smallsteps

Hi Sifu Terry Dunn,

Thank you very much for your reply to my questions about Flying Phoenix Chi Kung being compatible with any religious practice and about unity of religions.

Actually, it would be most interesting to carry on this conversation about religions, but it seems more appropriate to leave it at it is. Thank you also for this quote extracted from W.Y. Evans-Wentz's book. I have taken the book out of my shelves and will read again the Introduction. I had forgotten about its content.

I hope to be back soon in this thread,

Sincerely

edited for grammar

~ Apeiron&Peiron,

Thank you for your contributions and for your findings. I have no particular comment to make about your posts concerning FP qigong because I am not in position to do so, not because I haven't received them well. The links to Sifu Terry Dunn's posts indeed give some answers. He will perhaps add something else.

I don't have any specific problem with reading long and complicated sentences in English.

Take care

I am sorry Apeiron&Peiron. Do post more if you feel like to.

Hi TheWhiteRabbit,

I like your post but just to let you know, morals really get a bad press here at TDB, so be prepared for a bumpy stay..

Best qi,

As I want this thread to stay on topic, I will also make my long post short.
 
The questions(s) I asked were not general questions. I specifically asked about FP qigong because of its real/alledegly divine origin and because Sifu Terry Dunn's liberal use of quotations from various religious traditions. So, again, I want my question to stay in this specific context : FP qigong and Terry Dunn's views as a very experienced as well as a very learned person.
 
Why is that? Because otherwise, this might turn into some potentially endless and pointless debate/fight about the unity of religions. We have already those kind of threads here, and we know that part if not all of them are now into the Pit. Guess why?
 
The Dao Bums is a nice place but often times people can't help sharing their own thoughts when it could be useful to question them in the first place. I am not here to debate, to discuss nor to openly question what Sifu Terry Dunn might say. I am only here to listen to, note down and be questioned by what he might say as an expert.
 

Edit: To make a long story short, there shouldn't be a problem since the practices are built upon the functionality of the energy body and don't outwardly use any deity invocations or evocations.

Actually, there could be a problem. There is a principle- or perhaps it is only a saying: as inside so outside, as within so without. And it seems that Taoists used this principle abundantly in their deity invocation practices. The body is probably not this perfectly neutral and blank place under cover from the outside world as some fancy it to be.

Who really knows what is the body actually and what is it capable of?

edited: minor syntaxic and grammar corrections

That's a bit of a tall order...

My question is more about hearing what is Sifu Terry Dunn's personal take on this based on his own experience-understanding. I am not asking for a PhD dissertation. My posts are only a distraction from practice.

Me, too.

 

Just catching up with this past week's posts.

 

Sifu Terry Dunn

I deleted my posts first because my questions didn't make sense to people. Some even seem to think I was some kind of fundamentalist brainwashed Christian. Second it looked like Sifu Terry Dunn wasn't interested in answering them.

Since it would be the least of my intention to introduce any disruption in this thread, I tried to clean up my own backyard.

So here is another version of my question.

I understood that FP qigong was not a generic qigong a la Eight pieces of Brocade. FP qigong has very a specific methodology, and  give access to a healing energy that can't be found otherwise. The legend says that this qigong was a gift from a goddess to a man. This seems reasonable to me since I can't see how a man - however genius- could have figure this out by himself.

Given this supernatural origin rooted in Buddhism/Taoism, I was wondering if this qigong system was compatible with any religious or spiritual practice that would have different roots and branches. As an illustration of that, which kind of triggered my question, Sifu Terry Dunn often makes references to Christianity, Thelemic mottos via A. Crowley's works etc. as if all religious or spiritual works were operating at the same level.

Reading Sifu Terry Dunn's posts, I don't think he is a kind of New Age person. I was thus only asking two questions in one:

- Can anyone practice FP regardless of their religion?

- Can Sifu Terry explain a little about the underlying unity of religions?

I realize this is not a question about practice and is probably useless to most people here.

Thank you Astral_Butterfly for your PMs and thank you Sifu Terry Dunn if you choose to respond to this post.

Thanks for your answer fu_doggy.

Btw, I love your avatar, it reminds me of the awesome little dog I had in my youth.

This post was the one too many.

Hi Fu_doggy,

It looks like you stopped practicing Flying Phoenix. May I ask why ?

Thanks!

Hi Earl Grey,

There was no offense taken from your post, I actually liked it, so no need to apologise for anything.

Thank you for your well-meant post!

Be well

.

.

The Dao Bums has actually and fortunately several areas. We can choose to read or to ignore specific threads and when can choose to react or not to those we read.

I have read some threads and choose not to react and in most cases not to read them anymore. Specifically, there are threads (like those related to politics, but not just them) where people argue endlessly out of ideological biases, some other threads are just 'screwed up' (sorry I don't know how to say it properly) by people who post for the only sake of attacking others. And this pattern is repeating itself threads after threads, and that seems to be just fine for those people.

So why not post out of good will and sympathy for others, to give this forum a chance to be a place where we can listen to others and share and learn, despite of the evil that is going on here in the same way it goes in the real world?

We can't absolutely rely on any admin, mod or anyone to enforce rules. Everyone has biases. They may even do things that should earn them a ban but still stay on charge. That's the same in the real world.

But those who care can make an individual effort to cultivate goodness and apply it in our posting and when it appears that evil is dominant and overwhelming report to the mods without hoping too much and move on to another thread.

Edited to add ' but still stay on charge' and to correct a minor typo

But if you leave then there will be one less voice to combat what you feel is wrong or inappropriate.

 

Opinions and understandings that are being presented here happen all the time in the "real world".  If no one critically questions what others say then what was said may easily be taken as truth.

 

You have friends here Ralis.  Can leaving be justified just because of a few things happening that you don't approve of?

 

Changes are made by those who speak up, not by those who say nothing or turn our back on what is happening that we don't approve of.

I repeat this. Every community needs people's good will and sense of justice. We can't just leave.

My 2 cts.

Welcome here Mud Dragon

Welcome , glad you made your way to the Dao Bums.

Welcome !

A little late, but a big welcome

"knowing when to stop" and actually doing it is the hardest thing I ever tried to do.

As you said Marblehead, there is something that exists without words. As soon as mind puts names, categories and concepts, we enter a world ruled by opposites and differences. Hence the disputes and the never ending disagreements because everyone believes his own mind over 'what is' that the mind can't see. 'What is' is larger than any thinking system or philosophy, it is inconceivable.

When I see a flower, what I see is beyond any thought of mine about what a flower is and it would take an infinite book to describe with words the reality of what I see, because language is conceptual by nature and selects and cuts from reality to produce meaning. So there is indeed always something that is unseen by the mind. Senses are closer to reality when mind gives them break but it is still not it.

So if we can't get rid of conceptual mind because we are human beings and not potatoes, the only practical way lies into knowing when to stop.

To that, we have to know the difference between the small bucket (our mind) and the large bucket (the Dao) and stop at the entrance of the Dao which is inevitably also neither an entrance nor an exit because it is there that all directions (= concepts) are erased. It is where there is no ground anymore for the mind and where everything is dissolved into what our mind takes as nothingness when it is only the end of things ( = no thing) as mind sees them.

Hard to be humble enough to stop believing our own mind, our own thinking instead of following the way of the Dao.

Actually my above chitchat is something full of pride. Silly me

Edited the last line:  'the' is replaced by 'my'

I think Zhuangzi’s easy delight in all aspects of existence is a privilege of old age. That’s how it is for me anyway (for some of the time, at least). I’ve had to work my way through material struggles, love & loss, success & failure, words and concepts, in order to build a suitable basis – a small boat, to use a Daoist image – able to float and drift in harmony with the flow of things. And the flow of things I’m referring to is not congruent with the flow of human society – for me it’s outside and beyond societal conditioning.

 

That’s the struggle – to free oneself from societal conditioning and the dominance of a personal ego. Only then do I have appropriate de to be able to spontaneously interact in harmony with the yin and yang forces of both human society and nature at large.  

This is beautifully said. Thank you.

I wish I had a better command of english so that I could participate more to the thread.

This great is very interesting, thanks a lot Tao stillness!

It is not about coming here and being a naysayer but some systems doesn't seem to bring so much longevity. For example, one family member of the chi kung system you mentioned didn't hit 80 years old. I am not saying the system doesn't have benefits..Anyway, I made the same observations for several systems.

Some years ago, I was very enthusiast about chi kung, but not that much now. It seems to me that a lot of the chi kung we can see here and there are soft physical exercises : good for the joints, the improved circulation etc. but some crucial element seems to be missing.

I have yet to encounter a real potent system.

Sorry for the pessimistic tone of my post

Edited to correct a typo

Chuang-Tzu admits no idea of salvation. There is no self and no awakening from the dream of self:

 

Very interesting Yueya, thank you. I'll ponder over this. This is new to me.

Oh, no!  He called me out.  Hehehe.

 

We won't do that in this thread.

 

There are a couple older threads that speak to this.  If you do the ground work and find them, then post to them I will be happy to do the best I can to speak with you about them.

Ok, sorry, didn't want to go off topic. Will do the digging and come back to you later !

And yes, there are a lot of parallels between Buddhism and Taoism at the basic concept level.

In your understanding, what are the main tenets making them diverge at some point?