Problems with the Foundational Posture in Damo Mitchell's Comprehensive Nei Gong Guide

[Barnaby]

On 12/28/2022 at 4:39 PM, Master Logray said:

Then your definition of spiritual has nothing to do with spirits or the worlds of spirits?   Isn't that similar to ethics, morality?

 

Freeform has already given a good answer to this, which tallies with the way this feels to me.

 

Ethics and morality are part of it. But I'd see them more as by-products of the spiritual experience, rather than the things that define it.

 

And as for spirits themselves, I've never experienced them as anything remotely "spiritual". They've always felt to me like energetic phenomena, like specific manifestations of energy. Maybe it's different for others... 

[awaken]

53 minutes ago, Barnaby said:

 

Sorry, only just found time to respond to this properly.

 

There are people here with more experience of meditation than me, but my tuppence ha'penny... 

 

Maybe some people have a natural gift, but I'd assume that meditation is hard for most people at first. For the ego-mind, it's an unnatural activity. The old taming-the-monkey thing. The mind wants to think it's right to be hopping from one imagined preoccupation to another, and it takes time and subtle effort to change that. But it is something you can train, just like physical training. So if you're interested, I'd encourage you to fit it into your daily practice from the get-go, however inconclusive it might feel at first. You'll be progressing, even if it feels like you're not.

 

If you're getting enough sleep, lethargy is usually another tactic used by the ego-mind to escape the practice. It's good to find counter-tactics to confront it and get beyond it.

 

The energy work definitely helps, in my experience. The more energy you've got, the more physically fit and supple, the deeper you'll be able to go into your meditation practice.

 

 

I tried to provide this a bit in my last post. It's a hard thing to put into words. It's something which is infinitely bigger than you (as an ego-driven, mortal, manifested being), which can be experienced in states of non-duality, and which exerts a transformative effect via that experience. It's the opposite of ego consciousness. Not a very satisfactory definition, huh?   

 

 

I don't really feel like naming names in public. Doesn't feel right, somehow. But I have come to suspect that all the "big names" are probably pretty similar, if you scratch beneath the surface of their personal idiosyncrasies enough 

 

 

Your original line is correct, it’s okay to be drowsy when you first start meditating

But you have to add something in front, add something in the back, add something in the process, you can cultivate progress

[Barnaby]

28 minutes ago, awaken said:

But you have to add something in front, add something in the back, add something in the process, you can cultivate progress

 

Interesting. What do you have in mind?

[awaken]

29 minutes ago, Barnaby said:

 

Interesting. What do you have in mind?

 

 

I don't understand this sentence

 

My idea is that if you go to learn those MCO methods, it may destroy your original path

[Barnaby]

39 minutes ago, awaken said:

 

 

I don't understand this sentence

 

My idea is that if you go to learn those MCO methods, it may destroy your original path

OK, got it. I see what you meant.

 

[Wilhelm]

3 hours ago, Barnaby said:

Maybe some people have a natural gift, but I'd assume that meditation is hard for most people at first. For the ego-mind, it's an unnatural activity. The old taming-the-monkey thing. The mind wants to think it's right to be hopping from one imagined preoccupation to another, and it takes time and subtle effort to change that. But it is something you can train, just like physical training. So if you're interested, I'd encourage you to fit it into your daily practice from the get-go, however inconclusive it might feel at first. You'll be progressing, even if it feels like you're not.

That's a good way to put it.  Some people seem to be in-built with the sort of meditative qualities that I'm drilling daily, and I'm sure there's parts easy for me that others struggle with.

 

And I agree on the unnaturalness of the pursuit.  On the one hand you're trying to strip away layers between you and the uncontaminated mind (which happens initially through the energy work in Daoism but later more meditatively) and on the other trying to build in the ideal qualities to be able to rest in a meditative state - all the while resisting the tendency of your mind to take you the opposite direction.  For me the energy work has been invaluable in leading towards these goals, but the meditative practice is slowly taking up more space as it becomes more efficient.  

 

That's just the only way I know though.  How do the Buddhist guys do it? 

Quote

I tried to provide this a bit in my last post. It's a hard thing to put into words. It's something which is infinitely bigger than you (as an ego-driven, mortal, manifested being), which can be experienced in states of non-duality, and which exerts a transformative effect via that experience. It's the opposite of ego consciousness. Not a very satisfactory definition, huh?   

That actually makes more sense! (Not that I have a clean definition of Spirit either) I just wasn't sure how you were differentiating it from psychology before - but what you put definitely implies something that goes beyond mind!

Edited December 30, 2022 by Wilhelm

[Barnaby]

Hope this doesn't sound nit-picky, it's all in a spirit of sincere discussion.

 

On 12/30/2022 at 3:38 PM, Wilhelm said:

On the one hand you're trying to strip away layers between you and the uncontaminated mind

 

Couple of things here...

 

First off, I don't think it works if you're trying. I think it's something you need to allow to happen, by letting go.

 

The second thing is about terminology. For me, an "uncontaminated mind" is a contradiction in terms, because the mind is an aspect of manifestation. I'd say it's more about going beyond the mind, towards pure consciousness.

 

On 12/30/2022 at 3:38 PM, Wilhelm said:

all the while resisting the tendency of your mind to take you the opposite direction

 

In my experience, if you try to resist it, you're giving the mind a free pass. I think it's more about accepting that this is what your mind is going to do. It's the old taming-the-monkey thing again. Your mind does not want to be doing this. If you try to keep it on a really tight leash, it's just going to rebel even more. But if – with equanimity – you let it hop around and do its thing, it's eventually going to get bored and go to sleep.

 

On 12/30/2022 at 3:38 PM, Wilhelm said:

How do the Buddhist guys do it? 

 

I don't know, but I plan to find out

 

That said, I've come to realize that what I was taught as "Daoist meditation" was actually basic Buddhist samatha technique. So maybe I know more about it than I think I do!

 

Anyway, best of luck with your meditation practice  

[awaken]

Taoist cultivation has always been the same as Buddhist cultivation
Only fake masters who practice qigong will be different from Buddhist practice
The way to achieve golden elixir has always been the same way as to become a Buddha

Because this is the only way for human beings to break through in cultivation, there is no other way

[Wilhelm]

9 hours ago, Barnaby said:

First off, I don't think it works if you're trying. I think it's something you need to allow to happen, by letting go.

Yeah that's for sure.  An issue a couple of people I trained with early on had was they were re-experiencing things as they passed out of their bodies, which just re-inforced the experience as opposed to losing the layer.  This is one area where my relative insensitivity was super useful - if I had known what my body was letting go of I'm not sure if it'd have gone as smoothly.

Quote

In my experience, if you try to resist it, you're giving the mind a free pass. I think it's more about accepting that this is what your mind is going to do. It's the old taming-the-monkey thing again. Your mind does not want to be doing this. If you try to keep it on a really tight leash, it's just going to rebel even more. But if – with equanimity – you let it hop around and do its thing, it's eventually going to get bored and go to sleep.

That's the same tightrope we've been discussing back and forth - whether to let things happen or influence them in some direction.  I'll be interested to see what the guys you end up studying with do to deal with this problem 

Edited January 2, 2023 by Wilhelm

[Barnaby]

4 hours ago, Wilhelm said:

if I had known what my body was letting go of I'm not sure if it'd have gone as smoothly.

 

I'm not sure I follow exactly what you mean here – the body isn't really a component in my terms of reference for meditation (other than just stilling it).

 

But I do think there are times when the practice is going to be complicated, challenging and painful.

 

There have been times when I was freaked out for days over what emerged in one sit  

[Wilhelm]

1 hour ago, Barnaby said:

I'm not sure I follow exactly what you mean here – the body isn't really a component in my terms of reference for meditation (other than just stilling it).

All good, probably we're just coming at it from two different paradigms.  

Edited January 2, 2023 by Wilhelm