adept

Greetings. In my meditations over the years, I've had glimpses of the void, or what you could also call the great stillness, peace, bliss, no-thingness or whatever. Just little bits here and there. But recently, EVERY time I meditate, I fall into a wonderful state which lasts for quite a while. Some of the sensations/feelings : I can't feel my body at all. It feels as if I'm just a floating consciousness. I can't detect any breathing. I can't feel a pulse/heartbeat. I don't even know that I have a body or a mind. Extreme peace, serenity, calmness and bliss. I have tried various types of meditations but the one I've come back to and stuck with has been awareness of my breathing. Not focussing on a particular point like the dantian or the third eye or the nose, but just on the mechanism of breathing, as a whole. Is it that the simplest meditations, when pursued and practiced diligently and regularly, have the greatest benefit ?

''the Nembutsu should not be said for personal gain such as prior to pulling the handle of a slot machine.'' - Jodo Shinshu's Bishop Ogui

Planets are large balls of rock and gas, orbiting a sun. Chakras are imaginary vortexes of energy within the body without any physical location.

No

I find this statement strange, puzzling and contradictory from someone who recites the nembutsu, is a meditation instructor, a medium and participates on a Buddhist forum.

“Golden Elixir is another name for one's fundamental nature. . . . There is no other Golden Elixir outside one's fundamental nature. All human beings have this Golden Elixir complete in themselves: it is entirely realized in everybody. It is neither more in a sage, nor less in an ordinary person. It is the seed of the Immortals and the Buddhas, the root of the worthies and the sages.” ― Liu Yiming

There are many internal practices in the Shaolin based arts. Could we make this a place to post some information and demonstrations. I like this one a lot :

Compassion is something that I have trouble with also. I would dearly like to be compassionate to every sentient being, but when I think of paedophiles, torturers and sadistic murderers and events such as the Newtown school massacre, I just can't bring myself to have any feelings of even equanimity towards such people. Maybe I'm just not ready for it yet.

Pineapple is a total jing booster

Go ahead practice it ! Try one move at a time for a few days, then add next one...etc etc... Once you master it, it should only take 15 minutes or so. If you add warm up's, stretching, stance work and meditation, it's a good 1 hour plus. Try the stances throughout the day, especially the horse stance, keeping correct posture and alignment. It looks external but hidden within is one of the best health management systems ever invented. It's that good ! As Shifu Yan Lei says "with this practice, over time, body make own medicine" It depends on your interpretation of neikung. It means 'inner work', which this most definitely is. Neikung and alchemy are not all about sitting crosslegged, retention of semen, storing chi and moving it in the body etc etc. That is a crossover with Tantric practices of the southern school. It is but one way of study and practice and can be dangerous to physical and mental health if done unsupervised. According to the northern school of Complete Reality the Golden Elixir is nothing but our own pristine fundamental nature obscured by a lifetime of cultural and social conditioning. We merely have to 'turn around the light' and look inward. Read the works of Liu I Ming, Thomas Cleary (especially The Secret Of The Golden Flower) and some Ch'an literature for another perspective. Best wishes

Shaolin Chuan Yuan - beautifully performed, fluid and supple.

And from a Ch'an perspective : http://wenshuchan-online.weebly.com/cao-dong-enlightenment---the-five-positions-of-ruler-and-minister.html

A very good description of the void from Paul Brunton : http://wisdomsgoldenrod.org/notebooks/23/8

Shifu Yan Lei : http://www.qigongworkout.com

http://www.bgtent.com/naturalcma/CMAarticle36-ShaolinSoftBoxing.htm

Rou Quan :

Good information here : http://imos-journal.net/?p=1635

Don't know anything about him or his 'system', but I read this on the intro page and it set my BS monitor off 'discovering this ancient form of chi activation, which is believed to extend back to Bodhidharma' Really ? How many more of these re-discovered forms of qigong, which always have a real famous originator, are going to emerge suddenly ?

Hi Allan. No one has asked you to leave. I have felt like this many times before. Then I realized that there's a lot of good here. You have a lot to offer to the forums. I merely pointed out that your way isn't the only way and there are other perspectives.

Page 67 of the Cleary book states: 'External work has no connection to the great Way. The true practice of the great Way first requires that vitality be transformed into energy. As alchemical literature has clearly explained, this vitality is not sexual.'

This statement from the Cleary book sums up the complete practice. Read it, ponder over it, contemplate it, over and over. Put it into practice in everyday life. 'The Way is present before our eyes, yet what is before our eyes is hard to understand. People like the unusual and enjoy the new; they miss what is right in front of their eyes and do not know where the Way is. The Way is the immediate presence; if you are unaware of the immediate presence, then your mind races, your intellect runs, and you go on thinking compulsively. All this is due to shallowness of spiritual power, and shallowness of spiritual power is due to racing in the mind.'

'Gazing at the lower abdomen is external work. As for the inner work, when the mind-eye comes into being, that alone is the true elixir field'

I wasn't flattering my knowledge. I just prefer the Cleary version. Please don't insult people just because they don't agree with everything you say. This is a discussion forum for Christ's sake. We all don't have the same preferences. It would indeed be a stale world if that was the case. The way you express your beliefs suggests to me that you are not like the Tao at all. Soft, yielding and pliable and open to all expressions. Instead you come across as rigid, brittle and unmovable. Please see the other person's viewpoint before hastily responding. We're all here to learn from each other. Peace.

Oh dear ! This is just your opinion of course. There are TWO versions. You work from the Wilhelm and I choose the Cleary.

Thomas Cleary has produced some wonderful translations of Taoist and Buddhist texts. He has a fantastic reputation. The thing is, he's not just a translator/author. He's a practitioner also and has spent decades cultivating. So, I wouldn't say he has no integrity, nor is he misleading anyone. In fact it is the Wilhelm text that is way off the mark, and Jung's commentary is even more so.