Prince...

I think the thread has been derailed, but I wanted to set something straight... I am a Christian. I am in Seminary working on becoming a minister (not a priest! I'm not Catholic!!) [i've been asked this a few times] I don't believe in Hell as in a place of eternal hellfire and damnation the way most Christians talk about it. I am not aware of the ancient Israelite religious practices/scriptures saying anything about Hell. I may see a Rabbi concerning the existence of Hell in the Hebrew Bible, but to my knowledge, as of now, it only mentions Sheol, a place where the dead reside. To me, with limited understanding of energy, this is like a place with no Yang energy present. If you share this with a Christian and you say,"this guy I know of that is becoming a minister says there is no hell," and they say "Jesus talks about Hell and the fire!" Jesus talks about Gehenna. This is where the Christian idea of Hell comes form. Gehenna is real. It was a big furnace where people would go to sacrifice their children to God. Why did people do this? Hell if I know...there are a lot of fucked up things that people will do believing they are pleasing God. It doesn't mean it was good and later the act was called an abomination before God so that the practice might stop. Unfortunately child sacrifice seems to run rampant throughout the Bible.

I just finished like 3 minutes ago...stood in Wuji (knuckle dragging posture) for almost 30 minutes. My timer was set for 25 minutes, but I was playing Yo-Yo Ma and I really liked the song that started when my timer went off. Feeling pretty good...did not get as warm as the other day, but I did a lot of shaking down in my hips... gonna ask Tao about that in my KAP review later today...

So 40 minutes seems to be the magic number? I'm not gonna say I do Yiquan exclusively, but I learned the Zhan Zhuang from Yiquan...I was taught 5 minutes/ posture= 40 minutes is better than hours of practicing my Tai Chi form...for the Qigong aspects of practicing the form. I like practicing my form because it looks cool, but in the future I hope to do it in a way that looks more like a martial art.

I have the color kunlun book. I will probably pick it up the next time I drop by my Grandma's house to pick up my winter stuff. I never did the practice, I just wanted to read the book. At that time sitting for an hour was out of the question...after KAP sitting for an hour is just a matter of if I want to wake up early or not take a nap after class before I start studying. I'm glad the Kunlun crowd is happy with their practice. I did not try Kunlun because I was really into something else and realized I had no clue how to do their practices without a guide. I'm pretty pleased to learn that KAP1 has most of the advanced practices from that other system that I probably would've had to fly around the world to learn from personal teacher after a few years of practicing the basic meditation.

My acupuncturist had a reiki attunement and got sick immediately after it. She said she had headaches, body pains, and nausea for about 2 weeks. She asked to be un-attuned and everything went away. She said she's never had an interest in reiki after that...hahaha...but she hands out business cards for a massage therapist who also does reiki. I said I hope that's not the same person that worked on you!

Good job, Mal! I did 20 minutes in my walk-in closet while listening to the Fearless soundtrack...been a year since I've really done any standing...did not take long for me to start shaking at all. I was feeling like a cold was coming on before I started...feel good now. Felt like I'd been in the weight room for some odd reason when I finished. I want to have another go before I do a sitting exercise and call it a night. If it makes a difference, I also did some stuff from KAP while standing. I'm gonna try my best to do at least 2 sessions of 20 minutes a day and increase the time as the shaking drops off.

Yeah...don't want to mess up your nervous system. My friend does Yiquan as a part of his Tai Chi and since he was teaching me Tai Chi before I moved-- I was doing Yiquan as part of my practice. Somebody here on TTB challenged me to do 40 minutes when I had worked my way up to 15 minutes from 8 (1 min/posture) last summer. I felt great after the first 2 days, but I started feeling weird in a way that I can't describe. I had some powerful sitting meditation sessions for a few days during that time. Hahaha...I stopped doing Yiquan after that. I'm trying to make myself resume it as I've realized my current Tai Chi school is not teaching any type of ZZ. I had a guy drill me a few weeks ago on correcting my form where I was always taught that you learn to make corrections by doing ZZ. I just smiled and nodded. We were told to stand for at least 30 minutes before we practice the form--but nobody went into detail about what they meant by "standing." I don't want to make it sound like the Yang Family does not teach ZZ, but I'm starting to wonder if it's one of those things they expect you to figure out on your own. Anyway, interesting thread this has turned into! I'm gonna push myself to start back doing ZZ and combine it with my KAP practice! 5 hours though? I can find 5 hours of my day to do ZZ, but not a 5 hour block of time... too much studying to do during the week!

I thought VJ gave a great answer to the question. I don't read many of his posts, but the ones I do read seem sincere. I mean he could be a complete dick and offend all the Buddhists and all of the Christians on the board by saying offensive things about their teachers, but he didn't.

Completely off topic, but I know I'm not the only person that thinks SereneBlue is a hotty. Santi, I'm confused about the PSD class. The site describes it as a KAP2 supplemental but the requirement is only that you've completed KAP1? Is this a typo? Also it's sweet that you guys are doing Saturday classes. I really want to do KAP2 and can only do it on a Saturday. Tao is doing KAP2 on Saturdays, but I dunno... I'm having difficulties with stuff from KAP1 still... and then at the same time, I can feel a lot of juice running in places that I couldn't feel at all last year... after my last acupuncture appointment yesterday I've been feeling a lot in my feet. Pachelbel's Cannon in D really gets things stirring in my feet. I'm having trouble getting it to go up my legs, though and I don't feel anything in my spine...chakras are hard...oh hell...this should be going in my journal and not on TB! Oh Santi...one day we're gonna have to take a trip into the Vatican's library...I hope there are no clairvoyant people on watch!

I don't know who the last Prophet Muhammad is. If you mean the last, as in the last of the prophets, well then that Muhammad (pbuh) [even though I am not a Muslim, I still show respect] was poisoned by a Jewish woman, I believe. She poisoned his meal. Between the rumors that Ishmael molested Isaac and a Jewish woman killing the Prophet,there are quite a few reasons why I believe there will never be large scale peace between Ishmael and Isaac's children. But that's another topic for another forum...

Well, you know...you don't tend to live long when people poison you at any age.

The scary part is that I actually understood almost all of that.

AHHH! Get it AWAY!! I was a nuke electrician in the Navy and we had to memorize that blasted wheel in A-School...I can't get my Chief out of my head saying,"Power is easy as PIE!" or my Electronic's Fundamentals teacher saying "Power is easy as PIV, know what I'm sayin'" Anyway, the sub EM's would get bored and discharged capacitors on themselves and then hold a fluorescent light bulb to their foreheads and see how long it would stay lit. I've never seen it done myself, but it always made me wonder about the possibilities of being able to store a charge and then discharge it later. I ended up getting sick and de-nuked. They sentenced me to the Battery & Lighting shop on my carrier. We never got bored enough to try that trick despite having the entire supply of fluorescent light bulbs in our storage space-- it was even my job to order them. We were at the back of the hangar bay in a high traffic area--whenever we got bored we just opened the door and looked at all the hot girls in the crew.

Well, I'm just happy I met you and Tao. I remember when I took up meditation in the Navy. I couldn't sit more than 5 minutes on the ship without getting distracted or just flat out falling asleep. I remember when 20 minutes in the barracks was an acomplishment. After taking KAP I actually have no idea how long I can sit...an hour has felt like nothing and even though my physical body was saying "we're gonna be late for class!" I still felt like I could sit longer... I never thought I'd reach the point where I could enjoy meditation...on top of all that, I can do review sessions with Tao and Santi and even though they have had a lot of students, they always know exactly who I am (and not cause I'm the one telling fart jokes) but yeah...KAP SUCKS!

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Dr. Morris was living in Louisiana and passed sometime after Hurricane Katrina. To my knowledge, Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst natural disasters to ever hit the United States. 4 years later some of the neighborhoods in the 9th ward still have not been rebuilt. Santi mentions somewhere that Doc was doing a lot of work for displaced people around that time. I think you should take a look at a documentary "When the Levees Broke" to get a better understanding of the type of suffering Doc saw before he passed. It has been 4 years and we still have dislocated refugees in other states with no family and no place to go. Trust me, after you see the film, you won't need to have gone through a K-Awakening or become an enlightened being to know that the government's response was really fucked up and a lot of innocent people died because the Bush Administration preferred to drops bombs over Baghdad than help poor people.

taken from The Jewish Study Bible, Tanakh Translation, Numbers 21:1-9 verse 6. Seraph serpents, based on the verb means "burning serpents" because of their poisonous bite. verse 9. A copper serpent more likely refers to one made of bronze, a copper-tin alloy. Heb "nehoshet" (copper) resembles the word for snake,"nahash." Rabbinic interpreters were disturbed by the nature of this cure, and suggested that it was the glance of the afflicted to their father in heaven, rather than the snake which effected the cure (b. Rosh Hash. 29a, cited in Rashi). taken from The Jewish Study Bible, Tanakh Translation, 2 Kings 18:1-4 verse 4. Elimination of the open shrines concentrated worship in Jerusalem. The author describes Nehushtan, a form of the word for serpent, as an ancient relic associated with the miraculous healings in the wilderness (Num. 21: 8-9) held sacred by Israelites. Noting that the Heb actually says "he called it" (and not it was called), Rashi suggests that Hezekiah, the active subject of the sentence, labeled it "bronze serpent thing," "nehushtan" in Hebrew, as a pejorative.

taken from The New Oxford Annotated Bible, NRSV with the Apocrypha, John 3:11-14

There are different kinds of theologies and theological approaches. I don't play the "my faith is better than yours" game. I'm more concerned with "do you have spiritual life?" "is it working for you?" "is it making you a better person?" As to whose job it is? Well, it really should not be the preachers or any preacher for that matter. You want to know how the clergy can best prove anything? Take care of the widow and the orphan, stand up for the people that don't have a voice--you know the things that Jesus (and the Hebrew Bible) says to do.

I can't speak for the Quran because it's been awhile since I've read one and have no knowledge of arabic, but I can say that in the Hebrew Bible when it says to fear God-- the hebrew word used can also mean respect. Instead of the beginning of wisdom starting with fearing God::The respect for God is the start of all wisdom. If we are all created in God's image or if God has endowed us with the breath of life from God then why should we fear what is a part of us? We should respect the God aspect in us by knowing who we are as a small part of the Whole. I wonder if Muslims, Christians, and Jews can agree on that single point? And if not...how about Esoteric Christians, Sufis, and Cabbalists? I think I'll stop now...I'm starting to sound like I've been reading the Gospel of Thomas too much!

My last Taiji teacher taught me the postures. My new teacher says we should stand for 30 minutes before practice, but does not say much other than "stand." I am new to the class and he's not sure how much "knowledge" I have about Tai Chi since I'm still a beginner. I knew up to the middle of section 3 in Yang Family 108, but now I am part of the official Yang Family school and everything is different from what I learned. I'm not sure what that had to do with anything...hahaha...anyway, I know the Yiquan postures. I will see if I can find them...I used to have a cheat sheet online but my PC crashed last summer and I lost it. If I can't find and link it, maybe I will just take pictures of myself holding them (I would prefer not to do that because they may not be completely correct) Jackpot!

Interesting topic and interesting answers. I was once in your same position, Fox. The funny thing is, at least once a week I find myself in that same position! I gave a hard look at becoming a Buddhist. I had the opportunity to study under a Taoist priest. One of his students introduced me to Qigong and had me read "The Magus of Java." When I couldn't stop talking about John Chang, he said,"my teacher is gonna say if you want to know about John Chang that you should go study with him." Well, through everything, I could not give up "my Jesus." I decided that maybe I should further explore my faith as a Christian. When I say faith, I do not mean proper beliefs in doctrines and dogmas. I mean a real connection to God, the Source or whatever you want to call it. The same way a Taoist aims to be in accord with the Tao, the Christian's goal should be to be in accord with the will of God. We don't reach that process by sitting in pews on Sunday mornings! You know, when I first read the title for the topic,"A God Crisis," I thought of an anecdote I read a few weeks ago. A campus minister asked a student when they were going to stop by the chapel and pay him a visit. The college student says,"well, I don't really believe in God." The chaplain smiles and says,"really, and which God is that because I might not believe in that one either!" There really is a lot of bullshit to Christian practice as it stands today. Instead of just doing away with it all, have you considered stripping away the unnecessary things? I really feel that I can type pages and pages on this topic, but I will give someone else a chance to speak and spare everyone eyes. If it matters to anyone, I am in the first year of a 3-year ordination process for my church, Presbyterian Church (USA) and a 1st year Seminary student. I have had a hard time finding two people with the same views when it comes to God and spiritual practice. Do I sometimes get frustrated or feel like I am the only one? Yes...but no matter what tradition you pick up, you WILL experience the same thing at some point-- that's why it is our own personal spiritual walk.