rideforever

I am sure many people like that from time to time. Anyway.

@Starjumper How many years have you been talking about your book? 2 ... 3 ? You keep wondering how little you can put in it to the "undeserving". It's a really big question. Meanwhile in the real world there are people all over this planet breaking their backs to give as much as possible to help the people on this planet. So you keep wondering ... If all you have is killing techniques maybe it has little value. Mankind already knows how to kill plenty.

Once upon a time I had to chose between several teachers of Dayan, it quite difficult but I ended up choosing the one who still hard dark hair, and she was also a good natured person. I thought because of these things she might have a lot to offer. You say frequently that you have found something. What is it ? You seem to have white hair, correct me if I am wrong. You are certainly not very friendly, but okay. And you say you have developed powerful techniques to kill people or something. Is that what you mean ... when you say you found the salami ?

What is it that you found ? I notice, if you don't mind me saying so, that your hair is white; this seems to indicate that what you are doing is not preventing the process of aging. You mentioned that you have learnt several ways to hurt people. Is that what you mean?

The human brain has apparently been shrinking for 20,000 years, maybe 10-15%. I wonder if that is the reason now that we have this problematic mind. Existence seems to feel that make us all think for ourselves didn't work, so why don't we try connecting all of them into one giant hive mind and see if that works better ... but we are left with the vestiges of something that thinks for itself - now we are trying to get rid of it in all sorts of way. I don't blame existence ... and I think it's find if you simply co-operate with the dumbing down. I don't know how many people are willing to push the other way. Something else I was thinking about recently is about species that co-operate or do not co-operate with evolutions. If nature gives your species wings ... or a "mind" ... there is no particular guarantee that the species is going to start using them, the species might simply reject it for whatever reason. It's a bad time to have something new. We are really busy, come back with the wing things in 100,000 years. Or just ... we can't be bothered we are happy as we are, even if we always argue. Anyway .. the species does have to co-operate with evolutions or they will die out. And new features may get started, and then die out later on .. due to "difficult conditions". I suppose I was thinking what are our responsibilities with our higher faculties. Learning to use this thing in the head is a brave approach. Another approach is cut it off. What does the mind give our species ? Well we know it makes us intelligent in the head, not like animals, but a higher kind of intelligence. And if we are to co-operate with nature to help this mind take root and find a home, we will have to use it. - Isn't science doing that ? Unless you do it ... you have to do it. Nobody can make your head intelligent unless you exercise it. Reading the results of other people's work does not count you may as well watch a movie. You have to think, reason, solve things. That's how the mind becomes intelligent. The more that data is shared on the internet and people don't solve problems themselves ... the more the mind is unused and instead the eyes are used to read wikipedia.

There seems to have been a catastrophic misunderstanding of the ego, the ego is not your enemy. It is simply something that has evolved recently in evolutionary time in the front of the brain. It doesn't function very well and perhaps it needs to evolve further and will work better in half a million years. On top of that it is hated by everyone and mis-educated or denied. It has become the fall guy as if there is a stranger in your head. There is no stranger in your head ... there is just a part of you that is not integrated. It is true that if you separate yourself from it, it can be helpful at the beginning, also if you do awareness practices it can control it somewhat ... but these are temporary measures. A mind / thinking apparatus is a very powerful organ, it requires great care. Anyway, the older part of the organism is the subconscious animal ... which is still there inside you - from this one you can get the true sense of yourself. The newer part of you should be integrated with the older animal mind, which is much more sane and stable. This is why body work -which works with the subconscious- is so effective because it integrates the old with the new. Reaching out to superconsciousness to save you whilst having such a big mess inside does not work very well. The best meditators are those that have integrated what they have inside right now; they are grounded people. Many spiritual people would benefit with being more practically oriented and doing physical work rather than a desperate plea to the cosmos. At least do the garden work first. It is difficult to make final conclusions about any of this as there are many parts to us and to the path; any real forward progress in any area is good. There is a film called "a beautiful mind"; perhaps we should aim for that for ourselves, and give our minds the words and stories of the many wonderful thinkers who have lived here, of many hues, not just philosophers, but poets and architects, explorers. During the day the mind can be spaced out, it can be intuitive, it can drone on, it can be sharp and feel present ... what is called mind in most people is changing state constantly. Some of those states are good and you use them ... you think actively. Taking more care will vastly improve things. You cannot have your own mind or your own self if you are constantly connecting yourself to the sea of other people's minds. The traditional spiritual techniques of disidentifying from the mind can be useful to give you some space, but it is limited. Entering higher states of consciousness does not involve crushing your ego to death or disintegrating it, it involves self-recognition of the higher state, the recognition of something new inside you.

Like you ? The history of human enlightened beings says something completely different. Many of them were very poor uneducated and uncultivated. After they reached realisation they shared it with any student that came to them. Finding a good tradition and teacher can be a challenge especially at the beginning, but I would avoid "secrets" "powers", people who want your money or your blood ... and try more direct and grounded people.

There are no secrets that are dangerous. Because self-realisation is not a trick, nor is it dangerous, nor it is the result of some energy magic. The stuff that is dangerous is when you perform certain energy effects that can damage you or another person ... yeah that is dangerous. But it's not spiritual. On this form people talk of cultivation but they don't seem to realise the difference between the path ... and cultivating energy tricks that will not save you from death. Like Ramana Maharshi said, I can give it to you, but can you take it. It's not a trick, no-one is concealing anything. But you need to cultivate yourself in a sincere way, to develop your spiritual sensitivity and intelligence. All these dumb tricks are completely the wrong direction. I suppose these guys were promised the magic whatnot was going to be given to them ... after 30 years of training, just stick with me. And now they say the same bs to their own students. What a nightmare, avoid all these people.

While you are debating whether you should write your book... there are many advanced teachers in the world sitting with students and enlightening their students. You are not the only person who knows something. My teacher for instance in private meetings he transmits the state of consciousness directly to students, and he is not the only one. It's "advanced" I suppose but he is also just doing his job. It's not a big deal. In India there are many teachers doing high level cultivation work in private retreats, a lot is expected of you but it is there if you want it. In the Zen tradition I know many people get enlightened. These stupid secret bullshits that I suppose are designed to keep some lineage alive, by promising something in the future ... this is dumb and insincere, it's turning the path into a circus. Unfortunately this kind of crap has I suppose been required to keep the students money coming in.

I remember that Mogallana who was Buddh'as 2nd best student (after Sariputta), had taken the journey of developing many esoteric powers but after his enlightenment had no use for them, but occasionally Buddha asked him to use them for some purpose to help the school, discovering imposters in the students and external threats. Mogallana died a brutal death ... and perhaps the path that includes developing esoteric powers is for certain types of souls that like things rough.

Another interesting thing about energy tricks; I have seen some that relate to certain alignments and movements you can make that cause large volumes of qi to flow through the body. It is unclear to me whether you destroy your energy system by doing this, or whether it is okay. I think it is naive to imagine such drastic re-routings of energy is going to be just fine with the rest of your energy system. Other people send different kinds of energy repeatedly out of the crown, also a questionable practice. And there are many breathing methods that damage something very valuable which is your natural breathing; I think that one is quite well known as many teachers have warned against it. One strange thing about human culture is that it is unintelligent people who are left to do spirituality and energy work, because intelligent people simply get jobs and have families. That is one reason why spiritual techniques are so unclear. Basically unintelligent people compensate for their lack of contact with the path .. with a sort of compensation of a big energy effects. But that's not the path. Even in real energy based spiritual paths, it's not a trick, but an honest cultivation and development.

I don't understand what people see in these "secrets". Self-realisations comes most often from sitting meditation and it is not hard to find schools which are responsible custodians of various techniques like Goenka, Zen or Satyananda. If you commit to one of these you will make good progress. Another way is to find an awakened teacher who will teach you and also give you some form of transmission; they are not too difficult to find but maybe this is for more adept or serious practitioners. These teachers require much more from you. There are energetic paths like kundalini, and they are fine for people who cannot take a direct road, they are an additional opportunity. So where are the secrets ? If someone can give you a secret that means it is not from your own self-development and so of limited value. Anyone with light will give help you and give you what they can with no problem ... there are not that many serious students anyway. In the energy strata of life there are many "secrets", countless but what is the good of them. They are not spiritual. They are just ways to make some energy effect happen through all sorts of bodily or breathing or whatever technique. Yes they are real, but they are not spiritual. I have seen some qigong teachers who smile too much.. and they do various practices, promising much magic ... they have the wrong idea about the path. Others talk about all sorts of energies and power ... I don't see any connection to spirituality with them. Your own death is coming, defeating other human-monkeys is not going to help.

In fact declaring war on the mind simply means to feed it the general culture. You would only do that if you want to have something very unhappy and disturbed inside your head.

If your practice is good then the state should become more solid, then you can extend it with trying to maintain it whilst using the body, in zen walking, or tai chi. Stop everyone now and then and regain your state solidly. Then continue with the movements. Slowly it is maintained. This practice might take a long time but is very important otherwise you will only be at peace in meditation. Lastly in society where things are very noisy but with the same principle, starting with simple situations and eventually with being with other people. With the mind, it also needs food. If you eat bad food the body is disturbed and not satisfied. Same with the food for the mind. Much of the culture will make the mind very disturbed so that has to be replaced with higher quality food, whatever appeals to you. Continuing to disturb the mind with the culture will make things impossible. Reading and contemplating chinese philosophy, or emerson, or whatever you can find that is of a higher order. Then the mind will function better. The same principle goes with the emotions, the mind and emotions are linked so also your "emotional food" needs to be replaced with higher ones, the your emotional system will be happier. Declaring war on your mind is not a good choice as it is in your head and you use it all the time, it is a part of you. It has some difficult and disorientating aspects that need to be improved.

Well ... you can see that whatever people say, working in the work place follows certain rules. If you join a ship and you work hard then the captain is pleased and rewards you. Such things. So work with that idea in mind ... and ignore all the other bullshit. For the rest, just live the animals live. The eagles, and tigers and crocogators. Don't be too clever. Return to the simple life and do simple things and take joy in life.

It has to do with the development of the neocortex in the brain, this recent stage of evolution. On this earth and in this universe evolution is done in terms of survival ... each individual and species is a type of "solution" to life, and it tests itself, if it is a bad solution it dies. Each individual is information ... gradually the information and knowledge of the universe grows through this survival through the corporeal world. Here, our survival against threats that we see ... is improved by planning and thinking that seems to be the function of the neocortex. It has given us many benefits, but also gives rise to many problems. This structure gives rise to false insecure notions of life and misdirected effort; but the underlying structure itself is good. The added intelligence this structure provides humans may be harnessed to become enlightened. Most people feel much better to simply return to the subconscious mind ... return to the body which is he older intelligence prior to neocortex.

How Qigong works is a wide question. It could mean ... what is qi ? How does qi circulation help the body ? How do particular qigong methods help, and help with what? And so on. There are many things called qigong.

I suppose the question is, have you not felt something inside (in general) ? The culture has its conventional ideas ... but with the practices that you have done, have not felt anything inside ? I didn't read the text on Fragrant Qigong; but personally I am certain that there are qigongs out there that do more harm than good, it would be naive to think otherwise. How they were constructed ... maybe through charlatanism, stupidity, or error. That's just the nature of the world.

If you would like to start a thread with your views on the myth of energy than it can be discussed there, rather than in between other threads.

What I been told is that the body structure to survive in the universe needs to be constant revitalised by the Source, and when we breathe it is the energy of the Source that is flowing up through the dantien into the body to revitalise the material of the body so it can survive in this hostile universe. The physical breathing is a movement the body performs in response to the Qi rising from the dantien. The ldt is the access "portal" of the Source into the body. Through our impurity we have blockages in the flow and doing qigong improves the situation. In terms of the effect to sitting meditation : becoming sensitive to Qi takes you outside of the conventional mind which is a good start. Next qigong can solidify your sense of identity, same if you do a lot of weight training ... you have the sense of your presence. And this sense of stability is very useful when you meditation, it gives you a good beginning, a sense of stability. The removal of impurities through qigong also reduces the disturbance of mind/emotions in sitting meditation. These are intermediary benefits of qigong which assist sitting meditation.

Good, these are good questions. Well done, somebody has a brain. So what are the answers then, not bullshit talk ... what are the actual answers. Chen Training For Chen, it is not a "meridien stimulation". They are training the Dantien Qi to leave the belly and circulate through the body and then to return to the Dantien, cultivating a qi body of circular Qi-tracks. They have a particular training plan which involves 10 tracks in the basic patterns, and 10 other tracks in the advanced pattern. The result is a regular 3 dimensional qi pattern - like an atom with the electrons circulating around. It is simple circular and very contained. It is a spiritual art because it cultivates the Dantien centre directly. Those are some answers that come from the CX tradition which are detailed in that "Chen" book with diagrams and training sequences. This is one of them. Dantien-mind Training After the 20 tracks are learnt from ChanSiGong, then the long forms are learnt; each form is divided into 80 or so mini-forms ... in each mini-form the Qi leaves the Dantien, circulates, and returns to the Dantien. The movements are of many shapes which allows the energy-mind of the Dantien to train itself to perform any kind of shape. This is similar to using your mind to do many types of numerical calculations, addition, multiplication and so on. The different movements train the energy-mind so that it becomes fully trained. Eventually the energy-mind moves on its own from your will-instinct. Phases in Internal Arts Training The book describes excellently this step by step phased training which can be used for all of the internal arts. The book describes much more than I can put here. Yiquan Training For instance in Yiquan there work with the Dantien field of the body as a whole, not with the circulation of the Dantien; and in Yiquan there is a lot of Awareness practice coming from the head so they train Awareness plus the body field of qi. In Chen there is not much need for Awareness training as the Belly is trained to work on its own. Liuhebafa Style For LHBF it is very different from those styles. Firstly because it is fragmented it is important to remember that many people have lost the details of the art and don't know much what they are doing. But you can certainly say that it involves lost of vertical compression/depression that is the released horizontally, it is the exchange of qi from vertical to horizontal. In other words you build up qi pressure vertically ... and then release horizontally. Some of the movements are like that. Other movements are splitting, and reconnecting, like tying a bow. Another aspect may be about circulating the water element which is how the opening movement is often done open the lake below and rising to above the head; there is also kind of pulse or wave of energy rolling through the body which is water esque. Whether it is Dantien based or not I cannot say, some movements do appear to exit and return to the Dantien others do not. Pure LHBF vs Mixed LHBF It may be that there was a pure LHBF, but that other people are using LHBF as a container to add together various techniques from Bagua and Xingyi, and practice them all together - which makes it hard to see the pure style. I notice that some movements that are done Xingyi-fashion are done non-Xingyi by other schools, so I think that was added in and not the pure style : Wang Xiangzhai used to tell his students to sometimes train LHBF (identifying it as a different style), so I think those students left some Xingyi and Yiquan aspects in LHBF, which are not pure LHBF. The fact that WXZ recommended LHBF training on the side means that it is a compatible tradition and must have similarities with Yiquan; imo Chen is not compatible as the tight circular movements don't play well with LHBF. Also there is this rising palm-up spear-hand that seems to be foundational for the style and is in many moves; again showing the vertical movements that are foundational for the style. I don't know of any Alchemy for Chen. For LHBF I don't know of any either. It doesn't look alchemical to me. Often people imagine Alchemy because they don't understand that it is simpler than that.

You don't like the questions. And you don't have any answers. Okay ... stay that way then.

I was thinking last week in relation to one of Dwai's threads ... that when we learn to count we use our fingers, but through using the body our intellectual mind develops. We need to use the body before the intellectual mind can move on its own. And it is the same with the energy-mind in the belly. To educate it we must use our body first before it wakes up and can move on its own. So that is one way our energy-mind is trained. With qigong sometimes you simply drag or pull energy into the channels ... in a simpler way. Qigong can be used to activate TCM formulae which again a different way. With alchemy different types of energy are reacting together to create different effects, that is more complex type of work. There are other ways as well which involve contacting higher energies. Many things are called qigong. The energy-mind training is in my opinion the "spiritual" one because it awakens something new within you, a new type of mind.

Yes Earl Grey ... "if anyone reads this thread they will know I am right". Okay mate that's great. I asked those questions of you about LHBF, if you ever find the answers please do let us know that would be useful. Other people are working on them, if you don't have time no problem.

The difference between someone with real attainment ... and the rest ... is simply that you recognize that you don't know, you can't answer the question. And then you go find the answers. That's the secret. Other people want to be celestial dragons and dream of amazing things ... and in this amazing tricks they dream about, don't even notice they can't answer simple questions.