Brother_Thelonious

Give this thread a couple more days for people to respond to before making a decision. Many people like myself only check in every now and then but the interviews really are what made the Tao bums one of my favorite sites initially. I would love to read more of them. 1 ) do people read the interviews? Almost all of them. 2 ) do you find them interesting/useful? They are some of the most useful content on the site depending on your interests. For me they were. 3 ) is there anything that can be done to make them better? Just to have them more often or to have a email alert when one is potentially coming up so we can ask questions in time. 4 ) do you have any suggestions on who we could invite to interview. Some of the modern well respected healers would be interesting to me: Michael Lomax, Chunyi Lin, or Jim Nance?

zhong yong daoist reviewed it extremely well. I agree with their points, and will add that I found it incredibly useful for developing my very beginner fu practice. I especially enjoyed that she showed so many different systems and really helped you find ones that resonated more with you. It was a great starting point on what previously to me was such a intriguing but confusing subject. Highly recommended as a beginner!

Kundalini hit it on the head. I agree with everything he/she says. I am a practitioner of Master Chias system and have studied with him and many of his senior instructors for 6 years, after practicing soaring crane medicinal chi kung and dabbling in other systems for several years (kundalini yoga was my intro to energy work). At times I have wanted to leave it simply because I haven't had the results I wanted as quickly as I wanted. At times I was frustrated by how the system and especially the books are organized. But ultimately I stayed with it (with periodic breaks from practice) because if I actually did the work to meditate and actualize the meditations then it works as prescribed. Simply put its a complex and often challenging system that requires a lot of commitment. But what spiritual path doesn't? I would say that the best part of Mantak Chias system is that it has such a large community of support if you are stuck or having problems in it. I have known so many other students and instructors who have been practicing in it for years and have had great results, but honestly that was probably because they have that level of commitment and support to reinforce their solitary practice.

Hi Adam, welcome! I had a feeling I needed to check the introduction forum today. Lo and behold it's another Tucsonian! The desert is an incredible spiritual landscape for me, I do miss it. But I feel that the lessons learned there carry on no matter where you go. Have you read the "the magus of strovolos"? It is perhaps the opposite of what you ask for. Full of neo-Christianity and myth. But I feel like I should share it with you. I was not raised religious in any way, but as soon as I learned what Taoism was and started doing my first few chi kung and tai chi moves I quickly realized that this work was for me. During this time I became very anti-Christianity and religious beliefs in general. At some point I heard about this book and in reading it I began to get interested in how spiritual/energetic practices in Christian religions are approached. I must say that for me this book really turned a key for me that allowed me to appreciate how people of all religious and mythic backgrounds can access this work. Also Grandmaster Mantak Chia, who was raised with both a Christian and Taoist upbringing, has a book coming out on the two together. He basically says that they deal with the same fundamental truths in a different way. Ie: Taoism has the three pure ones, Christianity has the holy trinity. Et cetera. To address your direction question: try wind river tai chi in Tucson. Or work with a few different people practicing chi kung or tai chi in the area, find someone who you resonate with or like their style. Study with them, you will learn so much more by practicing or studying with a group and teacher than by yourself. Though practicing by yourself is also important. Also if you have any health issues I have a extremely high recommendation for a acupuncturist down there. She is the best. Cheers! -Colin

Hello various internet entities, I have long browsed these forum and recently found myself returning to them for the value of the discusssion. And today I specifically created this account to ask one question that I have been challenging myself with answering. Can we practice/meditate/do significant energy work while working on other things? I think to myself about how much time I spend each day seriously meditating (usually a half hour to a hour), and think but what about when I am doing other things? Does that count? I ask myself, and answer, sometimes. I at most do fusion of the five elements, open my third eye point, do some chi kung, or ground myself by connecting deep into the earth. And in many ways I think this is helpful, but it is going to help me achieve enlightenment as I define it in my Taoist practice? I answer, I am not sure. I don't think that everything I do energetically/meditatively needs to be towards that specific end, but I think it might be anyway. What do you think?

I hear you all, and thank you for the fantastic responses. It is good to hear that others can do this, and some suggestions how. The truth is that I already follow "the sacred path of the house husband" in my daily household work. I practice then, or during any kind of physical work. But when working on the computer, talking with most people, or driving and walking through the “normal” urban world I do seem to lose touch with myself. Until some later point when I notice I am tensed up, less sensitive, and usually exhausted. During that time I can't really say I have been meditating or practicing in any significant way.. Although perhaps having that point of reference everyday is useful. I exist in both worlds, and the practice of switching between meditation and the outside working world is a good one to take on. Thanks for the warm welcome, it is appreciated!