Bearded Dragon

Yeah this seems to be the case. We don't even stop ourselves if we're doing it right. Using thoughts to stop thoughts doesn't really work, so how it happens is really not a matter of one's own power. It's a mystery.

If you have any inclination as to who you really are then you don't particularly care.

What you can do right now is just be the watcher. All this stuff in your head... just watch it. This is pretty much releasing into emptiness. It doesn't happen all at once though, but there is an immediate effect. This is something I'm working on also. The tendency is to retreat back into your head where it's not nice but still feels like home. Staying in emptiness is slowly moving out of home. It's painful but worth it because in that state you have a much clearer perspective in regards to everything that is going on. Then your problem is a matter of sufficient planning then waiting the time in emptiness rather than in your head. If you're in your head then chances are you'll mess it up, right? The "right now" is keeping your head clear.

It's about resonance. The actual word doesn't matter. If your awareness is subtle enough you can feel that certain frequencies effect you in certain ways. This concept invariably gets lost and you end up with people chanting things that do nothing beneficial sound-wise. Perhaps the easiest to pick up on is finding a note that resonates with your dantian. Then you can play around with turning up the frequency and note that you feel it resonating higher and higher until it reaches the top of your head. This is perhaps the best way to answer your question. Find legit sounds and feel if they're targeting anything in particular. It's not always possible though. Depends on which layer of the onion they're targeting and whether you can feel that layer.

+1 for exercise. It's hard when things are too intense. While doing that just try and remain in emptiness. It's sort of like that the empty state absorbs it. You still have the shitty feeling but the fuel is taken away. Then a good night's sleep helps. I think you can do the same for love. If you dissolve it fully by letting it get sucked into your empty state then you can clear out anything false about the situation, and if the connections are true then it should in theory come back fresh. Still working that one out .

One should act decisively according to the time. It doesn't matter how. It only matters that you see clearly and move on fully when done.

You can try it out. I would recommend just getting a friend to apply a force and try as much stuff as you want to. It is not a belief that it works when you test it and see the results. For me now I follow the MCO up but instead of raising energy I'm raising a relaxation that flows out from the spine and you feel things start to morph and realign. The energy will naturally follow the upwards intent. What tended to happen in the past is that I tried so hard to feel the energy I was tensing up in order to do it (without realising). Another thing is that even though I don't feel the energy below I feel it when it gets to my neck because it's still quite tense and therefore you get the feeling of the energy pushing through and opening it up. You could also look for spots of tension as places that the energy is not in abundance, so focusing on the relaxation is going to help with this as well. I would say that focusing on the relaxation is like watching the road while driving and focusing on chi is like watching the steering wheel. The primary concern is obviously maneuvering the steering wheel, but it is not of concern because you just have to watch the road for feedback and it naturally happens.

The MCO should open up your body. As was mentioned it's a win-win for health and martial arts. If you don't feel like running the energy is resulting in a relaxation/opening then the process needs work. It's more important to feel the opening because if you feel the energy then it's not relaxed enough along the pathway. I don't look for energy anymore. I just do it and feel for the relaxation response as feedback to tell me i'm doing it.

Consciousness is not a thing. It was never created. If it was never created it will never die. Tell me again how matter comes first. Hmm? You're getting confused between consciousness and the experience that is generated through consciousness. The experience of consciousness is rendered in the brain and retained as a memory which will perish upon death. What I think you're saying is that without the brain experiencing something then consciousness does not exist. That's a fallacy. It's more like consciousness never does anything without the human mentality to express itself through.

Visualisation is a beginner thing anyway. If you can't do it then forget about it. It's all about the expression of intent.

He's saying that everything is contained in your own consciousness. This is the perspective of those who know from experience. It is a presumption that there is something outside of consciousness. This is the perspective of those who like to add their own thoughts. Given that everything is contained in consciousness then you can go one step further and say that consciousness is the creator. This is observable. Everything comes from it. The hard part to fathom is that you can deduct that things happen outside of your own consciousness. One may eventually ask why something matters if you aren't aware of it. If you aren't aware of it then you can't do anything about it. This brings you back to the idea that only stuff presently in your consciousness is of importance because it's all you've got to work with. Consciousness is the real. Everything else is delusion but it's all you've got so you just carry on with delusion from the perspective of the real. Finally, I'll add that "If not a creator then what?" is not the right question. One must discover where the creation happens.

I don't think it's refined if you can feel it as a line. I can't get it all the way but for me the parts that I can do just feel like an opening of relaxation. This is important because if you feel a line then it could just be a line of tension. I think it's easy to look for a line and unwittingly end up creating tension. The thing is that this way you think you've got something, and when you dissolve the tension you think you've lost it. This is why I like using martial arts to test it out. When you think you're not doing it and you flick people across the room like rag dolls then you surely have something.

I got a permission error when I logged in, but it didn't seem to stop me from doing anything. The error page came up then I just clicked on the forum link and carried on as per usual. This was at 3:15pm GMT+10, 3 minutes previous to posting this.

My christian friend was telling me about some people in his church who could see those entities. He said it's happened a few times with him like seeing kundalini serpents on people practicing yoga. There was another one where someone saw monkey spirits on people with heroin addictions. He prays them away, as was mentioned previously. It seems to work somehow. There seems to be some good stuff hidden within the childlike exterior of Christianity. I don't think you need to believe the fairy tales to make use of it.

1) Depends what you're doing and what your aim is. People meditate for all sorts of reasons. Some styles of seated meditation forget about the body, but you still have to live with your body so I'm not sold on this. Some sit in full lotus because they can sit for longer. 2) It's an intent thing. You don't really have to think about it too hard. It just happens but it takes a long time to have the sensitivity to feel that it's happening. 3) Forget about doing anything special at first. A relaxed, even, natural breath is a better starting point because it builds stability. I like Bruce Frantzis' Longevity Breathing.

That's aversion in itself because you're putting aside the deep stuff for something easier to handle.

Everything in Daoism/Buddhism/etc is from the perspective of observation so if you're going down that path you have to base your understanding on what is observable. Awareness is the One. By observation you can experience that everything exists in awareness. You can do that right now. It's not difficult. If you're talking about other planes then you're also talking about created energy, and therefore it's just more yin/yang that exists in awareness. It can't be any different.

I think the mud walking is only for solo training, isn't it? I dabbled a little bit and the points I took from it were that it was kind of like a conditioning method whereby the "mud" provides an energetic resistance that develops your chi body, and also I felt that it was really good at making a connection from the ground to the dantian. In that sense it would absolutely be incompatible with partner work, as was mentioned.

Depends which side of the coin you look on. I could SAY that I'm on my path because nothing ever goes wrong. Then when bad things start to happen I could SAY that I've fallen off my path. The fact of the matter is that things will happen as they do. That is your path. Part of the reason I feel like I'm flowing freely through life is because I'm not bothered by what happens. One good thing or the other... meh. One bad thing or another.... meh. That's my mental structure or lackthereof. The thing is though, once you free up your mind you're less likely to get stuck in a hole. Bad things are fleeting rather than binding, and as such you don't hold on to it and lock yourself into the situation. It's more of a biproduct because if your mind is free it doesn't matter too much, and even though you don't like bad things you can still bare them comfortably. You could look at it another way and consider positive outcomes of negative situations such as learning lessons or perspective. If you do this enough then eventually it's obvious and you don't have to think about it. Then you can just accept anything that happens as your path. Changing your path is not really changing at all, but just continuing on.

Purpose is a matter of thought. You could say there is purpose or you could say that there is no purpose. If you take away mental constructs then there can't be any purpose. It's really a localised purpose based on your own mental structure.

It's usually an attempt to regain balance. It depends which direction the force is going and where it is issued from but usually when people do it to me my top half stays and the bottom half floats backwards.

Yin or Yang with respect to what? It makes no sense.

I like that video. It's kinda where I'm at. Not using too much gross muscle, but still relying somewhat on body structure.

If you aren't doing it internally you aren't doing tai chi. You can apply it from the start but you'll get your ass kicked. Something like Xingyi is much easier to apply from the beginning because you can start out muscularly due to the nature of it's directness.

Non-dual is not the same as forgoing creation altogether. If there is an action to be taken with the body then you just act. There is no mental separation of act/no act. This kind of feels like autopilot, but it's just that in the flow of things there are no two options. There is only change and you flow with it.