寒月 Hanyue

You used to have to sit in Ma Bu for several hours to show you were willing to learn and committed. Now you have to travel somewhere and turn up I know what you mean, but as someone who has flown to several countries and moved house several times for access to training, when someone can't be arsed to travel for a workshop I can be less than sympathetic They could always organise one in their area I am really getting the impression though, that those that are meant to make it to see Ya Mu have a way of doing so whether they understand the pull or not. Best,

+1 Thank you for the in depth post Ya Mu. I don't think there can be a clearer description! I had to repeat and highlight a few things above. 'Knowing' too much about what you think 'should' be happening creates expectation and false assumptions/desires, that can prevent you ALLOWING. This is the hard part of practice. What Ya Mu refers to as 'who they really are' is what I understand as and refer to as Being. This is one of the areas of meeting Ya Mu that touched me the most and yet I cannot really put into words. I have met few who can teach from a place of Being, let alone give you a clearer sense of it in yourself. Ironically they often get ignored over the flashy and mundane. Best,

I don't have a chip on my shoulder, well not one that has anything to do with this anyway Please don't be too harsh on rodgerj, your post did sound a little like you thought only practicing for medicine was a lesser path, I'm glad it was a mis-understanding. As for how is SM different to other "qigong", well I already wrote; Most qigong is a linear bottom up way of practicing cultivation, think jing-qi-shen refining things until you get to experience the higher levels. It involves the teacher providing the student with information and guiding them through practice over time. This is inline with much of our educational systems today, it is about learning something. Stillness Movement is a powerful spiritual system that is non-linear, you are given access to the higher levels and a spark of light and left to practice. Information is kept to a minimum it is about YOUR experience with the energies and guidance is based around that, not information. This is not how we are taught to learn today, and is about Being something not learning something. It is not the only system like this, but they are in the minority. People get hung up on the what (to do), and the why (should it be done) and forget about the how (it is to be done). The how is what often makes things so very different. My caveat, is that the above is my current understanding only. But I hope it helps. All great teachers I have known teach from the place of Being. Yesterday I wrote a post that concerned understanding the importance of Being and quoted a very interesting text, my computer crashed and I lost the post. I may try again when I have time. Best,

I personally feel that things can all too easily fall into a spiral of 'the emperor and his new clothes'. I want to say (and those that know me will hopefully know what I am saying and why), Otis you are NOT WRONG to see the things that you do. It is not because you are WRONG and everyone who posts positive things are RIGHT. It is not a black and white thing. It comes down to personality, personality is the total sum of our past experiences filtered. Pattern recognition is a basic human function and functions in all things. This is why I mentioned BEING. Depending on BEING and shifts in BEING these will influence our perception, it is also why one thing will "resonate" with you or it won't. Michael does not teach what most people call qigong. Yet due to the (intentional) ambiguous nature of the term, what he teaches is and can be called qigong. When I told Michael his lineage and system felt like shengong he replied by saying it was an apt term but to use it meant explaining it. He had already had years of explaining neigong (more commonly used thesedays) to the point of using qigong which was easier. When Michael says 'higher level' qigong, he doesn't mean its because he thinks his qigong is better. It is much more simply a statement of the energies being worked with. Everyone often lumps these together but they are not always the same, and there is good reason Michael uses the english term 'light'. Does it matter if you see worth in someone's work, no, it doesn't mean there is no worth. And just because others tell you there is won't help you see it, it is good that you can be honest with yourself as some will simply go on the words of others and still miss out on direct experience of their own which is more important. You have to follow your own heart. If you are meant to studing in depth then a teacher that can take you there will appear. As for preconception and expectations, everyone has them, sometimes you can put them on the shelf other times not so easy. Just remember (and yes I know I'll look like a fanboy ), Luke's reaction to finding a real Jedi in Yoda All the best,

+1 Respectful and honest comments shouldn't be, its a shame they often are. Thats some harsh self honesty there no? FWIW I don't think you're a jerk, but you do like a scrap All the best,

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Hundun You are not the only person that calls things as they see them. I am not attacking you, simply highlighting to you how your post is being perceived, my comments are based on the words you chose to use in your post. Your post speaks for itself. As I said, when you specifically state that you will stand behind someone and throw in your lot if they will first, that is simply stirring up trouble. It reminds me of teenagers trying to egg each other on to pick a fight. If all you wanted to do was to show support for Otis then you could have easily done so in a far less provocative way (maybe re-read some of those 5ET posts?). As I also stated I have enjoyed and have found some of your posts over the years to be informative and insightful, you just (from my point of view, and no I have no trouble manning up and saying it is simply MY point of view) keep casting a shadow over what could be a much more positive contribution to this forum. No one is perfect, certainly not I, and I have had my learning experiences here too. Best regards,

Every teacher I have met has their critics. Every teacher I have met is human. Every teacher I know that has released work publicly has their 'haters' and their 'lovers', you know, like marmite Most people I respect look for what suits them (which changes with time, experience, & maturity), if they don't find it they move on. Unless they have a really bad experience with someone (talking abuse of some description), they move on without shitt*ng on what they leave behind. In the Bhagavad gita it talks of the relationship between master and student, and that masters can teach what they teach and will have the faults that they have (they're human remember). You don't go to the master because of his faults, but because of what he can bring to the table for you to learn. Now of course, there is nothing that says you cannot weigh these up for yourself. It IS a personal thing. A friend told me the other day, and I am in agreement, that when shopping online they look for the one negative review even if there are hundreds of positive ones. Why? because we want something to use as a counter weight. Just don't forget that ALL voices should be considered, both positive AND negative. Sometimes it seems like people think that if just one person didn't like something then it is tarnished and to be written off. Weird logic no? While bearing in mind that any weighing up is done from behind the glasses of the vision of your current being. Nothing more nothing less. What can appear pointless or of no use today can be viewed in a very different light in several years time, and vice versa. Otis, this is a public forum and if you feel the need to express your opinions you should do so. As long as your points are respectful and constructive rather than hateful and simply being a dick. Then you shouldn't feel an issue, Michael is one of the better teachers I know who is happy to discuss things civilly. Given I do not know you from adam, I will say that while Mike's question may just appear to be a challenge it is not. It is simply an acknowledgment that comments about a practice without any real hours clocked of that practice are rocky. They can be informed (by other experience) at best, speculative, or at worst delusional. Not everything that looks 'the same' is the same, which is why an informed opinion can only get you so far. This isn't a gong fu, or neigong thing, its an everything thing. Listen to Micheal Reardon at about 1.00 into this short video. Hundun. I also don't know you from adam, but given your response to Otis' posts that respectfully express that he has a view from the 'other side' but doesn't want to offend anyone, I'll be a little blunter. Stop being a sh*t stirrer. You seem to still have something to get off your chest after the last time you ejaculated your (even then stored up) reservations about Michael's work. We've already heard your disgruntlements, and your comments here paint you in the light of someone with nothing better to do that egg someone on and start a fight. The behaviour demeans your other often informative posts and simply casts a shadow over your otherwise productive contributions to this forum. So please, step back from the screen, re-read the post and then decide if you actually want to contribute to healthy discussion or if your motives are still a little sour. Best,

You're most welcome. Yes anything that lets us know we aren't crazy is good! When I was going round with a good friend promoting a workshop last year we met a guy in an esoteric bookshop. It was a recommendation from him. The book you mention is not really about sex or sexual energy (that isn't what I got from it anyway). It is, but it isn't. The pinky purple cover and the title I think will always keep it hidden in plain sight from many people. She simply deals with energetic relationships, boundaries, sex, emotions etc. It is an easy read and deals as much with personal practice as it does anything else. The exercises are simple and there are solo and partner exercises (most aren't directly to do with anything sexual, but simply energy in relationship with energy). Her take on sexual energy and practice though was very helpful and insightful, I found her work to make much more sense than many other teachers. Best,

I found some of the most lucid descriptions of energetic relationship and boundaries along with pragmatic exercises in the work of Julie Henderson, her work is called Zapchen. Don't be put off by the weird titles of her books, there is much more below that surface impression they can give. Best, This is what Paul Ekman (leading world authority on emotions) has to say about her; When the New York Times puts you on the front page, all the other newspapers and other media follow suit, and soon we were deluged with telephone calls and letters. Among them was one from Julie, who wrote us that she understood what we had found and knew other ways to produce the changes we had found. I invited her to come to our laboratory and show us. We attached the electrodes to different parts of her body to measure the changes in her physiology, and she easily followed our instructions about making the different facial movements. Just as we had found with our actors, she also generated the distinctive pattern of changes in her physiology for each different facial expression. Then she told us she could do it with her voice, and sure enough she did. And when she then both made the sounds and moved her face, we had to stop her, for the changes she produced were so large, they scared us. For example, we found an increase in heart rate of about ten beats per minute with most of our subjects. Julie generated an increase of over 100 beats per minute, and it happened instantly when she made a particular face and body. Equally astounding, she could generate these same changes without making a sound or moving a facial muscle, just by concentrating on her knowledge of how the body works. A few years later, Julie gave a two-day workshop to a group of scientists studying emotion, in which she used an earlier version of the exercises described in this book. We were then her subjects, and we each experienced many of the changes she writes about. She is a marvel. I don't know if all of her explanations are correct, but the exercises do work, they can change your experience and sensations. I recommend them to you. Paul Ekman, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology University of California Medical School, San Francisco

And that is why something like this is so confusing, because everyone and their dog knows the way to do it and its all different! ha ha Don't think that sitting and navel gazing is going to do anything. You have to build dantian first. Find a teacher (a real one) and learn what they have to give, whether that involves dantian 'meditation' or not. Best,

Terms, well.... One thing is that the terms on the surface are quite straight forward, but at the same time so open they really mean nothing. It is only when given context that meaning can occur. Context is determined by the tradition using the term. There is no ONE SINGULAR definition of terms like qi, xin, shen, yi, neigong, qigong, waiggong, never has been. You have to look beyond the term, to who is using it and in which context? Which is why I find it funny that people read an old text and see a term and assume it MUST be referring to the same thing they THINK it is? So what is the answer? Trust in your teacher. Find a real teacher and try to understand their teachings, and then appreciate the terms they use in the context their teachings provide. Easier said than done. Why? Because there are many teaching and using the terms with no real connection to where the terms come from and this is a problem. Caveat emptor, be careful who your teachers are... My tuppence worth

Over the years I've been shown energetic rooting, shamanic rooting, and several types of martial rooting. Some mix them others do not. Martial rooting. The 'root' is hui yin. You need to relax the soft tissue, and develop elastic forces that cross and stabilise the joints of the body, ie some rising and some sinking to create support. Most try and use the soft tissue between the joints not across them. There needs to be a balancing of rising and sinking tissues to create a martially effective supportive structure (the old Chinese jinmai 'tendon' channels, or Myers more recent myofascial trains). Receiving force can change significantly between say using the front or back of the spine. You want as much of the upper body and torso weight sitting in the pelvis, this creates a weighted counter arm. Think of this ( ). The force of a push is transmitted to pushing against the counter weight of the pelvis, while the rising and supportive structure also meet that force. The legs allow this 'weight' to transfer to the ground but not all martial arts use them to do so in the same way, some use much more of a 'floating' root than others and this is where some of the biggest differences seem to appear from what I have felt. There is also a big difference between someone aligning the skeletal structure so that when you push you push on the structure which pushes on the floor. Or when they align and allow your force to simply transmit through them so you push directly on the floor itself! I have had someone let me feel the difference and all I can say is it is a big difference. These are bio-mechanical. Some will ADD energetic rooting to this as a cherry on the cake. But most who I have met that primarily do energetic rooting without training the structure are easily moved except by a neophyte. The different rooting skills are not mutually exclusive but they are not the same thing either. So it depends on what you are practicing for. Shamanic rooting, well thats something entirely different again. My two penneth worth Best

These two posts should be sticky's or required reading! While I have highlighted my favourite bits, and underlined particularly poignant bits, its all good. Best,

Poignant post Jetsun I'd love to hear more from others about their understanding and experiences of dissolving. It all helps to see things clearer. Yeah, I have to say I think Bruce can over-complicate things trying to break them down to make them easier for people. His descriptions of dissolving in his first two books are quite unclear IMHO, and have only come to make sense after direct instruction and practice. I personally would never recommend the books as stand alone learning to anyone, but then wouldn't with any other method either really. Bruce told us earlier this year that dissolving can either be done with intent or not. So, to use my own descriptions, one way is to be aware of a problem and to specifically practice to dissolve that, like a symptom/prescription thing. This of course brings with it all the, sensitivity to be aware of the actual problem and so on. Which is why the approach to dissolving in this way is done by following the energy behind the symptom back to its source in the attempt to release and let go of that anchor. The other approach is more directly related to zuo wang, and is sitting and allowing and dissolving what comes up. Both are valid approaches for different purposes within the Water method. As for ego highjacking your practice, personally I think that can easily happen regardless of the method, it will just take different forms. Completely. And where should you stop with the use of intent? This is a question. Do you have intent when you sit to practice? otherwise why are you sitting? Do you have the intent to practice daily? Where is the line between intent, and experience? So unless you have got to the 24/7 living your life is your practice stage, you will have some intent regarding cultivation, you have to. I think expectation is what needs to be avoided. The intention that latches on to expectations from practice. This can become a circular thing that traps you in the future, or the past and prevent full awareness of the present. Exactly, nicely put. Sitting and being, you can easily belief yourself to be much more aware than you are. Hiding our crap from ourselves is something we are very good at. Interestingly Zhuang Zi argues in his writings against compassion. I think the Daoist and Buddhist understandings and approaches to such things is one of the main areas of difference between them. I think kindness is important, and one of the fundamental aspects of relationship with people, but I do find this somewhat different to the attempts at all out blanket compassion I have come across in those trying to follow the Buddhist path. In fact I have only met a small number who actually (through repeated actions) convinced me they are genuinely compassionate in the Buddhist sense. Most act it out, but the heart is not there. As you say, kindness will naturally be present once the crap is dissolved (as will ALL states of being that will change according to the rhythms of life, nothing is static). I do not aim to 'have' compassion, which to me is definitely an ego craving in many I have met. To release all that is not you, to fully let go of that which is distorting your xin (being) and to allow that to simply be. Is different from specifically cultivating states of being such as compassion. Not arguing a right or wrong here, simply saying there is a difference. Thats a nice way of putting it. I agree, dissolving is not an ego thing, because it is not something you do, it is something that happens if 'allowed'. The use of the yi is that same as many methods of meditation, so if using it means ego is involved then all meditation methods suffer from the same issues (which they do). My feelings are that we hold on to things unknowingly, for many reasons, and dissolving is simply the natural process of letting go of them, which for whatever reason has not happened and we are, in that place, 'stuck'. As we move to be more fully aware, they are released naturally, as that is what should have happened but didn't. The scanning is simply a method that allows us to become increasingly aware of where this holding is occurring. Best,

Sorry, not hurt, simply mindful and plenty relaxed, I just don't bite at bait. Happy practicing,

http://qigongamerica.com/ http://traditionalstudies.org/Welcome.html I can't remember the other link to another worthwhile site, if I remember i'll post it too. Best,

Meeow!, if you can put your passive aggressive claws away and and ask questions nicely without the underhand remarks (underlined), maybe you'd get clear answers. As is, the bold shows you lack an understanding of the Water method, so regardless of your knowledge of anything else you have no comparison. Happy meditating doing what you're doing as you clearly don't really care about anything else, if it works for you great keep doing it. You don't need anything else.

OK second attempt as my first one got eaten by the interweb pixies. Quite simply, I have no idea. I don't try to get that. I suppose part of my awareness attaches certain things to the experiences afterwards(even then I try to avoid my overly analytical side, sometimes I win sometimes I lose), but during I do my best to simply be, remain present and aware of now and to release or dissolve whatever comes up whether gross or subtle, physical, emotional, energetic or anything at all. I try to feel and release and witness. best,

I get what you are saying, but please be aware that while this may reflect the approaches and methods of some forms of meditation, this description is not of the water traditions approach or methods. Dissolving is a natural process not a product of mind overlayed on that which is actually occuring within the moment, let alone a 'visualisation' of some kind, not even a tactile one. This is not an attempt to say water method is better than any other, just to say your comments do not really apply. Apples and oranges. The progressive nature of releasing the ego within water method is, as with all things, governed by the 70% rule. Best,

Stillness-Movement Neigong and Medical Qigong Workshop London January 22th and 23th 2011 Clinical Applications January 24th We are please to announce that Michael Lomax will be coming to the UK at the start of 2011. Join us in raising YOUR energy body vibration for health & awareness. We will do Stillness-Movement Neigong, Gift of the Tao: Vibratory Acts of Power and the new Gift of the Tao 2: Sacred Vibrations - Hold onto your hats - this is powerful! We will also do tree qigong, learn a powerful qigong technique called Sequential Energy Center Activation, Balancing, and Expansion, learn sleeping qigong, walking qigong and isotonal exercises. On the optional Clinical Applications day we will do medical qigong techniques and you will get started with the extremely powerful and effective unique modality of Taoist Medicine. These are amazing techniques to help heal others and will help in the development of your compassion. Details of location, prices etc will be sent out to the interested parties. There are limited spaces! Those interested please e-mail us on [email protected] for further information, or if you have any enquiries. Best,

I highly recommend you find a small a group (spread the workload) of interested people who are willing to commit, and then organise to get Ya Mu out your way. If you are unable to go to the mountain bring the mountain closer! (not trying to say you're 'mountainous' in anyway Ya Mu ) We are organising the UK workshops so that people on this side of the big pond have the chance to meet him and experience his work. Sometimes it can be better than waiting to see if someone else will do it. And Ya Mu is one of the easiest people I have ever worked with in regards to arranging things. Best

I hear you. And I can see that it is very personal to you, that is why I said no offence intended. It was my attempt to avoid that, though it seems I shot myself in the foot. I know from experience that asking questions of stuff that is clearly personal, can rub people the wrong way. So why did I bother to ask? Simply put, I have met so many interested in the Northern traditions that are so full of sh*t, when I see someone who is following a path and appears to be genuinely working hard and studying queries come up. Sometimes I ask, sometimes I don't. So, to be clear I meant no offence, you have my apologies for ruffling your feathers. I wish you well in your endeavours and may bifrost take you where ever you need to go in this lifetime or the next.