sirius

hello! if you want to find out more about gurdieffs teachings i would recommend the book "transformation" by john g. bennett. bennett was - in my opinion - the most important of g.`s students. and he managed to understand gurdieffs message. and he quite successfully tried to translate this message into a language which is easy to understand. the result was the book "transformation". bennett was the founder of the "sherbourne house of continous education" in england. this is a study centre for gurdieffs and bennetts teachings. one of the famous students of the "sherbourne house" was the experimental rock musician robert fripp (king crimson). good luck on the path! sirius

i haven`t used full moon water yet, but i suppose that it should strengthen the intuition as well as creative abilities. i will try to find out more about it and post it here in the next month. many years ago i used to experiment with the full moon energies, but in a different way. on full moon days i used to fast. and i did trance voyages together with a friend. we used the sacred postures that felicitas goodman describes in her books. i usually made quite interesting experiences with it. - and i did some writing and painting on full moon days, too. i had the impression that this creative work was easier on these special days. enjoy the full moon!

little 1, thank you very much for this grat thread! i am married and have two kids (13 and 20 years old). that`s why this topic is very interesting for me. and it is interesting too, because i wanted to share the job of bringing up the kids with my wife. probably this was easier for me, because i work in shift. that means that i can spend whole days at home during the week. but i have to work on weekends or holidays or at night as well. to sum up my twenty years of experience in family life and beeing a father and a "spiritual" person i can say: a family is the ultimate taoist training camp! it`s not the easygoing weekend workshop, but it`s the 365 days challenge! and all in all with all the ups and downs of all day life it is the place where i want to be, where i can learn, where i can give and take and where i feel at home. and it`s the place where i get a direct und very unscensored feeback concerning my behaviour and concerning my compassion and my patience. and - very important - there`s my wife, who is a true friend, who reminds me everytime of the earthly realities when i am drifting among the taoist clouds in the seventh heaven of enlightenment. lol! and what about the fruits of my cultivation? what can i transmit into my daily life? - i can`t change my family completely, nor can i change my place of work. but i try to bring more humour, more patience and compassion into my life and the life of others. and from time to time i do some yoga or chi kung exercises with my daughters. thank you again, little 1! and thank you to all you taobums who posted so many inspiring thoughts!

heya to all you shakers! jan fries, a modern freestyle-shaman/magican, wrote a very interesting book in 1995 about shaking practices: "seidways. shaking, swaying and serpent mysteries". in this book fries gives a lot of background information about the use of shaking practices to reach altered states of consciousness. he describes how the san people in the kalahari use it, how the phenomenon occured when mesmer cured people, how the shamans in northern europe used it, the strange exercises of the northern american shakers and so on. he gives a lot of practical information on the topic, too: how to prepare yourself for the shaking (warming up exercises), the different forms of shaking and how you can use them and - not to forget - the earthing after the shaking experience. fries gives a lot of useful information about shaking and some very interesting examples for the use of this technique for shamanic/magical activities like invocation, obsession by gods, spirits, fylgia, the holy guardian angel and even for travels along the timelines to other lifetimes and so on... it`s an incredible book! keep on shaking!

maybe this is a stupid question, but i`d like to know if you all who practice this "dream yoga" don`t suffer from a lack of sleep/lack of energy during day time. for me this is real problem - which made it so difficult for me that i stopped to work with these methods soon after the first lessons. i have to add that i work at night, too - which doesn`t mean that i can`t sleep at my place of work. but my time for sleep there is very limited - and depending upon the circumstances. and when i go to bed after work my head is full of thoughts and worries and ususally i am really tired. then i am happy when i manage to meditate for a short time. i just don`t have the energy to do more exercises.

heya phore! many years ago, when i was a member of a "serious" wicca group, i made an experiment with the invocation of a godess. i was ill (had caught a terrible cold) and i called the godess isis for help. i did this out of intuition. soon after my "invocation" i fell asleep. i started dreaming. and in my dream i met the godess. i was so surprised and impressed that i tried to paint a picture with water colours some days later, when i felt better. i cant say that the process of healing was shorter or something like that. and of course the sceptics will say that my dream-vision was nothing but a result of fever. but for me this was a real encounter with the godess. it was very convincing, because in my dream i had seen isis with all her attributes (that i did not know before). and afterwards i found all these details (that i had seen in my dream) in a book. my experiences with wicca were mostly positive. i learned a lot about energy work. and the excercises they did remind me a little bit of the zanh zhuang chi kung. and the healing ceremonies were similar to some of the chi kung practices. wiccan energy work led me to chi kung some years later... a gwyr arwin arbed sirius

hey daoseeker! i`m a german tao bum and i like to drink green tea. if you "import" enough tea from china maybe you can sell some to me? that would be fantastic! greetings from a german tao bum

there are western chi kung/taiji/inner martial arts teachers who adopted the "traditional" chinese way of teaching. that means they demonstrate the exercises, they correct you, but they don`t tell you much about the background of these exercises. of course western adepts of the inner martial arts often tend to ask many - and often silly - questions. especially when they get in contact with these systems for the first time. often these "traditional" teachers don`t really like to be asked "silly" questions. they think that a regular training which enables you to progress and develop your personality will give all the answers to the questions that might arouse. and very often these teachers follow just one sifu and they are not interested in getting in contact with other teachers/with other exercises and with other methods of teaching. as a typical westerner who is used to use his brain, who is used to ask "critical" and "silly" questions and who thinks that he is quite open-minded i have a real problem to accept this traditional way of teaching. why do so many western teachers "copy" this traditional style of teaching? why do they react in strange ways if you ask them "normal" questions like: who were your teachers? what style did you learn/do you teach? how long do you practise? since what time do you teach? can you give some information about the effect of the exercises? why do you teach just this one style? i would like to hear from you tao bums what you think about these questions. what are your experiences with teachers? maybe some of the forum members who are teachers can comment on these "silly" questions.

thank you to all of you tao bums who tried to answer my "silly" questions. i want to thank especially xuesheng, stigweard and starjumper for your long, detailed and inspired responses. you all gave me a lot of stuff to think of. - i think i will reread your posts tomorrow. somehow i will find my own way... blessed be! sirius

hello sheng zhen! yes, it`s "standing in the stream" (water posture). the earth posture is the one with the hands forming a triangle (the downside of the hands points to the ground) and you hold the hands at the height of your lower dantian. it`s a little bit difficult to explain, because i have to translate from german into english. if i use the wrong words, please let me know - so i can probably improve my english. happy standing! sirius

warming up is important then some basic standing exercises (wu chi, holding the belly, holding the tree, water and earth posture) you will find these in lam kam chuens books - as other tao bums already mentioned. i would like to give some more details, but this is a little bit difficult, because my english is not that good. if you have no teacher and no one who can correct you you can do the execises from time to time in front of a mirror. cooling down is important, too - at the end of the training - and the gathering of the chi in the lower dantian i would look for an expierenced teacher be patient with yourself good luck on the path!

my favorites are: claudio monteverdi - his heavenly music lifts me up when i`m down johann sebastian bach (especially the "goldberg variations" and the lute music) - bachs music gives me comfort when i`m really stressed turlough o carolan - inspired harp music that brings peace and happiness into my life while listening to it ravi shankar - his ragas illuminate my all day life dead can dance - open the door to the magic worlds for me

isn`t it necessary to learn things like that with an experienced teacher? i write this, because i know from my own experience that breathing exercises can have a very strong effect -and not always a positive effect even if you pratise in the right way (which may be difficult without a teacher).

you can grow many herbs in your garden - as some other tao bums already mentioned. but - be careful with the peppermint, because he likes to invade the garden step by step with his roots! one of my favorite herb tea mixtures for the season (it`s autumm now here in germany) is: dried leaves of strawberry, blackberry and raspberry, dried ribwort leaves, dried elder flowers, dried calendula flower buds (for the colour) and some lemon balm leaves and peppermint leaves for the good taste. this tea mixture will help you not to catch a cold in atumm or winter - or if you have caught one it will help you to feel better soon. usually i add a spoonful of honey to every cup of tea. the leaves of the citrus verbena can be used for a fresh summer tea with a lemon flavour. you can grow this plant easily - even on the balcony. but the plant has to be taken inside the house in winter because it can`t cope with frosty temperatures. i like to cultivate herbs in my bio-dynamical garden. and i like to go out and look for herbs in the countryside. i use them for cooking, for tea mixtures and for my compost. i like the simple life in the country. greetings from a simple tao bum

the fresh salad from my biological garden for yesterdays lunch, the countless ripe and sweet apples from my apple trees (this year we have lots of apples here in germany!) and the delicious green-violet broccoli that i like to eat with tagliatelle (tagliatelle with broccoli and ham)...delicious!

hello pranaman! thank you for writing these words! this is a very important topic! i am married for more than twenty years. my wife isn`t interested in qi gong or "spiritual love" at all. but she loves me in her own special "down to earth very practical" way. over the years i felt that this is exactly what i need to keep rooted and not to fly away to the seventh heaven with my idealistic way of thinking about how to bring spiritualty in my all day life. i love my wife, too - in my silly, idealistic and "spiritual" way. - and maybe this is the other half of the cake that my wife is looking for. in my silly way i try to bring a little bit of humour, a little bit of relaxation and love into our relationship. i try to be patient. i try to be aware. but i try to accept myself for not not beeing patient when i`m really stressed. and i try to understand and to excuse if my wife doesn`t succed in being patient...yes, it`s not easy. but i try. i really try. i try to do my chi kung exercises regularly and i feel that this helps me during the day, because i can cope better with conflicts in our relationship. sorry, i have to finish now, because i have to go to work. maybe i can write more tomorrow. greetings from germany sirius

a really informative book about tree magic is: "tree magic" by steve blamires this book offers a huge variety of possibilities to get in contact and to work with trees. steve blamires is the founder of the celtic research and folklore society (crfs). - my favorite trees are the oak tree and the apple tree. through them i got in a deep contact with nature and with nature religion, with shamanism and finally taoism - which is all connected. so the circle is closing... greetings from the green woods of germany sirius

hey, that`s fantastic what you all wrote about your experiences with trees! i love trees, too. once a member of the german "anthroposophische gesellschaft" told me that rudolf steiner, the founder of this society, had written down little "poems" about several trees. these poems are still used today - for example do the steiner people recite them before eating their meals. these "poems" are about the ash tree, the cherry tree, the oak tree, the elm, the maple tree, the birch and the ...what`s the english word for "buche" - i don`t remember, sorry. the interesting thing is that steiner connected every tree with a day of the week, with a planet, with a metal and with a syllable. and every poem wants to point that every tree has his own very special character, his own virtue - something that the human beeings could cultivate in themselves, too. it`s a pity that i posess these "poems" only in a german version. although my english is not that good i try to translate the little text about the birch tree: friday A venus copper the copper venus is speaking through the virginlike birch that has weak roots and drinks a lot of light: o, human being, cultivate your soul in fragility, admire lovingly the beauty of the world. that`s it for the moment. i have to do some zhan zhuang exercises now! for example standing like a tree! happy standing! sirius

that was definitely no placebo effect. that was the experience of more than thirty workshop members. and everybody who really wants to find out the truth about it can make the experience, too.

hello teddy! very interesting topic! the five elements chi kung does exist. i was lucky to see a quite impressive demonstration of this chi kung method during a workshop of sifu lam (lam kam chuen) this summer in germany . he used this technique to concentrate the energy of groups of five people who held the different postures for the five elements. this energy was transmitted to one of the members of the group (people who felt bad or were ill) . the people who practised this stood in a circle, the person who received the energy sat in the middle of the circle. this was really impressive - and it worked! and this technique can be practised on a higher level, too. if you are really interested in this stuff i would humbly recommend to look for a teacher who was trained by lam kam chuen or by one of the trainers that he instructed. his books are very interesting, too. but as you surely know: a book can`t replace a teacher! greetings from germany sirius

hello everybody ! i`m new at the tao bums. i practise zhan zhuang chi kung for five years, but i feel like a beginner. i hope to find serious information, lively discussions and inspired comments in the forum. greetings from "old europe" sirius