Pietro

Most of the people that start are socially inept. Since socially inept people who are enough on the internet to know about it are geeks, then by definition they are mostly geeky nerdy guys. When they start. Of course I speak from experience. I always do, or I clarify that I am not. Yes, I did learn some of the methods, but what was most important for me was to change some believes that I had (like the one that women don't actually want sex, lol). You see from when I was 16 I have basically tried to pick up girls all the time, I called it flirting, and it was at the root of a lot of fights I had with some of my gfs. But I had very little success. What the PU community gave me was to break up the process in little steps, and understand each little piece. In this way I could see the errors I would do on and on again, and see what instead I should have done. Then the practice is to be able to do the right thing when you are under stress. And my experience has been very pleasent, thanks.

Hello Brian, as I might have mentioned, I am no MA. But I did get some MA training mostly as a side effect to study meditation with a guy who was once a top martial artist. Now one of the things that I learned from Bruce is that in inetrnal martial art, from a certain point, the game is to be able not to have your consciousness gap, as well as, to use the gaps of the opponent to strike him. Now, I might not be able to do this, but my teacher Alan is, I suspect Buddy is too, and Bruce for sure is still able to do that. Now I have never heard of anything remotely similar to that in any western martial arts. Please do correct me if I am wrong. Pietro

The hypnosis, not that much. But generally yes, this is a huge group of serious and committed people, who eventually realise that PU is essentially just a skill. So the practice until they get it. And since they have forums, and collection of stories, and material, you can post there what has happened in your PU -practice session (what is called a field report), and you will often get feedback. You see most of them are young men in their 20 and 30, who just are socially inept, and need some hints on how to open up. Some of them were in their late twenties still virgin (or so). In my experience they all got much better, although some stopped learning when they got a gf, some when they married, some as soon as they had enough sex to feel better about them selves, and some went on to become full blown playboy or poligamous people. And yes, occasinally you also hear stories of people who keep on trying with no success at all.

Buddy, maybe we should start a new thread for this, but... I know you went looking for some of the original sources of Bruce material. Did you also investigate in the Tiantai form of Buddhism? I would be interested in some of the results of that investigation.

Pick Up. Those are the people who when the internet started, started on news groups (the infamous alt.seduction.fast ) to give each other tips on how to pick up women. Eventually they grew into a huge community with their own internal culture, schools, gurus, wars, and sacred texts. Well, one of those gurus (some would say one of the first, or even the first) was Ross Jeffries, who was an NLP guy, and is described in various book putting women in a slight trance to give them a slight push into falling for him. Many people don't like his methods, but leaving aside the ethical sideof it, the pragmatic one is equally interesting. Many people never managed to actually get that much success with NLP in a PU setting.

I'd be happy to receive the reference, but, you know, I am the kind of bitch who would then want to put the afermentioned texts in their context. I mean people have been chopped each other happily for close to two thousand years because they were doing different practices. Confucianist and Taoist, Taoist and Buddhist. All for the favour of the emperor. And whoever was on the side of the emperor would generally get the right to say: "those dogs? Just banish them and give us their temples". Now you want to prove me that there were people in the past who disliked left hand taoist. But of course they were. The problem is: is this how left hand daoist described themselves, or is this how right hand daoist, central daoist, confucianist or buddhist described them?

I've seen quite a lot of discussions in the PU community about those techniques. But the general agreement was that they would not work. Did you got them to work yourself? P.

hmm, actually physical, energetic, emotional, mental, psychic, causal, individuality, and Dao. Sorry, just couldn't shut up. And yes, according to Bruce they are common to both the Water taoist tradition, (maybe also the fire), and (some?) buddhism. The causal is also called karmic. One of the thing that came out with Alan just yesterday, is that even though both Taoism and Buddhism has the 8 bodies, they don't necessarily agree on what is possible to be done with them. They have a number of applications. So for example at you start from your skin, and you go in toward your central channel you meet them one after the other. The same as you go from the skin out. As you go through the various layer of your aura. Now if you take all the bodies up to the karmic they essentially have an extension in space. As such you can basically run a microcosmic orbit through them (not that micro in some cases). As such you have basically 11 layers of microcosmic orbit. (just count). I suspect the 12th would then be the central channel, but this is moving into philosophy, as my experience of the body of individuality is very very limited. (If existant at all)

I would accept the staring challenge. Right now. No problem. I was only worred that you could not even blink your eyes as he says, but he did rapidly the eyes, at some point. Blinking the eyes rapidly every now and then is necessary to keep them moist. But if you are allowed to do that, you are centered and you know how to shield yourself you can basically remain for a looong time.

for all of us witch. this is the first time i see it described in this way. And I don't think I agree one inch with that description.

Well, it's not that simple because, you see, I and I think cat want to have more time to read out taoist focused books. I mean, 10 days for the whole history of China is really too short. I would like to have some days for each chapter, so we get to read it, comment on it, find out how much it resonates with what we know, and then we have time to ask the fatidic question: do we know any practice from that period? Do we know any one who know any of those practices? Do we know anyone who is practicing a form of taoism which is essentially coming from this period. And generally having a different thread for each chapter. Now all this really cannot be done, if we are all rushing through each chapter, because we need to get everything done at the end of the month. Now you might say that we are free to keep on discussing the whole thing after the month is over, but this is like first reading the book, then discussing it. It is just too fast, and a different exercise all together. But the truth is that you guys were here before. You, and Mal and Xuesheng wanted to have this book club to read taoist yoga, and in general books that you found interesting. And then I, and others started to say that Taoist Yoga was not such a great book, and we should instead read something else, and go slower, and study, and so on. I mean, we are just perverting something which was already there, and that was working fine as it was. So I think that we should find a solution that would fit both. You know how the Taoist Canon has many sections. Well, the Tao Bum canon should have many section as well. The Tao Bums could host two sub-forum: the House of the Great Mystery, and the House of the great Pure. And the House of the great mystery would be a book club where you read, and study all the books that you find interesting, and enlightening, and mysterious, and possibly a bit demonic too. While the House of the great Pure could be aa study group (so not a book club), and it would be of the great Pure because it would just consider books (of course with possible external very rare exceptions) on, or from, taoism. And in the house of the great Pure we go very slowly through the history of taoism, we go deeper trying to connect to the practices that we are doing right now, trying to understand where those practices were originating from. And we try to understand which book we can actually refer to for our own practices. And then yes, like cat suggested, we could then get people from this or that school (she actually said it for BKF, but I am sure we can extend that), to let us go throug the text that they find most representative for their school. I think that this work would require quite a lot of commitment. We probably would not end up reading more than 5 or 6 books a year. But quite deeply. And I think it would be most interesting. And I don't want to describe too much of the House of the great mystery, because you guys should follow your vision, which is obviously different from mine, and possibly cat's, and I suspect others who are more interested in a more pure Taoist approach. If we do open a second sub-forum, with this intent, we could, at the beginning have the two forum start with a one month of difference, so that when one is starting in one book the other is deep in the discussion/reading of their next book. In this way someone really committed could be in both. But of course it is quite hard to keep them syncronised in the long run. And it shouldn't be a primary requirement. Also it might simply not be enough if one group wants to read a book every 30 days, and the other every 45 or 60. But still I assume many people will just drop in and out through both of them, and only few will just stick to one of them. Also it might happen that the same text get read in both places, and then it would be very obvious the different approach between the study group, and the book group. So, yes it can be a problem or an opportunity, and most probably it will be both. I hope that with this solution it can be an opportunity without being too much of a problem.

Ah, that's why

This one was sent to me by Alan some time ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUiPCbz5nGM I think the background story in japanese is that the game they are playing is to have 4 local celebrities, and the last one who laughs is out. So they make them see some funny stuff, and so we get to see the funny stuff too, which are of course all those 'chi demonstartion'... And I will not tell you more not to spoil you the fun. Loved the lightning bold from the previous post. Also I heard this story (could get the details if someone is interested, again from Alan, but I don't think there is a youtube movie for that) where someone claimed he was able to throw off people with his chi. And someone accepted the challenge. So another person went there with a glass of water. And they faced each other, and the chi master did all his stuff, and all the hii, haa, huu, and the other guy simply moved slowly saying: it's coming, it's coming. And then very simply poured the whole glass on the head of this poor self deluded chap.

That one book got me started on taoism 20 years ago. There is half a page of description on taoism that absolutely fascinated me. But I agree with Onigiri. Not relevant. The problem we are having with this club is the fundamental problem we are having in the TB. Here we have a mixture of people. Some are interested in Taoism. Some are interested in Enlightenment. And some only in the intersections. Every time you take a book that is not in the intersection you will have people groumbling wither because it is too academic or because it is not enough taoist. Sorry for the grammar :/, gotta run

I would honestly have preferred to have a bit more time. Once we were inside the Eva Wong book before deciding what the next book would be. Following the (yes, personal) idea that first we would study the history, then we would go deeper into the teachings of a particular period/school/tradition. But I might be alone in wanting this kind of Taoist point of view. I basically don't care if there are wonderful books out there. I think if they are not in (or about) the taoist tradition I have no interest to read them. It is not closed mindedness. It is just guarding the little time I have, and focusing on one thing in the little time I have on this world. In any case I do have Eva Wong with me. At the end of each chapter she suggests some books to go deeper in that topic. I will write down some of them, and report tomorrow.

Well, the problem is a deeper one. On the one side people want authenthic traditional teachings, (you know, the water method, Wang Li Ping, lineage masters...), on the other they protest because the traditional teachings do not conform to our modern western ethics (a teacher in one had to swear not to teach to male homosexual, on the other school a bull is being killed in a ritual). Traditional China was not the modern western world, and somehow we need to accept that. As the teachings arrive here they will somehow change. The problem is that when they change too much they loose part of their flavour, and feel more and more like new age crap. Finding the right balance is tricky. Your ass still ok? Can I go on?

Hello 'Onigiri', Doeas asking you to read another thread count as kicking your ass? The name that I put up where strictly the name of people who are using their name publicly. Except for Ian, for which there was a bit of confusion (I also know him on another internet site), and I corrected.

I found that from germany it was much faster to order american books directly from amazon.com, then from amazon.de Although it might be a bit more costly. Since the extra cost in the package, I tend to buy books from amazon.com in goups of 3. 3 makes up for one box. More books often moean more box, thus the package cost rises. Less books means that the package cost is less convenient. But they would generally arrive in a couple of weeks.

Fair enough. So maybe we write a nice letter all together, and I include to a mail to him. I haven't heard from him apart from that incident, and apart from the news I get from our common friend Pier. So it will be nice for me to do it. I also have something I would like to ask him which might be of interest to people not in your path, too. Pietro

Sorry, I understood you were an homosexual or bisexual man, who were studying with BKF. Now BKF CANNOT teach to an homosexual man. If he ever knows that he is in such a position he would be forced to throw you out, or stop teaching all together. Knowing your real name would put me in the position of having a secret versus my teacher. Something I am not really happy to have.

Thanks Sean for the answer. Please again send my congratulations. I understood you were David's webmaster, and as such you had some sort of priviledged channel to take care of his online figure. I must have been mistaken. Please understand that things between me and David can't really have changed... since we never were that near. We have some good friends in common, which we still have, I occasionally studied with him at the time of the HT, but this is pretty much all. Which is why I find it so funny to have become the authority on how David was 10 years ago. WTF! But of course I do provide the little info that I know. And regarding the fact that Wang Li Ping has positions in China, I am just very happy to hear that such a figure has been restored to his position, and does not have to keep on running away as in the book we all have read. Take care, Pietro P.S. You said that they should ask David directly. Is David's email still the same? (taje...) Am I allowed to pass it on, so that they can write to him directly?

Whaa! "SFJane", and Buddy are speaking to each other. I can't keep my dick in my trousers for the excitment! WOW!!!

Maybe he read the other thread where Sean posted the PM of others, and assumed that he would not mind.

Well considering what you revealed, and the school you are signed in, I would not open a PM if I thought it contained your real name. It's just a secret I don't need to know.