Sloppy Zhang

looks in videos that were taken recently. His teacher, looks pretty non-fat.

 

Frantzis is an interesting case in that he's gone through a couple of serious spinal injuries, so maybe his ability to exercise in other conventional ways was diminished, but maybe his change in eating didn't? Not trying to make excuses, or rationalize, and I don't know the man, but just consider that everyone has a history.

 

was known to be a pretty big guy, yet still skilled.

 

What is healthy, what looks healthy, etc etc changes as the times change. In some cultures at some times, fat meant healthy because it means you had access to plenty of food. In modern America, fat means unhealthy because it means you're probably eating unhealthy food and lead a sedentary lifestyle.

 

But even modern days, sumo wrestlers are quite heavy, and I remember growing up kids would say someone is fat like a sumo wrestler. The assumption was "big" and "fat" meant "unhealthy", despite any athletic abilities of a sumo wrestler. (yeah, they aren't qigong, but still healthy and "big").

 

 

Personally, I agree with you- though my tolerance for unhealthy food stayed pretty high relatively far even after my start of meditation/qigong, I reached a point where unhealthy food that used to appeal to me started making me sick almost as soon as I started eating it. Sometimes I feel a bit nostalgic for the foods I used to eat, so I'll go and try them- and I learn pretty instantly that it's a bad idea. I can just feel my body go "ugh".

 

But who knows what would happen if I got access to a bunch of quality sumo diet food? Hmmmm.....

Those states can be achieved by light sound machines, binaural beats, etc. Silva Dynamics offers some CD's on remote viewing. Transparent Corp. has excellent software.

 

These are tools that can greatly assist in mastering these states. However, it takes a lot of work.

 

Gotcha, thanks.

 

How do you tie this in with stuff like remote viewing? Know anybody who is able to produce anything that's even remotely (hehe) close to consistent results?

Regarding the precession of the equinoxes, Tumoessence's explanation about the signs and constellations is fundamentally correct. The precession hardly affects either Western astrology, or Bazi astrology at all because they are more about the properties of a period of time and not about the properties of a subset of stars occupying a particular position in space, but having looked back at how long the above is, I have decided to save that for another post, this one is long enough as it is.

 

Well please do, I am looking forward to what you have to say

I believe mastering the alpha and theta states are the most useful.

 

Interesting thoughts ralis. Do you mind expanding on that a bit? How does one go about mastering those states?

I used to study western astrology and couldn't reconcile signs and constellations so I never persued applying it, but I have followed the logic of the two. The Zodiac Signs are from my understanding at this point, always connected with the seasons, so that Aries will always be connected to the beginning of spring. Two millenia ago the signs and constellations (Stars in the sky) coincided, and probably in ages past where astrology was developed in the west this coincidence of signs and constellations is what gave rise to the system. But the Signs have more to do with earthly existence and personality and Constellations have more to do with spiritual matters micro and macro cosmic. The precession of the equinox creates the sliding of the two systems apart from one another. There are Western Astrologers who use both for readings. John Lash's Quest for the Zodiac talks about one way to do this.

 

Yeah, this is the kind of stuff that got me less and less interested in western astrology as I could mostly find it. People would say, "oh well, according to that date, the sun was in aries" or something like that, but then I started to think, "well... was it really?" do astrologers actually keep track of where a constellation actually is and moves to as precession occurs, and at what dates the sun/planet will be where, or do they just go by some old list that might have completely changed by now?

 

Also, thanks for the book suggestion!

2 hours Full lotus Yin Xan Fa per day.

At least 2 hours half Lotus.

This will show enough true seeker.

If you can do the things above you will also able to gather the money together

and the time.

 

Please forgive my ignorance, but what do you mean by "two hours full lotus Yin Xan Fa per day"?

 

What does Yin Xan Fa mean/include?

Hello from what I have heard the precession of the equinoxes is considered in the western astrology. What I do not remember though but have a vague sense of was that it was considered quite late in the history, and that when it was considered there where changes in the solar signs, the zodiacs. When that happend, and if, I do not rememver though.

 

FD

 

Yeah, this is the kind of thing I'm wondering about. I don't know how Chinese astrology does the correspondences, but I know that western astrology places things (like the sun, planets, etc) in a constellation (from our perspective, anyway). But overtime, the location of even the constellations change as precession happens.

 

So I'm just wondering if modern astrology keeps up with that, because if we do date correspondences from an older source (such as you were born in X month, you are Y sign, and so on with other planet positions), then they may be incorrect for the present (so now if you're born in X month, you are Z sign, and so on with other planet positions).

Well, in the spirit of asking questions......

 

I've taken a few courses in astronomy in my time in university, and usually in one of the intro classes someone brings up the topic of the zodiac. One of the things that my professors like to cite for why astrology and stuff is less serious (these days) than modern astronomy, is because many modern astrologers don't take into account the precession of the equinoxes, and stuff like that which actually changes where the stars are in the sky in relation to the earth over long periods of time.

 

So basically, stars and constellations would be in different places hundreds of years ago than they would be today, but someone studying today from an older system who isn't as familiar with the stars (ancient people looked at the stars all the time, so a lot of them already knew about this, and astrologers of the day would factor this in, as the science of astronomy was very closely tied to what they did, but that's a lot less so with astrologers these days) could actually be using correspondents and things that don't exactly work.

 

I'm not as familiar with Chinese astrology as I am with western astrology (yet), so I don't know if the basis for their calculations is the same, but what I'm wondering is-

 

Is modern astrology taking these changes into account, or is it using outdated charts of the stars which correspond to conditions hundreds of years ago, but which might have changed by now?

Well, Jim could apply the same criticism to his (& nominally, JC's) own religion of Christianity.

 

Jesus (supposedly) walked on water, manifested food, healed people instantly and rose from the dead. Now, wouldn't many of these abilities be of great service to the world? Yet, he taught NONE of his disciples how to do any of this. His followers were simply told to worship him as a god. And in fact, most Christians frown upon "occult" DIY practices and persecute others who attempt them. Furthermore, Christianity also popularly "invented" racism by designating the Jews as "Yahweh's chosen ones."

 

I recall reading an article somewhere on William Mistele's site, in which he says that the scene in Matthew chapter 14 verse 22-33 (Jesus walks on water) is in fact Jesus attempting to teach siddhis to his disciples. In fact, Peter actually succeeded in walking on the water for a little while, but then got scared when he started thinking over other things (the storm), and lost it.

 

Interesting thoughts. I haven't read the Bible recently, and I certainly haven't read it looking for Jesus leaving clues about siddhis. Maybe he did? In any case, I find Mistele's thoughts to be rather interesting.

...well, I remembered how crazy this site is about that kunlun-shit, so I thought he was telling his true opinion.

 

 

Yeah, I remember the crazy Kunlun days....

 

And it's not that I disagreed with what you were saying, because there IS lot of work involved. I just wasn't sure if you were commenting directly about orb's statement, or about the general situation, which I pretty much agree with you on

WTH...?

Who is so d***b to believe this new-age shit?

A good Nei Kung system that will lead you to success is all about hard work, investing time, energy, sweat and tears! It's about dedication and training for hours everyday! Ask John Chang, Jim McMilan or Gary Clyman. A good Nei Kung system will give you back what you invest, there is no instant-coffee having-fun way to success in energy work! This site is going downhill more and more since guys like procurator (Wu-Liu Pai School)aren't here anymore. He knew what he was talking about!

If you want the most precious thing that a human can get then you have to EARN it with HARD WORK for a long long time!

Yeah, I guess Max is like Jesus (or Sri Chinmoy): Just believe in him, open yourself to hi "energy" (nothing else than reiki or prana)and he will do all the work for you lazy weaklings!

Hahaha!

 

I dunno if you knew this but....

 

I'm fairly certain orb was being sarcastic....

Hello Dawei,

 

Hmm... so there's no need for forgiveness. That's good to know, all this time I could've been festerning over old wounds. All I really need to do is be impartial. I'm being sarcastic by the way. I can't see how impartiality is enough in this instance. What are your feelings about anger or mercy?

 

Not speaking for Dawei here...

 

I don't know that it's the individual person that is being impartial, but it's the Tao that is being impartial.

 

"If [the good ones] strive by means of it, they achieve what they strive for.

If [the not good ones] avoid [punishment] by means of it [the Way], they manage to avoid it."

 

If you want to use the Tao to move towards something "good" (not quite sure of the actual wording, "good" carries lots of connotations, so don't get too hung up on the value assessment), then the Tao will allow you to achieve something "good."

 

If you want to use the Tao to move towards something "not good" (again, trying to avoid value judgments here, just think of it is varying concepts/goals), then the Tao will allow you to achieve something "not good".

 

So, I dunno that YOU need to be a robot. Just the Tao, the means by which someone can achieve something, is going to be impartial to the person ("good" and "not good") and what their goals are ("good" and "not good").

 

At least, that's how I'm reading this part of a rather interesting translation

 

Something that I'm beginning to realize is that, even though certain sections of the Tao Teh Ching aren't present in the oldest texts, I feel that in a way the oldest texts are incomplete, as if there's something missing from them. Perhaps the later versions that came along were intending to fill that void?

 

I'd be extremely careful with thoughts like this.

 

Many times we are only looking for the things we want (not necessarily a bad thing). And sometimes, when we don't find it, we put it there for us to find. If there's a particular message that you want to be found in the tao te ching, and you don't find it... well, you are going to come up with all sorts of reasons for why it's not there (flawed translations, omitted by original author, supposed to be inferred by the reader, etc etc), and you are going to put it in yourself, justifying all manner of VERY liberal translations (again, not necessarily a bad thing) and other sorts of additions which will conform to what you think "should" be there.

 

So, just be aware of what you're doing as you do it, and where it can lead.

Thanks for filling everything in, Scotty

Nope.

 

Huh.

Hold the presses - its been said here before that only Level 1 comes from Jenny and that Jenny does not teach the level 2 and 3 from her system (something to do with nobody getting there yet)... so now 1, 2, and 3 are from Jenny?

 

I recall hearing this as well.

 

I don't know about when it changed, when (or whether it's been there the whole time) she started laying out her own practices and all, but from my recollection, Level 1 was Jenny's, but then Max came in and supplemented it by providing levels 2 and 3.

 

So, yeah, interesting to hear these new developments but.... the story keeps on changing, and that's a bit disconcerting.

I'm not so sure how well you'll be able to do that by writing a book.

 

Getting it all out can be a powerful form of letting go.

 

As in, getting it all OUT of you.

 

Ever write a letter to someone then not send it?

 

Or, perhaps for us here, every write a post but then not post it?

 

Sometimes you get to the end of a post, and realize there's no need to post what it is you are saying. The energy dissipated. The reason you felt a need to post was not to convey any particular meaning or response to someone, but to dissipate the energy you had stirring inside you.

Nice way of asking questions!

 

I dunno, I kinda approach the subjects of energetics, meditation, spirituality, etc etc, in a skeptical way (even my own practices). There are a lot of cognitive biases out there. A lot of ways that you can fool yourself and others can fool you. If you show up to a teacher, fork over X amount of money, you are kind of already expecting to get something out of it. So if a teacher does something to/around you, you are naturally going to feel something (most likely). Is this a real effect? Or is it just you hoping to get some value from the money you spent?

 

These are the types of questions I ask myself.

 

I believe that if this stuff is real, it should be discoverable through your own effort. Someone had to discover it. Thousands of years ago, SOMEONE had to be the first person. Maybe they knew it naturally. Maybe it was revealed by a deity. Maybe something else. I dunno. But someone had to be the first, then someone had to be the second.... how did they do it? How did they convey the teachings? How did they experiment with this stuff? Were they any more or less human than us? They did it and they were just as human then as you are now.

 

So I think the practices can (and should) be discovered as independently as possible. I think you should know as much about the pitfalls of the human consciousness as possible.

 

HOWEVER, some traditions have been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The things the human body can handle, go through, and be trained to do, are down to an exact science (such as yoga, qigong, etc). Things that a teacher from a legitimate lineage holds in their possession would most likely take you several lifetimes, unless (or even if) you were a genius, or were favored by some deity, or had a particular energy disposition. Experimenting with this stuff on your own could get you seriously messed up.

 

 

Basically, feel out what sort of blend comes natural to you. Don't rely too much on teachers, but don't discount the knowledge and experience, as well as highly refined techniques, and words of caution, that they can pass on. Don't discount your own efforts, but don't get too egotistic thinking you can accomplish everything a thousand year old tradition did in a few short months/years. But don't rely too much on doctrine, and try to go where your own INDIVIDUAL practice takes you.

 

 

 

 

Or, everything you've heard is all a bunch of lies told by people to justify a lifetime of sitting along in the wilderness.

Well I don't know of any specific hermit practices...

 

HOWEVER, I can definitely see the benefits of a hermit lifestyle when it comes to practice.

 

Once you get "in the groove", once you start cultivating a certain type of awareness, and if you take a taoist/energetic spin, once you start developing those energies, it feels really good to keep them running, to keep cultivating them 24/7.

 

Sometimes even a long, say, two, three, or four hour session, even with closing down, makes you feel like you want to keep going. But you gotta get back to work, school, family, etc etc. Suddenly you get a bunch of stuff thrown at you that doesn't really aid with your practices, and you just gotta turn away.

 

So maybe a hermit lifestyle lets you turn away from unwanted stuff, or perhaps worded better, lets you turn towards a different path.

 

But I suppose it goes without saying that this kind of dedication is serious, and presumably one has done a lot of practices within society, and knows really well that this is a decision that is taken out of a positive drive (desire for betterment), rather than a negative one (I want to escape from X,Y, and Z). Because one I think could go very constructively, and one I think would reveal that the hermit lifestyle isn't for you.

When nine years old my mother doped my grape juice with vodka in order to make me pass out so that she could draw puss from an infected wound on my knee and inject it into a vein in my arm so that I would become sick and need to go to the emergency room at the hospital so that she could have some "alone time" with her lesbian lover, my 3rd grade catholic school teacher. I was in the hospital for 6 weeks before "emergency" exploratory abdominal surgery was done to elininate a "staff infection the size of a grapefruit". Thirty years later, hospital records showed that during those 6 weeks I was administered a myriad of experimental drugs and that the "staff infection the size of a grapefruit" was a fabrication by the doctors that wanted an excuse to cut me open in order to harvest biopsies of my organs in order to ascertain the effect of the experiemntal drugs on human tissue. The surgery lasted 16 hours, my heart stopped for 73 seconds somewhere along the line...I am lucky to have survived it. My mom authorized the testing and surgery (pre HMO days) so that she could have additional "alone time" with her lesbian lover/my 3rd grade catholic school teacher.

 

Seven years later as a sophomore in high school, while going for a midnight snack I would accidentally discover my mom and that same woman, now my catholic high school math teacher, having sex in the family room. From the next day forward, I was never taught another day of math in high school...for 2.5 years during every math class I went to the principal's office and discussed politics, greek mythology, norse mythology, current events, whatever with her. I was graduated from this prestigious college prepatory high school with a a 3.85 GPA and a 1480 SAT (then out of 1600)...but couldn't get into a single college for the lack of high school math.

 

Suffice it to say, my Life has been made more difficult than it needed to be by my mom. I've forgiven her in my heart but I've not told her so. Out of compassion for her I want to tell her. My biggest hurdle to doing so is that I really am happier without her in my Life...I truly believe that she is evil...and don't want her in my Life, but I don't want her to suffer in any way because of me...I think knowing that I have forgiven her might alleviate suffering on her part, but I don't want her in my Life and I don't want to have to tell her that...for the reason of not wanting to cause her suffering...HELP!!!

 

Please advise friendly bums. And please don't steal my story for your publication benefit...I am writing my story...working title is 'Momster:Surviving Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome'.

 

Much thanks friends,

 

xeno

 

Words cannot express how I feel from reading this post. I can't even begin to imagine going through that.....

 

 

 

The only thing I'm thinking of that could be remotely extracted from this is the conditions of homosexual lovers and their status, and the lengths some decide to go through to hide their relationship, but that's still just pointing the finger, and in no way excuses such horrendous behavior.

 

I'm going to stop talking now, but I just want to let you know that I saw what you read and.... I dunno what to say, just, I read what you wrote.

yeah we have the client beat the crap out of a pillow if necessary to bleed off some of the anger before we can even begin to apply reason to the situation. I then go after the hallucinated offender on behalf of the client. The client then defends themselves in the role of the offender, which ultimately brings more understanding to the situation and increases probability that forgiveness will be accomplished. But yeah the idea often has to be conveyed and accepted that forgiving this offender will get them this part of their life back.

 

@Sloppy Zhang I would say most of the anger people carry around well beyond it's usefulness as internal stress has to do with situations in the past. The offender might have moved away, be in another state/country, or even dead but the pain is still there internalized and hurting us in the present. So yeah in that case we are basically powerless to do anything but forgive.

 

If the situation is current, then the anger, as I was trained, is there to motivate us to make the situation more fair. Without the motivational force of anger this would be difficult. I view anger as not necessarily bad in itself but perhaps an evolutionary motivational force to increase fairness and therefore safety. Its what we do with it that is either good, bad, or ineffective. People tend to store it and i think modern society reinforces this.

 

Interesting stuff!

Hm, forgiveness... yes, tough topic for me as well!

 

Sometimes I wonder, if you had absolute power, and could get revenge, would you forgive?

 

How much of forgiveness stems from the realization that revenge, or anger, is pointless?

 

Because sometimes I think, "I hate that person, I want to beat the crap out of them!"

 

But then I think, "someone will call the police, I'll get convicted of some kind of assault, people will think I have anger problems since I beat someone up over some words or actions, people will think I have a problem with authority of living with others, I'll have a criminal record and won't get a job, that person's friends/family will just retaliate against me or my friends or family, and an endless cycle of violence will ensue..... it's much better to forgive."

 

But then I think, "what if I could get revenge on them, and no one would know? What if I could beat them up, or remove them from my life, and the lives of those I knew, without it ever being traced back to me- no risk for societal judgments, no impact on my career, no risk to those I care about.... if I could just make them... go away. If I could handle the problem, and no one would know but the person I hate."

 

I wonder, how many people would say, "fuck forgiveness!"

 

How many people forgive because they truly forgive the person, and how many people forgive because they are powerless to do anything BUT forgive?

That last part (bold emphasis is mine) struck me as interesting. Curious if anyone has thoughts on this.

 

Sean

 

 

Even

Frantzis has been trying to get bagua into peoples' consciousness. Looking at the history of teachers he's studied with, he's had some great tai chi and xingyi teachers, but teaching in the west, tai chi was already really well known and popular. Xingyi was probably a lot less popular, but a lot more straight forward, and seems to be a bit more overtly martial.

 

But there seemed to be a lack of knowledge about even the existence of Bagua, and Frantzis filled that in. Even these days, there aren't a lot of people out there who can teach a lot of the serious internal components of bagua- maybe they know some martial applications, maybe some walking meditations, but the whole package? Few and very far between, I think.

 

In part, I think it was (and still is), a good marketing move- you got a system which can cater to the people who just want a good form of meditation, you can cater to the people who just want a bit of not too heavy impact exercise, and you can cater to the people who want to learn an internal martial art, all in one package!

 

As far as the history, Frantzis is kind of right. I did a lot of research into the origins of Tai Chi, and seeing as how lots of the big names in tai chi can get traced back to the Chen village, it's fairly easy to see how the art developed in the Chen village. There are records of where the Chen family came from, as well as the martial arts they practiced (they were fairly well known fighters). Then you have guys later on down the line who go hide out in the Shaolin temple for a bit, exhange with friends and colleagues, and who learn some health principles from TCM. The art is then revised to conform to certain TCM mechanics, but it is still a fighting art.

 

Several people in the Chen family had jobs guarding caravans. They kept their art indoors, but it was still a martial art. Yang Luchan goes and learns to fight. Then he goes to the capital and makes a career by fighting. He teaches his son, Yang Banhou, who is a serious fighter. And on down the line it goes. At least on the outside, it's a fighting martial art that sticks to principles that will help the body stay healthy, while at the same time producing lots of power, and being an effective fighting method overall. (note: there may be some in door meditative discipline that I don't know about, so no offense to any tai chi people).

 

Now you can also say there are different traditions of tai chi, some tracing back to places that are not Chen village, which gets fairly interesting as you investigate why Yang Luchan's tai chi form looks so different than what he learned in Chen village, but you can counter with inner door teachings of the Yang family, stylistic differences between the different sons/grandsons, etc etc....

 

In any case, a martial art that has health components to it gets picked up and promoted by certain parties, there is a de-emphasis on actual fighting, and a bigger emphasis on how healthy you can be (and stay) while doing tai chi, and then that reinforces (and amplifies) a meditative aspect which may or may not have been there the whole time.

 

Bagua is kind of interesting in that its history is different. Though certain aspects are mysterious, the circle walking in and of itself is a meditative practice (and daoist at that). From what I know, it was Dong Haichuan the martial artist which learned the circle walking meditation (and, I think, might have become a full taoist himself), and then adapted what he knew of martial arts to the circle walking to make a martial art.

 

Now as he taught various people in different ways (and depending on who you ask, different amounts!), you got a lot of different descendant styles of bagua (Yin style, Cheng, Gao, etc etc). But tracing back, the origins of bagua were in meditation, and learning to get into and connect with and flow with different energies, which can be applied to combat (there's certainly energy flows in combat!), but isn't exclusive to combat.

 

Tai chi can be seen differently in that it was always about fighting, then turned to meditation, but bagua was always about meditation, and later got turned to fighting (again, that's a very broad statement and might not apply everywhere, so please nobody take offense!)

 

While I don't always agree with the pretty blunt way that Frantzis says that kind of stuff, from what I know of the history (and from what I shared just now, probably boring most people or causing them to skip over stuff!), there is some truth that rings out in the statements.

Sloppy Zhang,

 

From my limited understanding...

 

If people are practicing from the book, that is good enough. I'm not here to tell anyone they're doing anything wrong. I don't know! They are getting effects. It's up to them and what they feel is correct (not what they think is correct)...

 

If they want to go deeper, they should continue their studies in person. I highly recommend continued learning in Kunlun, while at the same time treasuring what you have, and mastering the basics.

 

Not to be overly secretive (this isn't a closed system), but these practices are very special and should remain so by being private, and taught personally. That's just how I feel, as a fellow student. It makes it better for everyone.

 

Thanks for the response

Levels 1-2-3 are from Jenny. For the past couple of years they were part of Kunlun Nei Gung, but recently were removed. Now there is just the kunlun practice, which is barely similar to yi gong.

 

So.... what does the Kunlun practice consist of, then?

 

I've got the book, which gives instructions on Kunlun with three levels- this is from Jenny Lamb, and is now out of the Kunlun?

 

I know you said there's a new book supposedly coming out, but I'm just wondering, what does the actual Kunlun practice consist of?