Vajra Fist
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Everything posted by Vajra Fist
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There are quite a lot around, and they teach publicly, and often free of charge. Here are some that I know or have interacted with who have achieved at least first path, and some who have probably gone all the way. There are probably many, many more. Delson Armstrong https://delsonarmstrong.info/ Thanissaro Bhikku https://www.dhammatalks.org/ Beth Upton https://bethupton.com/ Ajahn Sucitto https://ajahnsucitto.org/ Guo Gu https://guogulaoshi.com/
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I'm a member of a Facebook group called 'the Fajin project' Basically, it's a group of sceptics who practice internal martial arts. They revel in this sort of the thing, where qi masters are exposed as frauds. I find it pretty interesting as an observer. They're quite in to realistic fighting applications of taiji, rather than qi emission. But at the same time, refuse to practice an actual effective fighting art like MMA. Personally, I feel taiji and other traditional martial arts have spiritual benefits that make them worthwhile practicing, even if they don't serve much use in an actual physical conflict. For instance, I don't care about being able to light things on fire or give people electrical shocks, if I feel comfortable in my own skin. If I feel healthy, pain free and am able to remain mobile in my older age. If I feel emotionally balanced. These things are not fake. With regards to buddhism, I don't know what stream entry is like, or how an arhat looks at the world. But I do know that meditation calms my mind. I have the space to examine my own mind from a position of patience and honesty, and hopefully I'm becoming a better person to be around as a result. Conversely, I feel like the Judeo-Christian path of faith, where you don't feel any immediate benefit from your practice but expect to at the end of your life, is a riskier approach.
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Dantian vs Dhammakaya light 💡 orb
Vajra Fist replied to lightminefire's topic in Daoist Discussion
Interesting! Thanks for sharing your experience. Are there any guided meditations online that you'd recommend as a close approximation of what you learned in person? -
Curious how you feel that this style of taiji specifically has helped your zen practice? I feel like the one drawback to sitting practices that don't have body scanning/progressive relaxation is the tendency to hold tension. What some might call energetic stagnation. Do you feel the quality of song developed through CMC taiji extends into your physical zazen? And also, do you feel that you're able to 'song' the grasping to thoughts, to help you return to present awareness?
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Apparently the rule of thumb is 10mins = 500 repetitions.
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I've been practicing this style 30min-1hr a day for the past few days (1.5k - 3k reps). I suffer from tense shoulders, forward head posture and tension headaches. This feels pretty good. I feel like this is more of a lymphatic exercise akin to rebounding, rather than a system of energetics, but would be happy to be wrong. I've practiced hard martial arts quite intensely for a couple of decades or more and think I've probably done quite a bit of damage to my shoulders. So much so that I've been wondering if it's only a matter of time before I get a bit arthritic around there. I noticed a lot of popping and grinding in my right rotator cuff while practicing these arm swings. I wonder if this is helping stave off arthritis, or accelerating the wear and tear in my joints. It's also a very boring exercise, but I've been following this video which is quite hypnotic and oddly surreal. Anyone else practice this regularly?
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Zhineng Qigong on Sale on Udemy for $10
Vajra Fist replied to searcher7977's topic in Daoist Discussion
I have the lift chi up pour chi down course, and can recommend it. The instruction is clear, everything is explained carefully and in line with Chinese medicine theory. I've never really stuck with zhineng personally, but I know there are lots of people who report significant healing experiences from it. As a medical qigong, you only really need to know the first couple of forms, so there's not much to really worry about in terms of levels. -
Frustration in searching for a style or lineage to learn
Vajra Fist replied to Saan's topic in Daoist Discussion
I don't know what Adam teaches. I suspect it's quite different from Thanissaro Bhikku. Of course, when deciding between teachers the best course of action is always to look at how the person behaves. -
Everyday there seem to be a million new threads from @Heartbreak all of which just end up with all of us kicking the shit out of each other. It's getting too much and to be honest it feels like the final death knell of TDB. Which is a damn shame. Can I propose a consensus? @Heartbreakcan you just keep all your thoughts in one thread, rather than creating one every day? I understand you want to speak your mind, but honestly you're spamming the forum and it's killing it for the rest of us. Soon you'll end up being the only person still using this site, which isn't it your interest either. If Heartbreak agrees to this, can we all agree to just let him have his space without criticism or attacks? If there's just one thread it's easy for the rest of us to be able to talk about other stuff too, which gets lost in all the noise. I hope we can sort something out because I've spent six good years on this forum and I've come to appreciate all of you. It would be a shame to see so many people driven away because of this.
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Part of the reason why the five precepts say 'no intoxicants' is because it dulls the mind. The purpose of practicing shamatha and jhana is for the mind to become sharp and clear. So we can see defilments clearly as they arise. Shamatha is only a tool for insight into the mind, you're sharpening the machete to cut through the bush. Even without intoxicants, its easy for the mind to become blissed out and lose its focus. We focus on our joyful sensations and lose our object of meditation, I.e. the breath. In Chinese and Japanese Zen this is called 'dwelling in the ghost cave on the dark side of the mountain'. It's a state that's easy to fall into but hard to get out of. I'm not selling anything(!). Just a fair warning.
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Once again, you completely miss the point. But congrats on turning a tiny observation into a massive 'culture war' issue. You play down accusations of cultural insensitivity with one breath, then explode with righteous indignation against perceived white oppression the next. Double standards straight out the right wing playbook. Honestly, I'd rather you kept your bullshit to the current events section of the site. I'm sick of it.
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I suppose my intention in mentioning the word 'white' was to underline the cultural ignorance and insensitivity of the women perving over someone who presents themselves as a buddhist monk. I'd feel the same way, if not more so, if I saw a bunch of white middle aged men making inappropriate comments about an asian female buddhist teacher. I don't believe I was making sweeping racial or ageist statements as you implied, but rather calling out very specific behaviour I witnessed. And yes, I'm a white middle aged person. I'm likely to have unknowingly displayed insensitive behaviour at times on the basis of race. I've taken on what you and taomeow have said, and will do my best to use more inclusive language in future.
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I don't think I was disparaging anyone on this basis, or even disparaging anyone at all.
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I spent most of my teens, twenties and early 30s practicing shaolin. I'm not convinced there is a genuine chain of succession. I get the sense that most of the current Songshan curriculum is sports wushu compiled in the 70s. Plus there's also sanda kickboxing that's being taught under the shaolin banner. I think the closest to what was traditionally taught at the temple is wugulan style. Interestingly, shi heng yi claims to have been taught that style, but he doesn't seem to teach it to his students, and it's not clear whether he's a lineage holder. Then there's southern styles supposedly derived from the shaolin temple, which bear no resemblance to each other or to any of the three above. Honestly, I'm quite relaxed about it. If his teacher says he's 35th generation, then I don't see any problem, even the succession is essentially meaningless. It's just a way of saying he has authority to teach.
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I don't feel I owe you an apology
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Talking about how good looking he is, and making suggestive comments likw how they'd liked hands on tuition from him in future. Honestly I found it pretty inappropriate given he is supposedly a monk. At one point he actually had to release a statement telling women to back off. -- also apologies if you felt that was character assassination or you felt in any way implicated, but that was nevertheless overwhelmingly the demographic.
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I get a weird vibe from him. I was part of his Facebook group for a while, and it was full of middle aged white women thirsting over him in every video. He used to post everything for dana, but recently has become increasingly money orientated, charging up to a thousand euros for very basic jibengong spread out over the course of a year. I unfortunately poked fun on FB about a form he was selling for €350 that was for 'enlightenment'. They booted me from the group and blocked me. Honestly, I didn't find him a particularly good teacher or even a decent person.
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Is there a good guide for The Tibetan Book of The Dead?
Vajra Fist replied to Franky's topic in Buddhist Discussion
Funny, I just saw this a few minutes ago and was tempted. https://enroll.embodiedphilosophy.com/tibetan-book?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=Facebook_Mobile_Feed&utm_campaign=TOF+ABO+|+Tibetan+Book+|+Videos+|+US%2FCA%2FEU+|+09.15.23&utm_content=ancient-philosophy&fbclid=IwAR06IyTkGNw83547iC4R0LFDDyap7d3LtQ85wKSSFlScCgUgjfnnRdZY4UI_aem_AZZMPzVC7J8oMJq52nf_c9fALlaPiFVYOT0Vauqj5rC4HSckdaV3u_bncn_SalbpX6NXHKVivoflum45Sjby3mDw Not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but Andrew Holocek is a fantastic teacher and a very interesting guy. -
Mizner and Mitchell - the bromance continues
Vajra Fist replied to Apech's topic in General Discussion
So they're using LSD to enhance their capacity to visualise, and therefore stabilise their object of visualisation and therefore absorption? It's a weird one, as an outsider to the tradition, I wouldn't have a real understanding of the drawbacks of such an approach. But when you're using the breath in shamatha, samadhi can arise, and samadhi feels very much like the natural state. Your sense of yourself as the subject and the breath as the object breaks down. There is only the raw experience of the breath as it happens. It is reality, only more so. I don't know whether the state that arises from using a microdose of LSD to aid practice would feel like a natural state, or an altered state. Or whether visualisation as shamatha feels like the natural state of mind, even without psychedelics. -- as an additional note, techniques like fire kasina are used within theravada, and result in a very strong improvement in the mind's capability to visualise. You can listen to podcasts with Daniel Ingram on this. Something like that would seem to be an aid to vajrayana visualisation practice, in the same way as what some practitioners may be wanting to achieve through LSD. -
Mizner and Mitchell - the bromance continues
Vajra Fist replied to Apech's topic in General Discussion
I can't remember who said it, but I heard a vajrayana teacher say that visualisation is how the theravada concept of shamatha is practiced within their tradition. I personally feel the breath is more useful as an object, but I'm not willing to discount an entire tradition of a millenia just because I don't have an affinity for its methods. -
Mizner and Mitchell - the bromance continues
Vajra Fist replied to Apech's topic in General Discussion
Didn't Mizner get hammered on whiskey the last time they met? Unusual behaviour for someone who calls themself Ajahn. Also the fifth precept is interpreted differently. In Japanese Buddhism it's interpreted as a recommendation against intoxication, rather than against intoxicants. I'm not sure whether microdosing LSD falls into that category. My own experience with very low dose mushrooms didn't involve any intoxication, but rather a very subtle, sub-perceptual mood improvement. I don't do it regularly, or see it as any aid to my practice, but I can see the therapeutic benefits for those suffering from depression or else the sense that they're trapped in a rut. But playing devil's advocate, there may be something to those cheeky yogis. Neuroscience tells us that mushrooms work by quietening the default mode network, which is the part of the brain associated with the sense of self. While I'm not saying mushrooms offer any form of lasting spiritual benefit, that is after all aligned with the goal of buddhism - the illusion of a self being the root of ignorance and suffering. I'll give this podcast a listen. But I find them very smug and self-congratulatory, and unfortunately that rubs me up the wrong way. I'm willing to accept though that's just the three poisons at work on me, and others may find them inspiring and helpful in their commentary. -
I've been learning Dayan (Wild Goose) Qigong this weekend. It probably ticks all the boxes in that it is physically strengthening and stretching. Feels quite nice to do in the morning to open up the body.
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If you're into Zen, then Tree Leaf Zendo, Zen Gateway, Zen Studies Society, Dosho Port, all offer excellent online sanghas, with dokusan (teacher consultation) and group sitting over zoom. Alternatively, if you're more into the theravadan model, then Beth Upton offers regular dana-based coaching over Zoom. It's important to have a teacher and practice within a lineage. It doesn't need to be super serious or to even meet regularly, but it's good to have someone who has seen through their own mind to take a look at you from time to time. Most times, they'll be able to see where you're stuck much better than you are. That speeds up your progress. As others have mentioned, breath counting is probably the best entry point. This is because its important to develop stable awareness before moving onto any body scanning or insight practice. Best of luck!
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I'm thinking of starting bagua, initially with a focus on circle walking for an hour or more in the morning, as a physical practice complement to my meditation. I've been gradually learning taiji over the past few months, but I've found it a bit overwhelming at times because there is so much material to cover. Circle walking by contrast seems relatively straightforward to learn, and according to some teachers offers it full range of health benefits at the outset. https://www.paulcavel.com/tai-chi-blog/bagua-circle-walking So I was wondering if anyone here put serious time into practicing it, and what benefits they derived from it?
