Sebastian

My 2 cents (from a beginner)... I heard it said that Qi is like the semi-material substance of life, it bridges the physical to the spiritual. It is like a raft, something you can build to take you to whatever shore you want, in the case of OP, to the spiritual shore. But however useful your raft may be, it also has the ability to sink, and send you back to the earthly sphere. Case in point. You develop a lot of Qi and use the high that comes from that power to abuse others. Some people might think you would still qualify as “spiritual” because of your opened up channels. “Wow ! His third eye is opened, he has to be Buddha.” But they fail to see that Qi is just a means - something you can cultivate after all - and in this case they just used it to abuse others. What matters most and what defines you as a person, is how you use your Qi. How you use your Qi says more about you than the Qi you have cultivated. In other words, your morality and conscience speak loud in the spiritual world. A lot of Masters I met in Asia were like this unfortunately, they build Qi, open third eyes and then prey on you. Often they are after power/money or recognition/fame but sometimes it’s worst. Ask yourself if you can truly be a quote spiritual person without morality, even if all your channels are open. You do need Qi to reach the higher spiritual realms, there is no doubt, but that doesn’t mean that Qi is the end. You are the end, who you are as an individual. Otherwise there would be no spiritual growth, just techniques like a 1-2-3 cookbook recipe. Although I’m not denigrating these, they are quite useful to build your Qi. I’m just saying the soul needs to ripen too. My advice is to align your good conscience and virtue with your Qi cultivation practices. Then I think Qigong can support your spiritual growth and be very empowering. But you don’t need Qi cultivation practices to start being a quote spiritual person - you can be kind and gentle to others and do good deeds for others even before having Qi. Qi might just make things a lot easier for you. Sometimes it’s the people who have it the worst that surprise you when they do a good deed, truly selfless and from the heart. If you can do that now, without swimming in the bliss of your own Qi already, then you are truly ahead of most of us. I’m sorry I’m mostly parroting those who taught me. I’m no Master and can’t see this like they do with their opened up third eyes. But I see the point they are making, and I vow to live up to it in my own cultivation. Hope this helps you take your Qi to higher levels ! Take care,

I agree with this, the first paragraph you wrote is how it works. And then as you said, we want to do more than reveal. Personally, I don’t see how bringing light to something is fighting and denying it. It’s like turning on the light in the room so you see what’s there in the first place, it’s practical. Often we don’t want to bring our deepest flaws to Light, we prefer to bury them and never speak to anyone about them. It is said that some people with deeply immoral pasts can’t even look into the eyes of a Qigong Master. It takes courage to expose our deepest selves to the Light. I’m not saying it’s the only way to do it, with Light. And I also think that what you said it true, you need to deal with it directly - not deny, or reject it. So I agree the first part of my post was useless - the reveal part - if you don’t act on it.

Maybe Ride is getting at something.... I mean, working on oneself is great, but up to a point. How do you work on your blind spots for example ? Don't you need Light to uncover these blind spots by definition - what's dark and hidden from you in your box ? You may have a glaring flaw or have an obvious problem, but maybe there's a lot more things going on "under the hood" of your box. I mean, it's always good to see the dust in one corner of your box and be moved moved to clean it, that's self-development and better than what most people do. But at the same time, it's hard to predict if fixing your obvious flaws will take care of everything else in your life, like the perfect chess move. Because when you're operating from your own angle or limited perspective looking at the box, it's hard to have all the information. To get a better angle of vision, you could ask your friends to help with your blind-spots, because often you're the only one in a group that can't see something glaring about yourself. But I think Ride is saying that Light is also a trusted friend that you can call on... it's been here for a while, knows the geography of your box, and it works wordlessly and without pay... If you tell it to remove the garbage with your intent, it will do so. It will also go the extra mile to seek and destroy new garbage that you didn't even know was there. That's why some people say spiritual Light is "sentient". Sounds weird, lol, but it does seem to work like that in practice. You can call it what you want, but it does seem that something is always listening, something that understands the language of intent. So, I say.... Why not put it to work when it's free.... At least, I'd weigh the use of prayer and Light against the costs of working with various psychotherapists that operate on the mental level only - which can be represented by the outer corners of the box with the analogy Ride chose. But personally, I'd recommend a balanced approach of self-development + help that comes from the grace of heavenly energies, at the risk of becoming lazy and depending on the Divine too much. But that's just me. Anyways, just some thoughts to offer another perspective, from a simple beginner that's quite curious about these arts. Fun discussion.

Hey Dao Buddies, So like anything... but only one thing per post. If you're super weird, you can multiple-post in my thread. I go first. I have a weird obsession with raccoons. Like In my Zhan Zhuang under the hood thread I started a while back. You might recall I was trying to illustrate correct posture with raccoon images. And then I also like to make raccoon related jokes. Like -> I listen to "raccoon roll" music. (Yeah I know, weak) But seriously ? They scare the heck out of me. That's what's weird. Like when I was walking home from the office in California they were fighting to the death in the streets during mating season, and I found myself skipping steps home. I hope we can all go from here, and spark an interesting discussion about other people's weirdness. Thanks,

Just wanted to add that this tuning fork image was really good, thanks a lot for coming up with it, on the fly like that. Or rather ... thank you to your open channels and dedication to practice for making a strong connection to Spirit within you, and helping you come up with many uncanny ways to explain spiritual concepts, effortlessly it seems. The tuning fork analogy was great because it shows the power of connecting to high vibration sources. Because scientists have also found that there is an auto-tune function when being in proximity of a singing tuning fork. So It’s not your imagination when connecting to Masters energy, Jesus, Buddha or Medicine Buddha. It’s really practical stuff. Let’s say you’re a mess one day and are wallowing in the mud. It’s really hard to work with your own blocked energy, and you can’t lift yourself up. What can you do ? Well, you’re not forced to, but if you wish, you can invite a very pure tuning fork to join you in your meditation. You hold it in your intent, then let go of your intent, yourself, and only the pure tuning fork remains. With your invitation and your embracing / receiving posture, your rusty tuning fork starts to vibrate very strongly all of a sudden - and a seemingly foreign energy magically enters you. Some align with Jesus and call it in the Holy Spirit. So in these cases of bad days, instead of working on yourself with a bottom-up approach, you forget yourself and dance with the achieved Masters for one moment, and the grace of that dance unblocks you in ways you couldn’t do yourself. I said “dance” to give another example, because you don’t have to meditate, you can also move with a pure tuning fork guiding you. Truly if you enter in pure resonance with Jesus or Lao-Tzu, then all channels will unblock right there and then. But how you collect yourself from that moment, will determine whether you block yourself again or not. But even if your thinking or perspectives are faulty and you end up with similar blockages a few hours down the line, the memory of that state of pure dance with the tuning fork will have affected every other part of your day. And if you keep doing it, it will slowly chip at the rust in your fork. As my Master’s Master says, what vibrates is not blocked.

Thanks. So if I’m following correctly what you said, at that point you’re looking directly at energy itself, and not someone’s energy, or how someone’s energy is bouncing off yours - it’s undifferentiated at that stage. Because if you individualize energies with ego/self, you lose the union with the original spirit that you are using for accurate sensing (which is better than rusty tuning forks). It’s interesting you still used the word “measure” and I know very advanced Masters that sort of size you energetically and spiritually. I guess that would come after the energetic snapshot, because measuring and sizing are always an interpretation of energy and require mental ability. So is it a bit like diving really deep in the ocean with a scuba tank, seeing a pattern or formation of sea shells at the bottom, and then coming back to shore, to your senses, and the world, and then speaking about what you saw ? Or could you reach a point where you do it all at the same time.... haha ?

Hey Freeform, Thanks. This “one step removed” concept re: energetic reading sounds very interesting, and advanced. Because energetic reading is free already, anyone can connect to anything. Just think or set your intent to something, like the sun or a potted plant, and you will align your energy with the source. Done. Like reading your post, I align with your energy and I feel certain things. If I keep reading you for a while, my meridians might start to open in specific ways that mirror your own energetic structure, and make me feel certain emotions too. For you, you seem to be happy guy, so I often feel happy reading you. So aligning yourself with people energetically, you imprint yourself with their qualities. So I guess you are saying that these things that we feel energetically when connecting to each other is one-step-removed then ? So what does it mean to go direct ? I think you’re talking about using your third eye and zooming in on a person energetically ? I wonder how you can do this objectively, because you’re still the one doing the viewing right ? How can what you view be independent of the viewer ? That’s the limit I see of energetic reading. Some say that a person can only see as high as they have reached spiritually - so they basically can only see their level in others. So you would basically need to be peerless to have an authoritative energetic reading that is quite “objective”. Although I guess you’re perhaps not talking about spiritual development of a person and only meridians/energy. Peace, Seb

Wishing all DaoBummers great holidays, a warm X-mas full of love + sharing a short piece inspired from some writings of Master Ni that I adapted today. It's basically Xmas wishes weaved through the story of 2 famous people that you may know about... But it's not really about them, it's about the spiritual realities that they point too... And the poem belongs to the Integral Way tradition, not any one religion in particular. Enjoy ! Jesus & Santa Jesus stands for the Son Spirit. His Mother is the Spirit of Universal Nature. Santa stands for the wishful thinking of people who expect gifts from an external force. Santa is said to live in the North Pole. He comes from the coldest place and can give you the warmest of feelings. Son Spirit lives everywhere. He's said to be so high, you can't get over him, So low, you can't get under him, So wide, you can't get around him. Gift giver rides in a sleigh. Son Spirit rides on the wind and walks on the water. Gift giver comes but once a year Son Spirit is always by your side. Gift giver fills your stockings with goodies and snow flakes. Son Spirit supplies all your deepest needs. Gift giver can come down your chimney uninvited, Son Spirit stands at your door and knocks and then enters your heart. In the mall, you have to stand in line to see the Gift giver. Son Spirit is as close as the mention of his name. His real name is an open human heart. Gift giver lefts you sit on his lap. Son Spirit lets you rest in his heart. Gift giver doesn't know your name, all he can say is: "Hi, little boy or girl, what's your name ?" Son Spirit knows your name before you were named. Not only does he know your name, he knows your address too. He knows your history and future and he even knows how many hairs are on your heads. Gift giver has a belly like a bowl full of jelly Son Spirit has a heart full of love. All gift giver can offer is "Ho ! Ho ! Ho !" Son Spirit offers health, help and prosperity. Gift giver says: "You'd better not cry". Son Spirit says: "cast all your cares on me for I care for you". Gift giver's little helpers make toys. Son Spirit makes new life and mends wounded hearts. Gift giver may make you chuckle but, Son Spirit gives you joy that is your strength. Gift giver puts gifts under your tree. Son Spirit is the life of the tree. It's obvious there is no comparison between what is man-made and the real spirituality of the universe. For this coming year, let us remember the word evergreen. Let us put Christ, the Son Spirit back in our lives. Son Spirit is the evergreen strength that we need during the cold season of our lives. May the Lady-in-Blue, the Goddess of the Sky, bless you with moral strength and watch over you and your loved ones in all the seasons of the coming year. May you recognize Mother Spirit as the nature of the Universe, and may your Son Spirit produce love for all. --- Add your own X-Mas wishes/poems/inspirations here !

Hey Guys, Help me understand these qualities, and how they relate to spiritual development. In another thread someone quoted the wonderful member "Dao Zhen" as saying that the "hun gets strengthened" through practice - what does that mean exactly ? When I write natural meditation, I mean a form of meditation were you marry the body and the mind without doing anything. So more like wu-wei meditation, not sitting practice. Although I'm also interested in the effects of any kind of 'active meditation' on these groups of spirits, and how they might relate to spiritual development, just to gain a better understanding. One famous Master & writer in the West writes poetically that the marriage (or intercourse he says) of the mind and body gives birth to spirits. From his view-point, natural meditation gives birth to new spiritual lives inside of you. He also writes that you become pregnant with them, and you can communicate with them. Perhaps these new spirits end up into your hun ? It's a bit esoteric, and I'm no Taoist expert, so thanks for explaining your experiences or thoughts about hun and po to me. For example, does strengthening hun mean adding new spirits to it ? Or just strengthening the energy. The Master's personal experience was that hun and po are actually "groups" of spirits, or collections of entities, which is interesting, but way above my pay-grade... Thanks all Seb

I would say the Tao is easy when you follow the path of gentleness, of softness. Like Thunder said, you follow the path of water, you take the lowest position, and you don't hold positions. When you don't hold positions that bind you, then you are free to drop freely as a snowflake, naturally, guided by the gentle caress of life, of the Tao. The Tao is difficult when you follow the path of hard thought and speed. You have expectations, goals and positions. It's like you engineer chains that bind you and your snowflake falls like a dead weight, because your trajectory is man-made. The spot both snowflakes will land is different. How to follow the path of gentleness ? It starts with your mind, be gentle there. Don't grasp at thoughts. When they come in, don't apply strong force or direction to them. Let them come in as a gentle breeze, as in a day-dream. Don't become serious about them or hold a strong idea about something. When you're stuck in a strong idea, notice the circular pattern. You'll notice you keep repeating the same information - so, just take a step back, and enter the center of that circle. That center is like the hub of your mind, it is neutral. It doesn't care about Yin and Yang or taking sides. Then you can see clearly, and make the right decision from your deepest conscience. And from there, you are free to extend your loving gentle energy to the world, in a way that is unbiased and natural.

Anyways, there's nothing sweeter or softer than an enlightened Totoro... We had one in the forum a while back.

By the way, thanks for lending me these books Nungali. It’s a bit tedious to read, but the pictures make it all worth it.

I once tried that strange pipe and had a vision of the Raccoon God. In the dream, he gave me a golden acorn. But the initial euphoria quickly turned into a “bad trip” when Nungali came out of nowhere and stole the small nut. He even made a rap song out of it to spite me. Then he buried it somewhere in Australia, never to be seen again. It is said that a 1000 year old tree grew where he hid it, and of the shape of a raccoon. But we’ve since patched our relationship over our shared interest in random critters and various rodents. Although I contend that American possums are superior in subtle ways to their Australian counterparts.

Shining in the dark sky, the clear pure moon is waxing, splendid and bright.... it is so full and lucid, it cannot be covered by a single speck of dust..... (excerpt from Master Ni’s workbook for spiritual development) When your thoughts become gentle and transparent, then you can see the full moon. It is the original energy of your mind, it is your unspoilt spirit.

Totoro’s mind is clear and lucid like the moon because he has soft thought. A lot of us, like myself, have a tendency towards hard thought. Well, I’m an engineer, so it comes by the trade of the business, but so do a lot of lawyers or politicians, or anything that requires heavy mental work. Hard thoughts mean tightening the mind and seeing the world and your problems as an equation to solve. Artists, enlightened ones, and very gentle people often see everything like a day-dream. Like Totoro, they enjoy soft thought. The thoughts still come and go in their mind space, but as a soft breeze. There is no strong control or direction applied to them by the thinker. Ask yourself, can you really be a soft person if you have hard thoughts ? Can hard thoughts change the world ? Remember in DDJ, “no violent force can last long”. The symbol of hard thought in the West is “The Thinker” by Rodin - Look at how much tension is in his face. Maybe Buddha or Totoro could be symbols of soft thought in the East. And one last thing. Curiosity is a good foundation for a soft mind. Look at Totoro’s big eyes. He doesn’t say much, but he is taking in so much. He is listening, curious. Open to any possibility. And open to any opportunity to help. This makes his thoughts gentle and flexible. Then his outer actions reflect his inner gentleness. But his actions are unpredictable, they could be anything, even a random weird sound like a growl because he is coming from a deeper place then hard thoughts, deeper than the intellect. But to be like Totoro we need to learn to be gentle with ourselves first. If Totoro was still judging himself with hard thoughts, then I don’t think his spirit could shine like the full moon, like it does now

Just updating this thread with something my wife shared. They have a Totoro tree in Japan. Apparently it's a cedar tree that is over 1000 years old. It's located in the village of Sakegawa in Yamagata Prefecture, and is unsurprisingly nicknamed "The Totoro Tree" (トトロの木 or Totoro no Ki). There is a legend that if couples visit the tree and hold hands under it, they will have a child.

Softness is a great one.... it got me thinking, what is the foundation of softness ? In this realm, I would chose perhaps the words non-judgement and forgiveness, which is coincidently what Jesus taught. When I’m with someone dear to me or not, I personally don’t think I could be soft if I still judged certain aspects of them, or if I didn’t see myself leveled with them in every way. Because you need to be leveled with someone to be sincere to them. Not think you are higher or lower, or come from a biased perspective towards a relationship, you just need to be same. Like my child when he wants to play. To me, tenderness is like the sweet aroma that comes from interactions with others, when they are done with the same care and reverence as what you would do for yourself. The aroma comes when the acts are done from the heart, and for no reason. Just because you see others as yourself. And just because you can. Not forced or as a service based on a spiritual perspective, for example during missionary work. That is agressive and far removed from softness. So, as my super-power for 2020, I would like to forever see the equality in all things and beings and never hold any resentments or ill feeling towards anyone, because I know we’re all made of the same stuff, and we’re all working towards the same stuff, even though we may be using different ways to get there. But even the ways are also stuff. Call stuff Love if you want, I don’t mind, but we are all brothers. And the less we see each others as brothers, the more hard we become, we harden our hearts and place everyone and everything in neat little categories, where the light of our hearts can’t enter. Because we’ve erected walls around our brothers. So may softness and tenderness erode these walls, so we all become brothers again, that’s my wish.

Wow, you kept the fireworks for the end my friend. That’s one heck of a sentence. To be honest I laughed out loud reading it. I mean, read through it again... it’s a mouthful. I don’t care what forum or where this is posted, that was awesome. At least it takes some guts to spill open like that. Could sound as gibberish, it’s true, but how do you really describe the Truth with words, when they are unfit to convey the deepest meaning ? That’s a deeper question. You use words in your own way to describe spiritual truth, and I have to respect you for that. It’s personal at least. Some people borrow words. You go for the passionate firehose approach, which is unique. To OP, I know he has good intentions. Maybe it’s not helping you much but also think about the absurdity of reacting emotionally to this. Sometimes it’s nice to take a step back from emotions or the circumstances that created them, and laugh at the whole thing. Because there’s humor everywhere if you look deep enough, even in the darkness of times. If you can react with humor, it means you keep your human dignity, that good feeling inside your heart. Don’t let emotions bog you down, but always come back to that good feeling inside your heart. It’s your right as a decent human being.

Haha... OK... Well, funny because of the questions, and then some statements and their implications. One of the statements implied that women loose at competitive games that are heavily based on odds and probabilities, because they were cooler (yin) in nature than men. That's a formidable statement, and one I want to investigate further. We could try an experiment, one woman and one man, and one dice. The game is roll the dice. When you hit a 6, you win. Obviously the woman couldn't possibly roll a 6 ever, or beat a Yang male at ping pong, unless it was a serious fluke shot. Well we could make this two experiments then.

What is in a box though ? You mentioned material things, which make us feel confined and it’s true. But spiritually the boxes are also containers. They are full of the invisible Tao. Tao is like the water of the Ocean and each life is like water in a container. Truly, we are containers in containers. Look at your physical body and feel it. Then see if you can feel the room you are in. You realize you can’t decouple the room from what you feel because you “wear” the room on yourself like an article of clothing. It has a subtle weight on your energetic body, it has to be there. Then see if you can become your house. Then the city, then the country. No matter how much you expand or reduce your container, your energetic body can still travel there, fill the container, and sense everything. From this perspective, it’s hard to know where you begin and where you end. To come back to that water analogy, the water in your container is totally free to travel anywhere, and it is everywhere. Call it a matter of perspective. As material beings we live in boxes and are bound to them. But as energetic beings we live in containers which have porous walls and we are free to travel anywhere, much like a fish in the Ocean. It’s a bit like that Leonard Cohen quote, there’s a crack in every container, that’s where the light comes through. When you’re in a dark container, you don’t see the cracks and you can’t move from room to room.

Good suggestion ilumairen. You could even make that into a great opener. “Hey, you don’t know me, but I was seated next to you in the bus earlier... and I felt waves of heat come out from your body. You were on my left side, and I felt like my left side was on fire... yeah. And I was wondering if you wanted to talk about it. Because I study Daoism and was wondering what it is about the female form or body that emits waves of heat. Is it a polarity thing you think ? It’s weird, cause you should be more Yin and cooler as a female (and hence lose at all competitive sports when facing men) but somehow I’m getting heat from you... What does this mean ? Do you have the hots for me or something ? Could you actually beat me at ping pong ?

Lol, some threads on DaoBums are just too funny.

Thanks. Which Master or book is this from ?

Interesting. Anything else going on deeper in the body, maybe some softening or hardening ? Or just heat ? Maybe they are not particularly attractive but they still resonate with you... So maybe they are your type so to speak. Do they all share certain features ? Or certain attribusts you can identify ? Would be interesting if they all had something in common.

So let me get this straight, you’re a scholar who walks around and feels physical “Qi/heat” emanating from women within 60 cm of you. Ok........ welcome to DaoBums, you’ll fit right in here. If the heat doesn’t happen looking at men or grandmas then I would venture to say it’s your own (sexual) heat you are feeling, not theirs projected to you, although it might appear that way... just a thought ! That’s what the previous poster meant I think. With that, I’ll leave you to enjoy your scholarly walk.