the edge. At that point, breathe in even more anger, take in everyone else's anger as well, and then learn the process of seeing thru the falsity of it all, the uselessness of clinging to such - thru this, it creates a lot of courageous mindfulness because the next time anger arises, the fear surrounding it would have nowhere to take hold. At the same time, there will be the deep freedom from having to exert energy to avert certain issues. Sometimes anger is not the problem - it is fear, and the craving to be free, where too much precious energy is used up, that petrifies and exhaust a person. Anger and fear often join forces in attacking the psyche. Do you agree?

 

Thich Nhat Hahn says, "When we learn to stop feeding our cravings, we will discover that we already have everything we need to be happy".

 

Lastly, i want to thank you for taking time to share your experiences - always am touched deeply by the things you say, in such an open, giving manner. Its a rarity.

Hello CowTao.

Yes, who knows, this simple qigong could be a solution with drawbacks. I wouldnt be surprised! Nothing seems to get 100% positive reviews. It could be a first aid box rather than a spiritual revolution for oneself. For me, it worked. I am a kinaesthetic person, and I felt my blockage in my body and was able to clear it this way , to reach a level of freedom and lightness which gave me the space to have a considered perspective. It was a first stage process, to identify and clear rubble. As you say, in this instance it may not be the most helpful approach. I agree that there is an aspect in cleansing the self via the healing sounds and so on,whereby we strengthen the self via that mode of purification. This is pretty much the same as most psychotherapeutic models ie dont think about losing the ego until we have a strong enough ego to withstand the threat of ego loss.. otherwise what you will experience is fragmentation. And so much resistance that stagnation will result, so your choices for a too early attempt at freeing up ego grip are fragmentation and stagnancy! Not such a delicious menu..

And yes I agree with you about the anger and fear. I was thinking about this thread last night.. thinking that I wanted to contribute even though I knew my hatred wasnt the 'same' as Moth's in it's genesis and way. Because I think hatred is a taboo subject and feeling in any serious sense amongst so many of us personally. And if we can make it discussable, ownable, and sortable, then this is progress toward light. I was thinking about the hatred I expelled ( it never returned) and wondering was it anger, was it fear.. what on earth was that feeling, at it's root. It was a huge repudiation. A huge NO. As you say, precisely, behind the hatred was a craving for freedom. A creative impulse, behind such a dark mask.

Whatever method gets you to the root is a great one. Lucky for us there are many and various techniques these days. We can pick a flavour we like.

BTW, a small point... Ken Cohen doesnt suggest that we breathe in 'good'. There is no such thing as 'breathing in good'. What it is, is breathing out the stuck chi and breathing in fresh chi. It is an ENERGETIC SHIFT exercise, with no 'moral' imperative at all. ( I have used it to get rid of hangovers, and it works for that too... )

I think it is also likely that anger is diet related for some people, sexual frustration for others, lack of being loved for yet others, and lack of drinking enough water for others, and a lack of contact with trees and nature , for yet more. Any and all of the above.

And thankyou for your thanks, I appreciate you saying what you said, and I appreciate your presence here, too, a lot.

The question of whether there is a'Self' and if so its nature is an intriguing one. The Buddhist Abhidhamma, reputedly the 'highest' teachings of the Buddha , says there is no self other than a flowing stream of karma--the arising and disappearing of an impersonal process. Other traditions see the true-self as soul, or ego, or as the containing vessel of individual mind-brain consciousness.

 

I suppose I've entertained most of these views at one time or another. Recently it occurred to me, that it may not be an either-or question. In other words, the self can be any, all or none of the above, depending on how the particular perceiver constructs it. At least that's the way it looks to me now.

Funny, we found out the world isnt flat, but we expect our selves to be so.

Either this or this..

I think is a function of existing in time that we are habituated to think is 'now' or 'then'.. surely not both?!?!?! that would be unpossible!

we dont see the model of layers ( simultaneity) as integral to everything, although we see it in trees and sedimentary rocks and millefeuille.

My personal views and experience is more to do with consciousness than thought, because preceding thought is consiousness, and while thought can be traced to physical locations, consciousness has a more etheric location. So according to the Buddhist model as I understand, there is the Alaya seed consciousness, which is a kind of neverending fountain of spewing data, and heavily related to one's karma or karmic seeds.

 

In my own experience, once, I had a very unusual experience of travelling through my own mind, seeing the machine working. It was a vast expanse of row upon row of globes, and as I thought something, on each globe there would be a picture of something related to that thought, as if all the relations and iterations were presented on the globes. So if I thought "duck", there would instantly be thousands of pictures of ducks and things related to ducks. And for some reason, I would favour one globe over another, it would fit, and then the chain would continue.

 

I suppose there is much more to it than this, but this is about as deep as Ive gotten.

Love this. And love this description "neverending fountain of spewing data, and heavily related to one's karma or karmic seeds."

guh guh guh guh guh guh guh guh guh guh guh <--------- that's my thoughts, that is.

Forgiveness is such a relief.

I just also thought about build up of inner heat as a pattern that exacerbates this emotional situation.

If one has a pitta constitution, ayurvedically speaking, it is easy to get overheated in one's reactions and respond with impatience.The cooling remedies offered by Ayurveda are a great practical help, to fiery types.

I like very much what de_paradise said : "your own lily self".. heh! Just so. Apart from the irony intended in there, what I note in response to this is that part of the 'chewing gum' came, for me, because I felt I had betrayed my purity/inner child by putting myself in the wrong situation. So easy to hate any disillusionment of a child.

We have to forgive ourselves and know we are fundamentally intact and radiant despite all and any affronts.

I can only speak from my own experience but I tried to get rid of my shadow for many years through spiritual practice like qigong and meditation but it only made things worse and made those energies more demonic and more powerful. I was seeing a Buddhist psychotherapist who basically suggested to me after about 8 years to stop all such methods completely as trying to transmute those energies can just be another way to fight and reject yourself.

 

What I have found is that hate emerges from disowned instinctual energies and it only becomes hate because those energies haven't been allowed, respected and acknowledged by you so the hate becomes larger and starts to sabotage your life because it's trying to get your attention. Once you acknowledge those energies and the messages they have and accept them as part of you then the hate dissipates all by itself because those parts of you have been respected so they are no longer resentful. Shadow work is about integrating the shadow not getting rid of it.

 

This may not be relevant at all to the OP but I just thought I would put it out there.

Hi Jetsun, thanks. I think is very relevant to the thread. Really good point : we just cant 'get rid' of our shadow,it isnt possible. We have to give ourselves love, recognition and understanding while healing stuck patterns, and shadow recognition is a lifelong process. In the K Cohen excercise we breathe out the stagnant chi and breathe in fresh chi, and it is in the breathing in healing energy that we replenish ourselves.. it's clear from what you say that it's good to remember not to hate our hatred, not to negatively judge our negative judgments and so on ad infinitum.

EFT is great, having it's first step as self acceptance. Actually EFT would be great for Moth.

I think KK mentioned the inner smile too.. the smiling energy is tremendously powerful, healing and self accepting, and tremendously difficult to find when we feel paralysed in the heart area.

Yeah it is a great opportunity to learn and sometimes not so pleasent but efficient way to be forced to learn.

Never had much problems with hatred but can tell you all about pain with anger ,sadness,dissapointment.

......................

Hug to you from me, sun, for all we feel.

I'm glad you havent had problems with hatred. It's a weird, complicated yet pure and exhausting emotion to suffer.

I felt it as like a seemingly never ending ream of hot chewing gum that hurt a lot, strangling my heart. Purging it was actually quite quick, but the sensation of purging brought with it a sense that it was taking soooo long to get it out of me... strong feelings seem so HUGE, we tend to image them as potentially bigger than us. ( Hence people dream of tsunamis when they are losing control of their emotional floodgates..)

I have the sense that a lot of what I was carrying was family of origin constellation, unexpressed by others, floated to the surface via me. Ancestral Qi!

What do with hate?..

Just dont touch it in any way,dont even look at it.Stop communicating with it and it will eventually stop possesing you,becouse there will be nothing to hang onto.

One very good way is just to first watch what the hate is and its relationship with you(emotionally,physically,mentally,spiritually)and surrounding.Where does it come from,how is it created and/or chosen..

Than start understanding the dynamics and the impact start tuning into a more desired frequency.

Reprogramming suninmyeyes style.

Nice one, Sun. I've done this one too and it worked well for me.

There are degrees of intensity of feeling, so though we are all talking about 'hate' we are speaking of a feeling that may annoy, alienate,disrupt, or eat you up, depending on how strong the feeling is and what prompted it.

It's a great opportunity for learning, even though hatred is sooo painful to feel.

I'd be wary of trying to get rid of your hate through some technique like meditation or qigong, no doubt those techniques will give you temporary relief but you may just be forcing your shadow and their valuable instinctual energies further down into your subconscious.

hi Jetsun.

Interesting idea, what makes you think that purification by subtle body practices isnt actually a deep purification?

I'd be interested to know if those who have practised purification arts feel they have had profound effects, or merely palliative ones.

Ime, the practices lead to insight as well as purging of build up and clearing of channels.

 

 

1. Recognize that the things we dislike in others are often the same things we dislike in ourselves. Try to see yourself in others or to see others as a reflection of some aspect of you. This will enable you to practice compassion.

 

ejr1069, great post. I just want to add a comment to your (1.) above. It's true as you say that projection of shadow is rife and reclaiming shadow is a lifelong path and takes you a long way to healing and spiritual progress.

And sometimes things we dislike in others are dislikable things, that our best self finds abominable and rails against.

It's really important to let yourself know this, to see your own personal code clearly and to allow your instincts to inform you of what smells wrong.

So recognising shadow is a delicate art involving self knowledge, self excavation, therefore, and the fine line one must walk with it, is to stay out of the trap of intellectualisation where we rationalise ourselves away from respecting our responses.

The great thing is being able to know what you genuinely, from a deep clear place, dislike and what you object to, you can tell this easily when waters are unmuddied.

Going direct to the energy system of your body will unmuddy.

Also if you resonate with this one, it's a good one, I know many people find it helpful.

Hello Moth.

Times in my life I have felt so exhausted and amazed by the seemingly endless amount of hatred streaming out of my heart. Mine was a direct response to bad relationship experiences.

Hate is a negative virtue of the heart. You have as much love as you have hatred.

Your capacity has flipped into it's distortion, is all.

So, practically speaking from an energetics point of view, that definitely has practical measurable results, you can

(1) vent your hatred ie just see it streaming out of you as you breathe out, allow the murk of it to leave your heart with each outbreath. Vent it into the atmosphere with the direct intention of setting that stuck energy free now to transform itself back to free purity. As the murk leaves with each outbreath, breathe in fresh healing energy. ( If you want more Qigong info on this kind of cleansing, Ken Cohen is an impeccable source - it was from his book "The way of Qigong" that I learned this originally.)

(2) Learn the healing sounds - Ken Cohen does these too, in his Qigong video, or you can find all sort of info here at tb or on the net about Mantak Chia's healing sounds. This will also help unlock and release the stuck heart energy, quickly and is a good maintenance technique.

Ultimately, toning the whole of your system with healing sounds will help enormously and be a balanced solution. But in case of emergency treatment, and for alleviation of build up, do (1) and (2) above.

BTW, impressed that you recognize your 'wtf do you know" reaction being set off... lots of people get that repudiating reflex and just believe their line of reactivity as "the truth" rather than realise they are protecting their safe ole stuckness from intervention. It may be neccesary to talk the saboteur away from its weapons, if you are to give yourself space to allow change. Negotiate for space to experiment if the voice crops up and tries to drag you away from it's preferred 'safety'.

Good Luck. You have an achievable goal.

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Wingzero, to speak to a bunch of cultivators as if they need external 'facts' about a person in order to ascertain their character is just misplaced.

Be amused with your projections and live your life as is if you were in a constant interaction with the Tao. Because you are whether you know it or not.

this is it!

era of literalism

above is a link to an interesting little newspaper piece on how subtlety of understanding of spiritual life has been rather swamped by the current age.

 

 

You can sometimes measure your meditation progress in terms of heart opening, and freedom from ego, but for this you have to note behavior in your own states and over a long period of time. Progress is slow as molasses, and I think most people quit meditation over the frustration of not knowing if they are making progress.

Yes. Ime being involved in life is the best test of how the work is progressing. Avoiding sex and relationships and cities and all that is one thing, but nothing shows you how you are actually doing as much as having all your old buttons pushed pretty much all the time by relationship challenges, traffic jams and so on and so forths. I dont think you can say you are progressing at all in meditation if you dont have a more and more opening heart and less and less ego drive.

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I find some solace, or at least acceptance, when I put these horrors in the perspective of the Dao and Daoist principles.

Well......... yes! Surely.

I take your point about not being sure how many here are spiritual practitioners in a serious sense, Iknwym! I still think of the tb community as containing those that although they rarely post, I know are around and very actively engaged in genuine depth work. The level of petty confrontationalism here deters a lot of people from posting.. but they stick around, often, one way or another.

And I am surprised from you to see what looks like - and forgive me if I have misread - an underestimation of the systemic power of laughter, when as practitioners we know perfectly well that laughter opens channels fast and connects what was disconnected, within the energy body and the larger energy body between people. It is a surefire easy way to include the body in a process which can all too easily become head centric and mere cerebralism.

So many times I have seen and experienced huge laughter releases from people practising shamanism, or spontaneous qigong, or people who are in love just giggling so much, because they are open and flowing. Please dont fall into a trap of being dismissive of laughter. That way lies psychological and energetic and spiritual ill health. Laughter is a healing force and a force that draws people together.

We puncture inflation and we celebrate our lack of control of events when we laugh... it's pure dao in action.

I think it is an important and difficult experience to understand in your heart and bones (not just intellectually) the truth of what Otis is pointing out.

 

Several years ago I read two books in relatively short succession - the effect was devastating. This is what started me on a focused path of spiritual inquiry.

We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families - Phillip Gourevitch

Love Thy Neighbor - Peter Maass

The first was about the Rwandan genocide and the second about the Bosnian genocide. Powerful books. In part, because they occurred in my lifetime and as I watched - helplessly. Genocide has been with us for a long time and shows no sign of abating. Humanity has progressed technologically but not psychologically or emotionally. We are more dangerous than ever before as a consequence.

 

We can try and ease the pain of this knowledge with humor or denial but it takes courage to face the ugly truth as Otis is presenting it and it is an important part of our spiritual, emotional, and psychological maturity to come to terms with it directly. Failure to do so guarantees future similar episodes. Even with extreme vigilance, it is likely to happen again and again.

If it is actually difficult for a spiritual practitioner to 'get' this.. . well. Do I over estimate everyone or are you underestimating everyone?