liminal_luke

Get your salt shakers ready as I have no idea what I´m talking about....but it seems to me the whole point of experiencing non-duality is to bring that perspective back to this poor seemingly fragmented world. I, for one, do not want to dwell in the oblivion of enlightenment forever. Nor do I care to endlessly experience the pain and lonliness of eternal separateness. I want to be a cosmic interpreter, a bridge between wu wei and the ten thousand things.

Agreed. If a person goes from eating Snickers bars and Dorritos (and lots of people do) to pretty much any hardcore dietary program -- Taoist, Ayurvedic or Macrobiotic, raw vegan or paleo -- health improvement will likely ensue. Yak butter and carrot sticks have little in common nutritionally except for this: they´re both way better for you than a McDonalds happy meal. Liminal

Hi Bits and Pieces, Seems to me you´re thinking about giving up drugs, but you haven´t 100% decided yet. There´s something you don´t like about taking them (or else you´d be happily getting high and the question wouldn´t even come up), but, on the other hand, you´re not ready to take the plunge into total abstinence either. You imagine there´s some circumstance (limited recreational use with friends, say) where you can get the good parts of taking drugs without the bad. That you don´t really have to give it up. This is a stage in a process. Most people who´ve successfully stopped doing anything they felt compulsive about have been where you are at now. Best of luck on your journey through all of this. Liminal

I think it´s useful to consider where the do-it-yourself impetus comes from. Part of it, for me, is just a natural inclination to tinker with my own energy body out of curiosity. When I saw Michael Winn massaged his ears as part of a kidney tonifying routine I thought...hmmm..why don´t I do this for an hour everyday for a week or so and see what happens. Well, that was interesting. But I also recognize a part of myself that rebels against anyone "telling me what to do." There´s a part of my independence that´s not inherent to who I really am, but is a twist in my character. Something to work on and through. Perhaps with the guidance of a good teacher. Sometimes that part of ourselves that resists the structure of an established teaching needs to be tamed. Just sayin´ Liminal

This whole business of calling Wang Liping low level is so, well, low level -- even by Taobums standards. If this were a review of a retreat by someone who´d "been there, done that" that would be one thing. As it is, trying to bring down his reputation feels gossipy, a little malicious. Where´s the heart?

I know this is true, and a necessary reminder for those heaven-bent on ultimate truth. Still, as problems go, one could do worse than attachment to abiding bliss.

Because you´re a narcissist? No, no...scratch that...doesn´t sound right at all.

You know when you are a Tao Bum when...you have a high tolerance for bullying because, after all, you´re "used to being harassed by demons." Priceless.

Hmmm.....I wonder if it would be more useful just to work on developing the qualities we´d like to develop and not worry so much which gender box to put said qualities into. For instance.... I´d like to be more intuitive. I´d like to be more compassionate. I´d like to keep my place neater. I´d like to be a better cook (including, but not limited to, grilling). I´d like to be less irritable. I´d like to procrastinate less. I´d like to be less fearful about facing things that need facing. I´d like to be physically stronger. I´d like to be more emotionally resilient. If I succeed in becoming who I want to be, will that person be more manly or more womanly? Does it matter? Liminal

As long as we´re making popcorn, may I suggest a double feature? First up, a docudrama in which Deci uses her considerable intellectual prowess to coax ShaktiMama back into the fold. Followed by a late-night action flick, Isimsiz Biri versus our own beloved Nungali. Not to be missed. Liminal

Seth, I like what you said here: "start associating with the deeper level of life, where the interconnected nature of the universe is clearly seen, and to once again be in relationship with the forces that surround us." Very intriguing. I´m interested in exploring this more. Are there any resources (books, courses, dvds, etc) that you´d recommend? Thanks, Liminal

At least the banned members have a good excuse for leaving. Theoretically, people are free to beguile us with their charm, nurture us with their giving spirit, dazzle us with their brilliance -- and then just go because, oh, they felt like it. Well, I don´t like it. I say that if banned members want back in lets give them contact information for members who weren´t banned but left anyway. If they can convince someone to return, then they get to come too. I´d assign Yoda to ChiDragon. DeciBelle can tackle ShaktiMama. And so on. Liminal

Spotless, Sounds like you are getting neigong-type benefits from your qigong practice. Perhaps, because of your previous practice, when you do qigong it is neigong. We are all so different. Respect. Liminal

So spirits are, in one view, projections of parts of ourselves that we have externalized? Would learning to do magic then be similar to the shamanic practice of soul retrieval? Are we reconnecting inside with these aspects of our being that we´d previously denied? If so, that sounds very psychological. Sounds not very different from much spiritual practice generally. Is this the way experienced magicians experience it?

Spotless, I think qigong is a "beginner´s practice" when seen against the backdrop of deeper Taoist alchemical work, in the same way that the postures of hatha yoga are a "beginner´s practice" when seen against the backdrop of yogic meditation -- the scope of what´s being attempted is simply different, and less profound, by definition. It´s not that hatha yoga postures, or qigong, or martial arts, for that matter, are easy. To really be adept at any of those disciplines is certainly not easy. And they can be very worthwhile pursuits. But, as you point out, what can be accomplished with yoga postures or martial arts pales in comparison to meditation. In a similar way, there´s a world beyond qigong that make attainments at that level seem relatively small. Liminal

I may be way out of my depth here, but....I thought magic was about developing relationships with spirits, angels and demons and so on. And then being able to ask them to do favors for you, which under the right magical circumstances they´d be glad to oblige. Am I way off here? For this reason, I haven´t been so interested. I believe in the existence of such spirits, and trust that when I get to a certain point in my training I´ll become more aware of their existence. But I personally don´t want to chase after such experiences. Maybe it´s just stubborn self-sufficiency: I´m more interested in figuring out what I can do strictly on my own, without help from other beings seen or unseen. I want to become more integrated in my being so that what the little-me says I want more closely aligns with what my larger SELF needs on a destiny level. As it is now, recruiting spirits to do my bidding doesn´t seem like such a good idea because I´m not really sure what I want is what I need. Does that make sense? Perhaps though, there´s something to this whole magic thing I´m not seeing. I am interested in Tarot. Not sure if that´s magic or not. Liminal

Hi Songstan, Perhaps you are, as you say, a narcissist. Certainly everyone has narcissistic traits and it´s good to recognize this. But...my understanding is that deeply narcissistic people wouldn´t be aware of themselves that way. So if you say you´re a narcissist you probably aren´t, at least not in the clinical full-blown "personality disorder" meaning of the term. Liminal

My naturopath used to organize his music collection in seven piles according to which chakra the music activated. Perhaps you should take up yoga?

Thanks for mentioning Lam Kam Chuen, Soaring Crane. Went to his website, and he has a new qigong workbook out specifically for anxiety. Might be just the thing for me and my partner. Liminal

Here´s a somewhat controversial choice: Max´s Kunlun spontaneous movement practice. An easy way in is to get Sifu Jenny Lamb´s self-healing DVD (she calls the practice Yi-gong) which also contains some very useful before and after practices. Liminal

If it can be taken back without asking, and we´re just supposed to sit there and be all philosophical and zen (or tao?) about it, then it wasn´t much of a gift in the first place. Anybody wants to give me something like that, don´t bother. Liminal

As far as the sounds go, I think what´s most important is the feeling. You can do them soft or loud, for a short time or a long time, sitting standing or lying down...but in the end what´s is important is only this -- did you feel the corresponding organ? The sounds are just a tool to get to the feeling. It´s like taking a bus to get home from work. What´s important is not so much the bus ride, it´s whether you made it home. For this reason, I recommend really taking your time with the period after the sound to feel into the organ. You can´t release what you can´t feel, so take time with this part. Liminal

Please take care of yourself Josama. The being of service to other people sounds great. If you are having suicidal thoughts I recommend also reaching out to professional mental health services, counseling or psychiatry. They may not know much about the whole entity thing, but that doesn´t mean they can´t help. I believe you have the power to feel good. Liminal

Well, whatever happens with all this, I´ve got to admire your courage putting yourself out there to be critiqued like this. You asked for help, received replies, and actually seem to have taken advantage of the collective wisdom thrown at you. That´s actually pretty rare in my experience. Kudos! Liminal

The like button makes me very aware, as a poster, of how much I like to be liked. Probably everybody does, I guess, but one of my personal goals is to be more self-contained. To get to a place where being liked feels less flattering, and disliked less onerous. Where I´m simply me and content with myself. Checking whether or not I´m liked can move me in the opposite direction. Then again, that´s life. People like some things and don´t like others, and part of being social beings is letting each other know what´s what.