Welcome!

Hello, everybody,

My name is Laurel, and I found out about this site when Constance Casey mentioned it to me a couple of weeks ago. Lo and behold, I found a lot of my buddies here! How could you all have quietly gone about your business and kept me in the dark these many months? Anyway, I, like many others here, had a moment of crisis in my life, in my case in December of 2010. I had just finished reading MCTB, which I found out about through Buddhist Geeks, which I found out about from my (then) new Twitter account. I thought, go for it. I started meditating, joined DhO, and got into a bit of a brawl there over AF, which I thought was The End of Civilization As We Know It, and migrated to KFD (although I still post occasionally on DhO and enjoy reading people's stuff there). I began with some heavy concentration practice (anapanasati), went to a couple of retreats, started noting in June of 2011, and my practice has taken off since then. I still keep a thread on KFD.

I just got done with a 2-week retreat with Leigh Brasington. I'm now in the readjustment crisis mode, whatever. I suppose I could call it withdrawal.

Anyway, I'm trying to learn the ropes around here; I posted a profile, but realized I should also post on this welcome thread, so here I am. I plan to talk about different kinds of things here than on KFD, maybe more about the intersection between life and practice. Thanks, everyone.

Thanks for providing some background info, Laurel.

Laurel Carrington wrote: I just got done with a 2-week retreat with Leigh Brasington. I'm now in the readjustment crisis mode, whatever. I suppose I could call it withdrawal.

You don't seem to serious with your use of "crisis," but I still have to ask: are you doing okay? I've not been on retreat in my adult life. But, I remember going to charismatic Christian summer camps as a kid, where we would get all fired up for a week, and then thrown back into the humdrum of everyday life. It wasn't easy. Anyway, just checking in.

Laurel Carrington wrote: I plan to talk about different kinds of things here than on KFD, maybe more about the intersection between life and practice.

I think I can speak for the others by saying we really like that topic. Sounds like you'll fit in nicely here.

Again, welcome aboard! "Ahoy!"

Thanks, Jackson. I know I sounded rather glib, but the truth is I'm in a bit of a depression. Towards the end of the retreat I was dying to go home and see my loved ones, even wanted to get back to work. Now I long for retreat life again. Part of the problem is the rhythm of the academic year; twice a year (at least) one's routine is suddenly altered drastically, and I'm in the process of beginning the term. But the fact is, I was on a high when I first got back, and that's about gone now. But not to worry, I'm dealing.

Laurel, I'm always encouraged when I hear someone acknowledge their feelings, particularly difficult ones like depression. With this acknowledgement comes the possibility of working with the feeling, rather than being worked by it. Does that make sense?

Thanks for sharing. If writing about it helps, do it here. We have threads that are viewable only by forum members, if that makes a difference.

-Jackson

Welcome Laurel. Glad to see you here. I have told you in the past, but you have always been inspirational to me because I know we have both suffered from some pretty hardcore anxiety. When I first saw you get stream entry a while back it inspired me greatly and I got it shortly after that. Anyways, can't wait to hear from you here as well.

Hmm--somehow I don't remember, but I guess I didn't quite make the connection. In any case, I'm here now.

Jackson, how or where does one access the private (to members only) threads? I haven't made sense of this site yet. I'd like to open something up but don't feel like broadcasting to the entire internet about it.

To the the "Index" tab above, and scroll down to the Dharma Refugees area under "Sanghas." Just below that there's a link for Memebers Only & Private Conversations.

You can also just follow this link...
awakenetwork.org/index.php/forum/109-mem...rivate-conversations

I started writing an introduction post, but it ended up being a bit personal for the open internet. You can see it (unfinished) over in the members only section. How i came to be here.
My name is Villum, from Denmark. I've been meditating since the beginning of 2011, going from mindfulness to the Dharma Overground, and from there to KFD, where kenneth taught me in the last half of 2011. Something happened on December 20th, 2011 that may or may not have been 4th path, and since then i've been bumming around experimenting with various things in a rather undisciplined way, trying out some tibetan practices and figuring out i needed more compassion practice.
I have a M.A. in Philosophy from last year that probably wouldn't have gotten finished if i hadn't started meditating. Still no job, though.

Nice to have you here, Villum.

Ditto. Welcome! Lots of familiar faces showing up here.

Hello!

Where did Gozen wander off to, speaking of missing persons?

I talk to Alex once in a while. He seems to be enjoying living a normal life and not spending time on the internet. So I don't imagine he'll be persuaded. But I'll mention you've been asking about him.

Here I am, Gozen (aka Mike LaTorra).

As Chris mentioned, these days I've been spending a lot of my online time in Facebook.

Then there is the rest of my life, in "meat-space" where "meetings" are richer and real-er than here in the virtual world. In meat-space, I'm doing fine, continuing to teach at university and also in the Zen Center of Las Cruces.

Hello again! I am so not a fan of Facebook, though it serves for keeping in touch with certain groups of people who prefer it...

Hi Mike!

Good to see you 'round these here parts. Of course, we'd love to have you around more often. I'm no good at high pressure sales, so all I can say is... pretty please?

Hi there,

I'm very experienced at meditation, and am versed in a number of spiritual traditions, and known to some of the senior members here from my activity on DhO and KFO in the past where I posted as "haquan". While it is not as necessary to provide autobiographical detail as it once was, briefly, I was an especially hardcore meditator in my teens and early 20s, used entheogens sparsely to aid the process, and had a series of events that changed the structure of my consciousness. I assumed that I had simply been defective before and went on with my life. I got especially involved with results oriented magic (mainly because the empirical aspect of it helped me to validate that it was real, rather than for "stuff" - motivated mostly by intellectual interest), and especially Chaos Magic. I joined an order known as the IOT, and am now one of the two Adepts (2°) in the North American section.

Back when I was posting I was still a 3° - I had run into Alan Chapman and Duncan Barford through mutual friends and we began a debate about whether there is such a thing as ultimate Truth with a capital "T". They began describing their experience as anagamis, and I more or less told them "So what? That's how I experience things all the time." They were taken aback by this, and by my continued posture in the face of that that I could still take the position that there may be no ultimate Truth. Anyway, they convinced me to start looking at this enlightenment stuff and especially to look at Ingram's book MTCB. I found the book very interesting, but did not find my experiences fit (those) maps perfectly. So I began a quest to try to understand what had happened to me about 20 years previously - to understand the nature of this "enlightenment" thing. I spoke with Ingram directly and frankly, he wasn't that helpful - best we could figure out was that at least by his maps I was in at least equanamity (because I had a solid grasp of formations). I was eventually invited over to KFD, and I found that board a lot more friendly. Kenneth eventually offered to help me, and in fact did so greatly, and overturned some of my cherished beliefs about the nature of mind - following his instructions I was able to penetrate and describe in detail the 20 strata of mind he talks about, without knowing the model - even a few small unstable jhana that aren't explicitly mentioned in the model. He concluded that I must at least be an anagami, and was probably an arahant.

Right around then some very serious life events pulled me away from the message boards which included a business associate suiciding, a patient doing the same, and contracting carpal tunnel syndrome. I also needed some time away to process. Figured it out after watching Alan's video on attaining 4th path.

Anyway, recently Alan and Duncan referred a very good friend back to me - a Magus (1°) in the IOT and former section head who has been a practicing Buddhist and serious meditator for over 30 years (when he's not doing Mythos work!). This guy is so into it he can recite the Heart Sutra in English and Sanskrit - and he's asked me for help in meditation. I'm pretty sure George is an anagami - but he needed my help to figure that out, and he's made a lot of progress (at least he thinks he has) with my coaching. Anyway, helping George out got me back on the mat, and going to the local Vietnamese Zen Temple - and I realized that continuing to practice, and even the Dharma talks were very good for me.

So I got interested in all this again, having my answer, and posted something on KFD - Chris saw it, and invited me here...

Disappointed to hear about the changes on DhO and KFD... That Absolute Freedom stuff is pernicious... Still reading some of the Welcome thread... Glad to see you folks again!

D

Hi David - I'm a former student of Alan's and remembered you from years back on KFD. Wondered where you had gone... I remembered you had some involvement with magick, but didn't realize you were that deeply involved.

Sorry to hear you had such difficulties and glad to see you back in the community.

I was heavily involved in magick for a long time in various ways (in the distant past in Santeria and Palo; more recently eclectic mixes of western magick and spiritism, in conjunction with intensive meditation under Alan's guidance). I eventually got very enamored of Christian mysticism and have lately I've gone Catholic.

Cheers, Ona