Papayapple

My experience after a year of standing(arms always droped like a rag doll) is that now I can stand easily for 10 minutes, and before I couldn't. LOL And let's just say I'm more aware of how my weight is distributed on my feet. So as long as I keep my inner arcs of the feet from collapsing I get to perform other activities without that much stress to the knees. Which I guess was my goal(?). I regard it primerly as a posture developing exercise. Healing? Well it calmed my mind enough to be able to find healing elsewere. BTW at the end of his I chuan DVD series, BK Frantzis says(with a grain of salt) you CAN learn this stuff, if you are diligant and take it slowly.

There's a book by Thomas Cleary called Taoist Meditation which Im yet to read. But it's probably conserned with what is considered "classic" daoist meditation. From my poor understanding it is in a nutshell akin to Vipassana... At least from what BK Frantzis seems to be teaching. Going inside your body and observing 4 different qualities: 1. Tension. 2. Strength(stress). 3. Contraction. Forgot the last one. Focus and let them dissolve in time. Cheers.

Calling funny cat videos a waste of energy?! What kind of blasphemer just are you! My recent thought: nuclear energy is fine too, provided they do not dump the waste here on earth, and send it all to pluto. But Ofc the costs of sending stuff even to earths orbit is way too big....

Greetings. I need help. I am not very sure what to start and what to quit doing, but I've got to change something in my life. It's been about 6 months since I stopped trying hard, and tried to go back to basics. A short background: I've got very ill at the age of 19, after just about 2 months of living by myself in a new city. I hated the university, ate terribly, slept for 4-5 hours and practiced guitar for 10-12. Pretty soon I got stressed and depressed. Next I got carpal tunnel syndrome, inflammation of wrists and all the joints and muscles/tendons in my hands. Got more depressed. Few months later I ended up in hospital, because of severe stiffness of lower middle and upper back. Not able to sleep, not able to focus, had blurry vision, and was just awfully miserable. Shallow breath. Barely functioning. Oh I forgot. I had acute hyperacusis and tinnitus even prior to that. Nothing helped much, time healed some of the issues, to a certain degree. OK so 2 years later I did a 14 day water fast, followed by a 30 day water fast. Cured the inflammation, ears and back problems and CTS to about 70%. I'm finally able to use computer keyboard and even play guitar a little, which is nice. Cool but now I have some digestive issues(very fragile stomach) and have some trouble gaining weight( I'm 5'9'' and 118lbs). During the fast I felt a lot of tension around and below my navel. My stomach now is very sensitive and when I'm frightened or even surprised it hurts as if electrically shocked(previously I felt neck tension and head pain when under stress). I'm glad I'm so much more emotionally and mentally stable and don't have panic attacks and paranoia tendencies as I used to. I'm not depressed anymore. The downside is I'm still regaining strength 3 months after the fast and it's kinda slow. Still have a shallow breath and get exhausted pretty easily. I Think I need some sort of plan guys! If anybody could take time to address any of the following points, I would be most grateful. I feel somewhat stuck. No.1 Diet, sleep and basic activities. I've been following raw vegan fruit based diet since the fast and it was great for a number of reasons, but recently I started to see some limitations. Main problem is I guess lack of enough ripe fruit available here in Europe. So I started introducing cooked millet, potatoes, lentils and diary. Diary is fine, but over all I just feel week, lazy and lethargic. I tend to overeat on these things, since non of them is as satisfying as ripe fruit. It's really a pita. Will this last until I regain all my weight? I used to weigh about 75kg. I use cronometer.com and try to get about 3500-4000 calories daily now. I started following ayurveda for my dosha(vata) and it's amazing! Different foods like peppers, mushrooms eggplants, beans and other things always gave me problems, and now as I follow the guidelines I don't have to fear the food I'm eating lol. I try to get a litre of water before each meal, I can then eat normal sized portions. I try to sleep... as much as possible lol. In a few days I'm coming back to work. Walking around a warehouse picking up items for shipping( luckily not very strenuous). Anything to change here? Is the Chinese method of eating worth exploring?(Don't know anything about it, heard it's kinda complicated). Would it be a good idea to go to a Tibetan Medicine centre? I'm open. No.2 Meditation, Martial Arts and Qigong. I'll give you my goals: -fix my body posture( I have very weak back, slouch, my shoulders are tight and high. Shoulder blades stick out like crazy and it's hard to relax sitting or standing. -improve circulation(it used to be terrible before the fast, but still could be better), -spontaneity(you know in life, in guitar improvisation, even in conversation I feel the lack of flow) -Calm the fucking Dan Tien(lower, and perhaps middle I'm not sure my whole stomach is a mess recently) I'm trying Zhan Zhuang. Have the book The Way of Energy and watched the YT channel. I find it exhausting, even ust the1st position. I tried it a dozen of times over past few months and couldn't hold it for more than 3 minutes. It's appealing, I see the potential and acknowledge it is a foundation, but it's harder than this Anyway, the second I heard about Baguazhang, I didn't want to look back anymore. At anything, even Taiji. I'm sold for life. I don't know why, I'm totally mesmerised. Something about the spinning circle flowing motion... and I see myself as somebody who's trapped in cycles anyway so why not lol? Do you think it could be appropriate for someone like me? Right now? How can I find a teacher? Do you know anybody who does it in the Netherlands/Germany/Sweden? OR should I already start learning Chinese ? I understand it's even less popular then real Taiji. Is it really so rare? And before I find a teacher, would it be ok to learn from books/dvds or I'd be better off joining Taiji classes? One Taiji instructor I met even suggested I should go back to Karate and do that for some time, before I get into the internal styles and qigong... I'm confused. As for meditation, I always did like a simple body scan relaxation, or progressive muscle relaxation, and rarely got satisfying results. Only recently I had some success with BK Frantzis Taoist Meditation CD's. I'm sort of used now to breathing from the belly and the back and focusing on the Lower Dan Tien is kinda effective. I feel it. Still it's hard for me to stick to the practice. If I do it one day properly for few minutes, the next day don't even feel the interest and get bored easily if I try. It's like it stirs my body energy, and then I lose the drive to repeat the exercise. Same with Qigong massage I tried few days ago. I yawned like crazy, and didn't feel too good afterwords... I know I have a tendency to overdo everything, but for Dao's sake- is there anything I can practice for more than a minute and not feel totally exhausted??? I would really love to get into all the energy meditations, organ massages, moving and manipulating chi inside the body... you know, the fun stuff. How can I get there? What should I read? Most Importantly: what I SHOULDN'T be doing? What could hurt me? And again, how can I look for a teacher of meditation and qigong? I also occasionally do Trauma Releasing Exercises, which are awesome: Has anybody heard of this? And I'm also interested in the Alexander Technique... No.3 Would something like Initiation Into Hermetics by Francis Bardon or other such curriculum contribute in any way to my vitality? I'm still kind of clueless about all the occult stuff. Would appreciate some feedback on that as well. I'm interested in inducing trance on the fly. Why? I'm not sure. But you've got to be able to in order to play like Jimi Hendrix, am I wrong? I would also appreciate any magick and spiritual inspired fiction and "fiction" books. Novels perhaps. I really dug Carlos Castaneda a while ago. Finally, and this is minute but can you share with me what type of shoes and clothing do you use for walking, and practicing martial arts? I recently realized it also matters. What type of materials? I'd like to get some loose(traditional/modern Chinese perhaps) clothes that would be socially acceptable lol. Any good sites? Kinda love shopping To end this huge lament of a noob I'll just throw some titles on you and if you want share your thoughts on them( just your general opinion): Book of Five rings - Musashi Baguazhang - Hidden Knowledge in the Taoist Internal Martial Art Ywing-Ming-Yang-PHDThe-Root-of-Chinese-Chi-Kung The Complete System of Self-Healing by Dr. Stephen T. Chang Way of the inner smile by Michael Winn Daoist Body Cultivation by Livia Kohn Taoist Meditation by Thomas Cleary Becoming Te Iceman. Any recommendations? Peace. PS. Please excuse my English, I know it got a little rusty recently.

So it's been over a year already?! Let me tell you guys something funny. Some of you might smile very broadly when reading this. I'm not even urgent to tell this, as this is such a benign thing, and yet most profound! So here it is: boy I think I'm fine! Yeah like really! So weird to see how everything came out much more naturally then I expected. Wanna hear more? Well first let me just express my inner most amusingly perplex feeling of "Duh!", as I look back at the anguish I was going through that May day of 2016 when I was asking such big questions(bout what the hell should I do basically ^^). So while people were saying I should "basically chillout" I kept thinking about this whole grounding thing as some kind of magical, mystical process, unknown to anyone outside the circle of trust , and even started going to Taiji classes and doing crazy stretches on the floor. Then I just had luck because I stumbled upon an idiot doctor who thought the best thing for me to do would be doing upward dog 24/7, and a great chiro(hero)practor guy stepped in, apparently felt pity for me and said: "dude I'll fix yer back". And so he did! And he did it for free! And has helped with so much more! Released my knees and hips to some extent, and even abdominal pains bit too. He was the one who encouraged me to do an endoscopy(both ways lol), which actually revealed some inflammated area in the duodenum mucus membrane. The funny thing is that those examinations have immediately released so much binding caused by stress and shit. Few days later I was almost free of lower belly pains and constipation. Well the stomachs ulcer-like pain still persists 24/7 and I'm trying different things but more on that next time perhaps... That same chiro then told me: "boy you gotta get your ass to the gym or you're soon gonna be as disabled as you were before I met you. I have fixed a lot of things that you've carried for many years, but you gotta maintain it" After like 6-7 seven months of breaking the muscles and getting back to the shape I had 5-6 years ago I recently started realizing that from time to time, and even most of the time I am once again like I used to be. Cannot describe it other than saying I feel this quality -> Strength. Being able to. Not being so stagnant. All my joints are slowly repairing. I can climb trees and shit. Holy fuck I started to go dancing! And of course it is not only because I'm not afraid of my limbs. In all of this process my psyche got naturally stronger too. Effortlessly. I rarely get stressed even. I had lotsa finals this month and handled that shit surprisingly skillfully, you know. Not to mention the social successes . Opening up. Singing loud! As I am reaching a certain equilibrium of sorts I am also seeing how it is much more about not doing wrong things than about doing lot's of "beneficial routines". Like, please don't try to do a horse stance just yet, please! Go for a walk. It'll do. And I remember reading posts of you guys saying simple solutions work best and so on, and kind of raising my eyebrows sometimes. Waiting until the understanding would have arised. And it's so fucking funny to see that it is that one simple thing that I always had. That special kind of personal perception of the world that is key. The voice that says: "Yup you can do it." "No you cannot do that","Maybe one day, not today though". I cannot think of a time I went by without periodic depression happening for so long! I guess all remains to say is thank all of you Bums, especially Andrei for great advice and BES for loving compassion. Thank you so much!

MH being pragmatic as usual

"Thinking is a psychological disease"

Gomez: I think we just might have saved the world my dear! Tish: Oh, do you think we did the right thing?

I know everybody will jump in saying that it's just my personality and identity backfiring at me but I just cannot get over it that way. Sometime into a good walk in the woods when I start to actually be continuesly aware of things in my mind and outside me, what starts happening shortly after is I'm becoming quite 'fatigued'. I cannot pinpoint what is it really. A mixture of irritation, mental strain and a feeling of disappointment. Yet the only thing I'm doing is observing stuff that comes here and now. Is it just a kind of a withdrawal symptom? Withdrawal from indulging in the stuff of the past and future? It's really easy for me to think all this as just a fatigue that comes from focusing my attention on REALITY. But how can this be? Why would that be soo tiring?

UM I'm sorry where is the chat?

Can get intense as well!

This made me finally drag my butt out of bed 20 minutes ago. I'm 19 minutes in and it's great!

Inspired by the recent thread I decided to try building a soul mirror once again, this time using the Chinese 5 elements as categories. I'm doing this because It's really good to somehow categorize the good and bad traits, so you know which side of you in general needs work the most. Chinese elements seem to have one additional option as opposed to FB's 'ether' element which is really no-option. I'm hoping that Chinese literature will offer a lot of specific information. I'm going to post here different sources that explain which element is corresponding to a given element. If anybum has a cool article or a book recommendation, please share. Those who have done soul mirror exercise: ideas are welcome! So far I've found this: https://www.slideshare.net/DieselDave8/wu-xing-wu-shen-personality-traitsarchetypes-who-do-you-think-you-are http://susanlevitt.com/about/writers-resume/the-five-taoist-elements-fire-earth-metal-water-and-wood/ http://www.chinesefortunecalendar.com/pc/Angel/5EPersonality.htm

Lol. Almost as a reply to my urgent need to do things perfectly I received: "With the astral work, your only tool is your awareness. I mean that literally. You are not to rely upon any body else’s opinion, interpretation, reaction, teaching, attitude, etc. This is about you evaluating you based solely and exclusively upon how you feel about your self. This means throw away all those published lists of character traits, especially those written by Bardon in IIH, and simply observe how you feel about each aspect of your character. Not what you think about your traits, but what you feel in the immediate present moment without thinking.'' So I guess, never mind! But still I will probably be checking things out and looking for my faults in external sources, because it'd take forever to compile a genuine list based on what is happening now in the course of two weeks or three. Just the other day I was going through a list of 650 traits and to most of the negative ones I could remember a situation or at least imagine it. This is from Rawn Clark's commentary on Initiation into Hermetics.

I think it's better to kind of feel the breath going to the sides and back of your belly, so that it expands in all directions, and sometimes I can feel that LDT is like a flame blowing hot air into the aerostat.

If meditating after eating is bad then studying or working mentally must also be bad?! Some people even need to do hard physical work after lunch break... My point is meditation should probably be the best thing to do after eating, second perhaps to walking or lying down for 10 minutes. So for those who disagree: how long do you wait after eating? Do you wait longer if you eat heavier? Surely you don't have to have an empty stomach to meditate don't you?

And you haven't already?!

I find it a little strenuous to keep it there if my jaw is to be relaxed(that is dropped).

Reading topics about similar issues on dharma overground(which is awesome btw) made me immediately more able to precisely name the feelings I am often experiencing. For example: 5-8 minutes into my Zhan Zhuang, I usually start feeling quite frustrated and very impatient. When I walk I often feel... like not centered, not whole, quite distracted and agitated. And when I sit... It's a lot of things like feeling of not doing it right and so on. So what I think I ought to do is to keep recognizing that these things are there, and that they will be rising and passing. It seems like Buddhist insight guys are noting all those things and giving them a name each time, so that they can become comfortable with whatever comes up. This is actually quite effective for me, although laborious. Meditating like this makes me feel geeky about my mind hahaha . Do Taoists also apply this technique? And is it related somehow to the general "watch what happens" meditation? Cheers.

"The mind? Don't matter. The matter? Never mind!"

I don't quite get what he meant. Do you? Thanks, I'll keep at it. Although there's some suffering coming out of it, it also makes me stronger. Yeah but just how to know what everything else is? There are a lot of things in me that pretend to be awareness, you know what I mean? Sometimes when I try to let go of everything I actually gap out for a sec, missing out on what happens. Almost like there is a kind of a spectrum of awareness that goes from being totally unconscious to being in the now to being in your head. Really hard to stay in the middle.

Maybe, probably, yes and of course... but that would mean that concentrating is an activity you can do and awareness 'happens to' you, or, is involuntary. Is there a WAY to get into wu wei or it just comes when the time is right. You know... it's easy to simply gap out when you stop actively concentrating. Saying that just to get a discussion going, albeit good answers posted already.

Ok I like the way you're explaining it. It's really me resisting it in fear of becoming dull and boring. Quite silly. Alright then! Glad you good people are still eager to encourage others. I guess I'll just chill out. I'm curious: is everybody going through these kinds of things? Please share if you did!

That's not easy! I now know where all that hip pain is coming from. I walk like somebody's pulling me by the belt lol. It's really really really hard to get out off this habit for some reason.