Geof Nanto

A theme well worth expanding on… [As has been mentioned, the basis of shiatsu is deeply rooted in Chinese cosmology and is informed by the same theory that underpins TCM and Traditional Japanese Massage. If anyone is interested to learn more about this healing art, I suggest searching the web. A good place to start could be here. Although I consider what I’ve written below to be a vital aspect of any true healing relationship, it lies outside of the shiatsu treatment framework I studied.] I found the intimacy of shiatsu was naturally conducive for treatment to work on many different levels. Some practitioners only like to treat on the meridian functional level, and that’s very effective in itself, but others allow themselves to go deeper. Along with the fundamental shiatsu method of hands-on harmonisation of qi-flow imbalances, my particular interest was in treating emotional and mental / spiritual issues (not anything like psychological analysis, of course). I liked being able to use the relative wellness of my own being and powers of empathy to help directly reorientate the patient to something healthier. I found it naturally happened this way to some degree with most people I treated – indeed, I’d call this empathy connection the heart of the treatment – but very strongly with a smaller number of people. I allowed myself to feel deeply connected with them. Sometimes I could feel their physical symptoms temporarily lodge within me. I could feel those people with me continuously day and night on a subtle level and consequently I could only handle a few connections at a time with this level of intimacy. Their presence didn’t feel like a burden though, rather it felt like a gift of the Dao through which I could give back to other people some of the gift of healing I’d received from various teachings over a number of years; teachings which in various ways showed me the basics of how to live more in harmony with Dao. My goal was always to orientate all my patients towards lifestyles and methods, appropriate to their different circumstances, which would allow them to be their own therapists and not depend on me. And it wasn’t all me giving, I was learning all the time too, feeling my way deeper and deeper into the forces which shape and sustain life. All this happened spontaneously within the realm of subtle qi connection; its ability to flow into me and through me a product of my own personal cultivation, especially the degree I was able to maintain a Zen-like empty mind. This type of healing is a powerful method for harmonising emotional and spiritual imbalances. I know it’s effective because of the amount of positive feedback I got. Yet it’s also a dangerous method. I can well understand why most practitioners stay clear of this level of intimacy in treatments. What I found as I became more experienced was that I could greatly help people in the many areas I had personally worked through – in these areas I was strong, I had no demons lurking within myself that I was hiding from. But in some other areas that wasn’t the case and I was ineffective as a healer. Without realising it at the time, I was blocking out manifestations of subtle energies which I feared, and the patient feels this as not being accepted in some illusive but essential way. Unintentionally, I thus reinforced the patient in their isolation from Dao which is the root cause of emotional and spiritual illness. And, in retrospect, I can see I was worse than ineffective in a few difficult cases. I fell into the all-too-common error of assuming too much of my own emotional and spiritual wellbeing. I was unaware of significant issues of my own. And in certain cases my issues spontaneously transferred to the patient when they found some resonance within the patient’s psyche. Those people then not only had to contend with their own issues but also to fend off mine. Or, alternatively and even worse, try to accept something totally inappropriate for them. Hardly an outcome I’d wish on anybody, though when I was younger and naively expected more, one I regularly experienced myself from both alternative and mainstream medical practitioners as well as from spiritual teachers. Even amongst those who would like it, few have achieved that illusive ‘empty’ Zen mind. Using Daoist alchemical terminology which I wasn’t familiar with then, I can see how my treatments combined ming and xing methods, the ming component being the hands-on meridian qi-flow harmonising work and the xing component comprised of working within the empathy field of subtle qi connections. There’s much more I could add about the numinous wonders and dark pitfalls of empathy connections. It’s an area where Jung’s insights have helped me enormously in making sense of my own experiences. But I’ll conclude by emphasising how it touches on experiences which lie at the heart of my spiritual path. Working to refine and transmute its manifestations through on-going inner cultivation and real-life experience has been, and continues to be, essential for me in opening myself to that ultimate mystery I choose to call Self.

I’m thankful you had that dream and have written such a thorough account of your journey. Reading it gave me a strong feeling of comradery with you. You’ve written with an open heart. Although I have not had a powerful energy eruption like you describe, it all makes sense to me based on my own more modest qi experiences. And I very much concur with what you’ve written about the healing power of shiatsu. I trained and worked as a practitioner in Sydney, Australia back in the 1990s. Learning the meridian / qi-flow model of embodiment fundamentally changed my understanding of health and illness. If I had the difficult task of naming one thing that has helped me more than anything else amongst the many important learning experiences I’ve had on my journey towards some semblance of physical, emotional and spiritual health, the years I spent learning shiatsu would be a prime contender. I trained with a small group of people under the guidance of a gifted master. His comprehensive teachings included qi style yoga (a form of qigong) and qi-based food theory. These yangsheng (nourishing life) methods continue to serve me well as the basis for my ongoing inner alchemical practice. Praise of TCM gets a lot of space on this forum. Nothing wrong with that but it’s far from the be-all and end-all of qi-based healing methods. For many people, shiatsu can well be superior yet, as far as I'm aware, up until your account, I'm the only one who has mentioned it.

This happened at a beach near where I live. Made me smile. Rookie lifeguard saves kangaroo from rough surf in first ever rescue

Worth repeating your whole post. I particularly like it that you included the last few sentences. For me deeper down, I only do this because, all things considered, it's the easiest path for me. That's how Dao works, why it's sometimes referred to as the Watercourse Way. Mine has been a path of following my desires, of doing what I felt like, and then dealing with the consequences. Initially these consequences, though pleasurable at first, had almost entirely unpleasant consequences. But slowly through an alchemical process of refinement using the whole of life as fire and cauldron, my desires have slowly transmuted into something far more harmonious with Dao. This could also be called a path of following one's heart. And sure, I am forced to gain insight into rotten aspects of my heart. No way is this pleasant! Yet it's still the easiest thing for me to do because not dealing with it feels like stagnation and a slow death of my heart; of my soul. That's what happens with inner cultivation. My alignment with Dao strengthens and I'm compelled to act accordingly because I gain a glimpse of an awe-inspiring deeper reality. I’ve found nothing that compares to the sense of wholeness, of inner belonging, which a felt connection with the numinous mystery I choose to call Self brings. Sure, it can be difficult, but it's meaningful difficulty. And always it's about finding the easiest way through. Through a long process of inner exploration, of trial and error, I've found that the easiest way through means continually refining away obstructions within my psyche that hinder my intrinsic connection with Self. Experience has taught me that everyone must find their own unique way forward. It’s as if we all have our own difficult inner equation to solve. But there’s plenty of wise guidance available for those who seek it. My natural affinity is for the path of ming-xing cultivation, with Daoist yangsheng (nourishing life) methods fundamental to ming cultivation and Jung’s insights particularly helpful for my xing cultivation.

Koala locomotion Traditional: Modern: [This isn’t a posed photo. It was taken by a woman who rescued the koala which had strayed onto a highway. When she put it into her car it immediately took to the driver’s seat as if it was accustomed to driving. Maybe it was.

How do people feel on watching this video, especially those who claim absolute detachment from any judgement? I know there’s a part of me that would like to see the person addressing the rally hung, drawn and quartered, not as a metaphor but in reality. However, experience has shown me such revenge actions have the sort of consequences @questionmark has so thoroughly outlined above. And it’s far from the totality of what I feel. I also feel the power of opening my heart in the way Jesus taught. That’s no easy accomplishment, indeed this true essence of Christianity is almost beyond we humans. Yet as I grow older and progress in my inner cultivation, I feel it in smaller, less absolute ways. To be able to do that, to feel that level of compassion yet remain cohesive as an embodied human, I very much need all my Daoist practice; both xing and ming cultivation and all that entails. From what I’ve glimpsed, opening to the Self does not close one off from the world of suffering but allows one to be big enough to hold it.

@questionmark Maybe try shiatsu. It has the same goal of harmonising meridian qi flow imbalances as TCM but is far more hands on. When I was younger I worked for a while as a shiatsu practitioner and I’ve posted something I wrote about it in the Healing Circle here. I think it could be far more effective for you, provided you can find a practitioner you feel very comfortable with.

I very much like how this discussion has stirred up some passion. I am right! You are wrong! Surely that in itself proves how important distinguishing right and wrong are for us, as well how subjective these judgements are. Though my previous posts with their reference to cool, rational essays may seem dispassionate, that’s not the case for me inwardly. I’m with Luke on the importance of acknowledging doubt for inner growth. Within myself I hold a multitude of conflicting views on this topic. Hence I can honestly state I see some validity in every post that has been made. But to stick with the cool rational, here are a few paragraphs from Carl Jung which provide a good overview, as I understand it, of what a number of contributors have been saying in this discussion: Psychology does not know what good and evil are in themselves; it knows them only as judgments about relationships. "Good" is what seems suitable, acceptable, or valuable from a certain point of view; evil is its opposite. If the things we call good are "really" good, then there must be evil things that are "real" too. It is evident that psychology is concerned with a more or less subjective judgment, i.e., with a psychic antithesis that cannot be avoided in naming value relationships: "good" denotes something that is not bad, and "bad" something that is not good. There are things which from a certain point of view are extremely evil, that is to say dangerous. There are also things in human nature which are very dangerous and which therefore seem proportionately evil to anyone standing in their line of fire. It is pointless to gloss over these evil things, because that only lulls one into a sense of false security. Human nature is capable of an infinite amount of evil, and the evil deeds are as real as the good ones so far as human experience goes and so far as the psyche judges and differentiates between them. Only unconsciousness makes no difference between good and evil [By unconsciousness Jung is referring to the Absolute]. Inside the psychological realm one honestly does not know which of them predominates in the world. We hope, merely, that good does—i.e., what seems suitable to us. No one could possibly say what the general good might be. No amount of insight into the relativity and fallibility of our moral judgment can deliver us from these defects, and those who deem themselves beyond good and evil are usually the worst tormentors of mankind, because they are twisted with the pain and fear of their own sickness. Today as never before it is important that human beings should not overlook the danger of the evil lurking within them. It is unfortunately only too real, which is why psychology must insist on the reality of evil and must reject any definition that regards it as insignificant or actually non-existent*. [* Jung is referring here to the theological and philosophical doctrine of privatio boni (the absence of good), also known as the privation theory of evil. It states that evil, unlike good, is insubstantial, so that thinking of it as an entity is misleading. Instead, evil is rather the absence, or lack (“privation”), of good. This also means that everything that exists is good, insofar as it exists; and is also sometimes stated as that evil ought to be regarded as nothing, or as something non-existent. (From Wikipedia, edited.) ]

Here’s an interesting essay that’s pertinent to the topic in that it explores how vital acknowledgement of our own evil is for inner cultivation. I particularly like it because its grounded in the method of alchemical transmutation rather than attempting to cut off evil: Böhme’s Theology of Evil and its Relevance for Psychoanalysis A couple of extracts: “Without official training as either a theologian or a philosopher, and inspired by peculiar religious experiences, Böhme blended the limited sources he had available to him (the Luther Bible, the alchemical writings of Paracelsus, the preaching of the German mystics) into a strikingly original vision of God’s relation to creation. At the same he constructed a new paradigm of personality, the functional soul as an imago Dei—the product of a resolution of conflicting unconscious drives. The unconscious ground of personality extends as far as demonic evil, and provides Böhme with an answer, however heterodox, to the question of the origin of evil. For Böhme, good and evil are mutually exclusive yet connected at the root. Christ’s love is born of the same principle as the devil’s hate. Böhme calls this common root the wrath (Zorn) of God, the narcissism of the father, which is forever balanced by his mercy. The notion of an original unity of divine wrath and mercy originates in the Kabbalah, which posits them as respectively the left and right hand of God. United, divine wrath and divine mercy hold each other in check. Without mercy, wrath becomes the spite of the devil. Evil is ingrown personality, the self-assertive principle sundering itself from the other and willing to be infinite. The result of this break is a loss of interior balance and capacity to grasp reality. The others who ought to be occasions for love became hateful and sources of pain.” “For Böhme, there can be no divinization without passion and will; the first principle—harshness / narcissism—is integral to the realization of the good. Sanctity cannot be achieved by a simple negation of self will; it requires, rather, its transmutation. Böhme’s greatest psychological insight is this identification of the seed in love which otherwise sown becomes evil, or better, the seed of evil, which, with cultivation, blossoms into love. Against the emasculated Christianity which preaches love without self, sanctity without self-assertion, Böhme argues that the loving personality has at its heart a flame of narcissism—overcome, self-donated, but undeniably alive.”

I’ve read all the comments on this topic with interest. It’s one of those discussions where I could well add a ‘Thank You’ to everyone who has contributed. It’s a vast topic though, one that’s been extensively explored throughout history in both the West and the East. @freeform Yes, morality, which is deeply explored in Confucianism, is integral to neidan, yet it’s little discussed in contemporary Western cultivation circles. Indeed, there’s an erroneous yet widely held view that Daoism and Confucianism are fundamentally antagonistic. They are not. They are complementary. For anyone who is interested, I recently read an excellent essay which explains Neo-Confucianism cultivation with great clarity. I assume all neidan practitioners will find its language and cultivation aims familiar, both similar and complementary: Varieties of Spiritual Experience: Shen 神 in Neo-Confucian Discourse

I well aware of these complex themes that go to the heart of what it is to be human. I’m under no illusions about my own moral fibre in that I’ve been a street junkie and seen a great variety of behaviour from desperate people, myself included. Under pressure a few retained great integrity –they were like saints – while others lied, stole and cheated with total abandonment. I was somewhere in between, neither entirely corrupt or overly honest. In retrospect, after a profound spiritual awakening and a few decades of practice, I feel no connection to the person I was then, yet I’m well aware that I’m no saint. I haven’t read the book you mention but I recently reread Bernhard Schlink, The Reader which explores with great sensitivity aspects of the holocaust and our chaotic human heart. It's a very personal account. The book has been made into a movie of the same name which I haven't seen but I've watched the preview on YouTube. When I looked up the Goodreads reference, I read the first review written by BlackOxford and titled ‘What About the Children?’ It’s a long review but well worth reading in that the powerful narrative of The Reader spurred the reviewer to question our pervasive corporate culture and speculates as to why even people who feel the harm it’s causing don’t stand up to it. To this he offers no answers but shows plenty of insight. While there’s no comparison between the intensity of harm caused by the holocaust and that caused by corporate culture, I like it that the reviewer doesn’t see the rise of Nazism as an aberration of history but looks to how we all, in less blatant ways, support activities that are harmful.

Members of the SS Helferinnen (female auxiliaries) and SS officer Karl Hoecker (the adjutant to the last commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp) sit on a fence railing in Solahuette (an SS retreat centre located near Auschwitz for members of the camp staff) eating bowls of blueberries. In the background is a man playing the accordion. https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1163643 To me happiness has always seemed a dubious goal of practice. As this photo confirms, it arises spontaneously when we feel at one with our comrades and the collective ideology, regardless of what that ideology may result in us doing. The danger here is obvious, it's an extreme example, yet it lurks beneath the surface within all group identities, be they spiritual or secular. Edit to add: @Apech Your photo and Nungali’s typically half wise, half whacky response got me curious, so I looked it up. But I’m still curious to know why you posted it.

I’ve mentioned previously how helpful and complementary to neidan I find some of the insights of Western alchemy. In that light, below is an excellent overview of the stages of alchemical transmutation using Biblical and Pagan imagery rather than our familiar Chinese cosmology. It is an extract from a letter, found by Carl Jung, which the English theologian and alchemist, John Pordage (1607–1681), wrote to his soror mystica (mystical sister) Jane Leade. In it he gives her spiritual instruction concerning the opus (alchemical work). I assume anyone with knowledge of neidan, and especially those practitioners such as myself who feel an affinity with Liu Yiming’s teachings, will recognise many parallels and, hopefully, find them enriching. Considering they have no ming practice as we understand it, I find it remarkable how this account begins with the significance of the lower dantian. And of particular relevance to my previous posts is that the love-fire of the Divine Venus (Pure yin?) is seen as the secret key for opening the xuanpin.

Yes, I was like that too for many, many years (far worse, in fact), but a long time before I joined Dao Bums I went through a profound reversal of attitude due to the unbearably bleak place I found myself in. In this I was guided by many teachings. In retrospect I can acknowledge that Spirit guided be both into the bleak places of despair and aloneness, and then towards a deep inner sense belonging. I’m referring here to an ongoing decades long process through which I’ve experienced great anguish as well as lifesaving human warmth and support. Such a path is perhaps unavoidable for any independent seeker. Here’s a quotation from someone I regard as a Buddha that expresses this process with great clarity. Zerostao reminded me of it with his recent post. “The modern man does not want to know in what way he can imitate Christ, but in what way he can live his own individual life, however meagre and uninteresting it may be. It is because every form of imitation seems to him deadening and sterile that he rebels against the force of tradition that would hold him to well-trodden ways. All such roads, for him, lead in the wrong direction. He may not know it, but he behaves as if his own individual life were God’s special will which must be fulfilled at all costs. This is the source of his egoism, which is one of the most tangible evils of the neurotic state. But the person who tells him he is too egoistic has already lost his confidence, and rightly so, for that person has driven him still further into his neurosis. If I wish to effect a cure for my patients, I am forced to acknowledge the deep significance of their egoism, I should be blind, indeed, if I did not recognize it as a true will of God. I must even help the patient to prevail in his egoism; if he succeeds in this, he estranges himself from other people. He drives them away, and they come to themselves as they should, for they were seeking to rob him of his “sacred” egoism. This must be left to him, for it is his strongest and healthiest power; it is, as I have said, a true will of God, which sometimes drives him into complete isolation. However wretched this state may be, it also stands him in good stead, for in this way alone can he get to know himself and learn what an invaluable treasure is the love of his fellow beings. It is, moreover, only in the state of complete abandonment and loneliness that we experience the helpful powers of our own natures. When one has several times seen this development at work one can no longer deny that what was evil has turned to good, and that what seemed good has kept alive the forces of evil. The archdemon of egoism leads us along the royal road to that ingathering which religious experience demands. What we observe here is a fundamental law of life, enantiodromia or conversion into the opposite; and it is this that makes possible the reunion of the warring halves of the personality and thereby brings the civil war to an end.” Edit to add: The one part I disagree with is: “but in what way he can live his own individual life, however meagre and uninteresting it may be.” In my experience a true path, ie one that’s guided by Spirit, never feels meagre and uninteresting. Even in my greatest despair I never felt that. At all times I felt the profound meaningfulness of the path I was on. I’d say ‘meagre and uninteresting’ are sure indicators that we are on a path that’s wrong for us, even though it may be a path that’s lauded by society.

I appreciate that staff maintains this forum as a place where meaningful dialogue is possible. I find it’s current incarnation plenty busy enough. There’s some level of stillness here, yet I don’t consider it a safe place, nor would I want it to be. For anyone attuned to subtle energy flows, there’s plenty of underlying conflict here. And I need that for my inner growth. It makes me aware of the varied paths we are on and of the myriad conflicting forces within me. When there is ongoing gross conflict stirred up my those who seek to dominate the forum with their own strong opinions, then this subtle level of engagement is drowned out. I’m thankful that the endless battles that these opinion warlords are seemingly compelled to engage in are no longer tolerated by staff.

That’s actually very gentle. Leonard Cohen doesn’t pull his punches on this one.

Dao Bums is the only social media I use, and my sparse level of posting gives no indication of the amount of time I spend reading discussions here. That sincere engagement helps keep me connected with the thoughts and experiences of other people whose life is centred on spiritual practice, and the insights I gain help deepen my understanding of myself and human nature in general. I’m naturally reclusive and my day-to-day interactions are mostly spent in silent communion with the forest that surrounds me; with the natural elements and with the wildlife. Taken as a whole, the discussions here teach me in ways that are complementary to the silence wisdom of nature. By feeling my way beneath the surface in both, and learning to discern meaningful interaction from the meaningless, the voice of Spirit becomes clearer to me.

For insight into Damo Mitchell as a person, I highly recommend this video. He discusses his aims as a teacher of Daoist arts, and at length about how being a teacher of some renown feels for him. Although Damo is not my teacher, and I’ve elsewhere expressed some reservations about the teaching of neidan in general, I have a great respect for him and am very happy for him to be a public face of contemporary Western Daoism. To me he comes across as a real person in that he values the cultivation of both thinking and feeling. He’s someone who is always learning, a person of authentic humility and compassion. (Incidentally, Damo is a member of this forum. He joined on 7 August this year but without making a Welcome post. I suspect Trunk admitted him silently and his remarks in this video gives some insight into why he joined in that near the end he talks about his reaction to criticism of him on public forums such as Facebook and Dao Bums. Those remarks make it clear that it’s extremely unlikely for him to engage in discussion here. And I totally understand why that’s the case. However, if he was to become an active member, this video would make an excellent Welcome post. )

@steve You’ve been a huge stabilising influence on this forum. While I can fully understand your need to move away from a staff role on Dao Bums and am profoundly thankful for the effort you’ve put in, my overwhelming emotion on reading your message was one of sadness. And on that I’ll say no more. Rather, I’ll let this complex web of feelings wash through me over the course of the day and hopefully some new insight will be born. It’s a beautiful sunny and mild spring day outside and I’m about to head out to do some landcare work. I’m thankful for connection to my land. Nature is a great calming and grounding influence on me.

Sitting in Oblivion: The Heart of Daoist Meditation by Livia Kohn You can download the Contents and Introduction for free at the Three Pines website: https://threepinespress.com/2020/08/01/sitting-in-oblivion-the-heart-of-daoist-meditation/

The importance of support groups, I totally get it. NA saved my life from heroin addiction back in the 1980’s. But in NA we never talked about drugs as evil. We never tried to convince other people of their folly in using drugs. Rather a foundational principal of NA (and AA for alcohol) is that if you want to use drugs that’s your business, but if you want to stop come to NA. In other words, these groups are fundamentally not evangelical. The problem I have with the PPD discussions in question is that their focus is on the evil of vaccines, of the supposed damage they do to our physical bodies. And to that end a large amount of extremely dubious information has been presented. If the discussion stuck to the sort of issues Luke raises above then I wholeheartedly support it. Cultivation of my subtle body is of primary importance for me. I try to avoid taking any sort of medication and have almost entirely done so for the last 30 years. Yet I chose to get Covid 19 AstraZenica vaccine. One, because I’m old and I have legacy health issues from my drug using days, notably respiratory weakness. Two, I could feel how much subtle energy I would need to expend to defend myself against the power of the collective push to vaccinate everyone. Also, I was curious to feel for myself what effects I felt from the vaccine. At this stage I notice no adverse effect on my subtle body and am very pleased I feel a measure of protection both against Covid and against the very real pressure to vaccinate. There are so many ways ‘normal’ contemporary lifestyles damage our subtle bodies. Drugs and alcohol are just one of the more obvious examples of many. Of these damaging influences, I personally don’t consider the one off taking of a vaccine to be a significant concern.

Thank you for addressing this issue Trunk. I go for option 2 myself. Allowing what is really controversial current affairs discussion in members PPD’s was always a loophole in the new rule confining current events discussion to a separate section. To my understanding, PPD’s are not meant as little subforums where people can spruik their own opinions on controversial topics.

No way did I laugh at that. It reminded me of a news article I read a few days ago: I used to drink until I passed out so I could forget my past. Then I got a cat “In 2019, I was in the throes of recovering from a devastating rape. I was constantly suicidal. I knew that I needed something other than myself to stay alive for. So, I got a kitten. Before I got my cat, I would spend the evenings drinking until I passed out. I used to drink until I didn't know where I was, or who I was, or what had happened to me. I would wake up bleary-eyed and sick and shaking — but at least I'd have forgotten what it feels like to be violently sexually assaulted by someone holding a blade to your throat…. My cat helped me to feel things again. He helped me feel things that were stronger than my urge to die – my love for him, and the fact that he needed me. I needed to stay alive because his survival depended on mine, and as soon as I met him for the first time, I knew that would be enough.”