Ian

A smaller scale answer, because your post raised an interesting point for me. One thing my teacher has been very useful about is when to stop a particular session. His answer is "if possible, when everything feels nice and you could happily carry on for a bit." That way you don't stop when something internal is half processed and thereby drag it up into daily life. I don't know whether this would apply to your practice of kunlun, but perhaps so, because there are some similarities between kunlun and what I do. But anyway, attention to this on a small scale might help one to need fewer breaks on a large scale. Just a thought. Ian

Suggestions: Read the whole of Trunk's site very carefully. www.alchemicaltaoism.com Don't work with sexual energy again until you're happy with how things are. Do lots of purely physical stuff to open the area (see first suggestion!) Maybe some of Dirk Oellibrandt's Meridian chi kung? Is it the presence or the nature of the tingling that suggests stagnation to you?

Erm, actually, I never had posted under my full name, and I'm not desperately pleased to see it here. My aged mother keeps threatening to get a computer, and while it may never happen, I'd prefer to guard against her getting too many shocks, she being a relatively timid sort. Could you be persuaded to edit the original and withdraw praise accordingly?

Burgs does classes in London. Not weekly or anything, but more often, this year. He is exceptional, but I don't know if it's what you're looking for. www.justletgo.org

What would you accept as proof? Not so. You don't merely not believe, you actively assert that it ain't so. That's a different thing. The onus is equally on you to prove that you know the universe well enough to be able to say that what you haven't experienced categorically doesn't exist. Which requires more than just mentioning "laws of physics". Laws of physics have evolved with our increasing knowledge, continue to do so, and last I looked were already pretty wild. Incidentally, I don't really believe much. But I have a very open mind.

Just what Freeform has just said, really. Making sure to do stuff with your body, rather than harbouring intents which never happen.

Basic TCM liver kindness: Stretching, walking, swimming, more stretching. Being creative, expressing love, getting intent mobilised in the limbs. Not drinking too much, not eating too much fat, avoiding poisons. Being decisive. More stretching.

Erm, ahem. Bathe eyes using a shot glass of urine. Make sure you drink enough water, or it may sting a little!

I recommend something which puts attention into your body with no mental agenda. Just feeling the softness and stillness in there. But I always say that!

I can relate to that. I don't either.

We interrupt this Taoism for a public service announcement. If someone is really annoying, negative and arrogant, and doesn't offer constructive or friendly advice or share their experience, please please please JUST IGNORE THEM. Don't tell them what's wrong with them, don't discuss them with others. This is what they want and it makes them post more. Just act as if their post isn't there. Move on. Even if it's you they're being negative about. I know, it's not easy, but it's the only thing that works. This is what Cat meant when she said "Don't feed the trolls." The constructive members of the forum need to unite in this. It only needs a little bit of feedback to keep a troll going, but if we all just ignore them, they will disappear surprisingly soon. Resist, the temptation to be clever, cutting or superior. That's what they do. It doesn't help. They take it as a challenge. Think before you click, humans. Thank you for your attention. Please return to what you were doing.

There are two main skeptical positions: One) I don't believe in any of this weird energy stuff because it hasn't been demonstrated to me. Two) I don't believe in any of this weird energy stuff because it hasn't been demonstrated to me. And I further assert that it is all crap and impossible because I know exactly how the universe operates and am therefore in a position to say what the limits of possibility are. I don't think anyone has a problem with the first one. Why Buddy rubs people the wrong way is because he sounds like he's saying the second one. And people who believe they have experienced weird energy stuff, are, not unreasonably, disinclined to assume they are delusional just on his say so. I don't think anyone really wants Buddy to admit the truth of anything that he hasn't experienced. But I think people would like Buddy to admit that some things outside his experience might be possible, because he might not know everything. Unfair?

Bastard!

I got one, also after reading Daniel Read, because my girlfriend has asthma. She seems to think it helps, and she's an uber-skeptic of all this stuff, so I guess that's good. It was from Elanra. Bloody expensive, but you can give it back after a year for a half refund if you want to.

Wow, this is clearly a deeper topic than I thought! I naively imagined that what I posted was pretty much universal common sense. Live and learn! So, let me rephrase myself accordingly. IF someone is really irritating you on a forum, and IF you don't feel there is any benefit to be gained for either of you by attempting constructive engagement, IF in short, you would just like them to go away, THEN, in that case, having a go at them won't help and will encourage then to hang around. That's all, really. It was intended as technical advice, rather than a moral stance. I'm very impressed by everyone's forebearance and inclusiveness. Hope I haven't given too much offence.

Well... you could try sending them a private message... I know you hate imposed rules, but I'm sure in many cases there will be a consensus as to who is "untouchable"... Anyway, up to you, I have no authority...

After his second wife passed away, Percy Rawlinson seemed to spend more and more time with his alsatian Al. His friends told him "You should get out more, Percy, or you'll wind up looking like a dog, ha ha." He was later arrested near a lampost. At his trial some months later he surprised everyone by mistaking a policeman for a postman and tearing his trousers off with his bare teeth. In his defence he told the court "It's hard to tell the difference when they take their hats off." Mrs Betty Pench was playing the trombone when she heard a knock on the door. "I wonder who that is at eleven o'clock in the morning" she thought, but cautiously opening the door, instead of the turbanned ruffian she had expected, she found a very nice young man. "Mrs. Pench, you've won the car contest, would you like a triumph spitfire or 3000 in cash?" He smiled. Mrs. Pench said the money. "What will you do with it all? Not that it's any of my business," he giggled. "I think I'll become an alcoholic," said Betty. With a geranium behind each ear and his face painted with gay cabalistic symbols, six foot eight seventeen stone police sergeant Geoff Bull looked jolly convincing as he sweated and grunted through a vigorous twist routine at the Frug-a-go-go Bierkeller. His hot serge trousers flapped wildly over his enourmous plastic sandals as he jumped and jumped and gyrated towards a long-haired man. "Uh, excuse me, man, I have reason to believe you can turn me on." He leered suggestively. As if by magic dozens of truncheons appeared and mercilessly thrashed him. Poor Geoff, what a turnup for the books. Much as he hated arguments or any kind of unpleasantness, Ron Shirt thought things had gone too far when, returning from a weekend in Clacton, he found that his neighbour had trimmed the enourmous hedge dividing their gardens into the shape of a human leg. Enraged and envious beyond belief, Ron seized his garden shears and clipped his white poodle Leo into a coffee table. "That'll fix it," thought Ron, but he was wrong. The following Wednesday his neighbour had his bushy waist-length hair cut and permed into a model of the Queen Elizabeth and went sailing. Everywhere he went, people said "Hooray!" Sometimes you just can't win. "Rhinocratic Oaths" by the Bonzo Dog Doo Da Band, from the Album "A Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse" Couldn't resist the coincidence that I'd just printed it out for a colleague a few minutes ago.

I'd suggest that it's very important to make enough money to avoid being a parasite. This can mean earning lots, or earning little and having few needs. I'd also suggest that you will be very lucky if you are able to find something you really love and do it for a living. Most people tend to try for work they at least don't hate. Things that can help are if your work gets you some fresh air and exercise, some variety, some degree of autonomy, and the chance to be helpful. Otherwise, I'd mainly suggest don't burn your bridges. If you're not sure what you want now, then it's still possible that you may one day want lots of money to enable something you want later. If it helps, I'm nearly forty and only just beginning to do a very little of the things I really like, alongside work that is ok, but which I'm really too good for and put up with for the covenience. Ugh.

Seems to me (deep breath) that the whole "my practice is better than your practice" thing could be undermined nicely if we established that different people's practices are designed to achieve different results, and therefore not better or worse, just different. Yet this is very hard to establish, because in virtually no cases, in my experience, does anyone speak clearly about what the ultimate goal of their practice is. I don't know why this is, because the ultimate goal of a practice, should, in my opinion, be the most important thing about it. If one were being uncharitable, one might assume that the silence on this topic is largely because people are embarrassed to admit that don't really know/never dared to ask their teacher. Or because they kind of know where they think they're going, but can't quite see how their current practice is going to get them there. If one were slightly kinder one might think that people are embarrassed to mention the goal of their practice because it's either a very abstract seeming spiritual destination which others might mock as unreal, or a very mundane goal of heath and contentment which others might mock as unambitious. So, would anyone care to state their destination? Especially anyone who thinks their practice is superior to anything else? At the very least, we could make a division between between practices pointing towards liberation and practices pointing towards immortality, if those goals are still considered different these days.

Erm, harrumph, hmmm, yes. My teacher tells us that we really shouldn't try to sit in any kind of lotus for a good few years. This is because our practice releases a lot of stuff down the arms and legs and having them folded just doesn't help. When we've cleared an enormous amount of stuff and the leg channels are very, very clear, then it's ok to sit in lotus. He does, sometimes. The process of trying to clear stuff by forcing yourself to sit in lotus is considered, in this view, to be very risky, in that you need very strong equanimity/detachment/not hating it or else you'll be making more karma as fast as you like. Which is not at all to suggest that Taomeow can't do it, of course. Nor to suggest that it mightn't be great for practices such as Drew describes, which seem to involve alot of driving stuff upwards. And for the record, I can't do it. At all. Not even close.

Well, just what you experience when using it, I guess, if that goes into words. I've ordered it anyway, so I guess I'll find out soon enough...

Discombobulate Prepare and then incarnate Before it's too late

I've been wanting a gamma cd ever since holosync started dangling them as a bonus. But I'm not buying anymore holosync levels to get one. So is the one you're listening to from the site you quote? Can you say any more about it? Cheers, I

Your honesty and self awareness continue to inspire me. Nice one!

Thanks to those who have answered. Anyone else? I'm always amazed how few people want to respond to this topic.