autopoetic

I don't mean to imply a simplistic "sensation = imbalance" formula. Obviously there are people who have no sense of energy and are deeply out of balance. We can become more sensitive to subtle sensations, and more aware of our imbalances. We become more aware of the work that needs to be done. Sensations aren't a good or bad thing - they're just a thing.

Have you reached the top level of practice possible, where nothing whatsoever obstructs the flow of energy and that flow is perfectly balanced in you and with the world? If not, then you still have some imbalance, therefore (as I understand it) some sensation. And don't get me wrong - I think that for those of us who are not finished our progress (ie. practically all of us), imbalance can be a good thing. Just to clarify, I definitely didn't say that I don't experience sensations which I understand as the effects of chi. But I was taught not to seek after sensations. In my lineage, they are not understood and good or bad signs - they are just sensations. Having experiences of energy does not make a person wiser. They are just like any other sensation. Neither does having an experience of chi necessarily mean you're getting healthier - sometimes it is a healing imbalance, sometimes, just an imbalance. In my understanding, the experience of chi is not especially relevant to cultivation - that is, no more relevant than the feeling of hunger or fullness, sleepiness or agitation, anger or joy. They're all just sensations. They should be noted. They should be allowed to blossom fully, then let go of. But I probably shouldn't talk about things I haven't experienced myself. I don't know what the end of the path looks like. Maybe it doesn't make sense at that point to talk about having sensations or not. Perhaps what I understand as 'sensation' at my meager level of development is radically different from what an accomplished master would experience. Perhaps someone far more advanced than I am has awareness of energy, but not what my teacher has called 'sensation'.

Ditto here. I was taught that any experience of chi is an experienced of imbalanced energy flow (which causes the side effects). Perfectly balanced and flowing chi feels like... nothing!

Let us suppose that your story is 100% true, and that this man did in fact cause his wife to get in a car wreck. Up to a third of women report being physically abused at some point by someone close to them in my country (Canada). That exact number is probably up for debate, but I think we can all agree, physical abuse is very very widespread. Physical abuse is significantly more widespread, I think you'll agree, than metaphysical abuse. So the conclusion we should come to, clearly, is that physics is evil for the soul.

You may want to read his last post again. I'm also in Toronto, and yes, I do have a master to guide me.

I was taught that qi in perfect balance produces no sensations. But of course, we're almost never in proper balance. So yes, I do feel it.

Thanks. Another great article. These continue to shift my understanding of the daoist tradition. This bit struck me as funny: Someone ought to make a video game out of this. Once you pass the not-ejaculating and begging-for-food levels, you move on to the kneeling-in-gravel level. In the end, you have to fight the big boss - yourself!

I've done a bit of bigu, and am planning another round sometime this month. I think there are a variety of different practices that fall under the name "bigu". I don't do breathing techniques or special exercises, just my regular qigong meditation, at increased levels. And I was simply told to fast, not to go for a reduced diet. My teacher did warn us that we should be careful, and to let him know if anything crazy started to happen... but mostly I just expect to feel bad for two to three days, then better!

Where are you drawing your "odds" from? You and a handful of your buddies? Get real man. At least two people have on this forum have told you they hurt themselves seriously with this stuff. The person you are responding to (the original poster) seems to have been in a serious tangle. People in the Mo Pai tradition get seriously ill or die pretty frequently. At least two people in my lineage have hurt themselves very seriously. One a student who mixed practices (against her teacher's advice) and became psychotic. One was a very high level practitioner who did too much healing and gave himself serious liver damage. Bad shit happens all the time. Maybe the odds are good that nothing bad will happen. But most of the people who do these practices go nowhere with them, and don't even reach a stage where they could hurt themselves. You can repeat yourself all you like. Until you come up with a real argument instead of "because I say so dammit" nobody is going to believe you.

Dude... stop. Think how this would sound: "Exercise isn't dangerous. Do you think if exercise was dangerous 70, 80 and 90 year old people would do it? If it was dangerous it would hurt them. It's not." "Qi Gong" is as general a term as "exercise". Both can mean a lot of things, some of them healthy, some of them stupid and unhealthy. Sure, exercise, done properly, will help you rather than hurt you. But tons of people do what they think is "exercise" and end up injuring themselves badly. Same with qigong. Lots of people get hurt wtih it. Old people exercise too, but the level at which they're able to exercise is way different than someone young and strong. Same with qigong. If someone doesn't have much energy to start with, they don't have much with which to hurt themselves.

As someone from Canada, I feel like piping in here. If the USA goes bughouse, Canada will not be safe. Perhaps in the nothern wilderness... but imagining that a border will protect us is silly. Borders are political constructions, and if the political world goes crazy, the border means nothing. That said, I'm not terribly worried right now. A recession doesn't equal martial law, fascism or famine. It happens from time to time. If nobody panics, all will be ok. I'd like to emphasize that: panic is what turns bad times into chaos. Fear gone wild is what allows a government to overstep its authority and become a monster. Just stay calm, keep perspective (yes, you may not be able to drive your car as much or buy as much crap) and things will go much smoother.

An interesting story!. Well, I think I have a pretty good sense of what you mean by 'transmission' now, and thank you for taking so much time to explain it. I rather think it is different than what I meant, or perhaps more broad. I take my teacher's warning as being against a specific kind of transmission, rather than the more general form of transmission you're describing here. This is all well outside the realm of what I have actually experienced, so I am inclined to reserve further judgement on the subject.

I'm afraid I've lost what you're talking about again. I've done sitting with trees, and gotten shifts of consciousness that way. Was that a transmission? My teacher has said that through cultivation, one slowly begins to learn to deal with energies outside of themselves, and that the process of going into oneself is similar to the process that a shaman would go through. But he didn't mention any spirits, demons or deities. Perhaps that is just for a later lesson.

This is much clearer, thank you. Since my teacher did not induce any "other-dimensional reality" experience in me (except by giving lessons and meditating with me) I am not practicing a "genuine tradition". Too bad for me, I suppose. I have had some mind-altering experiences through my qi-gong, but by myself, in the course of my daily practice. Sure! I was taught an eyes-closed, sitting/standing/lying down meditation, which is the fundamental practice of the tradition. There are no specific movement patterns we are to do, though the standing form (a "holding ball" kind of form I think) does tend to cause some spontaneous movement. It is a healing form of qigong, meaning the focus is much more on balance than a lot of power. A steady and gradual increase of energy is developed, which clears out psychic/emotional/spiritual blockages... 'untying the knots' as the saying goes. This process is experienced as sensations or emotions bubbling up from the unconscious, which we are taught to practice non-attachment towards, letting them come, and letting them go. Eventually, with enough practice (and the right kind of body/mind), a permanent fusion of consciousness and the unconscious occurs, which is called "awakening". From there, the process continues to the wu-ji state, which is the ultimate (perhaps unattainable) goal of total awareness. I was excited for a minute when I thought I had found the rest of my school, then horrified when I saw the website! But now I'm almost positive that is a different tradition. There is no formalized tai chi in my tradition... and the hand position while sitting is different. We hold our hands crossed over the lower dan-tien, whereas they seem to have them face down on their knees. And my teacher would never talk about 'limitless energy'... he is much more realistic than that. Also, no t-shirts!

Why do you believe that the Mayans had 'many enlightened people'? What is the evidence that this belief is based on? And what happens to the planets orbit every 12500 years?

When 'transmission' is defined this broadly, I can't help but agree. Your sense of 'qi' seems so inclusive that it's hard to imagine anything that isn't qi. In this sense, we all 'transmit' teachings to each other all the time. Your message was a 'transmission' to me, and likewise mine is a 'transmission' to you. You seem to know quite well that this isn't what I had in mind, but if you prefer to talk in this way, that's fine by me.

Jose Arguelles has hyped this idea, but there is very little evidence that the mayan calendar says any such thing. From what we can tell, the calendar appears to end at around 2012. Note, that's just a guesstimate, because we don't know exactly how their years line up with the gregorian calendar. But that aside, it isn't at all clear that they didn't mean for the calendar to just "roll over" at that point, and start again from the beginning. There isn't any evidence that they thought this was going to be some major catastrophe, it's just when their calendar ran out. New Age opportunists are the ones that laid this interpretation on that date. The only reason to believe it's significant is if you're obsessed with calendars (and New Agey interpretations of mayan culture) as Arguelles is.

The lineage is called Taiji-Men. It is not well known, but has been around for about 700 years. It's daoist qigong, incorporating insights from buddhist vipassana meditation. What do you mean by 'transmission' here? A teacher actively and consciously opening the student up energetically with their own qi? Or the non-verbal understanding that happens between all people, all the time? There is a world of difference, and probably many shades in between. So which do you mean?

My teacher warned us against any such transmission of qi. His take on it was that if you receive such an 'opening', you take on the pattern of energy of your teacher, which may not be the right pattern for you. Only until you are cultivated to or beyond the point that your teacher was when he transmitted to you will your own pattern begin to emerge. This emphasis on the need to respect individual difference was one of the things that attracted me to the lineage I'm learning from.

I thought about this for a while... if the whole point of his article is that Daoism is partly composed of a rich and often secret oral tradition, how can this guy claim to know what isn't part of that tradition? Has he met every daoist master through history? Has he been initiated into every school? Claims like the one quoted above reek of hubris to me.

This was what I thought too. When qigong masters want to show off their martial prowess, the usually do so with their top students, the ones who have been training with them for decades. These will also be the students who are sure that their master has the ability to knock them down without touching them. The opponent in this video, however, was at least $5000 worth of sure that he could deal with his qi. I don't mean to put it all down to suggestion, but this must make a substantial difference.

This distinction between 'western daoism' and 'chinese daoism' is a good one, I think. Just so long as we all understand that, while each of us may prefer one over the other, just because a version of daoism is western doesn't automatically make it inferior or inauthentic. Spiritual traditions have to start somewhere. Of course, it may be the case (I think it is the case) that a lot of western daoism is inauthentic and spiritually vacuous... but not just because it's western. If I had to guess, I'd say it's because most new spiritual traditions suck. Only the ones with something to offer last, but history hasn't yet had a chance to sort the wheat from the chaff, as it were. One further comment on the article: is it just me, or did he really have it in for protestantism? I mean, catholics haven't exactly been the nicest group in history either.

I read the whole article, and feel well rewarded for my efforts. It hit home on a number of fronts... I was a 'tao of pooh' taoist for some years, before reading a lot more, and taking up an actual taoist meditation practice. The stuff about 'spiritual colonialism' is well taken. But it occurs to me that another complained aired on this board is that the word "taoism" is a relatively recent invention... it is in fact a word seemingly made up to placate the western need to categorize. This makes the whole article somewhat at odds with itself, in the sense that it is a defense of the proper use of the word 'taoism' against cultural fusion. But that cultural fusion is exactly what produced the word in the first place! If one was feeling particularly cheeky, a westerner could argue that 'taoism' is actually our word to define as we please. (I'm not feeling that cheeky, that would be to miss the point. I'm just saying.) I just wonder if this exact same argument works with other religions. What would you think if someone argued thusly: [humour]So called 'Christians' are merely cultural colonists. They have pillaged a rich middle-eastern tradition for their own purposes, with very little knowledge of the culture that produced it over 2000 years ago. Very few of them have actually read the complete Christian text, and virtually none have gone to the trouble of learning Aramaic to read it in the original. Even the priests of said 'religion' don't usually bother to learn Greek, to read a slightly less bastardized version! Rather, they accept the watered down and highly edited translation passed down to them under names like 'The King James Bible' and other such clap-trap. They believe just because they pick up a few trappings of so called 'Christian faith' like crosses (which wasn't even a Christian symbol until hundreds of years after Jesus died) they are good Christians. They don't seem to realize that original Christianity, as practiced in the original, authentic, middle-eastern context, involved such impressive devotional practices as voluntary poverty. Those who think they can rightly call themselves 'Christians' without traveling to the middle-east, learning ancient Aramaic, and giving away all their worldly possessions, are completely deluded, and in fact very very evil.[/humour]

If you read that whole article, you'll officially be an arhat!

I rather suspect you're simply taking a piss (or writing an essay)... but it's interesting to think about why your request is impossible. Nobody knows everything there is to know about taoism and buddhism. Both have a ton of writing associated with them, and wide variety of oral traditions. Some are secret. Lots have been forgotten. Many claim that there are some teachings that can only be transmitted in the presence of enlightened masters. So nobody has it all. This is compounded when you think about the various practices. It takes a lifetime to develop a meditation practice, and mixing different styles profoundly alters the effects of each. So I'll never know, for example, what Vipassana meditation in the style of S.N. Goenka is really all about, unless I spent a few decades diligently practicing it and only it. And if I do that, I can't be practicing something else, so I can't deeply know about both. So, everyone just gets a fraction, a tiny fragment of the whole, no matter how learned.