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Hunab Ku, sending you much love and respect, I love reading your posts, you give a lot of yourself, thanks for sharing cheers. I found an article a few weeks ago which describes the experience of the 'other' in words nicely I hope its ok! Comments on the Psilocybin Mushroom By Elfstone Its bascially about maintaining or deepening a dialogue with the other through practice. I have no experience on that to share myself sorry! I like his summary towards the end: Easier said than done but summed up nicely hehe. All the best!

Go to this page and read the section titled 'The Relation between Appearances, Clear Light Mind, Death and Rebirth' for a detailed description from the tibetan buddhist viewpoint. Read Nagarjuna's Sixty Verses on Reasoning

Hi mardybum, everyone. I haven't done anything like this myself but would love to for meditation practice. I think south western to western tasmania would be a good place, the bushwalking tasmania forum has lots of great info http://bushwalk-tasmania.com/forum/. I think its best to leave as little impact on the natural environment as possible, to be with it and not tear it down and start killing animals and the like. I think hammocks are a good idea for a lightweight shelter and you can use them in rough, mountainous/uneven or rocky terrain. Here's a pic and some links to some websites: Hammock and general shelter info Hammock forums Hennessy brand hammocks Rough idea of price, shop around Some info on Solitude... i need to get out more The Hermitary - resources and reflections on hermits and solitude Forest monks of southeast asia Shantideva's Engaging in Bodhisattva Behavior chapter 8

Mind expansion nice thread, and cheers to everyone in sharing your stories. heh... i'm not sure why you are so worried, i mean i'm 30 (soon hehe) and i've been avoiding social situations my whole life, never had any friends since high school and never had a girlfriend either. At the moment i'm living with my sister as i've been unemployed for 4 years now, don't own a car or house and ride everywhere on my bicycle. I was never able to hold a job for more than a year and always left on my own accord. I'm sorry to say that in the last 10 years I have been through quite a bit of suicidal ideation but being the biggest softy you can imagine its not something I could carry out. Mushies put an end to most of that negative thinking and the need for proper change out of my shyness, but like a lot of other people when I was unable to carry out that change slid into a depressed, restless state. At its worst I couldn't ride in cars or the train without wanting to jump out, would not go into shopping centres or other places with people and found it difficult even being around my own family. I pretty much spent 2 years in my room, no internet and would spend all night obsessive-compulsively playing guitar. Some of the difficult experiences were when my body would just completely lock up with panic and anxiety and I would be on my hands and knees in agony. Panic attacks in social situations were extremely embarrising as well and reinforce your own seclusion or justifications not to go out again. I really feel sorry for people going through anything like that. I'm still not 100% but what has helped to work my way out of it my way out of it has been developing meditational stability, reading up on a lot of buddhist theory and looking after a lovely mini fox terrier dog. I think cultivating a high degree of compassion helps to conquer fear and has wonderful healing potential for yourself and others. One of the ways buddhists use to generate Bodhichitta is "The awareness that all sentient beings have been your mother in infinite previous lives". Its sounds a bit strange but removes the sense of 'other' among strangers and brings to life the interconnectedness of all being and concern for the welfare of any living thing. Philosophically I think the mind-only aspects of buddhist teachings are important. I like this phrase "Whatever appears is your own mind. Your mind from the start is free from fabricated extremes. Understanding this, do not take to mind [inherent] signs of subject and object". The teachings on emptiness are also important and helpful. Anyway all the best with things mind expansion and if anyone has any ways that have helped them through this kind of problem please let us all know and offer some advice, thanks.

Hi mardybum, i'm not so sure about what courses to take but have some links for you to check out if you have the time: Psychedelic Therapy related: Psychedelic Therapy Wiki Stanislav Grof Wiki Documents for serious psychonauts Tibetan Buddhism related: Lamrim audio Scribd pdf books Lama Yeshe wisdom archive Alan Wallace essays Try emailing people directly associated with current studies as they should offer the best advice. Good luck with it!

hi genesis, thought i would give it a go, probably not what you had in mind but it was fun making it!! the evil grin face was modified from a font set on this page, you should see it if you scroll down a bit http://www.fontspace.com/category/creepy. the spikes are sort of punkish i hope... nasty looking spiky thing lol!! if you like them i can make them scalable/vector based so you can print them sharply at any size... anyway, all the best with your store, sounds really cool

Hanub Ku I would love to help you out if I can. I'm no expert but i'm starting to get more serious with meditation practice... and like you found it difficult to keep my mind fixed on something for more than a few seconds. I had to get serious about it because the last 2 years I was having panic/anxiety attacks, i didn't seek help nor did I take any medication (I refuse to, I never have and never will) so i needed a way to get things back on track naturally. My favourite guide is from the tibetan 'Mahamudra' meditation method. You can check it out here: Html version or Pdf version. Please refer to the 'Resting Mind' section first which includes 8 meditation practices... choose what suits you best. To begin with its about conditioning strong levels of concentration, so you are not sitting meditating for no reason!! Its so important to develop and helps not just in spiritual practice but in daily life as well. If it works for you it would be great to teach your son too as he should find it useful for school. Its easier to learn things if your mind is not distracted. This practice is often referred to as Samatha, calm abiding or tranquility based meditation. Once this has been mastered you have the mental sharpness to move onto insight/vipassana practice. I'm using the 'Attending to Visual Appearances' excercise at the moment. Its a bit like what Auxin (hi!) mentioned about the traffic lights... you just keep returning your mind gently to focus on an external object. I find that a point of Light is the best to use because it counters any dullness you may feel when meditating. What i find works is to spend anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour in the dark before you go to sleep every night. Use any small, dim light you may have, a candle, mobile phone, pen torch or whatever you find. As its the only thing lit up in your room concentrating on it solely is not too hard. One pointed, fixed concentration...... that's what its about. Another good guide is 'The Perfection of Concentration' by Geshe Rabten. I like the bit where in the later stages of concentration walls can fall around you without causing any distraction. I've made a small light connected to a voltage controller that someone may find interesting or usefull. Its nice because you can control the amount of light, if you are a bit tired a bright light will keep you going, while at the dimmest setting it keeps the room nice and dark so you cannot see or notice anything else. I've included a photo of it as an attachment so you can have a laugh, but I hope you get the idea

I would like to send a big thank you to Pelinster for being soo generous. Alot of time and money would have spent getting them done, cheers mate!

You know they shoot Magpies and other feathered friends nearly every day around Airports to stop them getting sucked into jet engines and bringing an early end to people's fat arse business holiday trip. This is done to save your butt so you can go on polluting the environment in your merry way. This is a DAILY TRAGEDY which I have been unfortunately witness of and THEREBY instruct all beings to plan your next TRIP the way we like @sab. DO IT for the environments sake! If you don't I will personly send you a flock of baby Galahs, which make the most irratating and annoying sound on this planet. They will not stop doing so until you SELF DESTRUCT...

Hi aceishigh, I'm a new to all this myself as well. I haven't tried it but Sceletium tortuosum would be worth checking out for your needs. I'm looking at short lasting psychoactives for a gnome friend as well. Salvia D is particularly interesting to me in this regard, yes, too bad its illegal in Aus. While its been stated that the LD50 of psilocybin is lower than caffeine in theory I don't agree its safer. Over a long period of intoxication your more likely to get in trouble imo, and its not good for the body to be in defence mode, stressed for sustained periods of time. Just look at the modern workplace for example. The way I see it is that if I'm fit enough to maintain my max heart rate for ten minutes running flat out or cycling up a long hill then bring on anything that lasts a similar time and I'll feel safe. In the meantime I'm hoping that my pineapple sage makes it through winter, it smells wonderful and can't wait to make a tea from it! I found this link interesting regarding Salvia splendens' placebo psychoactivity.

The following is a transcript I made of a talk by my favourite phillosopher Alan Watts. It's a tribute speech made following Jung's death in 1961. I've cut it down a bit so if you want the full speech I'd recommend finding the mp3 of it on the net. Jung_tribute_by_Watts.pdf Some standout quote's: I keep stumbling on this which explains alot That evil exists in you and you project it out. Most obvious example would be the anti-abortionists. According to Huston Smith the early Christian Gnostic Valentinus taught that the origin of evil originates within the godhead itself. Therefore no dualism of good vs evil. Also a very similar point was made in the Mystical Iran documentary on Abc tv's Compass program a while back. 'Unprejudiced Objectivity', I spent a few weeks with that in mind and noticed quite a difference on my outlook of things. If put in practise its boundary dissolving.

There's no control anywhere, only seeming control. Can you go one minute without thinking anything? Its very difficult to still the mind. So we can hardly control our own minds let alone the world at large. In terms of control conspiracies I like the following video from the late Terence Mckenna: mckenna_vid.zip

Watched the Germany v Costa Rica game this morning and must admit those 2 long range goals the Germans scored were brilliant. The Costa Rican goalie was working his butt off! Wanchope's 2 goals for Costa Rica were good, the guy was so cool and balanced under pressure. As for the Aussies, if Schwarzer keeps like he did against the Dutch then we may make the next round. If Viduka's out GUUS should play Joshua Kennedy in the Japan game imo.

To expand Hagakure's and naja naja's comments earlier, I must admit community wireless networks are a great idea. Anybody use them? Stolen from this page: You don't get net access but things like file sharing without download limits seem like a good idea. This from Melbourne Wireless faq Also found some cheap antennas here.