Elysium

28 minutes ago, Taoist Texts said:

I am a chosen one.

Of course you are 

42 minutes ago, Taoist Texts said:

To answer your question:

NO. For normal people, with or without a teacher, it is not possible. 

YES . For a particularly gifted, 1-in-a-billion person, it is possible .

Which one are you?

5 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

I have a question.  Is it better to refer to a transgender person as always having been the gender they transitioned into?  Is it OK when taking to a transgender woman, for instance, to say "when you were a boy..."?  

I would just go for "before you transitioned" if I was in that situation 🤔

Not giving advice, just thinking out loud.

I would worry more about the violent thoughts than the headache part. The latter is kinda natural in first tries to be fair. It could be a simple case of lack of mental stamina, or monkey mind doing its best to resist. Or simply you overdid it.

19 hours ago, Taomeow said:

Whereas their real cultivation effort should be focused on becoming a senior citizen, for starters.  Nothing is guaranteed to anyone.  Real taoist cultivation is about "living out one's human years" to the fullest -- WLP teaches just that, offering the students to set a simple goal for starters, to think of themselves as naturally equipped to live a very long healthy life, take it from there

Kind of like Maslows Pyramid then? Where you get the survival needs first, and then stability and so on, self actualization coming last? Or am I missing the nuance in this?

On 16.04.2024 at 1:41 PM, Elysium said:

Already at 30 seconds in visualisation

Can proudly say: Make that one minute!

The imagery isn't perfectly still, thoughts do invade despite my contiuning training on void of mind practices, and I doubt I can visualize more complex objects perfectly yet, but progress is progress. One more month and I am gonna do much better. Gotta go through midterms first though 🥴

39 minutes ago, Jadespear said:

 Natural ways of living do not require pills and elaborate treatments to exist, or survive, beyond normal basic things like food, water, and shelter

Shall we never climb Maslows Pyramid in that case? No self-actualization, ever? Just stuck in basic needs? I am hungry, therefore I am, perhaps?

What in blue moon is going on here? 

This concentration business is like releasing a valve really.. It doesn't budge whatsoever at first but the moment it budges things are much easier.

Turns out a tiny bit of discipline can move mountains, eh? Already at 30 seconds in visualisation. Feeling healthy overall, except I really have to stop junk food.

Alright, my concentration is back in a good level again. I just have to keep training and extend the quality and quantity of it.

For visualisation its on 10-15 seconds with reasonable quality. Keeping an object in sight unmoving is much harder than one would imagine. I will get there too. I just have to train more.

Well well well, my concentration is coming back, and visualisation is getting stronger each day.

I am getting up at 4 in the morning to practice every day now. When you are a college student you can pull off odd stuff like this and it won't effect anything. If I have a free day I train again when I wake up for the second time. My vitality has increased without a doubt.

Added frog pose into the stretches so I can get into Burmese Posture.

Think I will enroll in Kyokushin in summer or later. Until then gotta keep the cardio workouts.

1 hour ago, -ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ- said:

Here is a video of Sufi master Sheikh Muhammad zapping my wife with qi from his hands. He zapped me too, really powerful stuff.

 

 

Very interesting indeed, what do you reckon these Sufi Masters do to get this zapping effect? Is it essentially the same routine as Daoists?

On 02.04.2024 at 6:36 PM, oattao said:

"Qi weightlifting",

What does this even mean?

I do find it hard to be still. 

Recently I did realize how much energy I was wasting through not being still when I was meditating, so curbed that. Overall quality of the action itself increased even if mind isn't totally still. 

There is an enormous amount of change in the way I think from the the start of this journal. Its hard to believe.

Getting up at six in morning nowadays to get to my training routine. Added the stuff in Stretching by Bob Anderson on top of the previous routine.

I thought this would make me sleepy all day, but no, it increased my vitality. Not complaining. 

My visualisation is much better, while concentration got a bit worse. Wonder why is that.

Now how do I get into this Burmese Posture, while I stretch I still can't get into it. I guess I will ask the folk here.

He reminded me of that Sleepy Blujay dude. Absolutely miserable both. Both seemed like solo cultivators too. The pattern is way too recognizable.

I wonder if their cultivation is making them angry or were they like that to begin with 🤔

Finished the 28 day yoga routine, seems like the book has left a program to contiune practicing. Thats one less headache to deal with.

You guys kid, but OP ascended the day he posted the message and left us alone to this incarnation of suffering 

Welcome 

On 17.03.2024 at 12:27 AM, Nungali said:

Ha!   I am a martial artists and ' a relatively famous IMA/Neigong teacher ',  here on Daobums,  once threatened to kill me with his 'iron palm strike ' to the heart .... in fact he said he would 'delight in doing it ' .

One can only guess how much venom he injected to his students.

Also what an immature brat.

Though this is becoming less and less of an unpopular opinion nowadays, iq tests really doesn't do much but measure a single part of intelligence, and its up to debate if it does a good job at it.

Anyone bragging about their results aren't as bright as they think they are.

1 hour ago, idiot_stimpy said:

The Ego wants control, relax, you cannot control what is uncontrollable.

I should have made myself more clear. I am simply lost in thought many times a day. I have to ask how many hours I am awake in a day in first place.

By control, I mean aware of whats going on at the very least. 

46 minutes ago, blue eyed snake said:

there is a bit more about it though, like these parables always seem to be layered

 

https://www.stillnessspeaks.com/empty-boat-chuang-tzu-thomas-merton

This has to be the only poem so far that I can understand cleanly 😁 thanks for the link!

4 minutes ago, idiot_stimpy said:

What are you concentrating on if you don't mind sharing?

Minute hand of a clock when eyes open, simply void of mind when closed. 

Haven't logged one in a while.

Now aiming for 20 mins of closed eyes concentration and as stated above, 10 mins open. I will keep it that way for a while. Also I can visualize objects for a couple of seconds now, with much better detail than before.

Its time to bring the daily thoughts down a notch now, what is the point of building concentration if I am not gonna use it on daily tasks?

Someone kick me in the head, I haven't done any Zhan Zhuang since last entry. Bad Elysium bad. But kept on with the Yoga, 4 days later the book will end. What do I do after I wonder?

9 hours ago, blue eyed snake said:

yes, also via emotions and desires ( the latter being a subset of emotions i suppose)

I am guessing there is a fine line where one isn't attaching to these emotions unless willingly choosing to, and not a robot devoid of emotion. Doesn't seem easy but doable.

3 hours ago, Nungali said:

Sit comfortably in a calm environment , set up to  minimize distractions . Think of one object to visualise and concentrate on . Have a paper and pen at hand . Set a timer for a short  amount of time .  Think of the one object and each time you loose that , make a mark on the paper and go back to thinking only of that object .  Continue until timer goes off . Total up the marks .

This is the current excersise I am doing actually , saw it in Concentration by Mouni Sadhu.

3 hours ago, Nungali said:

Success in this meditation can encompass both  aspects  of  ' vajra like '  directed focus   (  you like that one ? I just made it up    )   while 'being open'  to 'the all'  that the mind seeks   * .   Its one way of accessing the 'internal genius'   ( we all got one )  .

Could you expand on this a little?