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Dunno if this is the right place to ask but when i post a question under my name it has changed from saying Tao Bum to Tao Master. How did this happen? I post regularly for a little bit then spend a bit of time on my own. How can i manage to keep my "Master" level?

I don't know many masters but have recently come to learn that several inventors of supposedly "Superb systems" which claim Longevity as one of their goals have lived MUCH shorter-than-average lives. considering.... Whether they died from natural or un-natural causes i think is irrelivent because the Tao is all encompassing and is responsible for life and death among everything else. According to my understanding, those who live in accordance with the Tao should have longevity. I think the main concern is that these are the INVENTORS of these systems, and we are trying to replicate THEIR results - living 16+ years less than average!! There could be other issues such as they were sick to begin with and thats why they began cultivation, or by trying to spread their system by writing books and teaching they wore themselves out etc. Does anyone know of any systems where their inventors actually lived a long time? I practice Mantak Chias method and he is 64 according to his birth year in his books, but i must admit even in the recent videos he's looking much older than he did before, even though he seems he still has vitality.

You make some good points but this thing about balance - I know balance and moderation are correct BUT.. i recently read part of the yellow emporer's book... the first part, only part of it that was for free i found on the internet. It says about the natural cycle, and everywhere there is a cycle. The 5 elements are the cycle and the seasons are too. So really nature is not perfectly balanced, it is always circling in nature. According to taoist theory it would be balanced at the end of summer, but it doesn't stay that way (earth element). In our bodies too if the earth element the "centre" the "perfect balance" were to be dominant we would get sick. So then taking all this into consideration we should never seek to be totally balanced ourselves. We should always be alternating our balance in a cycle, the creation cycle. So in a way, we should never BE balanced, just always unbalancing ourselves in a controlled fashion but with equal unbalancing strength in the different directions in the order of the creation cycle, since as the book says if you have some summer weather in autumn, evil wind will be created and bad health will result. You need to unbalance in one direction before you can unbalance in the next direction, but it must be the next direction in sequence in order for it to be in accordance with the tao and to improve health. In the changing of season is when work is done to change your life's course into the next phase, as in nature the wind comes to change and create the next season. I don't have great knowledge in TCM but this is how i see it. I think constant massive qi flow is not essential but puts pressure on your heart and will cause early death. I think internal qi flow is alright, but when you open up to the universe and bring in it's unlimited chi it's like running ur body on nitro. My body can be tired but i can "feel" awake by bringing alot of qi into my body but i know it's not healthy in the back of my mind.

I feel that i've my desires have subsided before but the behavioural pattern is still there. When i feel the beginning of wanting to eat some unhealthy food i just spiral that thought down to my spleen and it's gone. I've felt fear and anger beginning to appear but it just got sucked into either my dantien or microcosmic orbit like a wurlwind sucks in something... depending on which wurlwind had more sucking power, thats where it went and i just felt a serge of energy in that place. However it felt strange and weird to me. Maybe only because i've begun that feeling. It makes me feel a little empty, strange and out of place. All in all i guess it can make my life easier to live how i want to live it because the desire isn't pulling me, but I can't say it's an enjoyable feeling because i don't have the desire-acheivement/fix pleasure response. Maybe i feel it's a little mundane... or maybe i should just continue and wait for the benefits of future acheivements now i can more easily avoid unhealthy temptations..... Although even though i don't have the desire for something i still "think" i should have it because i always have? it's a behavioural pattern. But then when i do have it i don't get the same acheivement/fix pleasure response that i'm after as when i'm desiring. I'm not sure if i like it or not

If i see the light i'll only be following it as far that i know i can come back. I like my life. I don't want to end up being a god or star in the sky or anything until i've had a good long life here first.

This sounds like a very good answer but.... it feels so great when you desire something so much then you get it. If you wanted a girl for a long time then finally you get her it's awesome. If you have an itch and you can't get it but then finally you do it's paradise. When you wake up in the morning and get to stretch it's just so nice. When you are dying for a ciggerette, some food or to reach some acheivement and you finally get to have it... IT'S WONDERFUL! I feel it's all part of life. If you don't have a strong desire you don't have the same happy feeling or relief after you get it.

Yeah i think many of these things are unhealthy too. Also with vegetarian, all the strongest races (body wise) on the earth - Aussie Aboriginals, American Indians, Eskimos, NZ Maoris, African Maasai are all big meat/fish eaters. Eskimos eat nearly all meat/fish. Asian cultures eat little meat or dairy and are small and their bodies are naturally weaker and more vunerable than other races (It's accepted here in China, by the Chinese, that their bodies are naturally weaker than a Westerners). This is enough evidence for me. He became the "king of the world" because many powerful people wanted him to. Theres many great spiritual people, it just that the leaders of countries used him and this religion apon the mostly uneducated population at the time for their benefit. The kings etc haven't been pushing 'this' religion for the last 2000 years soley for the benefit of others But do you want to die an early unhappy death (constantlly being persicuted) so that you can be in the memory of others? Not me. SOMETHING ELSE I WONDER IS IMPORTANT... If you run 20kms a day eventually you will wear out your knees and hips and be crippled without replacements. I read that if your organs are running at 12% of capabilities you will feel fine. Maybe with meditation we can run them up to 80-90% or so. If you run a car at high revs the performance will increase but the engine will wear out. Maybe boosting organ performance is good for healing for a short time but extended high output of organs could wear them out leading to an early death. ANOTHER THING.... I agree nutrition is very important but for things such as alcohol and smoking causing early deaths i'm not so sure. I'm sure using either excessivly is not good, but my great grandma died at 105 and she would drink once ever 2 weeks or so (not just a tiny bit) and my other aunt can keep up with me on beer/spirits and she's 82! Maybe they are exceptions i'm not sure, but i like the sound of it so i'm not gunna be stopping my skull up sessions any time soon

I agree. This kind of thing does work. Eventually there will be no gap

Haha! It seems all these "grand masters" are dying early. Maybe i'm better off not doing any kind of cultivation at all if i want to live a long time. I'm starting a new thread... wondering about the benefits of cultivation for longevity!

Mate... if you can have that kind of relationship AND care about each other and not have any jealous feelings and feel totally comfortable you are a SAINT! I couldn't. I just say below about if iw as in that situation, everyones experience is totally different though of course. I know that would be absolutely impossible for me. I get jealous if my wife has friends who are boys and always wants to chat to them on the internet or something like that. She doesn't do it any more because she respects my feelings and i don't do things that make her jealous either. Of course the reason is because i know exactly what boys are like and guys who want to be just 'friends' with a girl and never think any thoughts about wanting to bang her are as rare as hens teeth i think! I know because of my own thoughts running through my head all the time. I'm a boy, i have a dick, i want to use it! I think theres a reason why every country and nation and tribe has some laws regarding marrage and that you can't have sex with others, because it's naturally going to cause jealousy. Even in the middle east where you are allowed several wives, it is uncommon, and usually it is because the original wife can't bare children so it allows the man to have another wife for the sake of children so that the man doesn't divorce the original wife. If the other bloke starts caring about your wife i'm sure he won't want u to be having sex with her too either after some time. It's a natural feeling i belive. If you're really feeling jealous you should talk to your wife when she comes back about it. My thought is that following the tao is the natural way of life, and taking the easier path is usually a better and more energy saving way. It would be very hard for me to deal with that situation....to me it would be like trying to meditate and be calm when a bear is trying to eat me. Theoretically it's possible but the moment you open your eyes from meditation the bear is still there. I think the best way to fix problems usually is to 'nip it in the bud' but i think if i was in this problem i would consider it past the bud stage. I don't know what the answer is but i think if it effects you enough to ask for help on a forum you should definately at least mention your feelings to your wife. One more thing i wanted to add... one thing i learnt - Women need affection. If they are satisfied with the affection you give then i feel they won't go looking elsewhere for it. It sounds like you really care about her, maybe you can try give her more affection... i'm sure she will pick up on it, and i'm sure she cares about your feelings too or she wouldn't say things over the phone to try to make you feel better. GOOD LUCK!!

Me? Talk to a girl? I've only ever seen them on the internet. Of course longevity is not the goal of Taoism, it's more of a side result of being in tune with the Tao. I don't want to sound too blunt but it really doesn't worry me HOW he died and i wouldn't ask you how even if you did know. The reasons for his death weren't "outside" the effects of the Tao. The Tao is all encompassing and unfortunately for him his time came for whatever reason. It sounds like there are some good aspects of KAP training. You should continue training and enjoy yourself if KAP draws you to it. I would like to offer you an opportunity to save some of your qi energy by not having to think up any more stories about my embarrassing moments, how my spiritual views are shallow and what not, or putting any of your own words into my mouth. It can really give you an additional boost towards your spiritual undertaking .... enjoy ;-) Yeah probably. Bruce lee was really cool too but he would have taken his fair share of bumps too.

Perhaps it's understandable if someone has an opinion about your practice that you don't like you feel a little fustrated, but shouldn't your practice should help you keep a calm mind in these situations? See what is really being said? Perhaps English is not your first language and your understanding of what i say is not clear. You seem very serious about this subject. I guess longevity techniques are techniques of which can increase your life span and help you live a longer life? Perhaps Glen was sick earlier in life and was destined to have a short life anyhow - i have no idea. In that case perhaps his life span was increased from his practice. I feel keeping calm and trying to keep a light hearted outlook are central themes to my practice. I don't accuse people of not having "a clue", just mention my own opinions on the information available and am keen to listen to others' opinions whether i agree or not. Maybe you can spend a little less time monitoring the forums and go back to your "Secret Smile Process" to try to relax.

I haven't made any claims because as i already mentioned i don't know much about it. I don't have time to research into it and i am happy in my current practice so am not interested in learning about it. I just give an opinion at first glance. Yes you're right, but i wasn't not questioning his accomplishments as an individual, more the ability of his system in healing and longevity. The tao is nature and it's laws. We naturally should choose the best for ourselves and our lives. In my opinion it's not natural for anyone to WANT to buy some old fruit or go to a dentist with no teeth, regardless of how good we are told they are. That goes the same for wanting to learn some healing technique from someone who had an early death. However looks can be decieving, but they're not completely dismissable. Maybe this Dr Morris did some good things but he wasn't living in accordance with the Tao. The tao will take care of it's self, it doesn't need looking after. It doesn't need people to heal 1000s of others after some Katrina incident. The world is overpopulated with people, the tao is trying to sort it's self out. Perhaps Dr Morris was in conflict with the tao and so now nature has removed him from the picture earlier than expected. It's like governments thinking that they should plant forests and do this and do that to help the environment. Yes maybe it will help the environment for the people but nature doesn't need it, it just needs to be left alone and OUR lives changed to adapt to IT. The forests will grow back, the water will clean it's self, we just need to live in accordance with the tao and stop cutting down the forests or polluting the water. If it works for you i'm not saying don't do it. Just in my opinion it doesn't seem like KAP would be a longevity technique.

I don't know if KAP sucks or not but... on first look it doesn't seem so great. I went to this webpage http://www.kundaliniawakeningprocess.comku...xplanation.html ... which says KAP was designed by Dr. Glen Morris. Then on this webpage http://www.hoshin.com/drmorris.asp ... it says he is now dead, his living years were (1944-2006). Lets see, 2006 - 1944 = 62. This guy is the INVENTOR of this great system that claims it is great for healing but the one who u would think would be the most advanced in this practice only lived 62 years? All four of my grandparents are still alive, ranging from 70-78 and all in reasonably good health, only 2 need regular medicine... and they don't practice KAP, and 3 of them are quiet overweight! Only 1 practiced Yoga and she doesn't anymore. Why practice KAP? what are the benefits? has anyone experienced healing or have they only experienced some "feeling"?

Hi, I hear there are lots of practitioners using Chi Nei Tsang. I wonder if anyone has or is aware of any videos lying around somewhere on the internet that i could check out then donate money to the author. Thanks

My wife saying something that would logically rip me apart inside and make me totally sad.... but just feeling at peace through the whole thing and not having any emotional effects from it. good or not? i don't know.... i think it's important to grasp whats important to you. and yeah there definately is a difference... i also remember as a child they were automatically as one and i couldn't imagine it being any other way... and then one time as an adult i actually realised mine were both different and i should let go and let them become one again.

Of course the chicken came first... and it was a hemaphrodite chicken with a long dick.... Otherwise if the egg came first... 1. when the egg fell out of the sky it would break and so would the baby chicken in the egg 2. if there was no chicken to sit on the egg and keep it warm the baby in the egg would die 3. if there was no mummy chicken how can the baby chicken suck on it's mums tits to get milk 4. how could it learn to fly and swim and what to do to survive if it had no mother! OR..... maybe the space time continum came into play allowing the chicken and egg to simultaniously exist, and since many chickens and eggs were co-existing in serveral different dimensions, then suddenly the continum got warped during the death of the last dinosaur, finally bringing all the chickens into existance and allowed things to continue with life as we know it. This explains why evolution could take a rest with this one.

How are all these things the same in the end? We need to have goals, dreams, and things to strive for. If we don't we are too yin and just live in the nothingness until we die. Some great monks might live to 150 years old but how much of it was spend with their eyes closed doing nothing but playing with qi or whatever. I don't think anyone in this forum wants to live in a cave for the rest of their lives so they live in society. Don't you want to have an opportunity to shape this society and be active. If you don't have dreams and goals you have nothing to strive for. Look at the acheivements of western yang society in the past, then look at the developing countries and where do you want to be? Soneone who thinks it doesn't matter about their environment might need to experience some different environments. Sure i accept it's possible to live happily anywhere but some places are good for healthy living and some are not. It might be a dream and hope in peoples minds that everything can be perfect and always happy (something like i hear heaven might be) but the fact is that on Earth it's not always like this. Mother nature is a hard bitch and if you dont' be proactive you will die off. Maybe in dreamworld everyone can live together happily but for the entire history on this earth it's been survival of the fittest. You need to adapt and change to our changing environment to survive, you can't just think you have everything already all day long.

Yeah i got my chinese name from China. JiangPeng (2nd/1st tones). Means river friend. I think my mate got a way better one BaiLong means white dragon haha Bruce lee is LiXiaoLong and Jackie Chan's Chinese name is ChungLong If you want a chinese name you may call yourself Cesuo

I wonder if people could share some of their personal breakthroughs and realisations because i wonder if everyone has similar or different experiences, and if any similarities depend on similar cultivation methods. Also perhaps since anything is possible, other's experiences can give us ideas of some breakthroughs we have not had and that we perhaps may like to have and we can use the imagination of others and our own to see if we can have similar ones. Maybe it's not authentic but we can still have fun trying - who knows what might happen. I realise this is a sidestep from the goal of meditation but we should have fun with our lives and play with our bodily chemicals and live it how we will, even if it is not according to how the 'greats' in the past have taught meditation. I'm sure many people have many many experiences but i wonder if they could share only some of the most memorable to them, in chronoligical order (ones that happened first higher on the list) and also include your cultivation method and duration of practice. Some of my biggest breakthroughs are below. Whether if they were real or only imagined by my mind i cannot tell, but i surely felt them all. Methods: Just relaxing with breath (10 years) Mantak Chia's Qigong Basic meditations including all the Fusion practices, and Iron Shirt I & III (about 3 yrs) Taiji 6 months (Zhu method - not famous) 1. Feeling so relaxed from deep breathing - i felt weird and strange i had never been so relaxed before. 2. Using the inner smile and mentally doubling repetatively the intensity of the feeling, along with further smiling until my whole body felt so loved up my eyes rolled in the back of my head and i couldn't handle it any more and i had to stop (It took building up over about 5 days of smiling often while at work and in meditation). Recently with Iron Shirt III i've found i can make this happen more easily. 3. The microcosmic orbit finally going around by itself... i only watched it moving around. 4. As qi became stronger and many blocked meridins began to open, the meridians felt like a kinked hose system. As the qi got stronger it would push open a kink then the water would flow through, but because the qi was still the same amount but now more of the hose system was open to qi flow the pressure of the flowing qi was lowered. Each time qi pressure would increase again until more kinks or blockages released then the pressure would be lowered. 5. When i practice well, the bubbling springs points on my feet feel fully numb and my feet feel like they are magnetically attached to the ground at those points. Also my touch feels magnetically attached to the top of my mouth. I can pull it away but it wants to go back there as soon as i relax the muscle pulling the magnetically attached parts together. 6. Being more easily able to detect tenseness in my body and trying to relax it. This took me a long time in the beginning... i didn't know i was tense, i just felt normal. ONE LAST THING: If people will share their experiences, please no bagging them out because this will do nothing to encourage others to share their experiences so that we can all benefit.

I also feel conflict any time i have a break from practice and start again. As my energy increases i feel conflict inside myself and don't feel balanced or relaxed at all. After about a week it seems to work itself out though and i feel calmer and ok. Maybe this is different to the conflict u feel? I used to try to practice lucid dreaming and i got to the point where i could change some things in my dreams, like flip a coin and make it appear as to what i wanted it to be. It was pretty cool but for some reason i stopped maybe from laziness and i've tried to get back into it again but it's not as easy as it was last time and i haven't put enough effort into it. I had a friend though who was very good at it and could do it every night as soon as he fell asleep. He could change the setting/backdrop of his dreams and have or do anything he wanted in his dreams. He used to love sleep heheh. But he said sometimes if he had nightmares it was a battle to try to control them and he'd have to fight against them in his sleep and couldn't control the nightmares so well.

I've practiced qigong for nearly 3 years consistantly, including some 3 month stretches practicing more than 5-6 hours a day - every day (Mantak Chia's method -Irons shirt I & III, and all the fusion meditations). Now i've just started taiji, studying under a master in China for 6 months. I know i am still a meditation beginner but when i think of when i had only just began, now i have much better abilities. However, often i question myself what is the point? Sure i have had awesome sensory experiences and experiences that are more intense than recreational drugs but how much time have i sacraficed for it? Why are we manufacturing the feelings and experiences through meditation when we should be living a healthy life with healthy food and exercise and experiencing the feelings from external stimuli. Sometimes i feel that i'm so conscious on my energies within my body that even when i am interacting with others i miss alot of the detail because my attention is trained on feeling on the inside. Also meditation does make me very relaxed, very clear headed and calm and at peace... but to be honest sometimes feeling what i thought is the perfect state is boring (even a feeling of total bliss). At the start u want the peace, etc, these new feelings you haven't had for a while but the same thing for a long time can get boring. When you try something new it re-kindles my interest but i feel trying new things would be contrary to the long term goals of meditation. It seems that most of the grand masters i hear about have some illness that they are trying to correct through meditations. If they were perfectly healthy they wouldn't have the patience to sit there for so many hours. I also have some not-major health issue that can't be corrected by any doctor and meditation has definately helped somewhat, but any time i lapse in my practice the pain returns. This forces me and gives me the patience to practice. I think the point i'm trying to make is that if you're healthy, then i really think it's not worth wasting your time with lots of meditation and trying to be englightened. Unless you are like a saint and always eat healthy, never booze up and are consistant in your practice for a very long time u're not going to get there... and when you do get there it's so easy to lose it However, if you're travelling in the bus and bored or something similar then meditation can make you happy or feel good at a time when you would normally be bored, so i think it has good value for filling in the empty boring parts of your life, resting you for your next exciting moment.

Thankyou all again for your thoughts. I feel Josh and Seadog have some great insights. I think looking and trying to help others is definately something i should try to concentrate on since indeed i feel i have something i can give to others and it will help me to grow too. I believe they certainly do, everywhere in life. Nobody needs to speak out that certain things anyone would say is stupid, since anyone who is clever enough to realise it already knows Besides this, even more importantly is that we speak to ourselves in our head... commentating on our lives as we live them, but why do we need to speak to ourselves about what is happening when we already know what is happening - we had to see it first with our own eyes to know it was happening to commentate it in our heads. So this commentating is absolutly useless. Our brains don't 'speak' english... we dont' need to use english to analyze things. I'm in china and their brains don't use chinese to analyse things. We just use the language we have been taught to do it for no apparent reason. ... Strangely enough i've noticed that apparently the dogs here also speak chinese I think we can all have the 'aha' moment and have a moment of enlightenment but that doesn't mean it stays with you any longer than that moment. I think it's not a matter of asking questions so much, and it's certainly not about learning, it's about letting things work their own course (although of course you can change the course for better or for worse . I think if anyone looks inside themselves and asks themselves the questions they already know most of the answers... maybe others can just speak what you have been thinking to make it more concrete in your thoughts. If you are clear in your thoughts, everything just pieces together, intertwining and u get the feeling "of course things are the way they are", everything thats happened has made it that way. So if you want to change the way things are just do something (nomatter how small) about it now which will change your course and head you in the right direction. I feel it can be entertaining to discuss matters but anyone looking for an arguement over enlightenment is certainly on a backwards step on the journey. Yes i've slowly been managing to push some of my excessive studying to the back storeroom of my brain and reducing my "smartness" so that i can have some clear ideas of my own, rather than the tested proven correctness of standard education.