senseless virtue

The Dao Bums
  • Content count

    867
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    3

About senseless virtue

  • Rank
    Dao Bum
  1. Flowing zen, good for beginners?

    Ok. I hope that you do keep your samaya vows intact if you have received any Vajrayana teachings like you seem to have. You mentioned about Dakinis and a portion of practice instructions that might require keeping it as secret from the non-initiated. You might want to edit your earlier post for this reason. For those wondering what is samaya and how it relates to Gurus: it's pretty strict lifetime commitment and means to not wound the love and power which Guru bestows with the tantric initiation. Abusing the vows leads to hell rebirth unless the breaches are purified. Also, abandoning one's Guru leads to the karma that one will never again meet the teachings of Buddha in any future lifetime. Sounds pretty serious, but taking empowerments and accepting Gurus is a personal choice and everybody usually is well informed about what responsibilities it carries to both for the teacher and the student.
  2. Flowing zen, good for beginners?

    Ok, I don't have a clear view of what you are looking for in shielding so I'm stopping here. It might be interesting for you to learn that Shuigong also has protective visualizations in its dream practice. These aren't humanoid figures though. Bodhicitta. Either you use the extra energy in pursuits of altruistic love and higher causes or it escapes through habitual vices. That's how I see it, but you might want something else per your teacher's recommendation that you quote.
  3. Flowing zen, good for beginners?

    Sorry, but this doesn't sound true and you might be misinformed. There are plenty of shielding practices starting from basic ethical discipline to various mantras and dharanis in Paramitayana and then deity sadhanas in Vajrayana. Even reading certain Mayahana Sutras can make for reasonable shielding. Understandable. Be mindful though that many esoteric mantras are also used in all Mayahana and plenty of these don't require going to the tantric deep end. Yet, discussing these mantras even with your Ch'an or Zen teacher can be very helpful because following a valid teacher is the way to go.
  4. Use cannabis to build Chi

    That is a technically correct answer and a very thoughtful one.
  5. Flowing zen, good for beginners?

    In some cases yes. Stillness-Movement Neigong, Tao Tan Pai, Flying Phoenix Qigong, and Shuigong have good pedigrees and excellent meditative results even in the modern era. All of them feature either energy transmission or traditional initiation at some point of the training as far as I understand. Michael Lomax, Sifu Terry Dunn, and Sifu John Dolic also teach online and do Q&A in case you are interested in more interaction. Why are you looking for qigong if you have found Buddhism?
  6. Flowing zen, good for beginners?

    My article might be useful even if not directly answering your question:
  7. Use cannabis to build Chi

    Spiritual discipline prevents loss and harm. This is its singular purpose. Without this foundation all "practice" is wishful hobbyist theory and all likely risks become realized in one form or another. That's why you don't see Michael Winn or Mantak Chia students becoming flying mahasiddhas even if they gathered all the energy and even if they practiced all the forms correctly. Freedom from error is the highest guarantee for success as far as internal training goes.
  8. Actual purpose of the dantian?

    Come on! You let out a secret worth of bazillion bucks like it was nothing!
  9. Zhineng Qigong on Sale on Udemy for $10

    What you say is interesting enough that it would deserve its own topic. Sometimes levels are really abstract and only nominal. Who says that learning kungfu footwork and Zhan Zhuang shouldn't be separate levels? What about separation between skills and form based methods? Levels can also include the commonly mentioned preliminary training as its own stage, but the preliminary training is never abandoned like the word "level" often implies going beyond one step after another. There are quite a few qigong styles that have levels in the sense that they build on each other so that there is natural progression and changing focus. You also are correct that this can and often does act as a powerful gatekeeping mechanism where the master will not give new teachings until the prior levels are completed with desired results. What is to be noted is that only the body and form based internal arts in the Daoist vein have any strongly justifiable leveling systems beyond the standard division between preliminary and intensified practice stages. Here the levels in Daoist arts then correspond to the subdivided stage of intensified practice where foundational discipline is already excellent enough to carry on through levels without interruption. Real traditional arts have no discontinuity because discipline is always there in the background. It's a modern phenomenon that people only receive morsels of complete arts, but most of all it's the sign that aspirants haven't been serious enough with their preliminary training, i.e. perfecting morality and discipline, and thus deserve no transmission of effective intensified practice methods. This is very traditional in all of the Eastern spiritual currents: first get your act together and become a disciplined and lovely person, and only then you will receive the means to exercise power. Many people seem to think they deserve all the power and none of the inhibitions though so this discrimination becomes a point of bitter bemoaning. I have seen and heard of plenty of cases where Neijia masters can't or won't share higher details of their art to the students. This isn't anything like holding back some secret meditation trick or the ultimate fighting technique, but the fact that master won't always help their students to grasp what is needed for their inner skills to mature efficiently. Everyone who has ever learned to ride a bicycle without training wheels or taught their kids how to do it knows exactly what is meant: pointing out that you can do it and have been able to do it for a good while already. The actual procedure of skill based training is much more nuanced, but the overall methodology depends on the same type of awareness and reciprocity coming through the teacher. Therefore I must ask how is the traditional training without levels somehow stopping the gatekeeping phenomenon or pyramid schemes to defraud the unwary? The teacher can still come up with any justification he feels as valid. @Gerard I think you just manufactured an issue by arbitrarily declaring two opposing baskets and then offered a neat non-solution which candidly favors your own brand of dog food by a generous chance of luck out of all things. I call it luck because so far there are no objective criteria to validate your claims. Your third and fourth examples are good advice for everyone though and I hope that people see it.
  10. Use cannabis to build Chi

    I think it's highly ignorant to separate these two. Building qi always takes correct discipline, and to really master discipline you need to be able to discern well between what is harmful and what is helpful.
  11. Use cannabis to build Chi

    In fact the entire pursuit of spirituality is one extensive learning for to be able to spontaneously separate good and bad.
  12. Breath % in BFP meditations

    "Less more harm" sounds pretty neutral. And somehow strangely pretty. I love Engrish.
  13. Breath % in BFP meditations

    One can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Best of luck to you.
  14. Breath % in BFP meditations

    This should be pretty obvious considering we talk about martial arts. Martial energy is meant for killing human beings. Many of the advanced Bok Fu Pai meditations and their breath sequences activate that capacity. I think you should go ask Sifu Terry Dunn or search the Flying Phoenix discussion thread if you still find my explanation hard to grasp. Sifu Terry has made numerous references to the fighting capacity of the GMDW meditative arts.
  15. Breath % in BFP meditations

    This is how GM Doo Wai learned the breath sequencing as it had been traditional for many generations. GMDW eventually became so skillful that he crafted correct breath sequencing formulas to any new martial styles that he didn't inherit from his father. From Sifu Terry Dunn's writings we can see that Eight Sections of Energy Combined (Bot Dim Gum in Cantonese) is one of these. As a closure, I want to remind everybody that Sifu Terry has brought up several times that it's dangerous to create breathing formulas on your own because it might access unhealthy energies. He also shared a personal account about Flying Phoenix advanced level that doing the movements wrong even by accident can also induce a real energy injury. Please take care and don't waste your time on yogic skills that go beyond your level.