soaring crane

Here are a couple links, for reference only (I have no idea about the quality of these particular products) of some of the things I enjoy the most on my burner: Styrax (number one, love it. Use it in addition to other things) Dragon's Blood (not really for enjoyment, rather for area clearing/cleansing) Copal (a lot of variations on this stuff) Mastix (couldn't find it in English)

That's a very interesting site you visited Apech, and a good website to accompany it. Thanks. The forests here are swimming in 3,000 year-old celtic ringwalls and bruial mounds. Many are ummarked, but many others can be found on hiking maps. Some are quite huge, but completely overgrown, which only adds to their beauty as far as I'm concerned. Some have been excavated and include information for tourists. Most of the old chuches here were of course erected on larger celtic sites. About a 45-minute drive me is a spot in the forest called "Druidenhain" which translates to Druid Glade (or is it a grove? I'm not sure. Maybe it's something else). Here, it's got a wiki page, albeit in German, but there are pics to click at the bottom: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druidenhain The history is unclear but it's been believed for centuries to have been a druidic sacred grounds of some sort. It most certainly has a vibe to it and I've been there often, including overnights under the open sky. If I were to ever get a visit from a Tao Bum, this is one of the places I'd take him or her :-) edit: I had opened this link earlier but failed to look at it. This is webpage someone put together after a day's trekking around one area with over 30 burial mounds. Here's what they look like, dating from 1700-500 BCE: http://www.kult-urzeit.com/2014/04/grabhuegel-muenzinghof-velden-franken.html And there are always ringwalls in the areas where these mounds are, but they're not always easy to discern. It's surmised, but can never be proven 100%, that the walls were meant to keep the spirit(s) confined to the area of the mound or mounds.

Nag Champa is the classic incense in stick form. I like it, anyway. Japanese incenses are sometimes quite good, but expensive. I use a coal burner and lay a variety of things on it. I have a pretty big collection and always buy interesting things when I come across them. There's pretty much always something smoking in our apartment, and in my qigong classes. I feel it's a tremendous enhancement as it connects experiences to the ur-senses, thereby increasing their effect on us. Even when the sense of smell fades with disuse and age, the olfactory memory runs very, very deep. Right to the marrow, so to speak.

thank you for the good read, Rara. I think you may have chosen an unfortunate youtube clip to illustrate it, but the thrust of your argument seems clear enough to me. I see a can of contradictory statements in that concluding sentence. Give us some examples, for example, of what you would consider harmful preferences. Who decides? And where are the lines drawn between harmful and beneficial? And when we have preferences, harmful or not, they're going to be in liege with our guiding principles, and color everything we perceive, and, whether we're aware of the coloring or not, what we think of as an open mind is a subjective result of those preferences. I believe, in fact, that "objective mind" is an oxymoron. Logic is a purely cultural phenomenon and evidence is valid only within a narrow context of time and space. What passed for logic and evidence 500 years ago seems comical today; likewise, what passes the tests today will surely seem primitive in a few centuries (or sooner, given the rate of expansion in the Information Age). edit to point out that I started that with "I see". And I'm totally open to anyone who doesn't see what I see :-) edit to change the bolded part, to clarify

You're in Florida, right? With the exception of sexual repression, which I consider an abomination, I think the things 4bsolute brings up are all biologically programmed, neccessary to survival, and not unique to humans.

hmmm... I can think of a few adjectives to attach to Zen, but light wouldn't one of them, lol.

I'm just happy you clicked :-)

Actually, he says that Brian has got it all wrong, and makes a damn strong argument. It's a very good article, really.

NV - have you experienced the things you write about or are you writing hypothetically?

Maybe they're just compost? Which dandelion would you choose to be?

what? you not open to a little iconoclasty? :-)

I asked Lam Kam Chüen if I should be holding Huiyin up while standing and he replied, "don't do anything with huiyin. You Westerners, hahahaha". Overthinking this stuff is also a trap. My suggestion to the OP, i.e. "Just wondered if anyone could send over recommendations for brief zhan zhuang routines.": do a really easy loosening routine, simple arm swinging, front to back, not too mild, but don't make it too gymnastic, either. Do it for a good solid three minutes, or up to five. If you know how to do the torso-turning sideways arm swinging, do that for a couple minutes, too. When you're done, do a little bouncing. Jump up and down and swing your arms freely, shake out the tension in the shoulders and back and butt. Then jump up one time higher than you've been jumping up to this point, and land firmly on your spot. However your feet land is your stance, but you can make minimal corrections for the sake of comfort. Stand in a position that feels erect, vertical to you. The inner picture should be perfection. The body might not be perfect, but that's ok (for a while). Now do the to and fro arm swing again, only a few times. When the impulse strikes, stop the arms while on the downstroke. They should come to a stop somewhere between the chest and pelvis, hands facing the ground, sort of like you had slapped them down on an imaginary table. This is your arm and hand position. Make minimal corrections for comfort. Open your eyes, look straight ahead. Do not look down, do not hang the head like a shameful dog. Look straight out in front of you. Awake. Aware. Alive. You should feel very light and airy at first. Make a mental note of this feeling. Stand there for a a good fifteen minutes. Don't move a muscle. Don't waver. Maintain that first feeling of freshness and alive-ness. Keep looking actively out to the distant horizon (even if it's just a mental game and you're really standing in a closet). If (or, when) the feeling changes and you begin to get tense, or your head droops, or whatever, make minimal corrections to call up that feeling of freshness. Stay awake. After the fifteen minutes of standing (I said standing; this isn't Zhan Zhuang), you really have to do a closing routine. Very important. If you have to shorten your standing session in order to get in a more effective closing routine, then do that. The minimum you should do is lay the hands atop one another on the lower belly for a time that feels right to you, then start circling the hands around the Qihai, or around the navel. Say, nine circles in one direction, six in the other (yang and yin harmonizing). Then massage the neck with the hands. Then push the hands three times along the front of the body from the top of the breastbone down to the lower belly and let them rest there for a few seconds ... There are a lot of other things you can do to close, but with limited time, that's a pretty good practice. This would be a nice way to spend a lunch break. But don't forget to eat a little something, too :-) There's a similar mathod for getting the arms into the metal-phase position (the one where you look like you're hugging a tree).

Hello Brett, and welcome to the forums! Glad to have you aboard. Maybe you could share some of your experiences and interests with the group? Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of this Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, SC and the TTB team ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Special Note: all female members are more than welcome to join the discussions at our new Women’s Cultivation forum, moderated by rainbowvein and zanshin

er, well, did you click the link and read the article? My guess is, no

maybe you're blocking yourself with these conflicting ... thoughts. I sense on the one hand your deep, intuitive insights and on the other hand a mixed-bag of information from outside sources. For example: That's a learned approach. You've read that over and over and think it must be true. But on some level, you see a flaw in it, because it is flawed thinking. Your description of your meditations sounds quite good to me. I don't think you need to ask for more and more advice here. The only element you might want to add is non-judgement. You can observe or not observe as the wind blows, just don't judge. Don't react. Smile :-)

I enjoyed this article (a LOT), I think you will, too: http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2014/oct/14/brian-coxs-human-universe-presents-a-fatally-flawed-view-of-evolution

ooooohhhh! That air tube, the Luftschlauch, lol :-) Hmm ... I've been in very deep prana-breathing states but can't recall a coolness along the central channel. Can't recall much at all, in fact. In that state, it's all ... Geborgenheit pur. Ehrlich gesagt, wenn es darum geht, meine verschiedenen Erfahrungen und Empfindungen zu beschreiben, finde ich Deutsch die passendere und ausdrucksfähigere Sprache (aber Deutsch schreiben ist ein Graus, hihi).

well, when you drive 115+ mph on the highway, it's easier to make up for lost time if you're running late :-) It's also easier to miss an exit, haha

Happened to me once. Took about twenty minutes before it clicked with me that I was at the wrong place. Wrong city, wrong Taiji center, right time. We have a word in German for those moments, it's, "Tscha".

you should have seen it coming!

I think the cool, menthol, feeling is completely normal when the air passageways are relaxed, free of blockages and passive while the belllows down below takes control of the flow of breathe. My spontaneous explanation is that the relaxed state allows the senses to grow and this includes the tactile sense. In this case, it's the flow of air across the membranes in the throat, but you'll also feel the air on your skin, if it's moving in the slightest, and it'll feel just as lovely 4bsolute -- when you wrote "breathing tube", were you thinking "Luftröhre"? In English it's the Windpipe (or Trachea) :-)

Here's another topic: Are you associated with a school or are you independent? I'm a member of the Deutsche Qigong Gesellschaft (German Qigong Association), did my teacher training through them, but it was only a phase of my experience and resulted in a certificate. I've been to other schools but I don't associate with them, don't represent them or wear the sweatshirt or anything like that.

Hello Bear, and welcome to the forums! Glad to have you aboard :-) Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of this Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, SC and the TTB team ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Special Note: all female members are more than welcome to join the discussions at our new Women’s Cultivation forum, moderated by rainbowvein and zanshin

Want to meet nice, like-minded women? Become a Qigong instructor. I guess Yoga would work as well. :-) PS -- this is in a section of the forum titled "Off Topic", and a perfectly appropriate topic for discussion. It's TTB tradition to help each other with personal issues, and that's a good thing!

hear hear! ^^