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answer 1: there are no levels, only the journey since this answer won't help you any.... like you said. "I knew that my body could tell me everything I needed to know in order to progress further." correct - IT WILL. If you feel you are progressing too fast then slow down. But the fact is - It is your mind that is getting in the way. The fact that you "think" you are going too fast is that you are. When you can clear the mind out the way so that you don't "think" you will be at the ultimate destination. What i say should be evidence to you that your mind is slowing you down. Get it out the way. Don't think. don't let it dictate your feelings or anything at all. But until you can get to the stage where you don't think most importatly don't do what the voice inside your head is telling you not to. To do so will be sending you backwards. It will stress you out. You will feel what you are doing is wrong. It will create additional tension in your body. I can tell from your post that your brain is heading you in the right direction. But you need to forget your brain to continue on your path. It is slowing you down. Unless you are constantly living in a cave you need to experience the real world, the world in our cities. I have gained lots of insight just by living normally. You have to experience dangers so you know how to avoid them. DONT WORRY! When you do too much exercise you get sore muscles. that is your body telling you, you have damaged them. Do you die? No. Do you shorten your life. Maybe, i don't know. Do you progress, yes. Summing up dude, Just follow the inner voice. Remember the 3 levels. Spiritual, emotional and physical. Physical is slow. You have lots of time to correct the spiritual, less time to correct the emotional until it finally has some play on the physical. Thats the wonderful thing about our life. It gives us time to change our thoughts and feelings until it affects us on the physical. Continually doing what you think is wrong on either of the upper levels will finally manifest on the physical. But you have plenty of time. Play, try and do what you feel is right! happy living!!

answer 1: there are no levels, only the journey since this answer won't help you any.... like you said. "I knew that my body could tell me everything I needed to know in order to progress further." correct - IT WILL. If you feel you are progressing too fast then slow down. But the fact is - It is your mind that is getting in the way. The fact that you "think" you are going too fast is that you are. When you can clear the mind out the way so that you don't "think" you will be at the ultimate destination. What i say should be evidence to you that your mind is slowing you down. Get it out the way. Don't think. don't let it dictate your feelings or anything at all. But until you can get to the stage where you don't think most importatly don't do what the voice inside your head is telling you not to. To do so will be sending you backwards. It will stress you out. You will feel what you are doing is wrong. It will create additional tension in your body. I can tell from your post that your brain is heading you in the right direction. But you need to forget your brain to continue on your path. It is slowing you down. Unless you are constantly living in a cave you need to experience the real world, the world in our cities. I have gained lots of insight just by living normally. You have to experience dangers so you know how to avoid them. DONT WORRY! When you do too much exercise you get sore muscles. that is your body telling you, you have damaged them. Do you die? No. Do you shorten your life. Maybe, i don't know. Do you progress, yes. Summing up dude, Just follow the inner voice. Remember the 3 levels. Spiritual, emotional and physical. Physical is slow. You have lots of time to correct the spiritual, less time to correct the emotional until it finally has some play on the physical. Thats the wonderful thing about our life. It gives us time to change our thoughts and feelings until it affects us on the physical. Continually doing what you think is wrong on either of the upper levels will finally manifest on the physical. But you have plenty of time. Play, try and do what you feel is right! happy living!!

Good you figured it out. It's a common problem. Some people have this so they feel they are choking and think it's hard to breath. You can google it. Now you know what is causing it, you can be aware of your throat and when you feel it tighten up relax, and when you can't relax any more, it's time to stop reading about misery

Pheonix: I suggest not over interlectualizing it. Theres probably many things at play that are causing this unwanted problem. The thing is that by trying to work out yourself if it is this channel, that channel, chi going the wrong way, too much or too little... or whatever - is that really it doesn't even matter. By doing that you're only tying yourself up in more knots. So if you chi is going the wrong way, you have too much or too little in one place are you consciously going to make it go the right way or add more or less qi, close or open charkahs or whatever? No thats wrong. You can't consciously change it to the right way, you will make yourself worse. You need to relax, build up more qi pressure so that the qi can push open any blockages by it's self. This is the most important thing. YOU don't do anything the qi knows what to do - don't try mentally or consciously to correct yourself, it's your mental thinking that got you this problem in the first place. If your mind knew what it was doing it wouldn't give you this undesirable feeling. Give up your mind's control and let the qi do it's job by it's self. Always has been and always will be Never. Wriggling around a problem so that you solve it in the easiest possible way is part of the tao. You don't have to face something if you want to overcome it. We have a stumpy tailed lizard in Australia, it has a fat tail. Animals think it's tail is it's head so they attack the wrong side and it lives on. Is that easy for it to do? Yes, Is he facing the problem? No he's facing the other way Theres countless other examples of this in nature. ...So the water does seem to "avoid" the rock by wriggling around it, according to what you've said and yet the rock is overcome instantly very easily, and as time goes on it is overcome more and more easiily until finally the rock is there no more. The tao is not about a b c d, it's about a straight line from a to d, without doing steps b and c that your mind has been lead to believe are necessary due to your social conditioning. I agree with your opinion that you should feel as many different feelings as you can. Try them out. However i don't believe this what cultivation is all about. The feelings are sapping away your energy. When you feel only love (special feeling) your energy is totally balanced and health giving.

You should think that you are lucky that you have found many different versions. Gives you a chance to try them all and see which one works best for you. After a while you'll realise it doesn't matter how you do it. Then later after you won't do it at all, it will do it's self and you'll be slowing it down by trying to do anything at all....

Yeah i know dairy is not good for me. Too much anyhow. Butter seems not too bad but milk and cheese are worse. I wonder if you know if RAW unprocessed milk unhomogonised/unpasturised milk is a less 'hot' food than the cooked version? I espcially try stay away from dairy while i'm here though, with all the chemical things they've been puttin in the milk in china lately.

It doesn't take education, it doesn't take the latest vitamins, minerals or cleaning aids. Only common sense. Depends if u want fast detox or slow detox. Fast detox just eat fruit and vegetables & juice for one week. As much as you want any different types, you'll be as clean as a whistle. Slow detox: DON'T EAT PROCESSED FOODS (What your detoxing from) and eat lots of healthy FRESH food (the stuff from the fridge not the stuff in a can). Fruit, veges, nuts, meats, wholegrain foods (not too much), dairy (if your digestion can handle it, eggs etc etc. All the stuff that was grown on a tree, came from the ground, an animal and wasn't altered by man in any way. Just look on the label of any foods you want. If you see an ingredient and you dont' know what it is and it sounds chemicalish, don't buy it. More common sense: No alcohol, cigarrettes, drugs, sugar, candy, white flour/rice. Of course u knew these were processed already

Yes, Relax. Don't start trying to relax 2 days after it started, relax as soon as it begins. Continue relaxing and stop thinking about it. Think about something nice. Forget that thought and feeling. Of course the easier path, the path of the tao, would be to stop reading the news and start reading a nice book that makes you feel good, happy and gives you a warm buzzing feeling all over your body. It sounds alot easier and better than reading bad news that makes you feel miserable and gives you a bad feeling near your heart. But i guess you will continue to read the news just as i continue to do the things that i shouldn't. So you need to read the news but not be emotionally effected by the bad story and don't create tension in your body. You're probably not aware you are creating the tension yourself, but if you meditate enough and be aware of yourself you will finally realise how you are tensing up. Thats step 1. Step 2 the hard bit is to not tense up any more Good luck!

i don't have high blood pressure. If i eat lots of raw fruit it helps me out feeling a bit cooler. I just love meat and dairy so much! I just started cooler showers again and should get back into it. My wife is chinese and i think she picked up this 'internal heat' buzzword from one of the doctors so now anytime something is wrong with anyone it's always because of internal heat Meanwhile i do get a hot sore throat/nose often which goes down to my chest then slowly goes back to my nose/throat till i get better. Pain in the arse, no idea why it goes down before it comes back up again!

I am always very hot. If i have a hot shower i will sweat after. I always feel hot when i go to bed and want to poke my feet out of the doonah. My wife on the other hand is always cold and needs to snuggle up to me. But the thing is i feel hot next to her and like she feels hot too but she says inside she still feels cold! I can't bare the temperature and have to space away from her a bit but still make sure shes covered good by the quilt. It takes a long amount of extended cold from outside till i'm cold on the inside. Unless i got a cold, then i feel cold very easy.

In japan they usually put the accupuncture needle in not very deep, maybe 1cm maximum. In china they have long accupuncture needles and poke them in very deep. To push in 5cms would not be uncommon. They had a story on the news where some doctor had a very very long needle, maybe 60-70 cms long and pushed it all the way down this guys back beside his spine. Before he couldn't walk and after the treatment he could. It was a miracle. I don't know how often this kinda stuff goes on but if u find the right doctor miracles can happen. I also couldn't help thinking to my self how many people did this doctor go through in the process of learning this technique hehe My friend from tai chi is a japanese accupuncturist and has come to china and is studying it at uni here too. The styles are quiet different she says. I wonder has anyone come accross these sorts of stories of very long needles being used in their western accupuncture studies? Eternal student maybe? You seem to have massive training in it. Still i believe from viewing the effectiveness of different doctors over the years it's best to know your stuff on perhaps a much smaller scale and do it well then be able to do everything without much result.

Cold water is great after a big workout. The reason you get sore muscles the day after is due to them bruising and being torn with your exercise. If you shower in cold water after some intense exercise, it will bring down the swelling and from my experience the day after pain will be reduced by at least 80%. Try it!

I think there seems to be 2 different ways to become healthy. A natural yang way and a TCM style yin way. The yang way involves eating raw food with meat, drinking cold water, jumping in freezing water, lots of hard exercise. The yin way involves eating cooked mild food, drinking warm water, keeping external cold out of our body and soft gentle exercise. After centurys of the different methods western people end up big and strong, the asians end up small and weak. I think when you're sick or every now and then your body needs a rest period where you use the TCM approach but generally it's best to use the yang approach. But i'm a westerner and my body is designed that way. If your asian you probably need a more yin approach. I feel in TCM you're always balancing your body perfectly so that it performs at it's best but then it loses it's ability to resist outside attack. The yang way you are constantly resisting different forms of outside attack that eventually your body is worn out and the external attacks overcome you. Plus I'm glad i'm a westerner i like being big and strong, i don't like the thought of surrounding myself with pillows all the time Thats the way i've been brought up to think and what i pride myself on. The asians pride themselves on their abilities to out manouver and parray attacks, thats how they've been bought up to think.

I used to read Koans when i was young but came up with many different answers or thought of what it could be. I've read that even the wisest Zen teacher cannot tell you your own answer. You must find it for yourself, and not in your mind, and not in the comfort of a rational response. Once experienced, the answer is often a life changing experience, and needs no confirmation from anyone else. So since there can be many different answers and this is a cultivating forum i figure theres no better place to ask for answers to the very famous question.... What is the sound of one hand clapping? My most recent answer is... There is only ever ONE hand clapping - only one that can do anything. Everything is ONE. Even in an apparent audience of many different people clapping (clapping in unison or 'separately') that is still the sound of one hand clapping. The many many things turn into 5, then to 3, then to 2, then to 1. There is no separation only one. I also like the slap around the face answer hehe.

In every case he prescribes herbs (pretty expensive mind you) which you need to boil up or can pay the pharmacy to boil for you. Last 2 times i've been he hasn't given me any herbs though because i've been fine. Cost to see him is only about 8rmb and after insurance it ends up only being 2rmb. Herbs are about 180rmb for 1 weeks worth. He wanted a photo with me because i'm his first westerner to deal with and he's got the photo up in his practice now hehe. That a lady had a real metal key inside her belly. He said she had a key in her belly surprised. She said yes, she had tried to kill herself and swallowed a key or something. It was still in her gut from about 5 years ago. That a woman had a misscarage, how long it was into pregnancy and that it was due to a chromozone issue. My wife's friend. She came there on my wifes advice and didn't tell her about her misscarage and yes he knew after a quick pulse check. Knew that a lady had a cancer removed and the exact size of it. My wife's friends mum. Didn't tell him anything that was wrong and he just told her this exactely. Knew that a lady had semen still inside her body. Said straight up, u have it in you. Then he said after he was considering if it was vaginal fluid or semen but he rekons jingzi - sperm. asked the lady have you been with your husband last night and she shyly admitted it infront of the line of people haha. Knows when sperm and egg have connected Knows when the sperm/egg has stuck on the wall of the womb Knew a pregnant girl had a sore rib, and said it was because the baby's leg was pressing against it. The lady didn't say anything, he just asked her if she felt sore and pointed where, and she said yes. He said it was from the baby's leg. Don't know what he said about fixing it. I can't here all the conversations directly, only what gets translated to me. But it's case after case that he does amazing things with. He said after one month of being with him i should learn quiet a bit, after 1 year i would be as good as him. I'm not going to be staying here a year but from what he is saying if ur getting taught properly it shouldn't be a long time to learn. He doesn't brag about his abilities or anything, and he only works in small hospitals not the big ones. He just speaks about it matter of factly like there is nothing so special about what he does. It just seems amazing to me because i can't understand it so it seems magical. Still it is chinese medicine though. It is more more slow working than western medicine. Some people take herbs for a year and are still not fully cured. But some are fixed much more quickly. I think the main thing is that people progressivly improve faster than without the herbs, and definately don't decline in their health.

The guy does each arm, 1 at a time, 3 fingers accross the wrist for about 10 seconds or so each. I also saw him take the pulse of some girl on the wrist but on the side of it with the hand in a verticle position and his fingers just down below her thumb. I've seen him do a bit of accupuncture and normally puts several needles into the head. I mean the sweet potato thing was his 3rd guess. He said have you eaten (some vege) they said no... he thought for a sec and said (some vege) she said no..? then he goes ah, yes sweet potato! and she said yes, only 1 bite. Like WTF?! So it's not like he even got a smell of sweet potato on her breath or anything haha. Eternal Student: Is it some kind of mathematical equation that you can use to find out the diagnosis from the pulse? Like could it be computerized? First finger qualities, 2nd finger qualities and each finger represents different possible diagnosises? Or is it just a general "feeling" you get overall that allows you do diagnose?

Not quiet what your talking about... but something interesting none the less. My wife knows a girl who has 2 wombs! 2 periods every month, 2pms's! Feel sorry for her husband hehe She went to a chinese medicine doctor though who managed to make both periods occur at the same time.

Enya is good =]

You should show your sifu lots of respect. He traditionally has a higher rank than your father. You would never refer to him by name only as sifu.

I don't think enlightenment is something to be scared of since when we are FULLY enlightened all our fear will be gone, and increasingly so on our path to it. I think it could be viewed as lunacy by those unenlightened because those who are enlightened don't live by society's standards/ethics/codes and since it seems everyone here is convinced that enlightenment can't be concieved of by those who are not enlightened (and i would agree certainly for those who have not even begun on their spiritual path) the doings, or not-doings, of an enlightened individual would certainly appear strange to the average joe. It's not uncommon for fully enlightened people to beg for food, request donations, and survive off the work of others which is not considered 'good' in society's eyes. Many of them don't stand on their own 2 feet so to say. These people are very much enlightened and are often supported by their followers, and they are functioning in this physical existance but not on their own... with the help of others (who incidently ARE themselves), but to the average joe it seems everyone is supporting this loony who only sits in silence, does nothing and lives off handouts. I know many people who have this bad impression of the catholic church. So finally, i do agree that a necessary aspect of wisdom/enlightenment is functioning in this relative existence. But the method seems crazy to those unenlightened. The enlightened begger knows god is bringing him his food, he has faith, can see into the future, and 'knows' his meal is comming. I want to keep enough ego to care enough to keep MY body healthy and have a wife with whome i can have MY OWN offspring. My desired level of enlightenment can then give me insight and wisdom to help me acheive this in the best and easiest possible way. I believe the enlightened can empower the world in unknown ways and direct energy and mould the world through other beings or things but not his/her own (own as in seperate, although it is really their own because the world is theirs). At the moment i still want part of my ego and i can be one of the enlightened's minions. Later when my i have kids that have grown up and don't need me any more i can become passive. .....Also if you ever see the shaman in any movie he's always a bit of a crazy looking bastard haha.

People who say you cannot attain full enlightenment are talking rubbish. The only reason you've read in some places you can't is because it's not something you get, it's just a realisation that you already have it and you reach the point where you have unmasked it. Attain: To arrive at, as by virtue of persistence or the passage of time. So we can attain enlightenment by backtracking and bypassing all our learnt knowledge to arrive at the place we began. There IS full englightenment which is exactely the same as full realisation. You can't say there is one without the other they are one and the same. mikaelz: It's interesting to discuss with you. We are given an ego by ourselves. The fact that we are living in a physical world and have a physical body that we can stress provides the vehicle for the ego. I don't think Jesus "did just fine". They killed him because he was acting like a raving lunatic in society's eyes, and the leaders didn't accept that kind of behaviour. Like now if i started acting like that in china here it would be only a matter of days before i was locked up. So he couldn't live in the society (with an ability/skill of any unenlightened person). He was encompassed by god and acted of god's accord and it was different to the rules of society. If you're enlightened but you live within the rules of society then you are living a lie knowingly and are resisting the tao, not living at one with the tao, and there, begining to rebuild your ego. When you are fully enlightened and act in accordance with the truth then you ARE like a leaf in a stream. Everybody already is but the enlightened one realises this and doesn't resist it. In my opinion it's benefitial to be enlightened, to the point where it adversely affects your health, which is your greatest asset. You should not surrender your health to the tao, and those parts of the ego useful for sustaing your health should remain. The path not mapped, the 'dangerous direct route' some people have mentioned is this overzealousness for enlightenment that causes people to neglect their health. (Fasting for long periods, meditating continuously without moving so the muscles and tendons waste away). Once they damage their health the results can be serious and the resulting illness or damage can be with them for life.

mikaelz: I understand your arguement but... We are given an ego to survive in this physical realm. It does serve a purpose. It can bend our fate, choose our own path to our unchoosable destination. Here we have an opportunity for some egotistical choices to do what we want to do. We have eterity to be one with the tao, we don't have an eternity in our physical bodies. You're right FULLY enlightened people aren't satisfied with life in societies but thats where all the people are. FULLY enlightened people don't do well in societies. If you don't find a wife and have children (as i imagine a high percentage of enlightened people don't) you have lost your ability to create a new life. I think some level of enlightenment is great and needed but it's nice to enjoy satisfying your ego while you have it. Once you know how to get rid of it you can get rid of it any time, as long as you don't let your ego get too strong therefore making it more difficult. Apart from that you are part of the physical world and regardless of if you are following the truth or not truth i believe it does not matter. We have the ability to follow either, it's our birthright and we pay for it ourselves anyway with the karma. It's each and every individual's own decision as to what path they want to walk, and how enlightened they want to be. I believe it's equally as difficult (if not more difficult) to regain your ego as it is to regain your enlightenment (since enlightenment is effortless and gaining an ego is effort). Perhaps the ego is the greatest gift. Have you given yours up for mankind? If so send more chi and i'll hoard it with the rest of mine

Diet, exercise, posture ... all these things can HELP, but it is the mind that must be overcome. You can only do that by observing the mind. Theres a book "Who Am I" freely avaialble on the net. It has good hints for anyone at every stage of practice.

When your ultimate perfect inner love/calmness/balance whatever u want to call it is not effected by any external influences. During this period you are enlightened. Just because you've been enlightened doesn't mean you always will be. You overcome your karmic conditioning because the karma is not external to you, it is you. When you have the inner love/calmness the world, which incidentely is your world, is unable to give you and good or bad karma, only the constant unchanging level of inner love/calmness which has been labeled as the ultimate truth. Then you don't control yourself any more, you are controlled by God/Tao, or the real YOU. (Well you already are, but then you will stop fighting it :-) Also the common thought that we are different to animals, and that only we can transend and animals can't is rubbish i believe. Every living thing has the ability. Of course there are different levels of enlightenment, and if you are ultimately enlightened you wouldn't do anything, only sit and be. Everything would already be getting done for you by the tao. Your body would decay away if not kept alive by those people caring for you around you - all of whome are also "you" and the tao. Thats my understanding of it anyhow. It's not all the whiz bang wonders it's cracked up to be. The more enlightened you are the more useless you become to your ego, finally your ego will be totally gone but to what benefit? Total enlightenment is for those who can't hack it in the material world. Enlightenment is required for those who have been overcome by the material world. Why not enjoy the pleasures and pains of both worlds. :-)

Hagar: Yeah i think the 'letting go' method is not so great. I think it makes you feel helpless and powerless which isn't a nice feeling. Mantak Chia's idea is also that if you always let go you are always releasing your energy and letting go of it. Instead what i do is as soon as i begin to feel any thought comming up i will smile and relax and drop the thought from my head to my belly and it's gone. I still have the energy and now it's used for healing instead of being wasted in a useless thought. Some good days I find i can feel a thought comming along before i even know what i'm about to 'think', i just feel a change in my energy as if i'm about to think something then i drop it down and it goes down so easily. The quicker and earlier i can do it the easier it is. Freeform: I couldn't agree more. We need to have both states. It's just our jobs and society make us focus so much that now we need to practice de-focusing. Children are so un-focused and so parents are always trying to focus them (to study, clean their room, etc). Now when i try to remember something i actually feel my brain tense up. It made me laugh thinking that i'm actually straining my brain to remember. A few years ago it was constantly strained and i didn't notice it tensing up because it already was. I think the thing is that it is POSSIBLE to have constantly wonderful states. We have an imagination and it's a wonderful thing. If it's not wonderful, imagine something to make it more interesting. Pretend something. Make it fun. Children do it all the time playing games like army, 007, mothers and fathers even haha. It doesn't matter what it is just make it cool, fun, exciting and what you want. We know it's not real but you can pretend it is and be really enthused at the same time. Richard Bandler has some excellent ideas on this. Even without imagining, if you're living in the moment, since it's so hard to do, that is a special experience on it's own. Smell the smells, hear the sounds, and feel the air and your clothes all together. Feel the chi, be aware of the stars. Realise you're so small, your job is not so important in the scheme of the universe and feel the room to make some fun within your day.