voice

say I am teaching the healing sounds to a friend? How do I know where to add and remove details. Obviously it is in-the-moment, but I am slightly uncomfortable with that, think I might be missing something important!

7944[/snapback]

The important "thing" probably varies from person to person. With some person it might be the sound that really captures them, for others it might be doing organ massage, for others connecting to a feeling, emotion, taste etc. If you are teaching one on one to a friend, then you have a great chance because you know them and their prefered modalities. Even if you don't know them well, you can pick up their vibe and infer what they do best with.

I hate it in classes when the smorgasbord of choices is given because it makes it all too confusing and intellectual. So, I don't suggest that approach. So, my suggestion is to just smile to your discomfort of doing it in the moment, ask them a question, and get on with it.

*What is the book about elements, shamanism and tantra?*

Chris

Yoda,

The sounds that Winn teaches for PCK in the Sun-Moon Alchemy course (and maybe in the PCK audio course) are related to the healing sounds. There were Chinese sounds he'd learned for the 7 directions (nsew up down in), but they didn't work for westerners. So, he played around with finding root sounds that work nicely in a tonal progression.

The sounds are in order: ah ee oo ay ehh oh yu

They apply in order: ah (front - heart), ee (right side - spleen), oo (back - kidney), ay (left side - lung), ehh (bai hui), oh (hui yin), yu (center of cauldron).

At the end of the earth cycle you tone out from your cauldron in each of those directions, out towards the shen of those directions, at the end of the heaven cycle you listen at your cauldron to each of those directions in that sequence.

Chris

I was a vegetarian for 13 years (ages 22 to 34) because I felt squeamish cooking meat, and because it was the thing to do! Been a regular meat eater for the last 9 years. Wife suggested the change because the blood-type diet suggested that meat is important for me. Sure enough, it makes me feel strong and centered. But, too much meat makes me feel heavy. We buy organic, free-range meat and eggs.

I don't remember nearly often enough to give thanks to the creatures who have had their life taken to give me mine. But, another spin on it is that the matter of those creatures gets to be part of the experiment that is human me!

Chris

There are reasons for facing each direction:

east for the rising sun

west because it is metal and lung and we begin later heaven life with a breath (the reason the 6 healing sounds begin with the lungs)

south because that is the direction of yang /the altar/ the emporer

north because at some point we become yang / the altar / the emporer

Primordial qi gong is so cool when the sounds are learned for it, because the sound for each of the 4 cardinal directions/energies is sung out and listened for in each of the four directions, nicely "blending opposites" (nod to Keith).

But, which way do I face? Whichever way feels right then, with no thought to theory because, as per above, different theories favor different directions.

Chris

Fun occurs when the focus is on one plane of being (e.g. physical, mental, astral, early heaven), while bliss occurs when the focus is on the connections between planes of being. ?

Chris

and Winn teaches a version calls "the wheel of the law", which involves simultaneously following the microcosmic orbit and the creation cycle, with them starting at the hui yin and simultaneously going up the right side and back, meeting at the bai hui, and then simultaneously going down the left and front.

But, as always, what we are taught to focus on is really just the garnish - the meal is the real deal, and the meal is the all. Awareness simultaneously on the all (the meal) and the garnish (the method). Field and object, and their integration. At least, that is my latest way.

Chris

and Winn teaches a version calls "the wheel of the law", which involves simultaneously following the microcosmic orbit and the creation cycle, with them starting at the hui yin and simultaneously going up the right side and back, meeting at the bai hui, and then simultaneously going down the left and front.

But, as always, what we are taught to focus on is really just the garnish - the meal is the real deal, and the meal is the all. Awareness simultaneously on the all (the meal) and the garnish (the method). Field and object, and their integration. At least, that is my latest way.

Chris

I wonder about all of this wanting - wanting for sex, yangness, hard-abs etc. Are we so smart that we know what should be?

My practice is to not control my desires, my fears, my wants...but to smile to them and learn from them.

In most situations through the day, I can find a moment to feel inside, send a smile to the predominant emotion in me and find a name that fits the energy.

When I find the right name, there is a release, a spontaneous sigh, and an expansion of being into self.

I do nothing.

-voice

I've been pretty silent lately, because that's just the way it's been. These intros are cool though, and got me thinking about how I got into spiritual seeking.

Born in 1962, I grew up in a typically dysfunctional North American family -- and the less said about them the better! I grew up fat and lonely. I loved reading books of exploration and camaraderie when I was young - Swallows and Amazons, Enid Blyton books (the fabulous 5), Lloyd Alexander's books, CS Lewis etc. I used to fantasize about living in school where all the children lived in some fantastic honey-combed dormitory - we weren't in boxes of rooms, and we were all connected by some mission of some sort.

When in grade 7, an interesting thing happened - I saw a picture of someone leeping over a deep chasm, a 1000' deep split between two granite walls of a mountain. Something of that picture awoke something in me, and I wanted to become a mountain climber. Over the next decade I dabbled in mountaineering and backpacking, with some moments of exhilaration, some moments of utter depression.

In the summer between grades 11 and 12 (the summer of 1978), I read an article that changed my life. I was also into running at the time, and I read an article by an author named Bruce ______ in a book of articles from Runner's World. Bruce had physical problems that was limiting his running, and so ended up taking a yoga class with BKS Iyengar. The description of yoga, and the physical healing that took place, did not interest me much. What grabbed me was this, Iyengar saying something to the effect of "When I walk, I want the floor to feel the joy in the souls of my feet. When I die, I want the wood of the coffin to feel the joy of my body."

Wow. For the next few years I dabbled in Iyengar yoga, meditation, read Tibetan Buddhism, but was still generally depressed. Two of my common fantasies were to eviscerate myself and to jump off a mountain top. I sort of used the fantasies as exploration of feelings - I knew they weren't dangerous, I now know because they were just explorations of my energy body, not my physical body.

I finally realized - I need to become a real person! So, I got involved in modern dance, contact improvisation, studied psychology for a bit, moved away from home, and didn't do anything spiritual at all. I got into science, moved away from areas of beautiful nature, and went off to grad school.

And, I became a more and more functional social being! I finally started dating, getting drunk, doing things with friends, and I met a woman who I am still with now (17 years later) who is pretty much my match, as a partner in our exploration of self and living.

But, while in grad school I was very materialistic - no meditation, yoga etc. I scoffed when my wife took Reiki and did Tai Chi. I took Reiki 1 at her request, but just because it was taught by someone famous.

As all this was going on, my body was starting to bother me more and more. Old injuries were holding my body hostage, and I was visiting the chiropractor weekly, sometimes a couple of times a week. The chiropractor had somehow just gotten into Healing Tao stuff, and had someone come to give classes. I took them and found them interesting. Around the same time I took a course in energy self defense. When we had an energetic fight, I for the first time realized that all the thoughts I have about other people connect to them energetically. That changed everything. It still blows me away, but luckily (or not?) most people are not sensitive enough to feel the blows and carresses we energetically send their way.

And, about the same time, my parents died. And, strangely, that put me into a 5+ year tailspin. They were my center - my undesired center, my lost center, my unacknowledged center. During that tailspin, the HealingTao has helped me find my own center. Helped me look inside, feel inside, dwell inside. Helped me feel the different energies, refine them, explore them. The three Kan and Li workshops I've had with Michael have been the most prolonged times of personal comfort that I have had, feeling good in this Later Heaven, feeling good connections with Early Heaven.

Starting last summer, I have changed my method. While getting a Feldenkrais treatment from my wife, I suddenly recognized a subtle level of resistance in myself. I then remembered the method of Focusing that I'd learned 20 years before, and acknowledged the part of me that was resisting, and it subtley shifted away. I got a book on Focusing, and it has really become the method for me.

With Focusing, I have no goal - not kundalini, or enlightenment, not approval from Michael or Plato. The underlying urge is to embody myself. In Focusing, whatever feeling I have, I allow it. If I have any guile, any desire to morph or control it, then nothing happens, and that part stays unintegrated. I never know what will happen - I trust that any part of me is intelligent, and maybe it will have some great message for me, some great skill for me. It is paradoxical living in Focusing - the fumbling weakness of opening to something "new" and the expansiveness that occurs when acknowledging that part, opening to it, and allowing it to be.

Focusing for me allows all the HT methods to appear, but in a totally non-formulaic manner.

This website has a Quicktime video of the Crossfire segment, and many other fun anti-Bush videos (e.g. 911/911/911, terror, terror, terror).

http://www.internetvetsfortruth.org/

Chris

I was about to do the healing sounds this afternoon, but as I was about to wind up and take a big breath in to make a nice long sound...I paused. It all of a sudden felt like too much work, too much doing, too much invasion of the organ.

So, I just let my breath be natural, soft and small. And, big surprise, though my exhalation was small, soft and natural, the sound and energy vibrated outwards very strongly and expansively from the organs!

The sounds were done internally, emanating from the organ, so not so much breath is needed, I guess, as when doing them making a large sound with the vocal cords.

Chris

Ron, this is the kind of man I am. I am a man with the guts to use my real full name. I am a man who prefers transparency and openness to games, who strives to harm no one. I am a man struggling with just barely enough courage to keep my heart open, despite how much it hurts sometimes to move through life like this.

Nicely put Sean. There is a point when something is no longer play, and it is serious. Friends recognize that and back off.

hey pete is this what you have?

 

http://www.healingdao.com/inner_alchemy.html

6284[/snapback]

That is the description that I have. The only place I have seen the picture published is in black and white in Eva Wong's book "Cultivating Stillness". She provides it just as some sort of addition to a chapter, but the only thing she says about it is "The picture of the internals, from a woodblock carved during the Ch'ing dynasty, showing the tan-t'iens, the waterwheels, and the fires."

I need to send him a message.  He's posted it before but I seem to have lost it.  Thanks.

5931[/snapback]

The one that I use is the following, but I know that he also uses different addresses.

[email protected]

Mudras are cool to play with. I got "Mudras: yoga in your hands" by Gertrud Hirschi a few weeks ago. Some of the mudras are classical ones, others are ones that she made up. For many of them, she suggests holding them for 30+ minutes many days in a row. I haven't done that, but I feel shifts when I use a mudra. The book is great for showing so many amazing mudras - very creative.

So, get a book and have fun!

Hi Dan,

I haven't read the book. My shelves are full of good Tao books and many tapes, CDs and DVDs of qi gong and nei gong. And, the real learning has come not from them, but from taking courses from someone.

Search until you find a teacher whose style (at the levels of jing, chi and shen) with whom you connect. Your body learns so much from being in the presence of a teacher who is more realized than you. I know that my body learns so much from taking courses from Winn; while his tapes and the books of others help me digest his teachings.

So, books are good, teachers are better. And, the teacher could be of anything relevant: tai chi, kung fu, aikido, meditation etc.

Best of luck!

Chris

Later heaven is a world of form and much polarization (yin and yang).

Early heaven is a formless world with much less polarizaiton (yin and yang) and more neutral state (yuan).

Primoridal heaven is an inconceivable world with no polarization.

Or, so they say.

What do you think girls & guys:

 

when one does not get somebody else out of ones head. What is its meaning?

 

Harry

5380[/snapback]

When I can't get somebody, something, someplace, some song etc. out of my head...it is because I have lost my center, or part of it, to that entity.

I lose my center to them because I haven't yet identified with that pattern of energy in myself. Actually, there are two steps to this. First, being attracted to that entity because it has an energy that I lack and want. Second, falling for the later heaven form of that energy that lies outside of me.

Now, if that later heaven form falls for me too, then we can have a relationship and I can spend time resonating with her as she resonates with me. That, however, just deepens the later heaven "trap" (see Plato and the don't marry site).

The solution for me is the inner smile. I feel inside the parts of me that are not vibrant, that are strung out in desire, sad in lack, attached to the outside. And, I smile to them. I let a warm, glowing, unattached smile emanate from my tan tiens. Feelings of sadness, anger, pity etc. often well up in my when those parts feel the smile. I smile deep into those parts. No, I don't force the smile on them, but allow the smile to resonate in the deep core of those parts that are me, but don't feel of me, but feel lost to the other.

The result is strength and integrity. Now, you no longer need the other. And, when you don't need them, they are less likely to recoil from your neediness. And, to be with them, be in the presence of their jing, will give you so much more to play with.

Happy smiles to you!

Chris

Porn is infested with low astral entities. When you look at the pictures, they promise you all kinds of shit. You lose your load, they gobble it up, and leave you alone and low.

And, if you don't come, they torment you with all your favorite fantasies!

And, that is all a level to work through.

Chris

My mantra last night and today has been "help Ron Diana find a strong new body". It is nice to do this, remembering his strong presence, his great laugh. I took a weekend course with him (a bit lame) and had an awesome chi nei tsang treatment which was, like, wow!

Godspeed!

I remember years ago talking to some redneck asshole, and he said about my favorite prime minister, who was in power at the time, "I'd like to kill that chicken-fucker."

I certainly wouldn't want to hurt GWB, but I really do hate that chicken-fucker.

Good articles by Twicken you found Sean. Relly interesting for me to see the linkage between the magic square and the 3 hun and 7 po - the extra numbers for them just seemed strange to me before.

Chris

And, to add to the complexity, there are multiple Hun and Po souls. I can't remember the numbers that Winn gave, but a website suggested 3 hun souls and 7 po souls. So, not only might the kidneys and heart have a different take on things that needs to be resolved, but the 3 hun souls of the liver and the 7 po souls of the lungs have alot of things to work out internally!

The idea is that the different souls enter into the fetus at different times. This, Winn said, is a later idea in Taoism that developed in response to the idea of reincarnation from the Hindus.

So, it's all just a model to help us see the complexity, but not be overwhelmed by it.

chris

And, to add to the complexity, there are multiple Hun and Po souls. I can't remember the numbers that Winn gave, but a website suggested 3 hun souls and 7 po souls. So, not only might the kidneys and heart have a different take on things that needs to be resolved, but the 3 hun souls of the liver and the 7 po souls of the lungs have alot of things to work out internally!

The idea is that the different souls enter into the fetus at different times. This, Winn said, is a later idea in Taoism that developed in response to the idea of reincarnation from the Hindus.

So, it's all just a model to help us see the complexity, but not be overwhelmed by it.

chris

Chris, 

 

Follow your son's vibe.  That's the great thing about kids--you get your own personal Rinpoche!

 

-Yodster

4437[/snapback]

Kyle,

Hmmm, my son's vibe is way too chaotic for me to follow - he is a non-stop, talk-talk, sweet. dinosaur-lover, from extreme yin to extreme yang, on and on and.... We find it so bizarre when we see friends with their kids so quiet and gentle and compliant with their parents. What a different life they have! But, my job is to help him find some balance (physically, mentally and energetically), while allowing him to preserve his innocence and vitality.

You'd earlier posted something (that disappeared) suggesting that I am something like "just a titch away from happiness." Something about your wording made me think of the glass being half-empty or half-full, an allusion that really irritates me. So, there I was weeding the garden under the grove of big trees in our backyard (red oak, white oak, sugar maple, white ash, shagbark hickory), thinking "it is half empty, why do people want to deny that truth, my truth...". As I was brooding on that, I got the sense from the trees, that they are growing and filling space, that all of nature and all things are ever-filling the space around them.

Then I realized, the glass is actually completely empty, and completely full, not just half-empty and half-full! It is empty in that it has room, and it is full in that it is ever-renewing. Yin and yang both. Just like your post - present, yet absent!

Chris