markern

I have never tried it but everyone seems to agree the springforest stuff is very good. You could add the inner smile

Isen`t this mixing a part of what you do in fusion of the five elements?

Wether it realy is the key remains to be seen. Having the key to advanced taoist alchemy, whatever that key may be, might actually not be of any use to someone with a burnout as what they need to do first might be something much more foundational. Doing the type of meditations I suggested rarely if ever conflicts with other systems. I met a woman in tao garden that has exactly the same problems as mentioned here nad has had them for 10 years or more (don`t remember exactly) . She has done all the healing tao practices up to kan and li and she has progresse slowly and done them in a very relaxed and in a yin way. She felt it has benefitted her a lot but essentialy the burnout remains. Sykkelpump I think it was got worse from energy practices and my own experience of this is not far from his. If you are burned out you need deep rest first and foremost. Yoga nidra is much better for that than moving energy arround. Especially because someone with burnout often is programmed so strongly into an over stressed do do do do do do mode, even if very subtly, that they can not do more active cultivation practices very well. But if they do something like yoga nidra or just observing the breath for some time to get the worst out of heir system I think doing what you sugest will be very valuable. THis sort of problem with apraching the energywork with such subtle bad attitudes is actually quite common amongst people that do not have a burnout or stress program to begin with. I have seen several people on this board say that when they started doing some sort of stilness meditation or similar thoroughly things improved a lot for them and they saw that they had aproached things subtly wrong with too much of a "do" and "make" attitude and that they only learnt this from the passive stilness practices. So I mean no disrespect to your teachings mr Yudelove, as they apear very good to me and I like your books, but I think there are better aproaches in this instance at this time. At least I think combining would be require. With enough of something purely relaxing without a hint of doing should be a daily foundation for doing the other stuff with sucess in such an instance. By the way for the person with the burnout, Shaktimama wrte a bit about adrenal fatigue on a post some time ago and seemed to know quite a lot about it from both a medical qigong and a western perspective. You could search through her posts to look for it or PM her about advice. She is very heplfull.

Hmmmm. I can see how spontanious movement practices might help with this but I am not sure it will realy develop the same with regards to emotionality. But I have never practiced something like it so hard to tell. THanks for the tip about Keeney:) Will check him out.

I would say that for burnout nothing is more important than deeply resting meditations etc. where you just alow things to happen. A lot of the energywork can nvolve too much doing escpeically for someone that has the overactive doing mindset one often has when one is burned out. This mindset can often be very subtle and make teh active energywork counterproductive. I know as I am in the same situation. I think Sykkelpump said something like that hapened to him and the energywork only m ade things wors and it was breaht based meditation that finaly worked for him. I highly recomend yoga nidra for this. Lying down body based meditation that is purely relaxing and has zero doing involved. Just listen to the tape is enough.

I talked to a budhist monk that has also studied extensively with mantak chia about celibacy and he said that in his experience those monastaries that have either choice of celibacy or not (several traditions lets you take a wife amongst the nuns after five years or so of celibacy, Zen masters are frequently married etc.) and those who teach good techniques of sublimation usualy have ok views of women and not so much sexual hangups and scandals. THose who have strict views on celibacy and no good technique to sublimate often end up with lots of sexual hang ups and very negative views on women. I would actually ike to hear more about specific theories about what is wrong with the classical view on transmutation and how to go about things in stead so please go a head of you feel like it.

I have many times read the claim that kundalini can only be rasied by the gurus will and grace. This of course is utter bullshit and is just one of the many ways in which the guru tradition damages peoples chances of spiritual advances. Another is that any use of a mantra without atunement by the guru is absolutely worthless. I wonder why people get better results with AYP than with most kriya nad kundalini yoga despite having thier mantras atuned. As mentioned I do not have nay problem with teachers I only have a problem with the particular and authoritarian way the indian guru tradition has clessicly been. I think it for the most part is more damaging than good compared to regular teaching and I think it spreads stupidity and disempowers people. Even when it works quite well and the guru is genuine I think it often has this effect although I see potential benefit in it under ideal circumstances.

Plenty of taobums have met Falun GOng practioners and can testify to all the cultish stuff so there is no questin what the organisation is. But I am sure the government ads what it can although it realy does not need to.

OK lets have a quick look at the suposedly superior judgmen of easterners when it comes to pikcing gurus. Sai Baba is one of the most, if not the most, poppular indian gurus. Many of indians top politicans are foloowers. He is also a child molestor and a proven con man (video footage to prove it). Go indians! Falun Gong is extreemly poppular in CHina. The leader is an evil nutcase wrecking havoc on the mental health and common sense of the members. So much for the superior Chineese judgment of guru picking huh!

yoga nidra can do all of this ver well. In addition you get much more including the possibility to put in a "hypnotic" suggestion/resolution it can also be done with alternate nostril breathing or spinal breathing as an element. Santiago knows an extra powerfull version and can give an empowerment for i.

Vipassana can be done standing for sure but is mosly taught sitting and walking.

As mentioned the problem is not having a teacher. Most if not everyone on this forum is OK with having a teacher. Most find it essential. THe problem many have is the particular type of GURU realtionship, most often found in the indian tradition, that goes waaaaay beyond what for exampl an average vipassana teachers relationship to his student would be.

Yes the student made the teacher make the student blow him

I apologize for expressing myself unclear. I know very well the difference between Vipassana and shamatha. When I said Vipassana in this post I lumped them togheter sometimes and meant srict Vipassana at otehrs. It seems to me that people do that quite a lot because shamatha is a necesary par of doing Vipssana because you need the basic concentration so you train that seperately. So for example when i said Vipassana good for Jhana I just meant breath awareness as a technique to reach Jhana as that is what is ordinarily used in the Vipassana/shamatha tradition.

Yes I get paid per post like Drew for Springforest qigong I actually don`t practice it any more. It just does not fit so well into my overal plan of practices but it easily could have.

Wow. Thanks for the long and good answer. Much appreciated. Your competence in these matters is a huge value to this board:)

I don`t mind teachers at all. I like teachers. I just don`t like the guru model much. Taoism don`t usually operate with guru realtionships in the same way indians do and neither do buddhists. So having a guru in the indian sense is completely unecesary to get the guidance you need to advance spiritually. THat said I can see that there are advantages to the conventional guru model for example learning surrender to the divine will through surrendering to the will of the guru whos will can be seen as an expression of the divine will or something like that. But despite some such advantages I think there are waaaaaaay to many risks to the conventional guru realtionship and the pedestal gurus are usually put on and put themselves on. Most people I ahve met that have spiritual teachers seem quite balanced and normal althoguh some are totaly messed up. Most people I have met that have a guru in the convetional sense seemed to be somehow unbalanced or irrational although many are not. They often seem to be of on some sort of trip and have left their ability to think critically not only about their guru, which is sort of ok and partially the point I guess, but in general. I think there is something to that type of relationship that although psychologically beneficial in many ways are psychologically unbalancing in more ways. At least for a lot of people. I am sure it varies. Why not just have a normal teacher. Ajhan Chan one of the most venerated Theravada teachers could have taken a more or less guru like role, Within the boundaries of being a buddhist monk at least, but chose to teach more like what Jack Kornfield calls a "spiritual friend", a guide standing on your side supporting you not above you controlling you. He was a very effective teacher despite not doing the guru thing. As for westerners being critical of gurus. Make a top twenty list of indian gurus in terms of number of followers and see how many have been proven to have been unethical and abusive. Sai Baba for example is a pedophile and a trickster doing cheap magick tricks too who his followers. Could you please give me some examples of were more specifically to look in the Indian texts for examples of sages with human frailties? I am very interested in the subject and would like to look more into it at a later point so some pointers would be great.

THat should be exactly what PQ will do. It is a very special form in that it in and of itself sets of the entire alchemical process with blending of heaven and earth energies, putting the fire beneath the water, the dan tiens etc. So unlike most moving and standing qigongs this form also works on stuff like on does in kan and li meditations etc. The form is also very balancing, grounding, builds a lot of energy, works the orbit and works the central channel a lot, works on the heart and more. As a general form it is quite unique. THen one can add specific practices for specific goals. Combining this with the inner smile is good IMO because the inner smile lets you work specificly on every gland, organ or whatever part of the body you want (or you can do a general whole body version). HTat way you have the most important general process taken care of and you can work on specifics. You could read this thread. It has a lot of good suggestions for building a practice for beginners and I have written about combining PQ and inner smile with a couple of other things in it: http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?/topic/12983-the-tao-bum-pai/

Would spinal breathing ayp style be ok to do with kunlun? COuld you give some examples of specific practices that do not work alongside kunlun? Is there any difference in this regard between Jenny Lamb and Max` Kunlun? Max seems to be into a lot of other stuff and Lamb also teaches a bunch of other qigong in her classes it seems.

Check out the threads on primordial qigong. Winn treaches it so it is in healing tao, it is awasome and 9 out of 10 loves it.

The obvious solution would be to do something in addition to ZZ not instead of it but I am guessing you don`t have time for that so you need to choose. You could do the inner smile or the secret smile WHILE you are doing ZZ. They can both also easily be done for a couple of minutes while waiting for the buss or on the buss or in a short break at work. For instructions to the secret smile you can use the search function as Santiago has posted them before or you could buy some of Glenn Morris`material. Michale Winn has instructions for the inner smile.

THanks I wil buy that as this has quickly become an important practice for me:) I think I have to build my earth chakra from scratch more or less as there realy ain`t much there. THe earth pulsing and embracing the tree and one of chias tai chi short forms and some spleen work are my tools for doing this at present. I am also interested in hearing what Winn has to say about healing love in general as I think he usualy makes a lot of sense. I actually learnt the pulsing from my teacher last year but forgot about it. I mentioned your modifications and that is more or less how he does it himself. He said one of his strongest spiritual experiences was once when he got totaly "absorbed" into he earths energy and felt how absolutely unconditional its receptiveness, and in a sense love, was. An experience of the ultimate yin sort of. Not sure if this happened during pusling though. During the pulsing I noticed a sort of comfort in just standing and being and being suported by the earth. A form of trust and soft confidence. As this grew I started to notice a lot of anxiety that seemed to generate a lot from my root chakra upwards into the whole body and also a lot in the tighs. As continued I tried to softly let this go and build more trust and feeling of suport from the earth which worked. THe anxiety was much more existential than the kidney anxiety I have sometimes felt which feels more conected to relationships to people and figh or flight. The experience made me realize that although I am not bothered by anxiety in daily life there is a subtle underlying anxiety that I normaly dont notice which is related to being disconected from the earth. With an earth chakra the size of a pea that is not suprizing I guess. I think as I keep doing this practice I will build a lot of comfort, ease and confidence at a very fundalmental level. I love it. Andy Fretwell who is a healing Tao instructor taught a workshop at a mindfulness school and spent an entire weekend just doing the inner smile and deep earth pulsing with the students there to get them into their bodies. Thought I`d mention it as the pulsing and inner smile seem to be amongst your favourite practices. If you are interested in doing Fusion I think learning it from Andy Fretwell could be very good. My teacher says that Andy teaches it in very simple ways (in addition to comlex versions?) and teaches it in a way that incorporates a lot of psychology and is very mindfull and conected to daily life. He also teaches worksops on male sexuality together with my teacher and they get awesome feedback

You are playing ping pong with excistence