Simon V.

The Secrets of Chinese Meditation I've found is an invaluable manual of Chinese buddhist and taoist techniques and of reports on their effects: http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0877...2879284-7746725 Simon

I feel beholden to add that I did learn from that guy, who also has a side to him that can be a decent friend. In a way he was just naive... As we all were. Simon

Hello all Decided to take some time to take part in this forum from time to time as well as Winn's forum, where many if not all have encountered me already I think. Like Yoda I come from a background of hardcore study in buddhism, though I began with zen via martial arts and a kind of yoga plus qigong plus sufi philosophy I culled from a teacher in my home town, Halifax, on the east coast of Canada, which is also where Chogyam Trungpa moved his headquarters (from Colorado), finally settling in 1986, when I was 16 (and had already been practicing with the other teacher since childhood). So naturally I have picked up on Trungpa's teachings as well. In fact, I later came to focus on them very intensely. Too bad he died a year after landing. His community has been and continues to be very good for Halifax though. Even after getting very seriously into Tibetan buddhism while living in Germany (for six years--I returned to Halifax a few years ago), even spending summers in France at a Tibetan settlement doing formal buddhist philosophical studies and meditation practice (I'm not rich--I financed this via teaching English)--despite all this I have never identified myself as a 'buddhist'. This has been problematic by times with the buddhists I hung around... However, I have always been strongly drawn to alchemy, or just to the notion of an all-embracing concept at the core of different cultures' spiritual traditions, which I eventually found alchemy offered. I believe in wide learning, but in really deeply going into a given tradition or practice. Also, for myself, I knew it was important to truly become accomplished in something or in more than one thing, before I would really be able to grasp multiple, although similar, takes on spirituality, so I have werked very hard at buddhism and the study of western alchemy, and earlier, at martial arts (which now I just 'maintain', staying in shape and practicing now and then with friends, acquaintances, doing daily qigong). Finally, I like to write fiction, or art in general. I am attracted to an aesthetic or artistic perspective on spirituality, to exporing the mystery of creative intelligence in relation to 'spirituality'; but whereby discipline, thoroughness, philosophical precision, are not allowed to fall by the wayside. Simon

Good in many ways, but because I started so young there was a 'taking it for granted factor' that resulted in painful learning experiences due to being naive about what is generally considered normal. Luckily I encountered Gurdjief's bullet-biting, esoteric shit-eating-grinness philosophy of 'conscious suffering'. True, there are yoga studios all over, but there is also a really prevalent lack of rooting in the true depth of yoga, paricularly in the philosophy department. But I agree that for many just getting in shape a great gift. Simon

In the eighties I read and thought a lot about magic, relating it to my meditation experiences within a more zen framework. However, I was turned off by what was generally around me in terms of magic--Aleister Crowley or those influenced by him. Brilliant but too unwholesome for my taste; I was unwilling to focus on it too strongly or to team up with individuals who took him too seriously. I did of course learn valuable things from contemplating Crowley's material. Unfortunately RJ Stewart's (and his circle of magical friends, such as Gareth Knight) material just wasn't around Halifax Nova Scotia-- probably only in big cities (which Halifax is becoming but then it decidedly was not) and certainly in the UK, but not in my neighbourhood. So I focussed on buddhism. However, I was dreaming in alchemy, even then. RJ Stewart is very impressive indeed--I recommend The Miracle Tree and The Merlin Tarot to dive into his take on the qabalah. Yes, I am a student of the qabalah at the moment; I think I would be getting much less out of it if I hadn't gone deeply into buddhism and also studied western alchemy through Carl Jung and especially by studying a book by Julius Evola called The Hermetic Tradition, which in itself is a cogent distilation of hundreds of alchemy texts he inhaled. You have a magical past? Simon

That's interesting to know. I've had women say to me the opposite too I think. Seems men interested in taoist or tantrik sex are like you in some sense, wanting to go beyond this 'myopic pleasure focus' on genitalia to a more full body and beyond experience, something that comes more naturally to women. In fact, my first girlfriend told me in response to my curiousity that pleasure for her was a full body experience, something I immediately knew was what I wanted too; I instinctively recognized it as more natural. I feel that a subtle, sort of 'invisibly' taken for granted enculturation, not just physiology, discourages this in men, and to a lesser extent encourages that hyper-sexed, boiling point seeking thing in women too. Of course, people have preferences too and are not all encultured automatons... Some might disagree I know! Simon Simon

Hi Keith Great ideas. I can also envision eventually bringing in an English terminology for qigong altogether. I like the anglo-germanic word 'craft' for translating 'gong', as it can convey both the idea of 'deeply ingrained skill' and also 'energy' or 'force'. It also has been and is still used as a term for western magical skill, in a way very similar to how gong is used I think--a deeply ingrained skill that is hidden yet can be unfolded by the possessor. Simon