Sahaj Nath

Mark Griffin's method is simple. He asks one to employ Bellows breath through the practice. The sound of inhalation is so and this syllable vibrates at the base of the spine (representing Shakti or Kundalini). The sound of exhalation is ham and this vibrates at the crown center (representing Shiva). Thus, on inhalation, the breath moves down to the end of the spine (which is a tad lower than the root chakra really, and is called Kula-sahasrara or the thousand petal lotus at the bottom of the spine) and ascends to the crown at exhalation.

 

Mark clearly states that the breath inherently has the sound of soham (or hamsa) and one need not verbally or mentally utter these syllables. I agree with him in a sense because if one uttered these syllables, it would become japa and not ajapa. One only needs to maintain awareness of the breath along the central channel in the above described fashion.

i'm not sure where your analysis is coming from, but the segment quoted by Trunk in the OP, plus Trunk's subsequent commentary, flies in the face of just about everything you've said. Mark's method IS simple, and it's simpler than your interpretation of the breath sounds allows for. his method is simpler because it's more organic than that. and being a student of Mark's, i can state emphatically that i DO NOT listen to the tones of my breath when he asks us to listen to the So Ham; i feel and listen to the vibrations in my core. i listen with my whole being, and So Ham arises. organically.

this isn't to say that there's no merit to what you have written (the practice may yield results that way as well), but you cannot attribute that perspective to what Mark is teaching. that's simply not how we roll.

IMO, a beginner may benefit from actually reciting the sounds mentally. In Zazen or even in Anapanasati, sometimes we count breaths initially to keep the mind fixed. By reciting the Soham mantra (which in Tantra acquires advanced transformation into Prasada, Para, Para-Prasada and Prasada-Para etc.), one is also benefited by consciously tuning into the vibration of the breath through sound. Moreover, the tradition teaches that one does not jump into Ajapa directly but starts with Japa and lets it naturally transform into Ajapa. So, after a certain proficiency is attained, the mental chant stops automatically and one simply remains aware of the breath in the central channel. Whether one uses Hamsa or Soham is a matter of choice. There is some discussion of it here.

when one's practice is being influenced and guided by the radiant presence of the Guru, the traditional admonitions (like what practices to start with) go out the window. students of Mark Griffin are practicing while immersed in his energy and his state of nirvikalpa samadhi. listening, in whatever capacity, is vastly more useful than any other type of 'doing' once the Guru's Grace is active in your being.

so in MY opinion, the beginner benefits MOST from learning to receive the Guru. no other lesson even comes close. a beginner who listens openly enough (without presupposition) has the same access to the deepest of states as seasoned practitioners.

I think, I know that I have access to all of this.

I think, I know it is neither easy nor not easy.

I think, I know, that 'shakti' is as much of a 'destroyer' as 'love towards'.

I think i've felt it. It's what I'd call 'better than sex' (to hear it described as 'better than love' was also a moment)

My present capacity for surrender is limited, but she knows that and I feel her patience with me.

*HUGS*

(edit: quote from lifeforce.)

 

 

Ok, wow! That makes sense of a whole lot of stuff! I suspected that must be what everyone was talking about. It's been a strange trip not really knowing for sure if that was what people have been referring to with spiritual awakenings, but it's nice to know that other people know (have experienced) what I'm talking about (experienced) too now !

indeed. you're not alone in your experiences. far from it. and though there has been uncertainty in your own process, that very uncertainty has given you an organic relationship to the incomprehensible which no amount of studying can replace. you can filter even ancient texts on Kundalini through your direct experience. you have the same natural access to that wisdom as anyone who has ever written about it. it's just a matter of how open you truly are, how much trust you can put in your path.

over 10 years later I still recognize the same feeling when it happens. Often I try to not "dive into it" when it happens, just being aware of it but not wanting to it be stronger as it can cause me to drop my guard when I shouldn't.

shouldn't? according to whom? your guard is your barrier to spiritual evolution. unless you have 'special needs' that we don't know about, there is no necessary guard. there is no need for protection. the very things we cling to are what keep us separated from the divine and the miraculous.

EDIT: sometimes i forget that the rest of the world is not as crazy as i am, so you'll have to forgive me sometimes. there are certain "practical concerns" of modern life which can be disrupted by kundalini. you didn't offer any details on how your energy was triggered, but most people who weren't touched by a master go through periods (often extended ones) where they don't get to choose a preference. when kundalini wants to have her way, keeping one's guard is typically not an option unless you learn how to compromise with her.

I don't get though, sometimes it is triggered by random strangers who I don't think are buzzing with Kundalini. Any theories why?

those people might have a deficit, and their energy body might be pulling energy from your field, causing a sense of energetic stimulation. this tends to happen a lot with me whenever i'm around strangers who have a serious illness. so that's at least 1 theory. *shrugs* there are others.

Also, so what do people do when they've been "touched"? What are some practices related to it, and the purposes. Not that I want to power my electricity by it or be a psychic peeping-tom, lol, but where does one go from inside the waterfall?

one goes the same places everyone else who hasn't been touched goes, but with that added comfort of knowing that you will get a LOT more out of it than others can. just make the effort to be a great listener.

EDIT: the most important (or at least fulfilling) thing that we can do is continue to evolve. allow the awakened energy to change you, allow the divine to move through you, as you. learn the great mystery of wu wei by cultivating your relationship with kundalini. discover the joy of realizing that your limited, egoic self is just a vessel.

Hopefully this is a good thread to ask this

 

but, I'm wondering if someone here can explain experiences like the one described here by lifeforece (...assuming he doesn't mind it posted here as well):

 

 

 

This sounds like the same thing that happened somewhat spontaneously to me when I was about 18. I won't go into the circumstances but there was a bit of a catalyst to the experience which stayed with me fairly intensely for a few weeks and still gets triggered once in a while today.

 

When it happened the first time, I thought "what is this? if it's not love its BETTER." and became aware of a force that existed in the universe and between people in the deepest part of us. It was a major awakening to something real beyond the physical. I started to become more intuitive at times as well and came close to the edge of sanity at times though that may have been related to other things.

 

What is that energy? Is that Shakti? Sometimes I just feel it running through my whole back and arms and neck and head and forehead and face and chest and sides, and you get the idea.. it just overtakes my senses like it came from somewhere else. I'm sure phone healings have similar effect.

 

Does that sound like a spontaneous Kundalini awakening, at like a low introductory level? It doesn't seem like something that everyone experiences so intensely, but it also seems common in other ways.

where did the quote come from? that link in the quote doesn't work. who was in the picture being talked about?

what you experienced sounds like kundalini shakti to me. sounds like a very pleasant and fortunate initiation of the process, too. i would need to know a little more about lifeforce's experience to really comment on it. he experienced a transmission, for sure, but was it shaktipat? i can't really say, but it's likely. you mentioned the "better than love" experience and some radical psychological changes. that's the kundalini shakti that i know. and years later it's still with you. again, that's legit K.

if i recall correctly, Seth's first shaktipat transmission came from viewing a photograph. for me that kind of "object transmission" was an extremely rare occasion. but after i received transmission from Max, i found myself really sensitive to things like photographs, religious art, and even written text. i could dial into the energy field of lots of masters that i knew nothing about and have no known lineage connection to, just by observing an image or reading a passage. so i've become very familiar with that dimension of things now, but it's not always "shaktipat" that's happening.

gratitude and surrender. if it's shakti, those qualities tend to arise within like a driving impulse to dissolve into perfect divinity.

but whatever. better to enjoy the mystery of it all, and to let it all unfold. let the natural flow lead the way.

EDIT:

i found the actual link to the page on google. YES. that's shaktipat. i know that presence anywhere.

pretty sure i've met that guy before in the 90's.

congrats to lifeforce if he was able to draw it in effectively. if he really opened up to it, then the connection isn't going anywhere. it's with him.

So take an example of a person meditating:

 

If the person is trying to do a "no-mind" meditation, would that be considered spiritual bypassing if the person is seemingly trying to "escape" emotional wounds?

 

 

Also to further that, would the right thing for him to be doing is instead observing his thoughts during meditation as they come in, and by doing so he will have more clear, wholesome thoughts to treat those emotional wounds?

every human being experiences emotional pain. identification with that pain, investment with that pain, turns that pain into a wound.

so yes, if the goal is escape, it's a bypass attempt.

you don't treat emotional wounds with clear, wholesome thoughts. emotional wounds will clear themselves when you get out of the way and allow the pain to run its course. it's fear of that pain or memory that leads people to assume that something needs to be done about it. truth is, most of the things we "do" further exacerbate the pathology. i think that's one of the main premises of the book, but my copy hasn't arrived yet. just the same, though, i can argue that from my own experience, both individually, and with patients over the years.

since he was mentioned above by my brother seth, i'll quote him again. i agree with Ken Wilber's analysis of healthy spiritual stage development. as we cultivate openness and non-resistance, non-judgment, some things hurt more (no armor), but they bother us less.

"no-mind" types of meditations, like vipassana, lead to this type of healthy development. you begin to realize how your desires and your aversions are really the source of your suffering. pain is inevitable in life, but suffering can be healed.

Good thread Hundun

 

if you guys can clarify two issues for me.

 

--so I started about a year ago. one thing that kept me from experimenting, are the dire warnings in the path that I took, NOT to mix different methods.

 

here is what I read in the book. nei gung conforms your body to specific frequncies or magnetic impulses. Different styles of chi gung or nei gung flow the energy in different directions, and at different frequncies. When you mix in something that is out of harmony with the frequency you have alraedy established, a third harmonic is created that may be extremely determental to your health.

 

--what about mixing lineages, aren't there celestial beings that looks after its own, won't they be confused

although i addressed most of this in the above post, i'll comment on this directly as well.

in my opinion, newcomers shouldn't be concerning themselves with high level systems, alchemy, any of that. there needs to be a period of discovery and exploration before diving into the deep end.

if you're new and you're practicing a system that doesn't allow you to play around, i would leave that system until later. you just don't know how much personal agency you are giving up in terms of taking part in your own development. the driving force behind the impulse to get the most, best, most powerful 'whatever' is something that needs to examined and ultimately deconstructed. EDIT: sometimes it's not a materialist type of pursuit, but just a belief in rules, boundaries, and controls. when you boil that down, though, it's a belief in limits, and it will ultimately limit you. self-exploration, self-discovery, and self-expression can all be critically mitigated when a system is too rigid right from the beginning.

i teach from Roger Jahnke's book The Healing Promise of Qi. every newcomer has to read that book. the first three phases of cultivation in the book are Discover Qi, Gather Qi, and Circulate Qi. these are very open-ended and allow plenty of room for play. there are exercises in the book as well. i tend to not bother much with the exercises in the book, but they are all safe, and i encourage my students to play with whatever they want in the book and discover what they like and what speaks to them. i my opinion, any system that doesn't have a similar beginning stage is doing a disservice to newcomers. SO MUCH is learned in this stage. so many things awaken for the first time, things that students never really knew existed.

there's no concern with lineage transmission at this stage. that kind of thing comes later, if at all. the student will be in a much better position to determine the value or necessity of a lineage practice in terms of their own goals if they enjoy a really good elementary stage. and the really sharp ones start realizing early on that the highest levels in the advanced systems have a lot of similarities to place where we began.

this is just my take on all of this. it's not quite as cut & dry as this might read, but this is as accurately as i can express it all at the moment.

if someone is sick or in need of healing, then, by all means, learn a proven system that you can practice every day. absolutely. but if that is not your situation, don't limit yourself so quickly.

there is so much to be gained in the beginning by simply keeping oneself open.

Was this an intentional or 'spontaneous' experience?

not really either, actually. more like extemporaneous.

EDIT: sometimes i get caught up in grammatical precision to an absurd degree. my apologies. 

it was sort of both. Intentional in that i was in the middle of a puja-type of ritual, honoring the Divinity as God and Goddess, and i was very engaged. Spontaneous in that i was not trying to generate a palpable qi-flow experience. my hand motions were similar to "pulling down the heavens" in qigong, my emotions were a state of reverence, and my intent was to bathe in the embrace of Mother and Father. having only read about life force energy at the time, the result left a powerful impression on me. i even shook myself and deliberately took myself out of the ritual to make sure what i was feeling was real and not some trance state where i'm half-asleep, and it was still there. 

had no idea how to move it or consciously interact with it, so i just excitedly journaled about it.

Back to Zhuang Zi

 

i'm gonna have to get around to finally reading that guy, although i sorta got a crush on that Isha dude in the video above at the moment.

In your experience why do you think that systems/methods more often than not end up doing just this? Because they don't have to, and some don't. It is unfortunate that most systems go for dogma and rigidity over playful expression and exploration as you describe.

this is a really good question. i'd like get some other people's thoughts on this as well.

i think a lot of systems are rigid because that's how you preserve a lineage practice, with the idea that if you follow these steps exactly and observe all the necessary disciplines of the system, you should be able to attain the same level of mastery as the originator of that system. and if something is not working, it's easier for the teacher to pinpoint the problem and make corrections because they know all the ins and outs of the system. there's a lot of merit to this, but a lot of practitioners (and newcomers in particular) take the guidelines for TRUTH. for a certain lineage practice, a move should be done "this" way, but the student internalizes that it must be done "this" way, and it becomes a sin to do anything else. folks who are prone to respect and defer to authority have the biggest problem with this.

i pride myself in being a heretic, and i accept the consequences that come with that. what i have found is that more often than not, the rules can be either bent or broken with little ill effects, but it depends on the system. the ugly truth that almost never gets talked about is that most warnings are there to protect that school or family's business rather than the student. so secrets are created. taboos. warnings of great harm.

here in Sacramento we have Grandmaster Yeyoung who actually teaches his students that if they attempt to teach his art to others before he gives them permission to do so, they will have suffer all kinds of neurological damage and could induce insanity. i've seen this kind of warning in a number of schools, and it's absolute bullshit. but people believe it, and he's making a killing teaching really basic qigong at $115/session. but hey, he sure looks good in those authentic silk chinese pj's.

but at the end of the day i don't blame the systems so much as the individuals who want the best, fastest, most powerful program available. they don't realize that such an approach cripples them. they enter into a system that over their heads, and they have no choice but to follow the rules as best they can and hope to get the results they're looking for. it's a consumerist impulse that does not serve them in this arena. they lock themselves in these ideological boxes before they even learn to crawl on their own. we now have a generation of teachers who are so rule and control oriented that they promote notions of micromanaging natural processes of the body like it's a virtue. why the hell would i want to spend my time bossing all my cells around?

people who learn this way right from the beginning often fail to see the real extent to which the internal arts are, first and foremost, AN ART! the limits of their own thinking will put a cap on what they can achieve.

in art class we are taught fundamental techniques, and we are told that in time, technique will give way to expression. this seldom happens in the internal arts world. in fact, it seldom happens in art class as well.

start with play. start with expression. and let that authentic unrefined expression submit to technique, but only for a time because technique must again give way to a more developed, more mature, more refined expression.

thanks for posing the question.

Awesome subject!

 

yes, and an awesome response, brother!

does anybody wonder why i love this man?

Indeed.

 

Absolute Intensity

YES! that's pretty much exactly what i believe to be true. and that understanding came from LIFE, not some book.

Mmmm, so how does one exactly know when they feel Qi flowing?

first, and part of the point of creating this thread, get rid of the word "exactly." let it be messy. wander. get okay with NOT knowing. just be open to all possibilities.

when it's strong enough to where you can't deny it, you won't miss it.

there are hundreds of books and web pages that describe different possible characteristics and sensations. i had read some Rosicrucian book and a book on Wicca, both of which described sensations of life force energy. i didn't cling to any of those definitions. i only sought a True experience, an Authentic connection, however it might present itself. and when it did present itself, it was too strong to deny, and i knew i wasn't making it up. plus, a number of the sensations matched the descriptions in the books.

i didn't believe the rules or descriptions of the books first. the books just inspired me and put me in the general ball park. what i believed was my direct experience, and that experience showed me what was true in the books.

EDIT:

Old Green had originally posted the video, "Absolute Intensity," not "Anger is Intensity." my response was to the original.

...and true to form, you're STILL missing the point.

so i'm done.

So you've taken one of her training programs? I've heard a bit from her students on the local community nonprofit radio -- students who take her 100 day program I think it's called or maybe 100 hour - in Minneapolis -- and say they learn qigong healing from it and she transmit qigong healing energy in her class. So it seems like her healing ability has something to do with what she teaches. haha. Effie P. Chow did say she can recharge her energy as she is healing people so maybe that's why she demonstrates her qi energy. I think she also just likes to have fun though. I mean she is a nice lady to be sure. I would say she also lives her qigong practice -- she talks about this and what she teaches sure is integrative.

 

So have you taken her class? Or you have "worked with her"? haha. Were you her assistant maybe? haha. Sorry I just thought maybe you had some personal experience with her. So you haven't taken her class? You don't learn qigong healing in her class? I guess I'm confused about her skill having nothing to do with what she offers in her training program. Maybe you could provide some details.

oh, okay. this is fair. i can answer this much.

first, no, she doesn't have a 100-day program. if she did, i would have supported your recommendation because i think THAT'S the kind of thing the OP might be looking for. makes sense, right? i know, it's crazy.

what i'm saying is that she's not cranking out a bunch of Effie Chows. i don't think i need to explain the term "secular," but also her program teaches as much healing as just about any other healing program. what i'm saying is that SHE may be special, but her PROGRAM isn't.

and, AGAIN, it's not comprehensive and doesn't have all the facets that the OP is looking for.

no, i wasn't her assistant. i met her (1-on-1, NOT in an audience), i did some stuff with her, i was REALLY impressed with her theoretical knowledge, and i thought her energy was quite strong, but not super-remarkable compared to other serious healers.

i hope that suffices.

Hundun -- what's your experience with Effie P. Chow? You imply that you've worked with her? haha. She is a qigong grandmaster healer so if you have "worked with her" I'd be curious if you have any stories to share. haha.

i'm sorry, is the title of grandmaster supposed to intimidate me in some way?

you're COMPLETELY missing the point of the thread AND the point i was making, but i'll indulge you just a little bit.

i'm friends with a tai chi instructor who teaches at the senior center 4 blocks from my house who has known her for years (Teresa Ngo). the caretaker of my old boss from a few years ago used to get healings from her whenever she was in town, and would take classes with her students. i've met her, i've gotten a good scan from her (and YES, i felt her energy. so?), and i've done the Chow Qigong program. additionally, i OWN the Chow Qigong program. SHE can do some pretty cool things, but she's not a GOD. she doesn't claim to have the highest healing percentage of any teacher, but she has performed some really impressive healings. but the fact is that ANY competent healer with enough years of experience can put together a highlight reel and impress the public. the POINT is that her PROGRAM doesn't offer that much in terms of what the OP is looking for, no matter how cool SHE might be.

EDIT:

i can see that you're already writing yet another response, and it probably misses the mark, as per usual.

i'm not gonna stay up all night doing this back-and-forth with you. i've made my point. more than once now. i don't have your stamina for all the posts that we all know you can make this discussion into.

haha. Yeah personally I think it's better to find Effie P. Chow -- who has her healings, etc. I attended her qi demonstration and that was the first time I experienced the chi energy and then the security guard for the University showed up wondering why the fuse to the room behind us was blown out. haha. So I was immersed for only a couple hours but the level of immersion was very rare indeed.

 

I did travel to SF to see about having further classes with her but I was broke when I got to SF so instead my friend entertained me and I just went to the new library to look for qigong books.

 

At least read her Miracle Healings in China for an amazing account of her healings -- I posted the healing vids she has on youtube which are amazing to watch to.

 

So yeah I wouldn't say anyone is limited for immersion unless if you join some monastery and maybe they don't let you go see Effie P. Chow -- you can always get a phone healing from Chunyi Lin. haha.

please try to keep up.

she's a skilled healer. granted. she's got juice and she puts on a good show. we get it. but do you get that her skill actually has NOTHING to do with what she offers in her training programs?

Michael Rinaldini isn't traveling the world trying to wow audiences with parlor tricks. He's practicing his art. he's teaching it. and he's living it.

http://www.eastwestqi.com/html/dr__chow.html

 

http://naturalresonancerevolution.blogspot.com/2010/08/tone-color-alchemy-mind-meld.html

 

A bay area qigong master for you to get immersed in.

are you serious, drew? have you actually worked with her or visited her center?

i like Effie Chow. a lot. she's a pretty amazing lady. but she doesn't offer the kind of immersion that this guy sounds like he's looking for. her program is really basic and pretty damn secular. i've met her and a number of her students. i also have all of her materials. she's really skilled and puts on an impressive lecture, but her program doesn't even make the top 5 list of places i would go.

jigme kunzang,

it would really help if you could flesh out the kind of time, effort, and money you and your girlfriend have and are willing to put into this kind of thing. also, what are your ages?

in the meantime, you should send an email to Michael Rinaldini. he's a great open-door teacher with a lot of depth. he's also a Taoist priest. he does weekly classes, retreats, periodic intensives which sometimes include all-night meditation, the works. he's a registered Level IV instructor with the NQA. (if you don't know, google it. )

here's his website:

http://www.dragongateqigong.com/

i really think that this might be the kind of thing you're actually looking for. it's got all the goods, but it's not so strict or intense that it's like a militant or monastic type of setting. a pretty good middle ground, i think.

this looks like a great book! a know a lot of folks who have difficulty wading through Chogyam Trungpa's material. this might be a great alternative that conveys some very important core lessons.

i really wish this had been posted in the GENERAL DISCUSSION area instead of the TAOIST area. i almost never read this board, and the book's not even about Taoism.

glad i found it, though.

So, what do you guys make of the story?

...i think you just further illustrated the point i was making.

the guy in your example learned through experience. he explained his experience with that particular color which, up until that time, had been limited to pregnant women. now he has perceived it in someone who clearly wasn't a pregnant woman. a new dimension of understanding has been added to that color for him. my guess is that he didn't walk away from that experience with more certainty that "pink always means pregnant". it was much more expansive and enlightening than that. for BOTH of them.

no one is claiming that aura's have no meaning or that color is totally meaningless. that's certainly not my position. the example i gave above using the color black is from my direct experience. black has indicated all of those things and more. i knew knew the difference each time because i was dialed in to the patient, and to the moment.

now, had the guy in the audience passed a pregnancy test due to all of his work, THEN we can start defending the label of science maybe. but what's so wrong about acknowledging it's an art and there are still so many unknowns that continue to unfold as we develop further. sounds to me like the guy in the story would agree with this.

you are right that people can be too skeptical. it can shut down any ability to understand. but i am not claiming that there are no answers, only that the indicators are multifaceted and that the question should remain open. as Ya Mu has said before, there are always higher levels. no need to drop anchor here.

in my own experience (i don't work with pregnant women), when i see pink it's always in a context of love and security in some fashion. i see it in children who are being raised right, and i see it in parents when they focus on the beauty of their relationship and the wonder of their child. and i've seen many occasions where the color did not arise, yet all those qualities were still there. mostoften there is a security-related issue when that color is absent. but at the end of the day all i can really say is that i don't know. there are too many variables. i just have to leave the question open. there are always more senses at play than just color, and each encounter is an opportunity to grow.

A relative who claims they can read auras today told me i had a white light in the center of my chest pulsating vibrantly trying to expand. She said it was surrounded by green and yellow, which in turn were surrounded by a black that was attempting to compress them into the white.

 

She said that as she talked about it and i listened that the white started expanding more and turning gold.

 

I trust this person and practice meditation with them, so i am inclined to believe that their abilities may be genuine.

 

So what do all these colors mean?

the first question that comes to mind: why aren't you asking your relative about this?

there's really nothing static about the "meaning" of colors in auras. the attempts to nail it all down into simple and concrete definitions is new age nonsense, IMO. what do YOU feel in your chest? what does your relative intuitively feel about the whole thing?

i'm sure that someone might chime in all matter-of-fact, and you can even find books that define the colors, but that kind of information further obscures your ability to feel for yourself what is happening in your own energy field. just listen. it's your energy field. relax and listen with your whole being.

an example:

black can be a calming, soothing, (sometimes water element) healing presence that cools down over-activity in a fiery area like the heart & chest. it can also be cancer. it can also be a transitional space where an illness is either materializing or dissolving, or a different quality of energy is doing the same. there really is no "black means this." plus, there are differences of shades, vibrancy, luster.

there are multiple, simultaneous qualities arising at the same time, and they are all a part of the communication. there's an emotional element, a kinesthetic element, and sometimes just a direct intuitive knowing. an effective psychic needs access to more than just one dimension (like a general color) if the reading is going to be valuable.

it becomes new-age nonsense when we apply materialist, reductionist rules & standards to an esoteric, fluid, and largely mysterious field.

so if you trust in your family member's skills, then you should ask for that person's overall feel and interpretation of the entire experience they had of you. but looking up colors won't get you very far.

that's my take on it, anyway.

Thanks Trunk. i'm watching it right now.

do you know if this guy is related to Mark Griffin's teacher by same name?

EDIT:

wow, i thought he looked too old to be Kalu Rinpoche's reincarnation. guess not.

really good themes in this talk.

 

One thing I have a hard time with, is tounge tip touching the roof of the mouth. interesting to note that master ck chu doesn't say anything about it in his eight steps.

hmm...

"tongue tip touching the roof of the mouth" sounds really uncomfortable to me almost like you could be at risk of swallowing your tongue.

it should be a natural placing of the tongue on the upper palate behind the teeth. it should feel natural, not forced.

once energy is really flowing in your body, you'll understand and appreciate the importance of tongue placement. most people who practice without a skilled teacher aren't moving enough energy in the beginning to notice a difference. but once you've got some real flow generated in the body, you'll find yourself prone to headaches and head congestion as a result of practice. the tongue will allow all of that stuck energy in the head to flow down the front channel (Ren Mai).

Yea I'm unsure about CK Chu since he says to make the body round.. ie the back is rounded and not straight. You're bending forward at the hip and with a hump back...

there's some REALLY GOOD advice in this thread! and steve's response to you is really good as well. i'm just writing to offer a little bit of clarity on the point.

when the qua is in the proper position, it actually UNCURVES the lower back, but it can feel a little like bowing out in the beginning. not in any extreme way, though. i usually tell students something like "open up the qua & shift the pelvis so there's no duck butt." just to keep it light.

the upper portion of your back is rounded when your shoulders are relaxed and you allow the chest to sink in a bit so that the scapulas can separate. again, nothing extreme. but the image in your mind didn't seem to account for this type of rounding. so i thought this might help you to imagine more possibility.

it was great meeting you yesterday, bro. it's always inspiring to work with someone who learns so quickly and who joyfully puts in the work. i sometimes wish everyone could be a little more like you.

thanks for the shout out, but watch how you talk about me; folks might get the impression that i'm approachable in real life!

catch up with you soon.

I wonder if that quote is intended to include the assumption of a god?

"a" god? no.

the quote is from a Swami of Kashmir Shaivism. GOD as sigularity cannot be seen or related to as an object, but language is imperfect. it's more a term of convenience in this context.

otherwise, it just gets too easy to get lost in semantic debates and then the message gets lost. Nathaji is a public servant; he avoids that kind of hair splitting whenever possible. the statement was not intended to establish esoteric theory; it was merely an eloquent reminder of the importance of letting go.

Got the 'Lifetime Membership' for $47. Feels good to support this site financially!

 

If you're a regular participant, think about contributing to help keep our nice lively community going strong.

this website has truly changed my life. the people i have met, the discussions i've had, the teachers i've found, and the books/videos i've acquired have all been worth a LOT MORE than the lifetime membership fee.

it just really struck me the other night when i saw that zerostao had TTB listed among their top 5 teachers.

i sought out Mark Griffin of Hard Light because of this site. (thanks, Trunk!)

i received transmission from Max because of this site. (which flowered into a thing of beauty)

i found Sifu Jenny Lamb because of this site.

i've discovered the power of the ecstatic, and not just the contemplative, thanks to this site.

i made friends with Seth Ananda because of this site!

and lots, LOTS more.

i've met people in-person, i've had intimate discussions with people through email and phone, and i've picked up some amazing insights over the years from SO many different people.

those of us who have been here a while and those of us who know we have benefited significantly from this site should really consider supporting it with a paid subscription.

in my case, it's been long overdue.

TTB, you have my deepest gratitude.