Kwankan

LOL Bash in brain with steps 1 to 4. Thinking about triangles & musical ratios and named techniques. Make sure you get the right position......check it....is it correct........is tha top triangle a 3:4 ratio and the bottom one a 4:5 ratio and is the golden mean spiraling through the spinal positions correctly....... Now enjoy your empty mind Tee Hee

Using the mind to empty the mind seems to be the consensus here. "Emptiness meditation" sounds very unusual to me - surely any successful meditation results in emptiness, a state of no mind, coming back from a place that could easily be confused with sleep if one did not come back to in the position that they went in (I do not guarantee this, if the position was lying down in the 1st place !). Perhaps we could stop the floods by pouring more water into the river... Still in my work I am interested in the views of others and in this instance would love to understand how you experience this technique of using thought to eliminate thought and where it takes you. My hypothesis is that you will get calming sensations, perhaps visualisations & auditory elements, sensations of energy and other phenomena that is also gauged by the mind. Cheers

LOL - Mind is mind. Visualisations come from the subconscious. Doing a Taoist practice does not mean that one cannot see Jesus on the cross or Daffy Duck performing follatio on Pluto for that matter...Mind is mind

Darin I'm from UK so no I know of no masters in the US near you and am not affiliated with any. In fact the old adage has always been true in my own experience and that is "That when a teacher is required, one will appear". This kinda means that in reality you are on your own and that introductions can only detract from the experience. You must find your own way young Skywalker..... On a message board trying for answers you are on a hiding to nothing. One they simply cannot be transmitted in this way and two masters and disciples do not have time for distractions such as this (unless perhaps it has become a temporary tool in their own training - or the mind has gotten in and fooled them that this is the case). The simplest of exercises (indeed a single exercise) can begin you on the path and enlightenment can take lifetimes rather than years. Meditation & practices are mere tools to teach you to observe the mind until it goes quiet all by itself. Like a child left in a room full of toys, it will run around frantically at first and try to play with everything in the room but eventually it will get bored or tire out & go to sleep all on its own. So play with the toys you have and keep watching what happens. All the best

I feel that bits of it ring true. And he certainly does have something with the moral codes bit. Religion instils this feeling of right & wrong, good & bad - duality if you will. It is almost as if it was created either for control of the populace or simply with good intentions often lost in dogma. And certainly without separation into opposites (for better or worse) we would never have developed discrimination. So it did have a function behind its creation. Whether for good or bad is still in the balance because humanity is still here.....right now.

Hey Darin and thanks for the welcome in the lobby. And don't worry there's ajumpin afoot ! May I say wow. I am in awe of your gargantuan effort. Your situation reminds me of a few things when I was starting out. The biggest one being that I began by throwing myself right in at the deep end with everything. If I was supposed to tap my skin with a toffee hammer - I would wallop it with a sledgehammer. Basically I threw my whole being into any austerity that I found in the hope of results. What actually happened is that for a while everything would go great and then the pendulum that I had given an almighty push would swing back and wallop me in the nuts. I would binge on sugar, booze, drugs, emotions, whatever was in the balance. Now after some time and much water under the bridge I have again fallen onto the path of austerities. The difference this time is intention. Much to my own dismay I found that intention is not "I will do this for 6 months and such & such will happen" but it is your whole being or can I call it your intrinsic intelligence telling you that it is time to do something. So far in my experience this is rarely a conscious decision but something that begins to happen and after a while you realise that, for example you no longer smoke dope as you don't like the taste or the effect or whatever all of a sudden. Or the flip side example - that all of a sudden you rise at 5 in the morning and fit in 3 hours of exercises. It often comes almost without noticing the changeover is what I am saying. So take heart and realise that what your mammoth effort can potentially do for you is provide an opportunity to open some doors OR it can bite your ass into submission. As it seems you have had some mega hits from the negatives of your actions coming back on you. These are opportunities for some major realisations if the energy from them is utilised. Our negative aspects are the hardest for us to deal with, a positive feeling of energy is easy to work with due to the sensations and feelings that we associate with attainment of various types. But that damn negative eh ? Its a shitter and unless we can utilise these energies in the same way can we ever see that either side of the coin is an illusion and the real energy lies on the middle path. Which can only be achieved by participating in all energy available and having ways & means to utilise it. Now for methods such as this you need a genuine bona fide teacher. True Tao teachings are esoteric and simply must continue to be transmitted orally from person to person. Text books mean little without the knowledge required to read them already having being transmitted to the individual. And even email or message board is insufficient for what is required. I cannot stress enough how important this is even if perhaps I am unable to fully explain why. I hope that your practises are going well and that you find/have found some more of what you need. On a final note the visualisations that you get are still likely to be another type of energy i.e.of the mind and concerning yourself mentally with symbolism etc. is a function of the mind. If you are trying to achieve an empty mind then attaching these as belts attained in the dojo of the way rather than more experiences to attain energy from then one would be binding the mind rather than freeing it, IMHO. That is probably about as much as I can say. I hope I have not overstepped any boundaries or trodden on any toes on this my first post. Please let me know via PM or whatever if I have and I shall correct my methods accordingly ! Cheers KK

Cheers Trunk Is the Alchemy site you ? If so can I ask is it intended as a springboard for further research or as a resource ? Just wondering as it does contain alot of pertinent info but kinds leaves the jigsaw unfinishable. If you know what I mean. Which of course is good because from experience I know that some of the things released are best not released unless you are in contact with a practise master. For instance - It does talk about emotions & habits ingrained into the physical structure, which will be released by Iron Shirt Chi Gong when the muscles, tendons & fascia become soft & flexible/released. Being a curious George, hope you don't mind...

Hi Guys Just posting to introduce my good self for now. Have been a student of the Tao for 2-3 years now and currently find myself on the verge of a "leap of faith" into the hands of the Tao itself. The big old jump into the unknown to see if the vast unconscious can support my basic needs and aid my continued & unhindered practice ! So Hi and here's to multi-dimensional expansion, and the branch that will be expressed through the digital domain. Thanks Kwan Kan