Turnip

Thank you so much for this, this is very quality. I didn’t even realize dowsing was originally meant to find water underground, what do you know. I will do some meditation using your instructions thank you

Thank you for the advice and understanding 🙏 I’ll try out those exercises and let you know how it works!

Wow this is a really thoughtful response. Thank you. You have a very good read on me and where I'm at. Having my feet firmly planted on the ground, engaged in the world, is not my strong suit. It's tricky because my main reason for wanting to find a good healing practice is so that I can have a tool to help me be in the world more. It's so that I can feel more connected to others, calmer, less anger and shame and fear of judgment. Emotional and interpersonal trauma, psycho-energetic trauma from drugs and hallucinogens, disillusionment, dissociation, nervous system stuck in fight or flight, has led to a desperate search for some type of sustainable relief and healing, eventually to qigong and such, but it seems desperation isn't necessarily the most stable or sustainable platform for these things... Thank you again, you have given me a lot to think about.

Thank you, I’ll check that out!

Thanks I appreciate it.

Thank you

Thank you.

You’re right. I just gotta pick something and stick to it. Thank you for the advice. 🙏

Thank you for your advice. I really appreciate it. I’ve never heard the importance of irony but that’s great, thank you.

I am interested in anyone’s opinions or experiences about this. I’m wondering if there are practices such as qigong, that can be very healing, physically, emotionally, generally make one feel better and happier, maybe even bring about seemingly spiritual experiences, etc, but can have negative “side effects”. In that, they take something away from the person. They subtlety disempower the person. They are not ultimately fruitful for the growth of that person’s soul. This leads into a broader question of how do you know if something is empowering you or disempowering you? Is this practice, teacher, activity, truly helping me grow and heal and become a better person, or is it handicapping my access to my deeper self-empowering nature? Tonight I asked Hua Ching Ni’s I Ching for advice about how I should find a path to heal myself. I got hexagram 48, The Well. In his commentary, Ni writes: ”Some people dig only three to five feet for water, and upon striking rock, dig another hole and then another. With such shallow efforts, water is never reached. An ancient proverb says that it is better to dig one well deep enough to reach water than to dig nine shallow wells which provide nothing. One must willing to work through difficulties in order to reach water. Of course, knowing whether there is water or not is important. On another level, beyond the issues of commitment and perseverance, this hexagram deals with the spiritual achievement of an individual. Knowing where to dig requires a deeper knowledge. Those who rush about digging here and there never allow themselves enough time to "sense" where the water is. Intuition is the result of self-development. Thus, one who is developed depends upon his intuitive and spiritual achievement to lead him to "water," instead of wasting a lot energy searching in many different directions.” The challenge is that if you’re not developed, how would you know where to dig? For every 10 people who say they’ve found a clean well with endless water supply, 9 of them could be drinking dirty water, or the supply could be limited without them knowing. I am in my early twenties and have not dug deep enough in any direction, partly because I don’t know where the water is. Maybe it’s part of the process. Does anyone have any words of advice, or experience of their own?

Thank you for your response Ascetic. That’s really cool that you were taught by a Yogic in your Imagination.

Thanks VinC for the thoughtful response, I appreciate it. I totally agree on the wonder of children. I’ve worked as an early childhood educator in the past and I’ve told people that working with or raising children is a whole spiritual practice in and of itself 🤣. They’re like a microcosm of the soul.

I was just reading the Wikipedia of Li Zhi, a 16th century Neo-Confucian philosopher, and the philosophy really spoke to me, so I thought I would post this in case anyone else finds it interesting. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Zhi_(philosopher) The Childlike Heart-Mind (tóng xīn; 童心) Li Zhi wrote a considerable amount on the “childlike heart-mind” (tóng xīn; 童心). Although someone of a childlike heart-mind was once considered to be someone “naive, immature, and inexperienced in the ways of the world” – and thus “bound to come to a bad end” – Li uses the term in a different sense, as evidenced by his reference to the 13th-century play The Western Chamber(Xixiang ji).[5] In this play, a scholar and a maiden develop a somewhat “forbidden” relationship, have a clandestine and passionate love affair, push through “traditional barriers” to their love, and finally marry. In the original telling (from the Tang Period, 7th-10th century CE), these same lovers have a short-lived, passionate romance which takes a sharp downward turn when the scholar decides to leave the maiden, leaving them both with no choice but to marry other people, although not out of “true love”.[5] In referencing this, Li argues for the ideals of the lovers in the Western Chamber, the “spontaneity, genuineness, abundance in feeling, and passionate desire”.[5] These are all aspects of Li's childlike heart-mind. Li's works on the childlike heart-mind are thought to be “innovative” yet “muddled and inconsistent”.[5] Some regard his seemingly incompatible ideas on the heart-mind as a relativist ethical structure “where anything goes."[5][6] Pauline Lee, however, rejects this interpretation, arguing instead that Li's work is useful in allowing us to understand the cultural milieu in which he lived, and that his “philosophical vision” bears great “intrinsic value and power”.[5] This concept of the childlike heart-mind is not unlike concepts of Li's contemporaries on similar subjects. In fact, Li may have even considered his contemporaries’ terms, namely the “original heart-mind” (ben xin), the “genuine heart-mind” (zhen xin), “pure knowing” (liang zhi), and “the infant heart-mind” (chizi zhi xin).[5] The term “ben xin” comes from a passage in the Mengzi that says that if a person acts in accordance with their “appetitive parts,” even if it is to save their own life and even if the decision is difficult for them, then they have “lost contact” with their original heart-mind, something which Mengzi believed is a person's “greatest moral resource."[5] Li Zhi makes a conscious decision not to use this term, preferring instead to use tong xin. This may be due in part to the fact that, while Mengzi believed that the heart-mind was something to be cultivated and nurtured, Li saw the heart-mind as something to be “preserved,” since, in his view, it is innately perfect from birth. Mengzi also thought that there was a specific “path of moral self-cultivation” and that those who had followed this path correctly would all have the same ethical attitudes, whereas Li held that there were many different ways that one could cultivate the heart-mind, particularly through the reading of certain texts or engagement in certain practices.[5] “Zhen xin” is found in the Buddhist text the Platform Sutra, in which it is said to be analogous to the “deep concentration of oneness,” something to practice while also maintaining a lack of attachment to things.[5] However, the heart-mind, in this view, runs the risk of becoming enmeshed with the Dao if ever it lingers in anything, if it becomes too attached. Ultimately, the heart-mind in this conception is considered to be functioning properly if it is doing things with natural ease, rather than struggling against the natural way of things (or Dao). Self-cultivation plays a role in this idea of the heart-mind, as well, through deep concentration. “Liang zhi” comes from Wang Yangming's idea of the heart-mind as something that is known through a discovery-based self-cultivation method and as being “directly manifested in a faculty of ‘pure knowing’” (a term which Mengzi used but which Wang means differently).[5] Wang regarded pure knowing as something innately perfect, just like Li's heart-mind, but which was “clouded over” at birth, akin to the sun being obstructed by clouds.[5] This “clouding” could be caused by one's qi if it had somehow become corrupted or soiled, so the aim was to have clear qi by exercising one's pure knowing, something which could be accomplished only through the will. “Chizi zhi xin” is a term used by Luo Rufang meaning “infant heart mind”.[5] This idea held the “free expression of one's natural desires” in high regard. Luo believed that a person's feelings “are [their] human nature,” and so the feelings should not be “repressed” in any way.[5] Spontaneous expression (expression without thinking about it) is also a part of the human nature, and as long as “artificial obstructions” (such as “false teachings or excessive meditation”) do not interfere, the feelings can thrive.[5] To Li, losing the genuine mind could result in losing the genuine self, and anyone who failed to be genuine would never recover their genuine heart-mind.[5] The childlike heart-mind is lost when anything from the outside – be those “aural and visual impressions” (even of the “Principles of the Way”), “knowledge and perceptions,” or the favor of a good reputation while masking a bad one – interferes with it.[5] Li also believed that if a person's childlike heart-mind was “obstructed,” then whatever that person said would not come from the childlike heart-mind, and so would lack “foundation” and would not be truthful. This is because, “when childlike heart-mind is obstructed, the Principles of the Way that come from outside the self become one's heart-mind."[5] This is a problem because, in this case, everything a person encounters and does with their physical senses is of the Principles of the Way, and so is not arising spontaneously from the childlike heart-mind. Words inspired by the Principles of the Way might sound nice or flow well, Li thought, but they wouldn't have anything to do with the person themselves. Their words would be “phony” and so the person themselves will be “phony,” and so too for everyone else until the whole world became like this, eventually leaving people unable to determine between “good” and “bad."[5] Li felt that the childlike heart-mind's “genuine feelings and desires,” as well as the expression of these, could “connect one to an abundant and powerful source” which is too great for “phony” individuals to comprehend.[5] Because of this, such individuals would turn away from opportunities to deepen their spiritual "vision," and face instead a life of comfort and “blindness."[5] Li notes that early sages had so securely preserved their heart-minds that, when they read and studied the moral teachings of the Principles of the Way, they were able to protect their heart-minds.[5] However, Li was concerned that many students would allow these same teachings to interfere with their heart-minds. This seems contradictory, given that it was the sages themselves who wrote the books of these teachings that, when read and studied, would cause the students to lose their childlike heart-mind. However, Li's justification for this reasoning is that the sages’ teachings were specific to each student, not necessarily to be used universally. He likened the teachings to medicine, not only in that each one is tailored specifically to the “patient's” needs, but also in that what helps one person might worsen the condition of another.[5]For Li, writings such as the Analects and the Six Classics were not to be understood as the “ultimate standard for thousands of generations,” because, he proposed, these texts would not then be direct products of the childlike heart-mind.[5] Although Li does say that the childlike heart-mind cannot return once it is lost, the aforementioned metaphor of “healing” might suggest that anyone is capable of recovering their childlike heart-mind, though perhaps not in its original condition.[5] This is partially because our phoniness is our own doing and our own decision, and therefore is not entirely out of our control.[5]The metaphor also reminds people that this particular kind of “health,” the recovery of the heart-mind, is relative. Each individual person has certain things that they need to do in order to remain healthy, and these practices are different from person to person.

Thanks, that helps a lot!

Hi @nyerstudent , I have a few questions. What long term (extraordinary?) benefits have you noticed from your practice? Is there anything about it that stands out in comparison to other practices you’ve done? Have you noticed that there is any kind of ceiling to the spiritual and energetic growth gained, or does it continually get deeper and deeper over time? Thanks