rookie

If you are looking for exercise I would recomend looking into some of the animal forms. You can get the basic idea from a video but it sure helps to have some feedback and guidance when you are learning. Also, having a good teacher can help you keep from hurting yourself. Most beginers make some mistakes in their alignment that can damage the joints, especially the knees. And I say a good teacher is needed because some don't pay enough attention to this. Always pay attention to what your body is telling you after and during practice. Pain and soreness or inflamation in a joint means change what you are doing. Here are a couple of suggestions. Fire and Water qigong by Matthew Cohen has a really good lower body workout. There is a board member named "trunk" that has a website with a lot of physical practices on it. If you need cardio, just get the body moving, walking, hiking, running, swim, bicycle, whatever, heart rate up for an extended time, like an hour. You don't normally get this from qigong. It makes me wonder, the ancient roots of qigong came from people that were probably moving all the time and had no need for deliberate and extra cardio training to remain healthy. Most likely quite the opposite, with the demands of daily life taking all they had out of them. Qigong with its ability to gather chi could heal and rejuvinate and extend life. This is quite different from most modern day people.

Stig, This is great I agree completely. I want to point out what is one of the greatest things I have ever seen anywhere in cyberjunk land (he he) Something you did without any powers of moderation, just with your own sense of, well can I say virtue? Remember the rather strange guy a couple of years ago that thought people were out to get him? and had one guy in particular that thought had hacked into his system and caused a lot of trouble for him? Sorry, I don't remember names. Many here tried to help this guy settle down. Then the other guy showed up here and there was a real freaking out ready to happen. There was real bad feelings and possible evil deeds if you believe in that stuff. Anyway here comes Stig and very skillfully negotiates a truce. And gets a bunch of bums to chip in to buy him some "Fu", remember that? This was such a generous, kind, caring, skillful, and powerfull interaction. This you did without moderation. It was so much better that way. ANd you or anyone else with the right stuff could do it again. ps, I have always considered you a friend, and I still do. I hope you are well. peace

Stig, I don't recall ever having a major disagreement with you. I don't always agree with you, but this is the first time I can recall ever challenging you. I am not "gunning" for you as much as I am challenging anyone who would want to exercise power and control over others. This is context specific. Hope you are well.

I hope that all moderators, and anyone who would want to be a moderator, would take my challenge to examine their need and desire for control and power seriously. And I hoep the scrutiny of those who would be in this role ever intensifies for everyones benefit.

Since when should a moderators action be to substitute their judgement of value for another members? This is rediculous if it is happening. No wonder there is revolution stirring among the masses no, seriously, what kind of tyranical, self-centered action is this?

Stig, I have a limited amount of energy to apply to this so I am not going to respond to all of your reasons, at least not right now. As a moderator you should be much more accountable than the regular members because you are using your personal judgement to issue punitive measures. This brings everything behind those judgements into the discussion. This is especially true if a moderator wishes to remain mostly a member and not a tyrant in their interactions on the board. But you have clearly missed the main point I was making. In your case especially there is no question that you really wanted to be a moderator, to have the position and the power. This in itself should be a red-flag warning to look into a persons motives. Now you clearly have resisted my suggestion that you step down with lots of reasons. The biggest reason to step down would be for your own benefit. You are clearly attached to the role. You did not seem to get that there would be a benefit for you to voluntarily give up a position of power, and some might say prestige, for your own personal growth. You are showing avoidance, and possibly blindness to this level of desire and attachment you have for the power and prestige. This in itself is a reason to investigate what is going on in your own psyche. You clearly think that you are good for the board and that anyone else would have the same problems and mistakes that you have made. This again is self-centered and myopic. Someone else would have their own point of view and make their own mistakes, and quite possibly be much better for the board than you are. Where do we go from here? One path of growth is open to you right now. I hope you do not underestimate the power of looking into your blind spots. You will probaly never know how blind you are to this and how much your makeup is centered on control until you no longer have this particular outlet to express through. But then you would probaly just pick up another one, most likely unconcious of the ongoing need for power and control. One of the best things about on open forum is the many different points of view and the unique way that people have of expressing themselves. In my opinion this forum has been becoming more and more vanilla, almost neutered. It would be good for the moderators to learn to "hold their water" a bit. The situation reminds me of the US politics, from Bush to Obama, one extreme to the other. Wouldn't a better approach to an open and loosely daoist based board be to let things flow on their own a bit more? Let the boys play. Call a meeting with the parties invloved if necessary. See if they can work things out on their own. Eliminate all one sided action except in extreme cases, like the kunlun wars This is always best. I know the kunlun wars probably required some real intervention, but a lot of the things I am hearing about seem to be way over doing the role. I hope you will give this some serious consideration Stig, and not take a defensive position. There is no value in that. Sometimes one needs a different set of eyes to help them see an aspect of themselves that they can overlook or justify to themselves quite easily. I want to make the point, but I also want this to be peacefull and preserve the ability to have open conversations in the future. I hope you can take it this way.

agreed, this would be the best. Somehow the moderation has become very overactive, almost instantly reactive when just allowing a little time to pass may be all that is necessary for something to resolve or die down. In my opinion this over-moderation has changed the dynamic in a way that has hurt this board. And since it has become a serious topic of discussion this in itself shows that it is out of bounds.

Interesting. Is this your practice? DO you consider yourself a Chan Buddhist?

I issue a challenge to all moderators to check your motives, and then publicly post them. I don't even know who all of you are, and I don't come here often enough to care much at this point. But there is something I see happening that possibly you do not because, well, you are too close to yourself lol. I want to point out one glaring inconsistency. Stig, you were the first to jump on Seans original post to volunteer to be a moderator. I get the sense that you really like doing it. The challenge to you is to resign as a moderator. If you complain about having to do it, or that it is a burden, and yet you were obviously the most eager to take on the role, then why not step aside? Or are you too attached to the control it gives you? I sense some passive-agressive tendencies there. This board does not need you. There seems to be a new moderator every time I log on. Term limits on moderators may be a really good idea too. Or do you guys feel you are above everyone else here? Try it out. Do this to check yourself. One other thing. Sean may be the owner, and a few have been given special powers to control the tone and content of the board, but this board is the community. And in my opinion it has gone way too far in the opposite direction after all the kunlun fighting and all that. The challenge is there to all moderators. See if you can walk away from it. Don't ever complain. Just walk away from the power. By the way Stig, I rather like you most of the time. I think you are a little blind to what you are doing just now.

This is quite beautiful. It rouses something in me, yes- a recognition. I accept your definition of faith, but it is a new definition to me. I personally would not use the word faith for what you are describing. You have used "remembering", and I use "knowing" for this for this, not to be confused with mental activity, but the word knowing is what just comes to me when describibg it or putting it in words. There is actually quite a lot to what you have said here. You speak as it is your own experience. Is it part of a teaching you have seen or received, or is it a synthesis from your own experience? Thanks anyway for posting that. It is probably the best post I have ever seen on this board.

apech, yes I get what you are saying and it is a good description of what can develop psychologically. I haven't seen a definition of "faith" like that before. Where did you get it? It is interesting that the process you describe is paralleled in the classical scientific method. I know there are differences, but the building up of a level of confidence is similar to building theories based on experimental results. The problem is of course these are always moving targets and a new experimental result or psychological experience will come along and undermine everything that has been built up so far. In science, it is just time for a new theory. Psychologically what is this called, self discovery? lol no really, I don't know.

Well faith means accepted as true without proof, so following your reasoning this confidence based on faith can be a false confidence, something believed but without proof. The rest of your post about how this develops and your advice is quite good from a psycholigical perspective. My first suggestion about taking ones attention off of the self I think is a very healthy thing to do with benefits on many levels. Them, when attention comes back on the self let it be from a perspective of looking at it, not so much identifying with it. Watch what it does. Just look. Drop the interpretations, just watch what happens.

Well I think we probably have more in common than not. Communication about these things takes a pretty fair amount of work to be clear about how certain words are used. By the way, I cannot consider myself buddhist, or taoist, or subscribibg to any faith or belief system. I have never formally studied or been introduced to any of them other than the religion I grew up with but even then I didn't just swallow what was offered. I have never even read a single buddist book. I am looking at life as it appears, not taking any persons theory or thoughts as authority. I will listen, interact, have conversations, and have developed a reasonably good ability to see what is happening with the self. And I use this word broadly, maybe you or O would call this the ego. But there is more. There is something beyond the mind (the thinking, percieving function), which is wholly where this self/ego exists, unless of course you want to include the brain in that. Seeing is the best way I have to describe this, like either you see it or you don't, or would being be a better description? It cannot be apprehended with the mind, so no theory or belief will help. Although each persons experience is subjective, I suspect that each person has experiences of this or is in this state frequently but without recognizing it. It may be true that recognition of it is key. And two people can be "being" exactly the same, or have the same experience and then use different words and not be able to communicate effectively about it. I do know what imagining is, which again is completely a mind activity, and I am not doing that. In fact allowing as direct perception, or experience, to happen without manipulating with the mind, without creating meaning, or even naming or identifying, doing this as much as possible is required to approach the truth. What is is. Who and what you are is. What you think you are is just in the mind. Make sure you get that word "think", because now you are in the land of concept, and you are dealing with self concept, and the self wants to continue itself, but that can only continue with mind activity. This mind activity is not truth. It may as well be called imagination. In fact the minds function is not to apprehend truth or reality, but making abreviated, filtered maps of reality for faster processing, for prediction, for better chances of survival. So I would ask you, what is it that you are imagining? And then, what is? what are you being when you are not imagining yourself as something? A good question for everyone is how much of your life is lived only in your mind? I would say it is probably far more than realized until one starts to watch it, and then more and more seeing can occur. At this point I will borrow your words here and say if we disagree then that is just what it is, lol. That reminds me of that popular slang saying "it is what it is" lol, just so true lol was that something Yogi Berra said? he he Well that's it. Maybe you see it, maybe not. But I have done my best to try and communicate. This is not necessarily mysterious, not necessarily spiritual, but not always seen.

O, yes I can see that you need to make the distinction based on what you have said. Your definition is like the 2nd definition posted by Marblehead, the Freudian one, where the ego contains conciousness. The way I have used it is as a process observed. I am not sure of needing to make all of those distinctions. But I think I would need you to strictly define how you are using the terms conciousness and awareness.

Marblehead, It really sounds like you are missing something here, and it is based on seeing something within oneself. I am not sure if I could explain it or bring out the recognition of it through these kinds of written communications, and that is more than I have energy and motivation for anyway. You seem content with your position and that is great. There are several things we agree on. My examples of disfunctional behavior driven by ego desires could be called a diseased ego. I prefer the word "disfunctional" because the ego/personality/self is basically a functional thing much like a computer program. You can change the program and change the resulting behavior and make it more "healthy", normal, or functional. I don't know if it is possible to eliminate the ego, or necessarily or desirable. But since I see it as a functional process, I don't think that one would forget how to drive a car, do their job, get home, speak or read if it were not operating. Compassion is not absent, that is for sure. I have to go back to the example of seeing. Can you see the process operating within yourself?

O, you have made an eloquent arguement here, but your definition of ego, I think, takes you off the mark from the beginning. Where did you come up with this definition of ego? Your definition seems to require an ego for bare concious existance. It seems to me that ego requires the identification of the self as separate entity and that it is wholly a product of the thinking mind. Children younger than about 2yrs don't even have the concept of themselves as an identifiable separate self yet. After it forms there is a lot of training and conditioning and learning about how to function in society as this separate self. How to do this well is what most people focus their whole life working on. Transcending that conditioning is where the spiritual impulse or work or quest or journey comes in. What am I really without all this junk I have collected on the way? The unwinding, breaking down, or eliminating of the conditioned reflexes and beliefs is the result of this generally. Also I would not say that awareness has structure. Conceptual structures are built to try and understand and navigate and manipulate the world. This is again a function of the thinking mind. Awareness itself is not structured. The way the brain creates perceptions is totally structured, as well as the conceptual picture generated to represent the world. But I have no evidence that awareness is structured, I read a little book called "The Minds Past" and these reserachers have essentially found evidence that the brain functions to create what they call a "story of the self". It is quite an interesting read.

Marblehead, I am not going to try and put your statements in quotes and pick on each one, and we certainly disagree, but I find that you are missing something. The only thing the ego can protect is itself, which is a self-image. The ego doesn't give a crap about the bodys health, it just wants attention and approval so it might try to use physical attractiveness to get that validation. Something like this can be eating dissorders, steriod use, drug use to loose weight, becoming a "qigong master" to show off your skills and abilities.....all ego, not protecting the organism. This is just one type of example. The doing by not-doing is more like the egoless doing, the result of being being. There is intelligence outside the mind, which is the only place the ego exists, if you can really call it that. I just felt that a few of the things you asserted need to be challenged. I find them to not be true.

what can one do? where else to start but to look at ones own thoughts/beliefs/perceptions, how they interact, what function they seem to have,...just look at it for a while (I will offer one piece of advice. Starting with what you think is you, look at it objectively) but really, at some point through your own questioning, looking, contemplation, experimentation, you must become your own authority basically this means throw out all that you have accepted as true and only hold what you have found for yourself this really is ones life work, it seems to me, and may not ever truely end in the end it may just be standing in the mystery without creating any distortions, illusions or delusions

no sweat Marblehead this kind of thing is subjective, right up to the point that it isn't why Marblehead? if I may ask

This is not quite on topic but you are mistaken here Marblehead. There is a survival instinct quite independent of the ego. The ego has its own survival desire to keep itself going which can lead to all kinds of trouble for the body-being. At some point pulling the perspective off of the me me me is healthy, and it is necessary for growth beyond a certain point. That is very basic. What may not be so basic is that what most everyone considers themself to be is really an activity, an activity of the mind. Getting this then changes how one would view how necessary the ego is. In the end, one can either play games or look a little wider.

This is probably not what you are going to want to hear, but stop focusing on yourself. Do anything else. Find something healthy and use it as a distraction if you must. Maybe find someone that needs help and help them. Do this over and over whenever you start to become self obsessed.

Physical health and balance for sure. But I am finding that having a goal is actually counter productive to the main thing. I wish I could say this better.

Well, this is really what it is all about, isn't it?

There is so much conflicting information out there on the use of the Yi Jing that it seems like a good idea to ask how people personally use it. Truely, I am not interested in a theoretical discussion. What is real about it in your experience? If at all possible, please keep it to what your personal use is and don't post long detailed responses about what what one should do. Thanks for that Specifically, what translations do you use and how do you ask questions? I have very limited exposure to it. The one thing I can say is that it does seem to represent what my state is at the time, but this depends on the translation used. Some don't make much sense to me and one in particular resonates very well. This one in particular I would say resonates with me: http://www.yijing.nl/i_ching/index.html What do you think?

That's all good as long as you have realized that. Otherwise it is pure speculation and you are dealing in concepts. Why not pay attention to what is here and now, not some future speculation? That's all. If it sounds like I am picking on someone, no, nobody in particular. Could be I am just talking to myself