the conqueror worm

another half baked foray into self experimentation, this one stemming from the principles of reichian bodywork and neo-magickal psychophysicality as expounded by christopher hyatt and friends.

our initial theorizing and background material is recorded, and the actual experiment will be documented in written form, as we go.

podcast page here

Direct download: the_conqueror_worm.mp3

explosive catharses of released muscular armour are sure to ensue…

Day 1: the first segment is the top of the head and the eyes. I spent a few minutes today a couple times massaging around the eyes, the scalp, the temples and whatnot. a few accupressure points that a merdian chart would disclose if you’re interested in that sort of thing. also the standard reichian technique of making faces, rolling the eyes in circles etc.

the result is sort of surprising. at first the expected tingling in the scalp and face, lessening of tightness or tendencies towards tension headache. but after a short time, I found I was having trouble feeling the top half of my head clearly. probably in contrast to the rest of the body and it’s otherwise normal tension level.

Most interesting was a kind of loosening around perception. I’ve described elsewhere how in vipassana practice there can be a kind of ‘porthole’ effect around the illusion of the inner observer, and a kind of muscle tightness helps reinforce the delusion that there is a watcher ‘in there’ somewhere. mostly around the eyes.

So anyway, when you release the tightness, the sense of the watcher seems to loosen as well , and although it seems odd that there should be any relationship between tension in the face and clarity of insight, I must confess a degree of clarity and precision and sensitivity to obvious perceptions that is rather uncommon, at least for me.

As I’ve said the mind works through conditioned association, and no doubt part of the way it holds together distorted perspectives is by linking them to a chronic tightness in the part of the body that most deals with perception.

Day 2: continuing from last night, I have to say the regular breathing and folding exercises are really doing a number on me. I feel intermittent nausea from the solar plexus region and muscle spasms that feel pretty vigorous in my lower abdomen.

There seem to be jolts of nerve phenomena going down from where ever I’m focussed on for the day and into my pelvis. Sometimes mild pain, twitching or tingling. Mostly weird sensations that feel like an elastic snapping.

the jaw segment was pretty low key. I did notice a greater degree of sensitivity to the taste of food, and the difficulty finding my head has spread farther down. more circulatory and nerve based phenomena that I’d associate with decent accupressure release.

Day 3: things progress more or less as the literature would lead one to believe. the throat segment seems to hold back sensations or urges to cry or vomit. I experimented with sticking my tongue out until I gagged or retched, and it seems to help. I’ve started experiencing ‘clonisms’ which is a word that seems to have fallen out of common usage that refers to rhythmic contractions of the musculature, primarily in my core. They are described as precursors to the ‘plasmatic streamings’ of the complete, healthy, organismic discharge.

On a bit of tangent, I’m re-reading reich’s Character Analysis and there’s a long section where he describes his treatment of a schizophrenic. Funny thing is, the symptoms of this schizophrenic, while shocking and warranting committal back in the day, are somewhat mild by today’s standards. So either the old standard for mental illness was totally whack, or we’re having a societal epidemic of dis associative disorders of the personality.

So as usual, the true answer is probably somewhere in the middle.

…I’m off to practice my gag reflex. Tread carefully kids!

Day 4: things getting a bit sketchier. I’m getting oscillating urges to cry, vomit, scream, or kill someone. As I loosen the shoulder and chest segment, I’m getting more conscious of restraining my arms, by folding them, tucking them into my belt, etc. something about about holding back impulses to strike or strangle, expressions of rage. It’s a bit unsettling.

When I stretch my face, I get nauseous, which is rather peculiar. It feels like the nerves running down from my jaw into the throat are triggering a gag reflex, and stimulating the stomach likewise.

I feel very much like I want to cry, but find I cannot, or lack the proper impetus. A couple relationships back, I had all the crying burnt out of me, or it seemed so at the time. I either transcended a lot of my emotional attachment, or simply went dead inside to large extent. Maybe a bit of both. If the latter, it doesn’t strike me as a healthy state to be in, and it’s bound to come back on me.

I feel sore and tired, but I’m also becoming more aware of extraneous tension, which became a lot more noticeable in kung fu class. It helps to be able to actually beat the crap out of someone too, I might add. Consenting adults and whatnot…

Day 5: …was a bit of a debacle. I sort of suspected the diaphragm and solar plexus would be the seat of a lot of problematic stuff… but holy shit, man.

I basically had a nervous breakdown that lasted about twelve hours. Crying, sobbing, screaming, violent acting out. smashing shit. just enough presence of mind to not do anything too stupid. Lots of nausea and soreness afterward, but clarity has returned, and some relief from aimless fury with no outlet.

This is not, I may hasten to add, out of keeping with what one is told to expect with long standing armoring of this type. approach at your own risk.

Days 6-7:  kind of went off the rails, as I recovered from day 5. Feeling mostly tired and emotionally drained, but strangely, with a renewed sense of kindness towards myself and the desire to live a more fun and relaxed life, without so much dire struggle. I may have to re do some of the earlier segments, or perhaps spend some more time breaking down the armor of the solar plexus and diaphragm.  Reich  states that some people are  incapable of involuntary  movements of the diaphragm, due to excessive internal rigidity. They move it with conscious effort, but when their attention wavers, the diaphragm freezes up again. This may require more investigation. I may have this problem to some extent, or acquired it recently from insight related shell-shock.

conclusion: well, I’m still experimenting, but I’ve come to realise that this is not something that can be carried out on a concise timetable. trying to compress this into a small timeframe to write about, nearly pitched me over the edge, so we’ll be stepping back and taking a new approach. As well, I’m not sure the level of subtlety that this work calls for can be adequately conveyed in written form, at least not in a short form. I’ve found time and again that the best results come from small adjustments that I have trouble articulating in anything but the most precise sensorimotor and anatomical language.

  I am very convinced of the underlying soundness of the operating principles of this kind of work, and have some thoughts that build on my experiences here, but I’ll leave them for another time. other things are waiting on me.

FINAL UPDATE:

I recorded another podcast with some better articulated conclusions:

podcast page

Direct download: conqueror_worm-conclusion.mp3

Magickal Record 11-03-07

M’kay, so where are we at now?

I’m pleased with the results of my month long dharma retreat ( and I mean retreat in the loosest possible sense ). Things seems to work better when I give myself one clear thing to focus on for some time. It’s nice to have your anthony robbins style goals list, but it’s easy to get fragmented when you don’t set rigid priorities.

So this month is the get-out-of-poverty month. It was all well and good to live a threadbare existance on the margins of society while I carried out my great magickal work in obscurity. That was just fine when material distractions were exactly that.

However, these days, being poor is turning into an impediment. When most of the things on my to-do list can’t get done cause I’m too damn po’, then that’s what they call a hint.

And god bless everyone who’s donated in the past to the alchemical initiative. I haven’t forgetten you, and I didn’t shoot all the money up my arm, I promise. My name is not aliester crowley after all. I appreciate the help and I welcome it, but this is not a solicitation. I need a real job, that isn’t going to make sick to my stomach on a regular basis.

I have a few ideas that should pan out in a short period of time. No more than a month one way or another. Probably more like a week or two. I will keep you posted.

One I’ve done that, we will see some hardware upgrades on this end that should let me take the initiative to another level. I was exploring avenues like skype and youtube for various uses before my old computer killed itself. Even being able to do sound editing at home with a machine that doesn’t run on a hampster wheel would be helpfull.

And the truth is, I need to be getting on with this part of my life anyway. I had my midlife crisis when I was about twenty and spent ten years on the flipside of reality, but it’s time to do what it takes to embody my vision in a more concrete way, and that means more $$ and it means more education in certain technical fields, and it means credentials that will open doors, and to do all of that, I need to know I’m not going go broke if something in my life zigs instead of zags.

This is not me capitulating to the system, mind you, I had always planned to storm the corridoors of power at some point, but not until I knew how to do it on my terms, and now I do. If I’m wrong, then I’m wrong, and the poorhouse will always be waiting if I feel like reclaiming any dubious authenticity.

So, my updated, revised and prioritised list of goals:

-get a real job, this month

- when and if that is done, or when I’m not likewise engaged, maintain the dharma practice, specifically jhana and vipassana. the conduct side should take care of itself, if I can pull the job stuff off.

-produce some new content for the site. several ideas along these lines, although the one that comes to mind first may end being a worthy contribution to the field of 911 research, of all things.

- with the understanding that I will have some more money in short order, scout out a new computer, webcam, cd burner etc…

-get my flexibility routine back in order

-schedule another water fast, and prepare to see it though, armed with the experience gleaned from our first one.

the world belongs to us! even if it ends up being nothing but smoldering ruins, at the rate things are going…

Victory or Death!

Exactly

With a certain amount of reluctance, I must concede that my new favorite website is steve pavlina dot-com.

I will grant that there is a certain saccharine edge to his stuff that is slightly unpalatable to me, but I will chalk that up to a slightly different demographic, and a higher quotient of punk rock in mydna. In any event, I find him extremely useful and I am essentially in agreement with most everything he says.

When it comes down to something like resolving to become an arahat in 30 days, it helps to be able to hunker down with a powerfully goal oriented motivational-type guy. The article of his I’ve been reading lately and the one relevant to our current discussion, concerns his technique of time management and spelling out exactly what you want in exquisite detail.

Hence, I will spell out exactly what I mean by becoming an arahat and make it clear how that’s going to happen.

In my 3 part augoeides finale, I made it clear my understanding of enlightenment, and the buddhist path in general, was composed of three synergised parts:

-Morality training; which is more or less what we occultist, reality hacker, counter culture types would call metaprogramming, in the RAW, john lilly tradition. It consists of changing how you talk, think and act.

-Concentration training; which is reducing the fragmentary tendancies of the mind and developing the ability to manipulate mental energy.

and

-Insight training; which is developing understanding of basic sensate reality and rooting out pockets of delusional interpretation.

Now, enlightenment, in the most rudimentary sense, can be thought of as cultivating fundamental insight to the utmost and using the other two as supporting structures. This seems to be a popular view, at least among those who will even talk about being able to actually ‘be’ enlightened at all, which are not very numerous. I can say with a certain amount of conviction that I’ve done that. But I have come to be convinced that implicit in the teachings of the buddha, is the assumption that a fully realised arahat has mastered all of these in a synergized way.

Thus, my precise goals for the rest of this month ( now 20 days ) are three fold…

1. My gold standard for morality training is eliminating all fear and anxiety. This would be the peak of metaprogramming skill for me. I imagine others would differ, based on their personality, but for me, fearlessness is the cornerstone. Everything else would be an afterthought.

2. Concentration wise, the gold standard is easy. This is the 8th samatha jhanna. Also known as the base of neither perception nor non-perception. I will settle for being to sustain this, seated, for a hour. I could make it even harder and go for something called nirhodha sammadhi , which is quite possibly the hardest meditative achievement going, but no one I know of says you can do that predictably in a month.

3. Lastly, the gold standard for insight is pretty straight up: eradication of fundamental ignorance and perfect knowledge, moment to moment, of the three characteristics of suffering, not-self, and impermanence.

There is a certain power in recognising something as being nearly impossible, accepting the magnitude of all it’s difficulties, and choosing to do it anyway. In many ways, anything else is not really a choice at all. Only exploring the world in the bucket.

Throw aside your buckets!

under the tree

wanted to write something today, even if it’s not too scintiliating.

First I was kind of sick, then I was just busy, now I feel like I have too many ideas in my head to act on succinctly.

When I got to the end of the by-now-notorious debacle that was the augoeides project, I felt like one of the conclusions I had drawn was the need to take stock of my body of work here, and try to integrate the understandings that came out of it.

It may seem odd, but a lot of the things that come out here pass my lips or my keyboard without really registering in conscious mind. I spend a fair bit of time going over this stuff and wondering where the fuck it came from ( as I’m sure many of you do as well ) I sometimes feel as if this site is put together by my alter ego.

I eventually realised that this site was my ‘download’ in the phillip k dick or holy guardian angel sense, but not untill there was so goddamn much of it, that it breaks your head on the way in.

I’ve also noticed that the best received stuff on this site is the stuff that I’ve taken the time to fully think through and make sense to myself, rather than the disjointed babbling that sometimes comes out.

But anyway, the point is I’m doing a lot of that heavy lifting behind the scenes right now, and hashing out the shape of things to come. I’ve got a great backlog of ideas to implement, but I need to improve my hardware situation to get back into the 21st century, and get clear about what the hell I’m trying to say and who I’m saying it to. I realise a lot of the time I’ve been talking to myself, and while there’s a time a place for that, it may be time to set it aside for awhile.

Besides all that, I’ve formed a resolution to quick fucking around and finally get this arahat thing done. I’ve got about ten years of formal buddist practice in, and like much else here, it goes in fits and starts and I’ve gotten to the point where I know exactly what to do and how to do it, so everything else has to take a back seat for a bit. I’ve resolved to finish the path within 30 days. I’m on day 3 of that now, and I’m just digging deep into samatha jhanna practice for 10 or 12 hours a day to tighten up my concentration and make the subsequent insight manuevers easier.

At a certain point, gotama knew he had enough raw materials from studying with various teachers to finish the task he had set forth for himself, so he resolved to sit under the tree, and not get up until it was done. Like many things, it was about will.

Does anyone think you become enlightened without deciding to become enlightened? Not deciding to TRY. Fuck that. But deciding to DO IT.

“The training is nothing! The will is everything! The will to act.”

and so it is…

Magickal Record 05-14-07

Probably the last one of these for awhile.

I find them kind of dry, and the laundry list approach leaves something to be desired. I find it also reinforces my habit of bitter struggle, which I’d like to dispense with. I suppose if I could change my record into a weekly account of  ecstatic rhapsodising, it might be a different thing, but if so, I might as well call it something different.

In any case, things are bound to get a bit more hectic again soon. I clearly need to update my resume and reenter the mainstream workforce again. I’ve heard on a few occasions that establishing a new business often takes up to three years, when it works at all, so it’ll have to be the long road to self employment for me I guess.

Which begs the question of what to do in the three years it may take to build up my business? Security is out. Work in a spa requires some niceties that would require a bit of a strain on my part. Might temp again for awhile or get back into manual labor for the summer.

If civilisation collapses in the next few years and I get to fall back on the post apocalyptic hunter gatherer skill set, I suppose I’ll be doing all right, but I doubt much of anyone else will, so I’ll set that image aside for now.

I’m feeling the pull of another insight cycle lately, and easing back into some intensive meditation.  I’ve said pretty much everything about that, that I can, and it still causes confusion, so I will commend thou to the experts.

The site clearly isn’t getting updated as much as I’d like but hopefully my computer situation will get resolved within a couple weeks.  In the meanwhile the pocket recorder ought to come in handy. It’s fun to explore a slightly new medium.

My gym activity has reached a tempo where I’m sore pretty much all the time, and I’m always hungry. refining my focus away from building mass I don’t need or want, towards greater strength pound-for-pound, which suits my lifestyle better. Over developed goons with limited range of motion don’t last long in knife fights. But then again, knife fights never last very long anyway. But it’s nice to be the one who drips, not the one who sprays.

…or so I’ve been told. that’s your zen koan for the day.

Magickal Record 04-23-07

    My self immolation continues. Although, at least, I burn in a good way. Sift my ashes, if you will.

My apparent fruition seems to be holding up. I’m not having visions of Moses and Elijah in the garden or anything, but there seems to a be a real difference that’s holding. I will save the detailed discussion for the last bit of the Augoeides series ( more on that below ) but suffice to say, anytime I start feeling kind of squeezed by my delusions, a small application of mindfullness is sufficient to jolt my body-mind back into a stable state of instability. I realise that probably makes little to no sense, but paradox is the currency of the realm, alas.

Recently I’ve been rereading one of my favorite books: the farther reaches of human nature by abram h. maslow, who is probably somewhat familiar for his hierarchy of needs model, which only really scratches the surface of the things he was working out near his death, which is what appears in this book.

In it he says a lot of things which have become cliches. Things about authenticity, growth versus fear, taking responsibility, flow and whatnot. These words get abused by corporate whores and bad hacks to create more reasons to do things you hate and probably should hate. But to read the words of the man himself, and his feeling for them is a much different affair. When someone means what they say, you Know It, and I hope that something similar is present in my work, sometimes, which I do occasionally worry about.

It’s easy to get caught up in telling people what they want to hear, or in a similar vein, telling it to them in a way they want to hear it.  Both of which are a far cry from  saying what you think and why you think it.

Sometimes I think I’m very far away from what I set out to be, so long ago.  Part of what I’m doing now is trying to redress that. The only reason I got into magick, for example, was because it was what I thought science always should have been. Most people seem to treat it as a free lunch, or in some perverse, paradoxical way, a lot of work for a free lunch. Kind of like those people who will work desperately hard to stay on welfare or a disability pension. I could do with a few less perverse paradoxes myself.

Meditation is a kind of a weird paradox itself lately. Every time I sit, I get into deep and stable states of equanimity, but in a some strange way, the fact of it becoming so easy makes it less compelling to want to do it. I’ve found this about myself in a few areas. If it doesn’t involve turmoil, struggle and bitter resignation, I don’t always care enough to do it. Like my identity has become tied into the bitter struggle for everything ™.

I’m tired of that. Just let me do what I like, and let me like doing it.

The grand experiment of joblessness is coming to an end. Either business steps up soon, or I’m off to update my resume. I’ve done most everything under my control to make it work, so it’s in the hands of god, now.

My computer situation is a comedy of errors. First my hard drive at home shit it’s guts out, which was okay since I could work at the office and at Alaina’s place. Then her house mates decided I was too ominous and threatening to come and go during the day when she wasn’t there, so I had to give her the extra key back, so I’m left with the office. I can’t record here, or edit audio here, so that’s back burnered for now. I’ll squeeze the outstanding items in somewhere, but a regular stream of audio missives in on the slow track now, along with the microphone related projects I had in the works.

I’m looking for a window for my water fast. People get alarmed when you tell them that you’ve stopped eating. Like some iraqui prisoner on hunger strike. It’s easier when you don’t have to sit around telling people ‘no, I’m not hungry’ over and over again.

so, the Goals List 

-finish the building a better brand series this week

-record the last augoeides in the next two weeks

-get to the gym at least three times a week

-buy some real food

-schedule the water fast

-meditate for a hour everyday even if I don’t feel like I need to.

-call R. to fix my hard drive

-own up to what I really like and don’t like and what I really want, not what I think I have to do

Magickal Record 04-07-07

Once more ’round the posts, I guess.

It’s been about a week since my fruition apparently dropped, and I do like to wait after these type of things to get a handle on what did or did not happen.

After my first profound mystical experience, I told a couple people that I was one with god, and said that I had touched a part of myself that would never die. That may or may not have been true, but you can see how saying things like that without a certain amount of deliberation can cause some difficulty.

Hence now, I sit, and I wait to see what the overall effect is going to be. Certainly my overall experience of suffering is radically diminished, if not entirely gone. That sense of being squeezed in a vice is gone, and my ability to deepen in concentration and calmness practice is greatly enhanced, to the point where it’s largely effortless to sit in access or 1st jhanna pretty much all the time.

Expect some more detailed review of this subject in the last augoiedes podcast. Suffice to say, I am ‘more’ enlightened’ than I was before, but that don’t necessarily amount to much.

Didn’t get as much done as I was hoping this week, as I had a bit of a relapse in my neck and back stiffness. It’s under control again, but simply a bit of a stern warning about too much useless time in front of machines like this. Makes me recall why I gave up writing for podcasting in the first place.

I’m priming myself for a week long water fast. Nothing mystical about it, simply a health thing. I can’t get too excited about only one a day a week, so maybe one week, twice a year will work better. I do suppose it will provide a bit of a kickstart to meditation but if so it’s a bonus and not really the end.

One thing I did do was clean my room. Or at least it’s in progress. The carpet is a different color now that it’s been vacuumed. I was living in a nest of my own discarded skin flakes and the mini ecology of microbial horrors that thrive on such things. Fuck that. My skin flakes have moved on to discover their own future evolution. God speed them to enlightenment.

Our newspaper advertising starts this Wednesday, so I expect to be rather busy, but I think I can put a few things together for the site. The Big Idea is still germinating, alas.

Updated goals:

-get back to concentrating in depth for at least an hour a day.

-lay plans for a week long water fast

-pay extra close attention to my posture and stretch diligently.

-head down to the clinic everyday to answer the phones as early in the day as possible.

-talk to D. about getting some kung fu going outside. weather warming up and all…

-get the fucking new mic already. if only to drop it from this goddamn list.

-finish up some new content for this site ASAP

Magickal Record 03-29-07

Apologies for the silence.  Besides burrowing through the stages of insight, I’ve been contemplating some new subjects for the site, as I’m starting to feel as if I’ve exhausted some of my characteristic obsessions for the time being.

   In any event: on monday, after several hours of exquisitely agonising observation of fundamental suffering, I seem to have crossed into the insight stage of equanimity, as I feel mostly relaxed and calm without even trying most of the time right now. Every day or so, I fine tune some observations, and last night I found that I was observing the three characteristics ( non-self, suffering, impermanence ) in my sleep, which ought to be a good sign. 

  One of the things that debunks the delusion of self is realising that the sense that most people have of a ‘watcher’ inside ones head or somewhere thereabouts, is really just a set of sensations like any other, and not somehow separate, special, watching, or in control of other sensations. The idea that your sense of self is not really any different than the sense of your foot, and that neither one is the seat of awareness, is kind of odd, yet  this is a doorway to liberation. When I actually observed this yesterday ( as opposed to merely working it out intellectually, which is fine, but useless for real insight), my mind was apparently so shocked by that, it spend all night trying to find a new reference point, even interrupting my dreams in the process.

   It’s very uncomfortable to notice the moment to moment convulsion of awareness that causes you to twist your perception around into a sufficently tight knot that you don’t notice that you are not in fact seperate, but part of everything. If feels like a muscle spasm in your brain. And you do it almost every single moment of the day.

   When you notice this clearly enough to see that it really sucks and that it’s crazy and you’d be much happier if you quit doing it, you get to become enlightened. Simple as that.

   As  a minor digression, anyone who thinks becoming enlightened automatically bestows psychic or siddha powers is probably slightly confused. They do seem to interrelate but the intention to do one does not necessarily lead to the other or vice versa. I think it’s just when you stop the mental twister game in your head, you have all these other limbs free and extra attention to like, levitate your begging bowl or stop bullets in the air and shit.  More on this at a latter date, obviously.

   I resolved to raise the standard for my flexibility training again. I look like a tool at the gym, but I could kick most of their asses, so fuck em. You might wonder what the big damn deal is about being flexible, but it just so happens that I started with a martial art back in the day that is founded on exacting postural training that really confounds most white people who use chairs and toilets with seats and stuff. A few degrees of rotation in your neck or hip might not seem like a big deal but when someone is swinging a naginata at you, which is a six foot staff with a three foot razor blade on the end, it might be more clear. Not that I actually do that, but that’s what it’s designed for. Wooden swords hurt enough already anyway.

 Next week is the start of our advertising at the clinic, and I’m manning the phones most of the time, so It’s long days on the meditating bench next to the phone I guess. When I’m not helping diabetics whose legs are rotting off, or the usual spinal distortions masquerading as ’stress’.

   The diet goes well. I usually get in one huge bowl of green stuff every day, and a couple snacks. My energy is coming up steadily. How much of that is good cardio and how much good mineral intake is not clear, but I don’t really need to know.

 As for this site, I’ve got lots of balls in the air, but here’s a quick update:

   Augoiedes: One more and that’s done. I’m holding off till this fruition is really to drop. Maybe another couple weeks at most? Hard to say.

  Mosaic Effect: Always good for whatever I feel like talking about. I’m still open to requests. I’m thinking of taking a detour into some futurist stuff.

 Evolutuion by the Numbers: I’m sure there will be some new ones here and there to fill the gaps, but my main impetus is pretty much done by number twenty or so. Most people seem to realise that all you really need to do is one or two of them, so piling on more and more is kind of sadistic.

  Systematic for the People: I kind of got bogged down in the systems theory stuff. It all kind of sounds the same after a while. It’s not all the same, but it’s hard to make the language pop. My original plan was to go to 18 in that way but I may boil it down to another few, and then change tack again.  

  Magickal Record: It’s done when I’m done.

Goals List:

 -sustained effort in insight and concentration practice.

-raise the bar in flexibility training

-kung fu training outside

-incrementally improve alkaline diet

-new mic ( yes really)

-prep for a one week straight water fast

-clean your fucking room

-clarify new directions for the site

Magickal Record 03-23-07

Sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better, in which case things have gotten better, and will continue to do so.

   My vipassana practice has taken on a tenor of more or less continuous pain. The fundamental delusion of being a separate and permanent self has revealed itself as untenable, but there is not yet enough fundamental insight to unwind the knot, and it’s agonising, nauseous side effects. Just as with my bout of insanity some months ago, the only thing that helps is trying not to feed crazy or delusional thought patterns.

  In this case however, crazy or delusional, means anything that happens to probe or refference the sense of being an “I”, so oddly enough my only refuge is either in the deepest samatha jhannas I can manage( usually the 4th, but occasionally the 5th or 6th) , which I have been doing consistently for hours a day all week, or ’selfless’ behavior, such as healing, doing chores for people, or getting involved in ’spiritual’ activites. Anything where I can avoid thinking about the agonised deteriorating illusion of a self. Kind of like having a tooth pulled over the course of  several days.

  As I fine tune the level of clarity and precision I need to resolve this unpleasant debacle, I have nonetheless accumulated some interesting but incomplete insights which do seem to help. It’s one of those things where you have to sit with the pain and watch it impartially until you have one of those ‘hitting yourself in the head with a hammer’ moments, and realise it would feel really good to stop. Right now I can see my head, and I can see the hammer, and I can see myself swinging it, but none of them clearly enough to completely identify their relationship to each other.

  In the buddhist model all this leads me to believe I am ocilating somewhere in between the insight stages of re-observation and equinimity, which indicates  a more sustained push yet of insight practice is needed, along with some fundamental acceptance of my life ‘as it is’.  Surely if this keeps up I will be willing to accept just about anything to make it stop, and I suppose that’s the point.

 As grim as all this sounds, paradoxically, it’s not so much a problem anymore. I hit bottom earlier in the week, and since then it’s a simple resignation to persist in practice and endure the discomfort for as long as it takes. There is no chance whatsoever I will park in this state or regress. So even if it’s it’s slow, progress and fruition is assured.

   On the more mundane side, it appears our business is going to fly a while longer, and it’s not all on my shoulders either. Hoo-ray. Another cash infusion from heaven keeps me solvent long enough to see if the massage business is going to pan out for me right now.

  And my alkiline diet is coming along nicely, my fridge is fairly swimming in green stuff. In fact, it’s even green plant stuff.  My colon thanks you for your moral support.

 My flexibility training is very gratfiying as well, mostly because stretching is a lot easier in the 2nd jhanna, which is one of those secrets sadhus tend not to share cause they’re busy smoking hash all the time. Imagine that.

Updated goals for the week:

-at least three hours of seated insight or concentration practice every fucking day, before I die of horror.

-stretch my neck and inguinal area in jhanna states.

-perfect my weightlifting form

-alkaline diet

-get a new mic

-fast one day just water

-clean up my room, already. it’s spring for fucksakes.

-create something for the site every day, even if it’s crap and I throw it out right away.

Magickal Record 03-16-07

Right. Enough Bullshit.

  Took me a little longer than I was expecting to kick the bug out of my system, but with the aid of some good quality vitamins, I believe that’s that. My own fault for going off them in the first place.

  So it’s back to the gym today, and kung fu tonight. Have to remind myself to get some other training days going outside in the warmer months. It’s not really feasible to perfect the skills in a couple hours a week. 

 Alaina’s away for a week so I’m taking the opportunity to hide out at her place and hopefully get some things done on the cushion, as it were. I keep getting peeks at some new territory meditation wise but it’ll require some sustained effort to camp there.

  I’d almost forgotten how irritating it can be to live with other people, even if you never see them. I was an only child with few friends so I’ve never really been comfortable in the presence of other people for long periods. Even when I like or even love them, it tires me out something fierce.

  When she gets back we’ve agreed to do an as close to all alkaline diet as possible for a while, as an experiment if nothing else. Meaning mostly green veggies and whatnot. I’d turn into a zombie with no animal protein so fear not for me lapsing into the vegan holy man category. I have enough dubious spiritual distinctions already to answer for.

  The coherent ideas are back, after they’d retired to the country for some fresh air and sunshine. I’ve decided against getting my home computer up and running again, at least until I can work out this latest fruition. Office work is one thing, but it too big of a distraction otherwise.

   The ‘business meeting’ at the clinic is in a couple days, and if nothing else I’ll be able to determine my working strategy for the next couple months on the basis of that. I may end up working in a spa this summer. Not ideal but still serviceable.

Goals for the next week:

-at least three hours of seated insight or concentration practice every fucking day

-stretch my neck and inguinal area twice a day rather than just once, as I do now.

-perfect my weightlifting form

-alkaline diet kicks in next week, so shopping is in order, for like, food and stuff.

-get a new mic

-fast one day just water

-do as little talking as possible, and definitely no shit talk or swearing.

-create something for the site every day, even if it’s crap and I throw it out right away.