Damo Mitchell - Need Advice

[Rebirthless]

17 minutes ago, Antares said:

It depends on the school, as methods vary. There is the ancient northern school approach, which is quite authentic and includes dynamic meditations (I used to practice some of them for a while). However, there is also the modern northern approach, which is quite common now and is based on seated meditations.

In general, authentic old school methods are based on dual xing ming cultivation, and they include dynamic standing and static meditations, as well as some seated ones. The modern Dragon Gate primarily teaches seated meditation, although they can also teach you some qigong in addition to it.

If you want to nourish Yang, you need to move; however, if you mostly sit, it is hard to obtain True Yang. Timing is an important factor in neidan. This is akin to going through the seasons of the year: everything changes in nature, but sitting is like always abiding in winter. Over time, you will lose Yang and thus your Ming.

 

With all due respect, I don't think you're familiar with Damo's system.

 

The Xing-Ming dual-tracking exists throughout Longmen, and Damo's school is not an exception. Also, there are plenty of moving exercises along with static standing & sitting in the school.

 

You also said this about him:

 

Quote

As for neidan he does not have a clue what is real neidan.

 

I'll be honest. I think you're quite out of your depth to make this judgement about Damo.

 

Edited Sunday at 06:01 PM by Rebirthless

[Antares]

20 minutes ago, Rebirthless said:

The Xing-Ming dual-tracking exists throughout Longmen, and Damo's school is not an exception. Also, there are plenty of moving exercises along with static standing & sitting in the school.

 

I have read his book on neidan (see picture above) and seen couple of his video on youtube re "neidan". There he only states this is neidan but from what i can see he teaches modern northern school meditation (not sure which school) and some qigong/neigong methods from IMA (dao yin for example). This is not certain daoist school methods but mixture of methods

 

[DynamicEquilibrium]

Conjoint Xing Ming cultivation done by one integrated method. 

Sitting meditation on one hand and moving practices on another is not an integrated method, doesn't count as Xingming shuangxiu. 

 

[Rio]

On 8/23/2025 at 9:08 AM, jgd said:

My 2 cents here!

 

Regarding Damo's method:

 

-It's not expensive, so paying a year in advance it's not dauting.

-The syllabus is huge, way too much for the average student, if you want foundations, I'd stick to the wuji and dantian gong, with a dash of jibengong, daoyin, and five elements. There are so many exercises and ancillary methods that it would be easy to get lost.

-The weekly leak of content is a bad idea for qigong. Foundations need doing the same thing for a lot of time. Weekly content is always adding fluff to keep you interested, but being easily bored is a bad thing for a cultivator. Half of the lessons arent really needed, they are filling space.

-Damo itself is the reason I decided to put the method aside. I'm not a monk and dont care about his antics with alcohol and cigars, but if you compare stuff from a few years ago, you can see his body deteriorating. He had a worm that made him go through a scrawny phase, but now he is recovered and that cant be an excuse anymore. He has issues with his physical body

 

Regarding Nathan's

 

-The method is expensive, each course costs you more than a year with damo.

-The online courses are poor. The books are way better. The courses are basically Nathan's audio files of training sessions. If you are willing to spend a few days, you could do your own files by recording the instructions in the books. The end result would be almost the same at a fraction of the cost. If you want to join his method, I'd do retreats with him, ignoring the online stuff.

-Same as Damo, Nathan is the reason I didnt go further into the method. Nathan looks extremely weak and emaciated. I don't understand how he could develop yin yang fusion and advanced microcosmic orbit and not look healthy at all

Yes, the physics and the vibes doesn't resonate much with me neither.

Can I ask which school and which teacher you are studying at the moment ? 

[Nuralshamal]

On 22.8.2025 at 5:08 PM, Lala Nila said:

Damo has had this issue-one of his students died of a heart attack (I read it on this forum actually just this morning on another thread.

 

Super interesting!

Can you link to where you read it? Would love to follow up

Just to contribute I can say that Sharath Jois (son of the founder of Astangha Yoga) also died of a sdden heart attack last year though young, right in front of my uncle (who's a senior astanga teacher in my country).

Also a great sufi from Iran specialised in heart prayer also has suffered major heart issues throughout his life, has a pacemaker etc, Dr. Seyed Mostafa Azmayesh

It seems like a repeat offender in spiritual schools, were heart issues maybe become more likely? Ofc not to rule out that x amount of people are anyway predisposed to heart problems, and it could be seen as completely unrelated to their spiritual practice

[jgd]

2 hours ago, Rio said:

Can I ask which school and which teacher you are studying at the moment ? 

 

Sure. Right now mainly Chow Gar southern mantis, Balint Vitarius-Ip Chee Keung line. I'm also finishing the foundations of a medical qigong named Kong Jin, under Alejandro Gomez-Wan Qing Guo line.

 

And since last three weeks doing a sample at Ancient Masters school to try their method.

[Lala Nila]

1 hour ago, Nuralshamal said:

Super interesting!

Can you link to where you read it? Would love to follow up

Just to contribute I can say that Sharath Jois (son of the founder of Astangha Yoga) also died of a sdden heart attack last year though young, right in front of my uncle (who's a senior astanga teacher in my country).

Also a great sufi from Iran specialised in heart prayer also has suffered major heart issues throughout his life, has a pacemaker etc, Dr. Seyed Mostafa Azmayesh

It seems like a repeat offender in spiritual schools, were heart issues maybe become more likely? Ofc not to rule out that x amount of people are anyway predisposed to heart problems, and it could be seen as completely unrelated to their spiritual practice

 

It was in this thread, I don't know how to link specific sentences here yet lol. But upon read reading it I think I misunderstood what was written. Someone died during an energy transmission in a group setting, but from another school. The specific post is by user Idquest, May 27. I use Roni Edlund's (Damo's wife) techniques quite a bit. 

 

 

[EFreethought]

20 hours ago, Nuralshamal said:

Super interesting!

Can you link to where you read it? Would love to follow up

Just to contribute I can say that Sharath Jois (son of the founder of Astangha Yoga) also died of a sdden heart attack last year though young, right in front of my uncle (who's a senior astanga teacher in my country).
 

 

Sharath was KP Jois' grandson, through his daughter. KPJ and his son had a falling out years ago.

 

Having your leader die at 53 is not a good look.

[Forestgreen]

On 2025-08-24 at 7:43 PM, Antares said:

 

In general, authentic old school methods are based on dual xing ming cultivation, and they include dynamic standing and static meditations, as well as some seated ones. /...  .../

If you want to nourish Yang, you need to move; however, if you mostly sit, it is hard to obtain True Yang. 

This is still post heaven though.

[Iskote]

Personally I would avoid any commercialized versions of this kind of stuff. 

If they are in it for the money, what could you possibly learn from them of any real value?  Not a whole lot in my opinion. 

By commercializing it, it is already clear that they have personally missed the mark by a country mile. 
You absolutely can't buy 'spiritual growth'. Change comes from within and requires change on many levels.  

 

Edited yesterday at 08:48 PM by Iskote

[Vajra Fist]

I had a (polite) disagreement with Damo, when he woke up one morning and decided to publicly trash a different system. He completely overreacted and banned me from his academy. So I lost over a year's worth of content I had paid for. 

 

Read into that what you will.

[liminal_luke]

11 minutes ago, Iskote said:

Personally I would avoid any commercialized versions of this kind of stuff. 

If they are in it for the money, what could you possibly learn from them of any real value?  Not a whole lot in my opinion. 

By commercializing it, it is already clear that they have personally missed the mark by a country mile. 
You absolutely can't buy 'spiritual growth'. Change comes from within and requires change on many levels.  

 

 

Respectfully, I´d like to express my disagreement.  Many good spiritual teachers charge -- not everything gold is free.

[Forestgreen]

6 hours ago, Iskote said:

 

If they are in it for the money, what could you possibly learn from them of any real value?  

 

A training method.

[Forestgreen]

On 2025-08-23 at 9:08 AM, jgd said:

 but if you compare stuff from a few years ago, you can see his body deteriorating. He had a worm that made him go through a scrawny phase, but now he is recovered and that cant be an excuse anymore. He has issues with his physical body

 

 

Freeform spent a decade here informing us that an adept neigong practitioner would/should develop a babyfat Nezha body. Both Damo and Adam seems to believe that the way their bodies look is a direct result of their practices. 

[-ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ-]

10 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

 

Respectfully, I´d like to express my disagreement.  Many good spiritual teachers charge -- not everything gold is free.

 

I don’t understand why people will pay for literally everything except this. Do teachers not have bills to pay and food to buy?

[Nuralshamal]

16 hours ago, EFreethought said:

 

Sharath was KP Jois' grandson, through his daughter. KPJ and his son had a falling out years ago.

 

Having your leader die at 53 is not a good look.

Thanks for clarifying 

 

Yes, my feeling is that it’s too mechanistic.

 

Eg I will say that my uncle is actually quite vital and energetic from daily practice, ofc also flexible and has some gymnastics like strength 

 

Yet it has also given him shoulder joint issues where he had to get an operation, and can’t really vouch for any real spiritual benefit from it to be honest.

 

He actually got a light in his eyes when I spoke about getting Zhongxian Wu to come do a guest workshop in his studio, because I said I had been really impressed and personally impacted by his talisman qigong healing. 
 

So I feel Astanga is more or less a mechanistic physical system that through asana and pranayama give you a gymnastics style workout, but no real, tangible, powerful benefits for energy or spiritual development, say like SKY or Wu’s qigong, nor a ‘complete’ system like the Chinese including herbs, astrology, you name it, all as one indivisible, functional unit actually able to powerfully change your health, finances, spirituality, you name it 

 

It’s still great for strictly physical fitness, but would personally deem normal fitness training in the western style superior for health, and SKY or Wu’s qigong supplemented with TCM superior for healing for most 

[Master Logray]

12 hours ago, Iskote said:

Personally I would avoid any commercialized versions of this kind of stuff. 

If they are in it for the money, what could you possibly learn from them of any real value?  Not a whole lot in my opinion. 

By commercializing it, it is already clear that they have personally missed the mark by a country mile. 
You absolutely can't buy 'spiritual growth'. Change comes from within and requires change on many levels.  

 

 

 

Do you really consider Damo is a "spiritual" teacher?    or teaches for "spiritual growth"?   I don't think he himself said that.  Qigong, Neigong, IMA teachers are not "spiritual" in any sense.   Those "seekers" would look in the direction of proper religious context like Taoism or Buddhism or philosophies, Neidan cultivation, not from primarily a physical training teacher.  

 

@Vajra Fist:  I recall another member entered into argument with Damo and was banned.   While he has a right to keep "peace" in his own forum, banning a student or a customer from all online contents violates the commercial contract between the two and the issue of consumer rights arise.  

[Nuralshamal]

4 hours ago, Forestgreen said:

Freeform spent a decade here informing us that an adept neigong practitioner would/should develop a babyfat Nezha body. Both Damo and Adam seems to believe that the way their bodies look is a direct result of their practices. 

Yes, I think it’s quite weird they’re sporting these dadbod types of builds.

 

I also got more tendency to get a belly, but that’s just after passing 30, not my qigong 

 

it’s just basic calories in vs out and ofc physical training vs being sedentary 

 

Qigong is in no way, shape or form a ‘complete’ body exercise as seen from western science, normal fitness with strength, cardio and flexibility is definitely superior for general health and body composition.

 

however qigong is great for addressing chronic health issues in a targeted way with specific qigong sets, mantras, mudras, herbs etc, and ofc mind body wellbeing due to the meditative and mindful qualities encouraged by qigong and Taichi 

 

But honestly it’s mostly (from western perspective) the mindfulness component giving wellbeing, not because qigong is physically more powerful than conventional exercise for health, it’s just more specific and targeted from the TCM worldview perspective.

 

that’s just my own observations and experience ofc 

 

i think it’s just a poor excuse and kind of outdated view of qigong vs west, and living in denial of basic western science 

 

one is not superior, they’re complementary, and devaluing and denying one for the other is just old fashioned and black/white mindset 

 

use both and win 😁

[Vajra Fist]

3 hours ago, Master Logray said:

@Vajra Fist:  I recall another member entered into argument with Damo and was banned.   While he has a right to keep "peace" in his own forum, banning a student or a customer from all online contents violates the commercial contract between the two and the issue of consumer rights arise

 

Yes, but I wouldn't say I argued with him. I just stated that I disagreed with him. He was incredibly rude in response. I still have the screenshots of the conversation because it shocked me - until that point I held him in the highest possible esteem. I was polite throughout the conversation. 

 

His team also ignored several emails over the course of nearly a year, until I threatened to raise a PayPal dispute. They offered then to unblock my account, so I could at least access the taiji course. 

 

I have strong reservations about Damo, and I don't think what he has learned or what he teaches leads anywhere close to what the buddha described as stream entry. 

Edited 10 hours ago by Vajra Fist

[Vajra Fist]

I should probably add for balance that Damo is a fantastic teacher. He's able to explain difficult concepts in a practical way, and his syllabus is very well organised. 

 

His taiji and bagua are also to a very high level and very well taught. 

 

His students report profound and significant changes as a result of their study of neigong, and I have no reason to doubt their accounts. 

 

My concern really is where it all leads, and I can only infer that based on my personal interactions with Damo online.

 

It's also possible he just wasn't having a great day and he didn't handle it as well as he would have done normally. Nevertheless I was very affected by the whole incident.

Edited 10 hours ago by Vajra Fist

[Master Logray]

2 hours ago, Vajra Fist said:

His taiji and.... are also to a very high level and very well taught. 

 

 

Well, not really, especially recently.

[Forestgreen]

On 2025-08-22 at 5:08 PM, Lala Nila said:

 

 

Internal Alchemy is no joke, you can die or seriously harm yourself if done wrong.

Just for the sake of argument, I would say that neidan carries a low risk, but all the forceful neigong people do in the preparational stage: Compressions, trying to create large amounts of post heaven energies, forcing this into systems not created for it; that comes with risk of injury.  

 

 

[Davey Calico]

Long rambling response incoming: the short response is to follow the path that feels aligned with you. Your Dao is different from my Dao which is different from Damo's Dao.

 

There's an old joke: how many Daoists does it take to change a light bulb? Thirteen. One to change the lightbulb and twelve to stand around and say that's not how my master taught me.

 

The Dao that can be spoken is not the true Dao. Follow the path as it unfolds for you. Use your discretion to select people to learn from, although your relationship to doing the actual practices is the most important. For the record, my main teacher is Lee Holden. I chose Lee because he embodies the Dao in a way that I admire and feels right to me. Also for the record, there are some teachers whom I would not recommend.

 

What I know about Damo Mitchell is that his books are very insightful, and have helped me greatly in my practice. He has a great (and free) youtube course for awakening the micro cosmic orbit, which I find very powerful. However, I often feel annoyed when I listen to his podcasts.

 

 

[Master Logray]

1 hour ago, Forestgreen said:

Just for the sake of argument, I would say that neidan carries a low risk, but all the forceful neigong people do in the preparational stage: Compressions, trying to create large amounts of post heaven energies, forcing this into systems not created for it; that comes with risk of injury.  

 

 

 

For the sake of argument too, the method that creates the most results is always the most risky.

 

[Forestgreen]

The method that creates The strongest post heaven manifestations is also the most risky. 

What has that to do with awakening to reality?