Jetsun

Hi dmattwads, I would like to know if there is some system that includes some sort of insight practice, a more complete system as a substitute for vipassana.

 

Or something that goes well with vipassana. Although I don't know exactly what that means. I guess something that helps keep my body in balance, healthy and that provides me with energy.

 

But I'm also interested in general about what qigong in general has to 'offer'.

 

Thanks,

Andy

After learning vipassana and a few different Qigong systems all I do now for practice is the Water Method taught by B K Frantzis. It is a meditation method more than traditional movement type Qigong and is not a quick method but it goes deeper than anything else I have tried. It works for me better than Vipassana because it is more grounding and works at clearing the body so it is good for healing.

I don't think Reich knew what to do with the energies he was encountering and they sent him insane, if he had a teacher perhaps he could have become a powerful Taoist

Yep. More thoughts:

 

I think it is exactly these 'forces' that Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu are tellig us to unlearn so that we can be true to our true nature.

 

What a bummer! Just when I was ready to accept the superego as having a usefull function I realize that it is one of the blockages that prevent us from being 'true' to our Self.

 

Maybe someone will cause me to have further thoughts on this concept.

My view is that the superego is utterly essential when you are a child, as when you are a child you are completely dependent on your parents for survival and they are much more powerful than you so you need to adapt to learn how to fit in so they don't abandon you so you can survive and so they keep loving you, but then when you become an adult you are less dependent so it's not essential for the superego to retain so much of your power, but unfortunately in the majority of people it never loosens it's grip even after their parents are long dead. Whether you need the superego at all as an adult I'm not sure, perhaps the crazy mystics have dropped it completely

I have never done any reading of this subject nor have had any thoughts concerning the concept of "superego". However, from reading the link I would say that it is a valid arguement. My opinion here is based on the thought I have just had concerning the intervention of a force (best word I could come up with) that keeps us, or at least tries to keep us, honest to our most basic morale values.

 

Peace & Contentment!

Id say its a force which keeps you honest to your parents and to societies moral values, which may actually be in opposition to your own

i like what you have to say jetsun keep it coming im starting to recognise this daily.

Everyone is unique so it's always hard to comment on someone else but generally I think arrogance is developed as a defence against other people so they can't see or attack your "weak" or insecure parts, whereas genuine confidence is developed by accepting and loving your "weak" or insecure parts so therefore other people have nothing to attack so you feel secure and have no need to inflate yourself.

Interesting topic, in my view a person can have an individuality below the "ego" for example a 2 year old child could have artistic or mathematical inclinations and specific innate characteristics before they start creating an image about themselves, Sufi's or Gurdjieff would call this a persons essence which is separate from the ego, but then the ego starts taking the place of a persons essence as they get brainwashed by life.

There is a big difference between arrogance and confidence, arrogance is based upon insecurity and strives to get one up on someone in order to feel less insecure so it's all about power in comparison to someone else, while confidence is your own feeling towards something without being particularly concerned with anyone else, so if what you do develops arrogance try see what fear or insecurity is driving that. A healthy ego is based upon making friends and accepting the "weak" insecure parts of yourself, not developing the stronger parts so they dominate over the "weak" parts.

Loneliness is the foundation of the spiritual quest, call it separation from god in the religious sense or the ego separating subject from object in the Buddhist sense it creates a longing or loneliness in your heart which spurs you to search for reunion

My first aim is to become an emotionally mature adult with a balanced mind, because in my day to day life I see very few of these around if any. Then from there if I get there to help others to do that too, then I hope to become more and more free from restrictions and limitations

Im sure there are thousands of threads about Falun Gong, personally I taught myself the Qigong of that system a few years ago and it appears to be ok Qigong, it got the blood flowing I felt relaxed and had some good sensations, but I ended up giving it up for other practises. On the face of it it appears Falun Gong is good enough until you look more closely at the writings of the creator in his book where he starts talking about aliens and ancient cultures having nuclear power plants and other strange things, I don't mind people having different opinions but surely he should have had the sense to see that the majority of people would see this as complete madness so why even talk about it in the first place?

There are a lot of misunderstandings in Buddhism I think, some people say it seperates you from life so you are less involved and unemotional and become lone stone statues, but then if you see some talks by Lama's like the Dalai Lama you see they are far more open and emotional towards life then most average people on the street.

Taoism is similar to Buddhism in many ways, the difference I can see (in the approach I have been studying anyway) is that before you go dive right into trying to gain enlightenment like you do in Buddhism, Taoists say you need to achieve balance first, which is why Taoists focus on the body so much with a lot of grounding, healing and strengthening practises. But the Buddhist and Taoist approaches can easily intertwined like they do in the Ch'an buddhism.

Buddhism is incredibly rich with wisdom but it's focus is nearly all mind/head based, while many of us in the West are already too much in the head and dissociated from our bodies/nature, so for me personally I am finding Taoist body/grounding methods to be more beneficial at this current time.

edit: also about your sex drive, if us humans breathe naturally and freely into our bellies our breath will massage our sexual centre which will naturally stimulate our sex drive, plus if you unplug your energy meridians you will feel this throughout your body, so finding a way to dissolve the deeply embedded tensions and blockages in your body is a good way to go.

Pre birth fog... interesting...

Yeah he talks about these sorts of things in his cd set, he says that it can occur that when you are in the womb you absorb all the emotions and feelings your mother has, so if your mother gets into a violent argument for example or has a shock the unborn baby may not be able to properly digest the experience so the nervous system stores its energy away until it can be processed at a later date, then if this stored energy is triggered later in life you can experience fog as well as many other symptoms.

Frantzis says he met one person who had hallucinations his entire life until he dissolved some of his birth traumas then they went away. Because these are pre verbal problems you can't talk through them or even really understand them but using the Water Method you can let go of its energy from your body.

He says that when you scan your body and you encounter an energy in your body which just doesn't feel quite right but you can't quite understand what it is it's likely to be a undigested pre verbal experience. I don't know how common this is but I find these sorts of energy areas every day when I do my meditation.

Fog can be a symptom that your nervous system has been overloaded in the past, BK Frantzis says this can occur in the womb or even during the birth process itself as well as during many of lifes more regular traumas. I have been trying to deal with issues like this for a long time myself and in my experience things like mind based techniques such as vispanna type meditations don't help much and also more forceful techniques like yoga and some qigong don't help much either, so far only meditative grounding techniques work for me where you focus on the body and move your energy down through your body into the earth, but it has to be yin and gentle to get to the root. Water method works great so far, CFQ Qigong is good too.

Hi I am far from an expert but I have been studying three of the books and also the cd course for a few weeks now along with my daily practise and I had the same question which I think I can answer now.

Both outer and inner start with the same process of scanning your body from top of your head, finding a block/tension/something which doesnt feel right/contraction, then staying with the energy of the block meditively with the slight intention to let it go. Now the difference between outer and inner is what you do then; outer dissolving is about staying with the energy until is turns from water to gas then naturally it will be released outwards from the body into outer space; while inner dissolving you look for the energy behind the blockage, then the energy behind that, then the energy behind that etc until you reach a place of stillness or emptyness where you cant go any further then the energy will naturally dissolve or implode bringing the whole structure down.

External dissolving is almost like a non violent explosion of your energy by letting it go outwards into the universe, while internal dissolving is about delving into the energy layers of the blockage like peeling an onion until you reach the core which infact is empty or is infinate space which causes an implosion of the energy blockage.

For all the talk of kundalini, I've really only ran into one person who talked about it negatively: G.I. Gurdjieff. He said that kundalini is the power of imagination, and that by arousing it one could prematurely "freeze" one's spiritual development. I'm not saying I agree or disagree.

Yeah I have read a lot of Gurdjieff, he doesn't say arousing it will freeze your development he says that kundalini is the actual force which is keeping everyone asleep and hypnotised 24 hours a day, so is the most malignant force within you. Personally I have found Gurdjieff to be right on so many things that I would never discount what he says about anything, although it must be noted that he says some things for purposeful effect and talks in riddles, he believed that in general the world is upside down or back to front so if the popular opinion says that kundalini is the force which wakes you up in reality the opposite is most likely to be closer to the actual truth

From the recommendations on this forum I have just read "Bone of the master" by George Crane which is excellent and ordered "The Wheel of Life" by John Blofeld which looks really good, can anyone recommend any other similar books or anything you think could interest me like this, im really enjoying these sorts of books at the moment.

Thanks

Welcome Jetsun:

What sort of Water Meditation are you using? I'm familiar with BK Frantzis' books and have used his dissolving methods for years. His book Opening the Energy Gates of the Body is a good one to start with, just don't get bogged down in the 100+ points he describes as part of the dissolving technique.

Yeah ive been trying to learn the method described by BK Frantzis, I have the cd set with the techniques. I might get his other book if I can find it somewhere, thanks.

Hi I found this board when looking at Taoist Water meditation for healing and it looks like a nice site, im a noob at that type of meditation, I have been trying to learn how to do it for a few days but have been doing some CFQ Qigong for a while.

I was wondering how I get access to the healing part of the site? it seems to be restricted at the moment to me anyone know how to get full acesss?

Thanks

edit: I seem to have access after I made this post