freeform

1. Pay attention! (to yourself - both inside and outside... to your family, friends and fellow humans... and pay attention to nature and be curious.) 2. Laugh! (I have a safety valve - if doing a practice makes me feel serious, I know it's not right for me... if something makes me feel that everything around me is funny, then I'm on the right track... also, make others laugh) 3. Love! (yourself as well as others... this is harder than it would seem... easier if you have no. 1 in place) Now, pay attention, laugh and love all seems very simple... but these things always are. There is a world of complexity in each of those things... for example I see energy/body/mental practices as part of no.1... No.2 can be very hard sometimes, but that's when you need it most. No.3 is also difficult sometimes, but just like laughter , if it's difficult to love, then that's exactly what you need and knowing that is part of no.1...

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great to have you here!

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A computer can never be truly random... I've not gotten into finding out why, but apparently it's a mathematical impossibility... it can only aproximate randomness... So people that build slot machines can play and win consistently, because they know the 'aproximation' algorithm, so have a basic idea of what will come up when. I once dreamed up a mechanical random number generator that you could plug into your computer... it could be pretty usefull in a lot of ways.

oh man! that sounds great! I'd love to go, especially with you guys - it would be really amazing! a month's a long time... but so worth it... although no employer would give me a month off... I'm gonna try my best to come though...

Firstly - what Affenbrot said... Secondly, in every practice there are two things going on - process and content. Content is 'the colour of liver/wood energy is green'... process is the sensory perception that the content alludes to - the feeling of wood energy. In terms of process there are few differences in terms of practice. There are fundamental models that differentiate methodologies - but these are very clear from the start (think about the difference between zen and taoist alchemy). In terms of content the differences are emense! Even within different Taoist schools there are huge differences in content, even between individuals in the same school there are many differences in content. Content is the ten thousand things... process is the five phases... The Chinese culture (as well as many other 'deep rooted' cultures) consider content to be of the utmost importance! In Huna you have to learn the specific hawaiian chants and traditions to decode the wisdom within... the same with Jewish mysticism, the same with Sufism and ofcourse the same with traditional Taoism... Teaching practices through content is important within these traditions, because the content has been refined over years to allude to and empower the process... the content is like the map that directs you to where you need to go. My generation of Westerners have a very different way of going about things... we have no deep-rooted content that has been refined over many generations... We are from birth bombarded with all kinds of information (content) that leads in thousands of different directions... So we tend to shun tradition (content) in favour of process (at least I do!) - others get embroiled in the confusing sea of content and never really get out of it. We may not completely understand the ways of the older, 'deep-rooted', content driven peoples... and they may not understand our way of contentless process driven development... It doesn't mean that either are right or wrong... but at this time the world is going through many changes - deep-rootedness is hard to find... so we evolve - we have to. Denty has seen the value of content... I've seen the value of pocess... I can look at Huna, Magick, and many other esoteric schools, avoiding the pitfalls of getting stuck on the content and seeing the process that leads to the results that interest me... Huna and Toaism are essentially the same if you look at process, but are worlds appart if you look at content... High-level masters know about process very well... because they discover it whilst following content for decades... so a Huna master will recognise a Taoist master easily... Masters that have been taught through content can only teach through content... Process is much faster, but harder to teach... So we learn how to dicern process and discard content... and that's what I choose to do. Finally... consider this... Which is the higher form of wisdom - that of a 100yr old sage or that of a 1yr old child?... content or process - you decide

Hey Rin Interesting stuff... You're running away from words, and it seems your intuition has brought you here - where we use words to help us embody what they imply. I know first hand that thinking philosophically and spiritually is highly rewarding, but Taoism (especially the type most of the Bums are fond of) involves dropping the words and getting back into your body... where all the questions are answered already... anyway, welcome aboard!

Welcome Footpad! What kind of metaphysical things are you into?

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Enlightenment is never what you think it is... which is great... because you can play with it... when we were children and we painted our parents and our house and the sun, we didn't mistake them to be real... we just interpreted what we saw, and it was fun (right?)... So knowing that whatever we say about enlightenment isn't real, we can feel a great freedom because we know we can have some fun - and interpret it in all kinds of different and exciting ways. ..... maybe enlightenment has something to do with light (as the name suggests) how about shining brightly from the depths of who you are and illuminating the world around you?

I completely agree... hoarding energy presupposes that there is a finite amount of it, and you better get a hold of all you can before it's too late. I tend to think of chi as a comunication agent... what the communication 'is' depends on the type of chi. The only reason to gather chi at your LTT is to increase your awareness of and communication with that part of your body. I find that thinking this way does away with the concept of 'dirty chi' - because 'dirty chi' is initself a miscommunication or even a lack of communication (a blockage)... so the act of running chi through the channels is like clearing out the pipes so that all your cells, energy systems, tan tiens, and shen can communicate with the primordial neutral space. Being full of chi just means that you're able to communicate effectively and quickly with any part of your body/emotions/spirit... This brings me back to my favourite model - 'attention'. Chi is attention... if you can hold your full attention without getting distracted on a specific part of your body, then your chi is flowing well there. We have habits of holding our attention in certain places with certain external factors... doing chi kung disrupts the habit and forces you to become conscious of this... so that you can develop habits that are more in tune with your environment.

Wow - great result with the hair stroking! I must admit, it seems you give me far more credit than I deserve. I never really put much effort into getting extra awareness from any of my meridians, but I do remember reading or hearing aout tripple warmer and it all just making sense. I've felt its presence a few times quite distinctly - we were in Greenwich park with friends sitting in a highly polinated area and the discussion moved onto allergies - my friend had all kinds of allergies and was already getting puffy just talking about it... And although I never really had any allergies I started feeling the effects - my sinuses closed off and my eyes felt itchy. This is where I thought of my grand father - it felt almost that the tripple warmer was protecting me from what it now learnt could possibly be a threat... I dealt with it like I would with my grand dad - appreciate the concern, but there is no danger, shhhh, I love you, thanks. And my sinuses opened up. The brushing behind the ears trick, I think I learnt from Donna Eden... I just remember seeing her explain it on the video and realised that people make all kinds of gestures to help out their meridians... we strech, put our hands behind our head, put our hands to our forehead when the sh** hits the fan, massage our temples when stressed (another tripple heater sedation trick), we even point to our chakras when interacting (I get a memory of a lady puting her palm to her heart when recieving a gift... she seemed to have issues with receiving, so maybe it was a way of protecting her heart from the pain of recieving (as strange as that sounds)) I'm trying to say that we're very much aware of all our meridians, but are unconcious of that awareness... maybe when I noticed this in other people, I became more aware of the times that I, myself would do some gesture that was energy related, and this gave me a chance to callibrate? Do keep quizzing me, if you think I could be of any more help

I always thought it was Aluminium not Aluminum... but I guess it's one of those american things My dad has an induction hob, which uses electromagnetism to heat the actual pan... apparently more healthy that way ( ) at the very least it precludes from using aluminium pans because they're not magnetic... It would be shooting a lot of electromagnetic energy at the food and water - which could be good or bad... it might be a cool experiment if one puts one of those orgone towerbuster gizmos near by...

well - it may be something random like blocked sinuses or dehydration which 80% of us are suffering (drink a lot of water with lemon juice, a bit of honey and some good quality (grey if possible) seasalt - it should be slightly warm or at least room temperature.) If it is stuck energy - shaking and the heel drop shold get it moving down to your feet. Ken Cohen is great. His videos and cds are generally very thorough and he seems to take great care to lead the viewer gently through all the necessary steps. I doubt you'd be doing anything too grand like spinal breathing from the start - he'll probably first help you train your awareness to actually feel chi and then connect with it and eventually direct it... You can always combine I AM meditation with what Cohen teaches (in fact that could really help you along), but I wouldn't do the energetic practices from Yogani at least untill after you've done the basics with Cohen. This is all completely my personal, and not very experienced advice (I've not done Yogani's practices for any length of time). Oh and by the way - if you have a friend who is interested, get them involved! there are many benefits to that.

So that must include the potential of the I Ching to be able to tell you your future! sorry had to do it. I found a page that was interesting concerning I Ching and alchemical practice. http://www.healingtao.org/deutsch/artikel10.htm I'd like to get into the I Ching, but am finding it rather difficult to learn from a book... I really need someone to show me how they go about using the I Ching themselves. Wayfarer, when I have time, I'll give your I Ching poetry a thorough read, maybe that'll inspire me. I have Stephen Karcher's Total I Ching that was very highly recomended by Michael Winn. Apparently Karcher fuses the two interpretations of I Ching (Confucian and Taosit) very effectively, and Winn said this is the I Ching book for cultivators. I'm still on the Introduction section after many months - I still dont get how it all works, I feel as if I'm back in maths class at school. PS congrats on getting into paragraphs, Way!

My tripple heater reminds me of my grand dad being protective over me. I dont see it as a moat... more like a troop of flying monkeys that gather around any threat to the castle. It feels much more mobile than most of the other meridians, it's very loyal and protective - dont over-work it. And just like a troop of flying monkeys it's quite exciteable... it's gonna protect the castle from whatever it sees as a threat. I sometimes see nervous girls constantly brushing their hair behind their ear - it sedates triple heater... like giving a flying simian a good petting session

Happy Birthday! We should all pitch in and get you a barrel of organic scrumpy or something. I love the stuff - it's healthy and gets you very drunk! Plus it's the right season now!

I'd go work in the circus!

Dude, I'd stop spinal breathing for a while if you're getting headaches! There could be two reasons for it - you're over-breathing, sending your blood pressure up and hyper ventilating, or you're sending too much energy to your head without successfully bringing it down. (ofcourse it could be anything else - I'm hardly a trained doctor or even yogi - so dont listen to me!) If you're over breathing, make sure that you breathe out for longer than you breathe in, dont hold your breath at any point and use your belly (and lower back) for the inhale. If it's energy stuck in the head, then there are a couple of things you could do... rotate your ankles and massage the bottom of your feet... then stand up and do a couple of heel drops (I explained it in the somewhat recent shaking thread). Also, if you have a potential assistant, get them to connect with your chi, and move their hands up and down the spine in time with your breathing. I personally do the Microcosmic Orbit.... paying special attention to the front channel.... HT recognises spinal breathing - although not the same method as yogani... I just tend to fill my spine with energy before doing the spine based Intu Flow drills. After which I bring the energy down the front and leave it in my LTT. Dont do the pendulum before getting used to normal spinal breathing. And dont continue spinal breathing, if after the adjustments above, you still get pressure in your head... go to an accupuncturist or something... I would work on your front channel - but you're not going that way, right? good luck!

I dont I AM myself - but find myself spontaneously chanting weird sounds. a mantra or chant has two main functions, as I see it - firstly it's great at emtying your mind and secondly it centres your energy. Sitting in forgetfullness, or just going deep into your body can have the effect of quieting your mind (not as effective ime) but there is no centering... When you chant a mantra, you can feel where the energy concentrates or emanates from, each sound has it's own centre... for example I just tried 'I AM' and felt it in the deep heart... if I slowly chant 'hooraahh' in me it starts in the LTT and moves up to the back of my head. If I kept chanting that over months, perhaps it would change - generally the longer you chant the same mantra, the more it moves down into your core channel. So rather than an arouser of cleansing energy, it's a method for centering energy within yourself.

Hey Leigh There are a couple of UK based Taoists here (although I doubt any of us would refer to ourselves as Taoist). Ian , Cat and me, just off the top of my head... The swords look amazing! I couldn't possibly afford one, but my dad enjoys collecting weaponary, so he might be interested - I'll let him know about you. I was checking out some Tai Chi sword practice and it looks incredible. Anyhoo welcome to the Tao Bums!

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I think I see what you're saying... (although you're very auditory - maybe I should say 'I hear what you're saying'? ) The three tan tiens are like strings on a beautiful instrument - and 'life' is playing on them skillfully and elegantly - creating a beautifull song, but what you're saying is that the deeper level is the actual 'playing' or even 'who is playing'. I agree with you completely - my suggestion of living elegantly through all parts of yourself is for those of us who are on the path reaching deeper and deeper levels - eventually we'll get to the non-dual level... In fact each tan tien has its own archetypal duality to resolve, as well as hundreds maybe thousands of personal dualities to resolve. The LTT has to resolve the duality between 'here' and 'there' - or basically space (I remember posting a technique that does this very quickly).... the heart has to resolve 'me' and 'other'.... and the head has to resolve 'past' and 'future'. There are many more for each one that are also important - stillness and movement, inner and outer for ltt, giving and receiving for heart, aware and unaware for head etc. So once all these dualities have been resolved, there will be nothing more... you could enter non-dual states at will... this is kind of how I see zen enlightenment. However I think Taoism has another, further step - wu wei. Effortless action... this is actually backtracking a bit, because you're required to get out of non-duality, back into the dual world and you navigate your life and achieve 'whatever', effortlessly and simply - this is living in true accord with nature. And it's actually like my suggestion of playing the instrument of your body (but at this level you play the instrument of the universe through your body).