liminal_luke

Kunlun/ Yi gung used to be all the rage around here. Now it looks like they aren't even making the initial list? Where's Cameron when you need him? I say they are still as powerful now as then. Is it neigong? I haven't heard a teacher say so, but my opinion is Yes. If it's distance learning you're after you could simply buy Jenny Lamb's self-healing DVD and be set. I don't have personal experience with it, but, alternatively, many rave about Quan Yin Magnetic Qigong by, I think, Dragon Gate Sanctuary. Liminal

Perhaps it is extreme. Usually I work out my hostility beating pillows or what have you--rather than posting on Taobums--but the topic of religion has caught me at a raw moment. My boyfriend of of almost 5 years now is thinking about dumping me (another guy) so that he can get right with Jesus, enjoy eternal life, and so on. I suppose it's on me for picking someone prone to that kind of fundamentalism, but you can see how I might be a little sore. (Doing my snarky best to get this thread thrown in the pit. Now if only there was an individual taobum to insult. Then we could really have some fun!) Liminal

Atheist: overconfident Agnostic: humble Believer: pompous, controlling, self-righteous, murderous, small-minded, homophobic, judgmental, earth-destroying, overconfident, etc. My apologies to the many believers out there who are none of those things. I'm a believer too so I get it. But if we're going to lump people together in silly categories and make generalizations, well then, these are mine. As a group, the faithful have a lot of misdeeds to answer for. Liminal In the spirit of not throwing off the thread, I'll offer this creator debunking theory: What kind of God would create a world in which so many of the people who believed in him were such jerks?

I see at as a developmental process. First it's important to build up a functioning ego. We need boundaries. This is my body, these are my thoughts. They belong to me. That is your body, those are your thoughts. They belong to you. This is step one and can't be rushed over or shortchanged in the rush towards trancendence. Once a healthy ego has been in place for a period of time we naturally start to gravitate towards transpersonal experiences which may seem to blur the distinction between self and world we so diligently worked to build up back in the day. This model is useful because it does away with the false idea that the ego is good or bad. Some spiritually aware people are working on building up their ego, and some spiritually aware people are working on dismantling theirs. And this is exactly as it should be. The danger of the anti-ego position applied indiscriminately is that people will attempt to rid themselves of their ego before they really have one to lose.

If I understand you correctly, I agree. Sometimes the more sex you have, the less sexual you are.

You may well be right dhiggs but I really hope not. I'm definately a retention newbie, at least in terms of actual acomplishment, but one of the things I like most about not ejaculating is how horny it makes me. There's a feeling of aliveness and vitality in desire that I'm just not ready to give up. Then again, I've been known to go into bakeries when I'm on a diet just for the pleasure of ogling the chocolate cake. Is it possible to "enjoy" the wanting itself without feeling compelled to indulge? Successful ascetics will, no doubt, speak of the infinitely greater joys after extinguishing those pesky urges, but I dunno. I think I'd miss it.

Hi ChrunchyChocolate555, My first thought: It hurts to give others what we ourselves have not been given. What to do? I'd play with the edge. You say you yearn to open up, connect, love--so do that! And then notice what happens, what comes up for you. The trick, I think, is to do it in a really super small way so it doesn't overwhelm you. If hugging your friends brings up too much pain, how about giving a quick pat on the back? If giving a quick pat on the back brings up too much pain, how about just imagining doing so? What you want is to feel the pain just enough so you can look and see what it really is. If you don't feel the pain you won't grow. If you feel too much pain you'll just get discouraged and retract into your shell. Find this middle ground where you're in touch with yourself and still relatively comfortable. Then make being open/connected/loving in a way that puts you in this zone a daily practice. Notice what happens. Two cents, Liminal

I'm not sure I'm qualified to hazard an opinion, but I tend to agree with you: the universe is doing fine. Human beings are part of the universe, and what we do matters. Maybe it doesn't matter very much. Maybe it matters only the tiniest little bit. Still, I'm a human being and I can only influence the universe as a human being; I can't influence it as a God. I want to do my part be it ever so humble. For me, it's all about cultivating the intention of service. Our group practice was specifically to benifit the universe in a certain way, but I think we can extend the service orientation to all our actions. We are all interconnected so what we do effects others whether we want it to or not. Still, something special happens when we conciously intend for the virtue cultivated in the stillness of personal practice to ripple out into the larger world. I forget where I read it, or who said it, but these words have stuck with me: "Drinking a cup of tea, I stop the war."

The group and it's intention were real. It was organized by Master Li of http://www.shengzhen.org/ . I still heartily promote the chi gung he teaches. He's a very beautiful person teaching a very beautiful practice. Personally, I'm not sure I ever bought into the whole save-the-world thing. It was more that a lot of people I knew and respected at the time were going to meditate together for three hours daily over the course of several months, they invited me, and I thought "how could that be bad?" As it turns out I was right: it wasn't bad at all. Looking back I'm not sure which attitude is more worthy of scorn--the idea that I can change the world or the idea that I can't.

As a kid, I saw movement in a dark hole at the bank of our pond and, rather foolishly perhaps, reached in and pulled out frog after frog. My mom fried up their legs for dinner. In Mexico I've sampled grasshoppers on multiple occasions. The small ones, bagged up by indigenous Oaxacan women at the market, taste mostly of the chile and lime they are prepared with. A grasshopper sandwich I sampled later proved more challenging. Such a weird feeling crunching down on those little legs. Also, iguana soup.

Actually, doomsday was scheduled for a few years back, but a spiritual group I belonged to at the time bonded together meditating as a group for three hours daily, and the catastrophe was averted. Or so many of us believed anyway. Others were disappointed and disilusioned to see life go on much as before. I don't personally claim to have much influence on the cosmic vibes. I'm still trying to master my own little body. Even so, I do believe that humanity is evolving more than it's devolving, and that our cultivation collectively makes a difference.

Michael Winn once give this interesting, to me, variation on MCO practice at a retreat: simultaneously move the pearl up the conception and governor channel until the two streams meet at the crown, then down the center and repeat. Haven't played with it much but thought I'd share in case it sparks anything for anyone.

That may well be Turtleshell. In any case, I'm happy that you think so. Perhaps I'm more masculine than I give myself credit for. Liminal

Turtle Shell, That's great that you don't experience your given gender as a "straightjacket." You are either very courageous and evolved and don't feel the need to mold yourself to cultural expectation...or else just lucky--who you really are corresponds closely to what the people around you expect, at least gender-wise. That's not the case for everybody. While our idea of what's ok for men and women to do has loosened up quite a bit in the last 60 years or so, there's still plenty of Rosie's who would like to rivet and don't feel free to do so. Plenty of boys who are told not to play with dolls, or to cry or be expressive in an effusive way. I'm neither transexual nor a drag queen, but my interests as a teenager didn't fit so well with the idea of "masculine" espoused by the salt-of-the-earth citizens of the rural community I grew up in. While I loved attending high-school football games, I could of cared less about the sport. I enjoyed walking around the track saying hi to my friends and eating hot dogs. One postgame night especially stands out in my memory. My dad asked me who won the game, and I didn't know. Let's just say that didn't go over so good. Things would of been ok if I liked building things or working on cars but I striked out in those departments as well prefering to spend my time studying mathematics and, um, eastern religious traditions. I was a taobum from the get-go; my status as a man's man is more shaky. There's something pretty wonderful about unalloyed masculinity and feminity. I personally admire people whose psychological proclivities match up nicely with their anatomy. They've got it going on. But not everyone is like that. I dare say everyone has a little peanut butter in their chocolate-- and many of us are very jumbled indeed. In my opinion that jumble is not a distortion of "true nature," whatever that is, but a natural expression of the diversity of human existence. Some of those jumbled people become drag queens as a way to express part of that. And you're right that oftentimes that expression is stereotypical and superficial. To me though, it's beautiful just the same. Liminal

So...ya aren't fooled by the "impersonation" Turtle Shell? Fair enough. I'd venture that a great many drag queens aren't all that interested in fooling anybody. Instead, they aim to play with the fluidity of gender roles, and our sometimes overly rigid notions of feminity and masculinity. A man who frolicks around onstage in a dress is still a man-- albeit with balls bigger than most. Playful crossdressing activates archtypes and opens possibilities unavailable to those unwilling to sally out of the straightjacket of anatomically-given gender. Feminine power is a part of that. Awww, who am I kidding? Drag queens just wanna have fun.

Thank God then for Drag Queens--who do know a thing or two about feminine power--and are willing to carry the torch!

Friends list, eh? I dunno. I'm already pretty sidetracked just looking to see if my posts are "liked" or not. The prospect of a formal "friendship" process (and by implication a formal "I don't wanna be your friend" process)sounds like a little much. Right now I have the luxury of imagining that lots of the people I like and respect here would like to be my friend only, opps, they can't because there's no such feature. I'd hate to see that illusion squashed.

Hmm...

I construct contentment out of a thousand tiny triumphs, pinpoint glimmers of happiness relentlessly remembered and relived. Life doesn’t come prepackaged, some assembly is nearly always required. You must mine tragedy for those nuggets of redemption, always tucked out of easy sight, beneath the rubble of despair. Tinker around in the musty corners of your own mind. It helps to trust in fleeting beauty, the power of odd poignant pauses, and the bittersweet. Revel in the underrated radiance of small, forgotten things. A million drops of joy.

This hasn't been, to say the least, my experience. In fact, what rubs me wrong about vegetarianism in general is how violent they are. Not towards cows and chickens it's true, they treat these beasts nicely enough, or at least intend to. It's me they have no compassion for. Now I'll grant you that I bear full responsibility for my own feelings. If I allow myself to get worked up, and I do, then that's on me. Fair enough. Maybe someday, when I'm farther along with my spiritual development, these things won't phase me. An angry mob of vicious vegans could pass right by me and I wouldn't be bothered one bit. As it is though, I'm not there yet. Let me say right off that I know I shouldn't paint them all with the same brush. I'm sure there's plenty of pleasant people who don't eat animals and don't make a big to-do about it. That's cool. It's the ones with the holier-than-me attitude that get my goat. The ones who say I'm a murderer for not making the same choices they do. They will no-doubt claim that the cause is noble, and if my feelings get hurt in the process well that's just too bad. But that's just it. I don't much want to dialogue with someone who starts out from a position of moral superiority. There's no real civility there, no goodwill. As a group I don't find vegetarians a very "live and let live" bunch.

Hi BaguaKicksAss, I'm in Mexico city at the moment but about to move. Likely going to Zacatecas, Zacatecas or else La Paz in Baja. Haven't been everywhere by any means, but I've yet to come across a town without lengua tacos... so if ya wanna do a "Bums in Baja" meetup sometime you'll likely be in luck. Liminal

I'm sure Monterey, CA is very nice. Never been but I'm pretty sure it does NOT have the best mexican food in north america--that would be right down here in, ummm, Mexico. We've got ya covered in the warm sunny beach department too. Sadly, I can't promise any Chinese massage no matter how much you might be willing to pay. But if ya want some tacos with your tai chi, some succulent birria with your bagua...then look me up. Liminal

Yabyum24, Yes, getting in person instruction is invaluable for absorbing the flavor of the practice. If traveling to get in person instruction is not a possibility at this time, I'd suggest tapes and videos as being a step-up from books. Not the same transmission as in person instruction for sure, but watching and listening gives you more than just a printed page. Also, consider the value of what you're already doing. There's this tendency to mystify alchemical practice, to think it's something apart from who we already are--when the truth is that this practice is really just being in touch with yourself on a very deep level. Are you centered deep within yourself? Are you stabilized at a deep level of inner stillness? Good! This is where nei gung happens. Yes, you can get instruction that goes into complex formulas. But nothing is more important than your ability to go into that silient, still place deep within. You may be farther along than you think. Liminal

This. I haven't done it much, but metta, or loving-kindness, meditation is on my list of practices I'd like to explore in depth someday. Sharon Salzburg has several books exploring the development of his kind of love from a Buddhist perspective.

In workshops with Michael Winn, the head of healing tao USA and one of Mantak Chia's main students, he's said to go ahead and do the Microcosmic orbit in the reverse direction if that feels more natural or comfortable. I've also heard of Max, the main teacher of Kunlun, talk of doing the microcosmic orbit in reverse. Perhaps others can speak of the specific benefits of doing it in reverse. Or what it means that you find that easier. What I can say for sure is not to worry about it. Do whatever feels right to you in the moment knowing that can change over time. Two cents, Liminal