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 yesterday 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