senseless virtue

Some meditation teachers say that speaking the healing sounds loudly is wrong: they should be said silently and that the shape of the mouth is the only thing that matters.

 

As far as I understand it's about training towards a smooth and long breathing, which will help pacifying the heart and spirit. Arriving at stillness is the next step, and it cannot be forced in any manner.

2 hours ago, Master Logray said:

The attention should be drawn inward during training.

 

That is true if your practice is about reaching a proper trance state, i.e. Dhyana.

 

Those who practice Buddhist wisdom methods like Zen and Dzogchen would aspire to rest in natural open awareness where in and out lose their meaning and deep meditative absorption is often viewed as an undesirable side path.

Just now, MattMyster said:

What do you mean by tension practices?

 

Applying tension is a fundamental part of these practices. It's frankly quite dangerous and very unorthodox in the context of typical Daoist training precept to keep everything relaxed. You would need to have superb teacher to not get any type of deviation, and there's the often left out premise that hardening and tension practices suppose an excellent health to begin with.

 

 

Just now, MattMyster said:

From what I gathered Level 1 is 81 hours of meditation filling up dantien and Level 2 is forming it via the same or other meditations.

 

And then what? The complete system is supposed to have some 72 levels so it's deficient training in as much it's incomplete. It might not be good for health to leave the training unfinished or prolong the practice of beginning levels.

 

 

Just now, MattMyster said:

Are you saying prolonged meditation can ill effects or are you referring to potential damaging effects of messing with the Dan tien in level 2 without proper supervision?

 

Everything in technical internal alchemy pursuits, like Mo Pai supposedly is, requires extreme context sensitivity and wisdom. There are many things that could go wrong even if you did everything by the letter.

Hello MattMyster and welcome!

 

20 hours ago, MattMyster said:

what Jim taught to do for levels 1-2

 

Tension practices that aren't so good for health. These only work in the context of the complete system and under superior instructions, but there is a cabal of stubborn Western practitioners out there in the wild who think they are smarter than everyone by the margin of a misconstrued scientific proof.

 

 

20 hours ago, MattMyster said:

if anyone can point me in the right direction

 

The ethically right direction is with legitimate and safe practices trained under the auspices of responsible and competent teachers.

1 hour ago, Paradoxal said:

As it is taught in eight lectures, would I be able to start building my practice after one lecture, or would I need to complete all eight before I could begin any sort of practice? 

 

Both Flying Phoenix and Sleeping Qigong are rather modular and very easy for learning purposes. The technical level is low compared to some styles of Daoist alchemy.

 

FP DVD volumes 1 & 2 are a great starter pack. With Sleeping Qigong you could ask Sifu Dolic to teach you the exercise Five Dragons Curled Up or the first main exercise called Body and Mind as One depending on what type of practice you would like to do.

 

Please note that FP and Sleeping Qigong are compatible and synergize with each other splendidly.

2 hours ago, Paradoxal said:

where can I start with said systems? 

 

http://www.taichimania.com/chikung_catalog.html

 

 

http://www.qigongchinesehealth.com/ot-sqg

 

http://www.qigongchinesehealth.com/sleeping_qigong

 

 

25 minutes ago, Paradoxal said:

I am looking for methods I can use to heal others. I don't quite understand how these systems can be used externally. Do they teach TCM inside the systems? Is there a type of spirit healing that is taught?

 

I understood you exactly.

 

Flying Phoenix and Shui Gong are the best healing methods that I know and they are also very spiritual styles. Neither consumes your own energy when healing nor works through the Classical Chinese Medicine theory. These are esoteric Daoist methods that are intuitively understood through practice.

Shui Gong or Sleeping Qigong also has many healing methods.

On 8/2/2020 at 12:51 AM, anshino23 said:

Are you allowed to expound on what exactly it has done for you that makes you say that it's both clearly powerful and very healing? I'd be very curious to hear if you'd like to share.  Happy to hear you've been enjoying the practice.  

 

It consistently produces feelings of welfare and leaves a good and stable sense of vitality that carries on long time. My dreams have been signaling a lot more healing images and symbols since starting. To sum: it just feels right.

I have been practicing Fragrant Qigong level 1 for a while now. It's clearly a powerful and very healing method so I wanted to give it my public endorsement and a very brief review.

 

The Fragrant practice and its limitations are not my cup of tea really, but its actual practice feels extraordinarily casual and accessible. If you can see past its formal part, you can't help but be thankful for how easily it integrates to daily life and how little effort it requires outside of the regular practice commitment of two or three sessions each day.

 

The Fragrant Water is another fine perk that is a stand alone healing practice on its own.

Really interesting, thank you for sharing!

 

Everyone should note that sponsoring authentic Dharma or cultivation texts' translation and publishing is an excellent merit. The chief benefit is that in future lifetimes you will be able to receive such texts yourself.

@Nintendao It was user @natural who posted the sad response.

 

I liked the bear, he's got mad skills. This time I'm not sure if even Chuck Norris could defeat such a fearsome enemy.

@moment, now is a time that we start building a safe space for all living beings. Someone's feelings could really get badly hurt because of that video you posted!

 

The above video titled "5 funny monkeys dancing" seems to feature apes of chimpanzee origin, so it has been titled in a bigoted, species discriminating manner. We want to have politically correct human and chimpanzee relations and thus we are obliged to give our chimpanzee cousins a proper dignifying designation "ape" instead of the inappropriate slur "monkey." In the current year we don't want to remain ignorant or claim that all simians can be categorically labeled with misidentifying terms without asking their explicit consent first, which is to recognize that some minority of chimpanzees could actually feel that they themselves are monkeys and not apes and should be identified as such by their proper designation.

 

Furthermore, the dancing sequence and the accompanying music seems inspired by traditional Irish dance and music. We will have to talk this through with the Cannabums department heads and make sure that human cultural activities are no longer improperly appropriated by playful simians of any species. We further demand that human diversity is increased among simian entertainers in order to prevent a simian monoculture agglomerating on this campus.

 

We want to have pre-emptive lead against all discriminating specist behavior. Therefore I am going to recommend that our human members have exchange periods among simians. Hopefully this will lead to new heights in mutual respect and understanding, and also sharing vital technological skills. Humans in particular could learn from simians how to settle fights and wars with flinging fecal matter against the opponent instead of waging prolonged campaigns of destruction and violence.

 

Yours truly,

virtue

The Self-Righteous and Self-Declared Dean of The Dao Bums Department of Political Correctness, Social Justice, and Reconciliation Between Species

9 minutes ago, SirPalomides said:

What a curious attempt to derail the thread into an ad hominem attack

 

Please look in the mirror very carefully. No one likes hypocrisy, and exposing hypocritical standards is not any sort of "ad hominem attack."

 

I made a strong ethical point about not mixing guns and practical street-level politics because we don't want to encourage or escalate violence, now do we?

 

Then you cited a political fighter disowning non-violence and calling the US immoral. It's completely relevant and clearheaded to call out your own shilling for the Chinese government in this regard.

 

You have showed much wisdom outside of political topics, so what's stopping you from applying the same principles of lucidity and kindness here?

 

 

 

Discussion about sustainable agriculture and different methods of permaculture gardening! Sharing your own experiences and dreams is very much welcome.

 

I will keep updating this first post with good materials, i.e. videos and text, about the topic.

It's disappointing to realize that there are members here on the Dao Bums hinting violence as a key factor in building a better world for everyone.

 

Quote

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

— Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

 

Take the following in contrast with the quote above:

 

8 hours ago, SirPalomides said:

As Stokely Carmichael said, "In order for non-violence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.'

 

This quote masquerades as moral outrage, but it is stopping short of calling another group of people sub-humans. Then I recall you have history of systematically defending the People's Republic of China despite its obvious abuses against specific ethnicities. For you to not to be a hypocrite in this instance you should also be crying for the armament of the Uyghurs and Tibetans who are suffering right now at the hands of a highly organized government lacking conscience and good faith.

 

https://madeinchinajournal.com/2020/07/07/what-about-whataboutism/

1 hour ago, SirPalomides said:

I am glad to see some American leftist groups are training with arms.

 

I would be glad to see private people interested self-defense, hunting, and marksmanship to learn basic skills in using handguns and hunting rifles. Anything more is excessive unless you train with the military or tactical police squads.

 

More about that going overboard department: People congregating under political and otherwise intentionally factional banners to train with arms is just bullshit. Think about for a moment what kind of seeds you are sowing and what kind of moral panic it would create, especially if it turns out to include actual combat training. If you want to foster peace and really bring people together then forget guns — unless you want to have a traditional shotgun wedding.

Flying Phoenix Qigong cultivates a blue healing energy that others can also see around the advanced practitioners. Not sure if this is anything you could be interested in, but I would guess that Flying Phoenix community has a lot of people with blue auras.

Thank you for your expanded thoughts @freeform!

 

I knew of the balancing aspect that is involved in the Tree Gong training, but I stopped short of commenting more and kept the message very concise.

 

My stab was the usual caveat aimed at claims and adverts that say connecting with the external sources makes for extraordinary practice. This obviously has a quality of exchanging and balancing information that can be nurturing, but it's not cultivation rather than preliminary practice.

 

That being said, maybe it's clear now that I posted my reply on the wrong topic. Please excuse me!

Tree Gong and Other External Energy Generating Methods

 

2 hours ago, freeform said:

Your body and consciousness are far more powerful than any Qi machine. Far more.

 

People worry about EMF fields - and yes they can be a problem - but once you start to generate enough Qi - it will be you affecting the EMFs rather than the other way round.

 

External devises - even using ‘natural’ external sources for Qi (like trees, waterfalls or power points in the environment) can quickly become a crutch rather than assistance.

 

There are no shortcuts.
 

Well - only one - learning to love and enjoy the inherent sacrifices involved in training hard  

 

I feel this bit indicates clearly how modest attainment it is to tamper with methods that condition one's own energy to rely on some external setup. Also, such is the suspected level of attainment in styles that promote Tree Gong as an essential skill.

17 minutes ago, Cleansox said:

Does that mean that my full collection of Conan swords are useless in combat?

 

It means that you didn't get the Riddle of Steel either.

Don't you people see that instigating and staging Bumfights could end you up in legal troubles?

1 minute ago, Cleansox said:

Will you also see to other administrative issues like the PPD threads?

 

Great call!

 

I would finally want to see that Jeff PPD section nuked! I reported this issue on the bans thread months ago.

 

There are some pages Jeff had intentionally set to energetically connect the viewer with his practices. If you have good faith about people's complaints about entities and other nastiness around Jeff, then the PPD should be at least hidden if not completely deleted.

Hi MetaDao! Welcome aboard and hopefully you enjoy your stay.

 

There exists a lot of ancient technology relating to spiritual energy generation so shoehorning this into something exclusively enabled by modernity is a mistake.

 

Tibetan Buddhism in particular has a long history of having prayer flags and cylindrical prayer wheels that carry blessings and radiate energy to the environment. Wind and sound are very typical mediums for transmitting such energies. I have seen solar powered electronic prayer wheels that rotate on their own and computer programs can be used to run holy mantras to some effect if you know what you are doing.

 

 

6 hours ago, MetaDao said:

Can we take in chi directly from a generator to store in our dantian without going through the tedious processes of chi gung and such?

 

Receiving blessings and energy from mantras and other blessings doesn't lead to neigong or spiritual alchemy directly. You can be sure of this.

 

Even if the the practitioner receives plenty of good energy from "outside" sources, it settling into dantian is a matter of sufficiently calm mind and wisdom by the virtue of the sinking mind that remains composed at all times. Most likely the effects are going to be more holistic and stimulate the other energetic wirings of the bodymind complex.

 

 

6 hours ago, MetaDao said:

Also, I have recently discovered the existence of attunements to various energies, such as reiki.

 

These can be problematic because a lot of people are just playing around with energetic phenomena instead of having proficiency and understanding. Reiki in particular suffers from incomplete attunements that will damage the practitioner if persisted in that practice: the phenomenon is often called the wounded healer.

 

 

6 hours ago, MetaDao said:

People transfer these energies through chi because chi is infinite and everywhere. It has the metaphysical property of being able to traverse any distance instantly. Could we attune ourselves to the taoist energies of someone who is much further along the path than us to jumpstart our own path?

 

First, I would caution you to take your own speculations here with salt.

 

It seems you would benefit from reading Michael Lomax's writings and teachings. His user profile is @Ya Mu and you can search for what he has written around this forum. Michael has written a book called A Light Warrior's Guide to High Level Energy Healing that deals with his experiences with energy, and his lineage Stillness-Movement gives dantian empowerment to jumpstart new people's practice. Some traditional Daoist lineages have a long history of lighting the dantian, but it's usually given only very selectively to dedicated disciples.

Two quality videos somewhat related on the topic. It seems quite hard to find decent material, so hopefully these serve as passable insights into what calligraphy as meditation or cultivation could be.