Hello everyone--just thought I would introduce myself. There's not much to say, really--I'm thirty-five, male, a father, husband, writer, and editor. My main interests are the arts (primarily literature and particularly fiction, but also very into music and film), the wilderness (environmental activism, backpacking, skiing, etc.), and meditative/yogic/psychonautic practice.
I have long had an interest in Buddhism, Hindu Tantra, and Taoism--I've studied translations of the major texts in all of those translations, lived in India and Taiwan, etc. For a number of years I practiced vipassana meditation before moving on to a more formal Buddhist practice under the guidance of a Theravadin monk. I've done a few 10-day retreats in the vipassana and Theravadin traditions, but eventually drifted away from Theravadin Buddhism as it was a little too orthodox and focused on monasticism for me. From 2014 to 2018 I developed a dedicated yoga asana practice and got a lot of benefit out of that as an adjunct to my continued meditation practice, but I eventually found that certain postures were very hard on my body and seemed to be exacerbating certain shoulder and hip injuries I've incurred over the years. I still practice yoga but much less rigorously and less frequently these days, and I have to cut out a lot of the most basic postures like Downward Dog.
In the last year I've turned to qigong as an alternative to yoga asana and found that it imparts even greater energetic benefits for me. I was going to some in-person classes before the pandemic started where the teacher taught the Luohan form, but I didn't have much time to progress very far before I stopped attending classes due to COVID.
A few weeks ago I bought volumes 1 and 2 of Terry Dunn's Flying Phoenix qigong system and have really enjoyed learning the basic meditations. I've found the energetic phenomena to be immediately noticeable, which is pretty interesting! I'm signing up here primarily to access the long Flying Phoenix Q&A thread. Could someone please let me know where to find it? I have found links to the thread, but even after registering as a user I get a message that I don't have permission to access those links.
OK, that's all. I look forward to talking with y'all!
