Thaak wrote:
Each environment will have its own collective energy. Sometimes that energy will not be compatible with yours. There is a story that my teacher tells in her book, about a medicine person (forget if its male or female) who was traveling the altiplano (a flat plains about 15,000 feet in the Andes) and came across a village that had been in drought conditions for a long time. So long, in fact, that they were nearly out of water entirely. They were having trouble getting enough fluids themselves, let alone helping their meager crops grow. They asked the medicine person to make it rain. The medicine person requested a sweat tent where they could meditate. They meditated in the sweat tent for 3 days, and then came out. They told the people that it would rain that next day.

It did so, and the people rejoiced. They asked the medicine person why it took so long. The medicine person replied, that the land was so out of balance that he had become out of balance. It took him 3 days to bring himself back into balance. Because medicine people live in that state of oneness, when he brought himself back into balance, he was able to transmit that balance to the land around him. He was able to affect change around himself by becoming the change he wanted to see, through an act of non-doing. The land followed his lead and came into balance, and so it rained.

I was gonna throw this story in, but you beat me to it
however, i read this story in my study of Taoism, or so i thought.... Interesting if i do remember correctly, however i might have come across it while studying the shamanic path of the Inca... not sure hehe been a long time since i read the story.
slightly different wording from the story i remember but identical nonetheless.

f

fshortt wrote:

Thaak wrote:
Each environment will have its own collective energy. Sometimes that energy will not be compatible with yours. There is a story that my teacher tells in her book, about a medicine person (forget if its male or female) who was traveling the altiplano (a flat plains about 15,000 feet in the Andes) and came across a village that had been in drought conditions for a long time. So long, in fact, that they were nearly out of water entirely. They were having trouble getting enough fluids themselves, let alone helping their meager crops grow. They asked the medicine person to make it rain. The medicine person requested a sweat tent where they could meditate. They meditated in the sweat tent for 3 days, and then came out. They told the people that it would rain that next day.

It did so, and the people rejoiced. They asked the medicine person why it took so long. The medicine person replied, that the land was so out of balance that he had become out of balance. It took him 3 days to bring himself back into balance. Because medicine people live in that state of oneness, when he brought himself back into balance, he was able to transmit that balance to the land around him. He was able to affect change around himself by becoming the change he wanted to see, through an act of non-doing. The land followed his lead and came into balance, and so it rained.

I was gonna throw this story in, but you beat me to it
however, i read this story in my study of Taoism, or so i thought.... Interesting if i do remember correctly, however i might have come across it while studying the shamanic path of the Inca... not sure hehe been a long time since i read the story.
slightly different wording from the story i remember but identical nonetheless.

f

It is possible that this story is a teaching parable

If your story is one from Shamanism Andy, i'm not surprised that there's similarities with other stories. As we both know i'm sure, Shamanism dates back to the stone age. We could say, all paths emante from it, .

Milarepa wrote:If your story is one from Shamanism Andy, i'm not surprised that there's similarities with other stories. As we both know i'm sure, Shamanism dates back to the stone age. We could say, all paths emante from it, .

Not to mention, before organized religion (and still after in many cultures) the medicine people would get together in the dream time and share despite being completely physically isolated from one another

True. Which is why, even though of the immense distance (espicially in those ancent times), there's not much the various indigenous expressions of shamanism dont' agree with one another on!

Oh, you can still participate fully in life with all its road blocks and such without having to engage in a separated or dual consciousness that recognizes those instances as negative. Its about living in the world, but not of the world.

If you treat each moment as new and beautiful, no matter what is happening in that moment, then it truly liberates one from engaging in unbalancing dynamics or paradigms.

It's really interesting to see here such large similarities to Buddhism. One of the most important concepts in Buddhism, and one of the most difficult to understand (in fact, many can understand it on a theoretical level but still can't apply it to everyday life), is that of nonduality. It's really something you have to feel and experience to truly understand, and Buddhist masters use methods such as Koans to teach these concepts to their students.

Still, in the end it amounts to the same thing. If there are energies that don't interact well with our own, then from our perspective these are "negative" or "unhelpful" or whatever you want to call it this is in fact what we use Reiki for, no? It's the same concept in Reiki, Qigong, pranic healing, psychic surgery, etc.

If our house sets on fire are we going to look at it as "beautiful" or are we going to phone the fire department? So we can view it from a nondualistic perspective, but not from an idle one. We can accept what's happening but it's not always necessary to resign to it... indeed it's often a learning experience, an opportunity for change and compassion.

Buddhism is also about balance, the Middle Path, and viewing life from any extreme is unhelpful, including extreme nonduality: there is a risk of apathy and inactivity ("my path is set, I can't change it, there is no positive or negative, it just is and that's that and I should just accept it" or "if everything is to be viewed from a nondualistic perspective then I can do whatever I want, as there is no right/wrong, positive/negative, helpful/harmful"). (Yes I've actually seen people discuss this, almost with hopefulness ).

In Buddhism you might say that the concept of nonduality is meant to awaken a Bodhisattva-like compassion within us in that we understand that everything in the Universe is one and united. Like the Butterfly Effect, each of our actions affect the rest of the world, and we need to be mindful of that. So in understanding nonduality, we also understand that what hurts someone else hurts us. It's meant to inspire compassionate action, not resigned acceptance.

Thaak wrote:

Milarepa wrote:If your story is one from Shamanism Andy, i'm not surprised that there's similarities with other stories. As we both know i'm sure, Shamanism dates back to the stone age. We could say, all paths emante from it, .

Not to mention, before organized religion (and still after in many cultures) the medicine people would get together in the dream time and share despite being completely physically isolated from one another

I did find where i had heard the story, it was in both my reading of taoist material, and C.G.Jung... anyway i found a ref. on the web that is the story i read or almost - i do believe i remember the rain not snow... but then again ?? anyway, here are a few versions:

link1

link2

and also this one:

Carl Jung recounted the following story, told to him by Richard Wilhelm, who lived in China for many years:

p. 419-20 Mysterium Coniunctionis: an Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, vol 14 Bollingen Series XX: The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, 2d edition, trans by R.F.C. Hull, Princeton University Press 1976

"There was a great drought where Wilhelm lived; for months there had not been a drop of rain and the situation became catastrophic. The Catholics made processions, the Protestants made prayers, and the Chinese burned joss-sticks and shot off guns to frighten away the demons of the drought, but with no result.
Finally the Chinese said, 'We will fetch the rain-maker.' And from another province a dried up old man appeared. The only thing he asked for was a quiet little house somewhere, and there he locked himself in for three days.
On the fourth day the clouds gathered and there was a great snow-storm at the time of the year when no snow was expected, an unusual amount, and the town was so full of rumours about the wonderful rain-maker that Wilhelm went to ask the man how he did it.
In true European fashion he said: 'They call you the rain-maker; will you tell me how you made the snow?'
And the little Chinese said: 'I did not make the snow; I am not responsible.'
'But what have you done these three days?'
'Oh, I can explain that. I come from another country where things are in order. Here they are out of order; they are not as they should be by the ordinance of heaven. Therefore the whole country is not in Tao, and I also am not in the natural order of things because I am in a disordered country. So I had to wait three days until I was back in Tao and then naturally the rain came.'”


f

fshortt wrote:

Thaak wrote:

Milarepa wrote:If your story is one from Shamanism Andy, i'm not surprised that there's similarities with other stories. As we both know i'm sure, Shamanism dates back to the stone age. We could say, all paths emante from it, .

Not to mention, before organized religion (and still after in many cultures) the medicine people would get together in the dream time and share despite being completely physically isolated from one another

I did find where i had heard the story, it was in both my reading of taoist material, and C.G.Jung... anyway i found a ref. on the web that is the story i read or almost - i do believe i remember the rain not snow... but then again ?? anyway, here are a few versions:

link1

link2

and also this one:

Carl Jung recounted the following story, told to him by Richard Wilhelm, who lived in China for many years:

p. 419-20 Mysterium Coniunctionis: an Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, vol 14 Bollingen Series XX: The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, 2d edition, trans by R.F.C. Hull, Princeton University Press 1976

"There was a great drought where Wilhelm lived; for months there had not been a drop of rain and the situation became catastrophic. The Catholics made processions, the Protestants made prayers, and the Chinese burned joss-sticks and shot off guns to frighten away the demons of the drought, but with no result.
Finally the Chinese said, 'We will fetch the rain-maker.' And from another province a dried up old man appeared. The only thing he asked for was a quiet little house somewhere, and there he locked himself in for three days.
On the fourth day the clouds gathered and there was a great snow-storm at the time of the year when no snow was expected, an unusual amount, and the town was so full of rumours about the wonderful rain-maker that Wilhelm went to ask the man how he did it.
In true European fashion he said: 'They call you the rain-maker; will you tell me how you made the snow?'
And the little Chinese said: 'I did not make the snow; I am not responsible.'
'But what have you done these three days?'
'Oh, I can explain that. I come from another country where things are in order. Here they are out of order; they are not as they should be by the ordinance of heaven. Therefore the whole country is not in Tao, and I also am not in the natural order of things because I am in a disordered country. So I had to wait three days until I was back in Tao and then naturally the rain came.'”


f

chuckle... interesting. Almost the exact same story, but using a different culture.

yeah, i thought so too.
But its still a good teaching story

f

hai,

Some more material how to become more postive. it help all.

There are times when we must go through negative situations. Maybe people say something negative about us, or they show rejection or even resentment against us. In such situations, it may be difficult to stay positive. We may be inclined to react negatively to them. That won’t do us any good though; doing so will just make the situation worse. People may behave even more negatively to us. Our day would be filled with anger and disappointment. At the end, nobody wins.
Though it’s not easy, it’s important to stay positive in negative situations. Beat the negative situations by staying positive. Here are 15 tips on how to do it; pick the ones that work for you:

1. Never respond when you are not calm. If you are not sure that you are calm, don’t respond. Take time to calm yourself down first.

2. Take a deep breath as a first step to calm yourself down.

3. Speak in gentle tone to reduce the tension of the situation.
4. Realize that you can find opportunities in negative situations. Albert
Einstein said: “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.”

5. Look at the content of what people say to you for something positive that you can act upon to improve yourself. Don’t just reject the whole messages.

6. For the rest of the messages which is negative, simply ignore it.

7. Maintain positive view of the people. Maybe you don’t like their messages or behavior, but that doesn’t mean that you can hate them personally.

8. Realize that having negative feelings will just hurt you, not them. So there is no reason for you to have any negative feeling.

9. If you make mistakes, be open to admit it.

10. If you make mistakes, remember this quote by George Bernard Shaw: “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”

11. If you can, listen to motivational audio program to feed positive thoughts into your mind.

12. Talk to a positive friend who can encourage you.

13. Remember your favorite quotes to give you inspiration and motivation. This is one reason why you should have quote of the day.

14. Look at the negative situations as your training sessions for real life. The higher you climb in life, the worse the negative situations would be, so you’d better be prepared for them.

15. Realize that you can’t please everyone. In fact, nobody can. Sometimes you need to just let some people go. Realizing this will relieve you from a lot of unnecessary burden so that you can focus on the people that you can positively interact with.

Tx and love

vj