Asher Topaz

22 minutes ago, XianGong said:

Samadhi is not actually a high achievement or anything. It is pretty normal and common.

What? Samadhi aint common. Real samadhi is hard. Very few people get real samadhi. There are the 4 form samadhis and the 4 formless samadhis. Most people dont get to the third samadhi of the form realm Talkless of the formless real. However in samadhi xing and ming go together. U cant get real samadhi(xing) without alchemical transformation(ming). 

I started reading taoist yoga and i must say all the nei dan information dont look like instructions to me. They look like biographical information of the alchemical changes of the energy body as one cultivates towards samadhi. There are too much steps and processes to be aware of that I believe alchemy infromation was more like sign posts that your on the right track rather than steps to actually follow. I mean there are easier ways like anapanasati and skeleton visualization from the buddha or samatha(concentration) practices in general. Instead of the risky practice that is alchemy. And yes you can not achieve samadhi without alchemical changes happening inside you. Else it would be false samadhi. Nan Hua Chin said that samadhi without change in your body is a false teaching that has infected buddhism especially zen. He encourages people to learn about alchemy only to use it as a referral that they are on the right track rather than an instruction manual. His book Tao & Longevity: Mind-Body Transformation shows how alchemical changes happen in the body using practices like anapanasati from the buddha. He says its based on the rule of the dao that extreme yin gives birth to yang. So the stillness from anapanasati where at some point you slow down to the point of having your breath, pulse and thoughts stop(hsi),  gives birth to the yang chi being born. No need for all the alchemical jargon just slow down and become still and the internal alchemy will take place. its like our bodies mimicking creation. Where from wuji came taiji and from taiji came yang chi of heaven. The secret of immortality. It has also been said in yoga that physical immortals are in samadhi 24/7 hence they are constantly in touch with the yang qi of heaven. So if alchemy is just another way to samadhi or wuji why do Daoist treat it like its some super secret when there are even safer and less cumbersome ways of getting to samadhi. After all the emptiness is called nirvikalpa samadhi in other traditions. 

12 hours ago, dmattwads said:

What I have run into with Western Theravada monks at least is that when I ask about tantra or other methods like that they are very dismissive and say "well the Buddha never said anything about that" and that is pretty much the end of the discussion. I've never really figured out what to make of this one way or the other. 

It is my understanding that the jhanas cultivate qi automatically. Jhana means tranquility. By entering an extremely yin state of mind. The inner chi which nei gong cultivates starts to move and trigger the alchemical process. The higher you go on the jhana the higher you go on the alchemical process. Jhana is Theravada buddhist version of alchemy. But its slower not as fast as energy practices. But its safer as well.

12 hours ago, XianGong said:

 understand your concerns though if you come from Buddhist texts and there is nothing about Qi and cultivation.
I believe the knowledge is mostly lost, and each tradition preserved publicly the most focal points. Even those points got corrupted over time.

No not true. If you go deep in buddhism you will find out that it cultivates qi using jhanas same with patanjalis eight limbs of yoga. Mind and qi are two sides of the same coin. BY purifying your mind using jhana you purify your qi. That is y its been known that jhana can give powers or siddhis. Its based on taoist principle. Extreme yin gives birth to extreme yang. By slowing down the mind to an extremely yin state, the breath stops, pulse stop what taoist call (hsi). Then this gives birth to the kundalini or yuan chi moving through the MCO to purify jing to chi. The bliss in jhana is channels in the body opening allowing your body to feel light and free. By the time you get to second jhana you cant feel your body anymore cuz its full of chi which starts transforming to shen in third jhana. By fourth jhana your cultivating emptiness. The jhanas are the buddhist version of jing- qi shen-emptiness transfromation. You will also find out that buddhist who cultivate jhana are healthy compared to buddhist who just cultivate dry insight or vipassana. Buddha did not bother with qi cuz he knew that the jhanas will take care of them. Plus they are a very low stage of cultivation in the form realm. There is still the formless realm before one thinks of enlightenment or seeing the dao. Its basically an automatic version same with automatic car versus manual only problem is its slower than energy practices but a 1000 times safer.

4 hours ago, freeform said:

Sorry - was meant to reply to this bit in the previous post.

 

The tantric approach is more complex on the front end - but as a result it’s more achievable on the back end.

 

Meditative absorption is simple on the front end - but close to impenetrable on the back end.

 

You can spend 60 years of your life on meditative absorption and not get anywhere even close to samadhi - even if you have the right method.

 

Why? Well you have no idea why. The internal conditions aren’t right for it to happen. What internal conditions? What conditions are right and what conditions are wrong? How do you change them? 
 

Doing this is like trying to grasp at clouds.
 

If you have an authentic teacher that has a deep level of insight - they can assist to some degree.
 

But these teachers are rare… and they’re usually only interested in the students that are highly talented and have the karma to achieve these things in this lifetime. (Usually they are the ones who become monks as kids and have a natural talent for discipline and meditative absorption.)

 

The tantric (energetic/alchemical) approach on the other hand breaks down the internal landscape. Rather than grasping at clouds, it makes it possible for you to step by step generate the correct conditions and put in place the right causes for progress to occur.

 

 

The thing is - if you balk at the effort required to understand and apply the energetic stuff, you’re in for a shock when you truly get the level of effort required to achieve even the first Jhanna.

 

The tantric approach is a massive shortcut. Many lifetimes worth (for most people).

 

On the other hand there are paths that say there’s nothing to achieve - you’re already there… there’s no path to walk because you’ve already arrived and you had never even left in the first place. All you have to do is just realise that fact. That seems a bit easier than meditative absorption and internal cultivation. That’s probably the easiest one to go for if effort is the main concern.
 

Whether it’s genuine - different people have different views on that 

Yeah. The tantric approach is faster for sure. I just wish it was not so dangerous that self learning it would most likely lead to qi deviation especially in the head.

4 hours ago, freeform said:

It’s interesting to me the difference in attitude about spiritual matters between practitioners in the East and ones in the West.

 

In the West we tend to see spirituality as a sort of innate thing in us… like emotion. So the spiritual journey is just a case of following your heart and intuition - there’s nothing to achieve - because you’re already there anyway. The people who get into it tend to be ones who don’t find their place in society and see spirituality as a sort of benevolent lifestyle that’s a kind and nurturing alternative to the difficult and painful life that society demands.

 

In Asia it’s seen quite differently. Rather than soft and nurturing, the spiritual path is seen as ruthless and difficult. Sun Buer disfigured her face with boiling water to make her passage down the path a little more convenient. It’s worth pausing to understand the implication of that. I’m not saying that’s what’s required of us as cultivators - but it’s worth considering the level of ruthless self sacrifice implied in that action.

 

Of course there’s the connotation of deep wisdom, kindness and compassion - but that happens only after you boil your face off  

Yes this is very true.

On 7/18/2021 at 8:34 AM, freeform said:

Actually the ‘consciousness’ approach has its own methods of Qi cultivation. They just look very different and are in some ways even more ‘esoteric’ than Qi practices.

 

In Myanmar for instance they use external alchemy preparations to assist… In many Chan transitions there are empowerments from teachers, from relics and other weird and wonderful things (that are not spoken of in public). Similar in the various Theravada traditions.

 

The work on the energetic level is ‘preparation’ for the consciousness level of practice. It’s creating some of the causes for the effect of consciousness transformation to take place of its own accord.

 

Can someone achieve the Jhannas with no Qi cultivation?
 

Yes probably… but that’s a one in hundred of billion chance … the ones that do, probably have many past lives of cultivation behind them and are born on the verge of enlightenment anyway. It’s usually immediately clear that they are no ordinary person from when they’re children… 

 

The majority of people I’ve met that think they’ve achieved Jhanna, sadly haven’t - but they’ll go ahead and teach others how to achieve it anyway.

 

This stuff is at the very edge of what we are capable of as humans. Its mostly beyond what most of us are capable of…

 

This fact is either inspiring for people - because it’s a kind of call to adventure, where we seek to discover if we can achieve the almost impossible - or it shatters us because we were so invested in the goal of liberation.

 

But its been known that jhanas themselves open qi channels and purify essence from jing to qi to shen and emptiness by the fourth jhana. I know what most people call jhana is not jhana but soft versions of it. True jhana shuts down all 5 senses. And yes hard first jhana can take 3 years to get there. The second could take almost a decade. My guess is energy practices are faster right?

6 hours ago, XianGong said:

I don't think working with your Qi is esoteric, and working with your mind is non-esoteric.
Working with the mind is in fact more complex than working with Qi. I have met a lot of people quite advanced with energy, but only a very few advanced with their minds.
(You can simply take all people you know or see, and compare the number of those who can feel, create an energy ball with their hands with those who can see, and manipulate Qi with their mind. One is much more common, another is much rarer.)

The majority of Qi exercises are similar to going to Gym, while working with your mind might be an insanely complex and difficult task, like solving a math problem of the century, only a select few people in the world can do it to a high level.

There are only a few possible reasons why some schools would work with energy and avoid working with mind.

A. Knowledge is lost, and they have no methods of mind cultivation.
B. Some teachers understand that students are too dumb/low level for that work, and keep them away from it on purpose.
C. A student getting smarter than their teacher is another risk factor, as they won't need that teacher anymore, and the teacher will have to go on the streets begging for money. (It is much easier to manipulate people who do not have their own brain cells, and give them fixed instructions for 20-30-50 years in a row)

The reason esoteric is used is that mind approach is very easy to understand and easy to access. Everybody even children know about concentration meditation on the breath and jhanas. Go on reddit meditation forums its very common. But information on energy manipulation found in taoism and tibetan buddhism or vajaranya are very rare. And even books that talk about it are hard to understand. I dont practice them but I like knowing how energy works in my body so I started reading Taoist yoga. And damn its hard to understand. So much details and steps in the process and so much mistakes can be made. Isnt the mind approach where all you do is  concentrate and maintain a tranquil mind as u climb the jhanas which purifies qi channels without having to go through all those steps better? Plus its less prone to mistakes like we see in kundalini accidents and qi deviation where amateurs read instructions online and try to follow it without a master. But anapana can be done without a master which I believe is y buddha liked it so much.

I wanted to ask everyone in the replies. Do you guys accept that samatha(concentration) meditations like anapanasti can open the chi channels by purifying the mind up to the point of formless jhanas. Afterall all qi phenomenom is in the form realm as well as the form jhanas. Obviously its slower than taoist direct manipulation of qi but can it be sped up with qi gong, pranayama, yogaasanas and tai chi?

Hi please has anyone read the book Neijia Yoga:Neigong for Yoga and Martial Arts by William Bodri. I dont live in America and there is no kindle version only hardcopy on Amazon.

Please has anyone here read the book Neijia Yoga:Neigong for Yoga and Martial Arts by William Bodri. I dont live in America and shipping fees are expensive. And there is no kindle version yet. 

I am a beginner who has been reading lots of books trying to create a scheduled practice. I have looked at Buddhism, Taoism, 8 limbs of yoga, kundalini yoga and more techniques. It seems they all start with creating an energy body by purifying qi channels. And each body is accompanied by a mental state called dhyana/samadhi. Like how monkey mind comes with our physical body. I believe cultivation has two paths. Either u cultivate dhyana by directly manipulating QI channels as they do in esoteric schools like taoism, tibettan buddhism or kundalini yoga or u manipulate consciousness like Buddha who achieved all 8 dhyana before enlightenment.

Like taoist have Jing -Qi-Shen-emptiness-tao. Which starts with embryonic breathing then microcosmic circulation then macrocosmic circulation. Then brain marrow washing. 

Embryonic breathing is like pranayama in yoga. They aim towards achieving breath cessation where d breath stops. That's what pranayama actually means. All the different types of pranayama the main goal is balancing the Ida and pingala so the kundalini can rise through the sushumna channel in the spine. In taoism as u practice embryonic breathing at some point ur breath slows down and the Dan tien and qi point starts breathing. The wind qi then ignites  yang chi to rise through the tu mai and start the microcosmic circulation. No different from kundalini yoga. The bliss in dhyana is the kundalini circulating and purifying our qi channels turning jing to qi.

In Buddhism specifically those that practice dhyana all this things happen automatically then u enter first dhyana. First and second dhyana jing turns to qi, by third dhyana qi starts turning to Shen which is why u no longer feel raw bliss from jing turning to qi. And 4th dhyana is shen to emptiness which is equanimity and one pointedness.. And emptiness has levels. In Buddhism we have infinite space, consciousness, nothingness and neither perception no perception.

Each dhyana comes with an immortal body. In taoism the first and second dhyana is earth immortal then third dhyana is spirit immortal then fourth dhyana is celestial immortal. In buddhism this are called deva bodies Which is why dhyana samadhi can gives powers just like energy cultivators.

The powers are a result of our subtle bodies made up of higher realm energy interacting with our lower realm. Which we see in true internal martial arts that can channel the power of their qi body through thier physical body. So siddhis in patanjali sutra and visuddhimagga.hence why they require u get to the 4th dhyana to cultivate powers.

So if u look closely all spiritual practices from internal martial arts to yoga asanas to pranayama and qi gong to neigong to Nyasa yoga and chakra visualization to tummo and kundalini yoga or vjaryana or Tibetan Buddhism it tantara or sexual cultivation and so many others are tools to open qi channels and purify the qi and achieve samadhi and build qi bodies or deva bodies. To ignite the kundalini and purify the body. However it seems people took the energy occurences as you cultivate samadhi and turned them into goals in themselves. Like pranayama khumbakka which is embryonic breathing from when breath slows down in dhyana to kundalini rising through the spine and opening chakras as u climb dhyana stages. To micro cosmic circulation which is the first 2 dhyana to macrocosmic which us the last two dhyana or bliss in sexual cultivation which happens in dhyana. 

So there are two paths to cultivating subtle bodies. The esoteric path of qi manipulation or consciousness path of dhyana-samadhi. My practise is dhyana cultivation using anapana,skeleton visualization and later elemental kasinas I shy away from esoteric practices as it can be dangerous without a true teacher. What do u guys think?

Hi bums. I m a new comer who has been interested in martial arts, meditation and qi energy but never really had a practice.Learnt mostly from William Bodri books and blog. My Goal is to achieve perfection by uniting my body ,mind and spirit as one.And hopefully enlightenment.