rideforever

Problem is ... once you see the rot, it has probably been in the house for several generations. People who indulge in pleasure too much lose contact with reality, as part of the country seems to have.

May is just desperate to hand in the towel

The "thinker" is not taken at face value. By using your thinking with direction (i.e. by thinking actively) your thoughts are very different and your "presence" as well, then from daydreaming. If you are lazy and daydream your thoughts are rubbish and meaningless, they are like static radio. If you are present and active then your thoughts are clear coherent, intelligent and capable of building bridges. Is that not obvious ? Can you not tell the difference between being asleep at night, and being awake during the day ? So, through thinking and learning to think you develop competence in thought. Your thinking becomes intelligent and meaningful. Not only that but you notice that you are "more awake" when you think clearly. And more asleep when you daydream. Also, my own thoughts are different from your yours. That's obvious. Therefore I am a centre of thinking and you are a separate centre. In other words I am a unique intelligence, I am not the background. I am me, and my thoughts are mine ... at least if I make the effort. If I drift in a daydream then I become the background. if I allow myself to daydream then not only do my thoughts lose coherence and cease to work in real life (i.e. flying a plane is not a good idea) ... and my mind becomes full of collective rubbish. So, what can we conclude from these basic facts that we all experience ? Simply that if we are lazy we cease to exist in any meaningful capacity, and our thoughts disintegrate into the background, and our identity disintegrates as well. However if we think actively we become more present, our thinking becomes unique and individuated, and starts to be productive in the material world, our individuality becomes meaningful. As Shankara/ Watts etc... did not differentiate such simple things ... well it's quite pathetic. How can you be a great teacher when you discuss the thoughts of humans, without differentiating between daydreaming and active thinking ? Incomprehensibly ignorant rather than "great teachers". In fact in order to be a "great teacher", it's quite simple. You simply repeat the obviously wrong ideas of the previous "great teachers", and then you will be respected by the men-monkeys of the Earth. Well, I am sure somebody finds it funny !!!

Here is Mark Cohen's website with link for DVD, he also has a great series of the Nuts & Bolts of ZZ, which is on youtube .... also linked from this webpage. "Aloha". All in all I really like spending time with him, he is mercifully grounded and authentic. http://insidezhanzhuang.com/ BKF is a great teacher but all teachers need to earn money and I have no quarrel with that, without money there is no school or teacher. I have found his single practice DVDs to be absolutely first class, even old ones I dug up on ebay. It is not a great approach to try and do the highest ever practice, when starting out. As for the 16 Neigong I think the Heaven & Earth BKF practice is much better clearer and easier to get in to that using Gods as a vehicle for it, which is very difficult and I imagine gets poor results. But better than that is Dragon & Tiger, that's my opinion. Spring Forest, never tried it but always like the name. Nevertheless I am an engineer so I choose things that I can understand what is happening inside, maps diagrams meridiens principles philosophies and so on. Spring Forest and other "systems" are more of a trust us, keep moving up the levels; an approach which is not for me personally, but which might be very good for others. Anyway, it's good try lots of things .... but each one needs commitment, and eventually you do need to make choices of what to do, and what not to do.

Thoughts are of different types. For instance if you daydream things churn around in the mind, maybe some things from last weeks events. If you get your tax return out and open Excel and start constructing your finances for next year, you certainly know what is happening, otherwise you would not be able to do it. Likewise when an engineer designs a bridge the thoughts don't "just happen". The thoughts are clear, conclusive, based on concepts that are based on experimentation with reality. So these are two types of thoughts. If you are a bum and spend your life wafting about in your head, then you can tell yourself that thoughts "just happen". In fact it is only so because you have not been inspired to think and to learn how to think. To wield your faculties. And all the other errors that Alan Watts makes (and Shankara as well) follow on from not recognizing the difference. But it is also true that Alan Watts and Shankara were in touch with the divine and communicate it beautifully in their sentiment and feeling tone .... but their explanations are not intelligent and are lazily borrowed from the past without any courage to consider things carefully.

Ordinarily I do Michael Winn (Healing Tao) Five Animals that follow the Wu Xing Generating Cycle nicely. Today I thought I would try a traditional Five Animals which are ordered as follows : Tiger Wood Spring Deer Water Winter Bear Earth Late Summer Monkey Fire Summer Crane Metal Autumn So .... w.t.f ... is this order ? It is neither the Generating Cycle nor the Subduing Cycle. In terms of the relationships between elements that this sequence of movements represents, it is : Wood > NOTHING > Water > INSULTS > Earth > NOTHING > Fire > DESTROYS > Metal > DESTROYS > Wood So the traditional ordering of Five Animals is, two destroys, 1 insults, and 2 nothings. Am I missing something or has somebody deranged this practice just so much as it becomes completely useless ?

Just looking again, in Hua Tuo's original explanation the five animals were simple animal movements that he spoke of as being necessary for the body to function well, chose one exercise and do for long time until sweating profusely. It seems he is more interested in mobilising the body and takes cues from how other animals live in general, turning their head and moving limbs. He seems to have been mainly interested in mixing herbs and concoctions, and in surgery. Not in qi or martial arts or alchemy or feng shui, all of which are missing from his interests. He was probably regarded as "modern" and paid well, and didn't bother with "all that old magic stuff everyone is bored of". So it seems that the Five Animals Qigong is in fact a WuXing / FengShui tradition, different to Hua Tuo's, although perhaps inspired by his "five animals", but in fact being completely different. Some practitioners today wishing to invoke the WuXing in themselves through Qigong are actually doing the wrong thing by using Hua Tuo's movements, as that is clearly not their goal or function. He did not use them for WuXing, but individually for general body health. He does not even seem to connect his movements to acupuncture which he also did. Therefore the MW/HT practices are (more) correct as they are bodily expressions of the shape of qi in the phases (e.g. expanding, rising or contracting) using well known animals as an aid of explanation, and integrating the Healing Sounds and other Feng Shui and alchemy concepts into one practice. I suppose you could do Hua Tuos movements for "health" reasons, even all five of them, in that case I would do them exactly as he described in his notes and therefore not with WuXing intentions. Option 3 is to try to convert Hua Tuo's movements into WuXing by re-ordering them, it's possible, however I believe MW/HT are way ahead of the game here. In fact what I would personally do is do MW/HT, but I would add in some small details from Hua Tuo's movements such as the liver elements sudden grabbing forward movement.

I always loved this guy, 12 Animal Xingyi

I love MW, I think he is fantastic. He is a happy person, and seeks happiness in all things. He actually has huge experience going back and he has spent a long time travelling in China and trying to avoid the BS over there. His practices are quite simple in outward appearance ... but then you are meant to feel it yourself inside. And therefore learn it from the inside. For instance in his 5 Animals he presents only 1 move for each element, but describes the element and sort of act it out in the body. This is real learning, because there is nothing there unless you truly embody the element in the practice. Rather a million different movements that you must follow because of an authority. And he has that feeling of ... if I am happy, then the universe will flow with me. Rather than life is suffering, work harder. Nevertheless if you know what's good for you, you would do his practices as if taught by a strict old man with a whip. I don't do his practices so much now, but ... that's my choice. In all areas I try to try everything and with respect and full effort, and then I make my call. MW offers some rare things, but not every thing. Jeez there is other guy spiritual guru who gazes at people ... and that's it. And surrounding him are countless people who talk about how amazing he is. Humans are a total madhouse, it's hard to stay afloat. Nevertheless I suppose I'll have to try it and see if it does something. Luckily I have been with the same Zen teacher for 9 years now, and whatever other stupidities I entertain myself with I always begin and end with him. Anyway just going back to WuXing .... look either the theory works or it doesn't. Hence the HT/MW approach of doing the 5 Animals according to the Generating Cycle is sound, and it works in my experience. I would hate to thing some people notice that the practices don't correspond to the theory .... and just keep doing them mindlessly. That is truly to lose hope. And yes @Mudfoot there are two pairs of reversals in the sequence. If the entire thing had been reversed or the entire sequence had been the Subduing Cycle, then ... something would have perhaps been produced from it, perhaps something negative, but something noticeable. But as it is ... it seems like it's meaninglessly constructed (or destructed). Anyway I did it this morning and apart from a couple of small elements I will take with me, the MW one is far better. And frankly the choice of animals for the movements is quite strange, and the MW ones make far more sense to me. I can quite imagine that a thousand year old practice is full of errors, as they are in all traditions. But the MW version is not hard enough or excertive enough for me, and relies too much on visualisation. Perhaps I would find yet another one, someday.

I have recently begun to have the feeling that many people who enter into traditions (of all sorts) actually have zero intention of learning anything and inside them totally hate the tradition, and so what they do is they start teaching it .... except with a few small changes made .... so that it no longer works. Like secretly pulling out the foundation stones of a building in the middle of the night. And then they inwardly feel really really pleased with themselves. And I have this sort of tingle going up my spine ... that this is happening everywhere in every type of tradition. And so given that much of mankind is either acting in bad faith or through fear, often unconsciously, the only way to find the real stuff is to be quite streetwise and have your wits about you, and to try everything for yourself, and to trust nobody. Truth might be find in orthodox or unorthodox places, in people with smiling or in violent faces, in expensive or in cheap places. Truly this world is chaos, it's amazing that any truth ever visited it. Mankind excels at mixing the light with the darkness, until they are indistinguishable, and everyone feels really really pleased with themselves.

Crowdfund and campaign then

In terms of doing many styles, my way of doing it is every day I do the same routine which involves 3 styles. Then on Fridays I mix it up and experiment with different things. Over time I swap things in and out the basic practice. This is a good rhythm for me as I do the same thing (or almost the same thing) every day, but vary it come the weekend. Also I have various simplified practices I do if I am not well, or otherwise very distracted.

Hello There is a nice looking Liuhebafa video that is in Chinese (Mandarin I presume). Perhaps someone would like to translate the first 10 minutes, this is of basic exercises. And also after 1 hr the video changes into the form instruction and perhaps another 10 minutes of translation could be done? Well perhaps it is a lot to ask, but I ask it. It would be good to get a flavour of what is being taught with the translation. I thank you if you would like to try this out. rideforever

imo .... ZZ is much better than Opening the Energy Gates ... in the E.A. dissolving methods there is far too much mind-force used to dissolve blockages which is a wrong approach. In fact BKF's whole practice is suppose to be water method / surrender, and this is completely the opposite technique. I tried E.A.'s dissolving for several years, must have done hundreds of painstaking hours, but I find it a totally wrong approach now for several reasons. ZZ is much much better. Mark Cohen / Lam Kam Chuen style (meaning with surrender). ZZ is the ultimate dissolution by being in the stream of heaven and earth. ZZ rapidly overtakes Energy Gates in its output, both energetic health strength and spiritual. Also, I find that if you have significant pyschological blocks it is virtually impossible to dissolve them energetically and also it is not desirable to do it that way. It is faster to use psychotherapy especially something like Inner Family Therapy or Focussing or Feeding Your Demons .... which are all partly energetic partly psychological. As for the Gods Playing in the Clouds ... I believe far too much is made of it, and it's expensive. I think it is a waste of time practically speaking. The original practice transmitted to BKF and other western teachers was very very simple consisting of one move (that was told to me by another master). Chen Silk Reeling can be brought to an advanced level for healing but I can't say how far it goes.

God (1) refers to being Conscious and living in the Conscious plane. Then you can see straight for the first time, and in seeing straight you experience reality. In doing so you become connected to the spirit behind existence itself, or God (0). So God as a term points initially towards the means to reality, and then finally to the spirit behind reality, it is a good and meaningful term. At a lower level God (2) is expressed to monkeys as "the big monkey in the sky", which again is not incorrect, just an explanation given to those on a lower plane. God (2) leads to God (1) which leads to God (0).

Energy Arts does the Dragon & Tiger Qigong DVD, and online course. It is excellent, do that one, it is the best I have experienced, it is also grounded and "normal" (i.e. it does not invoke strange beings and strange energies). I recommend this beyond everything. I believe it is $300 online, but perhaps a better use of money is to get the excellent DVD, and 3 hours with a private instructor. The 2nd is Healing Sounds. This is very powerful and simple traditional set, where you breathe poison out of your organs, according to the 5 elements. Where to learn from ? Healing Tao have a good one, it is not hard to find. In China cancer patients do this a lot. The 3rd is Zhan Zhuang. It is more difficult to learn but is very powerful long term. Marc Cohen has a DVD. Best to get private instruction, once you get going it becomes effortless. If I was very ill I would do perhaps 1hr of each of these every day and I would expect strong results. In the beginning it is good to have an instructor present even for only a few sessions to give you the flavour. So the plan would be then : 1. Thoroughly opening all the energy channels 2. Expelling dark energy from the organs 3. Long term fundamental healing

Just listening to this man Mercury Fire Blood Honey this morning. Whilst I appreciate his diligent cultivation and individualism, I would like to point out some "errors" in his reasoning. Just Energy : Part of the Whole We are not just part of the whole, we are individuating, we are becoming unique intelligences and unique energy beings. Anyone who prevents that and causes you to dissolve back in the world energy will kill you. However for a monkey to "wake up" he has to feel the universal energy first to open his horizons from monkey mind, in order to finally discover his own individualism. Hence it is said that once the Father is known, the Son is born. Just Energy : No It's More Complicated We are also not "just energy". We are energy transformation engines. In the same way the plant species of the planet are not "just lying there", they exist to transform sunlight through photosynthesiss .... we likewise as more advanced crops, are not "just here". We are transforming energy of many types, all our functions relate to this, they are developed to transform energy. And that includes intelligence, food, air, it is a transformation of energy. As engines we need to burn cleanly, and learn how to service ourselves, in order that we transform energy correctly as a part of the entire universe's project. So .... just feeling "more energy" is a very crude thing. Energy Warfare Vs Waking Up This man has an endless war with other energy beings. And his solution is beefing up, and then beefing up again. But how long will this go on for before you are exhausted ? And how can such a simple frail man like Ramana Maharshi live effortlessly with no beefing ? Clearly there is a different order of spirituality that leads to peace that requires no beefing up, at least not at the end. The answer is that the recognition of the true self is effortless and lifts you out of the crude world of energy wars. The end. Therefore the recognition of the true self must be transmitted on the first day and every day, as it is the answer. Of course you have to know how to do that. Subconscious Spirituality vs Real Spirituality In the Conscious world there are no crazy people, because they no longer struggle, they are in the kingdom of God. So where are the energy demons that this man talks of ? Where do they live ? They are in the Subconscious world, a half sleep half dream half awake nightmare. Humans are already in this world. You do not want to stay in this world, nor do you want to fight with the beings in this world, who are all one eyed. There are many hierarchies and powers and spells and magic blue firebird energies here. There are many beings of "power", with their little groups of subconscious one-eyed followers. It's like Marvel DC land. But in the end it is the land of terrible suffering. I advise you to leave asap. Energy Work's Purpose A sane use of energy work might be to preserve your life (but not too much), and to get to know yourself through flexing your energetic muscles. Beyond that you need to let go of it, and awaken to God, and surrender to God. The God, and there is only one. Then you will enter effortless truth-peace.

What kind of discussion is taking place, and with what kind of people ? For the most part, people do not discuss politics but project emotional unhappiness onto each other in a sad dance. There is no point being involved in such unhappiness as it is all entirely subconscious, like sludge being stirred by the half awake. At the end everyone thinks they "feel justified" but is actually drained and unhappy. There is so much negative energy that it pulls you in and down. In unusual circumstances you might be able to have an actual discussion, which is part of normal human life and development. It is especially useful if you are with people of a higher calibre. However perhaps 5% of all discourse is in this category. Good skills to develop are; discriminating strongly between the two cases. And walking away without residue, even if you take a hit on the way you. If you are in doubt which type of discussion it is, it is type A.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wuji-Qi-Gong-Secret-Immortality/dp/0978639944

Too much grounding energy ? You can't have too much grounding energy, as long as it is real grounding energy which falls from the dantien in a surrender into the earth. Unfortunately this practitioner in the video (couldn't find better) does it from his head. If so you do it wrongly. First feel the belly kinda thing. The kind of energy that you can move around the body is not "spiritual", it is just part of the subtle material world, and you can play games with it. But that's not my interest. Spiritual cultivation, is about becoming. Becoming present in the Dantien, becoming present in the heart and so on. You don't move that around. It is the recognition of "I" in these areas, and eventually letting them fall in surrender downwards into the ground. Different practice different energy different intention. If you have an excess of sexual energy then find a woman and do the beast with two backs all night long. This is very good practice and should be practiced without fail.

I would like to live more in nature no electric, like a hobbit, witnessing the seasons and so on. Can anyone recommend a place to go ? I think I am not going to do it alone but if there was somewhere to join ? thanks

You are on a "different" path to me, and to them. Your path of making no effort but thinking very highly of yourself, is very popular on the internet. Their path and the path I am on, requires a great deal of effort. Two paths with two different results. Those drunks in the bar .... what do they have to say ? Everything is great, yeah just let it all hang out .... come be with us, and have another drink. No need for effort, just one drink and you are great. Those people who make effort waste time, soon they will discover no effort is needed !!! ( as the bar has table service and cocktails are half-price ) The life stories of all the great teachers tells the same story. Tremendous effort is required. But it's not for everyone, as is clearly evident. Your path is certainly "real" and is popular with many. But what is better than condemnation ? - Perhaps practicality and experience. I was always a little confused on going to the Cafe, deciding whether I wanted carrot cake, chocolate cake, lemon cake, or apple pie. How was I supposed to know what I wanted, until I tried them all. And so I tried them all, over the course of several visits, or on occasion right there on the spot. And so of course I have followed the spiritual-geniuses-of-no-effort. It's been quite entertaining, these people are easy to find, and always surrounded by large crowds of double enlightened Buddhas feeling amazing energies. Yes the "awareness of the awareness of the awareness of the awareness". Amazing. One almost gets the same feeling as when watching the internet. At other times, just because I can, I sat in meditation in an austere way from before the sun till after the sun, like a warrior and gave every drop of blood to the tradition. If one can do both, then you have two wings of a bird that flies far. But of course, most people only do the former. They never really wanted anything at all. Be warned, Nisargadatta was surrounded by many double-buddhas-who-never-make-effort, all thanking him triple time for his amazing book. At the end he said nobody had understood, except perhaps the editor of "I Am That" who understood half. Similarly it is with J.Krishnamurti, another teacher surrounded by double and sometime triple enlightened buddhas who felt the "energy was so amazing" and thanked him continuously for 40 years. At the end he said nobody had understood. Yes. ( Don't worry, it's probably nothing. )

Like I said these things can feel ephemeral. For my own good self, at some point years ago I decided that I couldn't stake my life on the understanding that I had, and that it was worth fully trying some of the retreats / intensive meditation study that was available and in one particular year I did about 5 of different types. After which point I knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was real and without hard work I would not have it. But that was a long time ago, and thousands of hours of meditation have passed since then. Looking back I see that it was a good and practical strategy, that was successful.

"When I was young" the idea was that as nations became developed and living standards rose then families would naturally no longer need 5 children and have only 1 or 2, thereby naturally finding a manageable population level. And so we need not fear the blossoming populations of the 2nd and 3rd worlds, as all nations would eventually find natural levels. Well the story has changed. Now in the developed West it has indeed become that people stopped having many children. But now governments are pumping more people in through encouraging migration. Why ? Isn't this exactly what is desirable, the easing population figures. Why then the push for more people? My sense is -and I have not read much to corroborate- but that the economy has been designed to feed billionaires and is a "bubble" by design, and illusory. Being so false it would collapse without the artificial support of migration because it is fundamentally unsound, and hasn't served the "people" for a long time. And that the media, also pandering to the powerful, manufactures consent (Noam Chomsky) of increasing people in the countries. In the same way it manufactures consent of a money-mad people and other ideas that serve only the billionaire-funnel.

But what is understanding ? I am afraid the stupid facts of sitting next to your guru, in his house, bowing and praying, singing mantras, eating politely, more bowing, and so on ... deeply affects you. It is not "words" at all. That is a wrong comprehension. In fact, most spirituality is about teaching you a different rhythm of breathing, walking, talking, thinking, feeling ... it is taught person to person, what they actually impart to you is a different way of flowing energy in the being, learnt from mimicking them bodily, talking like them, thinking like them, reading like them and so on. Then it goes deeply into the system and produces results. The intellectual material that ends up in most books .... is of minor importance.