tao stillness

I don't do tai chi but I know that Sifu Terry and Riding the Ox have answered this question multiple times on this thread.

And to Smallsteps, your post does not read as negative to me. You echo my opinions. Especially, my skepticism fostered by seeing the lack of longevity of so many of these masters of the internal arts. As I stated in an earlier recent post, my mother who currently is 91 years old has outlived almost all of them, as her grandfather did, and also one of my grandmothers. T.T. Liang is an exception, dying at age 102. Maybe because he always acted so young from what I can tell from reading his biography. One of those guys who just never seemed to really grow up. I think that the people who experience most qigong methods as very potent are those who were born with a very special nervous system. My wife is one of those people. Today she was again telling me that even when I am in the basement she knows if I am doing qigong because she can feel the energy in the house. And there I am in the basement doing my thing and I can only muster a sensation of chi in my hands at the most, even from some super powerful qigong methods. Seems unfair, LOL. In an effort to feel more chi than just in my hands I took the recommendation of a friend and had a Skype session with a Canadian energy healer today. He looks at you and he can see your energy bodies and where the blocks are and what has caused them. He is given information from your Higher Self and your guides. The proof that he is for real is when he tells you what he sees are your main issues. He was right on with this information. He then goes to work doing whatever he does to improve the energy and move out the emotional and thinking patterns that are no longer serving you well and creating the blocks and problems in some organs. For me he saw that I was not even connected to my energy body and this has been the case for about the past 30 years. That is so interesting because about 30 years from an advanced TM experimental course I went into a temporary state of Cosmic Consciousness, the first stage of Enlightenment. I have described elsewhere what this was like. It is actually blissful and more natural feeling than words can do justice to. But it showed me why we do what we do in order to reach the goal of seekers. But the special method I was taught never worked for me again after that one day of Heaven on Earth. So this healer then started to reconnect me with my energy body. It will take some time for this to integrate so we shall see what I experience. He said since the internal has changed, eventually the external situations in my life must change to since with quantum energy, the internal is mirrored in the external. My friend who had a session before me had incredible experiences during his session and has already found things in life starting to open for him. Just want to make this guy known to those who might resonate with this sort of energy work. He also really nails your relationships growing up in your family. There is no hiding in one of these sessions. He knows how you really felt toward other family members.

Wow Vajra, 10 years of Falun Gong is quite a feat. That is one of the forms I did in the earlier days of my searching qigong methods but I could not keep up with it because it took 90 minutes and longer to do since I gradually was able to hold the static postures for longer and longer periods of time. That method left little time for me to anything else at night. But knowing that your were generating good chi in and bad chi out 24/7 was a good thing. Eric long ago tested that method and he saw that there was indeed a Falun wheel in my lower dan tien and he described what he saw perfectly. I can still remember feeling the wheel when it spontaneously entered my energy body. What you shared about Eric's test results for you shows just how individualized his scrutiny and results really are. As I have said, one man's meat is another man's poison. He tested Om Mani Padme for me awhile back and found that it was a very powerful mantra for me to listen to. I never kept up with it however. That Shaolin Vajra fist form is beautiful to watch. That would be so beyond my ability to learn it.

Duplicate post withdrawn.

Thank you Vajra for your expression of appreciation. I am pleased that Eric was of help. His gift still continues to amaze me due to his accuracy. Eric did send the test results for Joe Lok Phoenix taichi gong. Keep in mind Eric's test results are only for the individual, they do not necessarily apply to other people who would like to try his method. The results show that his qigong would create imbalances in my vata and pitta doshas and this could lead to health problems in some of the organs. So Eric could not recommend this for me. He looked and the website and said that sometimes things sound so good but when tested they are not that good. So once again Eric saves me from wasted time. I now wonder how many other people are doing qigong methods that are actually causing more harm than good? He also tested for me George Picard's 24 Postures Qigong which comes from an impressive lineage. Creator of this was China's famous martial artist, Wang Zi-Ping. He created 20 postures long ago and the current lineage holder, Helen Wu, added 4 more postures to it. This tested very well for me, it will detox and clear most of the meridians and it will open and clear the heart chakra is what Eric saw. Wu and Picard are known in Canada. So I will be learning Mark Johnson's Tai Chi for Beginners, Picard/Wu's 24 Posture Qigong and I hope the search is now over. May I ask what system Eric found that is the right one for you?

Pure synchronicity reading today's posts about breathing without effort since I just permanently closed my recently arrived ancient Taoist text called, Chen Tuan's Four Season Internal Kung Fu. The method for breathing is tortuous as you have to visualize things, including the path of the chi, and visualize the chi in your mouth, cup your ears from external noises so you can only hear pure internal sound of breathing, face a certain direction. Circulate your tongue 36 times in each direction. Swirl the saliva 36 times across your tongue and then swallow it while sensing it going into lower dan tien. The regular breathing is reversed breathing where you suck your diaphragm in as you inhale and expand your belly as you exhale while visualizing the chi coming up from lower abdomen while raising your eyes upward while imagining the chi reaching your brain. Then when you exhale, visualize the chi going back down to lower dan tian. Oops, I forgot, as you are breathing in, slightly tighten your sphincter muscles to hold the chi so it will go upward! Upon reading this I sealed the book! This is just one example. The book and a whole series of Ancient Taoist method books are translated and printed by someone in America and there are online video clips used to demonstrate these methods which is part of their daily routine. So if any of you are into what appears to be spiritual masochism, feel free to join their online temple where this is just the beginning. Flying Phoenix is obviously at the other end of the spectrum in terms of required effort just from the breathing process alone.

Just when my plate is once again loaded with too many new qigong dvds on the way, a friend sends me a clip of Hong Kong's master Joe Lok performing the most beautiful tai chi like form I have ever seen. His method is not tai chi but easier to learn and do but sounds like it creates stronger benefits than standard tai chi and is considered Daogong, part qigong. The website is well done and loaded with good information and the E-book of his provides understandable info about how this qigong and tai chi works and what moving your hands and arms does to the various meridians and hence the elements and organs and the resulting health benefits. He explains all of this instead of the usual response of some masters telling us to just keep practicing and all your questions will be answered by your own experience. After reading just part of the book so far I have more understanding and appreciation of what these strange movements are actually doing for me. When I spotted the first clip of Master Lok performing his unique form a few years ago I think I emailed him and asked about a dvd but he did not have one then. Now he has 2, one teaches the form in sections of the movements like qigong. The second dvd is for doing the forms as one brief tai chi like form that just takes 2 minutes. High quality production. Master Lok was like myself and others I know who do qigong. He kept learning different forms from different masters but something was still missing until he found the right master and then he felt all this chi finally flowing thru his body. He is a business owner who gave that up in search of cultivating inner energy and now he wants to help others have good health. Anyone on this blog familiar with this material of Joe Lok? His lineage is impressive.

The longer one practices TM, the more it reverses the aging process. I am more comfortable calling it slowing down the aging process rather than reversing. If someone wants to increase the effects from TM, all they have to do is take the advanced course which is called the TM Siddhi program. This includes the first stage of levitating. I have been in a meditation hall for 3 months with TM people hopping around from the levitation sutra of this program. For me it never worked. This Siddhis program is Patanjali's Yoga Sutras but with the secret method that has missing from books and teachers for hundreds of years but Maharishi rediscovered the method which makes the Siddhis now work. In 1977 I was initiated in the TM Siddhis and on that very same day I went into a state of Cosmic Consciousness which was bliss beyond description, unlimited love, total inner and outer fulfilment and the knowingness that this was the natural state of the human nervous system. The ego was suspended. Inner peace. All of this was a spontaneous occurrence brought about by what the Siddhis do to the brain. From this experience I was then able to understand many things from different scriptures. There is nothing like direct experience rather than just intellectual understanding of something. Bliss is not the same as happiness. And no love from another person could create the amount of love I felt. I saw a Light as bright as the sun inside my head and it lit up the whole room which was totally dark with blackout curtains at night. When I would mentally say a sutra, my head felt like it was exploding with waves of bliss and different kinds of colors were seen by my inner eye. Later in activity around other people I could automatically sense what they were feeling just from facial expressions, there was no analyzing from thinking. It was just direct consciousness. I was walking in the French Alps that night and I did not have a winter coat, but that night I could feel there was a temperature differential on my hands but there was no discomfort as there had been on previous nights when outside without a coat and I would be freezing. The bliss was so strong it even protected me from the sensation of a very cold temperature.So if anyone has ever had similar experiences from qigong, please let me know the name of the method you do and I will start to learn that method.

I put my awareness wherever it wants to go, I daydream during FP at times. It does not matter. As I understand it, once the breathing sequence is done, it is an automatic process and does not need anything from us except doing the postures as slow as possible. That is where my attention usually ends up, on focusing on doing the postures correctly. Other chi kung methods have you imagining where the chi is going, focusing on the dan tien, etc. I am much too lazy to do all of that Taoist type stuff. It seems like multi-tasking. None of that is part of Flying Phoenix. The mind gets to rest.

While I have done Flying Phoenix meditations the relaxation is at a point where I have to periodically check to see if I am breathing. What I recall from Sifu Terry is that once the correct breathing sequence is finished, we then no longer have to be concerned with our breathing. I know this conflicts with the above advice so we will wait for the Sifu to get back to us on this one. I don't always remember correctly what I have read on this long blog.

just put mark johnson tai chi in search bar that is how I found the interviews. One is on youtube, or both, one is a podcast which is audio only. Two of the dvds from his website that I had tested today came out very well: Tai Chi for Everyone———This practice would strengthen the body. Making everything more solid and it would pacify Vata in the body. Not much help for the mind however. Qigong for Healing————For you this would be quite cleansing. It would detox the meridians in the energy body and the lymph and blood in the physical. Would need to be done over time to see good results but helpful.

I just got off the phone with the very experienced qigong teacher, Mark Johnson, of Santa Rosa, CA who has sold over 700,000 dvds. He is 75 yrs old now and does not want to go to his grave without passing on some of what he has learned from his Chinese master who has amazing abilities documented in Mark's biography available as Ebook from Amazon for $5. I am having Eric test the dvds on his website to see about his qigong method. After our conversation I will put away the Tai Chi for Beginners from Don Fiore that I just began last night since Mark told me that qigong is so much better than tai chi for health and healing. He said tai chi is mainly for martial arts. Lama Tantrapa has some great recent interviews with Mark. I found Mark to be exactly how he is on the interviews. There is no pretense about him, he is very candid and has the experience of teaching for over 50 years to support his opinions.

The tons of scientific research papers would disagree with your friend about TM having limited effects. Remember, I went into a temporary state of enlightenment, Cosmic Consciousness from an advanced TM program. TM has tremendous health benefits and creates a sense of inner fulfillment that I have yet to experience from qigong.

Does anyone know how to order the Mew Hing meditation series dvds without having to do business with Ironpalm.com? For various reasons I have been warned to not do business with them but thier Mew Hing series sounds good. There used to be a website that featured still photos from a training manual for these sitting postures that resemble in a way Flying Phoenix Chi Kung meditations.

Sifu Terry, In the past you have written here that you have only seen a few people do the long form on volume 4 correctly. Could you share with us why this form would be difficult to learn to do correctly? Because knowing that only a few people are doing it the right way creates a mental block against even attempting to learn it.

As for the Four Dragons, today I got a reply from someone who works for Damo Mitchell answering my question as to the difficulty level of learning the Four Dragons form. She said that it is difficult and would take years of getting the external and internal process to work effectively. I think with most of Damo's methods you have to take his online course and then travel to his workshops in order to learn his stuff. His wonderful Wu Xing Qigong, 5 Elements, is an exception. That can be learned by using his youtube video plus the book, Heavenly Streams. You will not be able to perform it correctly just by learning it from the video as their are methods to add to the routine that are not given on the video. It made a world of difference in the qi that I felt after the book arrived. There is always a waiting list for his online courses.

Today I decided to dust off volume 7 of Flying Phoenix Chi Kung and do the meditation of 60-70-40-5. This morning when I did it I did not feel much of anything from it. So I decided to try it tonight again. This time I did it in super, super slo-mo. As a result, I got that old sensation back of my hands pushing down and thru and cloud of magnetic repelling energy. With each repetion of the movement that sensation of chi felt thicker and thicker. No other chi kung method that I have tried gives that kind of thickness of chi. I am not sure why it created that strong chi sensation tonight but not in the morning session.

For those who live outside the USA who are interested in downloading John Alton's new Ebook, he just wrote to me explaining that Kindle is going to soon remedy a technical problem that they overlooked but John just discovered. The Ebook then will be available in Germany and other countries in about 48 hours. The download for the new video is a different matter. John has recently made an effort to get Amazon to make it available outside the USA and he is expecting to get a reply from them next week. He is also trying to get the video on Itunes but he said that could take a few months. HIs method sounds exciting since there is actual research on it and it claims to allow you to send healing energy to whatever area of the body needs it and from a scientific explanation, you realize how that can happen. John is great to communicate with and really has much knowledge and experience in China. His sincerity to share healing with others is real.

Jeff, glad that you asked that question of Sifu Terry since it has larger implications. The question is, is it ever wise to deviate from the exact mechanics of any qigong method that has a long lineage? Is the sensing of qi what we are looking for, or is it the benefits that come with doing the movements in a prescribed, specific manner more important than how strongly we feel the qi? I have heard some qigong teachers say that it is not important whether or not you are feeling qi, you will experience benefits anyway. And I have heard a few teachers say that if you are not feeling qi then you have not been taught well. I prefer the way Sifu Terry has answered this question in the past.

An additional comment to my previous post. You will notice that I have done only one type of meditation, TM, for the past 43 years. So when I do find a method that gives me what I am looking for, I do not keep seeking. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened.

LOL, I ask that same question myself! Seriously, as you probably know from what I have posted, for some unknown reason I usually do not feel much qi from any of these methods so I have always been looking for something more powerful to allow me to feel qi like other people do inside of their body, etc. Part of the problem is having the services of a gifted medical clairvoyant. I stumble upon a new qigong method and as you guessed, out of curiosity I have Eric test it and then it sounds like it will be more beneficial than the methods that I am currently doing. Almost like a drug addict chasing after a bigger high, LOL. Another reason is that when I actually start doing some of the ones I newly acquire, they might prove too difficult for me to learn, or they just do not feel enjoyable doing them, or I am feeling nothing from them so I stop doing them. Having been single until a year ago, it reminds me of when I was dating women. I would always be looking for the right one for me and I did not want to settle for anything less. Same way with my relationship with qigong. But Longevity Qigong by Simon Blow is a keeper with its very simple, gentle, slow, flowing tai chi like movements. The rest I have been trying on for size to see how they fit. But I do tire of the endless searching.

Better that the mind stands still than the earth stands still, LOL. Aeran, I just got Damo Mitchell's Heavenly Streams book yesterday and what a complete difference it has made in doing his Wu Xing compared to doing it from just following along with the youtube video. Doing the first two elements the way he teaches in the book I was able to feel huge amounts of qi in my hands and then when in the static position following doing an element I could feel qi also in the feet. Just like Damo states, after awhile the qi will be felt coming up from the ground into the body. If this is just day one, I look forward to learning the rest of the elements and becoming proficient at it. They are very easy to do but putting the awareness where he tells you to in the book is the key to feeling the power from the form. So thanks again Aeran!

Brian, you are right on understanding that there are literally physical changes to the brain resulting from some types of energy work. The avatar, Sri Ama-Bhagavan has stated for example that his Oneness Blessing energy transmission quiets the parietal lobes of the brain while enlivening the frontal lobe. People on the courses in India where participants become permanently awakened who are clairvoyant have seen higher Beings working on the brains of the participants while they slept as part of the rewiring to produce Awakening. My best friend was on that course and related that story. Bhagavan was asked about this and he said that those Beings who hang around the temple who became enlightened long ago in past lifetimes and are now assisting in the awakening process. For those who only believe what they can experience from their own 5 senses, this probably will sound like science fiction.

Hi Brian, I am a recently retired psychologist who started working in the field in 1973 and I have used NLP at times and have healed phobias with it in about 15 minutes. I wonder if those people who deny that it works have ever tried using it to help people? Many people do not believe in reincarnation, yet I have helped people by doing past life therapy with them. There was a time when most people did not believe that the Earth was round. I just saw a poster advertising a local lecture to be given by a man who has written a book about the myth of the Holocaust. He claims it never happened. I guess my ancestors that were killed in Poland because they had the misfortune to have lived in the town that became Auschwitz may be actually alive since that author claims the Holocaust was a hoax. I give these examples to show that the beliefs or disbeliefs of other people might not be based on direct experience or truth, but just opinion. And this is how I view this blog. Like life itself, it contains people sharing information that in some cases is based on opinion, experience and/or truth. It is my responsibility to separate the wheat from the chaff and to not throw out the baby with the bath water. I have gained much from Daobums over the years. I just wish they would go back to spelling it Taobums.

I believe like Edgar Cayce stated that whenever you see a prodigy in any field, it is due to having first mastered that particular skill by a soul in prior lifetimes. I have started to watch one of Damo's lectures and I agree, his knowledge is amazing and much of it probably comes from his direct experience. Today I exchanged several emails with John Alton, creator of the Reflection Response Qigong. He has recently gotten rid of his United Fitness website and created a new one since he has updated his method and has written a new book. Anyone who has an illness might want to look at John's website and watch his 3 minute video explaining his method and why it heals conditions. He no longer uses the Three Emperors Qigong form as part of his method. Instead of the dvd he sold, he now has a digital download video to learn his method along with a new E-book which I downloaded and was excited from what I read so far in his introduction. This seems to be taking qigong to a new level of healing effectively. He said his methodology is accepted by the highest qigong authority in China.