Aeran

I tend to do my quiet sitting practice first thing in the morning, just after getting out of bed, and I find it seems to give a strong "second wind" type effect to the energy built up from the previous day's practice. Just doing basic quiet sitting, calming the mind, relaxing the body and regulating the breath, seems to enhance and prolong the circulation of the FP Qi from whichever practices I was working on the day before. I can't say with absolute certainty that FP has enhanced the effects of my quiet sitting, since I took a break from both practices for so long up until this year (although I suspect that it has - certainly my quiet sitting practice has progressed further than before), but the quiet sitting certainly seems to enhance the FP practice and extend it's effects, as well as those of any other Qigong I did the day before. On a side note, I'm curious if anyone else has practiced MSW1 before sleep and noticed any effect on their dreaming? I've been finding that it induces a very strange state of consciousness when I sleep directly after the practice - not quite lucid dreaming, which would entail awareness off and control over the events of the dream, but more like an "observer effect," where a part of my mind is sitting back from the dream and observing it as you would a movie, while otherwise just sitting and thinking about regular things. It's quite surreal, but not unpleasant. Definitely makes me wonder about the potential for deeper states of consciousness with continued practice of the MSW meditations.

Thanks Sifu (and Earl!), good to know I've got it down properly going forward. Insomnia has been a bit of a long term issue for me, so I'm hoping daily practice of MSW3 & MSW4 in the morning and evening respectively will help me make some progress on that front. And thanks for the tip on raising the hands up to the brow center - just out of curiosity I think I'll spend another week or so doing it the way you practice it on the DVD to make sure I've got a feel for the meditation, then integrate this extra movement, it should be a cool experiment to see if I can spot the difference between the two. I'll report back in the thread and let you guys know the results. Cheers

Quick question about the Sleeper meditation ( MSW4: 50 - 20 - 10), are you supposed to put the hands on the knees at the end of each round and then bring them back up for the next one, or do you go straight from one round to the next from the Sky Meditation/"prayer hands" posture and then only rest the palms on the knees when ending the meditation?

No idea if it's been recommended or not, but https://www.amazon.com.au/d/Daoist-Nei-Gong-Women-Lotus-ebook/B01CO8FCGW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1506128133&sr=8-2&keywords=damo+mitchell

I was thinking about this the other day - if someone totally unfamiliar with Chinese religion and deities, let's say, for example, a devout European Christian, were to practice the FP meditations regularly, I wonder if they would find themselves connecting to Mary, or possibly Christ in his compassionate aspect? Or would they find themselves connecting to deities they've never seen or heard of before? Outside of historical questions of the source of the meditations, I wonder how much of these deity associations are set in stone, and how much is us projecting our personal archetypal personifications onto certain energies? Of course at the end of the day, what matters is that the meditations work, and I don't think anyone who's tried them would debate that But it's interesting to think about. Speaking of which, I've been finding the last week or so that the meditations have been making me very tired after practising. My theory is that this is the FP Qi boosting the body's natural healing systems, since I'm still recovering from a nasty and prolonged bout of the flu, but on some days it becomes an issue, because I can't always afford to take a nap right after doing my morning session, so I decided to take a crack at MSW3 (the waker-upper). And, well, it's definitely living up to it's reputation... I only did 4 rounds, as I always do when trying a meditation for the first time, and instead of feeling tired, I've got a nice boost to my energy levels. Followed by a 20 minute MHPearl and a quick 8 Sections Combined from the 5th DVD. Perfect way to start the day, beats coffee or nasty energy drinks by a long shot Also an interesting testament to the reproducible nature of the effects from the FP meditations.

Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines on top of The Primal Scream on top of The Secret History of the Mongols and on the floor next to my nightstand are: Fool's Quest (novel by Robin Hobb) and the Penguin copy of Paradise Lost

For what it's worth, when I was practicing MGAM a couple months back, the swirling color that would flash into my field of vision was as much purple as it was blue, with streaks of white/grey through it as well. Which actually surprised me quite a bit, I wasn't expecting the color at all, and I definitely wasn't expecting such a rich and vivid spectrum (very similar to the coloring of the phoenix image which was posted earlier, actually, but without the yellow and green). But the actual qi which moves through the body definitely 'feels' blue, to the mind's eye (perhaps edged with white sometimes?), although I've yet to actually physically see the blue glow the way others have described. As for direction, I always practice facing west, simply because my computer monitor is in that direction, so that's how I'm oriented when working off the dvds. As a side note, I had the most incredible session of Bending the Bows the other day. It surprised me, because I'm out of practice with BTB and my physical form was far from perfect, or even from what I've done on a good day, but maybe something just clicked on a mental or energetic level. By the time I was a few rotations in It felt like I was standing in a pyramid of swirling blue fire, edged with white (the white for some reason felt like a somewhat distinct energy, "layered" on top of the FP Qi, if that makes sense, I'm not sure what exactly, or where it came from, going to have to think about that), just washing over my body as I went through the movements. As the meditation moved on, I could feel the energy go to work on my right shoulder and arm in particular (where I have quite a bit of tension atm I'm trying to work out), to the point where it felt like those parts of my body - my right shoulder blade down the bottom of my arm to the pinkie/ring finger - were actually merging into the "fire," and my physical sense of them faded almost entirely. I topped it off with a nice MHPearl session, and afterwards I was so buzzed with energy that I couldn't get to sleep for hours (something I'm increasingly noticing with BTB and MSW1, although it's not necessarily a bad thing, if I practice earlier in the day it gives me a lot more energy to get things done).

Ditto - I wonder what the chance of a global workshop tour down the road is... Edit: That bridge is incredible It looks like something out of a Star Wars movie... I'm usually down on a lot of modern architecture, but that's a genuine work of art. Damn.

The conclusion I've reached over the last few years is that the best way to avoid these apparent contradictions from different texts is to seek out a live teacher who can do what you want to be able to do and has achieved what you want to achieve, and have them teach you the way they achieved it.

I would highly recommend starting with volumes 1 & 2 combined - the standing and seated meditations seem to supplement each other powerfully, my experience is that you'll get a much stronger effect doing both than restricting yourself to just the seated (or just the standing) meditations, and I believe that Sifu Terry has stated the same in the past (also, as Earl said, it's a great idea to read at least the first chunk of this thread, since there's a ton of really good information about the FP system there, as well as a lot of great information about qigong/kungfu/meditation in general). Good luck!

At least they've abandoned the claim that it's scientific. That's progress.

Awesome flyer - I admit I'm a bit jealous of anyone who has a chance to attend

I would highly recommend contacting Eric Isen http://www.ayurvedicintuitive.com/ I was admittedly a tad skeptical of the concept of long distance diagnosis and healing before I started working with him, but like you I was dealing with side effects from meditation practice which were causing huge problems with my life (and making meditation and qigong impossible), so I gave it a crack and under his guidance and treatment I've improved enormously And for what it's worth, Eric works within the Ayurvedic model, so I imagine that he's dealt with issues from improper Kundalini practice before. Good luck!

Welcome Like you, I was deeply skeptical and completely averse to all things spiritual for the first chunk of my adult life, only to undergo a fairly rapid shift in perspective which I still don't entirely understand. But 5 years later, here I am... This forum is a great place for discussion about almost any spiritual/metaphysical topic, and one of the few (well, the only, if I'm honest) active and mature communities I've found which is comprised primarily of genuinely dedicated seekers and practitioners.

So I had a really interesting experience with MHPearl just then, I thought I'd put it out there and see if any of you guys have had anything similar. As some background, I've been focusing on MHPearl somewhat heavily the last few months, it's one of my favorite of the standing meds. For tonights session I started out with 40 minutes or so of Tai Chi, then decided to wrap up with a quick 15m MHPearl, since I've had a massive day and want to get some sleep. The session started off strong, with a warm giddy feeling moving up from the belly within a few moments of finishing the breath sequence, and as usual it had a powerful effect on my posture - almost as if the dantien is some kind of clockwork gear which is being wound up to swirl the FP Qi out across the body and work it into out into a more perfect position. I got very relaxed and happy very quickly, and a few minutes in started getting some mild spontaneous movement in my right thigh, a kind of spiraling sensation around the bone - this didn't seem unusual, since I've been doing a lot of work to open up the hips and thighs lately. But maybe a minute or two later, I started getting a kind of "solid" feeling in my stomach. Not uncomfortable exactly, and I wasn't sure it was part of the FPCK, since my gut was a little sore going in (I made the mistake of grabbing a few cookies as a snack earlier in the afternoon :/ ). But then I started getting a clockwise twitching motion in the lower abdomen, centered around the dantien, as if my body was trying to swirl or rotate around it. After a few of these movements I decided to relax back into the posture and see if they subsided, but instead they became stronger, and changed direction - now my lower abdomen was pushing up and forwards, then circling down, as if it was trying to swirl around my dantien in an upward and forward motion. It wasn't especially uncomfortable, but I decided to see what happened if I just relaxed my body and cleared my mind, which sometimes allows spontaneous movements to abate. They did for a few moments, but then kicked back in at the same strength. I repeated this every few minutes for the rest of the meditation, and each time the movement would kick back in. Finally I settled down to end the meditation, and as I was breathing out the movement reverted to the sidewise-clockwise pattern, then stopped as I ended the session. Anyway, I'd be keen to hear if anyone has experienced this or anything like it. Never a dull moment with Flying Phoenix... just when I think I've settled into a routine, something new and interesting pops up. .Quick update: There seem to be even more residual effects than usual - my brain feels like it's buzzing and the usual post-FP visual effects are more intense than usual. Update Secundus: I was pretty tired when I made this post last night and don't think I articulated the sensation very well. Also had an interesting experience this morning doing my usual quiet sitting session after waking up. Instead of typing it out I'll just copy what I wrote in a skype convo with Earl: hey man sorry crashed out pretty early last night yeah I've made spontaneous movement before, but this felt different very different, which is why the post was so long, I was trying to find a good way to explain it this felt more like the body was trying to move itself around the dantien or like the dantien itself was trying to move within the body and causing the area around it to twitch and swirl in response when the forward-upward movements got at their most intense, it was almost like the dantien was trying to bounce up and down in the body, like a tennis ball definitely a lot of tension release been going on lately though oh and I had a really interesting experience this morning during my morning quiet sitting session, I started getting a similar swirling feeling, but this time on the outside I'm pretty sure it was the girdling meridian felt almost exactly like swirling a hoola hoop around the wait *waist (Except now that I've double checked the charts, the Girdling Meridian apparently ducks downward in the front of the abdomen, whereas the sensation I had this morning was horizontal - like a small point of movement circling clockwise around my waist at about once a second).

Chills down the spine, every time. What a soundtrack that movie had. Not music, but just because I'm in the mood now If this scene doesn't give you goosebumps, you might be an android: And now I'm on a roll: "Ah, the days of our kind are numbered, the one God comes to drive out the many gods, the spirits of wood and stream grow silent..."

I'm sorry Gendao, but I'm not going to play these games with you any more. This conversation is over. Best wishes and goodbye.

You're kidding right? The MorePie crew won't even back up their claims in a debate or engage in basic dialogue - the only thing they're challenging is the patience of the mods and the ability of DB members to resist obvious baiting. Maybe it would be a parallel if Bruce Lee had sat outside these other master's schools, holding up a sign saying "WING CHUN IS THE BEST " and screaming about how every other Kung Fu system was fraudulent, but then refusing to even discuss the specifics of Wing Chun, let alone demonstrate the style. Then after being told to piss off repeatedly for being rude and distracting and providing absolutely no genuine discussion or new evidence about anything, the police had finally come along and dragged him away for disturbing the peace, at which point he'd wait a few weeks or months, then send a friend holding the same sign to scream the same slogans outside the same schools, while saying even less about Wing Chun. I mean come on, can you imagine ILoveCoffee's "sorry, we'll have to agree to disagree, I'm not playing this game with you anymore, best wishes and goodbye, sorry, we'll have to agree to disagree, I'm not playing this game with you anymore, best wishes and goodbye, sorry, we'll have to agree to disagree, I'm not playing this game with you anymore, best wishes and goodbye, sorry, we'll have to agree to disagree, I'm not playing this game with you anymore, best wishes and goodbye,sorry, we'll have to agree to disagree, I'm not playing this game with you anymore, best wishes and goodbye..." act being pulled by someone in real life? Jesus.

That's a fair point, but in this case we're talking specifically about a master who died fairly young (in his 50's, as I recall), only a few years after his own teacher, and so there are decades of lost teaching time there (from memory, Popa's book said that Dr. Wu had only trained under Jiang for 10 years or so). Anyway I'm not trying to rip on the system or the teachers, I just think it's something that should be put out there since people going to the clinic to train in that lineage often end up making very steep financial investments to gain access to the teachings. This is based off conversations I had with students of the lineage some years ago, as well as reading Popa's book - If anyone more familiar with the situation is able to clarify the details, please feel welcome. And either way, it's definitely a more fruitful path than setting out for Indonesia to hunt down and harass poor John Chang.

This is true, but his clinic still operates under the leadership of his successor, Dr. Wu. How much of the system's training is still available remains open to speculation however, since Master Jiang's own teacher passed away without transmitting the entirety of his knowledge to Jiang, and Jiang died unexpectedly and relatively young, so it can be assumed that even more knowledge was lost in that tragedy. But at least the early stages (up to an including the developing of the "electric Qi") are still taught and practiced at the clinic - although many students end up spending low 5 figure sums in herbal treatments before they are deemed ready to even begin the training (I've been told as much as $20 000 USD by sources who have travelled to the clinic and undertaken the process). http://apricotforesthospital.com Aurelian Popa still has his website at http://masterjiang.com/ and still organizes trips for westerners to China, although neither website has been updated to reflect the fact of Jiang Feng's passing.

Podcasts. One of the major barriers I initially experienced to establishing a regular practice was how stiff and inflexible I was, so I established a stretching routine, which gradually grew until it got to the point where it can exceed an hour a day if I go all out. The flip side is that, no matter how meditative I try and make it, stretching is an incredibly dull experience. Thus - podcasts. I can expand my mental and philosophical horizons or listen to engaging and hilarious conversations and limber up my body at the same time. I tried movies for a while, and they work in a pinch, but it's frustrating to try and stretch while keeping your eyes on the screen. Podcasts are the perfect tool for keeping the mind engaged while working on the body.

Thanks for posting that video on Arrival - I loved the movie when I watched it but I was mostly enjoying it as a good, thought-provoking scifi and didn't go too deep into some of the philosophical ramifications, especially from a Daoist perspective. Two things in particular struck me when I watched the explanation video - the first was their discussion of death, and how the sacrifice of the alien's life was all the greater because the alien has a longer life span and a non-linear perception of time. But I feel this raises the question of how an entity with a non-linear conception of time can truly die? It seems to me that death is a point reached in a line, by common definition at least. Wouldn't a completely non-linear perception of time be a form of immortality (although a limited one, since your awareness would still be constricted to your span along time)? And would you relate this possibility to the conception of immortality in Daoist philosophy? (I have read multiple sources which claim that the further one deepens one's consciousness, the more it expands out not only into the spiritual dimension but the temporal dimension - perhaps this could be interpreted as a lesser manifestation of the phenomena you describe, and which are integral to the movie). The second was maybe somewhat minor, but I found it interesting anyway I saw the depiction of the Alien's script, and immediately it brought to mind the Taiji spiral symbol on the cover of the DDJ I have next to my keyboard. Coincidence?