If Buddhism is about waking up from the dream, And Taoism is about accepting the dream, Shamanism is about manipulating the fabric of the dream. One of the basic shamanic practices is lucid dreaming, and learning to control the events that occur in a dream state. Armed with that, and a realisation that our day-to-day reality is another dream, dream-manipulation techniques are used to change daily experience. Seems similar to the ShuHaRi idea, but I have no basis for comparison. But it gets me past my problem with Zen. I like to build things and make things happen, and placidly sitting around is against my nature. -- NickArgall