} the virtual prospector strikes again! {

I can see the potential for a long post continuing from above here

btw Nikolai I added to a response for you above.

Hi Nathan,

Yes, a bit cryptic. So to decrypticise - I understood your in flow/out flow terminology in the following way:

in-flow: my reaction to changing circumstances as may be observed in the body and mind. For example a sense of tension in the body arising, fear, lust, etc. and also accompanying thoughts about what is going on.

out-flow: My action or response outward toward the world in response to in-flows - mitigated by or shaped by the above experience occurring in the body and mind.

I'll let you respond to this first - prior to details on gun manufacturing process (well that should trigger some NSA computer function)

In Flows and Out Flows.

I define in-flows as karmic or habitual patterns buried in the body and mind and out flows as the result of essentially buying into these in-flows as representing some kind of truth that we need to react to.

Mind lost in delusion is like a balloon caught in a storm. From the balloons perspective - there is a sense of stationaryness - carried with the wind - in what ever direction that takes - it has a sense of centeredness - it doesn't feel the wind. And the world seen from its perspective is jumping around all over the place. Very unpredictable and threatening to the balloon.

So I think the first task for anyone is to find an anchor point which allows me to see - to experience the wind - to see that it is the mind that is moving. An example - restraint of the senses (precepts for example) allow us to feel the energy within - the craving/clinging energy that is driving our actions. If someone says something that makes me upset and I am practicing skillful speech - when I have to intentionally hold back my reaction then I become aware of the power of these reactive energies that I carry inside that try to control me. When I can see that I am constantly being pulled this way and that by thoughts that come out of no where then I start getting disgusted at being duped into doing all these stupid things in some blind submission to these ever changing and totally unpredictable forces. In other words I start to see that it is not the world that is bouncing around but rather me.

In my case - when I came to this realization - having grown up here in the west where everybody knows we are this little brain and body spewing out consciousness - well I just decided that the only way to deal with all these crazy thoughts was to find the self - the solid ground - and then I would not be so influenced by these things. Seemed a completely logical and rational approach. But it proved to be a slippery task. It became kind of a koan for me and led to an intense inner struggle to find self - trying to look between thoughts, behind them, through them - surely it was there somewhere!

What I found was absolutely nothing - therefore no firm foundation to stand on. It was hopeless - as I could find no center (and I had spent a few hours of desperate intense effort to do so) I had to accept that I was forever a victim of whatever blew my way. I was doomed and I knew it and I cried for a long time.

But then into my life in a totally unexpected way comes a Chi Gong teacher that sort of says 'check this out - there are all these energies in the body and you can learn and explore and cultivate these things and do cool stuff'.

Now days I am a firm believer of that saying that when the student is ready the teacher will come. Sounds magical but it isn't. The teachers - whether a person, a book, a tree, a rock, a bag of garbage (had them all) - are all around you waiting for you to notice them. So it's kind of like being surprised that when you expand your lungs air comes in.

Having a pleasant place to hang out - with the flows of energy in the body - gave me some stability that I was not able to find by looking inward at the mind. And this allowed me to start seeing how much of what was driving me crazy was also tied up with tensions in the body that I had never seen before - I was being blind-sided by these things all the time.

Coaxing them to the surface. I met a guy from Michigan once who told me about how his great grand father would take his wagon down to a nearby creek and use his pitch fork to spear giant sturgeon and toss them in his wagon so he could take them home to feed his pigs. Finding inflows in the body at this stage is kind of like that. It's not hard to find them - the task is deciding which one to take. I think the Goenka body scanning technique is really good here - kind of a drag net approach that just sweeps across the surface gathering whatever is large enough to get caught in the fineness of your net.

The process of working with inflows is similar to the history of fishing. The more you do it, the fewer there are - requiring some innovation. I have heard that the yogis of Tibet used to take up residence not too far from a village such that they could periodically go down and raise a ruckus so as to have something to work with. That's kind of like cut-bait fishing where you throw a stick of dynamite in the water and scoop up whatever comes to the surface.

Another method - not available to those yogis of old - is to post something controversial on a forum such as to trigger lots of intense response. This forces you to look at all kinds of things that come up like holding to fixed views, jealousy, conceit, etc. I would of course be shocked and appalled to hear that this ever happens.

So the method employed to coax to the surface depends on where I am at in the process.

Dis-integrator gun. So once this thing is brought to my attention - how do I dispatch it in a way I know it won't bite me. Disintegration is the best way. I dissolve it into a much larger medium. So working with the hindrances when cultivating jhana is one way - the fish comes up, you recognize the tightening in the mind and body and relax right there both in the mind and body. You give it lots of space to dissolve. Getting caught up in a thought is sort of like jumping in and becoming a fish. You can mate with other fish and give birth to entire new schools of fish if you like. Can be entertaining but you have to remember that there are from time to time old yogis around with sticks of dynamite and matches.

In my case, working with the body energies, I would encounter some solidity or pain or tension and could allow that to
dissolve into the more open smooth flowing energies around it and it was quite literally like feeling something solid dissolve. After a while the process becomes automatic and can be done while walking, standing in lines, wherever.

It seems to me that when the mind gets really calm and tranquil that its kind of like those dead-zones in the ocean that don't have enough oxygen to support much of anything. In this case the fish just sort of enter into these and dissolve on their own.

Sorry for the long post. These are the methods I have experience with. I know there are lots of others but no point in me
theorizing about them. Beyond Thunderdome was a good movie. Still have that song going through my head. It's amazing how
accurately my mind can pull that one up - sounds just like Tina - and I can switch to Bob Marley faster than an Ipod.