Sebastian

Hey Dao Bums - One of my friends currently studying in Taiwan at NTU is currently 1/3rd through translating Professor Ge Guolong's (戈國龍) 2010 book, "Ten Discourses on Daoist Alchemy". It's a an enlightening commentary on alchemy texts written by a professor of religion at the China Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. It's a major undertaking for my friend because the book is over 140,000 Chinese characters long. He has the backing of Red Pine, who most people on DaoBums will know, being the author of the best selling translation of the Tao Te Ching in English. Because this would take months of dedicated work, most likely in seclusion, he recently set up a Gofundme page in case anybody was interested in backing the project, and enjoying early access perks, things like that. Personally, I'm very excited about it because the book is a bridge between philosophy and practice. From the samples I was shown, I found Professor Guolong's writing to be super clear, and a breath of fresh air compared to other esoteric alchemy manuals like "Taoist Yoga" for example. Instead of making you feel more confused, the text reads like an elucidation and makes alchemy directly understandable and accessible to the modern Chinese and now Western mind. I can also highly recommend my friend as an outstanding translator (having lived in China for a decade), and a wonderful spiritual cultivator. I can also vouch for the value of these texts for your own cultivation. Here is an outline of the chapters for example, but you will find more information on his official page. Chapter outline 1. Unsurpassed Destiny 2. Illuminating the Mind to See Its True Nature 3. The Portal of the Mysterious Pass 4. Advancing the Fire and Gathering the Medicine 5. Empty, Nonexistent Qi 6. Dual Cultivation of Xing and Ming 7. Primordial Jing and Primordial Shen 8. Two Heavens and Earths 9. Going Back to the Root, Returning to the Source 10. Universe and Individual, Interconnected As was posted in the Daoist sub-section, we really need more translators of Chinese texts like this. Think about how many of Master Nan Huai Chin's books still haven't been translated in English for example, and how valuable each and everyone is to our community at Dao Bums. The truth is there are no translators working on them. And the reason is that you need a very high level of Chinese and you also to be an advanced practitioner of these arts. The market is so small that it's not even worth the time and effort from a financial standpoint for the people who meet this criteria. So when someone is motivated to take months out of his life to complete a project like this, just so we all benefit, I think we should encourage it, at least as Dao Bums. Thumbs up from me.

Interesting.... Personally I find voiceless or inner sounds that you emit to carry power too. I like doing the practice below. It's the three gates of Tibetan Buddhism. You imagine a seed syllable in middle of head (white Om) then in the middle of throat (red Ha) then in the center of chest (blue Hum) What I do is "touch" the three energy centers lightly with the mind, one by one, starting at the top. And emit a soundless sound for each, as per the seed syllables. In more detail, I briefly imagine the syllable in each location, but dont hold the visualization. I just know it's there and lighting up the entire space like a lamp of a particular color. Then I emit a silent sound, and I imagine the source of the sound to be from that symbol. Then I focus only on the sound and body's vibration. In terms of breathing, you can do one breath/sound for each location or try to touch/voice all three in one breath. After a few times you will start to feel very comfortable in the body. This sort of opens up everything. Just my own experience with this practice.

You’re still doing movement 1) @Toni ? Just to provide more context in case you find it helpful.... The way I was taught do 1) is to first relax and song the entire body. We were given a visualization where you imagine each body part disappearing sequentially from top to bottom...3 times. But this was given for people with no Qigong experience. As such, you are welcome to use more advanced song techniques that you might know, it’s modular. The idea is not to rush in and be relaxed. And you need some extra song and ting to access the extraordinary meridians which run deeper in the body... these are actually accessed in the Huang I think - and not the superficial layers of fascia and Jing jin. So you need a different quality of awareness that is quite loose and penetrates. You can’t be too tight and stretchy as you do this (video is stretching way too much compared with how I was taught). After this primer phase, personally I place my hands in front of the LDT area in that 45 degree mudra and wait a bit, as a sort of charge. It’s similar to Freeform’s approach that he shared for that move. Then I just slightly bow the back, song and expand, it’s hard to explain how, but the effect is the hands reach around my back naturally and start floating up by themselves to around Dazhui level .... as the back arcs and bows ever so slightly. It’s like taking the elevator if you let your body do it, but you’re welcome to add more resistance as you song and ting deeper. My Master’s teacher told us that when doing the MCO via movement it should feel like you are subtly taking off on the in-breath, expanding, rising, and when the hands come down on exhaling, it’s like you are landing, closing, contracting. I was also taught the movement intensity differently than on the video. I was taught to bow the back slightly and later when the hands come down the front, to stay straight and literally give yourself a hug, as the hands come down in an oblique fashion to the LDT. The breathing is reverse breathing, so on the inbreath the belly button comes closer to the spine. And on the oubreath you expand the belly. Tongue is also supposed to be up touching palette on in-breath and down on out-breath. Personally this is the best physical version of the MCO I ever tried. I like to start by dolphining the spine to open the vertebrae one by one, and then I might do lifting the sky once or twice. Then I’ll bounce, song and ting and go ahead and do this move. Usually 7 times for me. Might feel like having an orgasm for the whole back. Moves 2,3 and 4 have their wonders too. Your feedback motivated me to do move 3 more. The teacher I learned this from couldn’t teach this set for 5 years, out of respect for the immortal teacher who transmitted the form and because it was too powerful. When these 5 years expired I was lucky to learn the form, although using Freeform’s tips really helped take it to the next level. I’ll keep practicing it.

The stretch you mentioned from down to up was included as part of Damo’s set of loosening exercises to “create space” prior to practice. There were also neck, shoulder and waist movements. The relevant one is where you bend and touch the toes or ankles and use the inner torso to lift you back up gradually. He clearly says not to use the hinge - it’s not a hinge based movement, but unfurls from inside.

This is really great... I learned this stretch from Damo by the way. This is going from down to up. He says to do it slowly because you can become light headed. The unfurling is coming from the core and inside of torso... feels so good. Im a bit confused about the other up to down or forward phase as you stated. When you arc down, you would inject your mind to the lower vertebra and work up ? I haven’t seen Damo teach this one, but I would have probably felt vertebras from top to bottom, since we’re going down. cheers.

maybe he can let us know why this movement is great for true back as you stated ? Movement is at 45 minutes sharp in the video.

I think Freeform knows a lot about Qigong in general and in depth... he didn’t know this particular form but his insights on it or any others are always welcome.

i don’t do anything fancy these days. let me think .... Morning stretch and baduajin type stuff, swinging arms practice, bouncing, dolphining the spine, Zhan Zhuang, Qi running, but mostly keeping mind and body integrated and flowing with Tao during the day. Practice is just the spice of my life, my life is the main practice. And I try to live it fully.

By the way, I meant *superficially* open the 8 channels. I don’t mean the form by itself can be a wonder pill. This form will open the 12 meridians indirectly by subtly influencing the 8 meridians. Nudging them open maybe.... To get a real opening, it matters most how you are doing the form, and what practices outside. Freeform can provide more details about that. But supposedly the form comes from immortal masters and will have a powerful effect on all meridians. Looks like crap though, and I can understand people coming from that perspective. But you can try it on and see the effects for yourself.

I love the first one too.... it is embodying the small universe, although I do it with much less intensity than shown on the video. I just gently bow the back and then come back to default stance and don’t bend over forward like in the video when the arms come down. If I do, it is subtle. This is the way I was taught. Number 3 is like a baseball pitch in slow motion. It is supposed to open all the interlinking meridians in one pitch. All the weight is shifted on the leg opposite to the pitching arm. So one leg has double the weight and the other is floating inside, yet still touching the ground. When you come down with the arm in the wake of the pitch, you slightly touch the big toe of that leg which has no weight. And the entire time you stare at the middle finger of the pitching hand.... It’s a strange movement that does a lot at the same time. Of course this was before baseball was invented. Which makes me think the Taoists invented it lol.

What do you like about it ? If I may ask ?

Hey Shrondinger, Welcome. Sometimes it feels like we are starting from low, but the only thing that matters is that we are making forward progress. Clearly, it seems you took the decision to better yourself in every way, which is inspiring. So not much to add, ZZ is very good to “recharge” but maybe consider adding a daily affirmation practice to solidify your momentum, and maintain spiritual fortitude. You can do it praying to the Sun every morning. Something like: “Dear Sun, or dear Energy that animates me. You’ve never let me down, even in times of hurting like this and I am so grateful. Help me become stronger so I can respond to my life again. I want to turn myself to your light and dissolve all my mental blockages and fears in your light. They are too much to handle for me, so I surrender them to you. I trust you. I want to trust myself too. Help me see myself in a new light. Make me a new and stronger person every day with a soul free from its shackles of the past. I vow not to look at the darkness anymore, or if I do, I vow to never forget that there is light in darkness. Make me more like you everyday. You are my true vitality, you are my will to live on this planet and to love. Stay with me at all times, remind me at all times. And once I’m healed, may I use my life to serve you and help others facing the same problems I am currently facing”. And then imagine your body filled with solar light. Include your mind as part of “the body”.... imagine the light is soothing your mind and thoughts into a state of balance and homeostasis. You can do this before ZZ too. Good luck !

Hi Toni. I’d say it has evolved slightly, and still a great pick me up Qigong. Yup, I still do it, I’ve done this one as an adjunct to my Qigong practice for many years. I say I evolved it because I focus on the principles more - rereading this I was focusing on the technical aspects, but they can only take you so far. So I song and ting with this form now and focus on the principles more and the form not that much. But the form is still as potent as ever. yup the one you mention is good for opening the lower back and stretching the sides of the torso. The entire set is really good for the back, which makes sense since it’s going after the 8 extras. i don’t really know why, I can’t stop doing this one. Always feels good and balanced, breathing drops to really low, and have a good sleep afterwards.

There is much truth in this. You need Qi to change the quality of mind. The mind by itself can not see... You can view it this way.... The mind is the function of life, but Qi is the substance. Most people stick to the function and try to fix mental problems with the mind.... but thankfully there is another way. We can cultivate Qi, the substance of life. If you respect the substance of your mind, naturally the Qi will affect the mind. It’s like a cup of water. If you just let it settle and clear, and stop creating ripples on the surface, then it will naturally reflect. Eventually the substance of your mind will be so whole and complete, it can think thoughts for you without your conscious involvement if that makes any sense. The problem is when we mistake the function for the substance. The mind is a useful tool for many things, but we should recognize that it’s not the end of the spiritual world. In fact, it’s a latecomer. The spirit was there first.... As a child you lived for many years without mental chatter. And Qi is its mother...How else could we have thoughts. What are thoughts made of ? Even if we don’t believe in Qi, maybe folks could give this perspective a try and see if it has any merits. Stick to the Qi, to the body, and not the thoughts. Respect the wholeness of your Qi and energy. Don’t worry if thoughts appear though, just come back to the substance of the thoughts, and of your body. just some other thoughts.

Hey oglights, First, thanks for sharing and I wish you success on your meditative path. Some minor suggestions maybe, but it seems you’re focusing a lot on the context of your meditation, and less on the content. Just know that whatever intent, suggestion or preparation you bring to your meditation will usually have a big impact on the outcome. Even if you are angry that day, in a rush... all of these disturbances will be reflected in the outcome. This is what I mean by context. Another example is the story that no matter how much you try, you can’t seem to break through the pull of thoughts. This subjective perspective defines context for the meditation too. And the meditation just basically confirms the perspective. It just follows/confirms the original intent. It’s hard for you because your trying to solve your problem with the same energy that created it. You need a new energy, a new vantage point to do your meditation. That’s why I think the inner dissolving you are doing is great. Shift the vantage point of the meditation from the mind to the body. Even if you end up caught in thought, just return to the body. And be careful that it’s really the body that is “meditating” and not the mind still controlling everything. You aren’t a performer, and being a performer hasn’t worked as well as you wanted up to this point. So drop the effort, drop the perspective of being a “failed meditator”, and start with a different perspective. Maybe with the intent of curiosity, the intent of just letting go of all your mental defenses and projections and releasing them all into the body, maybe with a great sigh of “I don’t know”..... maybe try that. But remember, from the perspective of the body, outcomes don’t matter, there is no performer, there are no mental problems. You just show up basically and sit your body down.... and that’s all there is to it. So how does this fix your problems then ? It doesn’t directly, but it relaxes the mind. Instead of it being compressed or focused on something narrow it expands and unfurls like a flower. You become your awareness, your body, fresh again, and open to any possibility, potential. Because you haven’t defined yourself, you are open and receptive. Then the quality of your thoughts will change. Anyways, just some ideas.... I also struggle with this and can learn from what I wrote as well.

This is indeed a complex question.... And I’m no expert, but since I have some experience with this system, I would say it is maybe like an approximation of the Taoist system of alchemy. I don’t mean this in a negative way, because the goals are different. Mostly health as you stated. So if you start from that perspective, you first see what lower hanging fruits people need most in terms of health. Then to continue along this perspective, if most of your users are moderately sick or incapable of going through the strenuous traditional training, you are going to adapt or evolve the teaching. You’re not going to “weed them out” because you are elitist, you’re going to try to help the most amount of people, even a little bit each, because that’s where you feel you can do the most good. I believe this was Master Lin’s mindset when he started the company. And to answer your question of “how do the healings work” more specifically.... on top of the movements, the Master of that system always speaks of the power of “light and an open heart”. This comes from a certain understanding of healing as it relates to spirituality, one that isn’t too common, but that Master Lin and his Master have honed to remove blockages. Personally, at one point I realized I wanted to study something more traditional, where health isn’t the end goal but more of a side-effect of correct practice. I wanted to focus less on the form and on the formless more. But for healing through form, I think SFQ is really wonderful in terms of effectiveness. To live with the formless, I mean just basically live a balanced life in harmony with my conscience. This includes mind/body integration. This is more about living with Tao. So at different stages, we all have different goals I think. And at that point, I also mostly dropped the use of visualization. I think this is good turning point actually. Do we need to project our spiritual energy outwards to see what’s behind the projection or can we just look at whats doing the projection ? Post heaven is great for healing, but my interest is in in pre-heaven now if that makes any sense. As dmattwads said, look at your goals and go from there. Good luck

This was a good thread a while back about esoteric Christianity.

So trading the beauty of your own soul for a sense of security and safety weaved by the intellect. This is the crux (not the cross) of the matter at least for me. Universal Spiritual Reality. It exists. And Jesus has a faint spiritual pulse for anyone to access.... .... something that is constantly being drowned by the noise of the world. It's there, and it's as real as your experience. Your inner experience is valuable, thanks for sharing.

Haha good point Nugali. I'm usually not the brightest raccoon in the shack myself. I guess since I'm a raccoon, I do things differently. I eat spiritual books as good nutrition. Merely looking at them is too boring for me. Maybe it means I just like food...

How can you doubt in the existence of your Spirit though ? How can you doubt in a sublime energy that somehow reconnects you to the Father, in other words the Spirit inside you ? I don't proclaim to understand the Bible intellectually, but to me, it is besides the point. Let the scholars argue about it, let the skeptics make fun of it, and the intellect doubt everything that's written. But it's never been about the words. The Holy Spirit just Is. Jesus Was. We have a Spirit. He discovered it and called it Father. Everyone has the opportunity to be with the Father, to be whole in body, mind and spirit. It doesn't matter how rusty the sword of the Bible is, what matters is that you can wield it to reconnect yourself to your Spirit. But you have to be willing to read from another place. Put the intellect aside, wipe the dust off, and read it as a child. Offer your innocent mind to the Bible. And call on the Holy Spirit to help you unlock the full potential of the words for you. Without becoming fanatical about it. Because there is nothing to be fanatical about Spirit, or any religion for that matter. If you read like this you won't add much to your knowledge of the Bible, but to your depth. And with this depth, you'll find you don't even need the Bible, because its intent lives in you. The energy is just there when you need it, just like Jesus said. / Just to provide another perspective on this book.

Well the teacher can be at peace, but choose to act wrathful when teaching students too. In the West a lot of teachers are very soft, so as you say there is also the risk of becoming complacent. I have nothing against wrathful teachers, in my opinion they can create changes quicker in students. You don’t need to “be a nice guy”, or “be polite” to be a good teacher. I don’t think so at least. But you need morality though, you need to have good intentions for your students. It may seem like a fine line but there is a world of difference. You can be wrathful and helpful or wrathful and destructive. I have a lot respect for teachers who are brutally honest when they speak, if it’s their style and they have genuine good intentions for the student. It’s definitely refreshing in this Western culture too. Even if a genuine master speaks poorly to me, I don’t think my respect would waiver, because they are great people helping the world. They just have their own vibe, and it’s cool by me, everyone is different.

Just a random idea to build on these tangible physical markers that Anshino mentioned that are so helpful. Since we don’t have any like that for the spiritual sphere, maybe your family members can help set the marker for you. You might laugh and call it un-scientific, but your Mom knows you. Your grandma knows you. They know your evolution better than anyone, they are perceptive. For example you might think you have earned a spiritual black belt recently, but they might notice you lock yourself in your room a lot and have lost contact with the outside world. Instead of socializing like you used to, you perform weird esoteric practices instead. All you talk about is esoteric stuff. Or they might notice you’ve changed in a positive way, your moods have mellowed out, you’re more helpful and patient towards others. It’s like you became a better version of yourself. You’re more sincere to them, they feel grateful for it. Throughout my own cultivation path, I had many ups and downs and my family always mirrored them to me. Intuitively they knew if something was good for me or not. This is the same if you bring a new girlfriend or boyfriend home — your family will always know if this person is the right one for you. Call it sixth sense I don’t know. Our dog would growl every time when my brother brought a strange girl home during his teenage years. She was into black magic and various devious things. Even your dog can notice a change in you. In general I think we are more perceptive than we think as humans, and we should give more credit to others to reflect our own evolution, especially those close to us. I notice after a good Qigong session my son likes to come to me and cuddle, maybe because I’m more receptive and open to him at this time. So depending if he comes or not, I can see how I am doing. I’m just trying to say that self-reflection is important too, if you’re going to dedicate a huge part of your life to this. And that family members can help in this regard. Instead of focusing on the Divine only, view them as the Divine and go from there. It’s more practical, and you might learn some things, while improving your relationship with them.

I recall Damo shared a dinner he had with a Chinese Master where the said “Master” threw the bill on the floor at the end of the meal and expected the waiter to pick it up in a defiant show of ego. Everything was going fine until then.... So it was totally unexpected and Damo was in sort of shock. Damo just stayed completely silent and quietly left and never spoke to said Master again. I can understand. His conscience reacted. But others who are only after power might view that as a sort of humorous or cool authority thing and still learn with them to gain the same powers. To me the things you wrote about, namely kindness to others, virtue, and conscience (in Damo’s case) are all close to the spirit or soul of an individual. This would be more the “hun spirit” in Taoism rather than the “Po” which ties in to our base and carnal desires. I don’t proclaim to understand what happens after death, or to understand hun and po, but I know one thing. What is light flies to the Sky, and what is heavy sinks. After death, where are our lower emotions, base desires, greed, and ego going to go ? (Where is our Qi going to go ?) And where is the Spirit of our being, the sum of all our good deeds, our love for others going to go ? (Where is our shen going to go ?) When you think about this deeply you might choose to focus on your cultivation differently. You might wonder what you can you do in this lifetime that will really refine your soul and spirit - and not just your Qi powers and sensitivity ? This doesn’t mean to say that all Qi practices are not useful, not at all. It might just mean to place your Qi development practices in the right context. They can be a very useful too in this regard. I’m no expert and only sharing my own observations that I matured after some years, but the message I am sharing also comes from my teachers. They would rather you be decent human beings first than to try to be spiritual for the wrong reasons. And to them, doing no cultivation and being a good moral person is a higher achievement than being a fallen Qigong Master preying on the innocent. Of course the ideal is to be a powerful being helping others, and Qigong can be a tool for that. Just some thoughts.

Imo this is where it gets tricky, for spiritual assessment. Often what these Masters can demonstrate are various spiritual kung-fu, like knowing private things about you with their third eye. I’ve met teachers like this in Taiwan and it can be quite impressive, and chilling in an awesome way. The issue with this approach is you might equate these super-natural powers as proof that they are enlightened - I did this myself for a while - but it could also be due to them having done a huge amount of Ming practices, and little Xing or virtue work. Actually Damo Mitchell shared a few horror stories of this he experienced in China and he once told me he regretted never having met someone who displayed Ming and Xing in balance. So how can you judge who is a real spiritual teacher on top of their Ming level skills ? You can’t really, I’ve come to this conclusion - you can only see as high as your level of development. And virtue isn’t something you can demonstrate, like in a lab experiment setting. Personally I equate morality and virtue with spiritual development. I know some others might not, and see it as the ability to se spirits. But to me they go hand in hand. Because I’ve seen some “masters“ with all the super-powers you can imagine abusing students, in a demon or hellish sort of way. If you tell me they are spiritual, I might reply they are spiritually irresponsible, or spiritually immoral. And I think the adjective matters more than simply their ability to access the spiritual sphere. In other words, it’s not your spiritual gift that matters, it’s what you do with it. Will you use your gift to light up the hearts of others, to help this world ? Or will you use that power to abuse others for sex, money or ego purposes ? That’s like taking the best part of you to do the worst to this world, it’s so sad. I think this is why these arts are so dangerous. Often the people with some spiritual attainment use that to abuse their students or control them. Spiritually they have lost their attainment, they are leading others astray and committing the worst spiritual crime. And I’m speaking from experience having been involved in well disguised spiritual cults and the like. So for the Ming stuff use the markers Freeform recommended, and as he said as you go higher spiritually from there, it gets murkier. How the Master conducts himself in private would be the most important, at least for me.