Apech

4 hours ago, Forestgreen said:

Could it be partly from Wang Mu, page 65?

.... when the Cinnabar Field is as firm as a Stone

I scanned that chapter but couldn’t find a reference to the mco happening spontaneously etc.  if you find something let us know.

57 minutes ago, Forestgreen said:

Here is my unpopular opinion:

Kundalini is defined differently in different traditions, which causes confusion when the subject cones up.

Some of the Yoga upanishads seems to have similar descriptions, which differs from the more usually available versions. 

Source: The Yoga darshana upanishad and the Yoga kundalini upanishad.

 

Can you tell us what those descriptions are?

57 minutes ago, Taoist Texts said:

oh my! i had no clue, could you provide a link or a name...or anything at all

interestingly this statement is not so much wrong as meaningless. also it is a hallmark of a western made-up lineage (except @Apech of course, Ankh wedja seneb) thats why it is so fascinating to find out where did they get that and why it is important for them

yeah, IYKYK . screw those inquiring minds. nobody told them to get their hopes up.

You are right TT I should not blurt out things that sound like claims - I consider myself chastised.  And you are right I am struggling to find references to this in either Wang Mu or Charles Luk (although Taoist Yoga does refer to the vitality rising 'automatically' being driven by the prenatal breathing) - which are the two books I was referring to on the laying foundations.  I think, to answer your question I picked up this idea when I was taught Qi Gong and Nei Dan in the early 1990's.  My teacher was Chinese from Hong Kong so I would doubt he was affected by western made-up lineages.

If you consider this to be a misconception perhaps you could explain why (?).

Life, health and strength to you too.

A.

23 minutes ago, -ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ- said:

Most legit lineages will say the same. It’s something that develops naturally after the lower dantien is fully activated.

yes thank you - it’s quite a time since I was taught this so it’s hard to remember sources.

9 hours ago, Bindi said:

Here’s my current unpopular opinion. The actual point of spirituality is the activation of kundalini, though to qualify this, its activation needs to be in the central channel, and facilitated by kundalini’s subtle energy/consciousness opposite, which can be identified as ‘Shiva’. I suspect that kundalini inappropriately activated via ‘forceful’ methods, of which there are many, causes kundalini to travel up a side subtle channel, and I further suspect that this cannot be rectified, that is, it cannot then be made to travel up the central channel, except in extraordinary circumstances, such as sending kundalini back to sleep and doing the initial work necessary before raising kundalini consciousness correctly. Travelling up a side channel will inevitably lead to relatively useless side road achievements, inevitably degrading the perceived value of kundalini. 
 

In a community obsessed with emptiness and non-doing and nonduality, this must surely be in the running for most unpopular opinion. 

What then is kundalini and what is 'Shiva'?

1 hour ago, Taoist Texts said:

whoa brilliant! you got the MCO running?! why dont you tell us all about it - how, when, what happened, what is next? inquiring minds want to know! 

nuf said old bean, nuf said.

5 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

yes great job i am surprised anyone knows that much. For my research could you please point me to your source for this

 

this POV crops up now and then but i am puzzled where it comes from. thanks!

That part comes from my own experience - though I do believe I have read it also but for now I can’t remember where.

8 minutes ago, stirling said:

 

Ooof. Nothing ruins practice like administration. My teacher has told me that she will request my robes back if I fall to demon of administration, and that any time something requires THAT much work it is time to drop some org. 

 

you have robes?

8 minutes ago, stirling said:

 

Agreed. It isn't ANY of those things. Like everything else it depends on EVERYTHING for its existence. The Pleaides, rubber bands, Keith Moon,  and spider eggs are as much your body as anything else. It is impossible to draw a box around anything and label it separate from my perspective. What keeps it all going? It's luminous all pervasive emptiness, of course!  Perfection.

Interesting collection of objects!

43 minutes ago, Mark Foote said:

Let's get SO unpopular!
 

As (one) dwells in body contemplating body, ardent… that desire to do, that is in body, is abandoned. By the abandoning of desire to do, the Deathless is realized. So with feelings… mind… mental states… that desire to do, that is in mind-states, is abandoned. By the abandoning of the desire to do, the Deathless is realized.
 

(SN V 182, Pali Text Society V p 159)

 

 

 

abandon the desire to do …. Care to elaborate?

4 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

You might just be right about that. I didn´t get the award for most unpopular opinion last time but hey, I´m a fast learner.  

There's time for someone to outdo you yet - but you have set the bar.  We might get a cracker from Uncle Steve yet!  Who knows?

19 hours ago, stirling said:

 

I guess that isn't my experience, at least with North Americans or practitioners in the UK.

 

Possibly in disagreement if I understand you correctly (and thus not popular?), but I will say that the single most important thing one could be doing IMHO is recognizing thoughts as thoughts, feelings as feelings, and all simply parts of the story of "self"/I as a mental construction. These are the most obvious things MOST in the way of enlightenment. In realization, the body can be seen at its base level to be a delusion... eventually seen to be the fluxing field of unlabeled sensations it has always been. The way forward in this case is in the simple practice of seeking  and resting in stillness.

 

 

Well my experience of groups of meditators is admittedly limited - as I tend to avoid them.  I am even disenchanted with the 'sangha' which I am supposed to be connected to - especially now as they are talking in terms of national co-ordinators for data management and such.  Yukkity yuk yuk.

I think the body is a very interesting topic - mostly because we all think we know what it is.  When of course we don't.  In the text I study it calls it the illusory body (Buddhist of course) and I balked a little at that.  But then I thought that actually whatever we think the body is - is probably illusory.  In fact if you think about it the body is more like a community of things - cells, bacteria, parasites, organs, skin, bone, muscle, blood etc. etc.  I think I read that there are over 7 trillion cells in the human body and even more commensal bacteria ... so what is it exactly and what keeps it going all together? eh?

9 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

 

I don´t know what the above means.  

 

Sounds like the women at the indigenous camp have a great system.  Communal ties are everything.

Brother Luke I do think that euthanasia for 18 year olds may be the most unpopular opinion so far

On 3/12/2024 at 9:55 PM, Unota said:

Sorry, I am still learning about this kind of stuff. Is an immortal spirit body not the end goal of taoist alchemy? I thought this was like, the equivalent of enlightenment, in comparison with other religion. To persist after death, etc etc, in whatever form that may mean. *squints as notes* Did I misunderstand? Am I being an idiot again?

There's no need to apologise.  Posting opinions (unpopular ones) is what this thread is all about.  

Think of this.  When you say go with the flow of life etc.  you have to remember that the natural flow of existence is that of increasing entropy - in other words everything if left alone gradually falls apart.  If you took a car and left it for say 1,000 years - what would you have? a pile of rust.  Some of us have cars which are already like that   Even mountains slowly erode.  The end point is called the heat-death of the universe because everything just turns to equally distributed dust and there is no life - because life requires organic organisation and growth.  The reason we have life on earth - which is a closed system - is because the sun provides a nett input of energy in the form of sunlight.  Without that input of energy there would be no plants, animals or human beings.  So in this sense life itself is against the natural flow.  Life is formed because of the nett input of energy into a closed system.

Internal alchemy starts by conserving the energy we have inherited - jing and qi - and then using the body, subtle body and mind to transform ourselves first into long lived healthy beings and then into immortal ones (we are told).  This is not anti-life really - even though the time and effort put into it might mean that you sacrifice much of the simple enjoyments. If you see what I mean.

2 hours ago, thelerner said:

Letting go of past history,  it's pretty brave to put up videos showing and sharing yourself doing your daily routine.  

it is - I didn’t know he had done that

32 minutes ago, Unota said:

Why to which part? Why I'm not interested in the alchemy?

 

I guess that was a wrong way to say it. I am interested in it, I'm fascinated by it and I love to read about it. But I will not try to apply it to myself, because I feel like that is not...really my personal...goal? Before I would ever consider something like spiritual development or enlightenment of any sort...Don't I have to learn to love life first? Wouldn't it just be an escape mechanism? How can I do something like that, if I can not be happy with 'going with the flow?' And if I was happy with it, then I think I would never find reason to do spiritual cultivation in the first place. Is it not contradictory? Maybe I just don't want that.

I think you may be mixing up a few ideas there.

3 minutes ago, Unota said:

This has always driven me craaazy! I always  thought, isn't alchemy literally an attempt to go against nature? I like going with the flow. And I like daoism. But not particularly interested in the alchemy part. Which sounds pretty silly, because that's a pretty big part.

Why?

8 minutes ago, Taoist Texts said:

this is correct

this is very correct

depends on what is meant by the pill. nevertheless this is correct for the middle/low level methods

 

hmmm...i would say no. it kinda sounds right i will give you that tho

So 8/10 ?

35 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

Our most unpopular opinions will not appear in this thread because Bums are (rightly?) scared of mob judgement.  Also, some unpopular opinions are sure to cause offense and some of us would rather conceal our opinions than hurt another´s feelings.  Cowardice or compassion?  You decide.

 

 

I won’t be able to sleep tonight wondering what you think that you dare not say!

5 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

It would have worked had he not left out the crucial element .... or actually , 'energy'   generated by proper equipment ;

 

the toilet seat should have been pyramid shaped  and made of rose quartz .

its easy to mock!  Very easy😀

16 hours ago, Trunk said:

 

Any clarification on what the foundation is?,

from your perspective (influenced by the background you've mentioned), to the degree that you feel appropriate to share.  Perhaps in very broad outline.

 

My view is that we are going through a profound shift, over decades, in the popular-Taoist culture - on what the emphasis, order of approach to the inner work.  Always interested in hearing educated views. 

'Laying the foundation' is found in both Wang Mu and Charles L'uk's 'Taoist Yoga' and comprises all the stages up to the creation of the 'pill' in the LDT.  So anything done in the way of circulating qi or clearing the channels etc. prior to the creation of the pill/elixir is part of Laying the Foundations.  It starts with guarding the three treasures up till making the pill.  So most practices that people do are not the MCO, which arises after the pill is made.  If the orbit is applied before this it is just a mapping exercise or a channel clearing exercise - or at worst a waste of time - but it is not the MCO.  Its like the difference between looking at a map to see where Route 66 goes and driving Route 66 if you see what I mean.  (is there still a Route 66?) I don't know  but I get my kicks there

3.  IQ is a fake metric.

4.  The most unhealthy diets are vegetarianism and veganism.

4 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

I did this before and it gave me anxiety. it's true you will avoid the problems of having qi get stuck in the head. Instead you will have the problems of qi getting stuck in the chest. 

the MCO occurs naturally when the LDT is ready - you don’t need to visualize or force anything.

if qi gets stuck then this is an indication that it is not natural

2 hours ago, Unota said:

What do you mean by westerners have a natural inclination to focus on the body? Why is that?

This came up in another thread - my observation is that there is a natural tendency in westerners ( mostly Europeans and Americans) to accentuate the phys bod over the mind.  Sometimes reducing mind to mere electrical activity and so on

2 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

don't know what you're talking about and that is indeed unpopular 

i am sending that to the IRS

4 minutes ago, Maddie said:

 

oh sorry, I mean that is a bunch of hogwash. ..... How was take two? better? :-D

The government should introduce a Deschanel Tax to tax people with bangs at a higher rate.