silent thunder

My first exposure to Qi Gong was training with Larry Tan in NYC who taught a blend of Jeet Kun Do as learned from Bruce first hand and Shao Lin Five Animal. I have since had the incredible good fortune to study with two lineage holders from Wu Dang. Zhou Ting Jue and Wang Li Ping. Both 18th generation in their respective traditions and both systems blend so well and support each other. I am so blessed.

This ain't your wave bra!

Six years ago to the day I was deep in the middle of the process. I felt the draw and sank into the process in late March of 2012 and by Solstice that year, after several months of sifting, yielding and allowing the concepts to permeate and emerge again on their own, I found it had settled, more or less into the version I have with me now... there is a hand written copy sitting only a few feet from me in my hotel room as I write this. I bring it with me whenever I travel as travel prompts an opening in perception... so it's with me while driving up the West Coast on a visit with an old friend for a few days. After my recent experiences in hospital and hovering near death back in January, I am anticipating some verses to resonate in new harmonies. And I find myself revisiting the verses regularly, at a sort of rhythm, not just my own, but still multiple versions. Something will occur at work, on a walk, playing with my son, or often reading things here... and a verse will spring to mind and I'll revisit it. It's a living, fluid process and so some phrases are still naturally shifting to this day... though the changes at this point are usually a word or two, sometimes a phrase will be altered to reflect my unfolding relationship with the concepts. There remain a few verses that remain, unsatisfying to my monkey mind, though at this point, I suspect, my ability with words and the nature of words themselves are taxed heavily in their ability to transmit such body wisdoms and deeply natural, living processes, into artifacts of mind. So I've relaxed into allowing them to remain unsatisfying. My relationship with it, is a flowing, living, fluid process... and distinctly yielding. It's like I am dancing with it, but I'm not leading the dance. I initiate the dance, but then yield to the process and flow with it, almost dissolve in it. The concepts and I are always co-mingling, yet my forcing mind recedes and the only approximation of effort is in cultivating inner space to allow understanding to well up naturally of its own inertia. Looking back now, the shift that occurred during that time stands out as a marker for the initiation into a deep paradigm shift and a painfully, achingly beautiful and unrelenting process of healing and awakening in my psyche, heart and body. Not to mention a relentless stripping away of previously held notions into a glorious acceptance of the ever unfolding uncertainty of living.

Here is Master Yuan playing Five Animal Qi Gong His channel is called Wudang Wushu if interested in watching more, he has posted plenty.

Nice idea! Here is a real short taste of Yuan Xiu Gang. Talk about flow and depth of stance...

Na... But Puff and I have been known to hang out...

Whoa

When I was really drawn to saturating my awareness in the DDJ and finally having a more intimate and personal relationship with it... I set about writing my own version. I figured the best way to get the concepts imbedded, was to run them through my own system, digest them so to speak, let'em set a while, then draw them back out, in my own words. I have a deep resonant love of haiku, so my version naturally bent that direction until I surrendered to it. Eventually the process gathered inertia and then shortly thereafter a first draft was complete. It took a few months, but I was between projects and could devote my entire life to it. So I set about finding as many copies of translations as I could. Then I would spend however long was needed with one verse at a time, reading, ruminating, rereading dozens of versions... sitting with it, regarding it as I'd walk around my neighborhood, running errands, making meals, playing with my son was particularly helpful... Eventually the thoughts would come back out in my own words and I'd refine them into haiku form, paring down words and using e-prime language throughout, where appropriate. I now have a direct sense of the resonance of the concepts. There have always been sections of the DDJ that were troubling and hard to relate to (the politically slanted verses in particular), but now, they resonate in my very bones when I encounter a verse again. All those days spent ruminating, allowing space for the concepts to flow in mind and experiential awareness. It was a major shifting point in my life.

the blending of heart and light... manifests peace? an allusion to buddha's 'middle path' ?

we are human beings, not human thinkings, or human doings. being. As for absolutes, there are no absolutes for me aside from one that I still can't shake after years of chipping away at it. I am aware. That seems steadfast enough to perhaps be considered one potential rule to me. To participate in any conversation of what constitutes a rule, I must first be aware.

when traveling externally, the speed of light appears to be a barrier... what about when one travels internally?

I too recommend Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's book The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep. Been referring back to it for years. It's a real gem.

I love it when that happens! Some long held assumption associated with a degree of certainty being blown apart in an instant... It's pure bliss!

I'm with liminal... folks share from their perspective. I haven't read an account in this thread declaring you wrong. It's just a conversation. Incidentally, the rule of thumb is a phrase derived from an actual human law. When it was legal to 'discipline' your wife, by beating her with a stick no bigger than the width of your thumb.

Another interesting tidbit... the speed of light is not constant. There is variance in its measurement. Though practically for use in equations and observable phenomena, this variance is miniscule and seemingly non-impacting, the implication of this often overlooked fact of observation is quite striking to me.

Anything that can affect my experience of life, consciousness or awareness, I consider a drug. I'm with you Rara. The obvious drugs, prescription meds and the myriad of self medicating street drugs are what are normally considered a drug. But to me, Food-coffee-sugar-booze, Sex, Cannabis, enthoegenic plants... all exert a drug like effect on my emotional state and consciousness and are often not considered a drug, so never enter awareness when addressing health. Yet all of those mentioned are subject to abusive overuse that is detrimental to health and vitality, or balanced use that accents and supports health and boosts vitality. At first I focused on what I put in my body to heal and find balance. Then I began to pay attention to what I was putting on my body, in toothpaste, body soaps and clothes detergents. Last few years, far more imortant to either of those for overal well being... has been what I allow myself to ruminate on and think about... what I choose to engage with in my mind on a daily basis. I am down to only three bookmarks for the internet. I have winnowed down my exposure to all forms of media to small, controlled bursts. Bums is an exception, almost all my time on the internet is spent here. Yet even here, I decide to limit what sorts of topics I will engage in, where I will spend my energy in conversation due to the effects topics and tones of conversation have on my consciousness. Think about the power some conversations here have on our being. The primal reactions to some phrases and topics when disagreement arises... or the empathy engaged when we resonate in agreement. Both of these are powerful drug like effects... often far more subtley impacting than a couple beers popped for a few hours of pleasant feelings in the abdomen and fuzziness in the mind. How many drugs in our lives have no form or physical shape and so go beneath notice, continuing to exert massive influence on us, without any awareness? Facebook likes, forum post reactions, news articles that support, or contradict our political dispositions... conversations about religious concepts or political shoulds and shouldn'ts.... drugs everywhere. Presence, awareness and beingness seem to counteract my ability to go too far with any one of them.

In money? A few thousand dollars spread out over a couple decades. In time and effort practicing? In emotional mind based stories and intellectual seeking? Thousands of hours. Cost reaches far beyond money. Money equals options to me. When I have money, because my society values it, I can exchange money (which in and of itself sustains no life, it cannot be eaten, drunk, nor used medicinally), for that which has real value to sustaining life... food, safe housing and medicine when required... But to me the real question is what has value? what is value? It is remarkably valuable to me, that I wake each day without any nagging, long term aches and pains any more, in spite of decades of rock climbing, martial arts and working in construction for film and television along with several surgeries and major injuries over that time that at one point, had me living in chronic pain for years. The value of not having had a cold or flu in almost a decade is very high. The value of no longer taking the world personally is uncountable. The emotional stability of no longer identifying with illusary senses of self whose contentment and misery were dependent upon external forces. The value of no longer having my experience of life being determined by the words and actions of others, or by the pleasantness of my direct environment is indeterminably valuable. The cost for this... I've been adding it up in my head as I've been writing this. Around $6500.00 US, spread out over 25 years. The value of this... uncountable.

What humans consider beautiful and ugly seems utterly subjective to me and further, seems based on the framework of what is encountered and experienced from the ages of 0 to roughly 7 years. This set of experience preps the canvas for what will be considered 'normal' thereafter, and is determined and shaped by our familial and cultural environments. Normal, however varies wildly from culture to culture. This is unavoidable. Normal actions required for daily life in the jungles of Papua New Guinnea, are not normal in downtown Los Angeles. Radio in PNG and in Europe reflect the subjective tastes for music in those places, just as having breakfast in a foreign country can seem abnormal, gross, or pleasantly awesome, but rarely 'normal'. It is not surprising to me then, when certain songs appear on the billboard top 40. This is not a demonstration of objective truth to the quality of the sounds being broadcast by said songs, but an indication of the similarity of the interpretation of, and subsequent reaction to, those sounds among those listening. This accounts for how music themes shift with generations.

Hey Bud!

Objects appear to move through space and exist in time. Time and motion are how the fourth dimension is perceived from a three dimensional perspective. time as a three dimensional interpretation of the fourth dimension, through relative displacement relationships of forms and motion through space, relegated through memory and comparison as the passing of time.

Nice! thanks guys. love this. Perhaps they have eternal 'don't give a fuck'. The Sage is in the world, but not of it. Participating, yet not tied to results. Not defined by, or identified with, the parade of changing forms. Having made no choice, taken no sides, there is no win and lose. Hold to the center, constant acknowledgement and release. For any immortal must surely observe... that whatever result arrives... will soon shift and then be? From that take on it... can any result ever be not proper?

Confucius was fond of rules. Seemed to think there was one for every situation. Rules... seem like little more than stories of mind, made to interpret that which is...

My Dad had one of those for a few years. Same model/year/color... She was throaty and loved the pavement. I miss Dad. That fucking grin he had... when life was flowing unimpeded and he just fucking knew it. that grin. I miss that. eta: that's not a secret.

or a stone, insect, current of air, stream, forest, species, solar system, galaxy... I don't find perfection slippery. My mental relationship to it may be, but that is the relative, foggy land of stories and mindstuff. Not inherently real. Perfection is just what is. This is it. Perfect Choice cannot be deviated from as it stems from the universe of phenomena, being as it is. It will not and can not be any other way. Relative choice is a process of applying a story in the mind, to what occurs in Perfect Choice. Within the perfetion of what is... Acknowledgement, Acceptance and Release within this is freedom for me... for in this moment those Three Elders reveal the only thing I consider real any longer... presence and awareness... which abide synchronistically, in perfection. So at what level of awareness are choices made? Perfect Choice seems an unconscious process to me. Like beating our hearts and regulating hormone levels and growing hair while we sleep. It's foundational to the fabric of experiential awareness. If there is a God and one would ask her... 'how did you make the flowers?' I expect the answer may well be... "I have no idea... how do you beat your heart?" Relative choice, whether I drink oj or make tea when thirsty, both seem to lie within the parameters of Perfect Choice, which is the flow of nature... to drink when thirsty.

or a stone, insect, current of air, stream, forest, species, solar system, galaxy... I don't find perfection slippery. My mental relationship to it may be, but that is the relative, foggy land of stories and mindstuff. Not inherently real. Perfection is just what is. This is it. Perfect Choice cannot be deviated from as it stems from the universe of phenomena, being as it is. It will not and can not be any other way. Relative choice is a process of applying a story in the mind, to what occurs in Perfect Choice. Within the perfetion of what is... Acknowledgement, Acceptance and Release within this is freedom for me... for in this moment those Three Elders reveal the only thing I consider real any longer... presence and awareness... which abide synchronistically, in perfection. So at what level of awareness are choices made? Perfect Choice seems an unconscious process to me. Like beating our hearts and regulating hormone levels and growing hair while we sleep. It's foundational to the fabric of experiential awareness. If there is a God and one would ask her... 'how did you make the flowers?' I expect the answer may well be... "I have no idea... how do you beat your ehart?" Relative choice, whether I drink oj or make tea when thirsty, both seem to lie within the parameters of Perfect Choice, to drink when thirsty.