From White Fat Cow

http://www.meditationexpert.com/WhiteFatCow.htm

I always urge people to make a yearly “To Do” journal around New Years. Ever since I started doing this I’ve achieved more, experienced more and had more satisfaction than my friends who don’t use the following system.

Remember the study from Harvard that showed only 3% of its graduating class ever bothered to write down its goals, but those people were definitely the most materially successful? They took the 1954 class from Harvard and asked whether any of these individuals ever wrote down their goals. They put those people into two piles and found the every-now-and-then goal setters made more money, had more free time and more fun than the non-goal setters.

Next they took this group of goal setters and started segmenting them into finer and finer groups. Those who wrote down their goals religiously once a year were compared to the “every now and then” group. Once again the more frequent goal setters had much higher incomes, more free time and more fun than the random goal setters.

How about those who set monthly goals versus yearly goals? Again, the monthly goal setters had a higher average income and net worth, more free time and more fun than the once-a-year goal setters. On and on they kept performing this analysis until they found at the very end that those people who made yearly, monthly and daily goals had many more times the income, free time and fun than those who never set any goals at all. I remember that with each smaller group the average statistics kept doubling … all because of setting tighter and tighter goals and trying to achieve them.

Why am I telling you this? Because you should adopt this method starting NOW. Every year, around the 31st of December or January 1st, I take a few days and write down in a small book all the things I want to accomplish or experience during the new year. The list might include a trip to Egypt, buying a new pair of shoes, writing a computer program, reading so many books (with their titles), learning how to do acupuncture, writing a book, ballroom dancing … use your imagination. You, too, should write down everything you want to experience or do this year and make this list in light of your larger life goals.

Once you have the yearly list of things you want to do (and know you can realistically achieve if you set your mind to it), break up those objectives into monthly activities. Some events I personally schedule at the beginning of the year, and others I schedule adaptively as the months go by, saying “this month is a good one to undertake this activity, so let me schedule it now.” When each month comes around, I break up that list of objectives into weekly and daily tasks. I was only able to learns cuba diving, something I always wanted to accomplish, because I used this scheduling and goal setting system. Several years ago come January 1st I said, “This year I’m going to do it,” I scheduled it in, forced myself to take the lessons at that time because it was in the schedule, and I did.

You must make this process very flexible. The point is to do it so that at the end of each year you can look back with satisfaction and see everything you’ve done was what you wanted to do. Your friends, colleagues and peers on the other hand will be looking back and saying, “I should have done such-and-such this year but let another year pass by.” The journal forces me to do things where I would normally get lazy, and will work for you this way as well.

Goals aren’t handcuffs you lock yourself into. Goal setting is a voluntary assignment; goals are purposes or objectives you voluntarily commit to. You set out to achieve them because they are important to you and you alone. If they weren’t important, you wouldn’t even bother to list them. All you ared doing is identifying what is personally IMPORTANT to you.

I know that without this system I wouldn’t do one-third or one-quarter of what I really want to do in life, so writing my yearly goals down and forcing myself to work on what’s important to me (you see, these are my goals and objectives so they are my priorities) has helped me immensely. If I cannot shape it all the way I desire because of karma, then if I really want that target then like Liao Fan I keep working on it.

If you do what I just said, and use the 6M method along with this routine, you’ll definitely have a much better chance of achieving any of your goals in life than anyone you know including all your other family members. Like Benjamin Franklin, you’ll also have a much richer and better life in the process.

So what are those things you want? What are the top ten places you want to visit before you die? What are the top ten events would you like to experience or what top ten skills would you most like to acquire? What things about your life, fate, future, fortune or destiny do you really want to change? What do you really want to accomplish to have made this a worthwhile life at your end of days, a life worth living?

Maybe your big goal is to become famous or create a business and become self-employed. I hope they are high goals, but I’m not here to tell you what your objectives are. I can only tell you a big secret: after a long struggle and much experience and wisdom gained, people commonly find “purpose in life” after they discover the joy and riches of helping others with service. But these personal objectives, the life you want to create, what you want to achieve, accomplish and experience is “your thing,” your goals, your dreams and desires. Other people may think they are silly but who has the right to criticize them? You must reap what you personally sow and learn from your own mistakes if what you go after is rather stupid or non-virtuous. So who cares what others think? They’re your goals, they are not set in stone and you’re free to change them whenever you want.

If your goals are wise and virtuous then you’ll benefit by them, whereas if they’re the opposite then you will suffer in some way. While you can ask people for their opinions when seeking wisdom, ultimately you have to connect with your deepest source to know what’s right for you, or find a very wise guru to keep you out of trouble and help you make this a life that matters. If deep inside you already know your dream targets are frivolous and lack virtue, your inner self will actually work to stop you from achieving them. But don’t count on this happening nor use it as an excuse to pursue anything and everything while counting on self-sabotage to protect you.

In short, now you know how to change your fortune, build the life you want, achieve the fate you desire, and accomplish the goals that are meaningful to you. It’s all based on you and it’s all based on implementing the 6M technique. All the evidence, including a very deep metaphysical background, has been provided that goes way beyond anything the New Age, motivational, success coaching crowd knows about. They know nothing about the deep foundations of karma behind fate and the fate changing freedom of meditation, mantra and merit.

Remember that you need the motivation to want to change things and make the effort. Without inspiration or ambition you will get nowhere, so you already know you must rally the horses. Maybe it’s money, time, autonomy, status, challenge, power, independence, freedom, ethics, recognition, a legacy, service to others or fame that you’re after, but to get it you first of all need the motivation to do something along a path of action that will achieve it.

Many people know what they want to accomplish but leave it at that. This is because you must be truly passionate and excited about your goals if you’re ever going to do something about them. You need a desire so burning that you’ll do anything to achieve it. You need inspiration or ambition that raises your vitality and engages you because if the goal isn’t exciting and motivating you won’t put a lot of work into overcoming the challenges to achieve it.

Effective goals must be big enough to stretch us without being too audacious. They must be challenging enough to invite us into our potential, but realistic enough that we don’t end up chasing clouds in the sky.

To take the first steps towards this type of goal and overcome lethargy and hesitation, even when you’re unsure a bit, and to really put that motivation it into action now that you have this technique and the rationale — that’s real motivation and for that you need to structure a plan of action. You have to move from just thinking about something to doing something and actually take those steps with single-mindedness.

That’s a big secret that the self help crowd doesn’t know about, which is that the single-mindedness of focus or the one-pointedness of execution are the characteristic traits of samadhi. In other words, it’s actually by cultivating samadhi that you can materialize a new fortune. Accomplishment all comes down to samadhi practice, which is the outcome of meditation. The higher your meditation, the higher your samadhi and the higher your possible level of accomplishment because the focused mind power of samadhi is one of the strongest forces in the universe.

It’s actually because individuals cultivate a type of mundane (rather than spiritual) samadhi that they can accomplish things in the world, so accomplishment in general (and especially against the fortune) is all a function of cultivating samadhi. That’s why the most effective people all turn to meditation. Once again, it’s basically the task of self-cultivation that leads to success … and if you cultivate samadhi, you can succeed at accomplishing almost anything you desire in the world. The big secret is that it is all a function of cultivating samadhi in a higher or lesser degree.

You also need a monitoring system — or “accountability partner” — for this materialization that’s going to keep you moving forward. You need someway or someone to make yourself accountable and not let yourself off the hook. Great individuals who have succeeded in the past suggest recognize the truth of accountability, and suggest you should be monitoring your progress on a daily, weekly and monthly basis so that you are constantly moving towards your goals and adjusting your behavior along the way. One of my Stages students wrote me that after adopting the Ben Franklin / Liao Fan daily recording method using Microsoft Excel, he had his best year ever. That’s what I’m talking about. You rpove this by doing this.

On top of that, do not forget — merit, mantra and meditation practice.

Sent in by Bruce Marsh:

“For all those crazy guys who go ‘noodling’ for catfish and & stick their arms down the fish’s throat!! This would be ‘all the catfish you can eat.’

“Each year, a few people were drowning or disappearing mysteriously in Huadu’s Furong Reservoir ( China ). It was not until recently, when the son of a government official went swimming in the reservoir and was drowned that the secret was revealed.

“It is a 3-metre long man-eating catfish whose head alone is 1 metre wide! After cutting up the catfish, people were surprised to find the remains of another man inside!

“Swimming in the reservoir is now forbidden because it is feared another similar man-eating catfish is still lurking in the waters.”

True picture.

Brian writes in, however:

“I think you might have been hoaxed with the giant “catfish” on your blog.  Google images for “whale shark” and “mekong catfish”.  There ARE giant catfish in Asia, but this photo looks like a smallish whale shark.  The clue is the dorsal fin – catfish are bony so their dorsal fin looks like a bat wing, sharks are cartiliginous so their dorsal fins are smooth.  You also notice that the pectoral fins have been removed?  The Chinese like that shark fin soup don’t they? The story could be true, but to me that picture is not a catfish. ”
I’m thinking the picture is true (perhaps falsely identified), but the story is made up. Who can tell with what comes from China nowadays? Ha  Ha Ha. At least it’s a big interesting “swimming thing”!

Nigel Thompson writes in:

“Just want to let you know that the animal pictured in your recent ‘HolyCatfish’ blog entry is actually not a catfish but a whale shark.  The story of the man-eating catfish appears to be another Internet-based urban legend.  Not only is it a whale shark, but whale sharks are filter-feeders and mainly eat plankton and algae.  It’s one of the large, relatively peaceful animals that exist in the world.  These  animals cavort gently with scuba divers.  On top of that, it’s an endangered species.  (I’m no marine biologist, I just did some checking.) I’m positive you’ll want to know this.”

To transform the teeth in cultivation is hard. Very hard. Teeth stand for money in many fortune telling methods — lose money or make money you can tell by the teeth such as tooth aches, lost teeth, broken teeth, infections, and so forth. Even the appearance of teeth means something. When the teeth all point inwards you can know that person is selfish and always thinks of themselves first no matter how generous they may outwardly seem. You can know all sorts of things about someone’s personality by their teeth and many face fortune telling books can teach you some basics. Every part of your body reflects your fortune, but ordinary people don’t know how to read it. Of particular importance are the bones, which is why I encourage you to cultivate your skeleton and make skeleton offerings.

As people get older, they tend to lose their teeth. Cavities filled with mercury, rather than non-toxic substances contribute to health problems later in life, too. Root canals are another problem you can trace to breast cancer, heart health or other health issues; the impacted infection beneath a particular tooth follows its acupuncture meridian down to an organ to hurt it.

What do you do to maintain healthy teeth? Brush, floss, gargle, etc. Anything more?

Get ready for this — BLOT the gums. Many people have bleeding gums and then root canals and major gum problems later because they’ve been brushing incorrectly all their life. What they should be doing is blotting their teeth, which can often save them once you learn how to do it. In fact, blotting, we are told, is superior to brushing because people brush crap into their gums just beneath the gum lines. That’s what causes gum disease and infections later on despite all the flossing and brushing you may do. Some people develop gum problems and then follow their dentist’s orders to brush and floss religiously but the problem gets worse and worse despite their efforts. What can help? What do you do in this situation if this is you?

Go purchase this inexpensive DVD from the Price Pottenger Foundation and show your family, especially if you are over thirty years old. Learn to do this. It may save your teeth. It may save your friends’ teeth. Everything you’ve been taught about brushing is mostly wrong. And buy two several of their special tooth brushes (just $2.50) while you’re at it because you’ll need them:

http://www.ppnf.org/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=38&products_id=47&osCsid=b5abb7e433756af38fa4970f77ffe23d

Root canals? Read this:

http://www.ppnf.org/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=194&osCsid=b5abb7e433756af38fa4970f77ffe23d

What else to know? In Taoism you’re taught to chomp on your teeth about two dozen times every day to keep them healthy. Perhaps this works because it shakes their roots to help prevent infections. Also you’re taught to clench your teeth just a bit when you defecate because you’re losing chi below and the closed teeth pulls the chi upwards. But don’t grind them! That’s not the teaching.

In India they teach you to use a tongue scraper to scrape off the gunk on the tongue every morning, or at least brush it off. Smart! Don’t swallow it! Using a tongue scraper is the best way and it costs about $6. Also, wipe the sides of the mouth with a tooth brush too as the Price Pottenger DVD shows. That’s where bacteria are, so do it! get that DVD because I guarantee you haven’t been taught this, and I want you to keep your teeth, save your teeth, and make money. I don’t want anyone to lose their teeth and I want everyone to make money.

Okay, for bleeding gums and gum disease I’ve been told this natural formula works: OraMD which you can buy on the web. Dr. Richard Schulze of the American Botanical Pharmacy has a cayenne pepper gum formula that works for some people, too, but I’d try the OraMD first. You just put 1-2 drops on your finger and rub it in, or put it on your toothbrush and brush it on your gums. You never know which will work for you.

Edgar Cayce recommended Ipsab and the mouthwash Ipsadent, both of which can be found on the web along with stories of their workability or not.

And water picks? Fantastic idea.

Does tartar build up all the time despite brushing and all sorts of methods? I believe Dr. David Williams was the one who reported it might be due to a clogged gall bladder not secreting enough bile.

Now for a cultivation topic — transforming the teeth as promised. You have to reach the stage where you push out the dirty chi within the chi channel beneath each tooth. Even for the teeth that are not there you do this. In fact, for the extra Buddha teeth that are not even there (a rupakaya has 40 perfectly aligned teeth, gapless, pure white without decay, etc.), you do this to prepare for that one day in the future. You just push the dirty chi out the center of the tooth, and then later push off the tooth bone chi as well (which is something you’ve done for countless times for other bones to even get close to this stage). This can be accomplished at the stage wherein your etheric body appears with the curly cue hairs on your head as a Buddha does. That’s the marker for this stage. It’s a stage of achievement that has nothing to do with “Buddhism” – please remember that. “Buddha” is just a short hand name for a fully enlightened being, that’s all.

What you can do to get rid of the tooth bone chi is use the tip of the clear jelly chi (when you reach the stage where it’s clear) to from a loop like the top of a cane, and use that to push off the tooth. Or you can use you mind to squeeze it out by squeezing the roots so it pops out and just the clear chi channel is left dangling there until you push that out. That’s very effective because the teeth are stubborn. Offer them to Mahagala Buddha and the other Buddhas.

Another method is to expand the width of each tooth’s chi channel to crack the tooth surrounding it and pop off these remnants. And remember to do this not just for the teeth that are there but for teeth that you lost, and for the Buddha extra teeth that don’t appear but whose roots would be way back near to where the gums turn inwards into the body. Regular people have thirty-two teeth but Buddhas in perfected bodies have forty. Working on these extra “non-existent” teeth (you’ll find their spot if you reach this stage) is preparing for the one day you’re fully enlightened and wish to have a perfected physical form so as to provide an example for the people. People need examples which is why fully enlightened beings sometimes appear in fully perfected forms.

If you do this for all the teeth, pushing out the impure chi beneath them by pushing it through the teeth, and then later pushing off the teeth or pulling them off if you must, then the entire etheric gum bones will eventually lift off, and then a layer of bone beneath that, and so forth. The chi channels that form the areteries and veins beneath this structure will pop off and then you canpirfy them.

After the teeth and jaws, you can proceed to transform the rest of the skull, including the bones at the top of the skull and the rest of the skull bones everywhere. Congratulations. Now you have some secrets for transforming stubborn bone chi which, being earth element chi, is some of the most difficult chi to transform. Start with the skeleton method. You cannot realize how important it is to try to get a handle on trasnforming the body’s earth element, which is why I encourage this simple technique as one of your preparatory intensified practices:

http://www.meditationexpert.com/Skeleton.htm?meditation/10/Skeleton

As your Christmas gift, I’m going to tell you how to open up the chi channels in the foot, one of the most difficult tasks in spiritual cultivation. Most schools that say anything about this also mention how difficult it is.

You can open up the heart chakra through mantra and visualization on a point of focus behind the breastbone, just as I’ve outlined in the Vairocana-Zhunti tantra. You already have that method. It’s cultivating one-pointedness, or samadhi on a point which draws the chi to the point until it pops open. I’ve told you how to do this over and over. But for it to work, you need to loosen up ALL the chi channels ahead of time, and there is no better way than the full body skeleton cultivation method and breathing methods since they affect all channels at once. Plus mantra, of course. We cannot go into this.

You can help open up the throat region and throat chakra starting with the hints given by the Buddha Mahamati. It’s hard to open up this region because of all the glands in the surrounding area. At a later stage, one of Tathagata Vairocana’s techniques is to imagine the throat chakra as changing colors – red, blue, yellow, etc. – to help activate and pull out old chi channels from the region. But this is a stage when the channels you’re working on are extremely thin, and is far beyond the level of “no cut head” at the cultivation level of the skandhas. You need to know both methods if you’re going to do Vajrayana or form practices and want to proceed quickly. It’s not that other methods don’t work. It’s just that I’m trying to shave decades and possibly even aeons off your practice if you want to succeed quickly. You may not believe this but it’s because you just don’t know how kind I’m being.

After countless purifications of the five elements and further opening up the channels, you can arrive at the initialization of the River Chariot rotation, which is the “macrocosmic circulation” of Taoism. But the Tao school isn’t the only school that talks about this stage. Buddhism has it, the Esoteric school has it, tantric yoga has it, … and as I showed analyzing the “Song of Songs” from the Old Testament, even the Bible has it. It’s a non-denominational state of cultivation. You’ve got to get over this idea “my tradition is best” or “mine is so high” or “only this school has this ” because frankly it’s all nonsense. These are all the non-denominational stages of physical gong-fu I’m talking about, It’s all science. I’m being kind to link these schools and the stages for you so you’re no longer confused. All the religions can access the four dhyana, and these are the physical states of gong-fu on the way to the dhyana. The dhyana are common achievements but as for the wisdom achievements that get you the Tao, that’s another story for another day. Only Buddhism, Zen and Vedanta approach it with very clear teachings. What differentiates Buddhism fromt he rest of the spiritual schools is prajna wisdom, and perhaps one day we can get to it and Zen.

Now opening up the feet chakras and chi channels is particularly difficult. One of the respectful names for a Buddha, or fully enlightened one, refers to the fact he has opened up the chakras and chi channels in the bottom of the foot. To be given a name just for this feat alone should tell you it’s extremely difficult, so I’m giving you a big heads up. You won’t find this information elsewhere, not anywhere. It’s due to the kindness of Ksitigarbha Buddha that we have it, so I pass it on to you. How can you pay him back? You cannot since he’s helping you cut off several aeons of cultivation effort. If you think you can just go buy this information in a bookstore, your head is in the clouds. It’s only out of kindness and mercy that’s it’s provided. Such good fortune must be paid for – Buddhas don’t even teach this publicly or privately because the cost is so high, so you usually have to figure it out from their hints. That’s how difficult this is and how important and valuable it is. You cannot succeed without merit.

But before I tell you the technique, we must remember that Taoism says you must breath from the bottom of your feet. Some Tao school books specifically mention your heels. Both are correct, and other cultivation schools say similar things. Why do they all say this? Because the stage is non-denominational.

These schools are referring to the fact that when you open the large macrocosmic River chariot rotation of the tu-mai, jen-mai, sushumna and feet channels, etc. you open up the channels enough so that you can find a pump in the heels of the foot that help push the chi back upwards after it descends from the root chakra perineum to the toes.

Remember that at the initial stages of cultivation (where you’re probably at), when you have extra energy you try to run it lightly down the insides of the legs to the toes to open that channel, and when weak you lightly draw it upwards through those acupuncture meridians. This stage is so far beyond that but for a lucky person who works hard to get to the River Chariot Rotation these following instructions are worth more than gold. When those inner leg channels open, you usually will have sinus problems for awhile. But remember again that there’s “open” and then there’s “OPEN” — there are many stages to the “opening” process because the large diameter chi channels are filled with many diameters of smaller chi channels made of more subtle chi which you cannot yet see. You “open” the gross level first before you can find and then “OPEN” the finer levels. So what I’m going to tell you is several stages past the River Chariot rotation, and most Taoist “successes” never find this…

In Buddhism this is all summarized by the phrase “purifying the five elements” so you can get a glimpse of how high Buddhist cultivation is when you realize it doesn’t focus on this stuff because it’s all low level. It’s still just cultivating form rather than prajna, so in one respect you can say this is inocrrect or not the right road. But if you say you are transforming the Reward body, you’re a bit on track BUT ONLY if you understand the wisdom way and have read a lot of wisdom sutras (the Diamond Sutra, Vimalakirit Sutra, Lotus Sutra, …) so your view is correct. If your view is correct then you can eat a bit of poison, but if it isn’t correct you will die along this route and achieve nothing.

Once you get to the River Chariot rotation, how do you proceed further? Breathing practices — in particular anapana. I gave you an entire teaching on this in the “Anapanasati” sutra article. Read it again. Even Confucianism reaches this stage of achievement because Mencius talked about it, which I showed. Why? To you it’s high, but it’s form cultivation so it’s low. In the absolute sense this is garbage, and yet this is the gong-fu foundational basis for stable attainment. Don’t attach. Treat it in the right manner…

Anapana is one of the top methods of the Zen school at this stage for increasing your gong-fu. That’s a big secret no one will tell you – you owe Master Nan Huai-Chin for that pointer. The Zens chool uses anapan even after the great breakthrough. You sit and fill yourself with chi, letting go and observing the process. Let it fill everywhere — there are no barriers in the body and no boundaries to the body — the body has no barriers but is just chi, so it has no boundaries. You are not the body anyway. This is cardinal principle number one in Buddhism, but now you’re getting there where you can stay in that realization for long periods of time. Congratulations. Anyway, anapana is how to you cultivate.

People who continually cultivate anapana can achieve rainbow bodies at death, or their bodies will slowly shrink to nothingness over a week as they die. You already have the method. Another thing they can do is predict the date and time of their death because of their breathing practice. Both these phenomena have been seen by many people in many schools, so there is no reason to go into them.

There’s yet another way besides anapana, and here’s the secret. You need a lot of blessings to be able to do this tantric means and it will use up a lot of energy and concentration as well, but is extremely quick.

You first start focusing on the large squarish heel pumps, which look like they’re cubes in shape. Are they really cubes? Not really, but that’s the general appearance when you start. Later you’ll see what they are after they disintegrate or shrink or transform, however you want to word it.

Just as the root chakra furnace looks squarish, and the furnaces beneath the other chakras look like little cubes, soon you find out why. The heel pump at the level of the macrocosmic circulation, or River Chariot rotation, appears cubish itself. So what you do is first THINK.

Cultivation always requires clear thought, wisdom principles and logic. It’s science all the way through, nothing mysterious or mystical or supernatural. But of course you need merit to succeed. Merit is something you might deem mystical but that’s because you cannot yet fathom the workings of interdependent origination. That’s why I wrote “White Fat Cow” for changing your fortune and destiny, but most people still don’t get it.

Thinking as to what to do, you realize you usually push the impure chi out the toes, or the center of the foot chakras. So in this case, it makes sense for you to focus on the bottom of the heel pump cubes and try to push out any junk from within them. The junk includes levels of impure chi and thinner and thinner chi channel networks and bundles that are embedded in layers of each other. Unless you get there you won’t understand. At the gross level it just looks like a chi flame when junk is exuding but at higher and higher stages of cultivation you can see micro thin chi channels bundled together and layered within each other or connected in a small network. But we won’t go into this. All I can say is that to get to the ultimate layer you’re always purifying these coarser layers.

So how do you open the heel chakra pumps? You can imagine a white circle in the center of the cube, and then try to push out the chi which is similar to methods you may have used to get to this stage if you used tantric yoga or Vajrayana, Yogacara methods. These are all form school methods as are most of the methods in Judaism, Taoism, Bon, western alchemy, nei-gong, etc. You imagine a white circle (the protruding top of the old impure chi) and imagine a shining silver ball or sphere about an inch or so in front of the opening, and thereby pull it out using that bright source of yang.

Yang attracts yin – it’s a universal principle of science – so you should understand this method of pulling out impure (yin) chi by attraction. You imagine a bright, silvery flame, circle, Buddha, whatever … in front of chi channel opening and the yin chi will be attracted to it and try to squeeze out the channel, at which point it’s on it’s way out. In this case you imagine a silvery globe, flower, ball or whatever beneath the foot underneath the heel pump center to attract out the impure chi. You might imagine a flame exuding out the bottom of the cube to get it started as well. Those are all similar techniques based on the same principles. It’s science from beginning to end, but you need instructions for how to do it. THINK carefully and you can create your own.

Okay, if you do that with enough concentration the heel chakra pump will eventually empty out and open up. Guess what happens next? The SURPRISING thing is that it will actually get smaller in size as you pull out more and more layers (diameters or tubes) of chi. When you pull out enough of them (and this takes hours at this stage of practice– this is certainly nothing a beginner can accomplish), the cube will shrink in size until it becomes a small cubic nugget. How much will it shrink? Big surprise! Until it’s a tiny cube!

We’re talking about an inch becoming less than a quarter or eighth of an inch or smaller. This is what’s hidden within the foot pump but you never knew it. It’s not so much it shrinks but that the untransformed inner layers are revealed after you transform or purify the outer layers by eliminating the old garbage impure chi at the nexus points. That’s the process of tantric yoga. The old coverings drop away and the inner layers revealed, but at this stage all the flesh is gone and only the sparse network remains.

“But wait, there’s more….”

If you reach that stage, then on the left and right sides of the foot small cubes will then similarly suddenly appear. Surprise! They are hidden until you purify out the chi to this level and get rid of it by pulling it out the foot heel chakra. Then this new level of superstructure underneath can appear … it’s the superstructure left and who knows what’s beneath this level once you purify it? You’ll have to go even further beyond this level of transformation to find out. I can only take you so far.

If you can empty these little cubes (connected by thin channels the width of extremely thin wires) out, then more and more will appear making up the infrastructure net of the foot. One after another they appear as others are transformed – they don’t all appear at once because you haven’t purifed enough chi for this to happen. A netowrk of channels has to be pulled out for the connected cubes to become visible.

This is surprising. It’s a stage well beyond the appearance of the foot channel, but still very rudimentary or coarse. Now you have to open up all these tiny cubes (which just look like cubes but aren’t). How do you do that?

First the procession, then the method.

You work on the heel, then on other new cubes that appear on the inside of the foot and on the outside. They’ll slowly appear as more and more of them are purified. They do not all appear at once. As you purify one, then another and then another appears to slowly reveal the hidden infrastructure. You do both sides of the foot (several will appear) and then the ones in the center of the foot in the center of those chakras will finally appear last. That’s the progression. They’re hidden until you reach this stage of refinement. It takes houirs to work on them and once started don’t stop for fear you’ll lose this stage and have to do too much preparatory work again to reclaim it.

Now the method. The idea of creating a flame out of the cubes to pull out the old impure channels works, but not too well. It’s exhausting. The idea of squeezing them out that you may have used previously is exhausting, too. The idea of leading them out using silvery yang globes is also exhausting and verrrrrrry slow at this sper refined stage. All these forceful methods are exhausting and slow and not as reliable as the following quick technique.

One method works best. Pay attention! This is the method of the Buddha Ksitigarbha I’m teaching you, an enlightened being who has devoted himself to purifying all the hells. Ksitigarbha, I bow to you and salute you because none of us are as great as you. Ksitigarbha Buddha has vowed, “If hell is not yet empty, I vow not to become a Buddha” and you can find his story in the “Sutra of the Past Vows of Earth Store Bodhisattva” available on amazon.com.

Sutra of the Past Vows of the Earth Store Bodhisattva

http://www.sinc.sunysb.edu/clubs/buddhism/ksitigarbha/content.html

All of us want to go to the Heavens, and none of us want to go to the Hells to help the beings there. But if we don’t open up our foot chi channels, we haven’t gotten rid any large chunk of our own Hell karma. That’s one reason you sit with cross legs, which is to try to open up the chi channels in the legs, and the pain you bear helps burn up bad karma as well as force the channels to open. Two birds with one stone, but ordinary people don’t realize the deep wisdom behind all these things. I’m spilling the beans and all the secrets so you can get a small glimpse and comprehend. I really dislike talking about gong-fu but no one will listen to wsidom teachings or wisdom sutras. Everyone thinks they are beyond that and understands. I just laugh….

On the site I’ve also taught you how to make nightly offerings to the hungry ghosts for some merit, and if you want to succeed at opening the feet you must perform this nightly two minute offering and recite sutras or mantras for ghosts and hell beings. Frankly you need merit. You hate to hear it but if you already had enough merit you would have already succeeded.

But on to the method …

Which portion of the human body corresponds to the hells? As you know from “Tao and Longevity,” from the navel downwards corresponds to the Desire Realm. Ghosts are rarely seen having feet because they cannot open up the foot channels. Devils are seen with cloven feet to remind us that the feet are dead or yin for those who are evil and do not cultivate virtue. The bottom of the foot is the most extreme yin place of the body, corresponding to the hells. If you can open up the feet, not only can you become a Taoist Immortal who lives a long life, but most of all save the hell beings in your own body. Some people who achieve this can learn how to fly like Milarepa or the Taoist Immortal Lu.

What is the Buddha Ksitigarbha’s method for opening up these cubes that are interconnected by wire thin channels dotting the superstructure of the foot? Ksitigarbha Tathagata, who always appears as monk, carries a staff. Imagine the impact of a metal staff hitting the ground: bang, bang, bang. With each jolt, the tiny chi channels within the centers of the cube will tap a bit out, and it you keep jostling them this way with the taps, you will be able to push out yet a thinner/tinier degree of chi channels and empty out these nexus points. So you imagine the tapping of the staff on the ground, while focusing on the cubes, and with each tap the center junk can jostle out a bit.

That’s the basic method and it works far, far better than anything else you can create, even twirling the chi and so forth. At the minimum you owe quite a few bows to Ksitigarbha just for hearing about this, let alone practicing it. And recite the Diamond Sutra for the ghosts with a offering tonight because it will help them.

What’s next? If you so that for the entire foot, which takes hours and hours, eventually the entire body drops away except for this superstructure of squares and channels that has been there all along hidden. This superstructure or net surrounds the chi of flesh. It’s very “sparse” in that the nexus cubes are very far apart in most places. Amazing that this is revealed. You can find the wire net structure of chi channels and cubic intersections that forms the outer structure of the human body. I’m not going to explain more. You’ll have to keep cultivating to find the next stage beyond this, too.

Congratulations. You’ve just realized a stage far beyond what you normally read about in Taoism or in the Esoteric School. Tibetan monks don’t have anything on you because they don’t have these teachings. They achieve the stage, like evryone else, but there are no teachings on this. Neither do the Jewish, Christians, Moslems, Sikhs, Mormons, Pagans, Western Alchemists, and so forth have any such gong-fu teachings. If you can get there and use this you owe 10,000 prostrations to Ksitigarbha Tathagata who doesn’t care about your prostrations or kow-tows, but knows that if you want help for success at this stage then you need both merit and a karmic connection. Many enlightened masters of the past would go around asking people for a single coin in order to establish a karmic connection for the future. Maitreya, as the Venerable Master Budai, is just one of the many masters who used to do this. Master Budai’s eulogy read:

“Just as this cloth sack confuses many men,
He begs from whomever he meets. Whatever for?
Whenever he meets a test, there’s nothing you can do.
Don’t miss the chance; he is the future Buddha!”

Oh yes, I forgot to say this is a good time to try to cultivate and succeed in the fire samadhi for your entire body. And that when you are using the White Skeleton meditation (visualization) method to transform your foot bones (starting with your big left toe), you can rotate the chi this way and that in the foot, especially from within and around the bones, and use Ksitigarbha’s mantra “Om Pra Ma Ni Da Ni Soha.” This will go a long way to helping transform them and prepare for the higher stages of the path, plus other marvelous untold benefits.

Tantric cultivation like this is just a process, but don’t think it’s so easy. Without merit you absolutely cannot succeed. Without instructions you cannot succeed either. You can read all you want and practice, practice, practice but you cannot succeed without enough cultivation merit. Even with merit and instructions, without a good teacher you cannot succeed. Without the help of other enlightened beings you cannot succeed either, which is why I always tell you to establish a karmic connection. But at least I’ve told you more than you’ll ever find anywhere else. Don’t say I’m not merciful. Good luck.

When you open up the heart chakra and pass through the conception skandha, just as Buddha said the enlightened beings will come and anoint your forehead. But if you can crack open these little nexus points, many more Buddhas will gather round in excitement to watch because it is so hard to do this and so rare to have someone find them. It’s big excitement on their side if someone can reach this stage of transforming the physical body. It’s just body transformation, not enlightenment.

I try to be kind, so here are some methods you should remember:

Sometimes you use the method of Ksitigarbha’s staff banging the ground to jostle the dirty chi channels out of them. Other times you can image the sound of a metal hammer striking an anvil, and use the sound to jostle them out. One Buddha taught that you can use a long feather to tickle them out rather than use force, in which case you try to go to their root source and tickle that so it lets go and they loosen from their connection point within the larger framework.

Zhunti Buddha teaches that sometimes you can rotate and spin the channels inside, to twirl the garbage channels within the larger tubes. What you do is grab one of the innermost nexus points and keep twisting it, and then enlargen its parent diameter to pull it out along with the chi channels connected with it. Or you can grab an inner nexus point and slooooowly pull it while rotating it in a wide circle of the width of the chakra (while pulling it at a 45 degree angle to the surface of the chakra) until all the useless channels it’s connected to are pulled off and fall down; the weight will cause them to open up the other nets so that all the garbage falls through. Zhunti is extremely smart and wise. I bow to you, Zhunti Tathagata, and pass on your technique.

Remember that with your mind you can expand the diameter of the ends of the channels, but if you reach a channel whose mouth you cannot open that way with your mind (because the nexus point is too tight), you’ve reached the level you should grab and pull out. What a big secret I’ve revealed that will save you how much TIME and ENERGY and EFFORT at this stage. The advice is invaluable … I’m sorry I but I have to say it. For instance, the Tibet school always says you should cultivate the bright points and bindus, but they never tell you how. Surprise! Now you know many ways to do it.

It’s so hard to empty out the channels (Shakyamuni Buddha just called it purifying the four elements) so you have to use many different methods because the old methods of generating bright points at chi channel openings to attract out the dirty chi doesn’t work well at this stage. So at other times you grab the nexus points from their centers and keep pulling out the long strings of garbage chi channels and the garbage chi and connected chi channel network connected with them. Within each nexus point there is another and another and another and so on made of thinner and thinner and thinner chi channels. They only become revealed when you somewhat empty out the larger diameter. The more you empty out, the more nexus points are revealed.

Each level you go through purifies another layer of chi. The smaller the center you can grab, the more you can pull out. For instance, when you see a bit of white chi protrude from the channel, you can use your mind (mind and chi are linked) to enlargen that chi channel’s opening, go into the white paste chi and grab any tiny nexus point deep within in and then use it to pull out the garbage using that anchor point. So in other words, you’re going one level thinner/tinier and pulling it out the larger diameter which you make wider through the efforts of mind.

I suggest you first work on the foot — all the foot chakras, and then you can eventually get to the crown chakra, throat chakra and heart chakra points which won’t appear until you’ve done a lot of work to pull out the old gross channel widths. It is incredibly difficult to find these little points and extremely difficult to cultivate them.

If you can do this and eventually get to the level of finding twisted chi channels, and reach the stage of the “powdered” charcoal chi coming out (which is akin to the stage of Blackness when you pass through the conception skandha when first opening the heart chakra), and go past the stage of flourescent blue, then you have really done something and made some progress. Usually it takes a few aeons to cultivate the chi channels this thin and clear them out. What first seems like a cube is eventually clarified to reveal a polygonal shaped nexus pulled by chi channels at its corners (it’s hard to see which shape it actually is because they’re so small), within which the center is a empty circle and within that empty center, attached to the corners through wire thin chi channels connected to its parent outsider is yet another polygonal shape, and so on and so on. Tinier and tiner they get. You’ll have to cultivate yourself to find out what the actual shape is for yourself.

The width (thinness) of the chi channels at these stages is so very thin so even calling them wires brings up too large a connotation of imagery. Every time you empty out one larger layer by pulling out all the garbage within its diameter, newer thinner layers appear that were previously hidden by all the gook. Guess what? You have to purify all of them to attain a Reward body (sambhogakaya) and transform your karmic inheritance. Vow to become a Buddha, a fully enlightened being, and do this.

Cultivating gong-fu is just yoga pracice, a process with steps one, two, three. But if you want the Tao beyond samadhi you need to read Buddhism and Vedanta (not Tibetan Buddhism or Taoist circulation yogas, kaballah, etc.) and read the wisdom sutras like the Diamond Sutra, Lotus Sutra, Vimalakirti Sutra, Heart Sutra, Prajnaparamita Sutras, Complete Enlightenment Sutra, Sutra of the Earth Store Bodhisattva, Nirvana Sutra, Amitofo Visualization Sutra, Surangama Sutra, Lankavatara Sutra, Lion’s Roar of Queen Srimala, Altar Sutra, Great Jewel Heap Sutra, Flower Ornament (Avatamsaka) Sutra, Anapanasati Sutra, Medicine Master Sutra, Sutra of 42 Sections, the Sandhinirmocana Shastra (Thomas Cleary translation) and so forth.

If you don’t read these sutras and practice prajna wisdom, there’s no way you can succeed just by doing yoga. Reading Ramana Maharshi and Sri Nisargadatta will help a lot, as will Three Texts on Consciousness Only (Numata Institute) and The Awakening of Faith (Avagosha).

I used to argue with my teacher - formally recognized as an “enlightened” Esoteric school master by the Hutuku – that Tibetan Buddhism teachings were so high and he used to tell me they were the low stuff. But he was right, he was right yet people don’t believe it because they don’t have enough gong-fu and wisdom to know. What I’m teaching you is far beyond what they normally teach gong-fu wise and yet it is still all very low level. So good luck and remember the process….and if you want it in a subsequent life then spread it around. That’s your job to disseminate useful cultivation methods widely if you want the dharma in the future.

An amazing demonstration …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8YXZTlwTAU

If you speak Chinese, here are the AV recordings of a Zen retreat Master Nan did in Xiamen, China several years back. They are posted on the web for you to enjoy:

http://www.buddhist.idv.tw/a14.htm

The full Chinese transcripts are available at:

http://www.buddhist.idv.tw/A14/text.doc

No, it’s not in English. He only speaks Chinese.

This ad recently appeared on Craig’s list, and has been requoted everywhere.  It’s about why a man with wealth shouldn’t marry a girl just for her looks. I’ll save my comments for the end because I alwasy wanted to write about this. The Craigslist ad starts off with a girl looking for a guy.

Girl Asks – What am I doing wrong?

Okay, I’m tired of beating around the bush. I’m a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl. I’m articulate and classy. I’m not from New York . I’m looking to get married to a guy who makes at least half a million a year. I know how that sounds, but keep in mind that a million a year is middle class in New York City, so I don’t think I’m overreaching at all.

Are there any guys who make 500K or more on this board? Any wives? Could you send me some tips? I dated a business man who makes average around 200 – 250. But that’s where I seem to hit a roadblock. 250,000 won’t get me to central park west. I know a woman in my yoga class who was married to an investment banker and lives in Tribeca, and she’s not as pretty as I am, nor is she a great genius. So what is she doing right? How do I get to her level?

Here are my questions specifically:

- Where do you single rich men hang out? Give me specifics- bars, restaurants, gyms

-What are you looking for in a mate? Be honest guys, you won’t hurt my feelings

-Is there an age range I should be targeting (I’m 25)?

- Why are some of the women living lavish lifestyles on the upper east side so plain? I’ve seen really ‘plain jane’ boring types who have nothing to offer married to incredibly wealthy guys. I’ve seen drop dead gorgeous girls in singles bars in the east village. What’s the story there?

- Jobs I should look out for? Everyone knows – lawyer, investment banker, doctor. How much do those guys really make? And where do they hang out? Where do the hedge fund guys hang out?

- How you decide marriage vs. just a girlfriend? I am looking for MARRIAGE ONLY

Please hold your insults – I’m putting myself out there in an honest way. Most beautiful women are superficial; at least I’m being up front about it. I wouldn’t be searching for these kind of guys if I wasn’t able to match them – in looks, culture, sophistication, and keeping a nice home and hearth.

The Guy Replies – We would call you a trading position, not a buy and hold

I read your posting with great interest and have thought meaningfully about your dilemma. I offer the following analysis of your predicament.

Firstly, I’m not wasting your time, I qualify as a guy who fits your bill; that is I make more than $500K per year. That said here’s how I see it.

Your offer, from the prospective of a guy like me, is plain and simple a crappy business deal. Here’s why. Cutting through all the B.S., what you suggest is a simple trade: you bring your looks to the party and I bring my money. Fine, simple. But here’s the rub, your looks will fade and my money will likely continue into perpetuity…in fact, it is very likely that my income increases but it is an absolute certainty that you won’t be getting any more beautiful!

So, in economic terms you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset. Not only are you a depreciating asset, your depreciation accelerates! Let me explain, you’re 25 now and will likely stay pretty hot for the next 5 years, but less so each year. Then the fade begins in earnest. By 35 stick a fork in you!

So in Wall Street terms, we would call you a trading position, not a buy and hold…hence the rub…marriage. It doesn’t make good business sense to “buy you” (which is what you’re asking) so I’d rather lease. In case you think I’m being cruel, I would say the following. If my money were to go away, so would you, so when your beauty fades I need an out. It’s as simple as that. So a deal that makes sense is dating, not marriage.

Separately, I was taught early in my career about efficient markets. So, I wonder why a girl as “articulate, classy and spectacularly beautiful” as you has been unable to find your sugar daddy. I find it hard to believe that if you are as gorgeous as you say you are that the $500K hasn’t found you, if not only for a tryout.

By the way, you could always find a way to make your own money and then we wouldn’t need to have this difficult conversation.

With all that said, I must say you’re going about it the right way. Classic “pump and dump.”

I hope this is helpful, and if you want to enter into some sort of lease, let me know.

* * * *

Okay, now for my comments I’ve always wanted to write. To read them, please see

http://www.meditationexpert.com/life-wisdom/l_honest_craigs_list.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/27/renewableenergy-energy

http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/877/1/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jivb7lupDNU

I learned from my teacher there are several situations where you shy away from giving advice

First, whether two individuals should get married or not. The divorce rate today is over 50%, nearly 60+% and beyond, and of course every couple will have marital problems from time to time. When things go wrong, many people look for someone else to blame rather than take personal responsibility. I’ve seen this happen let’s say about a million times or so (exaggeration).

Marriage is a person’s own personal decision, and yet when things go wrong they will blame YOU for their difficulties (as if it’s your fault) if you had given even the slightest encouragement as a teacher. “YOU told us we should get married” – how many times have I heard that tossed at bystanders? Who said all marriages are necessarily good? Such big decisions are 100% your responsibility, not even your parents’. Why are you listening to anyone other than your own commonsense and avoiding full responsibility for what is supposed to be an important life decision you make on your own?

Whether a person should become a monk or not. This is another personal decision that has nothing to do with you once again, and yet people will somehow try to twist this one into your responsibility as well. It’s usually someone who just wants to drop out from the world and is also looking for someone to pin the blame on. It’s their decision 100% once again. Anything goes wrong, they don’t like the lifestyle, etc. etc. and you’re the first one to blame if you said anything. What’s their karma is their karma, what they choose to do is what they choose to do, and yet they WILL find some way to blame you. I’ve seen it happen….not just once, so my teacher is wise. A good rule my teacher established is to refrain from commenting at all. Why are you seeking approval anyway if that’s your fervent desire in your deepest mind? That’s what it should be if you want to do this. Don’t pull other people into your decision, especially people who aren’t nuns or monks in the first place.

When you see that someone will be reborn an animal because of bad deeds, never tell them this either. They won’t change their behavior that has produced such a fate.

I’d also add answering questions about health supplements. If you have a question, call the manufacturer, read the label, read other websites on the product, or go to a doctor or naturopath or nutritionist who will personally see you and your condition. They are paid to do that – they’ll give you a questionnaire that helps determine contraindications. Yeah, you PAY them to give you advice that after careful consideration of all the factors in your case, are right for you.

Your health, what you consume, and what you do is your responsibility, especially if you want to experiment. Do your own due diligence, just like when you want to get married. Like anyone else, I never diagnose or advise anyone. I simply tell people what’s available that they should research as a kindness. Do your own research as to dosages and whether it’s right for you or go and pay someone to SEE you to determine if something matches. How can you expect anyone to help you who doesn’t physically see you and your physical condition or get your history? And most of all, don’t write asking where you can buy something when there’s something called the “internet” right in front of you. As if I’m supposed to do a google search for you and then send you the results. Sure enough, people ask … and then they don’t buy anyway. So our job in life, I suppose, is to waste our time for such people? As for myself, I try to be very respectful of other people’s time and the efforts they make on my behalf, including monies they spend.

Never give an interview. The reporter is sure to misrepresent you and get things wrong. You have nothing to sell, so why be interviewed? They’re the ones looking for an angle, and look at the movies — too often it’s something called “sabotage” or misrepresentation. No, you cannot control the press. If they want to make a monster a saint, they will, and if they want to make a saint the devil, they will again. People think the press is trustworthy. Sorry, people have agendas. Honest, they do.

Never debate. You’re just here to offer. Who’s qualified to debate you anyway? It’s usually some individual who has their own little book or tiny viewpoint and wants to become famous through opposition. They know one school, if at all. They neither have cultivation gong-fu nor vast learning in many spheres of cultivation (the two things that would make them qualified for a conversation) nor prajna wisdom — they simply hold on to their one book claiming, “But my Book says this” and “The Book says that.” It’s all self-reflexive — they’re not debating, they’re insisting that what they read, in the way they read it, is right over everything else in the world. No gong-fu, no wisdom, no wide learning but they think they are right as to the tradition/viewpoint they’ve been born into or become attracted/attached to, and that they’re even qualified to debate in their own self-reflexive way. They proceed from the viewpoint that their tiny one book is right in the first place. That being the case, what debate? It’s a sham from the start, and those who “want a debate” are just looking for argumentative entertainment. If they were seekers they’d read, ponder, cultivate, attain and then compare. So ignore such nonsense seekers. You’re just here to offer.

Rating another teacher. People always ask for an opinion on this or that cultivation teacher and their method(s). Who you study with is your business, not mine, and is of no interest to me. My teacher doesn’t care either. Why would my opinion change anything anyway and why would I be interested ? I’m a publisher, not a teacher, nor a competitor. If another teacher is “okay” it changes nothing, and if “not kosher” then all you end up doing with my words, which are supposed to be private anyway, is point trouble my way because you’d blab out, “Bill said this.” Why would you want to give me trouble if you respect the work I’m doing?

Because of my teacher’s example, I’ve never commented on another teacher and won’t. It’s none of my business what they do, just as it’s none of my business what anyone does. What do I care what you’re doing inside your house … it has nothing to do with me. So I’ve avoided the fate I’ve seen happen to others where a private comment was leaked to a whole community of ardent followers who now made it a campaign to go after that speaker. Such folks, rather than ignore comments, want to justify themselves to themselves, as if some third party’s opinion mattered, had to be defeated, and by doing so they were vindicated in the whole wide world. They wouldn’t dare enter a crowded Jewish synagogue and say “you fellows are all wrong,” or announce themselves in a crowded Church that way, or go inside a mosque and say “you’re all mistaken” but sure enough they’ll start pestering some poor guy who innocently offered just their own personal opinion privately, opinions which are a dime a dozen.

Go ahead and laugh because this happens. Yes it does. Six billion people in the world and people believe one certain individual’s opinion has to be changed, but not opinions of the other six billion minus one folks, and like you’re going to be able to change that guy’s opinion anyway? So my teacher never comments on other teachers, and neither do I. It does not lead to edification.

“Everyone needs to make money to live. I don’t want to destroy someone’s livelihood,” is what he jokingly says when we talk about cheaters. (As if it was HIS responsibility to do something, and as if he could do something about it.) You should just laugh. It’s true, it’s true….try it and you’ll see you cannot change anything anyway except get yourself embroiled in an argument and then impede all the other good work you’re trying to do in the world. You cannot save people from their own bad karma; they have to save themselves. Cheaters are much smarter than you, have more energy than you do and more time on their hands, and protect their livelihood fiercely because that’s all they can do. So don’t ask for my opinion and get me embroiled with cheaters. Do your own thinking according to the non-denominational principles of the path. I’ve done enough typing for you already.

So who your teacher is and what you believe as to a proper meditation method and what you practice or do is your own karma and has nothing to do with me. If you cannot read the site articles, understand the non-denominational principles of cultivation and then form your own educated opinion – which is what the site is supposed to do for you — then no one’s opinion can help you understand, so why are you asking? At best you’re just trying to give me trouble.

The culture of my country is so low that people always want to give trouble to people who have tried to help them. They want others to get into a fight so that they can sit back and watch and get entertained, like on Jerry Springer. Form your own opinions and seek your own counsel if you’re that way. You have to take 100% responsibility for your own cultivation in the world, including the mistakes you make, and you have to discover them for yourself because you WANT to know and search out the right answers. If you don’t work hard enough or read enough or study enough or mantra enough or meditate enough or hang out with the wrong crowd or lose money or one of a million other things it has nothing to do with me. Lucky for me I don’t look at all these teachers and gurus and masters to know what they’re doing, so I can say “I don’t know.” I have plenty of other things to keep me busy.

These are just a few of the circumstances where you learn to say nothing. I’m sure you can think of more situations in life where wisdom has taught you to remain silent. That being the case, why wouldn’t the field of cultivation have such moments of silence as well.

Look about you — there are several billion people you cannot save, lost you cannot wake up, whom you cannot do this or that for. All you can do is offer. If they come, let them come. If they don’t come, that’s their business. If you offer the pure dharma, be kind and friendly and generous and welcome everyone. If you offer them a quick tantric means that can shave off aeons, scare them away, put up barriers, create obstacles, look mean, be hard to find, remind them they’re not qualified (because they aren’t), make them not like you so they run … but offer it nonetheless out of mercy. That’s skillful means, and the non-smart ones won’t know it but will leave, proving they don’t have the merit for it. They’ll just turn away because they don’t know you’re using skillful means. You must create some way that they turn away of their own accord because you cannot offer the gems so freely — they have to prove they want it. Choose your own way to so offer. Create your own way to establish the tension. It’s all up to you in the end. You can keep silent, which is what 100% of the teachers do, and teach nothing, or you can show compassion but then must adopt a means where there is a barrier. Speaking honestly, it’s better not to teach anything at all, which is why you won’t find anything in Taoism, the Esoteric school, Vajrayana, and tantric yoga, etc. I’m too kind like an old grandmother, so I better make myself look like witch! ha ha ha. You choose your own route. It all depends on your wisdom and mercy.

Which reminds me. Don’t try to please people. The more you try to please people, the less you can say or do that’s useful, and then you end up saying and doing nothing useful at all. Witness the politicians. Their income depends on pleasing people so nothing substantial is said, promises are made but not kept, issues are not handled in a statesmenlike way, and everyone suffers. Salesmen please to get the sale, and then they walk away leaving you with the problems and no service. No, your job is not to please people. Be pleasing and palatable and attractive – YES – but your job is not to please people who are looking for cultivation guidance and the true cultivation path. It’s hard, not easy. Offer honesty and expect respect. If respect is not granted, it is usually not a place to teach. People reveal themselves by their own acts of merit, and their own actions and behavior.

When I look at the data, I firmly believe stocks will look better in mid 2009 than they do now, even though we may not  have a full bottom in yet. We could have a tsunami or earthquake hit California or some other unexpected catastrophe, even something economic like GM declaring bankruptcy (which might actually be the way for it to turn around) and then see stocks much lower. (What would be more hurt piled on top during an emergency like Katrina again would be the absence of the National Guard and Reserve since they are deployed overseas fighting whereas their job is to serve at home). Today it drops because people are TOLD they’re in a recession? You mean, people didn’t know it?

The problem is there are no jobs, and no way to stimulate them. Traditional remedies are unlikely to succeed regardless as to what Obama tried. Frankly, he needs some luck. Consumer debt expansion fueled the US market and consumers are overburdened with debt, in what they now realize are shaky jobs, and in what they now realize is a bad economic environment. They will now be saving, no spending. We are at our debt capacity limit.

Which is not to mention the fact that traditional Keynesian stimulus — building roads, bridges, etc. — will only create make-work. (Who will pay for that as well?) There are no new jobs being created. What we outsourced WILL NOT come back because it’s still cheaper over there than here. The Reichs and other economists and “top thinkers” were wrong to believe you can have a strong economy based on services. So they listened to big multinationals and outsourced jobs. They are gone, not coming back. Every time Congress signed a free trade agreement to help some big boy sell more in a foreign country, in return it flooded our markets with products that shut our little guys out of jobs. So we lost employment, the big boys made more money, and then they shielded it from US taxes because they know how! And Congress keeps saying yes to them because ….. “it’s good for the consumer”? Go check my past blog posts — a low price doesn’t matter if everyone’s out of work, because no one can afford it. 

The problem is not a liquidity problem. It is a structural problem now. We need to rebuild the economy from the ground up. Small farming, which employs people, needs to be encouraged. The alternative medicine field, which is powered by disposal income and employs millions, should no longer be persecuted — it HAS to be performed in country, provides a vital alternative to the orthodox way when it doesn’t work, leads to real breakthroughs, and cannot be outsourced. Small manufacturing will not come back because of lower costs, but it may come back if liability laws are dramatically changed. You have a choice — let people sue for anything and have less jobs in the nation, or  sue less and have more jobs and manufacturing. It will come down to that.

Another possibility is incentives (taxwise) for corporations to be taxed according to valued added performed in the United States. 

I still predict the government within the next one or two decades will start to tax the large tax exempt foundations (Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Harvard Trust Funds,…) because historically I’ve seen it in China, France, ….

The bottom line is, a nation cannot survive as a service economy. It needs manufacturing, it needs small shop keepers, it needs small farming dotted everywhere. The best bank is to sotre the money amongst the people. But those at the top thought that a nation based on finance could win the day. No. Just as history has shown over and over that a small country that is the center of a trading route quickly declines when another route is discovered that circumvents it, we’ll find out that you need to innovate, create and manufacture to stay strong and healthy. They goofed, and they goofed big time in their thinking that unguided capitalism would provided perennial profits.

R&D tax incentives by the government are what we also need now, or an Apollo-like initiative for a different source of energy or transportation or something that will totally rewire the economy and will require replacement of the old base in order for people to reap the economies, and that will mobilize the nation’s economy. In the study of Kondratieff waves and Schumpeter economics, that’s the only thing that does.