silent thunder

The assumption, projection and ignorance regarding this topic is monumental and seems to only be gaining inertia which is heart breaking to witness. Maddie and Luke have both offered some very practical and sound advice that is in line with what I've experienced as a long term practitioner of two Northern Daoist lineages, both with 18th generation acknowledged lineage holders. Wang LiPing and Zhou Ting Jue. I've also been dual cultivating with my partner of 35 years and can attest from personal experience instituting the knowledge garnered from my lineages and my own application of such, that sexual union in the midst of joyful loving open hearted connection builds jing, not diminish it. Two things both of my lineage teachers consistently shut down at retreats is complete abstinence and the micro cosmic orbit. Both of which for some reason have taken rabid hold of the Western mind (particularly among those who study through books, online or just make up their own process based on 'heard some stuff somewhere'). It's heartbreaking to witness and hard to watch it peddled here where it is so readily encountered by well meaning seekers without a legitimate lineage or teacher to safeguard them. You stand to lose far more in your guilt, shame and mental obsessions. Instead of obsessing over what you are worried about... try this. Find one thing that really lights up your heart and your joy. Anything. Commit to engaging in that activity even three times a week for three months and keep a journal about your overall emotional state, energy levels and state of life. Instead of spending energy on what you fear. Engage your energy on something you absolutely love. It's entirely possible to thrive and open your heart and have vitality that vaults to the heavens. Fear, shame and guilt are your greatest drainers of jing, vitality and health. And that is not just my experience, it's backed up by two established 1,200 year old lineage schools with unbroken succession lines.

We've been using this book incorrectly in my estimation. It was meant as a warning, not a 'how to' manual. C'est la vie.

Revisited recently for some recreation on my long commute home.

A very strong contribution to the Hermetic Canon.

This track by The Spy from Cairo is quite simply a next. level. beat~!

This tired old schtick... again. The obsession over this is rather amusing if it wasn't so... What's next? Another topic about how women steal your jing because you get aroused when you see them?

stink

From you contributions so far, this seems like a comment made into a mirror.

Not a specific qi gong off the top of my head. But my Mum had severe osteoporosis and got good results with diet shift, daily walking and very light weight lifting three times a week.

Well said dwai. That resonates.

Depending on the conditions of outer life and my inner landscape, the emphasis and focus of my praxis shifts accordingly throughout the seasons and longer term on the life path. Not all aspects of the entire system of study are necessarily beneficial at all times to the overarching process, if that resonates.

I have found that, particularly if one has a body, there is likely to be discomfort, there may be pain, but this does not mean I have to suffer. Though suffering is not in itself ever a physical process, it is mentation based and emotionally charged. Suffering (in my experience) is a layer of perception that is superimposed onto experiential reality. At this point it seems mostly generated by the verb process of egoing and entirely secondary and self generated/imposed. Shakespeare addressed it adroitly in the scene between Hamlet, Rosencranz and Guildenstern when Hamlet says... "I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams."

It seems that my local awareness has been drawn into the spiritual aspect of reality by the innate spirituality of the physical nigh on as often as the spiritual has pierced the veil of the physical to draw me forth. Spirit and physical seem at this point as multiple facets of one gem, multiple expressions of one process, each reflecting the whole of the individual within which they manifest are an expression of... Not one system this one has explored has been entirely devoid of either the spirit nor the physical, they seemingly relfect one another or co- rise within this sphere of influence (not that this a claim to some all encompassing authority on my part, but a sharing of my experience regarding the topic).

Maybe seek this input from the one who taught you 8 brocades and not random folks on the interwebs...

While walking through the desert... would you rather have a backpack full of paper money? Or potable water and food? What is the intrinsic nature of value and worth? Conditional reality and perceptual apparatus seem essential in factoring any response.

Seems to me Awareness is the basis of all that is and is the basis for anything that encounters what is. Without awareness... what could there be for one to be aware of? Awareness is. We are aware. So awareness is here, now. Does it end? I sense not as it seems the basis for all that is, but if it did... how could you ever know?

I've yet to experience one aspect of the physical that is devoid of spirit.

Discovered the ability to overtone sing while chanting during an improvisation exercise back in the 90's while at University. It led to an exploration of the application of varying tones and polyphonic overtoning to mantra to some rather potent affect... Though I never contemplated the notion of overtoning in a room filled with suspended tuned tubes that resonate in response to the produced tones... utterly mesmerizing! I can imagine a team of trained monks chanting in the chamber and what that would produce as a response.

Rigid Academia and Religious threaded thinking are both comprised of and rely upon elements of heavy dogma that indoctrinate rather than elucidate. They claim unquestionable authority and demand a similar unquestioning loyalty at the risk of excommunication for the unfaithful who think critically about proposed concepts deemed sacrosanct or beyond doubt.

Welcome Dao of Rob! Refreshing opening post... thanks for sharing and glad you're here.

Hello Apotheose. Great user name and intriguing first post. Welcome to the Bums mate. For some time the 'Fall of Man' for me has been a metaphor of the descent of awareness into the denser vibrations of 'physical matter' down from the higher aetherial subtle planes, bringing awareness out of unity consciousness and into the experience of the duality of complementary opposites. Relating for me to the Hindu notions of discovery of one's true nature of expression through Neti Neti... 'not this not this' (here on the physical plane among the diverse 10,000 we may come to understand at greater depth what we are an expression of, by comparing it to what we come to realize we are not an expression of through the experience of diversity in form and function...) Social evolution certainly highlights this and seems to be in an expression of intense de-coalescence to me, (particularly the influence of the industrial/techno anti-agrarian/hunter path of the last several centuries in medicine and farming particularly). Endlessly fascinating to explore. Again, welcome to the Bums. Hope you enjoy your time here.