turbo

The Dao Bums
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content count

    215

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by turbo

  1. Posted

    Yes, I moved them both to Off Topic. It's a tough call, ... I think the distinction I'm using here is that politics is cool in Taoist Discussion if we really consciously work to tie it in with cultivation, with our practice, with our bodies, minds, souls ... more directly related to cultivation practice.

     

    Sean

    Hey Sean,

     

    You may want to consider that there are topics in the Taoist Discussion area are not direclty related to cultivation. The thing is that a lot of people simply dont look into the Off Topic area and there are topics that people are interested in discussing besides cultivation. Perhaps another area would serve the board better. Cultivation/Tangents/Fringe, or Cultivation/Non Cultivation/Off Topic, or Cultivation/Other Interests/Etc or Cultivation/Life/Everything Else. Dunno, maybe it would serve us all better, maybe not.

     

    Have a good one,

     

    T

  2. Posted

    Turbo,Im intruiged by this Longevity Breathing DVD.Is is a stand alone practice,is it accesible to the beginner...etc.Who produces it?

     

     

    Everyone should be doing Longevity Breathing. It is completely stand alone and will benefit any other physical/spiritual practice. It fights stress, it aids and induces deep relaxation and release of muscles. I loaned the DVD to a friend who was having panic attacks and she hasn't had one since watching the first part of the video (there are four steps and you need to integrate each before learning the next).

     

    It was produced by BKF and is available from his website or amazon. As far as the production the presentation is awful (maybe its just me) BUT the information is so valuable that it must be recommended.

     

    BKF's website

     

    Video on Amazon (dont believe the bad review)

  3. Posted

    biggest problem with aluminium based deodorants is you spray it under your arm and the aluminium (for women) goes straight into the mammary glands....

     

    biggest cause of breast cancer - deodorants!!!

     

     

    I'd heard this before and thought it had been disproved, but its still up in the air. See here.

  4. Posted

    First, the answer.

    "Outside of Thanksgiving, can anyone come up with anything that all of America celebrates as its own?"

    Thanksgiving? Most cultures have a Thanks giving. So the quick answer is...jazz.

     

    And a damn fine answer if I say so my damn self. Jazz is incredible. I could go on for a long time but theres no sense in it.

  5. Posted

    As a complete beginner in Chi Gung,I have been looking at Ken Cohens THE WAY OF QIGONG for some ideas on how to structure a practice.

    Any advice anyone? :) Regards,Cloud.

     

    Hey,

     

    I read that book a while back and while it was helpful at the time, I would recommend that you check out BK Frantizs' work. I got his Longevity Breathing DVD and Opening the Energy Gates of the Body book. I feel like these are a prerequesite to any other, especially energetically based, qiogong methods. After all moving energy around becomes a lot easier when the body is open.

     

    The Longevity Breathing DVD in particular is the best "taoist" technique I've ever practiced. It opened up muscle tensions that I'd been unable to release for years, and it massaged musces and organs. Essential stuff. I start every session with at least a couple of minutes of it.

  6. Posted

    You don't like the education system? Get in there and change it. You don't like obesity? Get the schools to get soda machines...oh wait, that already happened!

     

    Why blame this country when it's just individual's own choices?!?!

     

    Sorry I'm ranting... I know my patriotism will piss off everyone on this board, but I'm tired of people disrespecting our country and acting like victims instead of getting in there and changing things...

     

    Many in this county do have the opportunity to or choose not receive an education that allows them to interprit the statements accompanying their agreements with financial instutions. Credit card agreements, loan documents, mortgages, deeds of trust, and the like. Financial instutions are well aware of this and add language in these documents so as to take as much advantage of them as the law will allow.

     

    Please educate yourself on the matter. Click here.

     

    Sure we may have the resources and smarts to pay off our credit cards or to not over spend on them in the first place. Not everyone is that fortunate.

     

     

    Why blame the country? Because the government can put limits on these matters and keep people from losing their homes. Ever heard of an adjustable rate mortgage? The bank can change the interest rate on your mortgage whenever they feel like it (per the terms of your mortgage, see the lack of education comment above). People who chose (I'm not denying its not their lack of jugment that got them into it) mortgages may have their payments DOUBLE by the end of the year. Many of these people were encouraged to purchase homes greater than they could afford in the first place. What can America do about it? Hmm well we could change the corporate culture so as not to bleed people so hard for money. However, a corporate officer will be sued for breach of fiduciary duty if he/she were to choose an option that did not increase earnings per share as much as possible.

     

    There are no easy answers and instead of singing the praises of our great country while turning a blind eye to those who suffer we should take a sober look at our problems and try to help out.

     

    Running to another country to get away from America is not a viable solution either. If all the people perceptive enough to recognize that things are screwed up here left, then the blind would be leading the blind (if in fact they aren't already). You cant escape problems by running from them, we must face up and begin discussing them so some solutions can be found.

  7. Posted

    Which brings us to Hitler.

     

    "As a thread grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

     

    Also, the reason he lost is because he tried to fight a war on two fronts. He should have learned from Napoleon. One must suppose that his ego got his the way. BTW, the Third Reich came up with some new technologies and the rest of the world learned a lot about medicine from their inhumane experiments.

     

     

    Back to America - where do you start unraveling the gordian knot we've wrapped ourselves up in? How do you get a voice of sanity out to the masses and have them recognize it as such? Art? Music? Film? These seem like mediums through which some unknown has a major breakthrough into the public's conciousness every now and again.

  9. Posted

    But I do still think we have great potential as a country..but probably even better to say we have potential(I hope) as a world and a race at this point..

    I tend to disagree. I think we have potential as individuals. America is led by the corrput, fed poision (food and television), and has become complacent. The only people in history who have made change are individuals. It is up to each of us to live our lives with intergrity and to not only set an example for others but to create positive change in our own environments. We are living on the cutting edge of life, each moment can never be regained and if we choose not to use it to move the ball forward then we risk losing out and we sell ourselves short. No more hiding in the caves waiting for imortality/enlightenment. We must engage the world and expose its flaws and its strengths, so that all can learn and not repeat the same mistakes.

    /end motivational speech

  10. Posted

    Ok..soul searching time..what is America to you?

     

    Sorry dude, hate to be a bummer, but America defines itself by what it consumes. There is no true American culture outside of consumerism. Think of a major holday Christmas for instance. When was the last time that anyone waxed spiritual about the birth of Christ? People say Happy Holidays now, not Merry Christmas. And the day itself is based completley around consumerism. Thanksgiving - was not really a holiday until Abraham Lincon made it so (and thats pretty old, so it should qualify as culture). Valentines day - (I know it not really a "holday") but it was completly invented to sell stuff. Halloween - sells costumes.

     

    Outside of Thanksgiving, can anyone come up with anything that all of America celebrates as its own? Perhaps the Constitution. July 4th.

     

    Who are we as a nation? A lot of consumers who only want more and are willing to go into so much debt that we pay for our groceries on credit cards and have to file bankruptcy when something happens to cause us to miss work. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/

     

    Who are we becoming? The pawns of corporations with more power, money, influence and less morality than the government (and thats not much). All of our "representaives" are corrupted by corporations who give them money to receive their favorable legislation. See: The Corporation.

     

    ...Better world for our children and grandchilren? The question is not whether, but how? Psychologists have tuned advertisments to cause children to beg for toy/game/whatever enough to break parents "beg tolerace" [again see The Corporation]. How can someone break a child of this? Dont expose them to TV. Ok, so send them to school where they around all the other kids who have seen it, it wears off on them, think second hand smoke. Ok, home school them. Its a lot of work to not only educate, but to properly socalize a child who has never leaves mommie and daddys side for a full day. Ok, so dont own a TV. Seems like a good option, I only play DVDs on mine, no cable or any other inputs into it.

    Also, these ads continue to stimulate desire in kids. Obesity in children is at an all time high, many point the finger at soft drinks, but its the advertising, the image, not the flavor that makes kids want more. Dont think we are immune to it either, we watched the same ads (not as well tuned psychologically) but it stimultaed tons of desire in us. Why do you think that we have to dig so deep with meditation to rid ourselves of these defilements.

     

    This does not even scratch the surface of the myriad of problems facing us, our children and their children. But hey, what can you do. Gotta enjoy the insanity of it all and laugh every now and again.

     

    Anhow, hope the rant wasnt too much.

    T

  11. Posted

    First, this may not belong in the Taoist Discussion area, but I dont think the Off Topic area would provide it as much attention as I feel it deserves.

     

    http://www.wanttoknow.info/index.shtml

     

    Above is a website that seems to provide reliable information about coverups concerning health, medicine, mind control, elections, etc...check it out.

     

    Seems like I "knew" much this stuff already, but these folks take it a step deeper, and seem to have done the research.

     

    Well, so much for disputing the validity of a raw meat diet (seemed like a pretty weird idea to me). If you want to live a healthy life you have to do it through traditional (TCM, aruevada) means, or non-traditional, but not through modern techniques or ideas. The site reveals the process through which drug companies have turned from helping people using the for a dollar. If the pimp-hooker-trick model ever fit it is here with pharmie-MD-patient.

    /rant

     

    Enjoy,

    T

  12. Posted

    Yes, hello, and there are how many bajillions of people in the world and you're trying to say that one mold fits all?

    ...

     

    To then have someone come along and say, Hey, that's all wrong. You have to do it this way. Well, then the motivation just gets deflated and the goal is, poof, gone with the wind.

     

    It seems intuitively obvious that if you set a goal like "I think I can" or "I am going to be in the top percentage group" or "I am going to meditate every day" that it would be better for you than "I not going to fuck up" or "I am no going to be in the bottom percentage group" or "I am not going oversleep and be running late and miss meditation".

     

    If you have the confidence to say "I'm going to make it" then that will transalte into your action, however if you a repeating "Dont screw it up this time" then you are not trying to do your best, just trying to avoid your worst.

     

    It is only when we do our best that we are successful, then we could have done no better. That reminds me...I have go fulfull some goals.

     

    Cheers.

  14. Posted

    When we do energy work, not only are we getting better at the work, but we are also increasing and improving the body's capacity to work with energy as well as greater amounts of energy without burning out and blowing a weak link somewhere.

     

    So, do you think this means all energy? Say I got hit by ligtning on my walk, or tomorrow stupidly jammed a fork into toaster to get out the toast without first unplugging, would I be much better off because of my energy work, or just as dead or damaged?

     

    I personally knew a high level qigong practitioner who worked at an acupuncture school, he was doing a qigong meditation that pulled energy in from the sky, only there was a thunderstorm overhead. He went insane for a while, barking at buildings and yelling at cars, acting like a rabbit. He was immediately given acupunture by a senior member of the faculty and over the weeks and months he regained sanity, but he was never quite the same.

     

    I guess the lesson is that there are a lot of energies that we can handle physically, but are so foreign to us that we cant integrate them. This is also why you shouldn't practice qigong involving drawing energy from above during severe weather. So it may not take a direct physical interaction with these energies to harm someone who inadvertently (or even intentionally) comes into "contact" with them.

  17. Posted

    [Watts] was a giant and apparently got the ball rolling for alot of well known Tao people.

     

     

    Yeah, he has written number of texts and was a serious practitioner of Zen and an ordained Episcopal priest/minister. Its really a great article, and you can tell that Watts has experienced the effects of regular meditation over many years, as well as intense episodes with psychedelic "drugs".

     

    The question about psychedelics is whether you can sustain a high level of spiritual accomplishment with them...without having to resort to taking more at regular intervals. That and it seems like foreign substances would work to pollute, not purify the nervous system. Of course they are generally illegal (see the UDV church who by ruling of the Supreme Court is now legally allowed to import and use DMT in its religious ceremonies), and meditation/qigong/yoga/etc are legal and free.

     

    He metions in the article the Quaker doctrine of the Inner Light. This is an interesting topic and a new discovery for me...time to do some more research. Here is a quote from what I've found so far "The Inner Light, the true Seed. is no foreign substance added to an undivine human life. It is neither human nor Divine. It is the actual inner self formed by the union of a Divine and a human element in a single undivided life." Sounds like the Quakers were (and still are??) into some powerful spiritual cultivation.

     

    Cheers

  19. Posted

    Maybe 5 minutes of stretching after meditating would do the job, just to open up the channels and to get

    the Chi flowing into the limbs, follow that up with a full body massage to disperse any stagnent chi and spread chi through the entire body.

     

     

    There are various approaches to post meditation transition. Some qigong instructors say to rub your hands over each part of the body to "bring the chi to the surface" others say to hit your limbs and torso to wake the body back up. There are various approaches, shaking, streching, etc but the few minutes rest at the end works well for me. Its easy to tell when youve had enough and are ready to get up.

  20. Posted

    The opposite of having a nice afternoon..

     

    Far from it,

     

    What a beautiful experience, to be so close to such a wonder of nature. Sharks should not be feared, but respected. They are the perfect predator, and its amazing to see such a creation. Humans are not a natural prey of sharks, we have nothing to fear, besides the effects our own destruction of shark populations.

     

    Finning of sharks leaves hundreds of sharks to die without dorsal fins. They are cut off and the shark is thrown back to the ocean. The lowered shark populations are interrupting the natural food chain to the detriment of our environment.

     

    http://www.billysandifer.com/gallery.htm

     

    Stop shark finning and practice catch and release!

     

    Some more info on finning (google "shark finning"): http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...urbananimal.DTL

  21. Posted

    I'll stick with Yogani's excellent appropriation of Kriya Yoga and call it a day.

     

    Yogani's huge book devotes about a page and a half on angels and visions.

     

    -Yoda

     

     

    Be sure youre reading the first edition of "Autobiography of a Yogi" because later editions have been edited by the (not so) kind folks at the Self Realization Foundation to chage the message in ways that are said to promote the SRF. I've never done a comparison of the two editions myself, but from what you can find on the internet the changes are not insignificant.

  22. Posted

    lol sorry about that..i fixed my mistake. I just picked up his revised opening the energy gates book and it sounds familiar, so I'll check in there..thanks!

    T

     

     

    The book covers the basic instruction, but the video has more depth to it. You can learn it from the book, but I think you'd have an easier time w/ the dvd.

  23. Posted

    Hey Trunk, I'm interested in this as I've become aware of some restrictions in my diaphragm area and between the shoulder blades i'm working on loosening. One of the reviewers of the DVD on amazon said it totally stunk. How much did the DVD actually help vs. your own knowledge that you applied to what you saw?

    Know what I mean?

    T

     

     

    You quoted me but called me Trunk, so I'll assume you were asking me. The best description of it is like having a deep internal massage. I cant promise any results, but unless you are already doing this practice, then it would seem impossible to not benefit from it. When I lie down my whole belly is loose like I never thought it could be. I've had tension in the shoulder blades area but it was rooted around my liver, and the releases in the belly and liver area have loosened up my upper back as well.

     

    As far as the DVD vs what I know already. This was a new practice to me, and I always knew that I should breathe deeper and all that, but he has a specific protocol for opening the areas the breath needs to goto. The process takes a while. Step one is the belly, then the sides, then the lower back, then the upper back. I spent a week on each section and spent two weeks stabilizing the first three areas. The upper back is taking longer, but I have a lot of tension there.

     

    As far as the bad review on amazon, that guy seem more interested in western physical fitness than deep breathing, relaxation, and meditation. That said, the presentation bugs me, i dont like it, but the information is worth putting up with it.

     

    Turbo

  24. Posted

    With all the different systems today any advice or comments would be great. Thanks

     

    I started doing Longevity Breathing by Bruce Franzen about a month or 6 weeks ago and am suprised and happy with the results. My lower body cavity from rib cage to pelvis is loose and free. My liver is opening up, and the tension from there to my shoulders has loosened significantly, lower back is looser and moves much more freely and the upper back is getting there.

     

    I can not recommend this type of breathing highly enough. Any other technique will benefit from having this as a foundation, as it opens the breath to lower parts of the body and enables a depth of breath (even when not practicing) beyond that any meditation/yoga/qigong has provided for me.

     

    The video is the best way to learn it, his qigong book talks about it, but the detail is in the video. I dont particularly care for the presentation, but the information is invaluable.

     

    Hope this helps,

    T.

    • Like 1