Vroom

So, I was up at uni today for a wushu demonstration, and also to check out the stalls, talk to people and get free food. It was pretty cool, the demonstration went pretty well. We had a couple of crowd participation "games" afterwards, they were fairly lame though. They get points for trying, the trying to hit water balloons with swords thing was cool in principle but they were too nice, they didn't throw them at the volunteers very hard and weren't really all that good at hitting the balloons themselves. Be good to try if we were more pro.
Saw quite a few familiar faces, got various comments about the hair being cut (I had kind of forgotten that they didn't know). When I first arrived, I was coming around the corner heading towards the science society office, and before I even saw much of the tents and festivities I heard a familiar chant and thought to myself "Yep, I'm back at uni".
Anyway I shall be heading up again tomorrow, Steve's coming and hopefully we'll manage to drag a few of you guys along too. Should be good.
As for the title, the motorsport club were out there with their little formula one car from last year. That thing is pretty cool, sounds fairly awesome also. I'm thinking I'll join them in the building of this year's car, they go down to frankston tafe and do machining and welding short courses and design all the parts in CAD packages and such. Build the entire thing from scratch pretty much. Should be fun, also I should learn some skills that will be pretty useful when I want to go building a prototype balloon craft, and other crap which I would like to build. Gotta get me a workshop sometime.

The Celestial Eye

Ok, I've been reading my falun dafa book and also some scientific stuff, it's pretty interesting, and a little freaky, to see all the parallels that are there. In particular I was reading the second chapter of my book which is all about the "celestial eye", or third eye as it is often refered to. This is the eye that when opened allows one to see into other dimensions and such. Now in the book the author tries to at least be semi-scientific in his dealings with such matters, so he at least uses appropriate medical terminology for the specific part of the brain he's talking about, in the case the pineal gland, thought to be a vestigial eye by some. Now some of the things that one is supposed to get out of falun dafa practice (aside from the supernormal abilities and achieving enlightenment) are; reduced effects of aging, better mental balance (including preventing insomnia), overall better health (it doesn't aim to heal, but the body needs to be free of ailments for proper energy flow and such so it's sort of a side effect) and a bunch of other stuff I can't quite remember.
From reading this medical stuff it turns out that a lot of this may be perfectly well founded, the pineal gland is the organ that produces melatonin, which actually regulates a lot of the above described benefits.

"Also called the pineal body or epiphysis cerebri, the pineal gland is important to this discussion for two reasons. First, it is the center for the production of the hormone melatonin. Melatonin is implicated in a wide range of human activities. It regulates daily body rhythms, most notably the day/night cycle (circadian rhythms). Melatonin is released in the dark, during sleep. The recent melatonin craze sweeping through the health conscious community makes claims that the hormone slows the aging process (a defense against free radicals), prevents jet lag, is implicated in seasonal affective disorder, coordinates fertility, and allows for deep restful sleep patterns."

Click for full article

Also seems to lower the risk of cancer among other things. Perhaps falun dafa practice allows one to appropriately control the amount of melatonin in the bloodstream.
One of the things I thought most strange was that the author of the falun dafa book claimed that practice would allow women who'd undergone menopause to regain their menstrual cycle. Guess that could be true as well after reading the article.

The pineal gland is also a photosensetive organ and is affected by electromagnetic fields, so who knows, maybe it is capable of some kind of second sight. Birds and such use it for navigation too, for them it contains magnetic materials (at the time the article was written it was not known if it contained such materials in humans), it's how they know which way in north.

#45. If I am humble, I can never be overcome

"As a society, we're not all that fond of braggarts, but at the same time, we don't appreciate the virtue of humility. It seems oddly old-fashioned to us...and it reminds us of those smarmy, self-righteous saints or martyrs who were eager for you to slap both of their cheeks. It makes my fingers itch just thinking about it.
But humility isn't about self-loathing. It's about finding the proper place for your ego. It's about acknowledging that we are all human together. If I'm smarter or more talented than another person, that doesn't make me a better person...it just makes me smarter or more talented. Big deal.
When we allow our egos to get too large and we start believing our own press, it means we have forgotten that most of what we have is a gift. (And if you think all you have you earned because you work hard, remember that the ability to work hard is also a gift.) We convince ourselves that we deserve everything. More. Even if we can't afford it or our husbands object. I work hard, we think, and I deserve it-the new car, the new boat, more power at work. But the fact is, we're not entitled to more than the next person. Period. Because you have high intelligence, do you somehow have a right to a bigger house than a person with the misfortune of being born without that gift? Because both your legs work, do you deserve a new boat more than a crippled person does? Of course not.
What we have and what we are is a result of gifts we have been given. It is true that some of us are given more gifts than others, and some of us make better use of our gifts than others. But a humble person is grateful for the gifts and passes them on whenever she can to her children, her students, her friends, her community.
When your ego is in its proper place, you can never be overcome. You have a core belief in your own self-worth and the worth of others, and you don't need to remind people of your importance every ten minutes. If someone criticizes you, you accept the criticism and take what you can from it. You don't allow the criticism to stop you. A reviewer thinks you're a terrible actor. If there is some truth to the charge-and often there is not-then do what you can to improve. But don't stop being an actor. You are humble enough to accept criticism, but that does not mean you give up on your goals.
Ego interferes with learning. If you're already convinced you know everything, you can't learn anything. A humble person is always willing to learn and grow from what he or she has learned."

Extract from Dojo Wisdom, by Jennifer Lawler.
Published by Penguin Compass 2003.

The Mysteries of Chi

I was reading "Falun Gong" recently, the beginners book for falun dafa practice. It's not what I expected. Well, it is, it talks about why you should practice and things you'll get out of it and has illustrations and descriptions of the exercises and such. But it also talks about the third eye and seeing into other dimensions and healing other people (healing yourself is one thing...) and seeing the future (although actually it was talking about knowing the outcomes of things like lotterys) it even glanced over the possibility of destroying a building using these supernormal abilities (it didn't approve of it, but seemed to imply it was possible).
Being a man of science I don't entirely know what to make of it all, it's not like the guy who wrote it is some random crackpot, and this book is read by over 100 million people worldwide. I'd be the first to admit that modern science is not in the slightest bit able to explain everything that goes on in this crazy universe. Still, it's not easy to swallow. I guess I'll just try to keep an open mind about all that as I practice. I mean it's not that I'm entirely opposed to the concepts, it's just they were kind of stated in a very matter of fact sort of way, there was no beating about the bush as they say. It was just unexpected I guess.