Neirong

No, death is not suffering. The suffering comes for those who are alive when someone they know dies. For the one who died, it is a massive purge, a release, beneficial as it heals the damage acquired over the lifetime. It is also, for most people, an eternal rest. But for those deeply on the cultivation path, death is not an end. It is possible that in next life you will awaken inside a new body. The thrill of living again is indescribable. Cultivation of self is not an egoistic goal; by becoming more advanced, you become more valuable to the system, and it will find a better use for you. On the other hand, useless chips that have no practical use or value can easily get recycled. Planet prints trillions of new souls every year using all kind of random rubbish as a base. Enjoying life and connections in it is fine, but it is important to make meaningful progress. The opportunity to step on a path of evolution is hard to come by, and it can shape future for hundreds of upcoming lifetimes. The thing is --- it is possible to imbue objects with energy (Qi), and it is possible to compress energy. Energy is a force that can do work, so it would also be possible to program it. It is possible to find an object with inherent qualities yin/yang/element acting as a carrier for the energy, that would also contain and deliver an energy to a particular function or organ internally. So, with the above everything is possible. On other hand, that might be extremely expensive and impossible to obtain. Similarly, very few people on the planet are in the possesion of a genuine magic artefact. Everything takes time, work, energy, highly advanced things also take a lot of investment, I am talking about tens of thousands of hours of difficult training and learning. Now for the most people out there, they are not really willing to put even an ounce of effort into cultivation.

It does not really matter. When someone lacks skill or experience, they only have the option to believe or not. Which is absolutely irrelevant. When you actually have the skill/quality itself, when you can see energies with an activated third eye, or have a functional working MCO, or one of hundreds other abilities, belief and faith no longer matter. It does not matter if millions or billions of souls, or everyone around you, do not believe that an ability exists or that you, in particular, do not have it. They will have no power to strip your attained merit and remove it. In fact, people with real abilities have little interest in making themselves known or proving anything to anyone. I don't think any advanced teaching is based on faith/belief. Teachings lead you to specific attainments through dedication, training, and a path where you gain personal experience. Not something written in a book, not something copied from a lecture. The problem with these threads is usually that people want something, but they are unwilling actually to work or make a commitment to their wish. What they have left is to devalue and undermine certain skills or qualities, telling everyone how meaningless it is to have a siddhi, how irrelevant it is, and that it actually does nothing at all, being just a form of metaphysical belief or delusion. Truth is, there is an absolutely immense difference in life experience/quality/existential status between a regular untrained human and an average cultivator. It is more than a difference in society between a homeless beggar, starving for any food scraps, and a billionaire who has life's opportunities on a silver platter. Simply indescribable.

Matter is energy. the only reason you are seeing physical objects, can interact with them and do not phase through them, is because electrons repel each other. Your energy body, on the other hand, does not experience such electron repulsion and could easily pass through objects.

I never had real eyesight problems and have never worn glasses. I have spent absurd amount of time on reading from phone or working with pc. I would attribute this to my knowledge of qigong/meditation. Quite early I have learned to manipulate my energy, to sense my eye channels. I can even sense if I eat some food and it starts to clog and weaken my eyes. Usually such an effect comes from processed food and seed oils. On other hand, some spices, vegetables and berries, seem to strengthen eyes. One or two times I have felt my vision worsen after an extremely high load on them, I have been able to quickly recover it. The vision worsens due to strain in the eye muscle along with poor nutrition and tiredness. When a person starts wearing glasses they essentially give up, and their eyesight problem locks in and will start degenerating. Anyway, if you want to fix your eyesight there are 4 things you have to do. 1. Clean your diet, if your diet clogs eyes there is no chance. 2. Practice relaxation exercise called Palming and visualize black color. 3. Do eye exercises 3 times a day and stop wearing glasses. (the second can be a problem, if it is a developed story and you cannot function without glasses) 4. Work with eye channels using internal energy It is possible to recover eyesight from -2 or +2.

Astral travel is a basic beginner practice; it doesn't really mean much. Certainly, not a secret. After you have done over several hundred full-body astral experiences and have trained the vessel in all movement skills and perfected control over your astral body, the real "stuff" begins. That is when it can get interesting, beneficial for spiritual growth, and also dangerous. Exploring other worlds, the cosmos itself, or battling supernatural entities. Teams of mages conduct all kind of fascinating research in astral body. I would say learning astral travel is easy and can be done anywhere, learning good movement skills will take 5-10 years of regular practice, and some buildup of astral energy. Finding someone who can guide and has experience further down the line can be difficult and is priceless.

I have done it, ZZ was one of the very first practices I was taught, and we had to stand for 55 minutes without movement as newbies. It was not a basic form you can find online or in screenshots in this thread, or whatever nonsense Damo is teaching, like just stand and keep your arms on a certain level, no, we had to maintain full concentration on multiple aspects without internal dialogue, do proper breathing and circulate energy, at the same time as standing and holding the form static. It is a beginner-friendly practice because anyone can do it with some willpower and quality instructions, but there are plenty of practices that nobody can do. I know a few hundred practices that would require one of the following even to attempt - permanent state of samadhi, revived past incarnation, developed elemental affinity, activated third eye, a complete mastery over your astral body, a visualization skill of a certain level, or a certain density of mental bodies, that take several decades to accumulate via secret methods that cannot be found in any kind of book in this world. Those above would certainly not be beginner practice. Legitimate Daoist teachings would have something similar in terms of progression, like practices that cannot be performed without a fully activated lower dantien. There is a difference between natural restrictions or prerequisites, and simply gatekeeping and peddling slop, trying to sell it as "ancient Taoist wisdom".

A silly bait for views Any good system has a progression of practices, where one practice would eventually flow into another. It is not a collection of do this and that, for unknown reasons. You may not be able to gain significant benefits and excel with advanced practices until you complete your milestones/attainments with beginner practices. Being a beginner, advanced, or more is always a relative term; if you start from something and then move to a more advanced form that you could not do before, that is called progression. That progression could vary a lot from system to system. In kindergarten, learning basic calculus would really be "advanced practice", while at the Ph.D level in sciences, if you do not know maths, you will be considered mentally impaired. The end of one cultivation system could be the very beginning of another one. Most people I have observed are unable to maintain their concentration uninterrupted for 30 minutes. That is the bare minimum duration for a practice. That is why they have to go and learn proper foundations and work their way through a range of practices step by step. You cannot skip the foundations or progression, or you will forever be stuck in a place of nowhere. P.s. If it is not clear, I do consider ZZ or standing post a beginner practice.

A lot of people, I would say certainly not a minority, are in cultivation and "esoteric practices" purely for their egos. That feeling of being or thinking yourself to be special, despite any internal flaws. You could be obese, sitting on a couch drinking beer all day, but because you are a member of a "prominent" internal arts school, and realized the "truth" of enlightenment, you are still the chosen one. No need to change yourself at all. Your Dao accepts all imperfection. Your bald, obese, tattooed all over, cigar-smoking, drug addict teacher, who is also a superpowerful secret martial arts master (that never once fought in his life) and hidden sage with wisdom pearls putting bs generator to shame, is once again proving it for you. With such a mentality, it will be impossible to make any progress - the cultivation path is tough and unforgiving; that is why it is common to see people practicing for 30-40 years with no real gain or siddhis. It's wild to me that people ask how to check the MCO status of a person, especially when they are supposed to be a lifetime practitioner of "internal arts". If everyone is special, then nobody is special. ------------------------------------- About alchemy If someone is unaware (ignorant) of astral travel and the spiritual world, they might assume that common descriptions of astral travel, such as teleportation, phasing through walls, or levitation, refer to physical reality. Similarly, alchemy is, in most cases, an internal process rather than an external one. It involves the transmutation of the self into a perfect being, not the creation and consumption of a physical elixir. Esoteric texts were typically written and shared in cryptic forms to ensure that only those with proper access to the tradition, guided by a qualified teacher, having necessary keys to decipher information could gain value from them. Others would misinterpret these texts and, for example, concoct a mercury-laden pill, irreversibly poisoning themselves. When it comes to physical pills, even if you find a legitimate source - caution is necessary due to the risk of heavy metals and other toxic substances exposure. Many herbal supplements, particularly those sourced from China, may contain dangerous levels of lead, arsenic, or other harmful heavy metals.