寒月 Hanyue

It's called ghost writers and editors It is how most of the qigong guys produce their books. His main one for the medical qigong books was Gideon Enz.

This is a mis-understanding I think. I can ask and find out. I have briefly met King Monkey a couple of times at unrelated workshops and once randomly on a plane to Ireland! He is a nice guy. Serge is a lineage holder of the Daoism clan tradition that is related to Ziranmen quan. He refers to this tradition as "Da Xuan" and originating from the Kunlun mountains. Serge is allegedly recognised as a Tianshi or "teacher of the Heavens"/"Heavenly Teacher" by three lineages of Daoism. I'm not sure what is meant by this as Tianshi usually refers to the deities within Daoism. A teacher of the Dao is usually referred to as a Daoshi, but I think this title is being used because of the shamanic aspects of Serge's tradition. According to some, "Tianshi are believed to be able to converse with dieties on the community's behalf, as well as control spirits and draw upon the power of Dao through the use of talismans and charms." I don't think he or anyone claims he is a Shen Xian or Spirit Immortal which is also referred to as Tian Xian or a Heavenly Immortal. This is the highest level of achievement in Daoism. Lao Zi is viewed as a Tian Xian/Shen Xian! From Serge's site; "He received the title of "Tianshi" since 1998 in three schools: Huashan Lingbao Pai: Founded in 989, Quanzhen Longmen: Founded in 1148, Guikang Pai: Esoteric Movement founded in 888."

Second to Jetsun's post

What a load of B*llocks, oh well

I'm not a fan of Flowing hands, and I have never spoken with him. You may not agree with how he has approached dealing with people on this thread, and neither do I. However, the essence of what he says is a truth that shouldn't be ignored. Like him or not. Many on this board want access to teachings, to powers, to spiritual experiences, or even to the deities and gods, and yet often there is little respect paid to these things, let alone the actual paths, lineages or teachers that can be gateways to them. There are larger things than the members of this board, and your conduct may be heard beyond the scope that you realise. Seriously, anything to do with spirits and deities should not be taken lightly. Just my experience. [edit] Many are taught guided meditation practices to meet 'guides' of one sort or another, and also teachers, sometimes even deities or gods. These are usually light trance states and not a whole lot more than exploring subconscious realities of your own. This is also how neo/core-shamanism works. When things really turn up, it is often quite a different kettle of fish. Entering into relationship with a diety is not the fantasy or dream many hancker after. Same with finding a good teacher! Whats the saying "look before you leap..."? Just a coupla penneth worth... Best,

Never assume. It doesn't matter what you think. What matters is who walks in the door. You don't know them, and you don't know what is or may be going on with any of them. What is intense or not for one person or yourself is not the same across the board. Does this mean you should not take this opportunity to help others? Of course not. But never assume. As RV says things can happen, and when people get reactions they will want to know about it. Especially if this is their first contact with these kinds of arts. Some take it all in their stride, others are like "WTF is going on?" and this can simply be from beginning to actually feel their bodies, or their blood etc and nothing all that wierd. Also be aware, that in any group, regardless of YOU or what you are teaching, a group of that number, usually you will have at least one person who experiences something weird. It is simply what happens when you put a group of people together. So consider before hand how to deal with things, it makes it easier if it does happen. Thats a lot of stuff! How long do you have? Chenshi chousi gong is complex, though some break it down into smaller pieces. However I have witnessed and found that people will continue to surprise you with their inability to learn what you feel is the most simplest and basic of things! My advice, have your plan of what you will go over. And then plan on having no one get it, and being able to pull it apart or drop the teaching down a peg or two. If it turns out the group is okay with what you show them, then you don't go there. But as Baden Powell always said, "Be Prepared" and who can argue with a guy with a hat like that!

Viator knows the practice and learned it directly from a students of Wu's, not the book. We've chatted in pm. He's a nice guy I'd ask him about it. "I studied under one of Wu's direct students for several years, specifically working with the nine palaces. I found the practice to be very beneficial, though I was much earlier in my work. I have actually been looking to start working with it again independently, and picked up Qi Gong For Total Wellness for a refresher to the work. I have attended one of his small lectures on Feng Shui and found the material to be at a level that was a bit over my head at the time. Just for perspective, Wu is, as I understand the matter, the 18th transmitter of the Dragon Gate sect of Taoism from the White Cloud monastery." http://thetaobums.com/topic/7931-dr-baolin-wu-white-cloud-monastery/?p=361964 Best,

Mal, You can try using the yiquan concept of feeling as though you are under water and being gently rocked by a 'current'. It does of course depend on where and why you have pain/discomfort. Some find a side-side rocking helpful, some a 'vertical' rocking of the pelvis sending undulations up the spine. I'm talking small movements here, no I mean small movements The slight motion throughout the body can be easier on the system rather than a completely static one, but not always. The other alternative is to use pillows/cushions and literally pad and prop everything in place. Then go through what you've been taught, release and relax into the floor/cushions as much as you can. And don't stay there too long. Over time reduce the amount of support needed from the pads/cushions. You also don't have to stay in the strict horizontal position. As long as you allow a gentle traction on the spine, you get creative. Anything that helps the bracing begin to release and the tissues to unwind. While engaging and elongating tissues is the yang, this is the yin which is allowing the nervous system to let go. But for that to carry over, at some point you need to work on the same within movement. Best,

I think that is my favourite pic for a long time! Watch out Kirk Russell!

Double post

We are complex creatures! and can hurt ourselves in endless ways Best,

The following should help alleviate tightness but it will safely allow you to find out more about what is going on. Lie semi-supine, place your fingers on the front of your hip sockets. Feet hip width. Feel the support of the floor below you. Take some time to relax and allow your muscles to soften. Feel them release downwards like honey. Simply be patient and observe whatever you feel Where is tension? Where is pain? Feel the weight of the body, scan through body parts and check in with them. Feel the weight of the pelvis Feel the weight of the thigh bones pressing back into the hip sockets Relax and allow the body to let go into gravity. Ideally wait until you feel a shift in your breathing or the overall bodily tension. This tells you that the nervous system has begun to let go. Once this has happened you can move to further release tension. If you move before this release, it is nowhere near as beneficial as the residual tension is still held in the tissues by the nervous system. Place one hand under the small of the back on the same side. Place the other hand across so it touches the front of the pelvis of the opposite side. You now have a hand contacting the front and back of the same side of your pelvis. You want to slowly release the leg of this side into gravity and to slowly extend Listen to the pelvis and lower back internally, as well as with your hands Only lower the leg as far as you can before the pelvis begins to tilt, lifting the lower back as they move with the leg (don't put the knee flat on the floor). Then slowly draw the leg back up to its starting place. Repeat. Then repeat on the other side. Once you can distinguish the movement of the leg extending and the pelvis and lower back. Stay in semi-supine, feet flat, knees up Gently lift the lower back, and feel the pressing of the sacrum into the floor Then press the lower back into the floor and feel the lifting of the coccyx Move slowly, smoothly and with ease, do not try to stretch, move within a comfortable range. Move back and forth, make it easier each time. Listen to the lower back Listen to the pelvis Listen to the legs and feet Listen to the whole spine Then stop and relax, stay semi-supine for a few minutes. Then get up and stand, feel the spine-pelvis-legs Then slowly walk a bit and feel the spine-pelvis-legs. This will begin to release the deep tissues through the pelvis and along the spine. It will also allow you to become more directly aware of the tension and its relationship to your lower back and pelvis. This is NOT about stretching, it is about allowing the nervous system releasing and elongating the tissues. Any twisting on an already compacted lumbar spine is potentially dangerous, especially if not done under supervision . Always decompress and work on getting space and length back before adding rotation and twisting movement. Best,

I am going to use your post to highlight an important point, I mean no offense to you or anyone else who wants to help someone. Be careful about assuming that whatever is causing you pain or discomfort is the same as what is going on in someone else, just because the location is approximately the same. Movements that alleviate your pain will not always or automatically help someone else, and in fact may hurt them. This goes both ways, so if you are in pain and hear that someone alleviated their pain a certain way, caveat emptor! At the least move forwards with caution. I have had fun helping people fix themselves in my clinic who had tried to fix their pain/discomfort with friends/family and even IMA and yoga teachers saying "oh, I fixed that by doing..." or "ah, I know someone who fixed that by..." Best,

No, he is just a fairly good illusionist. These illusions are usually far far less dangerous than they appear. The trick is to make what happens seem far more dangerous or magical than what really happens. Here is his follow up semi-final performance. Most of what he does is to put you off how he does it. Best,

It is good you are aware of your own side of things in any given relationship, that said, Your teacher is meant to teach you, not ignore you. IT'S HIS JOB! There is nothing you have said on this thread whatsoever that provides any reason as to why you would want to stay with this person. Not what they are teaching, and certainly not how. Seriously, I would walk away rather than take the grief this person is giving you as unintentionally on their part as it maybe, it is obvious how much this is pulling you down. Best,

I like reading, it's kinda down time for me. Not everyone does. The more you read the olde texts that have survived, you find authors commenting upon the debates of their day. Or they writes critiques of other authors or practitioners within their field of expertise. The image that emerges from this, for me at least, is that there truly is nothing new under the sun. The same arguments go round and round and often persist through time better than the truth they are arguing over. I consider myself very blessed and lucky to have the teachers that I do. Anything that makes you move forwards and closer to the Dao is a good thing, anything that makes you stuck and lose sight of the Dao is not so good. What does or does not do this for you, is well, that is between you and Dao. Best,

Because what do you know, or have to teach? No offense intended, I just don't know anything about you. If you truly have something, then yes you could, and people do. ALL lineages, regardless of age are a synthesis of the founders learning, both formal and informal Why is that news to people? There is also a strange misconception myth that doesn't want to die, about the nature of tradition and transmission in Asian arts. Especially regarding 'preserving' the lineage, they are not dead, stuck, stuffy things, they are alive and living. No tradition or lineages full transmission exists within that schools texts! That is not how the arts were taught. Nothing new or different with Zhao's. Besides, everything always goes back to Lao Zi, words, spoken or written are always insufficient. Best,

老墨 师傅 Lao Mo Shifu

Be careful about wikipedia's half truths This is a classic case of offshoot or splinter lineage politics, nothing more. Zhao was also an inheritor of the Jin Shan Pai, another Quanzhen Longmen Pai off shoot lineage from Lao Shan. Zhao created the Qian Feng Xian-Tian Pai after being encouraged to do so by his teachers, which were his Wu-Liu pai teachers. He synthesised all he had learned into his school. "He is considered to have inherited the essence of the Longmen Pai Nei Dan (Bei Zong, Northern School). He was also influenced by the Wu Liu Pai (itself a Buddhist/Taoist synthesis), Chan Buddhism, and the Nan Pai (Nan Zong, Southern School). It is worthy of note that the Wu Lu Pai was only one source of Zhao’s teachings with the Longmen Pai probably being the most influential source. In any case, Zhao’s teachings are not, of course, fully described in his book." We should bear in mind that both the Wu-Liu Pai and the Jin Shan Pai themselves are unorthodox offshoot lineages that have been denounced by the orthodox lineages they broke away from! So for the current Wu-Liu Pai to distance themselves beacuse they think Zhao made up his own lineage based on incomplete transmission is funny, when basically the same thing is said about them. Why distance themselves? Two reasons; One it IS a different lineage. Zhao was influenced by more than just the Wu-Liu Pai Two, they are secretive, and don't like people reading Zhao's book and thinking they then know Wu-Liu Pai. Fair enough. As for better understanding Xing and Ming? Well how far back do you want to go? Wu-Liu itself is a later offshoot lineage from Quanzhen Longmen Pai, which took aspects of both the Northern school (Bei zong) and Southern school (Nan zong) and so on. Most of the teachings of Xing and Ming came down from the teachings of Zhang Boduan, although as has been pointed out, many later commentators chose to re-interprete Zhang's writings and teachings in their own way. These versions often greatly changed the views held of just what "dual cultivation" of xing and ming referred to. And it is even more complicated than that. So to actually understand xing and ming will take more then reading what is on the Wu-Liu Pai website Your posts presume that those commenting on this thread about Zhao's writings have not had teaching within the or related lineages of cultivation. It also presumes they know little about Zhao, and have not read the available Wu-Liu Pai texts (not the website the actual texts), or even the traditions texts that pre-date but heavily influenced them and so on. In which case Zhao's writings can be read, critically, for what they are and located within the context they have come down to us in. So why throw them in the trash? At the end of the day the thread is still primarily about Zhao and his writings (or as I view it Lu K'uan Yu's translation/interpretation of Zhao's writings*) rather than Wu-Liu Pai. Best, * Lu K'uan Yu did not translate the full Chinese text into English, this editing as I mentioned earlier, in my view makes Lu as much the "author" of Taoist Yoga as Zhao Bichen. This along with the choices made in term translation. I have found and been taught that many times the preface can be as important as the main body of the text. This is certainly true for classics, so while Zhao's Xingming fajue mingzhi 性命法訣明旨 is not a classic text there are still discussions within the preface that I think would have been valuable to translate

You're welcome, I certainly found the shift in understanding helpful. I will further clarify that, as I mentioned before the shen goes outwards, and goes inwards, and both are natural "functions" or "aspects", they are both part of its nature (as are other things too of course). Often though we let our habits and habitual ways of doing things and Being get in the way of the full spectrum of the natures of things like the shen simply be what they are. Daoism says, allow nature and Be. To me 'alchemy' a much later term, drawing on the terminology of the external chemists, is simply using terminology to describe the felt experiences and sensations associated with the process of dropping away that which is not our true self and allowing these inherent aspects or inner natures of ourself simply be what they are. As JB says, set up the right circumstances and let it unfold. Best,

Sorry mate, with all the traffic today I'd missed these gems of pearly wisdom that bear repeating and highlighting! It is refreshing to see this on the forum. I was taught pre-heaven breathing which is different to the versions of "reverse" breathing out and about but is similar. When I asked the teacher if this was the Daoist method that had had things added to it and become "reverse" breathing, they acknowledged yes, while also acknowledging it is always more complex than that I agree with your comments about it 100% I also view the "methods" as simply aligning elements and facilitating a process to unfold, and not steps or stages to be 'done' or 'performed'. Waveform potentials doesn't mean a lot to me, I must still be reading the wrong books All the best,

I like some of his views but not all of them. What I was talking about is a tangible reality that I could have anyone experience within 5 minutes. Because everyone is doing it all the time already, they just do it unconsciously. The "mystical" (certainly the mystical only) view of shen is largely a Western projection onto the Chinese language, same with many terms. There is a weird thing where something in Chinese is quite matter of fact and not all woo-woo, and yet when translated into English it just sounds all New Agey. Shen as a term contains various meaning and nuances. But even the spiritual aspects inherent within it are not particularly esoteric or mystical for the most part. Ya Mu has talked to me about parts of all of this, and I'm still digesting it all. As far as I understand it, the same projections have largely happened with the Native American view of "medicine" and "spirit" too. Another classical teacher I know says "please don't get too mad when you finally realise this is all a lot more mundane and boring than you currently think". Spend time with these people and see just how grounded into life and reality they are, even when they see the divine in things. Then spend time around Western seekers who live in TV, film, books and the interwebs, and see how everything takes on an ethereal disconnected senseability. Weird how that works huh It is not that a spiritual or wonderous aspect is not a part of it, but the reality is often much more grounded than many "seekers" want and so they see or find what they want to. How far apart are the sacred and the mundane? Do we not aim to fully enjoy each moment wihin the moment and all that it brings? So could I have worded what I said differently? Of course, but what I was talking about is called 'shen' in Chinese, and we are talking about Chinese arts, so.... Best,

The points I believe you are talking about are not fixed, ie they have been debated and the points have changed over time. Some put much more stock in them and their alleged relationship with the bamai. But if you wanna play here is one version; Paired qimai and the "master" and "coupled" points Ren Mai - Yin Qiao LU-07 KI-06 Yin Qiao Mai - Ren KI-06 LU-07 Du Mai - Yang Qiao SI-03 BL-62 Yang Qiao Mai - Du BL-62 SI-03 Dai Mai - Yang Wei GB-41 SJ-05 Yang Wei Mai - Dai Mai SJ-05 GB-41 Chong Mai - Yin Wei SP-04 P-06 Yin Wei Mai - Chong Mai P-06 SP-04 Please bear in mind "master" and "coupled" as terms should not be taken seriously. Personally I am more interested in the Daoist view than the medicinal regarding personal practice. This is rooted in Zhang Boduan's theories and writings regarding the eight vessels and it is quite a different animal Best,

1. Hui yin is the usual medicine name, it is also called Hai Di by Buddhists and Yin Qiao by Daoists. It is an important place, the most yin of the body. The space into the body slightly above the pelvic floor is also considered the xiadantian by some. The bamai are not tied to the lines drawn in anatomical charts, their pathway is 'larger' than that. 2. Bearing in mind the above comment. It is part of the Du Mai

There is no such thing as 'extra' points in my opinion. The classification is simply a TCM one due to those points not being easily 'grouped' or 'boxed' in with the boxes they chose to use. I also think it contributes to a false understanding of the channels, as do modern TCM charts, an over-exaggeration and over-reliance of the zangfu relationship to the detriment of other understanding, and the Western numbering system false sense of inherent directionality. As an example, the 華佗夾脊 Huatuo jiaji are part of a specific channel, however this is rarely if ever discussed, instead they are usually seen as separate 'extra-points' as though they "float" outside of a channel! TCM confused me years ago, and as I learn more and more 'non-TCM' Chinese medicine it continues to baffle me