Encephalon

I have watched the entire series. Is this the basic material of "The Way of Energy?" If so, I won't bother with the book.

I am eagerly anticipating my copy of this book. I was up late reading all I could on the Amazon website. I'm coming up on my 3-year anniversary of nei kung practice and I've been searching for written material that delves more deeply into the psychological transformations that occur after we open our meridians but are not quite at the stage where chi begins to transform into shen. I believe this book delivers on these questions. I think there are a handful of nei kung practitioners on this forum who are in for a fantastic exchange of information and informed conversation. Hope to hear from you! Scott http://www.amazon.com/Daoist-Nei-Gong-Philosophical-Change/dp/1848190654

I went in last month for a nei kung/zhan zhuang check up, my ego half-expecting that my instructor would deliver some modest praise for my progress over these three short years. NOT!! It was a humbling experience. I now see as clearly as ever how the importance of precise alignment can make the difference between authentic zhan zhuang and simple isometrics. I've definitely benefited from my 3-yr practice - even a broken clock is right twice a day! - but it's clear that 5 minutes of precise alignment, where the entire body feels like the bubbling brook, is superior to 30 minutes of incorrect posture. I think Jeramiah is right, and I think that regular postural corrections is necessary. My teacher digitally recorded my session and then emailed it to me for Ipod download. Maybe your instructors would be hip to that as well.

I can totally relate. "The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play" by Neil Fiore helped me immeasurably with this. You pencil in all the daily stuff you need to do for yourself (meditation, exercise, sleep, etc.) and then commit to 30 minutes of intensely focused work. Basically, you get so productive that 30 min turns into a lot more, willingly. Here's the perfect summary in pdf - http://www.hashref.com/summaries/TheNowHabit.pdf http://litemind.com/the-now-habit/

I thought as much.

umkay... replace the cooking wine and add more garlic and and chili powder to the chicken creole that I'm fixing for dinner? Or, yer thinkin' that I've overestimated yer sanity or benevolence?

Maybe not your feelings and behaviors, which are invisible to us in Netland, but your ideas that you post have usually been rational and fairminded. Ohmygodyersohotletmekissyou!

I've alway found you to be eminently rational, honest, and insightful. Stay away from me! Just kidding.

I guess I just have to say that, all things being equal, I'm just a little too perfect. I'm extraordinarily talented in a multiple of media and am overflowing with creativity and imagination. I regularly skewed the grading curve in my favor during college, and regularly submitted supplemental teaching materials to my professors. I'm left-handed, right-brained, full of mystical awareness and brimming with the Truth. I'm an excellent father and husband, a talented cook, and I'll clean vomit from virtually any animal off the rug or the couch. I appeared in Playgirl Magazine back in the late 80s and am still chiseled out like a Greek god. Women trip over their panties just to catch a glimpse of me. All men fear me for the mighty warrior that I am. I am selfless as melting ice and try, in vain, to tone down my magnificence. Actually, I am just one of millions of American men raised in consumer culture who has internalized self-loathing and self-sabotage, and because of this false self (due in part to large quantities of whiskey) I have become habituated to engaging people as either inferiors or superiors, never as equals, but only above or below. Disempowered people become masters of manipulation; it's often our only means of getting what we want when we lack the courage to be authentic. I have only begun, at 50+ years of age, to break free of my addictions and attachments and rediscover the faith in my own abilities and the worthiness of my goals and to dismiss the imperfections of others as none of my goddamn business unless it effects me directly. And I owe it ALL to Nei kung and the Water Method of meditation. PS - the part about all the chicks tripping over their panties in order to catch up to me and rip my clothes off? It's not true.

My feelings are dreadfully hurt by the failure of this important post to catch attention! Just kidding although I have to say that the authors make a persuasive case that Taoism resonates very will with anarchism, and that that a thorough grasp of this connection would go far in refining the political debates that we bring to this forum.

12 weeks and she's nailed her first riff!! I've noticed that she really digs the basic major scales. Her smiles wane when I hit the minor riffs.

Yeah, I'm with you, outcomes matter. I blew the slogan to pieces - it was supposed to read "Praise children for their efforts, not intelligence or talent."

Deepen my Frantzis' Water Method by dissolving emotional blockages. Bring greater awareness to my attachments. Be more disciplined with my reading and writing habits. Sell my first screenplay. Bring my bodyfat back down to 11%. Be the best father I can be. PS - Whoops! - I just realized that this was for January... but I listed my goals for 2012.

It's encouraging that a good deal of contemporary child-rearing theory is now on board with the sentiment of "Praise effort, not achievement," and has jettisoned the practice of stoking false esteem.

That's a point well taken, but if we speak simply in terms of community involvement, of doing all the necessary dirty work of making other lives less miserable, we still have to summon a great deal of courage and empathy to withstand their suffering. For people predisposed to matters of the heart, who are often sensitive to begin with, the fortifying effect of cultivation is almost a prerequisite. Maybe I'm projecting my own experience, but I do see large numbers of people going quietly mad with grief over what we're doing to our world and to each other.

If I understand the equation correctly, we empower ourselves so that we may work on behalf of others. Being tender-hearted and sensitive to the suffering of others, without the empowerment to act on their behalf can open us up to the collective grief in the world and leave us in a chronic state of weeping. Spiritual empowerment opens our hearts but creates the courage we need to witness the grief without becoming derailed by it. In the end, we are all wounded healers.

Greetings from LA- I take my Nei Kung instruction from Jim Borrelli, Master Chu's former student and co-author of the Book of Nei Kung. I've been practicing Nei Kung for a little over three years. I can only express lighthearted envy regarding your extraordinary priviledge to study with Master Chu. My reading list to support my informal study of Taoism has been pretty steady these last three years - The Complete Book of Chinese Health and Healing by Daniel Reid Scholar/Warrior and 365 Tao by Deng Ming-dao The Book of Leadership and Strategy: Lessons of the Chinese Masters by Thomas Cleary The Complete Idiot's Guide to Taoism by Brandon Toropov (don't let the title fool ya) I just recently started reading the works of Livia Kohn -Internal Alchemy I didn't even start reading original texts like the Tao te Ching until I acquired some cultural context from these sources. Some might disagree with that strategy. I realize you didn't ask for a reading list. It's just that reading is still a time-honored means of personal scholarship and often exceeds internet forums in terms of the quality of information that can be gleaned. Although you will no doubt find sincere cultivators here in TTB. Regards, Scott

The pdf I'm looking for was authored by a man and a woman. There was one reference to recognizing the nervous system as an extension of the brain. Can anyone locate this? I think it got posted around Dec. 21st. Thanks.

My med sessions are sitting. I've been reluctant to go further into Frantzis' movement chi kung because of time constraints and because I wanted to maintain the integrity of my nei kung practice, but I may suspend it for awhile to go deeper into the Outer dissolving method, which requires those movements, evidently.

Yes, my experience as well. I happened upon Frantzis' Water Method about a year after I started nei kung, which begins with extended durations of zhan zhuang, although the specific posture was "Embracing horse," not wuji. I made sure I didn't attempt to create a hybrid system by combining the two practices, but now that I'm into year #4 with nei kung, I cannot knowledgeably account for which practice is the most efficacious nor can I tell if the two practices are mutually reinforcing or not. I keyed on the reference to "thinking of the entire nervous system as an extension of the brain" precisely because this seems to describe the mechanics by which you "feel" the process. I'm convinced that this practice refines one's visualization ability and increases raw imagination, but to be completely reductionist, it just seems like a practice that increases the sensitivity of your nervous system to a point where you can feel your internal environment. Anyway, I do Chu Nei Kung in the morning, and two 30 min. Water Method sessions, before dinner and before bed. I just got a copy of Tao of Letting Go: Meditation for Modern Living by Frantzis and I think I'm really going to make progress with this info regarding the dissolution of specific emotional blockages. Pretty inspiring so far.

Here's my submission. check out the Hipster Dance Moves behind the vocalist!

Bingo. "Release to Freedom: The Dissolving Process of the Taoist Water Method" THE EMPTY VESSEL, Fall 1999 by Frank Allen & Sally Kealy. I'd definitely recommend this to everyone exploring Frantzis' works. Thanks.

After a little over three years of studying Taoism on my own, starting a nei kung practice and shifting my meditation practice from simple zazen to Taoist meditation, I feel solid in reaffirming my commitment to Buddhist practice. I still feel that Taoist cultivation methods are necessary for me for staying healthy and balanced and I have found them to be more healing than the many years of mind training that zazen afforded. That makes sense, since I'm really just another alcoholic that needs a somatic practice to get the insanity under control. But over the 3 decades of studying Buddhism I've managed to find author/practitioners who have shown me how to connect my Buddhist practice with virtually every other realm of my life: Buddhist psychology; work with addiction and recovery; environmentalism; peace and social justice; geography and global studies; meditation; parenthood. I've come to realize that the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the Three Treasures and the Precepts possess more than enough depth to keep me progressing on the Path in a way that's easy to organize intellectually. I'm not shutting the door on Taoism of course, but I feel that at my age it's time to deepen my practice rather than broadening my perspective. The nei kung and the Taoist meditation practice are the healthiest things I have ever commenced, and I feel that Buddhism without a somatic element is incomplete. But for me, I am temperamentally suited to agnostic Buddhist thought and psychology. I've found my balance.

2+2=5

Yer right, I wasn't thinking. Jake, please keep the CDs to yourself.