sean

Nice post Cam. And the last bit is a belief I share strongly as well. That we cannot sustain true happiness in this life if our actions are motivated only to serve this physical body at the expense of others. I went to an 9 hour meditation intensive this weekend with an amazing teacher just hanging out in nirvakalpa samadhi. One of the ideas that floated up in my mind within the silence had to do with what Winn talks about when he says that alchemical cultivation is as important as dissolving into emptiness because if you just shoot straight for emptiness you may return to the source "empty handed" (as he says) and just get spit back our into the life stream since the deeper work you were meant to do was not completed. The thought I had was how this is really strikingly similar to the concept of the bodhisattva path, of vowing to never dissolve into emptiness completely until the (alchemical) Great Work of all sentient beings realizing Enlightenment (True Happiness / Freedom from Suffering) within Form is complete. It's really about resolving the duality of seeing this world as a mistake and heaven as the solution. This world is here for a reason, and in my opinion it's to one day blend Heaven and Earth into something unimaginably fucking cool. Or maybe to realize that this is already happening in each moment and we are just too busy playing games in our head to notice. Sean.

Hallo affenbrot! Willkommen! More seekers from Germany! Seems like ever month or so now I get this great opportunity to embarrass myself with mein nicht so gut Deutch. I'm honored you consider TTB a virtual sangha, and I think it's true what you say about how rare it is to find spiritual groups really coming together to explore awakening outside of a fixed tradition or teacher. It's sad and also true in the Arts if you think about. How often do you see a community where Dancers, Filmmakers, Painters, Musicians, and Novelists all come together to consistently discuss the passions of Art without worrying so much about the specifics of their particular craft? How amazing would that be for all participants?! Anyway, it's great to have you here affenbrot, welcome to The Tao Bums! Tschuess, Sean.

I really like this Daotaichi. It's kindred with a recent clarity I gained on my primary drive, although I like the way you word this better. Sean.

I was also going to recommend "Mindfulness in Plain English" for what it's worth. Sean.

peter falk, you probably mentioned this before but I am spacing, where did you learn wuji qigong from? Is that a Winn form? cameron, it's all part of some strange detour I'm trying to take through my self to my Self neimad, you are probably gone by now but full body baby stretches, that's a good tip, thanks. Yoda, thanks! In all fairness after I posted this I realized this is actually almost my whole routine, not just morning. The only other thing I do is the IAM after work. freeform, conscious eating. I like it. Throwing energy balls, reminds me a bit of the intention behind Vizzinni's "smurfing" (I think he called it). Lozen, dream practice! Ahhh.... that's cool that you do that. I used to do that years and years ago and always wanted to start up again. Hmmm... adding to "someday maybe" list. bobd, check out AYP. He has such a simple approach you might dig. You just start with 20 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes in the evening and build on that. hagar, I know what you mean about not waking up until late. That's actually why I have to do all this stuff, or else I'll drag my feet all day then won't wake up until after sunset but then I'll be wired and up until dawn. this sets me in motion early so I can keep somewhat stable sleep patterns. rex, how do you find meditating first thing getting out of bed? I need to move around, shake a bit, get some blood and chi flowing or I fall back asleep trying to meditate right out of bed. It's cool you can do it like that. Sean.

I think everyone has issues with different flows. I think it's possible to make some generalizations ... like maybe many Western white males have trouble with the knee switches. But Body Flow is such a personal experience. Me, I had literally zero problems with knee switches. From the first time I tried them I could even do the mad hop around the room like Sonnon does on the video. I have big issues with other things though. Like neck rolls scared me to death at first and I am still not very comfortable with them. I carry a lot tension in my neck and shoulders and that's probably where I have a lot of fear reactivity. Also, I can do diving tumbles forward all day long but have tons of fear reactivity about tumbling backwards. I instinctively want to put my arms back to brace my fall which is how you end up breaking your shoulders. Sean.

I'm still experimenting with the tempo, I think that's part of it. The transient nature of the mantra. How every time it's internally spoken, it's done so uniquely. The first time I meditated with it I just allowed the mantra to come up slowly and naturally. Like taking a sip of fine wine every half a minute. The last few times I've done it my monkey mind was too dense so I found that I needed to repeat the mantra in a slow but steady stream IAM IAM IAM IAM to dust off the cobwebs and open up into bliss. Ready for spinal breathing tonight. Sean.

My favorite banishing ritual is actually just laughter. Deep, genuine belly laughter. Other good ones I enjoy are: Winn's breathing method found on CKF3 audio. Inhale the entire space you want to purify (the whole material universe if you'd like) in through your qihai (point two fingers below navel) back to your ming men (I picture this like in cartoons where the whole picture get's sucked into a hole or something). So now you are floating in emptiness. Nothing; not even space or darkness. The whole universe, or maybe just your apartment has been sucked into your ming men. Now exhale out from your ming men into the inside of your body, filling your whole body with the contents of what was "outside". Kind of abstract, no need to visualize the whole world inside of you, just feel a sense that you've breathed the contents of the universe into the inside of your body. Next, inhale and collapse both the contents of your "insides" that you've just exhaled, as well as your body itself back down to your ming men. So now Everything has collapsed into and been sucked up by the ming men. The Door of Life (Binah?). Next exhale from ming men out through qihai and fill up/create anew the entire universe/space you want to purify. Repeat from start as many times as you want. I love this practice. It's like WSM except a four part collapse/expansion of inside, outside, emptiness, suchness. The Bardon method from Initiation into Hermetics described above. The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, a good version of which is found in Modern Magick as Tenguzake mentioned above. The stripped down method from Stealing Fire from Heaven inspired by LBRP and also Mantak Chia's work. (Actually this ritual is the reason I bought the book. Whole book is great though.) Damn, my posts just naturally turn into advertisements these days. Sean.

Neimad! Dude, we'll miss you! You're contributions are always thoughtful and unique. Please come back after your adventure and tell us of your travels. But most of all, have fun and keep up your deep meditations and contemplations into the mysteries of Life and Love. You're the man. Cheers, Sean.

Someone just brought to my attention that there is a bit of controversy about my article, in particular that it presents a selfish path. I was slightly concerned there would be this confusion when writing the article, but decided to keep my realization as simple and pure as it was occuring. But I'd like to clarify. One of the core dilemmas I've struggled with for years is the concept of selfishness. In my mid to late teens I had somewhat of an existential crisis over a perception that: Everything that human beings do is to fulfill a personal desire. Selflessness is an illusion, I reasoned. No matter how lofty and convoluted your explanation to yourself for deciding upon a course of action is, and no matter how genuinely good the results of these actions turn out to be, ultimately (or so I imagined) everything humans do of their own volition is because they want something for themselves. I've carried this koan with me for so many years, and turned it over on so many angles, that I've worn it inside and out. It became self-evident on many levels. All of our deliberate actions spring from our desires, in an effort to satsify them. Putting money in the poor hat and thinking about Heaven. What it will feel like to be in God's presence for eternity. Opening the refrigerator to grab some food. How it will feel to taste food and have this hunger satiated. Ordering a new book on meditation. When I have more peace, I will be kinder to those around me. They will smile at me and accept me more and that will feel good. Until recently I was very cynical about this perception. But a few things turned it around for me. One was some shifts in my metaphysics. Simply put, I've pondered a lot on how there is open, non-dual ground to Awareness and that this little desire-filled self I previously considered as the Primer Mover of human behavior, is actually just a transient identification with the body-as-Me. Which doesn't necessarily cause trouble (I guess) if it's perceived correctly as transient and empty. I think the trouble comes when, through this identification with body-as-Me, defensiveness arises, the fear of death arises, and an occlusion of the non-dual ground of Awareness begins to set in. Patterns of misidentification arise. The little self starts to act, to borrow from NLP terminology, in an as if frame, presupposing it is only this little mortal self, this scared body, alone in a fragmented evil world, out to fend for it's wants and needs. This isn't the Truth though, IMO. But if, intellectually, I perceive this identification as not ultimately True, how do I begin to get out of this messy misidentification when, still, everything I decide to do is, at root, a self-centered pursuit? How do I begin to experience what all these mystics are talking about with Heaven and Enlightenment and Freedom when, if I am honest, I see that everything I take up is still coming from a core belief that little me is the center of the universe. Well that's what this article was about actually. Through cultivation of skillful desire. So instead of just blindly running with the millions of desires pulsing through my body-mind, I make a habit of looking at them, of picking them up, sometimes one by one, sometimes in huge handfuls, and dropping them into the Fire of my ultimate desire for True Happiness (same as the Buddha), because True Happiness is just another word for Freedom, Enlightenment, Heaven, whatever description you need to go for It. The purification process that arises might be described (mundanely) like ... "What are you really after? Honestly. You seem to want to consume this plate of donuts. But plates of donuts come and go my friend. The jittery sugar high will soon fade. Is this really the level of abiding happiness you want to settle for?" ... "Sean, you appear to want to defend yourself right now. But who are you defending? Skin and bones and thoughts that appear from the chemicals in your brain? This body will die, remember that before put your faith in it's ability to make you happy." ... Hmmm ... the book Core Transformation is kind of a practical, secularized form of this "mystical" process. So through this gradual purification of base, neurotic, pleasure-seeking coming from false presuppositions about the metaphysics of mySelf, the pure Bliss of True Happiness starts to grin inside of me. As my understanding of Who and What I Am expands, my compassion for others increases because no one is fundamentally "other". When I put money in the poor hat, the money is going to feed mySelf somewhere. When I eat a sandwich I am sustaining this little vehicle named Sean so that his destiny may be fulfilled. When I order a new book on meditation, I pray it will contain truths that fan the flames of my skillful desires, and burn away what occludes my perception of the Truth. Slowly apparent dualities are resolved. Please don't get me wrong though, I can still be a depressed, anxious, melancholy, miserable bastard like the rest of 'em. I'm probably not happier than anyone else (probably less so or I wouldn't be so focused on it). I'm just sharing a delicate process I am going through that, when explained is as full of contradictions and paradoxes that all language is. Cheers, Sean.

(I split your post off to a new topic Cam) I had a similar intuitive attraction to Plato and his posts on HT. I admit to printing at least a few of his posts out and looking into almost everything he said more deeply. Through him I got into all kinds of powerful practices, ie: Body Flow/CST, aneros, various Chinese herbs, ie: Yunnan Paiyao ... And despite not having as much zeal for Bodri/Nan, I think it's incredible that he's managed to introduce this powerful koan of emptiness vs. form into this community, getting nearly all of us to really ponder what should be at the core of our practice ... inspiring many of us to consider stillness/emptiness practices as belonging at the foundation. Sean.

I've read most anything of Lee Irwin's I could find online. Another good one is Western Esotericism, Eastern Spirituality, and the Global Future. You should really write him and make sure he's cool with a full reproduction of his article here. His email is: [email protected] Also, if an article we don't have permisson to post is already available in full online and formatted nicely and with pretty pictures, why not just post a link to it? Daoist Alchemy in the West: The Esoteric Paradigms. Sean.

The one in my signature, which could change at any moment, so http://lava.net/~pagios/ Sean.

(Pssst, Simon, I split your post off of Jing Gong to a new thread. ) You know, I haven't even made time to dig into his site more deeply. I love the quote and the article it's from. I also love Bardon and find him to be a great bridge between my magickal past and more Taoist/Eastern alchemical present. Haven't explored RJ yet but I believe I've heard Winn say positive things. Are you a student of the Qabalah Simon?

Just sank into a deep IAM meditation for about 30 effortless minutes. Really blissed out. Never got into mantras much but this is great stuff. [edit]Damn, and it's deepening. My heart feels like it's on fire, but in a very comfortable way, ie: not overheated, just full of ... Love (not sentimental though, just deep, warm openness) and my perineum keeps spontaneously pulsing. It's all very pleasurable.

Thanks a lot dude, I just spit my drink on my self laughing. Sean.

Yeah, I really tried to plan and save for this but just too busy. It would have been nice to swing back home early and see the fam and go meet two giants I really look up to. But alas... Sean.

Wow. Chi-Craft. Energy-Craft. Cool spin. I like it. Hey Trunk, forgot to say ... amazing outline. Really glad that you take the complexity/sensitivity of this issue so seriously. I'm still digesting and intend to give you feedback.

True, I definitely get what you are saying. I don't think it's necessary to equate Flow, Play and Fun with effortless, soft, or easy though. You can Play with big weights and hard drills. It's more about orientation I think. Like the direction I am facing, or my intention. It's probably just semantics that I find important to help balance my temperament ... You already seem to have a great laid back attitude and sense of humor. I can get super uptight and stressed about stuff pretty easily so it's important to come back to center often and remind myself that the whole point is to have fun. To be happy. Even when things are excruciatingly hard. It's all in good fun. Ok, where does my leg go again? Sean.

Yeah, I've had my eye on Bardon for years and was surprised to hear that he is one of the few if only Western occultists that many of these high level Healing Taoists admire, ie: Yudelove and Winn. Worth checking out. BobD, that's cool you ordered the book. Maybe we should start a group study thread when you get it. Sean.

Yeah, hey man, why don't you just come on here and write one of the coolest introductions ever, ok? Welcome Simon. Nice to see you here. Sean.

I wish. I'm still in perpetual dabbling mode. Maybe I will grow up one day and apply myself to something. I have most of the flows from tapes one and two down but haven't really gotten all of them from tape three. Your questions actually point to one of the advantages of starting with Prasara. You just break apart and memorize 5 flows and work them into your routine. Whereas Body Flow is really an open loop and is a little daunting in that way because you can just keep studying and studying as much as your interest, time and creativity permit. One of the core principles of Scott's material to keep in mind though is Fun. No need to go into it with super structured seriousness, just play with it. Whenever. Make it enjoyable. Explore. A little here a little there. Trust. Celebrate. Sean.