freeform

I hope seeing his image may change the trajectory of this conversation 🙏🏼

Adam’s Buddhist teacher:

In a classic act of propaganda, he took a snippet out of context to help tar his competition. Damo has posted about not agreeing with Tate… also laughing at the slick burn he received from Thunberg. He also says that just coz you don’t agree with someone you shouldn’t be hateful towards them… and that it’s healthy to be subjected to views completely counter to your own… with Tate as an example

I thought this was a very good interview. He’s very good at knowing when to listen and when to direct the conversation. At one point Adam starts talking about entry into Jhanna - for me that was a very nicely succinct description of ‘turning the light around’ - as I’ve been taught it… something we were discussing a while back here

Ritual washing is definitely a thing in some Daoist lines…

Yes - it may even better to be kind especially if you don’t want to I guess from the Buddhist perspective you could say that being kind in the face of aversion is an act of transforming one’s karma… But you could also just think of it as a way of working on your conditioned responses… it’s easy to be kind when the circumstances are supportive of it… but when they’re not - and you’re kind anyway, that action reverberates on a deeper level - with more power. I should also add that kindness in this way is a skilful action… in that there are more and less skilful ways of being kind (but even unskillful kindness is of benefit). Sometimes kindness can look a little harsh… it’s not always soft and gentle and sweet… just as you might reprimand a child harshly for their own good… this is where the skilfulness comes in. Karuna or compassion is different in that it’s like a light that casts no shadow - no skilful means necessary as it operates at a higher level…

Yeah it is loving-kindness… and there are metta practices - like sharing merits and stuff like that. My teacher emphasised the act of kindness first and foremost. Kind action reverberates most strongly… kind words, kind thoughts, a loving attitude - all very much secondary… Better to do the kind thing, even if you don’t feel love in your heart. It’s something anyone can do - and it pays immediate dividends. Make a kind gesture for someone and delight in their gain - even better

PS - I love how we went from semen to one of the highest virtues of all Classic Daobums!

Not at all. I also don’t mean to downplay your experience at all. The experience of Compassion tends to touch us at special moments… What I admire is those rare few who embody compassion with their entire being - ceaselessly… whether times are good or bad… whether the circumstances are offering up unbearable pain or moments of peace. That’s what I aspire to I’m glad you’re shooting for that too 🙏🏼

Something I aspire to one day! In my opinion only fully realised beings are capable of it. Until then kindness. (And an IRON CROTCH!)

That, sir, qualifies you for the highest tier of workshops I offer… but life changing workshops like this command life changing tuition fees 😜

Phew! You would’ve been in a whole load of trouble at the office if you hadn’t capitalised that just right!

A cultivator friend of mine got good at fa qi coz it meant he could remove the intoxicating properties of booze whenever he was dragged out for celebratory drinks by his school. Sounds like a terrible waste to me 😁 Not sure it would work for smack though!

But not the beating up little kids part!?! You have a lot to learn my friend!

My Buddhist teacher teaches almost nothing but meditative practice… no Dharma… No discourse… very rarely does he talk - but when he does, it’s always worth listening to. He teaches the two most important virtuous qualities… Metta (kindness) and Mudita (appreciation). Mudita is the pure appreciation of others success or their gain. As beings born into the material realm, we’re invariably imperfect (you could say that we’re born in the material realm because we’re imperfect)… But kindness and appreciative joy are the most ‘perfect’ of the virtues we’re capable of right now - no transformation, or growth necessary - they’re available to us right now (unlike things like compassion which most people are incapable of)… and these virtuous qualities reverberate across all realms of existence - from the highest heavenly realms to the lowest hell realms - their power is appreciated by all beings.

Yes - to me spirituality is to do not just with spirits… but with Spirit… or the divine within you. Ethics, virtue and morality are key - but they are not spirituality - they’re just a way for us to imitate spiritual qualities in a way that makes it more attractive for Spirit to enter our ‘temple’. Anything pure can be ruined with even a tiny drop of poison… and as imperfect beings, we will and we do poison virtue all the time. That’s fine - that is the nature of our existence on this manifest plane. The virtuous are not necessarily spiritual… but the truly spiritual (where the divine is fully expressing through them continuously) are indeed always what we’d call virtuous…

Just a little preview of what my seminars would be like…

I guess everyone has their favourite form of comedy I prefer the tragedies… Like the one where smart people who infer cultivation methods from arcane texts (that share no cultivation methods!) rather than learning actual cultivation from cultivated living humans

My info comes from a friend living and practicing in China. With just a cursory search online, you can find lots of examples of CCPs efforts to eradicate religion from the land - and erect a controlled disneyfied version of it as ‘cultural heritage’. Hundreds more examples online (Bitter winter seems to have the most helpful side by side before and after images - but you can find plenty of articles from other sources). This is just statues… a lot more has (and is) being destroyed that’s not so visible.

Yup - that’s fair, @Geof Nanto My criticism was solely based on using propaganda as an information source. There’s of course a bigger picture - and a more nuanced development at play.

It’s not this particular subject that’s of concern - it’s pretty much every one of your informational posts I’ve read… The politics is not the big issue - it’s the source of your info. If you were clear (or as clear as reasonably possible) about the source of your info, I’d have no issue. For example consider the difference between these: 1. Cures for AIDS and all cancers have just been discovered! 2. According to North Korean news sources, scientists in North Korea have discovered cures for AIDS and all cancers. Context makes a big difference. So if you say “according to CHQA - the official Chinese Health Qigong Association - Yi Jin Jing is a set of 8 gentle stretches” - then that’s fine. If you say it as a fact (without citing the source of your info) then it’s problematic. You don’t even have to go as far as naming the exact source… even ‘according to a search I just did on the Chinese internet’ would do I always try to give some hint of a source - I say according to what I understand, or my experience, or what my teacher said, or the Longmen Pai tradition etc etc.

I think @Shadow_self gave a very good introductory explanation of the nuances around the whole thing. I’d just add that the CCP has been waging a decades-long propaganda war against anything they deem a challenge to their power… Destroying shrines, temples, meditation caves… they've created all-powerful sports federations and cultural heritage federations that have eviscerated all internal arts of anything actually internal… The majority of actual masters of the arts have moved to other countries or have gone ‘underground’. 99% of what’s available in China is now basically either acrobatics/gymnastics for show… some has become like very light exercise (with no internal anything) for old people and anything remotely spiritual became a disneyfication of spirituality - so that people can take pictures of all the cultural paraphernalia as a kind of entertainment - a spectacle… like those pretend medieval villages you get in the US - where actors walk around wearing imitation clothes of the period and talk in pretend ye olde english to entertain tourists. This is ‘cultural heritage’. Nothing genuine has been left behind - and it’s for a very good reason - because true spirituality will always butt heads with political power. And communism cannot stand any challenge to absolute control. The majority of what you talk about, @ChiDragon is taken from the ‘cultural heritage’, gymnastics and light exercise understanding of these arts. You seem to think that because you get your information from the Chinese internet, you must be going ‘straight to the source’. But in reality you’re just getting the propaganda created by the CCP. It’s fine if you think Wushu looks cool or whatever - but don’t confuse real internal arts with what you’re being fed by Chinese propaganda! Stuff like Qi = breath - it’s like being told the ‘birds and the bees’ story - and thinking that’s actually how human reproduction works! So when I disagree, it’s not coz I have anything against you - it’s just you’re like a megaphone spouting Chinese propaganda, while people who are interested in actual internal arts are discussing genuine concepts. You're free to discuss CCP based stuff of course. I’ll just point out whenever you do so in opposition to true classical understanding of the arts. Sometimes a bit harshly (sorry about that!) - again, I mean no ill will against you… it’s just bullshit propaganda needs to be pointed out as bullshit propaganda sometimes!

Why get into all the bother and complexity of actual Daoist theory when there are very smart Communist cultural reformists who’ve done all that hard work for us already… Not only that, but they’ve made it all very conveniently available on the Chinese internet! Saving us all the headaches of independent inquiry 😬

I’m not a martial arts expert at all. One of my teachers did teach some gong fu and Taiji - but I did it more as exercise (and to ‘prove myself’) than to actually get good at gong fu… From what I understood - pretty much all ‘forms’ are basically building specific shapes in your structure - muscles and ligaments… Its like you make the muscles strong in certain shapes… you make the tendons engage in a certain way during forms practice… but during actual sparring - it looks nothing like forms, because they’re just using the shapes and strength from the forms in a more natural fighting style. You don’t tend to pull out these big wide stances in actual combat at all. Oh and it’s worth mentioning that these days a lot of these forms have been adapted by many to ‘look cool’ - bigger, wider, more flexible/acrobatic - negating the original purpose. Have a look in the image above at the Ma Bu (horse stance) - this is the modern wushu version with thighs parallel to the ground. Theres similar concepts with movement too… for instance in sparring combat, you would not be throwing a punch from your waist height with your legs in a wide gong bu. But repeating these forms thousands of times builds their mechanics into the body in such a way that for example you’d naturally start to use the power from the ground through the hip up to the fist - even when in a much smaller, more ‘natural’ fighting stance. Generally stance training builds postural muscles/soft tissues - and moving forms build the explosive, or ‘movement‘ muscles and tissues.

Yeah - horse stance is helpful for youngsters as it shapes the muscles in a way that emphasises the kwa… Just don’t go too wide - it looks impressive, but disconnects the kwa. (In that image they’ve got it about right). I’ve seen some modern callisthenics people get into horse stance training - but somehow they manage to make it a muscle endurance thing rather than kwa training… I imagine there’s better muscle training for the legs (pistol squats maybe?) In reality once muscles and ligaments realign, it should take only very moderate effort to stay in horse stance… and you could do it for hours without too much muscle strain. However horse stance is still ‘external’ in that it won’t allow for qi to sink. It’s just setting things up well for internal work.