Well, I totally backslid on Monday. And I got sick because of it. I’m only starting to feel better today. Literally I have no idea how my nose is creating so much slime. Now I know how my friend who doesn’t eat vegetables must feel. This is nasal torture. At least this morning some of the pressure above my left eye is begging to calm down. I literally haven’t felt this much sinus pressure in over a year.
Why did I backslide? I think it is because I was frustrated about my computer not working. I was attempting to extract subliminals from a film and my DVD player got all messed up. But some good came out of it. Not only did I extract the information and archive it for later use, but I also learned a thing about screen resolution, which I discussed the other day.
In a lot of movies and television shows, the idea of sacrifice is big in order to do what one wants to do. So I was seriously bummed because the last thing I wanted to sacrifice was my DVD player in my computer. I use that to gain insight via modern media, especially science fiction films and TV Shows. So after a few days of literally spending hours on trying to fix the choppy playback on my DVD player, I got the ingenious idea to actually call my friend at Device Repair and straight up, “ask for help.” As a man, I sometimes forget that this is even an option.
So I called him and he gave me a suggestion and my computer was back to 100% with full DVD playback in a couple hours.
Well, after thinking about how easily I get sick and congested when backsliding, one thing has been overtly apparent. Energy Cultivation requires complete effort. I can’t just dip my toes into this.
I’ve finally made some progress into the music video and that’s the whole reason why I’m doing this in the first place. (at this current time, not in the long term) And the results were good, I think working on the video even though I’ve been feeling sick actually helped me feel better today. Sometimes waiting for all the pieces to land perfectly on the table before assembling the machine is not good enough.
Also, I was reluctant to talk about how I backslid. How ridiculous is that? Writing a log of Energy Cultivation and not even making notes of the failures and setbacks…foolish. I can easily say that Master Sheng Yen played a big part in helping me look at the situation with at least one tired eye. It’s also funny that going back to Church encouraged me to read more on Eastern Philosophy. All of it is complimentary if one takes the time to have fun during the process.
What I really liked is how Master Sheng Yen discusses how to not get overly intrigued by subconscious thoughts and realizations. Being able to actually breathe is superior to the greatest epiphanies I’ve experienced so far. Although I was able to breathe very clearly during my most serious moments so that doesn’t make a tremendous amount of sense.
-Tyler