nightwatchdog

Gurgling dishwashing machine

Neighbor's blaring television

A Train roars by

All just memories

Now

 

All this might seem off topic, but in a way I'm attempting to demonstrate the difference between power that's directed by the mind and Power that comes from the heart...

 

Excellent. The ego can be a useful tool, but when the work is done, it should be set down. Who wants to carry around a jack-hammer with a broken "on/off" switch all day?

I guess Lao Tzu must feel pretty silly right about now, considering he wrote things along the

lines of "The tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal tao.", and the like; when, as you

have pointed out here, it's really a very easy topic to talk about it. I find the whole topic

quite abstruse and incomprehensible myself, but I see now the problem is that I am just totally

self centered. Roll over Lao tzu, and let's rock this joint tonight.

Perhaps the Old Master was pointing to a different facet of the truth: that our symbols and words are not the thing itself. We can speak of it, but the speaking is not the thing.

However, this does not prevent Lao tzu from writing 5,000 characters about the Tao. You can be one with it now, and thus know it in the sense of being, rather than the words. Fingers pointing to the moon. So strange how the cliches are no longer just meaningless words once you have tasted the nectar for yourself. Empty, empty, full, full.

Big m small m, still the mind, only one mind, discriminating...lol

Everything gone, gone

Completely gone

Totally, and completely gone

Awareness

So be it

The Tao te Ching may be a Chinese text, but that does not mean that Chinese people understand it better than anyone else.

Lao-tzu's aim in writing TtC was to point out how people could gain control over themselves, by opening to what they really are. One who is in tune with the Tao, is not subject to slavery in any form, even if she's forced to work in a labor camp. Does the wind exert effort to turn the blades of a windmill? Does it resent the turbine?

Noneresistance to what is happening in the present is the key to the power of wind, and the only way to harness that power. It is also the only freedom any of us can really enjoy.

Making the bed is a good way to make the moment happen consciously. I do it when it needs doing.

Of course, these observations contain a truth.

Being overly concerned with Levels of attainment and understanding is yet another thing to be transcended. Being concerned with the attainments of others is also to be transcended. The Tao dosen't rest in our opinions.

Most important is to continue moving, whether or not you have legs to stand on.

 

p.s - Hey NightWatchDog,

 

in answer to your Q of is it me ,my personal opinion is --- "I wish" , he has been training approx 40 yrs or so.

 

I'm terribly sorry for the misunderstanding. I've edited my earlier post.

Good luck with your training.

Edit: misunderstanding clarified.

second that.

I third it. Sounds like a capital idea.

wow how have you maintained celibacy for so long ?

Isn't it obvious?

He dosen't have sex.

Thank you for the nice article Lin.

If one person is set on the path and ten thousand feel it it useless, it will be the purest Dharma in the world.

Children howl on monkey-bars

Look at me! Look!

Brown Autumn leaves roll away

If Ripley's provided all the materials, and inspected them later as the video header states, it seems legit to me. The guy needs to contact the "Amazing Randy", not Ripley's.

Step one: Go take a few classes with the only two options open to you. A bit of something is better than a lot of nothing. Try out both teachers, stay with the one you like. If you like neither, than stay with the yoga.

Second step: Understand right now that any legitimate teacher is going to ask you to push yourself. Proper chi kung will open that nostril. Yoga will open that nostril. None of what you hope to do will allow you to avoid deep breathing. Get over your reluctance to work on breathing and do what your teacher tells you to do.

Lastly: If what you are getting out of this forum is that Kumar Frantzis and Mantak Chia are rubbish, I suggest your first step be to avoid this forum completly and totally after reading this post. The critisizm you are absorbing is from people who have an agenda. Thier agenda is not your agenda. Stop reading, and start practicing.

You will make mistakes. You will learn from some of them. You will probably give up. You can always start again.

Buddy, I respect your position. I really don't see either of our views as being different. The "energy" I'm reffering to is kinetic energy. Energy is the scientific term for what fajing really is. Whether or not I'm using terms in a way that you like to, the results are the same. There's no need to get stuck on semantics anyway; We're discussing how to do things. If the conversation is going to start and end at our computer keyboards, then nothing's really going to be accomplished.

Some of us find that discussing and working on these things help us to work out details of our respective arts, and to look at them from a different perspective. If you feel you've got it, don't need to examine it anymore, and don't want to share or discuss your opinion, that's your perogative. I'm not at that level of advancement yet.

 

I think I've posted this before but here's my teacher doing the Rooster from xingyi. This is how it should be done.

Yes, you did post that video. Thanks for putting it here.

You had written a little earlier that you weren't sure what we were talking about, and also that the spiraling energy is not for Martial arts....

Can you not see the enourmous spirals expanding and contracting as your teacher moves?

What is it that you think makes his movement "how it should be done?" His skill is quite apparent. So is the whirlwind of expanding and contracting spirals as he does form, and shows applications.

Thanks for the nice vid.

Edit: Teaching people to move like this is exactly what I was talking about.

My current feelings about dan tian and qi, FWIW:

Qi is already there and everywhere. You can't increase or decrease it. You can simply tune into or out from it. You sensitize yourself to feel your essence more directly and more intensely. Your essence is a process, it is not stuff, that is why there is often a sensation of movement. That awareness becomes useful for all sorts of martial and health applications. I know this is a minority opinion but, there you have it...

And yes, of course, we do create the dan tian with our mind. It doesn't really exist. There is no qi bag or bucket in the abdomen, it's simply an area that corresponds with certain viscera and the intersection of meridians where the qi can be felt in a particularly concentrated fashion quite easily.

This is very good insight. Most of what we legitimately learn to do with our Chi involves ever increasing levels of awareness and sensitivity to what is already there. Sure it's a minority opinion, but the masters who can effectively manipulate thier Chi are also in the minority.

It's a pretty bold claim to say that practically every master on the planet is wrong and only one guy is really right. Still, it's done all the time in this field. I hope as few people as possible are influenced into incorrect practice by such claims when they arise.

The truth is very simple. Trust your feelings. Open your senses. Rinse, repeat.

Sure, that all is true. As you point out, the spirals are almost invisible. Unfortunatly, due to the limitations of video, we are forced to looking at things on a large frame if we're going to discuss it with each other.

Many teachers use this method. It allows them to show their students exaggerated spirals so that they can "see" what should be happening on a smaller level. It brings it into awareness. As awareness grows, the spiraling motions get smaller, until eventually they become invisible.

Vince Black likes to have his students move from a large to a small frame method of moving over time, specifically to train this. It starts out very exageratted and slow, with virtually no power expressed, like the fellow in my initial post. Over the course of a few months things tighten up, and the power becomes more and more apparent.

This is a good approach because it teaches a person how to link everything internally in a progressive way, instead of using a more trial and error "you'll get it someday" approach. I've tried both ways, and personally preffer the large to small method. I like to come back to it often too in order to explore.

I didn't care too much for the one on the beach. Zhing-yi? Maybe a basic Mandarin lesson? Not much power there. The one with Kumar and Sam Masich I have, and all the footage not on the original tape. Kumar's spiraling is neigong and not directly related to MA.

Interesting.

I didn't much like the fellow's Pao chuan either. Do you have a video link to a breakdown (specifically of spirals) that is more to your liking? Of course anything with B.K.F. would be much appreciated!

at the time, I was speaking from pure chen style point of view. I've since learned there are non public things one can train in standing. It's pretty deep and you have to be 'in the know'. I'll qualify my earlier statements by saying if you're exposed to that knowledge, be grateful and do it. Unfortunately, what's being taught out there for the most part is surface,just standing there. Even the visualizations are just elementary. And there is a huge part of non verbal 'transmission' from a master. I don't think there is anything supernatural about it, it's just something one picks up by being shown things and being around the master.

T

What about the internal landscape learned from the practice? This is something spoken of at length in the classics of all three of the main internal styles. How can you expect people to learn how to articulate movement from Dan Tien, thread the chi, unify the six harmonies, open and close internal organs, pump the spine, etc. etc. without actually feeling it? Do you expect them to visualize?

Zhan Zhuang is the antithesis of visualization, and other such wishful thinking. Standing practice is about feeling it, and learning how your body does it naturally so that eventually, you can learn to control it. It's this control that makes an art internal.

As far as I know, no legitimate teacher claims that Zhan Zhuang is about "just standing there." It's about discovering how your body works in great detail so that you can gain conscious control over it's functioning. It is a matter of sensitivity, which is why it's so effective at improving push hands skill. At best, a teacher can point the way, but the work must be done and experienced by the practitioner for benefits to arise.

The bottom line is this: If you don't go inside and really watch how your body works, the upper levels of any internal art will be lost to you.

I keep thinking of a novel that said "No more coincidences for you" as I've been thinking about standing meditation a lot recently too

 

Anyhow it's one of the things I don't do (time required).

I've got seated meditation, Tai Chi fills the moving meditation part, Kung Fu is taking the exercise part. Standing meditation is missing, should I try to put it in?

 

Basically only been thinking of it again because if I go to the Kunlun seminar there will be standing meditation and I had better start practicing if I don't want to be a trembling pile of sweat!

If you could manage five minutes, I'd try it. Just do five minutes of embrace the tree every day. Add one minute a week. It'll take you six weeks to reach ten minutes with very little discomfort or time investment. You'll also be establishing the habit. In my experience, everyone who's ever tried this simple method gets so excited about the practice that they never want to go without it again.

Caveat: Be careful not to jump ahead with the time progression when you start experiencing stuff. You won't be doing yourself any favors by suddenly jumping to an hour the first time you feel your channels open up. That's how you hurt yourself and give up. Slow and steady wins the Chi Kung race.

I sincerly hope this helps you.

Is it overrated?

 

Spectrum

Nope.

nightwatchdog

I've done this for months at a time, I would usually eat my one meal around noon or a little after.

As I've pointed out in other threads, this is the way Buddhist Monks have been doing it for about 2500 years. It's good cultivation.