[internaldoor]

[internaldoor]

Hi Steven,

Please allow me to insert just a quick reference into your conversation.

You wrote:
***********************************
Here is just one such experience:

We go to sleep each night.
Now, I don’t know about you, but this is what I experience.
Unless I’m having a lucid dream, what happens is that
my memories, my emotions, my personality are for the
most part completely wiped away. This life no longer exists,
and I have no awareness or recollection of this life
whatsoever. However, an “aliveness”, an “awareness”,
some skeleton form of “me”, still remains, despite the
fact that all these other things are wiped away. This
is the one constant that exists from dream to dream and
in between dreams. This is my experience.

*************************************

This is exactly what the Advaita teacher Nisargadatta Maharaj said in a famous book you might have read, named_ I AM_. If you are not really into this kind of teachings, it is interesting to see that you found it by yourself.
If you have the opportunity to read it, it is a good book although it is not at all taoist.

My contact with some Zen teachers seems to confirm that emptiness could be conceived as some kind of aliveness close to what Nisargadatta and you point at. The question remains as to what extent it could be a kind of personal aliveness ( but free from the five shen) or not: no self? a higher personal self? or the core self of the universe? or something else?
And IMO (perhaps narrow), the limit of Advaita perspective is that apart from this sense of Aliveness, nothing really counts which is a way of renewing dualism and despise the carnal dimension of our lives. The dynamic exchange between this aliveness and the endodiment seems to be lost.
My 2 cents.

I wish you a good retreat,
internaldoor

[internaldoor]

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for your post.

Actually, it is quite funny because I’ve had an episode of heart (Fire organ/Sun?) palpitation during sunday and monday. Well, if I have the dates of the solar event right, it may be just a coincidence because as I am not practicing any of the higher formulas, I am certainly not consciously attuned to this kind of events.
Interesting though.

Be well

[internaldoor]

Hi singing ocean,

The famous Greek philosopher was Aristotle. He gave birth to the Peripatetic school.
For more information you may see the link.

Best,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripatetic_school

[internaldoor]

Hi,

quote: “A second element unique to western culture is that we have practically the only mythology on the planet in which the masculine gives birth to the feminine. Eve is made from the rib of Adam. ”

Well, I am aware of one christian scholar who studied the Qabalah and the Hebraic version of the Ancient testament. This scholar says that the word in the book of Genesis that is usually translated into “rib” is : “Tsel`a”. But according to this scholar, “Tsel`a” doesn’t mean “rib” but SIDE.

In other words, Eve is not made out of Adam’s rib but is Adam dark/feminine side (“`Adamah” in Hebrew- equivalent to Yin ) which he MUST embrace/integrate/espouse in order to give birth to a full Human.

Be well,
internaldoor

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