Kajenx

So I'm curious if anyone has tried just doing their own thing for qi gong and had good results? Is there a good reason to follow established teachings and methods, or am I getting the same thing just by winging it? EDIT: Not to be disrespectful of any formal trainings. I'm just a "wing it" knda guy, haha...

Actually, my impetus is that I'd like to stop thinking of what I'm doing as mental development with a path and a goal. I'm dropping the whole concept of goals and paths and development and anything to attain or master. I'm not trying to get through the forest, or even to enjoy a walk in the forest, I've just started wandering aimlessly in the forest and I kind of like it that way. To me, the path has become a steady move away from "moving forward." So, if I stop completely and go nowhere, that isn't a big deal. I'm not too worried if I don't learn anything or develop anything. This mindset is actually what has gotten me interested in qi gong. It seems like something happens to the senses and the physical feelings when I drop everything. It's all just very open and nice, and stretching, specifically, is just great. Or even just standing there, that can be very nice too. It feels like my feet are very solid on the ground and my legs are like tree trunks.

I suppose I should say my main reasons for thinking about this. I haven't done any kind of body-based meditation or energy work type thing, but I have spent a lot of time over the last two years doing meditation and working towards a "goal of enlightenment." Something that's kind of been dawning on me is that the very idea of a goal, progress, or even "insights" or epiphanies has been a major problem for me. I've been immersed in a buddist context focused on attainments, and I realized one of my core problems (pride, conceit, arrogance) has taken over practice and turned it into something to accomplish. I've seen a lot of change in myself, but it's all been very intuitive and really has nothing to do with formal attainments or anything I can put my finger on solidly. So, I'd like to let go of all this striving and move into a totally unscripted and goal-less type of practice. Make it more into an art than a science, if that makes sense - play rather than work. The other day I was just kind of stretching and moving around after reading for a while and I noticed a lot of the same feelings that show up during a good meditation were appearing. I could feel things moving around, and the various areas of pressure I was feeling just kind of relaxed and spead out into a big "body-field." I felt very solid and grounded and loose, and when I sat back down later, it was like everything had become completely relaxed. This has happend with meditation before, but it was nice that it happened when I wasn't sitting, and I would just like to experience it on a regular basis, even if it doesn't end up anywhere.

I haven't been on here for a long time, and this is the first post I get to read when I come back, haha. Good morning (well, evening now) to you. Here's hoping you get bonked again. Thanks for the read.

There is something tangible about the world. It's like this perfect thing sitting right in front of me all the time that I'm missing. Just by looking at it, I go still and lose all my problems. Anyone know what I'm talking about here, or am I just high on concentration?

High on something, for sure. It's interesting, though. There's an actual, tangible object floating out there. It's like "nowness" is a thing that you can merge with. I can get little flashes of it if I look carefully, so I've been practicing holding my attention still for a little while. It becomes very easy to step into it and just stay there after that. Everything seems more real, and I'm suddenly not rushed for time.

Hah! This thread is classic TTB. XD

Spontaneity

The rocky path sings rumbling melodies beneath the feet, and the wind whispers sweetly in the ear. The mosquitoes bite the arms with greedy abandon, and the golden sun burns with ruthless rays. Nature is not just frameable pictures, which is why I'm glad nature made me as a god among animals. Here I sit, in the air conditioned house, in the corpses of a fallen forest - in nature - aligning pixels on a screen to communicate telepathically with lightning in a bottle and vibrations through the very depths of matter. Here I sit - in nature - unnaturally. Nature kills too many bunnies. Trees are pretty, though.

Do you have goals with your practice? If yes, what are they? If no, why are you practicing? I'm really curious after the "Mastering the Emotions" thread because I got the impression that emotions weren't all that important to a lot of you guys. I'm pretty single minded these days. I don't have much interest in truth or immortality or the various forms of magic. I'm even pretty selfish in that I don't really worry about the fate of humanity anymore. I mean, I really did think about these things quite a lot in the past, but somewhere along the way I started dropping things off. Maybe I found the answers I was looking for? Hard to say. Now I'm basically down to, "I want to be perfectly content. Always. No exceptions."

I put energy in scare quotes because I'd like to use the term loosely. Maybe I'm wrong and will offend a bunch of people, but chi, kundalini, jhanic piti, and new age "energy" all seem to be talking about the same manifestations. If you don't think so, maybe pointing out the difference would be helpful - I may be woefully ignorant here. I'm actually really interested in how this fits into cultivation, though. I've seen a lot of tingling energetic feelings and strange heat/pressure phenomena over the course of the last few months. I know some people aim for this directly for various reasons, but I'd like to know how people see it supporting their quest for mental development. Maybe you even see it as the same thing? I haven't tried to develop the energy sensations directly, and tend to see them more as an unexpected side effect. My thinking has been that perhaps meditation is a kind of complete nervous system development, and as the mind works through various states, different nerve centers in the body are activated or changed. I've always been very focused on how and why my emotions manifest, and I've noticed the dan-tiens seem to be plotted out to the major emotional centers. When I was doing a lot of concentration meditation, I also noticed a lot of sensations at the chakra points that could be called blockages or pressures. I'm pretty materialistic/scientific in my thinking, but there's obviously something happening in these areas. I'm just not quite sure they correspond how a lot of the literature says. (I sometimes get a tight feeling in the throat, but I couldn't identify any communication problems - that seems more like a superficial correlation.) I also had an "arrow through the head" type feeling a number of times when big changes were happening. It was just like this diagram, haha: http://www.ichikung.com/assets/images/IHC_UpperDT.jpg So, wherever this thread goes is fine. I'm just generally interested in the subject because it seems like it's becoming increasingly more relevant for me personally.

Person A was the sage in your original post, so I'm going to rewrite you account a bit and insert my view of the sage. ^^ I'm not saying this is correct, just where my opinions sit at the moment. On the first point, the sage (person A) wouldn't feel any need for help. If person B does help and makes a big deal, person A has no resentment or need for validation, so they would offer encouragement and praise. If you want to see the situation like a sage, imagine for a moment that person A is a grandmother, and person B is her 6 year old granddaughter. Does that change anything? The sage is always content, and being content makes them kind. There is no need for morality or thoughts of right and wrong. When a person finds fulfillment simply in existing, kindness is automatic and easy. Every moment is its own validation. Your third point differs from my view of the sage in that the sage is not an emotional creature. That's not to say that someone in the process of becoming a sage isn't. But once they have become a sage, the situation would not cause them to judge person B by comparing person B to themself. Person A isn't just happier, they are perfectly content. Person A wouldn't have any trace of resentment.

"A life lacking in purpose" is another way of saying "a life with no desires". Purpose drives us towards greater contentment. A person who is always content has no need for purpose or desires or hobbies or even friends. A person like this happens to be the easiest person to be friends with, though, because they will never resent your presence in their life, and they won't cling if you decide to leave. They are more likely to live what people might call "a life of purpose" because there is nothing they would consider a failure. The "not making any decisions" part is what wu wei is referring to. I think the sage acts out of the intuitive curiosity that is present when something is seen as new. Everything is always seen as new, so everything is interesting. It's not interesting because of where it will lead, it's interesting because of what's hapening right now. This is my opinion, of course, but I see the mystical process as a gradual degradation of the link between the emotional center and the mental "shorhand" we've developed over time to create our judgements and opinions. When this link is gone, the mind doesn't "feel" opinions, it simply knows they exist. When opinions aren't felt, most of them are seen for what they are - useless. The sage will still run away from a rabid dog, and they'll still feed themself and maybe even have a hobby. But if their house burns down and destroys their life's work, it wouldn't affect them emotionally. To be a sage is to be content.

Does "the veil dropped" sound accurate?

Haha, am I? I was actually trying to be careful with my post.

Interesting! I didn't know Confucianism was mystical in any way. I thought it was basically a moral/ethical system. I'll have to read this. :3 EDIT: Ah, I see that you mentioned this in your first post. I'll take a look anyway, haha.

The one with the horse is best.

Holy ^%$# that's a lot of separate forums... Why not just have ONE forum, and add more as they're needed? As for names...uh...I guess I don't know. I just wanted to point out how many forums you had because that will probably stop people from posting.

Maybe I'm alone in thinking this, but I feel like feminism has lost its relevance in western countries. If we consider some of the main issues, like political equality, equality of financial opportunity, sexual liberation, etc, I think it has largely succeeded. There is still an earnings gap, but there's debate about whether this is due to a lack of equal opportunity or whether it's due to job preference and lifestyle choice. Closing the last 30% may be a long game related to deeper cultural change. Anyway, a lot of the feminist issues I see brought up today, like that video zanshin posted, are related to stereotypes and body image issues, and the simple truth is that these apply equally to men and women. For example, if I were to say "you have manners like a guy", "you smell like a guy", or "you drive like a man", those all sound like insults as well - insurance companies even put money on that last one. Maybe go into an Abercrombie and Fitch store and tell me young men aren't going to get body image issues from that. Men and women are different, both physically and mentally, and the cultures that they form together usually involve hierarchy and insults. If you're trying to change this, why call it feminism at all? That just alienates men when talking about issues that affect them the same way.

I'd deny the whole thing was happening and die unexpectedly anyway. But since your post is more about advice, I'd say: Learn to concentrate, then accept everything.

Silent Thunder is being a bit dramatic, methinks. I Live in MN and I've never heard of mayflies needing to be plowed off the road, LOL. I remember the lovely "tornadoes" they made by Mille Lacs, though, driving up to the lake... We went to dairy queen around the 4th of July once and the walls were covered. I don't know how they were keeping them out of the food. I'm just assuming they weren't... The fireflies are intense up north. It's like Avatar, no kidding.

Hey guys, I started writing this as a response to the "living in the present" thread, and I realized it'd probably be better to put it in a new thread. It's essentially a summary of what I've learned in the last few months. I hope you guys find it interesting/useful. Feel free to disagree as well! *** The mind has two ways of perceiving. One is with awareness facing outward, and the other is with awareness facing inward. The inner world is made of thoughts and emotions, and the outer world is made of the senses. Most of the time these two are intermingled, usually with the inner world being dominant. This dominance is often total when doing mundane tasks as the brain automatically performs movements - like driving familiar roads or washing the dishes. The inner world can be both positive and negative, being the domain of emotions. Reading is (usually) a positive way of completely activating the inner world, and getting lost in an anxiety attack is a negative way. If a person wants to have complete control of their emotional life, they must switch brain dominance to the "outer world" of the senses. This outer world is, by definition, completely without emotions or self-referential thoughts – but don’t be fooled by this description, the lack of emotional feelings is, itself, a feeling of space and relief. The emotions we experience are nothing more than perceived physical contraction in specific areas of the body – like the heart, the throat, the head, and the stomach. When all emotions are removed by completely inhabiting the senses, these areas are, essentially, ignored, which eliminates all inner tension in the body. Both positive and negative emotions are contractions, so the feeling of relief from these contractions can only be described as “perfect.” Perfection meaning whatever is perceived is “beyond judgment” because those judgments simply aren’t capable of arising in the mind. Experientially, this is the same “feeling” that one gets when, after a sudden anxiety, there is relief. For example, if you were to realize that you had a large homework assignment or work project due tomorrow that you hadn’t started on, you might get a sudden attack of anxiety. After this, you check your calendar and realize it’s actually due the next week. The feeling of relief that happens here is the sudden release of the contracted heart center. This feeling of space is predominant when living completely in the senses. Emotionlessness has been an important cue, in my experience. I know I'm no longer "in the present" if I feel a certain way about what I'm seeing. Therefore, a good way to live in the present is to watch yourself for both positive and negative judgments and emotions. You'll realize quickly that those judgments and opinions create a veil over the world of the senses. The best way to remove this veil is to simply accept the feeling exactly as it is, then move your attention back to the senses. There is no need to try to change or remove those judgments and opinions, because they just don't exist in the outer world. All that's left is a spacious freedom. I think this is why the "now" is often so important for contemplative traditions, it's the easiest way to completely switch off emotional processing and see the world through pure consciousness without judgments. Becoming completely embedded in the senses can be a long or short process depending on the amount of dedication you have to it, and it is necessary to remove beliefs that hinder acceptance of emotions as they are. For example, if you believe that it’s necessary for you to be angry at someone for insulting your intelligence or cutting you off in traffic, then you will not be able to accept and move out of any feelings that arise in these situations. This necessitates a “vow” of sorts that you won’t settle for moving out of the senses for any reason, and you’re willing to give up control over the minds and opinions of other people. This “ego” is a set of defense mechanisms meant to ensure social position in a hierarchical non-verbal society. If we were apes who couldn’t talk, it would be important to show displays of anger or resentment to get our point across or to ensure that we have enough food for survival. This isn’t a necessary part of the mind these days, though, and removing it is nothing but a relief. Most of it has been programmed into us by watching the people we perceive to be in a better position in the social hierarchy – adults when we’re younger, and the rich/famous/strong/attractive when we’re older. However, because we generally spend most of our lives absorbed into the ego, it’s often difficult to give it all up at once. This makes the process move sporadically. As you become more attached to the non-emotional world of the senses, the ego begins to seem parasitic as it draws you out of freedom to deal with things that no longer seem important. Luckily, as long as there is nothing hindering your acceptance of the cause of whatever emotional state you’re in (good, bad, or neutral), you can begin to simply appreciate the senses and move out of that emotional world completely. The only time it’s worth looking closely at the ego is when it’s holding you hostage. Finally, it takes a great deal of persistence in the beginning, and some kind of concentration practice is probably necessary. A solid foundation in meditative absorption will make things much easier, though I can’t say for certain if it’s required. It has been my biggest teacher, so I feel like I should mention it.

Maybe the difference between our viewpoints is that I'm seeing the sage as a perfected or ideal person. Someone who has reached the end of their philosophy doesn't need to cultivate anything. Just like a gardener, once the flowers are grown, no longer needs to plant or water anything. Nature does the rest of the work, and they can just kick back in the garden and enjoy the colors and sents. The way I see cultivation is that it is a process of elimination. Eventually, once everything is dumped, there is nothing left to eliminate. Since you see the sage as having a mind full of philosophical principals, I'm assuming you see cultivation as an additive process? In that case, something can always be added, and the sage is a continuously developing creature.

I wonder if a lot of us aren't forced into some kind of action regarding mental development. I used to have terrible anxiety problems which made me to keep working until they were resolved. It wasn't something I could keep living with.

I think this is a misunderstanding of acceptance and what it brings. The sage has used acceptance and simplicity to return their mind to a place where these kinds of problems simply don't arise. Person A - being a sage like you said - would never feel exploited in the first place. The mind of the sage is indifferent to the content of the moment they're living in. If person B began abusing person A physically, person A would likely wander away out of pragmatic interest for their physical wellbeing, but other than that I can't imagine there being any real conflict. The sage is like an idiot. Their mind is empty, so doing houswork all day wouldn't be any different from reading or watching TV or doing some kind of leisure activity, or even doing nothing at all. This is the main problem with trying to use mystical philosophy as a guide for everyday living. You can't really do it halfway. It might work if you don't overthink it too much - but this question you posed is a very detailed situation looking for a specific morality based kind of answer. That's not really the point of the TTC and other mystical texts IMHO. You need to believe in the concept of the sage, or buddha, or saint, etc, and give yourself up completely for the teachings and poetry to make any sense. Someone training to become a sage would welcome this kind of conflict because these situations are the forge of life. These challenges, when faced with equanimity, do a great deal of damage to the ego. It's the perfect opportunity. In my experience, acceptance is referring to emotional states, as well. So a sage doesn't have to accept living in an unhealthy environment when it's easy enough to move away - but doing so wouldn't cause them any mental distress if they were forced against their will (like if put in a prison or enslaved). This may be why mystical religions thrive in unstable places.