Meditation Expert

Heya Ocean –

>>I’ll keep the subject on a low cook, and maybe the real answer will come out over time.<< Surely it's obvious? Underneath a burning desire to convert someone is always a lingering doubt about oneself. I would say Max has had many great experiences following his path but something about the fact that people on here aren't following it makes him anxious. As soon as he can get let go of his anxiety this he will just smile at all these other people who do things differently, and realise he can be happy just doing it his way. No? Best NN

I like the ‘no?’ part of your message. As if you were not sure yourself… which of course further substantiate your claim by showing that you have been actually living them.

I think the whole thing can be found in a much simpler way in people (and I have been one of them for long, and still catch myself with this weakness) who are not confortable with someone disagreeing with them.

And the whole thing can then be set inside the context of subjective experience vs intersubjective experience. For example do you believe there is ‘one truth’ or ‘everybody have his own truth’. And do you believe the previous questions make sense at all or it only makes sense only in a particular context.

When Michael sais: I have been donwloading future bodies and then changing my future? Is he making a subjective statement (unquestionable from the outside) or an intersubjective one (which strive to be objective). That is: can someone else follow a similar meditative path reach a similar result.

If you say that everything is subjective and cut at the core any intersubjective analysis you go straight to the loonies house, as you have no point of common ground with the rest of humanity. This is the error of many new agers. As it have been so nicely explaine by Faber.

If you say that that only things that are objective, (or intersubjectively, interculturally measurable and reproducible) are worth being investigated you move on the other extreeme. You become a foundamentalist scientist who identifies science with reality. This is an error too as there are things that at least for now cannot be measured. But not for this do now exist.

I really like in old religions (buddhism, taoism) the tentative to investigate in an intersubjective way. And I have a great respect for the Dalai Lama who is really working hard to ‘speak’ with science. More than to ‘speak’ with other religions.

Somehow as a culture we have found the trick of keeping different boxes: religion, science, litterature, law. Which permits to have a wonderful diversity where each experience have still to be validated. But the validation process is not the same across the whole culture. And then we admit that we are at loss when we try to compare elements from different parts of the culture and to explain them. This admission I feel is very important. And when it is lacking we have people who with a superficial understanding of a topic tring to explain it all in terms of their deeper understanding of another topic. If I remember well Socrates died for saying that he was the most knowledgable person in Athens. And he was saying so exactly because he had spotted this error in all other Atheniens, and so he knew that he knew something more than them: he knew that he did not know. Or we could say he knew the limits of his own knowledge.

The multi box structure is then something that gets repeated between traditions and subtraditions. And again, at this level, when someone states that he knows everything (every tradition, every path) we know that we know one thing more than him. For we know the limits of our knowledge (or at least that our knowledge is limited). Something which he probably ignores.

Right? 😉

Hey Pietro, I checked out that link to Faber which was good, but the Sun Tzu quote at the bottom maybe just as apposite? – “Nobody gains from a prolonged war”.

hahaha! NN

Max,
I am discrediting Nan because he has done great harm by putting out false information. Judge not, lest ye be judged.

Nan’s disciples have shown a marked lack of discrimination in vetting what is true and not true. Its very easy for Chinese to pull the wool over the eyes of westerners.

I am sure Nan has powerful meditation experiences and is probably a really good teacher in the Buddhist tradition. But these don’t qualify him to distort history and make judgements about taoist alchemy.

Nan’s ability to read classical chinese is useless if he distorts what he reads thorugh the lens of his Zen Missionary version of Chan Buddhism. I prefer more objective scholars, like Livia Kohn, or the 30 scholars who contributed to the Daoism Handbook, or Isabelle Robinet’s Taoism: Growth of a Religion.

I have posted earlier on how Taoists in China feel Nan is a superficial ripoff and didn’t go deep into alchemy.

Hope this answers your question.

Michael

Michael

My own practice is more than enough for me at the moment, but thanks for the compliment.

Interesting that you put the stillness meditation as a beginning practice, as the best way to go about doing it is to “begin with the end”, meaning to start with the end state or quality, and when you are starting to lose it, begin with the end again. In this way, sooner or later, you are really “cooked” all the way trough.

If you have the time, just one question:
Alchemy is very committing, and I experience a kind of accelerating “karma” or destiny or whatever you call life events playing themselves out at an ever increasing rate. It is quite something these days. And I do feel that these events are connected to my alchemical practice. As you said, opening the Ming Men is connected with fate. Am I right?
In that case, you don’t start alchemical practice until you are atleast a little prepared for what you are up against…

h

Means “a thousand thanks” in Norwegian.