The Deep Self

I sometimes practice with the Kwan Um School of Zen in South Florida. Yesterday, I asked the president about the various levels of “achievement” in Kwan Um Zen. Here is what he said:

lay people

like me, I just come there but have no level of attainment or responsibility.

5 precepts

Some people take the 5 precepts

Dharma Teacher in Training

This is a minimum of 2 years and involves reading and learning. You have to complete 8 weekend retreats.

Dharma Teacher

Based on an additional resource, once one becomes a Dharma Teacher, you take 5 more precepts.

Senior Dharma Teacher

After a minimum of 5 years and taking the 16 precepts, you are now in a position of service to the temple.

Ji do Poep Sa Nim (Dharma Master)

This person has:

1. gotten all 14 koans (kong-ans) right
2. They go in front of diverse teachers in public
3. They engage in dharma combat in public

Zen Master

Zen Master occurs based on a relation between the master and their student.

Purpose of ths post

Although this blog is about isolation tanks and isolation, I will be blogging about Kwan Um Zen at some point

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I was driving from the Broward Spiritist Society one day and just as I made a right onto Copans from Powerline I saw the above at the Westview Community Cemetary.

Wouldnt that be nice way to go? I mean we have green burials, so why not tank burials?

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I spent the morning working on a blog post related to floatation and also building up the database of isolation tanks. I was enjoying learning about new tanks and filtration systems.

Finally, I felt it was time to float so I hopped in.

Multiple times, I had the senation of not having enough air. So I popped open the flap on my tank each time.

Then something very unusual occurred: I kept having thoughts of Canada float tanks and USA float tanks. Then I started to think: “oh my god, I’ve got to get out of this tank … I’m being electrocuted, something has malfunctioned and I must get out” … but I couldnt get out. My arms were paralyzed. So I began creating the intent of getting out and bobbing my body up and down to create momentum in the arms. I managed to get one arm up to the lip of the tank.

That was when I realized I was having a floatmare – a nightmare in a floatation tank.

Reflection

While surfing the web, I had some nagative feelings about the float room builder in Canada. I did not like my interaction with him and I felt his products were way overpriced. The electrocution bit comes directly from the marketing hype of my tank about being safe from electrocution.

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Masaru Emoto was a pioneer in the research on how psychic intention can affect molecular structure of water. A few videos illustrating the power of words to affect water positively and negatively are:

1. Rice Experiment Shows Water Has Feelings! (Masaru Emoto) (youtube.com)
2. Masaru Emoto – Water Experiments (youtube.com)

I had some conversations with Shane Stott when ZenFloatCo was active about this topic. He had never heard of it before. As you can see, I am on a mission to be happy and am imprinting my floatation tank water with such a vibration:

I have a few other irons in the pot to achieve happiness. For instance, I do laughter yoga barefoot on the earth for 30 minutes – this allows negativity to drain out of the body.

As I float daily, I am dropping into deeper and deeper bliss. I can only imagine how having positively structured water is going to affect me in and out of the tank.

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best listened to with headphones, I was taken into this track deeper than I expected. iAwake Technologies has a huge range or audio tracks and programs designed to catapult you into the deeper recesses of your mind-space. I’ve never used ear pods in an isolation tank, but if I did, this is one track that I would definitely cue up.

What’s funny is that I was scrolling through my old posts and noticed that I posted on this very same track about a year ago!

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This reminds me of Eliane Radigue to some extent. It is not quite “dark ambient” … nothing dark about it. I think “empty ambient” or “forlorn ambient” might be more accurate. Not as musical and conversational as Biosphere.

Imagine that a picture could make music. If so, then the cover art below best describes the music. This image is showing the burial site of Alfred Wegner, a polar researcher from the 1930s. As some have said, it seems even more fitting than the original cover art.

This was uploaded 11 years ago to YouTube by one person.

But I inline the version uploaded 6 years ago below:

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Long ago, I was introduced to concept of darkroom retreat in the video at the bottom of this post. The image to the left summarizes the power of darkroom retreat. At first, you might see an urn (positive space). But then a few seconds later you might see two people (negative space).

After 9 days in dark room retreat, you become more acquainted with yourself as FORMLESSNESS RUNNING THROUGH FORM

As an analogy to the picture, you might see the two people more often than the urn.

I’ll be the first to admit that Jasmuheen is a controversial figure. But her expression of the power of isolation to find a greater you is quite exquisite. Fast forward to 7:26 in this video for details;

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Lila Sakura has a diverse YouTube channel with posts ranging from spiritual mantras to dark spoken word poetry and much more. In this piece, she discusses how the inner You adapts and becomes plastic to live with other plastic people.

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