Blue Dragon

A friend who has been 'channeling' Thoth thinks he is talked of in Indian mythology as well. Shuka or Thoth(a) I believe means parrot in Sanskrit.

 

I tried to find a post that Lama Tantrapa wrote ages ago explaining his title - I didn't manage to I'm afraid. The lineage came from his grandfather, that's all I remember. Of course using 'Lama' is at least in some way a marketing exercise... whether it's wrong or right, I don't know... I scanned the book and read some of Tantrapa's writing on his site and I found it worthwhile - not for me at this time, but seems sound.

 

He talks of ordination as a monk/lama but no specific details. In one of the links below, he says he is referred to an Rinpoche by his students. I also see the term Tulku used to refer to him many places. If my memory serves me right, I don't remember reading anything specific to his lineage associated with Lamaism in his book.

I saw this here:

Lama Somananda Tantrapa is the holder of the lineage of Qi Dao that has been fostered in his clan for 27 generations since 1224 AD. He has over 30 years of experience in Qi Dao and other internal martial arts. He was primarily trained by his Grandfather who was the last Grandmaster of this style of Tibetan Shamanic Qigong. In addition to being recognized as an incarnate Bön lama, ordained as a Buddhist monk and initiated into Subud spiritual brotherhood, he holds a degree in Cultural Anthropology and certifications in Qigong, Hypnosis and NLP.

And here:

Lama Somananda Tantrapa is the 27th lineage holder of Qi Dao, also known as Tibetan Shamanic Qigong. He has been practicing Meditation, Qigong, Dream Yoga and Internal Martial Arts for over thirty years, primarily trained by his Grandfather who was the paragon of the Russian Martial Arts and Qi Dao Grand Master. Lama Tantrapa was ordained as a Buddhist monk in three different orders and initiated into Subud spiritual brotherhood. His background is complex enough to include serving in the Soviet Army’s Special Forces, being kidnapped in the Ukraine and surviving several near-death experiences. In addition to being a Tibetan lama, he studied with a number of Kung-fu and Qigong masters, great teachers of Yoga and Martial Arts, as well as Native American, Hawaiian and Siberian Shamans.

Buddhist monk in three orders, Bon Lama, Tulku ... well never mind but some of these terms are very technical

You big tease!

Hey, you can't complain, I have had similar issues with your insightful posts before. Oh, and a belated thank you for some great Kunlun posts.

 

So, do enjoy the honeymoon period right now...but just don't expect it to last forever! As Max says, for every high, there is a low... The quicker path - may also be the steeper one too.

Okay, thanks but let me re-iterate

1. I have read the pages and pages of "negative" effects people have experienced from Kunlun on this very forum. Have done Qigong, also ZZ for 12+ years and have gone through a lot of these cycles. With several Goenka and Thai Forest Vipassana intensives as well as Bardonian practices, I guess I am not unfamiliar with detox, the dark night period etc. Have seen way worse with my Kundalini awakening eight years ago.

Like I said, one of my Chi Kung teachers is considered a national treasure of China and has kicked my ass hard when I got lost in bliss. Actually, I don't know if it is my lack of expression or lack of patience on the part of reader - no one seems to notice that I am not dwelling in my original post on Bliss, Shaking or any of the physical effects at all! I am only talking about deeper and profound states that I have so far experienced only through intense Kriya and Vipassana. I don't know how to explain further - touch of the prajna dakini or a kiss from kali? It is really beyond the realm of energy and detox and highs and lows that I find myself experiencing through this practice.

So, I don't think I consider myself "honeymooning". I guess I am married and have given birth to a child, AND I am a Guy. The focus of most advice on this thread is, IMO, Not applicable, but thanks anyway. With some background in Egyptian sorcery (someone popular in this field today who once trained with my teacher tells me sorcery is a bad word, so yeah Egyptian Alchemy), the scope of Kunlun + Red Phoenix is phenomenal. Taomeow is a sweetheart, and she won't say it but Chi Kung is best suited for Kids till they grow up, and this is not Chi kung. I wanted to really post the 'Seven Steps to Alchemy' scripture of the Mao Shan which describes Chi Kung as levels 1 and 1.5, but with a missed flight and waiting at the airport, that would have to wait.

Blue Dragon,

 

Were you attracted to this opportunity by the interview?

 

I think you would enjoy the additional training from Max when the time comes.

Thanks for being supportive Scotty

I lurk around this forum mainly to read what a few folks have to say, like Taomeow, Zen Bear. When the initial Kunlun talk started on this forum, I ignored it for a long time assuming it was one of the many quick-quick hoaxes. That I consider myself "knowledgeable" in energy arts due to my Tibetan and Thera Buddhist and Yoga backgrounds contributed to this mindset lol!

And the interview was what really helped. Till date I have not known Max as a person or have heard/read "him". I have only heard and read how others interpret him and that did not pull me towards him or towards Kunlun so far. Taomeow's posts were what made me pay attention to the possibility that Kunlun could be "useful" in my journey, that lady knows what she is talking about and I can recognize that much. Anyhoo, then someone posted the link to interview on my facebook page and one sleepy night I listened to it. I heard it again and again and again, trying to read Mr. Max, trying to figure out his energy, trying to read the man and his words, trying to employ my yidams and constructions to "figure" the man out While being not a heart-centered person by any measure, the interview and the man kind of propelled me towards the heart and that was a big transformation. I tried to get in touch with the facilitators in my area and got no help. When I eventually decided to give it a go and forget about Kunlun, Max approached me (I don't know how to explain that without coming across as insane or crazy) and everything seemed to fall into place. For example, the Kunlun gathering got cancelled, my car broke down, one of the facilitators backed out, I couldn't get out of work as planned due to an unexpected presentation I had to give at the last minute, others who were supposed to attend the class dropped out .... but, as I wrote in my original post - everything fell into place, like it was meant to be... Visiting Max and training with him is certainly on my cards. Wait, let's say visiting him physically and training with him physically is what I mean

One of the guys expressed interest in learning Kunlun and for some reason never responded when we made plans to meet. After Kunlun, we went to grab a bite and there was this same guy sitting at a table across and eating away Chinese food with glorious abandonment. At that time, I could literally see Max there, smiling and saying so much . Some things, I guess are just meant to be. And Iam not infatuated with Max, impressed with his abilities or caught up with the "stuff", my very first Chi kung master made me experience all that and kicked me out of it as well

A lot of what I want to say has already been said and in ways I can never hope to express myself so well. For someone who has gone through a lot of grind and studied alchemy from different cultures with as much seriousness and urgency as one's hair on fire, I sure can "read" and "understand" what is being said below in a whole new light after "knowing" Kunlun.

 

Now what kunlun does first, before it does anything else, is it hits those formations (which sometimes manifest as leg shaking and sometimes as "entities," depending on what kind of stuff has gone into making them to begin with) and unblocks and releases them. For most, the first stages are not alchemical and that's great, because alchemy in a contaminated system is hell's kitchen.

Kunlun doesn't transform jing to qi to shen, it goes in the opposite direction. Shen to qi to jing to --?.. "void" some say, but if you're at the jing level, you have choices. Jing level is the great switchboard, you go where you want if you master that. And I'm not sure that "void" is where "everyone" wants to go. Laozi, e.g., went to the celestial realm instead, and so did countless tianzun (deities and immortals of taoism).

Kunlun puts one in touch with one's own DNA, for starters. What one will find there depends on who he or she is. Most of it is uncharted territory for science (they call what they don't understand about it "junk DNA," which makes for an interesting "scientific" picture of the bulk of who we are being comprised of "junk" -- their name for "incomprehensible!"), but the same territory is well charted in many symbolic ways by many traditions, and the "reptile," the Cosmic Serpent therein, is a great divine mystery, not the biblical pest we all know and fear.

I do have a taoist altar, but the god of fire wants to live in the stove. On the altar I have gods who wanted to be there. (Including two buddhist deities, one of which is represented by a statue sitting in full lotus holding hands in the Red Phoenix mudra exactly as taught by Max. This buddha, of superb quality, showed up at the thrift shop next door when I started practicing kunlun and RP. I had never seen one like him before, but after I bought the statue, I researched and found out that he's the Sevenfold Buddha actually, comprized of himself and seven others, a very important guy. Kunlun introduced us... )

I tried to run a theoretical idea of mine there regarding the energy of kunlun, and discovered at a very early stage that I simply don't have a common frame of reference with anyone.

Gopi Krishna defines kundalini energy as "evolutionary energy." Which is similar to the concept of "gong," as in, e.g., qi gong, far as I can tell. Kundalini or qi gong, we're facilitating our evolution by means of qi cultivation.

 

Now kunlun energy is something else and the stage I'm at clearly indicates to me that it isn't something that "is" but something that "does" and what it does is, it unblocks the energy of yi -- as in Yi Jing, aka the I Ching, the energy of irregular changes. (We are changed from our evolutionary blueprint, we are not what we would be if we were fully what we are... I don't mean "fully" as something metaphysical, I mean, as human beings. We aren't fully human due to irregular changes that happened to us and/or were perpetrated by us, or by someone/something else who molested our collective and/or individual destiny, or all of the above.) Which is different from regular changes of tao that are business-as-usual, the law and nature of tao-in-motion -- cyclic, seasonal, cosmic-seasonal (conception, growth, fruition, consummation in the grand scheme of things), eternal and so on. Yi of the Yi Jing refers to changes in the human being and the human society that are locally-irregular and at odds with the universally-regular changes. That's what the Yi Jing/I Ching navigates one's mind through, and that's what kunlun navigates one's body through before getting elsewhere. The energy of this elsewhere is the energy of tao-as-business-as-usual regular. (Or, to put it differently, meaningful at all times.) It is the energy of "what tao does," and it can't really be defined in terms of what it "is." It isn't an "is," is what it is.

 

So... kunlun will unblock the irregular changes that have occurred in someone, these will release tremendous energy, this energy will be gone, outta here, no need for the energy of repression anymore, thank you, let go, let's go elsewhere. Elsewhere... that's where things start getting interesting. The caveat of the quick-quick path being that people who aren't "elsewhere" AT ALL yet tend to jump the gun, believing they "already" are. Which may result in great confusion... a grand delusion...

I've been avoiding all "bottom up," upward-flow methods long before kunlun, and I will continue to avoid them. The reason has to do with timing, with the nature of our time.

 

It is an upward-mobile, hierarchical, pyramid-scheme kind of time. The mass at the bottom supporting the rulers at the top. The way to get anywhere is to "ascend," climb the corporate ladder or the spiritual one, in the general direction of some Father in Heaven or other. This is the time that has made Earth a servant to a "higher" master. The time when the body is imprisoned with the excuse that the spirit roams free. (Duh. Disembodied spirits roaming free have long been known as gui, hungry ghosts.) The time we talk to each other in a disembodied internet fashion exchanging things of the head, mind, spirit, higher cortical activity -- instead of shoulder to shoulder, face to face, whole earthly being to whole living, breathing presence. The time when as above so below means glorify everything above and marginalize everything below.

 

The time when upward-flow cultivation practices add to the overall imbalance, on the personal level and the universal level alike, by imitating the very upward drift that has already gone too far and has been going too far for too long and is not slowing down or stopping as we speak. The time of kali yuga, blowing things up from under everybody's collective feet, sending them flying upward... dispersing, demolishing, upward-driving the foundation of life.

 

The downward flow practices are the natural antidote. Which is one reason I've taken to kunlun like fish to water. It is in harmony with the needs of our time. There's many practices that are "whatever" that don't phase in the nature of the time they're being practiced in. But taoism is nothing if not a study of the nature of time. The color, flavor, shape, meaning, intent of the season... Overlook it and you will never choose a practice wisely... They're good practices all right, many of them, and great practices some of them, but their time may have passed or may not have come, however you look at it, which means they are lousy practices if practiced right now, during a wrong cosmic season, even though they may have been great two thousand years ago and will be great again two thousand years from now.

 

Not so with kunlun. This one is time-sensitive... and the imperative of the time is... invert that damn pyramid... and crush that obnoxious usurper at the top with all the weight of its downward, magnetic, magnificent flow.

I can barely type what I'm typing because most of my fingers are glued together with Crazy Glue on account of a tube thereof having exploded in my hands earlier tonight. This happened to me for the first time in my life, and will probably prevent me from practicing the Red Phoenix and the Golden Flower, with their relaxed hand mudras, for as long as it will take me to scrape the damn thing off. The reason I tried to open the tube to begin with is that I intended to glue my wristband ID from the Kunlun seminar, with its long wavy dragon (of the particular variety small enough and worm-like enough to hide in the folds of one's clothes), into my scrapbook.

 

Kunlun itself, after the Red Phoenix and the Golden Flower (no, not the one from the book by the same name, Max says, the book has nothing!) and Spirit Travel, started to the wild, mesmerizing, unexpected, almost inhuman Mongolian music. Oh, it was the best choice ever. Almost instantly, I was propelled into some past of my recurrent visions -- dreams? past life memories? genetic recall? fantasy? -- boundless steppe, smooth rhythmic speed, a view from atop a proud and dangerous horse, freedom, freedom, freedom. Everything in me rushed forward, in that direction, out and away from here and now, out of this time, out of this place, out of this modern me. "Looks like you're trying to give birth," Max commented. Yes -- to myself. I've once seen an ancient Native American statuette of the Moon Goddess giving birth to herself, she wasn't serene, she was raw with effort, teeth bared and clenched, features distorted, body convoluted... what do men know, I thought. How can you break into another dimension -- of spirit, creation, knowledge, freedom -- anything -- while just sitting there looking serene and peaceful like a buddha?.. Well, maybe later. Alchemy does get subtler, but don't try to make it subtle until it is ready. You always start with raw material, and that Mongolian tune, as devoid of all artificiality as the dawn of time, is my witness. So I let an irreverent thought pass -- "what do you know about birth you have to give to yourself, not everybody gets struck by lightning at the age of six, some of us get struck by an open palm of a very unenlightened being at that age, smack across the face, and this is something we have to remember and forget, remember and forget --" -- I lose the thought, lose the interest in thinking, and ride my wind horse into Genghis Khan's land.

 

The last segment on the second day, kunlun, started out with an outburst of laughter when Chris, in response to Max's request for Mongolian music, turned on a momentous blast of "yummy yummy yummy love in my tummy" instead. There it is again, breaking the habit of a solemn sitting -- why solemn? Strangely enough, after years of practicing this and that, the most difficult thing to master might prove this fine balance you want to strike between taking the practice seriously but not really, and taking yourself seriously but not really. Max asserts that if you take what you're doing too seriously, focus too intently, you will frown, and a frown locks the crown -- and a smile opens it. All right. Yummy, yummy, yummy... funny, really funny... then abruptly, the low guttural growl of the Mongolian singer, and the steppe looks very different today... I feel obstructed. Can't go forward, can't go back. Can't stay, can't go. Can't stay, can't go, the memory of -- oh, an early one, a very, very early one -- and my body knows what it's about. Go with it? Yeah. No choice by now. "Much better today," I hear Max comment. I don't care. I don't care what it looks like to an outside observer. When I go with a feeling, I go with a feeling, and if the feeling is can't go can't stay can't go can't stay, there's only one way to go with it:

 

on the floor, in the fetal position, from the symbolic "trying to give birth to myself" of yesterday to the real-life memory of trying to get born. I remember, everything in me remembers, and I'm alone and obstructed and fighting for my life in my every cell.

 

Max touches me and the coiled spring my body had turned into is released -- shoots out -- every cell trying to express its need. He says a few words, the right ones, the very words to say, the promise, the right kind of promise, I hope he delivers, I don't know yet. "What are you feeling?" he asks. I can't say it, I can't speak. Can't you read body language? I'm saying it, but not in words!.. "Say it..." I make an effort, I know I can only give a very feeble approximation with words -- "the thought enunciated is a lie," as a Russian poet put it. "I just want to be free," I finally manage to declare. I hear a few people laugh, I think Max is among them.

Kunlun is a bit of an upside down practice... it's very different from about 80% of qi gong and spiritual practices...

 

Most try to build.

 

You build a strong foundation, you correct your thoughts and intentions, you control your behaviours and emotions... you build and build and refine and build... the idea is to build a stairway up to 'heaven' (enlightenment, or whatever you might wish to call it).

 

Kunlun dismantles.

 

It does this by letting go. Letting everything go... letting 'letting go' go... letting thoughts go.... emotions go... everything that has been built needs to be let go of... Letting things go is difficult - all the things that you thought were 'you' - they need to go... all the things that you thought were important to you - they need to be let go of too... it's like a slippery slope and there's nothing to hold on to... can be quite alarming and can also be very blissful... So in Kunlun we dismantle everything until the underlying heaven just comes through. Kunlun is not the only path that achieves this through dismantling.

 

The point is - unlike some arts, Kunlun has a very immediate, palpable effect for most people - it's very very obvious... that's what I mean by 'unsubtle'. Rather than years spent on correct form and movement and theory to reach some desired end in the far future, the 'desired end' is tasted very quickly - within a few weeks.

 

The practice of K1 is formless - there is no 'correct' way of doing it. Of course there are pointers, hints and tips and so on, but there isn't any one correct way. The posture you learn in the book is used as a kind of telephone number to dial into your body and its ability to move spontaneously. When one meets Max there is another metaphorical phone number that is given. Nothing to do with theory or 'correct practice' or following some set-out formula.

http://www.appliedmeditation.org/Heart_Rhythm_Practice/meditation_types_of.shtml

This is not exactly accurate or true-to-the word but nevertheless take a peek... there could be some pearls of insight one could gather from there and apply elsewhere

J I did Kunlun for a while, and did a retreat with Jenny who was Max's teacher. I did not get your results from Kunlun.

Not the same, I am intensely aware of Jenny's energies and approach. Her approach is of Chi Kung and Kunlun combined with RP is full-blown alchemy. I can't comment if Jenny's approach will take you to the same place at some point - but the places the two start are entirely different. As I wrote, transmission from Max's lineage really does something as I did not have the full-blown surge or the enhanced state of mindfulness a day before while doing the same Kunlun. The presence of ascended masters, who to me seem like some Taoist deities or Bodhisattvas (remember, Max says one finds their own true spiritual or heavenly guides through this practice) is undeniable.

As I stated before, every practice I have done before certainly has contributed to where I am today but Kunlun certainly deserves a huge credit as in within a few minutes I got what I didn't for decades. I dunno how to put it, but let's something similar to the touch of a prajna dakini that chakrasamvara tantra talks of? And is not the whole point accelerating your progress with the least amount of aggression (read fire path here lol)? I could do just Vipassana and some other Chi Kung like now for another dozen decades before getting here, but if I can get here faster with Kunlun, why not?

Again, Jenny's form is Qigong, this is so not Qigong. More complicated.

After an hour of Kunlun, my mindfulness has sky rocketed in terms of degree of intensity and effortlessness and I am amazed at how profound this simple practice can be!

Does this indicate I have virtually or literally dismissed Vipassana? I would think not

I did expect the comment on "attachement" to phenomena, stuff, bliss etc. and thought I clarified on that aspect with sufficient clarity. Well, I have nothing more to say except that linearising levels of awakening or levels of so-called attainment is plain useless.

All over the place people seem to be trying to Take a Teacher Role in some uninvited manner with someone else which is nothing more than a Power play.

Some people seem almost desperate to jump up and down on someone else's perspective and make them wrong.

 

So often this is done In a stance of absolute truth, which I think is the supreme authoritarian position. It gets funnier when the people doing it are claiming an anti authoritarian or anti ego position and then just Blatantly tell someone they are stupid, have no Idea, are just believing delusions or are just strengthening their Ego's.

I sure hope this is not what my post sounds like lol! Just stating what I truly feel at this minute.

 

All in all, I've personally grown tired of the endless bashing on this forum. Not like I'm leaving...just saying,

 

is it doing us any good?

Kunlun apart, sounds like you need a holiday from 'practices'. Paul.

I have to respectfully disagree. I have not stated that I have lumped all of these together or have switched from one to another like a bee. I believe each one of those have helped me get to where I am now and would not nothing to alter my journey so far. Anyway, thank you for your input whatever its worth is

I have been a lurker on this forum for a long time now and have read through the various Kunlun threads, mostly with a passing interest. But today I got to see for myself how evil Max and Kunlun are how greedy and demonic Kunlun teachers are! lol

Two Kunlun facilitators, both advanced practitioners in their own right, drove for 2 hours to get to my place, just to teach one person (aka me) and they charged me a whopping $ 0. Can there be a better example of how bad one can get with this practice? Bad bad kunlun! This should give an idea of how nasty Kunlun practitioners can get ...

On a serious note, I have practiced Kriya, Hatha, Vinyasa, Mantra, Taiji, a dozen forms of Chi Kung and studied with the likes of Drunvalo to Glenn Morris, from Kathara to Kundalini Awakening. I even consider myself partially awakened and I state that here at the cost of sounding pompous. I have done a dozen Vipassana retreats in different styles (clearly the most useful practice I have found amongst the others I have dabbled with). But these two Kunlun guys blew me away today - not merely with their generosity and compassion, but with the sheer power of the transmission that was offered with nothing expected in return.

I have the Kunlun book for a while and I tried the exercise without much happening. Once the two K-dudes worked on me, it was like a surge gate opening and I could literally feel blockages dissolving. After a few moments of Red Phoenix, I got to a state of no-thought so quickly, I was amazed. I could only hope to get there with hours of Vipassana. I have always underplayed the energetic aspects of alchemy and relied on mind (or mind dissolving) based approaches such as advaita, vipassana or shikantaza but today’s session was a glowing example that the same state is possible through an energetic practice - Kunlun in this case. Max’s guidance and presence was felt at every instant but it is too special and personal to be shared on a forum.

After an hour of Kunlun, my mindfulness has sky rocketed in terms of degree of intensity and effortlessness and I am amazed at how profound this simple practice can be! I listened with attention what Max said in the interview the other day: So if you do it right in the Kunlun practice, the lower body is very warm, the heart is cool and the mind is empty - and here I am today living his statement in a few hours! There is a long way to go but the start has been fantastic beyond words.

To make a few things clear:

I am not associated with Max, his group or have any commercial interest.

I have not been told by any one the Kunlun teachers to write this review for them. In fact, I have been requested not to publish their names here.

With years of practice, I do not consider myself a newbie and a bliss junkie (of course others may disagree) and hence would like to believe that the review is objective and not coming from someone totally inexperienced or uninformed.

Why I write this here? Only one reason, to express my profound thanks to my two Kunlun teachers, one who I would like to call the Buddha-Christ (he even looks like one ) and other, Golden Dragon

And most of all, to say a big thank you to Max for this gift and all that he has done in the last three weeks. I would appreciate if folks who simply want to talk ill about Max or Kunlun stay out of this thread. I can only request for that, and I just did

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