silent thunder

Interesting stuff... but I can't swim in these waters long of late... left, right, center... so much to investigate... so many things to consider as right and wrong. I can't make much of it any longer, thankfully... even when I'm inclined to try... there are so many very intricate and well crafted avenues of spin now regarding any information... and there is such mastery over the art of persuasion in so many mediums that it has rendered my relationship with news media all but unpalatable... it all comes with equal flavors of unreliably transmitted data saturated with intentions and biases, rendering it down to unpalatable, untrustworthy noise. There was a time when I could read five or six sources and feel I was getting some semblance of workable data... nowadays... my ignorance of all such matters just continues to grow, thankfully. I confess, lately I keep my shen firmly pointed inside myself, or deep in the earth a lot recently. when it's not there, it's then most likely aimed as far out into deep awareness as i can tolerate and cultivate.

I'm feeling a strong draw to this as well lately, increasing draw particularly over the last few years. Thanks for posting the question!

As I see it, the potential downside.. you spend some time in a pursuit you show interest in, that doesn't pan out and you move on. Potential upside... meeting a teacher of an art that can utterly transform your experience of life in the present. If you have any draw to the teacher or the style... go. go.

I would advise to jump in and see what comes of it.

I've been intrigued and drawn to the I Ching since the early 90's... but it's been a slow, arching spiral process that still hasn't manifested with me pulling a book from a shelf to engage with it actively. Eventually the right book will jump off the shelf, or someone will drop it in my lap. Until then, I sure do appreciate what I gleen from those who've already jumped in the waters... thanks for sharing!

I would recommend Dr Yang Jwing Ming's book, The Root of Chinese Qi Gong for some good theory. I also got picked up some good theory from a couple of Damo Mitchell's books... Dragon Dao Yin exercises and Daoist Nei Gong.

release is great with these things... things of that nature stay just where I drop em whether i remember or not... now... why did I walk in this room?

I'd get all hung up on how to correctly identify bozos... probably end up becoming one without even meaning to.... I just let it go... but that's really my goal of late. release it all that which remains is...

One will never arrive at their destination if they stop to throw stones at every barking dog.... ~ Winston Churchill.

I only shared a couple of details regarding my time with Wang Liping in two different threads that were specifically asking questions about him and the retreats he holds... I don't recall their names. One of those details was my realizing a few days into the retreat that my far-sightedness had corrected... when i hadn't even thought to list it as something I was seeking healing for when applying for the retreat. The rest was just so intensely personal, even if I could put it into words, I don't know what possible value it would be for anyone else... more distracting than helpful I would think. My time with both Master Wang and Master Zhou was paradigm shifting... paradigm shattering. I've shared many details, (mostly when in my early days posting), across various threads regarding my time with Zhou Ting-Jue and the experiences I had through him, though nothing comprehensive as in one thread, or one summed up comment.

... wow. that series of posts was the mental/spiritual equivalent to standing in the ring with my master for a few seconds... heady stuff and deep waters. so much treasure here... thanks again bums. I am deeply grateful for you all and for this place. and to think, 13.something billion years of elements spinning in awareness for this moment to congeal in this manner...

I wonder, how can one with any surety, assume to know what the ends of all, or any other school's teachings will be for those who follow them? How can one know what another's path will or will not lead to? smells like projective presumption to me... but that's my own stink, or ours... after all, where do I stop and you begin? are we in trouble? are we saved? who saves whom, he wondered as he wandered...

what is value? an idea. one that varies with individuals and depends on perspective what has value? whatever individuals determine, seemingly based on desires, needs and aversions what is money? paper with numbers on it and metal coins. is money valuable? only in so far as I and others agree it has value and thus can exchange it for things that are useful. value is an idea... money is an expression in form of this idea. what is this paper and metal compared to a moment of expanded awareness? compared to balanced health? We all value money according to our solvency and our own principles of personal value and our personal story. 100 to me may be 10,000 to you... 10 to you may be 1,000,000 to me. who knows? who is wrong or right? To experience what I was 'taught' by Zhou Ting Jue and Wang Liping, I would pay 10x10x10.... but that is its value to me... no one else can tell me what that value is worth... they are not qualified observers. Nor can I tell another what a teaching is worth, nor its real value to them, as I am not a qualified observer. This goes for people who study different lineages from me, or no lineage at all. Who am I to determine the value in another's life of their experience, or lack thereof? Such presumption... Looking back, what just these two men taught to me, is not necessarily what I learned, or took away from their teachings. I have no idea what they set out to teach me... only what I gleened from my perceptions in their presence and through my shift in awareness. Though I experienced being 'healed'. I don't say they healed me. The more perspective i garner by being removed from the teachings through the passage of time, it was not so much they were dispensing teachings to me, more like, in their presence, there were conditions that contributed to my awareness shifting and I am now aware of behaviors and practices that lay a sustainable foundation of health in my life, so that health is supported and maintained in every action. Health and vitality naturally manifest and the imbalanced state is not present so no healing is required. for me, this expansion of awareness... value beyond measure... how would I put a number on it. I'd say it's worth is equal to love carried to the exponent of imagination. How about all the lessons I've learned from sources that I cannot pay in money? The root that saved my life while rock climbing, when it held my weight as I was falling to my death. This root looked old and rotted and yet held my weight and supported me as I climbed to 'safety'. It taught me not to assume by appearances the strength inside of something... what is this worth? Worth. Value. Money. Insight. Awareness. Clarity. Experience. Gratitude. Health. All of everything is shared every day in through and by a million sources inside and outside of my apparent self. Value? Yours...? mine... ? we all belong to each other... we all are each other. edit: to reword opening statements.

For many, it seems they suffer when they encounter other teachings and paths that are different from those they are attached to, or that are unfamiliar or that they have an aversion to... I have compassion for this... suffered it myself for some time. It's really a hard state to occupy... to look all around and see wrong and bad and useless everywhere, it induces much suffering.

taking the world personally... that is one rough condition.

Matrushka Dolls! Good buddy of mine went on a solo 3 month trek through Europe after college, back in the early 90's. Wife and I dropped him at the airport, so he spent the night at our place... he snuck one of our internal matrushka dolls into his bags and came back with a crap ton of photos of her posing all along his route. He called it the 'tour of the motherland tour'. lol good times.

I cannot (and have no desire to) shake the very palpable sense that space is as sentient and alive as i myself am.

i should clarify that my above response isn't meant to convey a sense of having no connection or responsibility for the imbalance. I don't just leave it to nature. I absolutely refuse to litter. and haven't taken a single walk in almost twenty years, without bringing a bag with me to pick up trash as i go... the habit started in the early 90's when I would walk through Prospect Park in Brooklyn and continues to this day. I was at one point in my younger life, a hairs breadth away from being this gal...

I used to think that something like this was unnatural. Lately, I no longer believe unnatural exists. Though the things I used to consider unnatural I would now describe as seeming to be out of balance. Humans used to seem unnatural to me along with all their various by-products... but now that all seems part of nature albeit a strange one to me, and as has been shown at places like Chernobyl, nature doesn't waste anything, not plastic, not radio-active waste, nothing. Nature is never wrong, it is just always flowing toward balance, without effort or any bias. These images though and what they represent does still seem out of balance though. But only because I have an opinion, based on a perspective. Not because I am right. Wolves are thriving in Chernobyl, where it was supposed to be a desolate wasteland for generations and... turns out humans are harder on some aspects of nature than severe radiation. And isn't there a fungus there that is also processing and cleansing the radioactive elements, or was it a bacteria? The ocean is already working on that island of garbage... something will be making use of it in some way.

flowing willow, more tender and mild than oak more resilient too

meanwhile... I'm over here all....

I have this book waiting in my stack... I really should open it up.

I changed my mind twice just while reading that... and I heartily second the notion,

Great user name mate! I have one that I use. **************************************** I'm lying on the beach. in very warm, tropical waters. Waves very slowly lap up and surround my body saturating it in warm water my body, is made of sand and dissolves as each wave recedes back into the Sea. energy enters the feet with each wave rests in the belly then exits through the feet pulling everything along with it eventually I am gone only sleep remains

Nicely put mate. That's nigh on exactly what I'm driving at, but put more succinctly. Thanks. Awareness really does seem foundational. As I relate to it, it's the fabric of all else, so in that manner I still perceive it as the prerequisite, for without it, nothing else would manifest, either in the subtle or the gross.