Krenx

Ignorance is the root of wrong views. But the Buddha sometimes uses them both synonymously. To not know the 4 noble truths, not realize of exist is ignorance, and people just do as they please, and fall into all the traps and harm in the world. So it is in that context. They are not aware.

The Buddha calls that ignorance. And as they continue to be unaware of their actions, a trail of victims grow in their path.

In this world, actions, intentions have consequences. And there are wholesome and unwholesome actions that lead to beneficial or harmful results. Anytime we suffer, it is a mix of our own unwholesome and ignorant deeds in our past, and the contribution of other people's unwholesome deeds affecting us. You do not really need a god to prove this to you. It is apparent in all our lives if we observe and investigate suffering deep enough. There is often the argument we hear that the animal kingdom kills, and does all kinds of insane things to survive and thrive in nature. And why don't humans adopt that mode of living. What makes what they do so wrong while having the right to exist on the same planet. Well, if you want to suffer as much as an animal, have lives as short as most in the animal kingdom, then acting like them would result in that quality of life, mind and suffering. Humanity has tried to wrestle with virtues, and find loopholes in it since it was discovered. There are no loopholes. Either you adhere to the standard of virtues most religions agree on, or pay the price for foolish unwholesome actions in your life. And the most harmful and result of unwholesome actions and views is, even if you get away for it, and nobody in the world knows what you did, YOU know, and your mind WILL be tormented by it. By the qualities of greed, hatred, delusions. The damage to your mind that does not know the way out of its suffering is a real tragedy.

Not sure what you mean by "middle center".

Yup. That is why I would disagree with Damo. The context is if you do ZZ ONLY in the beginning expecting to get results, you will not get results. But if you do it along side other important developments, it serves a good reference point to gauge improvement, until ZZ transforms to take off on its own as a stand alone cultivation.

These physical parts of the body, and gestures are used to train the "flavour" of Jin/power, force transformations. But in application, you use the flavours of these jins in a reasonable position. You do not try to insist the body part. In application, your goal is to express the jins cleanly. And that has little to do with the body position. The body parts might be used to recall the feeling of the Jin, but you do not really use the body part in an obvious way in application. Again to emphasize, body positioning, classical forms is important to "develop" the various jins and their relationships in the body, and relationship to one another. But when you apply it, you only apply the flavour of the Jin, not often the body positions. An actual fight does not allow you to do that. It is not wrong to use the body positions in application, but to assume the kung fu of the jins can only come out in particular body positions is a big mistake in understanding how jins work. Wang Yong quan's son once got a student to hold his finger, and he expressed all the jins individually with just that one finger onto the student, peng lu ji an cai lie zhou kao etc. To help the student understand what Jin really is, that it can all be expressed perfectly in just one finger, not bound by any particular form or position. To teach the distinction between training. And application of kung fu.

Beginners should not do Zhan Zhuang also a sole practice in the beginning. It should be done along side a bunch of things like loosening exercises, opening body methods, alignment practices. I think that is what he is trying to get at. Because to do Zhan Zhuang correctly, you do need all of peripheral training to support the standing conditions. Those conditions cannot easily be developed within the standing method itself "initially". But you can do it for short periods in the beginning to see if there are improvements every day.

I get fajin'ed every week from my teacher. But we are trained to release it to the ground properly resulting on that stomping and bouncing you see often in certain old videos, so we do not go flying too far horizontally. The first time I received his jin, I flew, fell, and rolled in the ground like 5 meters. But yes, a mattress would be great.

This is good push hands, Jin refinement, good fajin practice. You notice the effects of the Jin happens mostly in the one getting issued, not the one expressing the jin. If you do fajin, and the Jin ends up affecting your own body in large or forceful movements more then the opponent, then it is a sign the force has been largely not transmitted into the opponent. The goal is to issue jin, and the opponent is displaced and moved significantly more then your movement. And that difference in who moves, and who remain still, increases relative to your skill. All the classics, teachings you hear, the expected results points to this gradual quality.

A good way to view these jins, is that they are basically permutations of yin yang within the human body. Shapes and flavours of power. There are the primary 4 peng lu ji an, and the 8 of we include cai lie zhou cao. And alot more practiced by various lineages. We train these main jins, and extended Jins, to cover all the ways energy can transform. So meeting any force from the opponent, we have the Jins available to navigate, use to deal with incoming forces in a variety of ways. The purpose is to smoothen the Jins and their relationship to one another seamlessly, so the practitioner becomes free to allow changes in Jin and energy to transform to their advantage. We do not train a Jin, to insist particular jins in a fight. We train it so it is "available" to be used when the opportunity arises, and skillfully navigate between them, shape the forces to the is ideal for the situation. And how masters seem to able to use the jin they want to use, is NOT because they insisted on it. They responded with the right Jin at the connection, and transform/ guided the forces to the conditions ripe for the Jin of their choosing. It happens quickly, so it seems they use the jin they wanted. No. They created the conditions for it still following the principles of taiji Quan. They will tell you if the conditions are not there, the particular jin will not arise.

Got it.

I am curious how this test works? Do you do the forms, and he observes/senses it energetically and determines its substance? Not saying if Eric is authentic or not. Since I do not know him. But an accomplished practitioner, can make any form or movements they do have substance and power behind it, due to their cultivated internal skills. So wondering how that all works, who demonstrated those "fictitious" forms to him, does he do it himself, etc. Because of someone skilled did those fake forms, with good internals, then it makes sense Eric would say there is substance behind it. But if it is more a set of fake instructions and principles given to him, and he followed it exactly, and claim it is good, when it lacks fundamental laws of energy cultivation, then it is either the added extra stuff to the instruction to make it good, or he is as you said a scam in the area of assessing systems. So just curious about all this. Thanks

Agreed. The explosive force of Jin is a "result" of an opponent not being able to handle the speed of yin yang change. This is a very important framing to perceive Jin. Without this understanding, practitioners in combat will try to "insist" some explosive result on opponents. Real fighting does not work like that. With ting Jin, you will KNOW when the opponent's body is unable to catch up to the change. And you set up as you said, the potential energy from transformation in a way, where once you issue, you know that Jin equation is too much for the particular opponent to hua, and they end up releasing that energy in an aggressive and explosive way. Insisting on specific things to happen in taiji Quan, like explosive fajin, goes against the principles of taiji, and will result in one not being able to do that. Fajin is something you set up conditions for, and "allow" to happen. It is closer to an observed result.

Great resource by the late Dhamavuddho. Dhamma talks as well as verbal readings and comments of the entire 5 Nikayas suttas. Audio & Video Dhamma Talks https://share.google/z9ggFGXF5arrWTuqV He has a YouTube channel as well with many of his talks on different aspects on the dhamma. Great Q and A's

Phoenix mountain guy is one of the few legit ones. For yang style taiji. Very good stuff. From a familiar lineage as I. For Chen style, the master Li Qiang of the Hong lineage is one of the best. If you can find his videos.