Miffymog

YAY!

Hi there cconnard, good to have you here. I see one of your interests is FPCK, here are a couple of good resources about it ... https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/12639-flying-phoenix-chi-kung/ https://forum.alchemical.garden/branch/zenbear/ But if you use the search function on the whole DB website (or even use Google) you can find amazing bits of information on all kinds of things which may well overlap with your other interests too. Welcome!

Hi ya Trane, Good to have you here. I'm currently going through the welcome posts and directing any that might have an interest towards Flying Pheonix Chi Kung, here's the thread for it ... https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/12639-flying-phoenix-chi-kung/ If you go there and then click on the search button and put in 'Master Share K Lew' you'll get some interesting comments about him from Sifu Terry Dunn's experience of him. So of the stuff is very 'out there' indeed Welcome to DB!

Hi Sunnygirl, Good to have you here. I'm currently practicing Flying Phoenix Chi Kung, which is very much a Buddhist form of qigong. What style is yours? Note: link to the DB FPCK thread, lots of good stuff on it ... https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/12639-flying-phoenix-chi-kung/ Welcome!

2 sessions a day has settled down, stand in the morning, sit in the evening. 15 min static meditation followed by 20 to 25 min moving meditation. If I push myself further during the moving meditation, it just feels too much at the moment. Considered dropping the moving meditation down to 15 mins and then adding another one after, but I just don’t really know enough of the meditations well enough to do this yet. Having slight issues with my knee during the sit, so having to experiment with different sitting postures. Not sure if Wind Above The Clouds is aggravating my sciatica. Was considering dropping it, but as I only do it once every 4 days, it might be ok. I rotate between 10 different static and moving meditations over a three day period. Initially I liked the variety, not sure now if I’m trying to learn too much in one go. Some energy practices, while energising everything, can also end up ‘energising’ your sense of self. But FPCK is particularly absent of this quality, and so naturally compliments Buddhism.

Me too!

Curiously enough, just as I was working out what to write here, Roots of Virtue has nicely listed all the problems I was finding myself facing while trying to learn some Yi Quan from a book. Fortunately, I saw sense and dropped that practice. However, I did gain a nice beginners level of understanding behind some of the simpler principles behind the internal martial arts, which leads on to what I've been discovering about FPCK. https://forum.alchemical.garden/threads/188/ 'Slow movement is better than fast movement, no movement is better than slow movement.' Wang Xiang Zhai One of the first things that struck me when learning how to do FPCK, was that the dynamic meditations require you to 'move as slow as a sand drift'. Gaining your own understanding of how to interpret this is something that all FPCK practitioner have to reach. Just how slow is slow? And what are the consequences of going more and more slowly? Performing a Tai Chi form slowly is one thing, but when you start imagining you are doing it in water or oil, a different type of development starts to occur. One of the principles of the internal martial arts is to start using the subconsciously controlled postural muscles to move you rather than the consciously controlled mobilising muscles, but how do you engage them? Well, there are a number of ways to. Firstly, performing movements that allow them to become easily engaged. Secondly, moving slowly and smoothly in a relaxed manner. But this only takes you so far. So you then start to imagine you are performing a form in water or oil, and when you do this the subconscious mind suddenly provides this extra resistance by engaging these difficult to control postural muscles. Then, in a relative short time, all of these muscles develop greater strength and the body starts to develop a weightless quality. Now, proper training in this I don't have, so I can't go much further on this topic, but what I do know is that moving against imagined resistances can generate a large amount of internal energy, and by increasing this imagine resistance, more energy is generated and it goes 'deeper' in to the body. So what has this all got to do with FPCK and moving 'as slow as a shifting sand dune'. Well, while moving very slowly, you are actually engaging the postural muscles and you enter into a mental state where there is a very high level of mind-body integration. However, you don't do this against any resistance, so in order to get the energy to sink into the body you go slower and slower, the question is though, how slow should I go? AARRGGHHH The answer to this is something each person kind of has to work out by yourself. In one post on the FPCK thread, Sifu Terry Dunn does say that if you can, you actually start of moving so slowly that it is barely perceptible, and in time once the energy has started to flow, you can then start moving faster and still get results. The only problem with this speed is that it actually becomes very difficult to maintain as it can induce quite strong mental and physical challenges, and if the practice is too difficult, you're not likely to keep doing it. So instead, you start off moving at a rather faster pace, and when you body gets used to it, it will want to slow down some more on it's own accord. At the moment, I am still learning what is the best speed to perform each moving meditation. I like to start off the session with 15 mins of static meditation, and then I follow it with a 20 minutes of moving meditation, any longer and it starts to become hard work. In order to go as slowly as possible I'm trying to perform whatever action I am doing once in that period. This is actually uncomfortably slow for me and I may well look into speeding up when my motivation levels start to dwindle, but as I only do one moving meditation per session, I'm managing at the moment. How long will it be until/will I ever get to the point where the energy flows more easily? Don't know yet, apparently it is a function of how much negative karma you've got to burn off - which means I've got a very long wait indeed. Short extra point 1 - this is actually a physically challenging practice in some ways, but I quite like that aspect. Short extra point 2 - the energy it generates is quite 'yin'. However, to miss-appropriate some Neigong terminology, pure yin is required to cultivate pure yang, so I tell myself cultivating a yin type energy is no bad thing.

Firstly I want to say an absolutely massive thank you to @Earl Grey all his hard work over on the Alchemical Garden. I have spent many, hours over the last month reading every post in the FPCK thread and it is full of useful information. The sense of relief when I finished it would have been really tarnished if it was not for Earl Grey, because having to look back through the thread and find all the interesting and useful comments would have taken even more time. Instead, Earl Grey has already done all this and accumulated and divided all the information here. I myself am incredibly grateful to him for having done – so thank you Earl Grey https://forum.alchemical.garden/branch/zenbear/ Secondly, I was very excited when I got volumes 3, 4, 5 and 7 in the post a couple of days ago. Unfortunately, although I got the box for DVD 3, there was no disc inside it. Now, having set up a basic practice based on the first 8 meditations, I was looking to start learning the movements of some further seated and standing ones. As I don’t have the standing ones from DVD 3 yet, is it possible to start on the ‘flash’ ones on DVD 5? I know that its fine to slow them down so they take 5 mins instead of 90 secs BUT is it normal practice / ok to just repeat one of them 4 times during a 20 minute session? On the DVD it says you just do each one once, but I’m guessing it’s ok to repeat them, as long as each one is top and tailed by the 3 breath and the breathing sequence?

I simply recite The Jesus Prayer.

Flying Phoenix Chi Kung 10 day review. Overall very happy with this practice and I’m looking forward to continuing it for the next few months to see where it goes. Initial comparison to my previous practice which was simply based on Lam Kam’s ‘Way of Energy’. FPCK combines standing static, standing moving with sitting static and sitting moving meditations. This all round combination, for me, much better then just doing the 8 Brocades and then standing for half an hour. The is a potential downside of this however, but that will be addressed later on. Ease of learning The idea is that you are able to learn, without too much difficulty, from a DVD and the fact is these quite powerful/profound techniques that can be. There is an argument that it would be REALLY nice just to have someone else confirm you’re doing it right, and also some one to talk about some of the effects of the practice. But if you can’t travel to see an instructor in person (nor afford the $250 an hour private zoom lessons), the DVD will have to do. There are $40 per two hour group zooms lessons, so that’s an option too. Exercise It’s quite nice when learning a new practice if you can personalise it in some way to gain a little bit of ownership over it. In this regards I’m seeing the meditations as more of an exercise to begin with than a meditation. They do require physical movement and the initial stages is developing the muscles to do this, so to start with you are having to physically push yourself a little until you can do them with ease. The second thing it is often recommend to do one moving exercise followed by another. At the moment I don’t really have the physical strength to do this, but there are a couple of reasons possibly not to do this. One, is that once I’ve set up one energy movement in my body in practice session, currently it does not feel quite right moving onto another moving practice. Instead, I’d rather just push myself as much as I can on one. I’ve found that doing one exercise longer gets me closer to that effortless mind/body integration better than switching it up. Once I’ve got more strength, this may change. I was going to write loads more, but I’ve suddenly lost the motivation, oh well.

Thank you very much.

Question. I'm now currently doing standing meditations in the morning and seated meditations in the evening. I am drifting towards a 10-minute static meditation followed by 20-minute moving meditation. On the first DVD there are three static standing meditations which I'm going to cycle through over the course of three days. On the second DVD there is only one static seated meditation. Now I know that the standing static meditations can be performed either seated or while lying down. My question is, is the initial breathing sequence the same for the static meditations regardless of whether you're stood, sat or lying down?

Just started an FPCK practice, following a fairly standard beginners routine. The first two standing meditations in the morning, 15 mins each. The first two sitting meditations in the evening, 15 mins each. Updated journal here https://forum.alchemical.garden/threads/181/

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I've adopted mantra recital during physical work which I've found very beneficial.

"If you find yourself going through hell, all you can do is keep going." Winston Churchill Good luck Earl Grey, it'll get better in time.

After standing for a few years I recently came across some mental techniques from Yi Quan to help relax into the stand. 1 - don't try to relax but instead imagine you already are 2 - picture yourself standing in a very relaxing environment such as in a nice garden or by the beach 3 - imagine that the top half of your body is light and the bottom half of your body is heavy And although I do have some success with each of these techniques at times, my best stands are when I don't apply any visualisation whatsoever. This also applies to whether I should drop my shoulders more while standing. Sometimes I worry there is too much tension in my shoulders and that my arms are held too high. But again my best stands are when I just don't worry about how high or low my shoulders are.

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I'd stick with what is advised. It's like the old story of the man who asked the monk how long it would take for him to make good progress if he meditates every day. The monk replys that it will take him 10 years. The man then asks how long will it take if he tries really really hard, and the monks says well in that case it will take him 20.

Lam Kam's book The Way of Energy can give you a good foundation in Zhan Zhuang. It gives clear practice instructions at the price of a very affordable book which includes a description of the 8 Brocades and is something you can stick at for years and still have things unfold. Most people will move on from it and diversify, but it's been the only thing I've used for a long time and I've no desire to try anything else

I enjoyed that video, and I liked what he said at the end about combining wisdom and compassion to achieve what he describes as the goal of Taoism which is to become an upright or true person.

Hi Anshino, Over the last couple of years I’ve often been tempted to join Damo’s courses and I was just wondering what your experiences of him were? Do you learn online from him or have you attended some of his courses in person. I’ve loved his books but I was curious as to what the actual ‘journey’ was like? Cheers, Miffymog

You can just get up, have a short slow walk and then return to the cushion for another 25 min session. I managed to make good progress this way myself when I used to have a seated practice.

I have a few minutes on my hands so let me step in … I’ve always been attracted to Mahayana Buddhism because of the Bodhisattva vow, however I feel Jesus’s approach is closer to that of Daoism than Buddhism. These are his ‘greatest commandments’ "Hear, O Israel! The Lord Our God, The Lord is One; Thou shalt love thy Lord, thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind", before also referring to a second commandment, "And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." The central goal of Daoism is union with the Dao, which is where Jesus is coming from in his first commandment. How to treat others is simply how you would like to be treated yourself. Now this can of cause lead to a life of servitude – but ‘union with god’ comes first.

Brief reply Interesting post, just a quick reply Point One - this applies to many other disciplines as well. Point Two - this also applies to other skills. Point Three - hmmm, now here there is divergence depending on the discipline, some will not allow progress without virtue, others will.