Miffymog

Good article about why it's hit Italy so hard. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8100291/Why-people-dying-coronavirus-Italy.html Here's a summary... WHY IS CORONAVIRUS SO BAD IN ITALY? By Ben Spencer and Mario Ledwith for the Daily Mail HOW BAD IS CORONAVIRUS IN ITALY? Italy is the worst-hit country other than China, with 366 deaths and 7,375 confirmed cases of the virus [subs: please update figures later]. The country has imposed the most restrictive measures since World War Two, with 16million people now needing permission to travel. HOW DID IT GET SO BAD? On January 22 stringent protocols were introduced which said anyone should be swabbed coronavirus if they have alarming symptoms. But apparently these were lifted on January 27 to only include people who had travelled to China. Critics say this is down to Italy’s false sense of security because it believed it had put up robust border defences against the virus. The country had stopped all direct flights from China - the only EU country to do so. It had also introduced temperature-screening at airports – despite its highly questionable effectiveness. While politicians in other countries - including Britain - conceded from the start that it was ‘inevitable’ coronavirus would arrive, and started to put protocols in place to cope with it, Italy had focused on putting up barriers in a bid to stop it entering the country. WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? By the time Italian politicians realised the virus had arrived in their country, it was too late to control it. The first case was a 38-year-old Italian man who had never been to China - known as ‘paziente uno’ or ‘patient one’. He arrived at a hospital in Codogno near Milan on February 18 but was not initially tested for coronavirus. Before he even got to hospital, he had infected his pregnant wife, a friend he went running with, and three elderly people in a bar he frequented. In hospital he saw doctors four times before he was tested for the virus. He was eventually tested and diagnosed on 20 February – but even then there was a three-hour delay before he was put in isolation. By then he had infected several staff members and patients. SO WHO INFECTED PATIENT ONE? Doctors are still to find out how he was infected. The implication is that the virus had been circulating in the community for weeks before ‘patient one’ was even infected. WHAT DID THAT MEAN FOR ITALY? Other countries adopted an early strategy of ‘containing’ the virus - by identifying symptomatic people arriving from China and other affected countries, isolating them if they had symptoms, treating them in secure units if they tested positive, and tracking down anyone they had been in contact with. This ‘track and trace’ strategy – which has been effectively used around the world to control the Sars, Ebola and Mers virus outbreaks in recent years - is essential to stop imported cases from becoming ‘endemic’ within a country. In Britain that phase of the coronavirus strategy is just coming to an end in Britain as the virus is now being transmitted within the community. But in Italy the virus had escaped before they knew it was even in the country. WHAT OTHER MISTAKES HAVE BEEN MADE? Critics say once the decision was made to ‘lock down’ the virus, the implementation of protocols across the nation was left up to regional governments - and the way it was handled was patchy at best. For example in San Marco in Lamis, in the Apulia region in south-east Italy, the body of a 74-year-old man who died was released by health authorities before he was tested for coronavirus. It later transpired he had already infected his wife and daughter, who met dozens of relatives and friends at his funeral. Seventy of them are now in quarantine. The episode has been described as ‘a catastrophic mistake’. BUT WHY IS THE DEATH TOLL SO HIGH? The rising number of deaths may in part be explained by Italy’s elderly population. Around 23 per cent of Italians are aged over 65, making it the second oldest country in the world after Japan. Initial data suggests the elderly and those with underlying health conditions are more likely to die if they contract the virus. Public health officials in Italy have been keen to stress that the average age of fatalities there is 81, with the vast majority aged over 65 and already ill. HAS IT CREATED A POLITICAL ROW IN ITALY? Tensions have threatened to boil over concerning how Lombardy, Italy’s richest region, reacted to the outbreak. In the early days of the outbreak, authorities there carried out widespread testing, even on those who displayed no symptoms. The approach was described as ‘exaggerated’ by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who said the measures ‘would end up dramatising the emergency’. Government officials suggested that the positive results for those with no symptoms could cause panic. The blame game then saw officials in Lombardy hit back at Mr Conte for his refusal to adopt a proposal in February calling for the mandatory quarantine of students returning from China. Attilio Fontana, president of the region, said: ‘They told us it was a racist behaviour.’ WILL ITALY’S LATEST RESPONSE WORK? On paper, the Italian Government’s draconian decision to place 16 million in quarantine, could curtail the rampant spread of the virus. But it remains entirely unclear if the measures are adequate given the virus is now in every region of the country. The rules, which affect a quarter of Italy’s population, are too wide in scope to be strictly enforced by the authorities, leaving people to police themselves. Though failure to comply with the measures can result in a small fine or three-months in jail, the measures are still being seen as advisory.

Three days nothing. Three days body aches, high temperature, farts you can't trust. Three days washed out. DONE. edit - 5000 dead this season in the UK due to normal flu / 3 due to nCov19

This is presents me with the perfect opportunity to mention one of my favourite threads...

To paraphrase Douglas Harding's Headless Way. Take you finger and point at the wall opposite you, describe to yourself the qualities of what it is pointing at. Then point the same finger towards you (your eyes). Describe the nature of what it is pointing at

Ha ha, it’s that time again (curiously enough – 3:30pm on a Tuesday afternoon) when I’ve had a couple of drinks and find myself ready to spill my thoughts on to the page / internet forum. This is a great thread and I’m loving reading it. Sorry Freeform but, due to my past experiences I’m tending towards Dwai’s point of view rather than yours... although I really appreciate the back and forwards between the two of you and it’s giving me lots of food for thought which I really enjoy using to evaluate my own point of view. So – when a Daoist says that enlightenment is just the first step / opens the door on the path, this is fairly similar to a Buddhist point of view. And from a rational point of view, but from some one who has clearly never experienced anything like this, it all makes sense. I’m quite happy to accept that a first taste of enlightenment is felt on the cushion, and that experiencing this in a waking / normal state is a ‘higher’ / further state. But!!! if you experience this state and find yourself enjoying this / addicted to this state - I just can’t understand how you can call this enlightenment if there is clearly some trace of ego left that is getting addicted to this state. In this Daoist path, it might mean you have opened up all your channels and have lost all animosity - which is clearly really good – and is a nice stepping stone towards the goal of becoming one with the Tao, but how can this be enlightenment. There are numerous stages / levels in Buddhist enlightenment, and that they may well over lap with many of the Daoist ones. However, I’ve got to come back to my belief of what a spiritual path is - and it begins and ends with virtue and a spiritual practice should just add to this.

After a couple of drinks I tend to feel more comfortable to chime in and contribute to these threads that are outside of my own experience, so here I am saying – wow – this is a truly brilliant thread. Thank you ever so much to those who are contributing to it. It takes both time and energy, which is limited to us all, to do so. So I really appreciate those here who are giving them up for the benefit of us others so that we get to read these posts. I like to take an experiential approach to life and so the only existence available is that which is immediately in front of us. For me this does rule out rebirth I’m afraid from both a pragmatic and moral point of view. I am also unable to conceive of a spiritual existence outside of this reality. Once you lose your physical body, what do you interact with and how? Other spiritual bodies in realms outside of this earth … hmmm ok … but how does that existence relate to this one. If it does or can relate to this earth, then what kind of interaction does it have with it? If it does not, well I’m happy for this metaphysical existence to live separately in my imagination. So from a philosophical point of view, I quickly condense to a Buddhist egoless point of view as the goal of the spiritual path. But – this is a Daoist forum and I am most definitely learning huge amounts about the Daoist approach to spirituality and it is truly fascinating!!!

I've only learnt from books, so I've gone through every book there is and tried to pull out the best suggestions out of all of them. In the end, as Zork says, it's pretty much all contained in Lam Kam Chuen's '"the book of energy". So, I always rotate my knees, hips and shoulders first - started off doing 10 rotations each way, now do 30. Don't stand with my hands on my LDT to start with, (but do that after). Go straight into wuji / cowbow style. Cycle through 4 other poses. Then end with my legs straight and hands on my LDT, this is something Lam Kam suggests. Then shake. Then arm swing. Then full body massage. I wouldn't worry too much about the thumb going numb. I badly broke my wrist a while back, for some time after it would have a strong sense of pins and needles in it while I stood. That's died away now, not sure how many weeks or months it took, but its gone and I reckon your thumb numbness will do in time too. I'd just add that for me, the key to maintaining motivation is to keep the duration short, it will naturally increase in time.

Two men were trying to run away from a lion. While doing so one turned to the other and said - why are you trying to out run this lion, you can't out run a lion. The other replied - I don't need to out run the lion, I just need to out run you.

I like Lam Kam's book, 'The Way of Energy', been using it on and off for 20 years now and still happy with it. It describes a fairly simple standing practice which I have found works for me, the only addition I'd make is that you don't need to increase up to a 20 minute stand quite as quickly as he suggests. Good luck on your journey.

I use Tarot cards myself

20 years ago I had a choice between Lam Kam and Mantak Chai. I went with Lam Kam and still follow his teachings to this day. When I read some of Damo’s books I felt a real pang of regret that this stuff wasn’t around when I started out. There are bits I don’t completely like about his stuff, in that there’s a slight ‘carrot dangling’ nature to it, so much so I had to sell his books after I’d read them … But he gives a good all round approach to nei gong and his explanation of the development of the qi gong body is beyond any other western texts I’ve come across.

Yes, yes, yes. It's clearly an attempt to try to explain some concepts that just don't really convert directly into English that well (it might be that some of these terms have better correlations in Chinese for example), and the COG is simply the easiest concept that a student can relate to. Once you've got the hang of the techniques and 'felt it', there's no detraction from the practice by the slight misnomer either. There is actually a physical definition that might be closer to what he's looking for, which is the center of the moment of inertia of a rigid rotating body about one end. If you go to push someone over, you naturally push them at chest level, and this is because if you model the human body like a thick plank of wood rotating at it's base that you want to tip over, you push through this center. If you want to walk forwards for example, the first thing you do is start falling forwards, the way you do this is create a line of force from the back of your heel up to and through this center in your chest (kind of). And if you then lower your weight by bending your knees, this center is then lowered and makes it easier to move forwards. Now this center of rotational inertia becomes so central to our movements, it can get easy to mistake it for our actual center of mass. --- Disclaimer - I've just spent the last 20 minutes checking the validity of what I've just said and, sadly, I've been unable to confirm what I've just said with any calculations. Instead it's all been done from the memory of the Physics I did 25 years ago. I think its right, I don't know it

AAAAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! Thank god this is a Daoism forum and not a Physics forum. I'm trying to find some co-relation between my lack of understanding of the spiritual path followed by the likes of yourself and Damo, and the 'fast-and-lose' interpretation you take to where the center of gravity might be what might affect it! edit-not in the chest

I can add some basics mistakes he makes in his books, I've made this point in another post a while ago, but I can make it again. He says that you need to sink a little bit into the wuji posture (whose naming has already questioned by Star Jumper). He claims in his book he knows the real reason for this and that other teachers don't (he does actually say this in the book). He claims you need to sink down a little bit into the wuji posture so that your center of gravity which starts in your chest can lower itself down into the LDT - (see attached picture). Now the only way I can really describe the basic misunderstanding of the term center of gravity is by asking you to picture trying to balance your rigid body on something like a rolled up yoga mat. You'd find your COG is already very near the LDT. (How a simple misunderstanding of a fairly basic level of physics got into print is beyond me and does suggest that a few too many people around him don't' really question him enough) Anyway - he did kind of show off about this special knowledge and has kind of got it wrong. If he shows a lack of understanding on things I do have familiarity with - then I can at least have a degree of trepidation when he discusses things I don't know about. I'm afraid the conclusion I can make is that he sometimes has a slightly simplified interpretation of some of the things he's learnt.

God damn it! I love reading these ideas, which is why I enjoyed reading Damo's books, because they described many of these Eastern thoughts - but I just cant bring myself to believe in them I'm afraid. There are some mathematical concepts about the possibility of time travel. But there's an argument that the only universe is the one that is currently unfolding in this moment, along with all the energy contained in matter, both in movement and substance. So you can't travel to another one, as where would the energy for that one come from? This is all kind of theoretical, but I'm definitely of the idea that time travel isn't possible, due to the above reason. I then extend this concept to jing, qi and shen. I've heard the idea that energy of a higher vibration exists, and only when it reduces its vibration does it then become solid. My only problem with this is I find it tricky to conceive of all this higher vibrational energy that has the potential to turn into physical energy, just sitting there in this state, just beyond reach. How much of it is there? How can it exist with out having any significant impact on our reality? Is it that most of it has already condensed? Or is there just not much left in this higher state? Fortunately, I don't need to worry about it too much. I reflect on that which impacts on my life and don't worry about things I can nether conceive nor experience. But maybe one day I'll get a feel of it ...

Yep - the basic example of the genetic memory of how birds know how to build their nests means that we are far more than just a blank/empty sheet when we are born. It's like the inherited fear of spiders, really quite a beneficial trait, but how do on earth do you impregnate the image of a spider on an unborn consciousness - there are many things we really don't understand.

Does Damo include in his books putting your awareness in the LDT? check. Does Damo include the hand moving practice of 'compressing the pear at the LDT'? check. Does Damo include a description of a co-ordinated breathing practice involving the diaphragm, abdominal muscles and lower floor pelvic muscles in order to activate the LDT? check. Is freeform going to find some way out of directly criticising Damo's teaching? check.

But what of the person's personality that has otherwise been taken over. Now, I'm quite certain this innocent preformed personality is first asked about whether they are happy for someone else to reincarnate into them and give them their memories and personality fragments. I'm sure both parties get to sit down and have a chat about the in's and out's / pros and cons / benefits and otherwise of such a procedure in a nice outer dimensional coffee shop. The person who's life is about be taken over is, I'm sure, told about how they are actually really privileged to be selected for such a thing and that they don't really need their own personality anyway when they get to have someone else's. I know this happens not only from all the reincarnated people I personally know, but from my own experiences. YES - I was lucky enough to be selected as a reincarnated person. The problem is I now realise that that bloke was a bit of a knob - and I really don't like him. God damn it! (sorry - I do know that there are many people who do believe in reincarnation, it's just something I have a moral problem with)

This is what Lam Kam calls his first position - I take it it's the equivalent to his system's wuji posture

Here we go

(Sorry to selectively quote of the post) I have some really mixed feelings on Damo. Some of the stuff he says I love, but some of it I really question. I have found the above statement to be quite correct. I've had a casual ZZ practice for some time which I really quite like doing. After reading one of Damo's books, I then tried out his Wuji posture, and its effects were completely different to the Lam Kam stand I had previously been doing. While doing ZZ in Lam Kam's style, I have an uncontrived mind, sometimes I let my mind wonder, sometimes I have a bright present mind, sometimes the mind settles into silence. Whatever. But Damo's stance had a very powerful effect. It kind of sends the energy downwards, which has quite a silencing effect on the mind. Which of course settles down the emotions and allows for better integration of mind and body. The problem I had with this was that it was becoming so effective I was starting to find myself looking forwards to this state as an escape from the stresses of everyday life. I felt I did not like where this was going so I simply dropped the practice and went back to my normal stand. The point here is that some of the stuff he writes about is quite powerful and, without balance, can be potentially dangerous. He likes to state he's trying to re-educate people after years of erroneous teaching by the likes of Mantak Chai. But, inadvertently, he's in someways committing exactly the same crimes he's trying to correct. He is broadcasting to the world stuff that has only ever been taught on an individual basis - should be be doing this and what exactly are his motivations ... hmmm ... Now, of course, I have developed a practice from Lam Kam's books and am very happy with it ... But Damo's wuji stance is a powerful, potentially addictive practice. I feel Lam Kam's teaching is done in a far more responsible manner as all altered states of mind are almost actively avoided. Done.

You can gain some achievement with no intentional effort what-so-ever. Simply maintain a degree of celibacy and have some daily standing / sitting / moving practice where you just focus on the practice itself. If you're standing, stand. If you're sitting, sit. If you're moving, move. The LDT will fill itself quite happily without having to worry about any 'flowing of energy', which can be at best pointless and worst counter productive. Maybe the celibacy thing can be dropped in time, but it does help to start with and means you don't have worry about any kind of intention.

It's one of those things that there more you search for it, the more it can elude you. After looking, and failing to achieve it I now take a more roundabout method. First simple way is to add more moving practices to your routine. There is one opinion that you should be moving for at least as much time as you stand. Then if you really start standing for very long duration, you should have even longer moving practises... The other approach is that sung is a consequence of your over all attitude to life itself. The more relaxed approach you take to life, the more sung your stand is. Now, I'm absolutely useless at achieving any kind of sung, but I have found the above approaches increase the relaxation during a stand.

Politics is a highly emotive subject. When you live in a country outside of a particular political debate, you naturally have less of an emotional response. Then you become more capable of seeing 'both sides' of the argument ... Get me on to Brexit and I'd be less of a "bothsider" ...

You are spewing anit-Trump vitriol - how long are you going to continue doing this for?