Nintendao

aw c'mon, just hold still and......

It's just the way my mind works, looking for lots of different angles. I do it with English, too. Always want to see the Latin or Greek parts that went into something. As a calligrapher i even look up the radical and phonetic components separately. Holding in mind the pictographic representation of every stroke facilitates a more expressive style

I don't always ignore compound words, but i might try to pass myself off as an intelligent donkey, instead of just a smartass.

what is that?

i don’t remember being born, but i remember the 80’s

We're all bums when the wagon comes!

sleep

Flying sword takes a while to get the hang of. Those things are expensive, too. In the meantime why not practice it on wheels: looks pretty easy, right? 😈

It's more like the other way around. Understanding the mysteries of how life operates allows one to more deeply relate to fiction, or any other artform. I'm not saying it was real, I'm just saying what it said. Science goes the other way around. We know how massive an amount of energy a hadron collider must put into making a few dozen subatomic particles literally transform into and out of existence. The energy of heaven is limitless. I went the other way around. I've already experienced more than I care to enumerate of gain/loss, nurture/abuse, mundanity/mystery. So now i'm just hanging out.

May your lighning lotuses take root in the purest of hotsprings. Keep chipping away at that mountain of jade.

What was it like?

I thought it was the other way around. As Lu Yan told Tripitikas when he had passed through the gate-of-no-gate into the Forbidden Kingdom: "Where you came from is the dream." Only on rare and auspicious occasions will a causal realm event be transmitted to the lower dimension with enough energy to break a natural law.

At SunShen* we spent the whole first hundred days systematically developing awareness and perceptions, before even starting a basic moving a chi ball. I almost didn't stick with it, thinking it was too tame new agey meditation thing. If not for the Zoom meetings where talking with the seniors can give an idea of what they're all about. Then at least another hundred days of training the breath and internal vibration. By the time you get to bone condensing, the whole thing looks nothing like the fancy flowing taiji qigong youtubes. You always hear about these advanced methods only being teach behind closed doors. I'll tell you a big secret. It's because from the purely external viewpoint, most people would say it looks like trying to squeeze out a big dump LMAO. Seriously though, without the many layers of internal understanding and toughening, to jump straight into that kind of move genuinely risks injury. *Daily Practice Series is a general neigong, not taijiquan, but the teacher Daniel Kim is a 5th gen. Yang style master

@Sleepy Bluejay if anything take it as a compliment that you're onto something just hot enough to be considered dangerous Potato plants, eh? I've tried a few times throughout the years to plant vegetable gardens (this is not one of my metaphors; i literally plowed up part of the yard!). Got some pretty nice sprouts going strong, most of the time only to end up getting devoured by wild deer, beetles, or overrun by weeds, burned up in the Florida sun, or just plain crappy yields. Lots of things to watch out for out there. Okay maybe there's metaphor in there somewhere after all. Anyway the 'Bums might seem some harsh critics, but don't take it too personally, they just looking out.

While it's true that focusing too much on the UDT too early can lead to some craziness, there's also plenty chances of fanatical LDT based practice causing perversions. That said, Sleepy Bluejay's practices don't appear to be too extreme. They are poetic spin on what any off-the-shelf neidan book will point to. I'm not taking sides either way but as a personal framework i don't think it's worth badgering too much more over. There's no claim being made that it will even produce results. It's being presented as a hypothesis, open for anyone to do with or not, as they see fit for themself. Imagine some people are running around tossing a football at a park, and some jocks roll up and start explaining how what they are doing is not the actual game of football as defined by the NFL, and furthermore they need to put on helmets and pads or something bad will happen.

When yang has reached its maximum, it already contains within it the seed of yin. The cycle will reverse again in time. Here are some things that may help embrace the yin aspects of absorbing and reflecting. Look through some old notebooks, to see your progress over time and hard work. Journaling about goals achieved, even something as mundane getting some cleaning done, or whatever's on your mind really. Slowing down to focus on handwriting itself as an art, not just a tool to get ideas down. The formation of each letter by its constituent curves, can bring a new perspective on something that's been there all along. Get back in touch with what got you interested in art in the first place, whatever that may be. Carve out some time to go to a physical bookstore or art supply, or if there are any museums nearby. The yang activity includes not only to create, but also to transmit. Find new outlets. Give drawings away as gifts. If it feels awkward at first try doing this anonymously by leaving it on a park bench or library . Post on deviant art or tiktok, spacehey, etc. The Cool Picture Thread. It doesn't have to be a masterpiece. Even the technical exercises will be interesting to someone. Re-create the same drawings you have done in the past, trying out different improvements or themes. This way you can give them away and still keep the original. Again just ideas, not telling you what to do! Sometimes no amount of self-help jargon will make a difference if angst has set in. Something completely different to reset the energy. It's too cold to go camping.. build an old school blanket fort to practice in

Desire is great. To want to have or make art is admirable. Desire to be great, is not as great. To want to become a famous artist, might be setting myself up for disappointment if it doesn't happen. I've heard artists talk about creativity coming from a "flow state," being something similar to Lao Tzu's "wu wei," where instead of fixating on making particular things happen, we just play along in harmony with whatever is already happening. Wu wei (無為) does not mean to not do anything, but to do things without ado. It's mentioned as early as chapter 2 and 3, then nine more times in 37 through 64. Art can be as tricky a subject as Tao. Give a kindergartener a handful of elbow macaroni, some Elmer's glue, and a piece of paper, and they'll likely show us something about both! I dunno i'm just ramblin' @zoe what media do you work in?

I always think similarly. The phenomenon of reincarnation is simply someone (like young children) remembers something belong to a deceased person with verifiable details. Instead of applying the deep theory of reincarnation, it can be explained by possession, subtle linkage with spirits, access to stored memory, access to someone's akastic records, and other telepathic situations. These are more likely and simpler possibilities. Although I believe in the existence of reincarnation, I think it is not a systemic or unavoidable as stated in different religions. A clue to something like this has been observed in organ transplant recipients...

There are already a hundred threads talking about the difference between chakras and dantians, so i am not going to get into that, but on the topic of energy storage, reminded me of something. In the nineties my brother had gotten a book on astral projection (prompted by stories from our favorite hippie Comparative Religions professor ) It included a memorable exercise for charging up "etheric matter" to be utilized later in dreams/travel. The one where you imagine light, or mist or maybe vines, swirling up from the ground around your feet then up your legs, and soaking into each chakra successively, on up the ladder. At each stop, the visualization was to imagine taking a loaf of bread in your hands and slowly pulling it apart. The energy could then soak into the sort of fibrous web that spreads out. When it's filled enough the steam rises back out, like when pulling apart a loaf fresh out of the oven. Close the loaf back together again and let the overflow rise up to the next chakra, to repeat the process there. If nothing else it was a really great relaxation to do when lying in bed trying to fall asleep.

So what? In the Navy, "head" means toilet (https://usdictionary.com/idioms/to-hit-the-head/) No wonder my mind is full of shit!

Here's what I think about 丹田 Dāntián. 丹 is any essence to be refined. Whether from the original vermilion ore, all the way to quintessent elixir, who sometimes takes the form of a pill, if not immaterial. 田 represents an irrigated field, a place where cultivation is done, to yield produce. On a physical level, imagine becoming the shape of Frosty the Snowman. it's easy to sense the three main containers of movement. There are both external and internal movements. Externally, I can shift my balance by pivoting at the hips, the solar plexus, and the neck. Those are the delineations between the three spheres that make up the snowperson. The spheres can roll around relative to each other, like the floors of a swaying pagoda surviving an earthquake. Internally, there is a natural arrangement of different states of matter and energy. At the bottom, liquids and solids are being handled by the digestive tract. In the middle, gasses are exchanged by the lungs, and circulated by the heart, who also introduces a magnetic quality. At the top, the action is predominantly electrical fire of neurons, and pure light waves entering the eye. This arrangement reflects that of Earth made of solids and liquids, separated by Sky made of gas and radiation, from the Sun made of fire and source of light. There is an interspersing of each quality within all three spheres. For instance the alchemical process of fire into water might take advantage of the enteric nervous system to carry out electrical activities in the lower dantian. This is only a piece of the puzzle!

Frybread Face & Me "Hozho ... In Navajo it means harmony."

I remember reading that Sir Isaac Newton was a celibate priest

Therian Quadrobics all the rage 😹