Krenx

Feelings WILL arise on it's own, due to past conditions. And they arise in ways we cannot control. Hate/ Anger is one of the many feelings that arise. You mention "present" feelings. They may feel like feelings triggered by present circumstances, or created in the moment. But make no mistake, it was conditioned by past views, habits, and past associations far before the present. There is not much one can do to prevent the feeling from arising. The practice is not to stop feelings from arising. That is not in our present control. Suppression in fact gives it momentum, gives hit more places to hide. The practice is to develop the SKILL to restraint our actions despite the feeling. To not act out on it unwholesomely. Face the feelings and see it for what it is, and not choke on its pressure. Make effort to not act out on it. Feelings has to arise, it is its nature to arise when conditions are ripe. It is not at fault, it cannot "not" arise. Feelings are blameless. The blame lies on our decisions to ACT on it. That is where our responsibility lies, the gate of action. The spiritual practice like Qi gong, helps with the skill, to give us more space between the arising feeling, before it turns into a pressure that becomes uncomfortable/ unbearable. And with that space, you have more wiggle room and perspective to see things clearly, and not act out. How does it help? Because during our practice, all kinds of feelings arise. But while those feelings exist, we practice restraint and continue the harmless movements of body and energy. Allowing it to become and change, but restraining our action. So see feelings rise and fall for years, and slowly see its traps. Gradually see it for what it is. Not blaming it, not resisting it, making effort not to act out on it. That way the conditions for its existence weakens, and gradually falls away. Hope this helps.

@goretex Vital you can think of it as the more physical and substantial frequency of energy. As opposed to the more subtle energies. Spontaneous movements is not part of the curriculum. It might arise occasionally depending on the individual, but it should pass. You will hear the term electric and magnetic qualities in his system. For example building the ball. The magnetic quality is yin. The electric quality is yang. It is only 4 elements that mark works with. The metal element is between air and fire, so generally working with the 4 earth, water, air, fire, covers metal. Elemental cultivation at the essence, is a more tangible way to acquire equanimity. Because we interact with these elements as humans, developing them, becoming intimate with them, helps us tame it, so one does not run wild on its own. And so balance is achieved just by becoming "friends" with it. Becoming less a stranger to it. So when faced with those elemental qualities in life, your mind does not get agitated by it. The 4 elements is a hermetics thing, nothing to do with appealing to Qi gong. Elemental practice is popular, specifically in the bagua and xingyi circles. And Buddhist practice.

Sure. Just want to make sure. Because you make quite extreme statements without any basis for it and assume what you say is well known fact when it is not really. It is difficult to have a conversation with other people like that.... If a conversation is what you are looking for at least.

Are you generalizing that everyone who says their Buddhist are practicing real buddhism? And by saying "just a bunch of people practicing, they are flawed and not perfect". Are you implying there are no good practitioners, nobody in the right path in their respective religions? These are big claims. Hope you clarify this.

Treat them as different religions. Like how one would treat Christianity as distinct from Islam. Because the teachings and goals for early buddhism, vs Mahayana/ tibetan/zen, later teachings are different and often contradictory. That way things make more sense, and you can continue the path you choose.

The Buddha did not say there is no self. The Buddha taught non self. If there was actually no self, none of us would be suffering. But we do suffer. It is more the process of attending to phenomena more honestly. We cling into a sense of self, and hold on to qualities of me, mine, myself not just conventionally speaking, but also internally. With ignorance, there is a self. With wisdom, the self gradually has to dissolve. The Self does not hold water, it is not dependable, unstable. We see how things are unfit to be regarded as self. The "self" in Buddhism is defined as something that is "permeant", ever lasting, does not change. But as we go through phenomena, we realize things in the world are unfit to be regarded as "self", due to the impermenant and changing qualities. And so we attend to the nature of phenomena, and navigate skillfully to release ourselves from suffering. And that involves seeing anatta, non self.

Equanimity. Stillness. Those qualities are not just developed in your formal practice, but needs to be enforced in your daily life and habits. That clarity that arises from equanimity, will dispell questions about who's energy is from where, and which is what. You will discern and know for yourself. Like choppy waters, nothing is clear, it is all muddy, guesswork, impossible to judge objectively. When you make the energies and mind settle to become clear without ripples, you can see and know. Abandoning alcohol and drugs, stop listening to music passively in the background, decrease your interaction with people who are not involved in your path, abandon harmful people in your life. These are real changes that will make a real difference besides your formal practice.

What about the last paragraph specifically do you need clarification on?

It is a mechanism to "store" value. A mechanism that is to an extent agreed upon by the society, and what they recognize as valuable. A way to store the value of your service, or product, and use that across time. As opposed to direct barter trade, where transaction of a service, or merchandise is exchanged on the spot immediately. So storing value earned in the form of money, and the ability to use it across time, allows more freedom and incentive for people to experience it value in services and creating products in their own time, and as much as they want. You can think of it also in terms of energy. Where instead of something like the sun shining onto things and making it hot. Solar panels and batteries store their energy, and use this energy across time. You can see the benefit and flexibility of such a mechanism. Money is like energy if valued stored for later use. But it is an agreed mechanism by current society. This is why when you are lost in a jungle, money is useless. It has no value in the wild, because a society of animals do not recognize it, have no use for money.

What is the quality of a simple mind. What are its signs and features? What is its conditions and attitude towards phenomena? How does it react towards phenomena? Why do certain minds decide to act in one way instead of another way? How was this mind convinced to incline towards simplicity, instead of complications? What are the practices and gradual methods to tame this mind. What level is the restraint imposed on the wild mind, and what are the treats, rewards we offer/ bring awareness to for it to understand the benefits of being tamed and cooled down. For it to understand for itself. Good questions to ask. The mind is a wild animal we picked up in this life, that does not know how to "be" on its own. It requires training, taming. It requires convincing. Like a wild animal, you begin with proper restraint. Not abuse. But healthy restraint with virtue. Virtue is very uncomfortable in the world, but gradually it beara fruits, unburdens the mind from many nonsense and potential bad results from bad action. Sets up an opportunity/ chance for the mind to achieve neutral abiding due to the unburdened lifestyle, conduct. At the awareness of a neutral abiding, the mind is cooled, at rest, collected, powerful, and awaits instructions. You direct the mind to that quality, and show itself that reward, peacefulness, and proof that is the state of has been attempting to acquire, but could not on its own. Recognized you as its master. A tamed mind, abides its masters command.

@goretex Damo's safety mechanism around Dantian training, is through refining yin qualities, to tame yang energy from creating unstable pressures and manifestations. It is good fundamentals, true, but I don't think it is enough to restraint the unstable quality of dantian building. What that kind of power becomes, depends on your cultivation and character that has been established many many years prior, and lifetimes. And that kind of character building is not just yin energy. It is your habitual life conduct and health in the mind. The success of dantian work, is depending on things not just in this lifetime. With Mark's methods, although the development of energy is released into space outside the body, we need to remember the fundemental rule of existence. All experience cannot be outside of "mind". All experience is actually an "internal" experience with our 6 sense basis. So this is still a very real internal development, of the physical layer, to the other layers. It is VERY difficult to ignore your insecurities, obstacles, blockages, flaws, defilements with Mark's methods. Because you work on all the layers, the mind cannot run from itself with this kind of training. There is alot of obvious benefits to that. If you trained under older masters, and listen to their caution, they will share very similar stories of themselves, and of masters they know who train internal body methods, dantian work, dantian power. The stories are always the same. They die early, they go blind, they go crazy, their personalities, desires become aggressive, etc. And it is specifically tied to their type dantian sinking training. To contain Qi in ways the body and mind is unable to handle or tame. My master took up Buddhism to develop the insight to filter out and abandon unhealthy training methods. The old branches of yang taiji through yang jianhou's lineages, inclines more towards mark rasmus theories. Where dantian is not really focused that way. It is just an area that is recognized to have a bigger "space" for chi to collect. But collection is not what they do. Energy just flows through it and fills to whatever ratio is available, and flows on. The practice is to purify and stabilize the energies. And when one later is stable to a certain extent, it creates a natural momentum to transform to the next later, jing qi shen, wuji, akasha etc.

I train his system along with my taiji practice. Here are the parallels that makes his system very translatable and supports taiji practice and methods. Vital frequency = physical body, jing Astral frequency = Chi/Qi quality. Mental frequency = Shen quality. Akasha frequency = Wuji quality. So you train to transform the energies from vital to akasha, similar to jing qi shen, wuji. The term "transformation" is important. These frequencies are not just some random energy you pull out of thin air. You have to cultivate the prior energies to a certain extent before there is enough to transform into the next quality, vital being the most fundamental. You work on all of them, and some more then others depending on the phase of your training, and what you personally need for your goals. I have done Damo's methods too. I know he always downplays feelings, sensations and imagination stuff. But if you do this long enough, that kind of statements are really half truths. And half truths are quite harmful and leads to confusion. The truth about feelings, and imagination, is you need to know the context of what layer you are feeling, your attitude towards feeling, and same for imagination. The movement of the mind does trigger Qi, energy to move in specifics ways. It is not without its function in any practice. To abandon feelings and imagination completely is impossible. Developing a more refined context around it is the way to go.

I am surprised it took this long for them to do something about it. The corruption and misconduct is well known for decades.

https://suttacentral.net/an4.95/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=plain&reference=none&notes=none&highlight=false&script=latin “Mendicants, these four people are found in the world. What four? 1. One who practices to benefit neither themselves nor others; 2. one who practices to benefit others, but not themselves; 3. one who practices to benefit themselves, but not others 4. one who practices to benefit both themselves and others. Suppose there was a firebrand for lighting a funeral pyre, burning at both ends, and smeared with dung in the middle. It couldn’t be used as timber either in the village or the wilderness. The person who practices to benefit neither themselves nor others is like this, I say. The person who practices to benefit others, but not themselves, is better than that. The person who practices to benefit themselves, but not others, is better than both of those. But the person who practices to benefit both themselves and others is the foremost, best, chief, highest, and finest of the four. From a cow comes milk, from milk comes curds, from curds come butter, from butter comes ghee, and from ghee comes cream of ghee. And the cream of ghee is said to be the best of these. In the same way, the person who practices to benefit both themselves and others is the foremost, best, chief, highest, and finest of the four. These are the four people found in the world.”

So are you declaring definitively that Transcendental Meditation Siddhi program results in the same qualities as the microcosmic orbit, Jing qi shen transformation process in the daoist arts? In a faster and easier way? And possibly superior results? Just want to make sure that is what you are saying. Because it would be quite a significant statement to make. @tao stillness