freeform

Nothing… The Dao is The Path - and it leads where it leads If you want to use this frame… The fact that you’re manifesting your body in its form is also karma. As this karma is shed and transformed, you will manifest Spirit… a Spirited body in the physical realm… this is a natural extension of your realisation to the deepest level possible in human form. Whether this is a calling for you or not is part of your Path.

The attainment of Dao Considered the beginning of the spiritual Path in alchemical traditions… everything prior was, as you say preparation… everything to come actualisation.

The rainbow body… or ‘dragon body’ being an example… the non-rotting body… the crystal ‘relics’ left behind after death etc. The various (visible) light phenomena that occur at various stages etc. In these traditions, if there’s no transformation in the physical, then the transformation is not complete. (there are other traditions with different views - which is where personal discernment comes in).

There I was talking about my own experiences. And I’m just a beginner in the grand scheme of things I’ve had some other manifestations related to spiritual work - but I won’t be discussing those.

The main thing to focus on, in my opinion is the practicalities… For me I've always had to explain the practical aspects of what it’s like to be with me… Just as I imagine an Olympic sportsperson or a CEO would have to explain the various lifestyle issues that come with these endeavours. Choosing the right person on the other hand is a different matter. As @liminal_luke says - don’t look for similarities or certain outer ‘signs’… just go with that deeper level of intuition. Because appearances can be deceptive. And I would say never try to convince a partner to do any practice or anything like that. Just as @Pak_Satrio - do your own thing… they may want to join or they may not… it’s not important. In some ways it’s better that they don’t (in other ways it’s better that they do - it’s a net neutral overall) The reality is that as you change internally (particularly with energetic sort of practice), your partner is likely to change along with you - it’s kinda unavoidable (and may need some explanation down the line).

You can have lots of energy, be in a good mood - and still be a jerk It’s up to your own self-work to transform the jerkish qualities… The extra energy can go into virtue or it can go into selfishness… you have to work at diverting it away from selfishness. That’s kinda what I was trying to say.

Yeah - pleasure to me means something in particular - like pleasing sensations… but I recognise that not everyone has the same definition Yes when settled I feel an underlying kind of satisfaction and joy that is not based on external circumstances… If I’m unsettled internally this sense of joy recedes and is replaced by whatever the mind is fixating on. If I settle and my mind quietens this sense of appreciation reappears.

Maybe best for a private discussion

On one level you start to recognise what motivates an action… Does the action (whether a physical action in the world or mental action - like thinking or intending)… does it come from the Acquired Self or the Spirit? Is the action motivated by fear? (Base desires)… does it come from automated habitual patterns? Is it just a knee-jerk, stimulus-response reaction to something? Even if an action like that has an apparently beneficial effect, it’s still one that leads you (if only a tiny bit) away from the Divine within you. Then there are actions that come from deeper parts of you - ‘purer’ parts that are closer to the source (known as the De or Virtues)… effectively your Soul - the personal level of the Divine. Then, on an even deeper level, some actions can come from within the very centre of the Divine - your Spirit (a religious person might say it’s God acting through you)… Of course in the beginning it’s hard to discern, and you’ll find that an uncomfortable amount of your day to day motivations come from the habitual and base aspects… this can be painful to learn… especially when you discover parts of you that masquerade as loving and caring are actually motivated by greed and selfishness. Conscience is a good guide for most people. You tend to feel at a subtle level if something is coming from a self-gratifying aspect of you… A teacher, a partner or a close friend can also provide feedback. Once you start to get genuine virtuous action happening from time to time, you get a sense for it… But this is when the ‘unexpected turn’ starts to not matter… Meaning that on the rare occasion when it’s true, unconditioned virtue acting from within me, I’m fully prepared to die as a result. Its not ‘bravery’… it’s something else - coz as Dwai said, you’re not identified with you as the person or the body… you’re identified with something bigger and pretty much immortal - so death doesn’t even figure in it. It is said that a sage that acts purely through uncontrived De (virtue) is akin to a saint - the outcomes of all their actions are benevolent and beneficial on a deep level.

Yes - as you’ve eloquently said before, this drive for power is caused by fear… of not being enough or having enough (status, sex, control, resources etc). It’s an aspect of what I call the base desires… related with the water aspect of our being. Curiously it’s both the craving for and the aversion to this aspect of ourselves that keeps us stuck. The dropping of this fear is what I’d call entering Dao… which isn’t some sort of ultimate attainment - but simply means that now you’re on the Path (which is what Dao means on one level). Any sort of power before this is ‘borrowed’ - and it costs one dearly… as well as having a corrupting influence on one’s spiritual growth.

The right choice of hat would certainly take on a much more critical level of importance! 😅

Classic Mine would normally nod and walk away. After a while you kinda internalise this unbothered attitude and most things in practice - good or bad, mundane or extraordinary - they no longer really phase you… just yet another step on the path.

In one controversial teacher it was pretty big - it wasn't a hole in the skin, but you could see and feel that there's a space there between the skull plates and a dip in the skin... I imagine you could at least fit a ballpoint pen through if you punctured the skin 😅 In the seniors at my school, they did get a puncture in the skin and some blood came through - I couldn't see the skull or the dip in the same way coz they both have hair - but I don't think it was as significant as the one above.

When you write about these things - by the very nature of words (where you point to one thing over every other possible thing) it may make it seem like there's a deep focus on this in practice... In my case there is not... I don't even consider them 'grand transformations' - just as a gym goer (hopefully) doesn't consider the ability to lift people off the ground some grand attainment! You're quite right that if spiritual growth is what you're looking for, then these things should not be the focus at all. And neither should you have aversion to them. A gym goer that can't yet lift people saying "all well and good that you can lift people - but that doesn't make you a better person" might be right, but that view shows a subtle internal conflict. Many of these things aren't so 'hardcore' - they can come about from correct training in the first few years... And they serve a purpose that's higher than what you might initially see on the surface. In a (classically daobums) semen thread I was talking about kindness - particularly kindness when you least want to show it. Ever since I've had the jade fluid, I no longer get tired - I don't get irritable - I don't have drops in mood... I could go without sleep for as long as I'd want without losing focus and drive (I'd probably die before getting tired - which is a little dangerous)... Well this ability has most certainly helped me in my practice of kindness. Things get pretty tough in my chosen pursuit of kind action (sorry for skirting around, but what makes it 'selfless' for me is not discussing what it is I do) - and I know I can handle the toughest situations when fellow volunteers are flagging... Another 'grand transformation' means I don't get affected by pain in the same way anymore (both physical and emotional) - I can take pain without it 'staining' me... Another one means I don't panic - I just no longer have that reflex... Each of these means I'm better able to serve others in my chosen pursuit... And I'm better able to become a more suitable vehicle for the divine spark within me to manifest as fully as possible. Energetic practices can build you up... they can even create the conditions for the divine spark within you to begin to shine... But that won't unwind your self focus and narcissism - it won't make you a kinder person... you just have to go out and do it yourself. But here's the thing... What's stopping you from doing something kind right now? I don't mean smiling at an old lady in the street - or having kind intentions in your heart - I mean doing something that makes a big difference in someone else's life. What was stopping me? There are countless beings all around us that could do with some form of help - we could simply get up and go help right this second. But we don't - why? For me it was some comfort zone thing... inconvenience... fear... awkwardness... not knowing what to do, and not having the drive and determination to work it out... lots of rationalising to mask an inner feeling of inadequacy... clinging to pleasure and safety... Thanks to my teacher and to those that went before, I was able to clear all that out. Serving others was a much bigger motivator for me than "getting superpowers"... That sort of self-focused motivation wears out very quickly!! Now that's no longer a motivator - but it's still something I do. If I held on to my view that strength, skill, attainment and mastery are all toxic, ego-centric things, I would've remained a pleasure-seeking, discomfort-averse automaton with a promising inner spark for the rest of my life.

Yes you're right - wine into water is a bit of a letdown Actually water into wine is also a thing - but a much higher level one... Wine into water is pretty doable - I can do the very beginnings of that by removing the alcohol from any drink with Qi emission (or turning normal water sweet). Water into wine is not possible to me yet 😅

From my understanding Damo had not studied with Rasmus for long enough to call him his teacher. Adam - I’ve no idea.

Didn’t mean for it to come across that way. I’ve been a bit naughty and skimmed past a lot of the latest discussion, so might’ve missed some context. Yup that’s fair. I’m sometimes guilty of that for sure - though in the case of Vajrayana I have no view as I’ve met only a couple of dedicated practitioners. I’m far more judgemental of what goes for Daoism these days 😅

Elsewhere on the forum there’s a thread discussing Pergadio’s book on Wang Mu - Foundations of Internal Alchemy - The Taoist Practice of Neidan… On p65 I’ve seen for myself (many years ago) that both Damo and most of his seniors had a ‘cinnabar field as firm as a stone’… first time I’d ever encountered this outside of just a couple of very small inner door schools… Something that’s developed in us by my teacher, but is exceptionally rare anywhere else. Also outside of a small number of Taiji practitioners they were the only westerners I’d ever met who managed to develop what I call qigong body… in that they could move ‘internally’ - not using the major muscle groups in the standard pulleys and levers mode - but rather in a whole-body fascial tensegrity mode (and not ‘floating’ which is what I see most people do when they think they’ve got this quality!). Only until I met Adam - he and a couple of his students also had this.

I didn't know he had one.

The vast majority I can't talk about! Basically if the test can be passed through contrivance it's just not shared with anyone who hasn't attained the thing. There are many that I don't even know about for that reason 😅 One I've talked about before is the attainment of the waterwheel... My teacher literally stuck his finger in my mouth and tasted my saliva to see whether it had the right consistency and taste... I've tasted his too (which was a mind bending experience!) Other tests are less gross. The majority of the tests are done without you even realising. My teacher often walks past, checks something or pokes me in some way and that's it... he rarely tells me if I even passed or not. I only know some from having to test some juniors. Some are not so woo woo - like being able to hold a seemingly impossible stance for many hours on end... Quite a few standard reflex changes (startle reflex, pupillary reflex, withdrawal reflex etc) Some are physical changes in the body - changes in the muscles and connective tissues on palpation... changes in the skin and subcutaneous layers... the hard, physical sphere that forms around the dantien when the Qi is stimulated... 'Steel wrapped in cotton' quality... There are other less important signs - like a lot of the clearing reactions eg smoke coming off the body, puss coming out from under the fingernails, putrid smelling sweat suddenly leaving the body... various bruises forming for no reason... Steve mentioned opening a hole in the head (then inserting grass in there is how it's usually done) - that's a thing... An earlier sign is releasing of small amounts of plasma and blood out of the fontanel point (something I've seen in a fellow practitioner). Some are a bit more woo woo esoteric like objective light phenomena... smell phenomena... sound phenomena... electromagnetic phenomena (fa qi methods build on these for instance)... some are a bit more Jesus-y (turning wine into water)... some are beyond belief (like walking through walls, teleporting, changing physical matter from one thing to another).

Some things are easy to talk about... Other, more deeply meaningful experiences are not for sharing with strangers in public - it invites a kind of cynical desecration of something that may feel very sacred to you. I would never press someone to reveal something they feel is too much for public scrutiny... especially if it plays into a "my school is better than yours" frame - a pretty demeaning game. I'm happy to share the weird and wonderful mechanistic unfolding - but rarely would I share something deeply personal and meaningful!

Yup agreed with all points... But there's more to this... To my teachers these things you mention certainly matter. But they are not so significant if they remain only in the mind. Another words, you can't claim to have mastered them if they remain purely on the level of the mind. This is the case with most genuine Daoist Neidan teachers. Everything you mention in that list is conditional... meaning that if conditions are just so, most people can exhibit them... That's why for most classical Daoist teachers these mental signs do not signify true transformation... good signs, certainly - but not true transformation. True accomplishment of these things always has a physical or physiological change associated with it. For example: There's literally a physiological sign that this is truly the case. My teacher physically checks for this. (Sadly I'm yet to pass the test!) I may feel this is the case for me... but sadly the sign is not there yet - so by definition, I don't quite have it yet... maybe I've moved in the right direction - but it's not fully attained. When you have it, it literally extends to the very physical makeup of your body and the functioning of your nervous system - when you don't have it... or haven't attained it completely - it remains on a mental level... maybe a very deep mental level - but just not deep enough (for my teacher).

Initiated

And I'm happy to mention some of the changes (that I'm allowed to talk about) that I've seen in me and some friends as a result of practice - though these are not resulting from Adam or Damo's schools (I've only met them and some of their students). I'd just like to understand the motivation for the question first

Good question! But I’m wondering about what you mean by ‘new and untested methods of cultivation’? No idea about Asa… but as far as I’m aware, Adam teaches Taiji (I believe starting with Huang style and moving on to Yang style as students progress)… Damo teaches Neigong and Neidan from one particular line (I believe he names his main alchemy teacher publicly). His Taiji is similar to Adam’s (Huang and Yang)… not sure about his Bagua. Edit: If you take a look at his public site, Damo has a full history - and explains what he teaches. Shen Hongxun features heavily for his early neigong stuff (some might recognise him as Dr Shen)... Ni Yuanhai, Qi Zhaoling and Chen Xiu for the Hunyuan internals... Wang Haitao taught him alchemy (and Bagua) - he also mentions Hu Xuezhi and Master Guan - as well as teachers he doesn't reveal for further training in alchemy... he mentions there that he's classically initiated into the Longmen line and that's what he teaches publicly. Adam is less explicit about his training history but mentions that he's had 7 primary teachers of Yang Style Tai Chi from the Huang Sheng Shyan and Yang Shou Hou lineages and is an inner door disciple of Luang Por Jumnien who's a revered Thai forest/theravada monk and meditation master. Is there some new cultivation method they teach that I’m not aware of?