SFJane

Mal-- I am glad you received your copy and I hope you enjoy it. It's a nice testament to POD publishing that you were able to order that from Amazon, who then sent a print order to a press who then uploaded the data of my book and printed it (probably the same day the received the order). Then it was mailed and came over on a plane to Australia within just a couple weeks. Pretty neat.

Prince-- Thank you very much for both for your interest and your recommendation. I hope you like the book. Once I am back in shape I will make a way better IMA video than the one from 08. That one was just too clumsy. I couldn't stand to look at it after awhile.

Otis-- Thank you kindly for your thoughts. Re: Clumsiness and freeing up stuff.

There are easier and less painful ways to spend your time then trying to heal your spiritual injuries and imbalances—for sure.

I am and will continue to be very grateful to you all for your interest and support. I look forward to hearing your thoughts about it.

This is all well and good but how many of you know how to fix yourself after the fact? What happens if you can't afford to study with your favorite chi gung teacher as much you'd like and so have to practice on your own. Then side effects crop up and because of the same financial limitation, you can't go to that teacher to get help for what you did yourself? You'd be pretty much screwed. You'd have to stop. Or would you?

What if you didn't want to stop, and, having taking responsibility for learning enough chi gung to mess yourself up with in the first place, you decide to take it all the way and figure out on your own how to fix what you did? There is something to be said for trial and error.

I am pretty happy with how things eventually turned out for myself. I've seen the movie Butterfly Effect too many times to think I could try to right some wrong that happened to me in my youth and hope I could change my present for the better. If I had not been oppressed as much, I might not have grown as strong or sought as much as I did and not have any of the knowledge that I won during my desperate seeking years.

On a fun note, if we are just playing around. I think I would have Karl Marx quietly die of a heart attack at a young age. Marxist ideology set the stage for utopian-eyed dictators to long for collectivism which led to the senseless famines in the Ukraine and China as well as the Killing Fields of Cambodia. The body count in China, USSR and Cambodia, I don't have the figures but, millions upon millions died for an idea that did not work out so well when applied to the real world. What people did to each other during the 1900s in the name of Marxism and Communism will forever stain our human race and would be a shameful chapter of our cultural and societal evolution to have a hypothetical alien race read about.

 

By the way, no one is wrongfully "throwing around" the word Kunlun, to my knowledge -- the name is not, and cannot, be copyrighted, like all other geographical names. You can register "Kunlun Wild Goose" or "Kentucky Fried Chicken" as a trade name, but you can't lay claims of ownership or "authenticity" on "Kunlun" or "Kentucky" and expect no one else to use them for their own product. Historically, the name "Kunlun" was used hundreds of times in conjunction with hundreds of practices.

Kentucky Fried Wild Goose (original, not crispy). Mmmm.

Hi Jane!

 

I humbly concede to being uncool, and undeniably wrong.

I do believe my pwnage(whatever that means? ) is most

definitely in the negative digits.

 

Peace!

It's all good Strawdog.

I think people argue because they like it. When I pwn someone, I like to turn to the stands and shout, "Are you not entertained!"

Hi SFJane,

Thank you SO MUCH for posting this!

I've read Bruce's description before, but your personal experience and understanding is very helpful to my practice.

 

Adeha

You are very welcome.

Ah I see, it seems like you are speaking of delving deeper into one's own unconscious. In a way your method answers for the ending of Gold's previous post of delving deeper into one's buried imprints and intentions...

 

I think your practice also relates to concentration practices but it's but into a different vocabulary..the Buddhist samatha jnanas, and in a way it's not so different than gaining insight into one's "mindstream" as you use it. I think they call this emtying out the jnanas in Buddhism, but I'm not so sure.

 

On another note,

 

Are you aware of Kunlun practice? The water methods of Frantzis and Kunlun go really well together imho. .

It's hard to say because to me the Buddhist terms get hopelessly confusing, samatha jnanas whatevas. It's just too cerebral for me. I didn't have to empty out anything except my projective thinking to find it. In the Taoist framework that I learned, and in my own experience, the mindstream is just another layer of your reality. It's the water upon which everything else floats. It's much easier said then felt, but when you notice it, it will be a clear and distinct emergence along with an attending increase in awareness.

Re: Kunlun. I had never heard of it until I came to TTB so I would not know.

You are missing some context. Disagreement is about who is right and who is wrong. Taken to the max, it means violence. Violence solves pretty much everything. If no one is around you can't ever be told you are wrong, and that's good for the ego. The main thing is to remember that whenever you attack someone in a discussion your invisible cool meter goes up. You get +1 pwnage whenever you tell someone "Wrong!" The more pwnage points you get, the wiser you are and the more people have to listen to you.

 

I think it's far too "spiritually advanced" to ask me to be around my family for any real length of time. I know where my limits are with them and when I reach them, I leave....Aside from that, i don't force myself to be with them or love them. Causes me more pain and suffering than anything else so I concentrate on the people I do want to be around and love.

 

I totally agree with this. For me it's a matter of self-respect. I won't allow myself to get abused psychically or emotionally by someone else's mental malfunctions. Didn't Mark Twain say something like, "You can pick your friends but not your family?" He was wrong. You can pick your family too. You pick and choose whether or not you want to be part of their drama. It is not weakness to know your limits, and it is okay if family interactions are one of those limits.

Then I come back to my family. I love my family, but I also cannot be near them for too long. She is a very stressful person and the atmosphere I am forced to live in is rubbing off and affecting my inner mindstate. It is just increasingly difficult as I feel I am becomming more like them the longer I am here. And I've worked so hard to move myself out of that spot.

I very much sympathize with you. It's a difficult situation. Have you considered the possibility of maybe not going back to see them? I am just thinking that, when your stability is a newly acquired thing, it's okay to be selfish and say to yourself, "I don't need this disruption in my life. It's not a good thing for me." Sometimes you have to set boundaries to secure your own sanity or until you are stronger and have more resources to deal with a specific kind of theater like that.

 

DRUGS OR MEDITATION?

 

Consciousness Expansion and Disintegration

 

versus

 

Concentration and Spiritual Regeneration

I read the article. As someone who has spent considerable time doing both psychedelic drugs and meditation, I have to say that I agree with most everything put forth in the article.

Drugs can initially put you on the road to spiritual discovery and meditation. I know this from experience and because I wanted to have my cake and eat it too. When I first got into meditation in my twenties, I was going to do it my way, experts and gurus be damned. But ultimately what I discovered is this. Psychotropic drugs impose biochemical distortions on your consciousness. There is just no way around it.

Sooner or later, you will run into those distortions in your mind. Maybe it takes awhile because you have a great concentration, before you reach the place where it matters. But when you do you will have a choice. Remain satisfied with your drug-altered experiences and forget about going deeper down the rabbit hole. Or, do what your heart was probably telling you to do deep down. Purify yourself as best you can and see and feel the difference.

There is whole other Universe waiting for you inside to find and drugs, especially mind-altering ones, are going to prevent you from apprehending its more subtle realms. Drugs have an effect on your mind and if your consciousness gets to the level of being able to compensate for or nullify those drug distortions (which is what happened to me) then what the heck is the point of dropping and sitting, if all you are going to do is waste the first hour of practice burning out the distortions, before you can get to work?

Hi Jane, I'd be happy to hear your input.

Thanks for the invite Lucky As the original post was stated, I was not going to barge in and start dispensing my opinion without one. I've made it clear that I am not a Buddhist, never have been. I do not pretend to be knowledgeable about Buddhist practices and ideas. Most folks here know me as someone who talks about Water Method Taoism for the most part. I was not going to post something --here-- and then have someone jump in and censor me for typing about Taoism in a thread specifically about Buddhism. But now that that's not a concern, I feel better about saying a few things.

Because I was head-over-heels involved with Bruce Frantzis material in my twenties, I think that the first time I read about the mindstream within a meditation framework was on pages 117 to 118 of the 1st edition printing of 'Relaxing Into Your Being' by BKF. I read the definition again and again and again. Then I put the book down and forgot about it. When I ran into the mindstream during practice, I knew, after a little bit, what it was I was dealing with. I am going to post a few nugget from his book and then talk a little bit about how I realized the mindstream on my own.

(Some paraphrasing and skipping about)

From 'Relaxing Into Your Being'

“In learning Taoist beginning practices you have begun the process of feeling inside yourself. The next stage requires that you be aware of that very awareness. In many traditions this is called 'Witnessing the mind', however it is only the beginning of the meditative process. As you become more familiar with the process of being aware of awareness itself, you may also begin to sense a subtle stream that pervades your awareness. This is the mindstream, the contact point that will eventually lead you to Universal Consciousness itself, which is much greater than normal awareness itself.

 

The mindstream, which is quite distinct from the motion of the mind (going from one conscious thought to the next), is hidden to most of us only because it has never been explicitly sought or given attention. As you emerge more deeply into the mindstream, things that were heretofore incredibly subtle and barely discernible become obvious. Within the mindstream is included, in ever more subtle shades, all the content of your first seven bodies.”

So listening to the play of thoughts, watching them come and go, is preparatory for noticing the mindstream, as is inner dissolving. Frankly, I've done a ton of Witnessing of the Mind and it was not witnessing thoughts that led me to contact the mindstream. Not at all saying it can't be done, but there is a trick to it, for real. What allowed me to contact the mindstream was inner dissolving. This is a technique where your intent and awareness are coalescing and imploding deeper and deeper into inner space.

This was not a first or second year realization, Lucky, Kate, everyone. This took almost five years for me. The ability for my mind to recognize the mindstream occurred because of three things coming into play together in synergy.

The first was the strength of my mind to focus for long periods and not get fatigued or distracted.

The second was time. Total patience for whatever might happen, Not expecting, but just waiting to notice or be imprinted on, like a seismograph or photo plate. For as long as it takes.

The third was listening quality. That is, the accuracy of my inner radar, seismograph, whatever you want to call it. To be accurate, I had to overcome a lot of artificial stuff my own mind threw up for me to look at and get distracted with (in the earlier days anyway). Being accurate is a skill that really only improves by proving to yourself that you are right over and over again. It means instant-intuition and reliably knowing what is going on and why, and that only comes from a lot of practice at listening to, and making changes to, your internal states.

If you asked me which of the three, concentration, listening acuity and patience was more important, I'd be hard pressed to choose. All the patience in the world won't help if your mind's detection and recognition software isn't attuned to subtle states. Likewise, you can have laser concentration but if you are not patient, you can miss it time and time again. Eventually all three factors line up perfectly one day—and you just see it.

From my book, Possessing Me: A Memoir of Healing

“As I proceeded with the second pass through, moving back up from my pelvis to my skull, I gained a deeper view into my inner space than anything I had attained previously. As I continued to investigate the properties of the phenomenon of my awareness itself, I found the place from which all intent came. Before you actually felt a feeling, or thought a thought, or sent an impulse into a limb, there was something behind it that moved first. It was the power-behind-the-power. It made inner dissolving work.

 

I sat there for awhile, playing with it. The easiest access route involved surrendering into myself without trying to. I felt my motedom then, and realized I was quintessentially attached to this stream of nothingness. I was like krill drifting through this ocean. When I moved my mind, it seemed invisible. When I was still, it became as plain as day. It was vast, and only by keeping myself utterly still could I sense its movements within and without. On that day I discovered the mindstream. Aided by the mindstream, on the following day I made my final pass.”

Everything inside you is sort of suspended within, and is part of, the mindstream. It's always there, twenty four-seven, as they say. It never takes a break, and can be observed at anytime by anyone, provided that they can: detect it accurately, stay present within it, be patient long enough to pass the veil (so-to-speak) and just see/sense/feel it.

The effects of contacting the mindstream and dissolving in it and making myself consciously part of it ramped up the meditation work I was doing phenomenally, and was one of the factors that directly contributed to me finding myself. It can not be pointed at, even though it's everywhere. There are no special goggles for it. The only thing you can do in terms of trying to dial someone else in, is be there and try to dissolve someone else while you are there and hope for the best. Hope that helps Lucky.

Hi everyone,

 

I've been looking into the concept of the mindstream, and just wanted people's insights into its meaning and usage in Buddhism.

Too bad you didn't ask for the Taoist usage. I might have been able to help you there.

Not available from bookdepository I only buy from Amazon once a year and this year was -

9 nights with a Taoist Master

2012 the Awakening (apparently I’m mentioned in the list of Tai Chi schools)

and

Possessing Me: a memoir of healing (I look forward to reading all of Possessing Me sometime before 22 Jan

I am sorry about bookdepository. The book just got up on Amazon and it does take some time for the title to propagate to different sellers and the like. I will at some point look into that site and see if something can be done.

I did see a Mal listed thanks to the LookInside of 2012: TA, neat!

Speaking of the LookInside, I am glad you like the bonus preview! There wasn't actually supposed to be so much of it showing. They didn't check with me first when they started populating the LookInside feature and they put up way, way too much, including at the time certain spoilers. Woops. They tell me that the LI feature will fluctuate for weeks in terms of how much is showing.

At any rate, I hope you enjoy the book when you receive it, and that it does end up helping people. That would be a nice reward for the time and effort invested I hope also that you will feel free to post here or email me your thoughts about it when you've had some time to mull it over. I will check back on this thread from time to time to answer questions or reply to comments about it. Take care for now!

I am actually going to San Francisco this weekend with my family and will be there for three nights, are you selling and signing books somewhere?

It's possible. I could try to set up something locally on the fly. The only issue is notice. These things usually get set up in advance with a store manager. In this case, I am sure I could discreetly meet you somewhere and do an impromptu signing.

You are lucky you are coming now. I didn't have any signings or events planned this week or the next. The projected date for receiving some stock was December 14. It just so happens that we got them on Tuesday. I have these enormous boxes in the living room with the first fifty books and I have yet to find the perfect place to put them all, lol. But yeah, let me see what can be done and I can send you a PM or post here.

To everyone else, I wanted to give you my heartfelt thanks and gratitude for your interest and your supportive comments. I hope you enjoy the book.

Good morning Tao Bums!

I am pleased to announce the official release and publication of my book, Possessing Me: a memoir of healing. The book is the story of my life—from age six, to age twenty six. It chronicles my struggle and seventeen year battle with mental illness and my eventual spiritual healing.

Fair warning, it's not easy or light reading. Mental illness caused me a lot of problems as a young adult, including homelessness and joblessness and drug dependency. The issues I discuss range from repeated trauma and abuse at home, to being violated and dehumanized when I tried to get help and treatment for my problems, as well as suicide attempts and a near-death experience I had during my last OD back in '95.

How I recovered from all that confusion and suffering might be of interest to some of you. Namely, that in '96 I started studying chi/nei gung, nei jia and Water Method meditation from lineage holder and Taoist master Bruce Frantzis. In my early twenties I diligently practiced the material he teaches, in solitude mostly.

During that time, I resolved pretty much everything that was bothering me at a physical, mental, emotional and energetic level. Five years later, I had a wonderful meditation experience which opened my heart and infused me with something I had been missing all my life: self-love, and I have been free of sadness and spiritual pain ever since.

This is my story of how I cured myself of suicidal depression, the mania of bipolar disorder, the voices and delusions of schizophrenia, and the flashbacks, triggers and nightmares of post traumatic stress disorder.

In all seriousness and humility, some of the readers of the earliest incarnation of my manuscript and those familiar with the details of my journey of healing, have, at times, compared my work to Byron Katie, Cheri Huber and Eckhart Tolle, (none of whom I had ever heard of before I wrote my book). As to whether or not I actually deserve or warrant that comparison, I leave to my readers judgment.

As an aside, if you are in the Bay Area I will happily sign a copy of your book. I don't know if there is going to be a book tour. I did not get a juicy book advance from Big Publishing in order to promote my book. I created my own publishing company: Wise Boar Media, to distribute this and future works, so all my promotional efforts are being done on something of a budget.

Thanks to certain of you Nameless Bums who offered to read and review my ms in its earlier incarnation—and gave me useful feedback about it as it was developing. Thanks also to all you here who encouraged me to write my recovery story. And an extra-special thank you to Sean, the owner of TTB, for his gracious permission to post an announcement of my book's release on the forums.

Possessing Me: A Memoir of Healing

by Jane Alexander

369 pages

Wise Boar Media

ISBN13: 978-0983070900

Just some thoughts after reading this thread. First, thanks for the vids. I loved the Roy Jones one most.

As another mentioned, Bruce is in his 60s and I don't expect that he is going throw down in vale tudo at this point.

Bruce once told me along with some other attendees at a retreat once that by the time he was in mid-20s he had severely hurt some people with IMA in serious two men enter one man leaves type fighting in Asia.

I happen to enjoy martial arts and what little teeny tiny bit of Bruce's martial art stuff that I have been lucky to learn revolutionized my sparring and self defense game. I went from being afraid of closing with people and moving in and out of point blank range to preferring to close with people and staying there for the duration.

Re: Gerard's judgments.

Frankly I think it's nice if you can arrange to live in an ideal world and never have to worry about your safety. Not all of us have that luxury. Myself, when I was living in Sac I went a few years without exchanging harsh words with anyone. But I practiced martially anyway, just in case. And it was nice to be able to practice in the American River Park and never or rarely be disturbed.

I moved to San Francisco almost seven years ago and almost immediately ran into situations where I had to defend myself. And you better believe that in that kind of situation, as Sloppy said: chance favors the prepared mind.

Although I was not looking for trouble, because of my economic situation, I lived in places in this city where trouble had no problem finding me. Unlike Jess, I am not very big, and with my long hair and glasses I do not exactly look scary or threatening. There is a lot of mental illness in this city and I've been in situations where people have gotten right up in my face without provocation.

I do practice martial arts because time has proven again and again that the investment has paid off in keeping me alive and intact. I have it personally from a dispatcher that the police response time in SF can be upwards of twenty minutes. If you get into an altercation it will be probably be over before it occurs to someone to call 911. During that time, your training is what will get you out of that situation in one piece.

While I am no expert at fighting I have successfully defended myself on multiple occasions using Bruce's material. How are you ever going to get to wuji if you are unconscious, flat on your back in intensive care because you couldn't defend yourself because your 'vibes' made sure such a thing could never happen to you? (Also known as famous last words.)

 

 

Looks very basic. I have 25 years experience in the arts.

Looking for higher level material/teachers.

 

Thanks,

My first impression of your comment was that A: chi gung (and nei gung) is more about what's going on that you can't see than what you can. And B: I don't think I've ever heard someone dismiss Bruce's material so quickly and totally before. Maybe I am mistaken but if you've never actually put your hands on Bruce or one of his students how can you be sure that there is not something subtle going on there that you don't yet know and might want to? If you can write off God's Playing in the Clouds by watching one video...you must be really good. Please let us all know when you start teaching. If you set up shop in the Bay Area, I may just drop by.

Inner dissolving is done sitting, but you need a good understanding of outer dissolving first. And that is done standing. Plus you clearly need to integrate different parts. This is done better standing.

Funny thing about that. I later learned that I was naturally more adept at inner than outer dissolving. I do them both fine but I found that my tendency when I practiced outer dissolving (when I first got started), was to go to inner dissolving. Needless to say, inner and outer dissolving are mutually related, not exclusive, can be done simultaneously and in any position you want at any speed you think you can keep it all together internally. Sitting just makes it much easier and lets you put a lot of focus on the act of dissolving itself and not your movements and changing alignments and all that jazz.

Oh, well if the cluster of white matter in your lower torso says so...

Is a "good reason" a pragmatic reason? In this case I do not think so. It's similar to midieval bakers arguing over whether it's a "Brownie" or a "Sprite" that makes the dough and yeast rise into bread. Completely irrelevant at the current level of understanding. If you happen to have all the statistics concerning domestic abuse, promiscuity and disease for all orientations everywhere, please feel free to divulge them. If not, then please think for a little longer or at least use more qualifiers before you make such sweeping generalizations based on anecdotes. If by gay you mean have engaged in intercourse with another individual possessing identical chromosomes, then yes, in the narrowest-minded definition you can go ahead and label away. I'm quite attracted to the opposite sex just as often. And the benefit would be that a same sex couple has a different dynamic, not inferior or superior, but allows an individual to learn more about themselves that they might not have as readily identified and honestly examined in a heterosexual relationship, and the same goes for self-identified homosexuals that are open and willing to try a hetero relationship.

 

Tell you what- You show me the most attractive woman in your opinion, and I'll show you a man that is tired of having sex with her and vice-versa. Beyond physicality, what is your reason for preferring women? And don't give me that "it's natural" crap... bi/homosexuality has been observed across the board in hundreds of species, and monogamy is relatively rare in the animal kingdom, so what beyond programming and cultural modeling is it that makes you so assured of your straightness?

 

The only way I could see it being "harder" for your child to avoid sex with a man than a woman is if he were bum bum buuuum, gay as springtime. Sounds like you're a little insecure about sex in general, which by the way is a relatively new concept as well.

 

Boo hoo. The guy that thinks all gay/bi people in this world need to adopt his belief system or suffer the consequences of disease and domestic abuse and/or risk turning his son gay thinks I'm being intellectually dishonest. I'm so ashamed.

 

Love, Michael

Wonderful, insightful response. Props to you for taking the time to answer him.

When someone writes or speaks of 'the gay lifestyle' as though it were fundamentally and intrinsically a different thing from 'the straight lifestyle' I tend to roll my eyes and tune them out. It invalidates just about everything that comes after.

Usually what follows the gay 'lifestyle' sentiment tends to be conjecture, supposition, stereotypes, cultural, biological and social ignorance, appeal to tradition or bunk science, and a parade of other logical flaws, not to mention a host of gut response 'opinion' about something(s) to which they are an outsider to. Excellent rebuttal.

Hi Jenn, I have to disagree with you simply because I am a Taoist, a positivist, and an optimist. Evil does not always win, good does not always lose. Truth is, good and evil are just value judgements we place on things and events. "Good and evil" is one of the dualities of the human brain. That is all. Beyond valuation, things and events just are. Now, I do understand what you are saying and your justification for saying it. But bottom line, we each create, in our mind, all the good and evil in our life. If you prefer good then you must stand up in support of it. If you wish to remove evil from your life you must stand up against it.

 

Better still would be to create a life for yourself where you are beyond good and evil.

A very well considered response Marblehead. I agree.

Yes, yes, yes all that is fine. But I believe that we may be missing the obvious here: vis.

 

Q: What is the purpose of life?

 

A: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

 

I think that covers it. Cheers Rob

You should have added the video!

Could someone please tell me the purpose of life?

That is a very good and profound question! It's one I asked myself constantly since I was very little. I really needed an answer to that question and so I turned to meditation. I would like to echo what others have asked.

First, what King K asked you:

"Is there a purpose? Why should there be?"

Second, what exorcist_1699 asked you:

"Who is the "me" asking the question?"

So who is generating the voice in your head that whispers constantly: "there are people starving in the world." And why?

If you can find out who is asking and why you are asking and why it matters to you then you may (or may not) find the answer to King K's question, "Why should there be?"

Is happiness better than or preferable to any other state of mind and heart? Why or why not? Who says? If you get right down to it, there is all kinds of suffering to fixate on. Economical suffering right here in this country. Right in the great city I live in. Talk a walk to mission street or through the Tenderloin and smell the bums that reek of urine and booze. They sleep on the sidewalk.

How come there isn't an inner voice whispering "There are poor people living outside in the United States. Tonight you are going to sleep in a bed on warm sheets under a fluffy comforter and there are people sleeping on a cold, concrete sidewalk." Why the focus on starvation and not on housing, jobs, or comprehensive medical care?

Life is not and never has been an egalitarian or balanced equation. Since the beginning of time for us humans there have been the haves and the have nots. Some people had better caves, better nearby sources of water, better hunting and gathering opportunities than others. It's always been that way. Who says it should be any other way? Why worry about it if you can not immediately and directly effect the situation? Who is doing this worrying?

When I was in my twenties I tended to be more worried about my life than other peoples' lives. I went without a lot of things other people have, including happiness. I used to ask, "Is life just supposed to be about suffering?" It didn't occur to me that I could be one of the happy people until much later. I don't have a pat answer for you or a quick soundbite in answer to your primary question. But I can say that the answer is waiting for you to find it and integrate it. When that happens, you will know internally and existentially (so-to-speak), the answer to your inquiry. I hope that helps Manitou!

What is the Taoist view on alcohol? How does alcohol exactly affect one's chi? Does anyone on this forum drink alcohol once in while? Or in order for one to ever fully progress in internal alchemy, one must give up all alcohol and other tabooed substances?

My suggestion would be to experiment on yourself and find out. I never take people's word for it. I am ornery like that. I prefer to find out conclusively, one way or another. I was never much of a drinker, but I do drink now and then. In fact, I am drinking Mike's Hard Lemonade right now. Not a very burly drink but I just had an urge for one after working outside all day. Mmm. Tasty. Good.

But on a serious note, I never drink to get drunk. I like the little tingle in your groin and stomach. If I get that, I'm good. Alcohol effects your liver and kidneys. Like many other substances, it distorts your awareness inside and out. If you are doing long meditation sits or alchemy, I'd avoid it. But having a drink now and then is not going to deny you the tenth heaven and if it did, you wouldn't want to go there anyway.

so i signed up for the bk frantzis course. even if his form isnt close to as amazing as my (60 yo) teacher.

All I can say is that I knew what ba gua I wanted to learn, who I wanted to learn it from and how I wanted my body and mind to move, after watching Bruce walk the circle one time. I thought to myself. "There it is."