soaring crane

Midriff flab in men is carbohydrate-based, lay off the pasta (and beer, lol) replace with veggies and healthy oil I want to heal my eyes in 2010. I have a -3,5 prescription now, I want to get it it down under -1,00.

Hi GLooper - no, those are examples of extremes, simple opposites. You've concentrated on and identified the narrowest pinpoints of the north and south poles, stuck little flags in them, but forgot about the entire vibrant, living planet between them. You're describing the tiny, fleeting moment between the exhale and the inhale, while forgetting to breath. Start small, learn to breath, learn Qigong. Take your time and enjoy the journey

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/...sm-1848009.html inspirational The only pic I could find:

That's a very insightful take on it. Thank you, Dainin. What's mundane? What's sacred? Nothing is "sacred", imo. Thank you for the breakfast chuckles, and of course you're both absolutely right. Merry Christmas

I expected the same the same thing when I saw the title. And I really like your take on it! You're absolutely right

I have a somewhat different take on this. Practicing Qigong or, better, Qi Cultivation, in or around manmade structures means attracting some of that manmade Qi. It's in there, in the walls, in the foors, in all the busybody manufacturing processes that went into creating (and marketing and selling) the structures whose ultimate purpose is to create a border between the occupants and the natural world out there. Or up there. Or down there. That isn't inherently disadvantageous, but I can feel the difference. I'm affected differently by mandmade things than I am by the natural world.... And... Um... And now it's really late and I can't keep my eyes focussed well enough to complete the thought here, so... Goodnight from GMT+1

yes Now I'll go read the rest of the thread

A separate post because it's a separate topic. I've held classes at Physical Therapy centers as well, where the participants were all patients (who are mostly sick in the head to begin with, just don't tell them that) and the costs are covered in part or in whole by health insurance. I hated it. I couldn't do it. I do not what anything to do with health insurance. The people were only there because it was getting paid for, they could have tried "Pilates" or "Healthy Back" classes or whatever. They only wanted to get their minimum 70% participation certificates so they could submit them and be done. And the centers do the math to see how much they can charge based on what the insurances are willing to pay. It's a racket. It really like a parallel universe out there sometimes and it shocks me every time I encounter it

Hi, I hold three and a half Qigong courses a week, no claims of enlightenment from me and the Qigong I teach is pretty loose, lol. We have a lot of fun and I want the people to feel good and learn something valuable to get them through their days. I encourage them to search out other teachers, experiment a bit, try to find the path that fits best. Many end up staying with me, though I don't seek "recognition" or "confirmation" in any way. I do have some hardcore "fans" (including a scary number of female admirers; I learned to recognize "that look" a long time ago ), possibly because I do encourage them to express themselves (something people in stodgy old Upper Franconia aren't always used to doing) and that's what they like the most about me I'm kind of an exotic bird over here. Anyway, I said "three and a half" because of the four classes I hold, only one is really "my" group. We get a lot more intense in our practice, it can become quite intimate and we experience some amazing things together. I practice my Qigong, and let my inner voice talk to them simultaneously. This session is the one I organize myself the way I want to. It's by far the best one. And... I do it on a donation basis. I really just need money for gas, but they insist on giving me more. I have a Nepalese silk pouch that they put cash in, in secret, when I'm not looking, lol. The other three classes are organized by other people, one through an adult education center where my fee is set and inflexible, one at a private yoga center (using the term loosely) where I have to set my fee roughly to what the other instructors charge and one through a martial arts club that's run by an influential doctor who manages to get people motivated to do whatever she says. They pay me a LOT, around 90-100 euro per 90 minute session. I basically submit a bill based on how many participants there are. The club isn't permitted to show a profit, so I can take most of what comes in. Actually, I have to take it. So, I guess, without really "agreeing" with the structured way of looking at it as GiH posted it, I intuitively follow the logic. Which brings me to a question for GiH - do you actually hold courses anywhere? Why exactly are you encouraging this discussion to begin with? We'll all be quite gone in a few millenia and then none of this will matter anyway. I'll add something - I saw Deepak Chopra on Larry King today and felt very turned off. I turned him off. I think he's a phony baloney just cashing in on spirituality OTOH, I like Bagwan/Osho and don't care how much of a personal fortune he made. He deserved it and the universe recognized that. Cool. Wish I could have met him personally. xi xi

Yes, it's obvious to me as well They both have Qi. The dead bird affected you with its Qi in a way differently than the living bird, but they both had/have Qi. A concrete building has Qi, and it's deader than a dead bird. A landscape has Qi, and it's full of rocks. Clouds... very nice Qi up there. The stars, the Big Dipper... Qi everywhere we look. Did the mentor teach that only living, breathing, sentient creatures have Qi? That's not a rhetorical question, please understand that. Is Qi only internal and isolated in our bodies like a fluid which then disappears we they die? I really don't understand the example, but I understand that you were profoundly moved by it.

I'd say the first one sounds more Buddhist, the other three are too vague and could go either way. The highest "goal" for ancient "Daoists" was physical immortality, that's how they came up with all the longevity practices and medicines. It's also why they were so ready to incorporate ideas from other cultures, keep what worked (and didn't kill them), discard what didn't work. Afaik, they got the idea of experimenting with Mercury from Middle Eastern (Persian?) experiments. I think one of the problems is that "Daoism" is a murky subject (on the internet) and not nearly as well-defined as Buddhism, one of the four world religions. Finding someone who can speak straight from a purely Daoist standpoint (which involves a heck of a lot more than quoting the Laozi and ruminating on what it means for us today) is difficult, even if it's a Taiwanese Priest. The roots of Daoism go back to pre-history, and have nothing to do with Buddhist thought or philosophy, except for the broad "Asian" Weltanschauung embedded in the minds of the practitioners. But so much of the spiritual side of Buddhism got incorporated over the centuries, that they do look a lot alike in that regard.

This sounds more like Dao, meow. Explain to me please how the Qi of your descriptions, as thorough and elegant as they are, can be gathered up and projected, into a diode for example. Qi behaves exactly like water, on an infinitismally finer and vastly larger, universal scale. There's a German term - Feinstofflich - that answers it, but I don't know how to put it into English.

There ya go! I'm going to borrow that one once in a while if you don't mind

"Official", no, no way, there are just too many variations out there. Did you open Bindo's link? If you want to see a unique version, that was a mind-bending experience, lol. Yang Jwing-Ming claims to have the absolute original version, and I respect YJ-W, but still, no idea if he's right. http://www.amazon.com/Eight-Simple-Qigong-...1658&sr=1-2 It really wouldn't make a difference to the practice, but would still be interesting to know.

yessss... you know what I think is interesting, Air isn't one of the Wu Xing elements. A friend of my daughter's (10 years old) pointed that out to me a couple weeks ago, and I had never really thought about it as significant before. Where does air actually enter into all this?

What was that? lol, now I really do feel llike a wimp...

Yesssss....the new sun was born today, Happy Birthday! , or maybe is more appropriate The Chinese calendar is based around the winter solstice, though I forget the exact method. And certainly it's a major Taoist festival, that's where I got the Birthday idea. But I don't know much more about it. Taomeow would know for sure. The days only get longer from here on out, yippeeee.... till Summer Solstice anyway... This is close to what it looked like behind my house today: Beautiful

this is absolutely true and I've experienced exactly this a number of times. I totally spoiled a wonderful Qi experience about five years ago by becoming obsessive about it and trying to force it to do things for me (my grey hairs were reverting back to brown but once I became aware of that, I started practicing with exactly THAT intention, all the time, and the effect wore off. And my grey hairs came back. I haven't really been able to get back to that state again but I feel a change in the wind somehow). And that may be something that holds me back from looking too hard for the answer to the "what is it" question, now that I think about it. At some point you have to just accept it and move on. Otherwise, when do you ever start? Hmm, now that think about it, that must have been closer to eight years ago, geesh, time flies...

Great, I'm glad you discovered the "other side" of the coin It's amazing to me how people get introduced to the martial side and totally miss the soft Qigong. It's good that your teacher does it with you, but I'm wondering, does he do it somewhat intesively or just kind of skirt around it and look at it as a warm-up routine? I know martial teachers who just scoff at us wimps who never get past the soft arts, lol. But I think their students are missing out on quite a bit of information and experience.

well, my view is that, this thread could go on for 10,000 more pages and nobody is going to have a definitive answer. This is why I stick my "ultrafine substance" definition. I feel it, I breath it, it flows, it speeds up, it slows down, it enters and leaves, it condenses and expands, I can taste it, smell it, literally feel it on my skin, I can't quite see it, but I don't really look for it either. I accept it as it is and I don't feel silly practicing with it. Maybe, and I hope this doesn't come off wrong, but I wonder how many of us here actually work with Qi to begin with. When you practice, are you actively involved in allowing Qi to move, sending it through your limbs? Breathing it? I think, once a person starts to really experience Qi, the strict definitions spoil the art.

love it - tell him a big dumb bird thinks he's a god artist Also, be sure and work on some basic upper leg/quad strength to support your knees. Do you only sit, Hagar? No moving forms?

lol, I was trying to say, "drink the stuff yourself and then tell US what happens", instead of trying to get us to be your lab rats squeak squeak

Well, and I hope I don't come off as debating because I really don't want to do that, I just want to clarify. I don't think Qi or the model of Dao/Qi/Yin/Yang comes from human consciousness. Every western scientific "Law" is up for grabs, at least the ones that don't just restate yin/yang ("for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction..."). The "Law" of gravity is falling apart at the seams and so are many others. They'll be replaced by more shaky laws... But Yin/Yang? Qi? No, no chance. They're the real law in town. The Lawmakers. They brought us into this world, and they'll take us out (yes, I remember my Bill Cosby, lol). Goodnight from CET xi xi

er, no, it was a joke, based on the claim in your sig line and the incomplete sentences in your post. Fuggetaboutit

Oh, I remember you. You're that kid in school that used to make the snowballs and try to get me to throw them at the bus. I'm not clicking your link. Ok, I clicked it. The guy deletes all comments that he doesn't like and leaves up the sappy fan-mail from his friends. That's enough for to not trust him or his $6 magic potion.