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| .fish in net.... electrons hurtling thru the wires.... bringing you.... |
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Some notes from the underground ...spoken like a DJ, eh? as I am, as well as being an acupuncturist, party organizer, promoter and student of life university... |
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My quest for the holy grail.. |
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"made of gold,cant be sold"-Hendrix.. feedback link to WWW...and more |
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What's IT all about ? |
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Is there a god or goddess, a creator, or are we some sort of ; molecular accident? |
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Who am I? why are we here, where are we going?...Are we lost in space? |
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What follows is a collection of some of my life's big QUESTIONS... the reason for all this wandering...and my answer-though Its a bit of a secret! (he he)
Perhaps the first fish to crawl onto dry land had a drive to push the limits,
to become more aware/conscious?(our ancestor) |
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Is intelligence the goal of Evolution?
My teenage aspiration was, after much deliberation, to seek .. "-Certain knowledge of Absolute truth"
Raised ,thankfully, with very little parental dogma of a religious kind (although expected to behave morally upright). I was permitted to explore freely the other faiths of this world. My father,who served in the army, although highly moral, was not a regular church goer,like my mother, and used to quote someone defining himself as "a non-practicing atheist"! My religious education was mostly at school where we attended daily prayers as members of the Church of England, a protestant and somewhat relaxed faith..At 15, a few years before Monty python's |
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The Meaning of life, |
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I was searching... reading eastern and western religions and philosophy,anything I could find in the school or Town libraries. Subjects like Bhuddism and World religions, books like the Damapada, the Tibetan book of the dead; Then there was Theosophy,I really enjoyed Besant, Leadbetter(though I didn't discover JJ Krishnamurti then , I wonder if I would have understood it then?); I dived into all kinds of tracts about systems of enlightenment: The Golden Bough, Magik, Castenada,Yogananda, Merton, Brunton, Aurobindo (his evolution theories are still poignant, worth reading), All the lobsan Rampa books(oops- how embarassing! but fun.) etc etc .....all without any success i.e. enlightenment. All this intellectual stuffing gave me no concrete evidence to grasp on to, but filled my imagination with dreams and fanciful ideas. Astral Projection!(I remember taking months training myself to sleep all night on my back!)... tempting books like The Naked Lunch! the Rubiat! Fear and Loathing ! Autobiography of a yogi.... My school teachers seemed most unenlightened! I became cynical, ( irreligious!) I had concluded that human life was quite possibly simply a series of reactions( to actions,) or conditioning , and that people have little or no choice, being only the sum of a lifetime's imputs... Only that our computers and instruments were not yet sophisticated enough to calculate these imputs and conditioned responses.. .Robots!
The classic example is the parrot which by simply memorizing and repeating could gain academic distinction! (How many can we think of...sorry thats not fair) I agreed with Mx -. Religion is the opium of the people... How bleak.a sterile promontory. |
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I was 17 in 1977 and there were many different roads to explore.. I was going to wild weekend gigs in my native London, and following... the Clash! (one of the faithful- though Joe and I shared a... (long story), name drop, name drop, remember SHEWS fanzine, Jam at the red bull? Hotrods at the rainbow? Led zep all at earls ct? even Steve Hillage at Hammersmith. The heady years of California dreaming (sunshine too) , the Notting hill carnival that year? stompin times..))... Experimentation was the order of the day.. the Who the soundtrack while the likes of prince far I and creation rebel were glued to my deck (just before tapes and CDs!). The next year, while at university I first did TM ("Transcend dental medication" Osho) , which helped with the hangovers,and though I was not passionate about it, it sparked an interest in states of mind.I was apathetic about politics..' if politics could change the system, it would be illegal!'(from the toilet wall-Warwick uni.) |
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In '79 ,at 19 years old, I started a nearly 4 year journey , mostly travelling in the states, Canada and Mexico,.... I became a radish vegetarian that first year in a well below zero Toronto,living with all kinds of New age people(more heady times!)I started doing other training\techniques :yoga (sivananda hatha yoga,Raja yoga,Kundalini yoga); reflexology; rebirthing( becoming a qualified instructor in Toronto,and rebirthing at the rainbow gathering,1980!..."keep breathing");gestalt(you cant push the river); vipassna; electroencephalogram meditation(a very useful tool)I did a crystal healing workshop with MarcelVogel; endured the gamut of Rajneesh/ Osho meditations, retreats,Tapes & Books, (wise, but lets not forget that he was enlightened after being a professor of philosophy at university.Did he die of AIDS?) .Tantra ,yantra , mantra, mandalas. nadabrama.very' dynamic!' (abit early in the morning for screaming)Lots of fun on the frozen lakes of Ontario,and the affairs!.. Greetings to the dervish dancers! ..But my questions remained only partially answered Who is Enlightened? |
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How to meet Gurdgieff's remarkable men.. even : Babaji, the Heracan Baba? Should I go to Whahoutla(Oaxaca), (yes), and do the sacred ceremonies? or maybe visit Findhorn? (not as yet, but I did attend one of their extraordinary lecturesin Toronto) or should I fast for longer? (14 days was my longest).. where is the source of the alchemists gold? (the lotus grows from the mud) And the insight Questions...the koans |
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like, What is the sound of one hand clapping?or rather: What is your original face? , or (Papaji & follower: ) |
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Who am I ? or |
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Who is the watcher?, Who is it that looks out of your eyes? This can be used as an awareness techniquei.e. what is the source of the combined vision of each eye, the observer, somewhere 'behind' the eyes.... ("Who is it that is repeating the Bhuddas name ")
'Who am i?' or 'this is not me ' can be used as mantras (repeated sound or word) , like: Ram, Ram, Ram (a Hindu name of God,also Mahatma Gandi's last word); Ohm,Ohm,Ohm (the Hindus original sound) ; or ;'this is not me'(;i.e. the imagination/thought is the projection on the screen,not the self. This is what Lin Chi meant by if you see the Buddah 'Kill him') .. the classic Russian pilgrim's: 'lord have mercy on me a sinner'(repeated constantly for years). More questions remained for me , though I had enjoyed some unusual sensations, after these dry searches and seemingly fruitless mantra and visualisation sessions...Was I not doing it right?(probably).. |
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Who is the observer? |
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( sounds a bit paranoid eh?) another pressing question for me at the time was: Who is a really enlightened teacher ? who is, in the place to be? not an easy quest, EH?.
.I hitchhiked down from Toronto and around America and into Mexico and back and then met the touring company,'White Buffalo Mulitmedia'Check out their film festival here. Who I worked for as roadie, soundman and driver ,taking another circuit of the states covering the 'survival gathering ' of 1980 in South Dakota,Covering the plight of the north American Tribes,which was then a major problem,what with them still controlling nearly all the unmined land in America.The gathering took place in the shadows of the black hills where uranium had just been discovered.White buffalo had been working with the tribal elders for years..(The boss, Nathan still does multimedia, and organizes the Woodstock museum).The experience opened my eyes to the somewhat depressing issues plagueing these tribes.
When Nathan went to photograph the Egyptian pyramids (Stephen Halpern was there doing holographic kirlian photography of Cheops!) i hitched with a camera and film towards the Mexican Pyramids to capture the snake which reveals itself only on equinoxes..After being robbed at the border of Mexico another odysey began, skint, it took me through many places;temproary jobs (Workload) jumping the border, Indian reservations, ashramas, even to living with a Yaquis medicine man in Mexico. On my second trip to Mexico I experienced a huge 7.6 Richter scale earthquake where walking was impossible , I crawled out of this cafe ,the waiter insisted we pay the bill, while the whole city slid about three feet from side to side ,like a massive skateboard, for 3mins!!! You don't see that in London, very shaking! (I immediately wrote a postcard home which prompted my folks into trying to find me, but by that time I had was hitching, jumping freight trains and, without an agenda, Quite deeply lost(and found) in the deserts and steaming jungles of Mexico (very sorry folks). This story will, I hope,eventually be told,when I have more time...)) |
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..More recently my philosophical questions have changed to still more scientific,rational ones e.g. |
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What is our Wave consciousness ? |
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(as in not particle)...
In some ways ,to me now, self realization is like forgeting (past conditioning), or just that |
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Ones self is larger than we can imagine/construct |
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(or faster,i.e. thought is always after the event,always in the past) for isn't all our acquired knowledge a kind of filter,keeping us away from this moments awareness? (as J.J.Krishnamurti might say)....I used to give the example of one drop of Blood having 5million red blood cells... How can we say we know anything at all, internally, about how we produce them! so what can we say about spirit, awareness ? |
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But I did come to a realisation, epiphany in something like a cave ,while living the life of a hermit,while practicing a minimum of 2 hours of meditation every night. Alone. |
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In the end all the intellectual arguments, although they open up new visions of awareness, pale to specters when meditation is seriously practiced and ... attained. (Now you should ask what did I achieve?and when?)...As we should all ponder . Were all those meditators, shamans, yogis even saints mad? or perhaps imagining things? But the Electroencephalogram tells us that there are reproducible and trainable changes in the electric output of the brain, I have had the luck to have one at hand for a couple of years(thanks to Ray Arlo), it is a very useful tool...see Neurofeedback:equipment to train the brain If the secret of life were told, it wouldn't be a secret,would it?
Deep stillness(samadi) is hard work though. (took me about 3 years of daily practice) but its certainly possible,with persistence,and a knowledge of the workings of the mind (,a solid technique is included below), and the reference/ guidance of a real meditator (practically impossible to find!, try the EEG ! or even EGG?) NOTE: A real teacher (in my opinion) has humor, freedom in his lifestyle, self control, non attachment, compassion (charity), zest for life, deep insight, experience and posture or grace in mind and body...in other words.. very difficult to find. I visited most (these days I should say many!) of the famous Ashrams and communities all over America, including the home of Ram Dass (Be here Now) (Thanks Nathan of White buffalo Multimedia) Wait.. that's another long story... |
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!..blink!..Be herenow-link |
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Its NOT the Destination..Its the Road. |
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"the past has flown away.The coming month and year do not exist;Ours only is the present's tiny point." |
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-shabistari(the secret rose garden of Sa'd Ud Din,Mahmud shabistari) |
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consciousness... |
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what is this transcendental or cosmic consciousness? ..serious thinkers,like |
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j.j.Krishnamurti, who stressed freeing ourselves from conformity,imitation& fear, said "Truth is a pathless land" and
"How can the infinite be understood by the finite?" |
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? |
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Break time(you deserved it!) hope you enjoy these bumper stickers, |
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QUESTION REALITY |
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-I don't care who you are,what you drive or where you would rather be ! -
(reminds me of:
"He who with little is content is rich indeed as a king; and a king ,in his greatness,is poor as the peddler,when his kingdom sufficeth him not"Shekel Hakodesh -the holy shekel) |
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;it hurts to be on the cutting edge
whirled peas ha ha
nuke gay whales for Jesus- work is for people who don't know how to Fish
my inner child can beat your inner child
;support wildlife,throw a party ;..do you get my drift?..a mix for SHROOM,Taiwan
Does Pavlov ring a bell?........ how tricky are words and the human imagination! however I have been reminded "there are NO glib solutions".and that " to control the mind is like taming a wild horse"-Milarepa. and |
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The manifestations of mind outnumber the myriads of dust-motes ,in the infinite rays of sunlight-Milarepa |
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.so its time,I think, to introduce to you,dear reader , a real shocker in his day, and a very persistent searcher after truth/emancipation/enlightenment, . |
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Zen master, original! |
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LIN CHI , |
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Old (810AD!)Chinese Zen teacher..he said.. |
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......" Followers of the Way, if you want to get the kind of understanding that accords with the Dharma(way), never be misled by others. Whether your facing inward or facing outward, whatever you meet up with,just kill it! If you meet a Buddha..." ( please don't take him literally, these Zen sayings shouldn't be be, er what's the word? ) |
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..Kill The Bhuddha ! |
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... if you meet the patriarch, kill the patriarch. If you meet an arhart ( holy man), kill the arhart... if you meet your parents (,etc etc)..". then for the first time you will gain emancipation, will not be entangled with things, will pass freely anywhere you wish to go." furthermore- |
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" Fellow believers, you lug your alms bag and this sack of shit that is your body and you rush off on side roads,looking for buddhas, looking for the Dharma. Right now all of this dashing and searching your doing -do you know what it is your looking for? Its vibrantly alive, yet it has no root or stem.You cant gather it up , you cant scatter it to the winds. The more you search for it the further away it gets. But don't search for it and its right before your eyes, its miraculous sound always in your ears. But if you don't have faith, you'll spend your hundred years in wasted labor." |
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"There is no safety in the threefold world; its like a burning house.This is no place for you to linger long! The deadly demon of impermanence Will be on you in an instant, regardless of whether you're rich or poor,old or young. If you want to be no different from the patriarchs and Buddha's,then never look for something outside yourselves.the clean pure light in a moment of your mind- that is the essence- body of the Buddha lodged within you. The undifferentiated light in a moment of your mind- that is the Bliss-body of the Buddha lodged within you. The undiscriminating light in a moment of your mind-that is the transformation- body of the Buddha lodged within you. These three types of bodies are you, the person who stands before me now listening to this lecture on the Dharma! And simply because you do not rush around seeking anything outside yourselves, you can command these fine faculties."
...... wow! his life was fascinating, well worth some reading, how for instance he had to wait three years before he could ask his first question to the , very strict, abbot.. which was |
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Lin Chi's mentor-A great Story-www |
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Why did Bodidharma come from the west? " |
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for which he was beaten !!. Eventually he overturned the establishment of his time, a veritable punk. ..from the Lin Chi Lu, Chinese writings (, also see Rinzai, Japan) his hard earned wisdom holds true for modern times, I believe,.. and maybe even helps us map out the wave/ particle, right/left brain, ( holistic/ rational, spirit/ ego) dichotomies, the quantum mechanical factual results that still puzzle today's thinkers....
but the actual application of awareness techniques,... whack! (a quick swatch with a stick for example!).. or, |
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what is the essence of Buddhist teachings? |
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WWW-Lin Chi -A link to Buddha Net |
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or..."What is your wave aspect in reality?" (see within.. haha!)Th quantum mechanics of conciousness has been well described in 'The tao of physics' and 'the quantum Self?-...however it is behind those eyes... just remove the (newtonian) glasses ! |
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The roots of Zen, through Buddhism, are evident in the early Sanskrit texts like the Upanishads :for example: (from about2000+BC!) |
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";This self (what can one say of it but)
No, no! it is impalpable, for it cannot be grasped; indestructible, for it cannot be destroyed; free from attachment, for it is not attached (to anything ), not bound.It does not quaver, nor can it be hurt. |
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With what indeed should one understand the understander?" |
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Brihadaranyaka Upanishad4.5.15.(sounds like a Koan to me..) |
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.. |
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Chemical Karma.. |
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the writer's theorem of: |
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Simply put,emotions,for example guilt or love release/produce endorphin like chemicals to affect normal thinking/ responsitivity.. in other words, our conscience is maintaining our emotional state through brain chemicals...(like we didn't know eh!)
though ' the innocent are free from judgement'
(i.e. no guilt endorphins circulating in the brain), |
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'with what measure we meet, the same will be meeted unto us' |
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(Christ)......so Conscience , like static radio interference, ( our unresolved conflicts), produces forms of chemicals (electromagnetic forces included,perhaps like thought forms- (leadbetters term)) to give us our present consciousness, or |
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INSTANT KARMA |
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(proving John lennon was right all along,by the way)... like looking through a glass onion (.or even, glass darkly). what a piece of work is man eh? beautiful construction (beautiful plumage,eh?), perhaps the cutting edge of evolution.contained within our genes the history of man(at least),seeking greater and greater consciousness.... ?
If consciousness is a quantum based process, i.e. Frohlich style Bose-Einstein condensates within the brain,(CF:Long-Range Coherence and Energy storage in Biological Systems-international Journal of Quantum Chemistry, vol2, pp641-9) the neurons vibrating fat(or positively charged proteins)affecting local and non local wave patterns, then it looks like we are all much more interrelated than traditionally (Newtonian) believed...
.... so all things have electrons and these react like waves resonating/ responding to all the other electrons around. More complex Bose-Einstein condensates, behaving like bells resonating, have non- local effects (i.e. affect others over very large distances, as has been proven by these in separated lasers even!) (see 'Songlines' ) somehow, like a soup ("wetware") or like a network, even like the brain ........ In other words, like the basis of life itself: particles AND waves(at the same time), we are all ' Spirit'And ego , affected by others waves (vibrations)- essentially both (this finally begins to explain the Supernatural powers of the 'thus come ones',or Buddhas,as related in the Lotus sutra...) (more on this crucial aspect of Buddhist faith later...). |
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.... or... as an American Indian once told me: |
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"We are all a natural part of the earth,we are Not separate,the mother earth is a spirit,and we are a natural part of that spirit" |
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.this brings me to the subject of awareness and of course you, the reader, also experiencing the same time wave, NOW as we hurtle through space on this beautiful planet.for we all share our basic constituents, with their Particle/ wave attributes... sooner or later we all give up our collections of molecules,and dissolve into the mother earth............ and yet our thoughts have already been born again in the minds of our fellow travelers. part of ourselves is not separate now, (the wave aspect( read spirit),)So what can we do to discover and map this 'wave self'? ('to be or...now theres the rub') I think to reinterpret religious experience,to put the mystics into a renewed position of respect (as proto scientific explorers),without superstition,and to redefine awareness or states of consciousness , for instance meditation,in the light of modern science,(not too much work to do eh?)
It seems like science is looking for the same interconnections that many religions have written about before,and the scramble is on to put scientific results into a model of consciousness,wave behavior,non local effects,and the like...even now scientists are redefining telepathic ability in the light of wave behavior for example.. |
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| It could happen in a second,like enlightenment for a Zen Buddhist.if only I could find the right Koan..e.g'.What was your original face?'or..'if a branch falls in the woods and no one is near to hear it,does it make a sound?' .... concerning |
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meditation: |
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Ok Ill try to make this to the point.. As the Lady at the head of the Raja yoga foundation,lecturing in toronto, once said :'you must be very quiet to hear the still small voice within' ( my words in recap)..to get to stillness we must still the thoughts,normally our minds are occupied by all kinds of traffic..the days troubles, sensations from all the senses, deeper are memories,,and the sub-consciousness. So by all kinds of techniques we can settle these imputs, by letting them go and returning ( repeatedly,till we bore the mind to death! sort of..)returning to the practice, for instance a mantra ( a sound ,like 'Om mane padme hum' (Meaning:The all is a precious jewel in the lotus flower which blooms in my heart- Tibetan) ..and/ or |
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sitting (on your bum bones)straight, aware of the breath striking the inside of the nostrils ,focusing on the point between the eyebrows and watching thoughts come and go ,without becoming caught up in them.. |
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.it takes persistence,the mind can imagine anything! but these results will show your progress,better memory, more clarity(in problem solving),peace of mind,states of feeling like you belong,bliss ,levels like the fixation of bliss(Tibetan phrase),samadhi or ecstasy(of a much more solidity than the drug ..,..compassion and the extinction of the ego...(sounds fun eh? like a cart ride pulled by two deer?) the crucial thing is... |
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Id like to find more time to write about my Quest for the grail,, my travels,and discoveries for instance, while working with White buffalo multi media in America (respect going out to Nathan ),I have had Meetings with remarkable men, and women, having been initiated (unintentionally, without any animal sacrifice,can you believe?), as a magus(on an Indian reservation, while covering a conflict,) I have tracked down and met various teachers , bruchos (Mexican shaman/healers) (en espanyol-Dios te bendigas!),healers, yogis, sadduhs ( baba hari dass, Mark(love love),Lightening Amen, mahaatmas(oh lord save us from your followers!))Barry Long,JJK,Dr Lee,Tai chi Masters and many more... i'll try also to include some tales from my other profession, acupuncture(tales from Nanjing college ofTCM( traditional Chinese medicine),do I dare tell?) however time tells ,back to the plot,the garden I mean got to get some fresh air..after all as they say inTCM |
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'Everything in moderation,Including moderation! |
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caught in the net... |
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.. muses musing in the net...and |
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.... |
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coming in real video...Kumba mela boom shankar.. |
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Wake up ! |
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Get your own Freedom of awareness |
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