steve

It does look like that! My brother went through an artistic phase and did some copies and re-interpretations of some Francis Bacon works. I really liked this one so I use it sometimes for an avatar. Thanks for noticing!

My intent for the thread was primarily to see how many of us have stuck with one practice throughout our lives. I was initially going to have two options only - one practice, more than one. I settled on three thinking that there may be a subset of folks who were "raised" a certain way and then adopted another practice and stuck with that. As for me, I've been influenced by a variety of teachers, both in the flesh and on paper. I've sort of synthesized it into an amalgam that seems to work for me currently, more or less, and like some others I'm not an -ist and don't subscribe to an -ism. I try to keep an open mind (but could definitely improve that skill!) Thanks to all who contributed so far.

I'll offer another translation, this one by Hu Xuezhi It is a translation with commentaries geared toward interpreting Tao Te Ching as a guide to cultivation. Chapter 37 WIthout taking any artificial action, Tao functions free of any lapse, accomplishing all things perfectly. If a king can hold onto Tao, All things will transform spontaneously to submit to him. If any desires arise in the transformation course, I should subdue them with the nameless simplicity. If I hold onto nameless simplicity, All desires will transform to submit to it. To be free of desire brings about the stillness, And all under Heaven shall return to what they naturally deserve. Here is his commentary- First two lines: Tao accomplishes all things perfectly without taking any artificial action Lines three through ten: Figuratively, these lines represent the proper approach for dealing with stray ideas and passions arising in the course of recovering the True Nature. When any idea intrudes upon the heart, people should hold onto Nameless Simplicity, specifically, the quietude, the stillness, and the natural state to let the heart be quiet once again. By staying in constant stillness, all the Shen of all the organs and all the viscera will be fully recovered to the Original Primeval State, and the Great Harmonious State will prevail.

I've had a fair amount of acupuncture, guan jiu, and some other traditional Chinese work and never heard of anything like that. I'm definitely not an authority and I have a foot each in the Eastern and the Western paradigms. My BS meter would have been off the scale.

In my own experience with Buddhist and Daoists concepts and practices, they are addressing the same issues but from different perspectives. The type of practice you choose will depend on what suits your particular needs and personality. And you may try one for a while and then switch. Many folks do... In fact, that gives me an idea for a thread.

The first thing my Qigong teacher addressed was proper posture, then natural breathing.

If you do the practice, including the warm up exercises, as recommended by Bercelli, it takes 20-30 minutes. As Trunk said, you can shorten it. My experience so far is that the warm ups are important and it is valuable to give the exercises enough time. Shorter practice sessions may still be worthwhile, however, I can't comment on that from experience.

Very challenging question - what is truth? One definition is 'to be in accordance with reality.' So then, what is reality? Is reality a thought or concept or is it something that goes beyond thought and concepts? I would apply the same approach to truth. So if truth is something that transcends thought and concept, how best to approach it? Can we use thought to transcend thought? All thought is conditioned and truth, if it is reality, must be unstained by conditioning. So can thought, which is the product of conditioning, ever approach truth? Krishnamurti loved to work with this problem and his approach was to invite us to try and see our condititioning because if we can see it, there is hope to drop it. Only then can we hope to understand how to approach truth.

I'm not personally traumatized or afraid. Death is a natural consequence of life. I just find it objectionable when people jump to conclusions based on junk science in the face of large volumes of well developed data to the contrary. It's unfair to the thousands of dedicated researchers and health care workers who have poured their hearts and souls into working on this problem for the past 30 years. All of it lumped together as a scam based on minimal or no real data to support your claim that "HIV is a scam." But that's fine - you are certainly entitled to your opinion and if this movement improves the lives of the unfortunate folks who are suffering from this non-illness and their families, I will be happy for that. Based on the best available data, Mbeki's policies cost the lives of over 350,000 humans - many of who were children. Perhaps that's all a scam, perhaps not. That is not my claim, that was a study out of Harvard. Looking at problems with a fresh and critical view is healthy and valuable. Questioning conventional wisdom is important. Ignoring the large volume of well developed data in the field in favor of pseudo-science will help no one. I don't want to derail this thread any further. If the existing research on HIV/AIDS is all some sort of scam in your mind because you've watched a few youtube videos, I'm certainly not going to try to change your mind. No hard feelings, we'll just have to agree to disagree on this subject. Be well.

The science behind AIDS/HIV denial isn't much different than Intelligent Design... http://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/AIDS/ http://www.aidstruth.org/denialism/myths Great film, by the way ... http://www.badscience.net/2009/09/house-of-numbers/ http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/movies/04house.html Mbeki was a very great man ( ) . He got most of his information from AIDS Denial internet websites and probably killed over 350,000 people with his ignorance. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/world/africa/26aids.html?_r=1&hp Where do you get your data? I watched people die from this non-disease before chemotherapy was available and before the term HIV was adopted. Is it possible that the current theories about AIDS/HIV are imperfect? Of course. Is it possible that better understandings and treatments are in our future? I sure hope so! Is your irresponsible and gratuitous assertion well supported by data? No.

Have you ever watched someone die from this disease? I have. How about some evidence to back up your claim?

My approach - For Qigong, health, longetivity practices - abdominal breathing: expand abdomen on inhale, contract (passively) on exhale For martial Taiji training - reverse abdominal breathing: focus more on chest on inhale (abdomen contracts passively) and guide Qi to dan tian (abdomen expands passively) on exhale

Have a nice visit!

Thanks!

SereneBlue - Sorry to hear of your struggle and frustration. I share it. I'm not sure there are any questions in spiritual matters that have meaningful answers. The question is what is really important. That is what drives our curiosity and ignites our passion. It takes us places we wouldn't otherwise go. And along the way we learn wonderful things. We face our fears and failures and frustrations. And there is nothing more important to question than ourselves. Answers don't really help in this arena, they're dead. They stop the process. If you think you know the answer, why bother to continue to search? Why continue to study and debate? And if you really think you have the answer - you're wrong! Reality is beyond words and ideas and concepts (even E&DO ). It can be experience but never explained. But there are so many things to see and learn along the way. So much opportunity for growth. I think that if we are diligent and sincere and really look deeply into ourselves, we are eventually rewarded. It's worth the candle. And PS, Bodyoflight was suspended for violating the no-insult policy

I agree with you completely, and I also think that it is within our grasp to experience the unexplainable, just not to capture it in words or concepts. After all, we are it. I'll have to check out Matt's Zohar - thanks

Wonderful - I do appreciate the passion and honesty of your reply. It takes a fair amount of courage to open up like that. I think the points I quote above are so critical to understand. When we discuss and debate we are simply manipulating labels and conditioned perspectives, not reality. In the end, we must abandon the method and the conditioning to encounter whatever it is that is beyond our concepts. Like the saying goes, once I've crossed the river, I no longer need to carry the canoe on my shoulders to explore what's on the other side. Agreed - it would be a beautiful thing to live to see real awakening on a large scale. But it's OK, it's a blessing to have an opportunity to try and live an awake life to whatever degree we can Namaste

Thanks Jack

Thank you Will do (I wish there was a popcorn eating smiley)

I doubt that any Buddhists from Cambodian, Tibet, India, Myanmar, Thailand, China, or Japan would be offended to hear that what they practice is religion. Although I am basing this on very few individuals I know personally and what I've seen in books and other media so I could be mistaken. I think it's reasonably apparent that Buddhism serves the purpose in the lives of Buddhists that Christianity serves for Christians, Islam for Muslims, and Judaism for Jews, Daoism for Daoists, etc... To say otherwise is a bit disingenuous. Buddhism informs the moral and ethical lives of Buddhists, provides cultural identity, rituals, traditions, and history, and addresses spiritual issues related to the nature of human existence. What more does it need to do to fit the bill? Perhaps some folks don't like the negative connotations associated with the R word. Also, as I alluded to above, many folks who practice Buddhism in the West really don't relate to many of the cultural aspects and I think that's an important part of religion. Ultimately, Buddhism is what it is in all of its myriad manifestations. Whether we say it can be associated with the letters "r-e-l-i-g-i-o-n" or not isn't terribly important. Sometimes we get a little hung up on labels and definitions, I think. Myself included.

No - I've never really meditated on the elements, other than what I described above. Although, I've practiced Xingyiquan for several years and have worked extensively on the five element fists - standing meditations as well as moving practices. So I guess that qualifies to some degree. I pretty much have one system I work with but on occasion dabble with other things just for a change of pace. If you want to elaborate, I'm always interested in new ideas. Thanks

If you're referring to the "inner work" I practice, it's not analytical in any way - it's totally about "feeling" ...sort of...

Dear Taomeow, I wonder if you'd be so kind as to continue sharing your knowledge of shen with us. Lately, I've been exploring it quite a bit but solely from an empiric perspective. I'd love to hear more about the lesser shens and their relationship to the greater shen from your point of view, and maybe ask some questions. Thanks

I get it - that's perfect. When I practice meditation, I do exactly what you are describing for a bit before starting the nei-yeh exercises. When I first started, I used to keep the eyes closed. Sight is very distracting during some of the exercises. Later, however, I began to experiment with leaving the eyes open, though relaxed, and allowing the visual input to be there at the same time as the inner work. I'll definitely try the sky gazing - I've done similar work with candle, trees, ocean, wildlife... Thanks

Juju, I will respectfully disagree with the position that Buddhism is not a religion. I think that if you ask most Buddhists throughout Asia, they would consider Buddhism more a religion than a philosophy. In the West, we are biased by our conditioning to associate religion with the Abrahamic religions' monarchical and paternalistic portrayals of God. Furthermore, many in the West have little frame of reference for understanding the cultural aspects of Buddhism and, therefore, have tended to utilize its philosophy and discard cultural aspects. Interestingly, some would say that Buddhism, to a large extent, was a vehicle to remove much of the cultural baggage from Hinduism to allow it to be more approachable for exportation, notwithstanding the profound metaphysical differences. Buddhism views spirituality in a different manner from Western religious traditions (as does Daoism for that matter) but that does not mean that it is not a religion. I'm not a huge fan of the Wikipedia, but I do think this paragraph from it's definition of religion is a reasonable one and supports my position. "Religion is a cultural system that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and moral values.[Clifford Geertz - Religion as a Cultural System 1973] Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to explain the origin of life or the universe. They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the cosmos and human nature."