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Hi All, I wanted to share something I’ve been arriving at in my Chen-style practice, that touches on Taoist internal practices, Qigong, and what I’d call embodied self-discovery. In my experience, Chen-style Taijiquan reveals itself more as something to be discovered rather than learned in the conventional sense. It's as if the principles already exist within the body, and simply need to be uncovered, felt, refined, and integrated over time through careful, attentive practice. For me, what’s striking is how this practice interacts with the body’s connective tissue, nervous system, and interoceptive capacities. Standing cultivates baseline tone, alignment, and subtle internal stretch. Silk Reeling and Form practice introduce dynamic spirals and nervous system feedback that repatterns and reshapes tissue and helps the body discover efficient, integrated pathways of movement. Together, they create an internal calibration that feels very tangible, a “felt sense” of how my body organizes, balances, and responds. I’m curious how this resonates with others’ experiences. How have your own Taoist, Qigong, or internal practices shaped your sense of internal organization, alignment, or subtle body awareness? Have you noticed anything similar to what I describe in Chen Taijiquan: feedback, regulation, or embodied learning that feels discovered rather than taught? I’d love to hear your thoughts, insights, or personal experiences. If anybody is interested, I wrote a longer article exploring this in detail, you can read that article here: https://www.taijiquan.quest/post/chen-tai-chi-discovered

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the much-acclaimed book Eat, Pray, Love, recently wrote about her desire to murder her terminally-ill drug-addicted lesbian lover. Not everyone considers radical honesty a virtue, and response to Gilbert´s confession has been decidedly mixed. Should she have saved the more gruesome details of her relationship for an intimate fireside chat with close friends? I think so. I´ll save the juiciest details of my own misadventures for those who deserve my heart.

A bit of radical honesty is good, like a wake-up slap. A realistic look at where you, your relation to others and obstacles around you. Too much radical honesty is like slapping yourself, then moving on to slap others. It can get abusive and the ego's excuse to play martyr. At New Years celebration there was some positive radical honesty of thanks. And it was the glue that binds us. The darker side of radical honesty, I don't feel like sharing mine. Perhaps in the next weekend or two, I'll take out the rocket stove, light it up, take out water and whiskey and open the subject up to a late night chat with some friends.

Happy new year! A few weeks ago I posted this mani essay - then got an itch to rewrite a poorly written paragraph. I'm afraid I'm going senile because, turns out, there was a ton o' rewrite to do - and I feel better that I've hacked through that. Now, posting this mani mantra ~ secret style essay to the community to kick the tires, testing for bullet-proof: #1 does it communicate clearly? I'm trying to make the concepts commonly accessible (not just to us esoteric nerds) #2 other editorial comments https://johndaoproductions.wordpress.com/2025/12/15/mani-mantra-secret-style-a-primer/ cheers, Trunk

I run each morning. A couple of months ago I had a recurrent pain inside the upper thigh. It was not too bad so I kept running. The pain moved around a bit, so more an energy issue than physical damage - at this stage. The discomfort had diminished a bit, and today while running, looking at the pain I had an image of close relative killing me with a spear thrust where the pain is. It was a past life trauma. So I forgave him and myself and removed the energy structure and the discomfort was greatly reduced. Then I saw some dark energy anchors at the site and removed those. Better again. But there was still a bit of discomfort and I had an image of being killed with a sword thrust in the same place - this time by the elder son of a close friend. So forgiveness both ways and removal of energy. The discomfort is much less now. Physical trauma that repeats in the same place has a deeper cause. In this case it looks like group karma.

Your experience resonates strongly with my own. For me, neijia, neigong, and neidan are journeys of self discovery. A teacher can give pointers and direction, as well as exercises to engage with, but we must engage and discover for ourselves the true meaning, proper technique, and results. Externally, the teacher can adjust the posture but internally, the inner details of posture must be discovered. This is the only way we can learn to self-correct and make meaningful progress in our practice. Once we have developed adequate skill and confidence, engaging with others allow us to test our progress and discover our weaknesses and errors, such as in tui shou, san da, and so on. This is why it is said in taijiquan that we must 'invest in loss.'

Have you ask for help from God? In case you are atheist, it's still okay to try. As long as you are respectful and clear-intentioned.

What you said does make sense. There is a sense of me in my sitting of what I had hoped was quiet. The sense of me comes with passing thoughts. When they are let go, there is a sense of presence or awareness. I am alert and I am here. Sometimes that disappears. Not that I am lost in thought but that I just lose awareness of the moment. Then the thoughts return and the sense of me appears again. When it does then I can return to being alert. Aware. Sometimes it feels like a snake chasing its tail.

If there is discomfort sitting in stillness, that mind is not still. If the mind tries to find something to do, that mind is not still, it is active and restless. The restlessness and discomfort interfere with connecting to the source of creativity and compassion.

Refer to my first post. Wish the OP good luck though.

Thank you very much for revealing the Taiji secret of discovery. Yes, you are very true about the internal discovery that no one can described as crystal clear as you have. Perhaps the other practitioners have not reached into inner stage. As you said, the teacher can only show you the external skills to help you to discover the internal transformation. People didn't feel the sensation of the internal transformation will never reach the realm of the fine art of Taiji. For example, the teacher always tell the students to breathe naturally as one normally do. At a stage during the practice, if they don't sense any change in the deepness of the breathing was because they were afraid to breathe in too deep is wrong. They couldn't forget what the teacher told them about breathing naturally. They will never realize that their breathing should be lower down to the dantien. Hence, they will never discover what it meant by "sink chi to dantien," 氣沉丹田。 BTW I'm a Yang style Taiji practitioner.

Chapter 25 1.有物混成 2.先天地生 3.寂兮寥兮 7.吾不知其名 8.強字之曰"道" 1. A thing formed 2. Before heaven and earth were born; 3. Soundless and formless 7. I don't know its name. 8. I'm reluctantly calling it "Tao". The character混 means mix; blend; integrate, form. First of all, let's see what the abvoe lines say: There is a thing was mixed/blend/integrate/formed together before the existence of sky/heaven and earth. It is soundless and formless. I don't know its name. So, I just have to make up a name for it and call it Tao. From the above description, the thing was not a solid physical thing. It is there but invisible. This was substantiated by the introduction of Tao in Chapter 1. 3. 無，名天地之始。4. 有，名萬物之母。5. 故常無，欲以觀其妙。6. 常有，欲以觀其徼 3. Invisible, was a name given to Tao at the origin of sky and earth.4. Visible, was a name given to Tao as the mother of all things.5. Hence, when Tao is always invisible, one would grok its quale.6. When Tao is always visible, one would observe its boundary.

How are you translating the ‘hun’ in line one?

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@liminal_luke Read it just in time then. Made sense to me. You’re a good egg.

A clean house is the sign of a broken computer. (unknown)

If you are interested in karma, it might be better to reserve judgement Most of the karma I see is closely related to groups. For example, a friend phoned me a while ago while she was driving. She had a sudden sharp pain in the left shoulder. I asked: can you visualize a spear in your back? She could, so: who is holding the spear? My younger son! So: Forgive yourself for being such a shit that he had to kill you. Forgive him for being obliged to kill you. Two minutes later: Oh! the pain is gone. After that her son became much better relating with the younger daughters.