Archive for August 9th, 2005

the Test of Truth

Tuesday, August 9th, 2005

in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The UnBeliever (Stephen R. Donaldson; terrific, a close second to LOTR imho), there is the concept of the “Test of Truth”.

basically, using knowledge/wisdom/experience (or “lore” for short), the Tester questions the Testee… to determine what is True. not if something specifically is ‘correct’ or not, objectively verifiable or whatever… but rather if the person is True.

there is a correlate in the ‘real world’:
What do you do if you don’t trust your shrink?

this is a fundamental question, which boils-down to–
– is it the shrink who is fucked-up, or
– is it you?

if you break it down into “information” and/or “technique”… then that is separate from personalities, & you can learn that from many different ppl. or in other words, it could be that shrink who’s fucked-up, so “go get a second opinion”.

but if it’s a question of something core… then it’s going to come up again & again.

so even then, you don’t have to ‘worry’ about it…
…unless you keep leaving & leaving.

the 12-Step programs (AA, NA, Al-Anon, OA, SA, etc) have a concept called “pulling a geographic”. iow, you leave, & (hope) that you ‘leave your troubles behind’.

unfortunately, that’s not how it works– the troubles were inside of you, you carry them with you, & thus you’re just gonna ‘find’ them again, in wherever new town you end-up in.

{…to be continued}

Tags:
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

the ‘Four Practical Truths’

Tuesday, August 9th, 2005

so, Buddhism has an incredibly-huge canon of texts, myriads of schools, & a gen-u-wine Enlightened dude wandering around singing its praises.
Despite all that, Buddha found it useful to refine his philosophy into a simple, easily-digested mouthful, a la “Four Noble Truths”:
1) Life is Suffering
2) Suffering is caused by Desire
3) Desire can be controlled
4) Desire can be controlled by the 8-Fold Path.

…but that’s hoary & Eastern & who knows what that ’8-Fold Path’ is, anyway?

…so w/o further ado, here’s “The Four Practical Truths” for the Practical Mystic: {with apologies to Buddha}

1) Life is Great
2) if Life Sucks, there’s just shit in your Space
3) you can clear (energy/pictures/beings) from your Space, -and-
4) Growth can be managed via the 4-Quadrant Path

Tags:
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

choosing a School

Tuesday, August 9th, 2005

here’s a few useful guidelines for choosing a school… whether it be meditation, t’ai ch’i, filmmaking, or flower-arrangement. :-)

…usually most of us choose a school based on testimony of a friend (“hey, this place is great!”), or checking-out a top practitioner, & asking them “where’d you learn how to do that?”

To the raw beginner, most any school is better than no school… simply b/c the “getting off your a** & starting to practice” is a pretty big hurdle for most ppl. But if you have any desire to get good at what you’re practicing, it’s a good idea to scrutinize a bit:

1) did the Founder know anything => “is there any good info there”
*check historic records
*take disciples’ [gushing] accolades w/ a grain of salt
*take hand-me-down testimony, esp. from ppl who never met the guy/gal, w/ a bucket of salt
2) does the [current] Teacher know anything => “is the good info still there”
*meet them, check them out
*find others whose opinions you respect, & have them check them out
3) are the current students any good => “is the good info [still] being taught”
*there are tons of top practitioners who can’t teach worth a sh*t… eg:
-they’re “forgotten more than they know”,
-they’ve been practicing at an advanced level for so long they can’t remember how to ‘explain’ the basics to beginners…
-they’re bored and/or unenthusiastic w/ beginners
*also, sometimes some teachers don’t want ‘competition’, so subtly ‘hold-back’ their top students
-this happens a lot w/ esoteric Eastern arts [esp. if you're not a native of that culture]… they DON’T WANT to really teach you
-they’ll take your $$, & won’t mind obfuscating or letting you be stuck… for years

…& finally– notice if the ppl at the school are Happy.

…it’s like interviewing at a job– that first impression speaks volumes, & you’ll always come-back to it, years later after you’re hired:
“yeah, i remember everybody seeming stressed-out, & saying ‘oh you don’t want to work here’, but i thought they were just kidding”.
Um, no. They weren’t.

And whereas there’s some expected amount of gnarly class-experience to [overcome] (esp. w/ Martial Arts, for example)…
…that’s probably not the [environment] you want to be in, if you’re learning meditation, for example.

Happy Learning!

Tags:
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »