gendao

First off, Mandarin is the official dialect for all of China - so everyone there should be able to speak it...although they often prefer to speak their own regional dialect instead. As there are 22 provinces, this means about 22 dialects...some which sound quite similar to Mandarin, others which sound unintelligibly different. Cantonese is only spoken in Guangdong (Canton) - which as you can see is far to the south... 1 & 2 are both in Henan Province. They do not speak Cantonese here, but closer to Mandarin. 3 - They speak Beijing dialect here - which is basically Mandarin with a slurring at the end. 4 - They speak pretty proper Mandarin here. 5 is just south of Henan in Hubei. So, I'm guessing not too different than at 1 & 2.

Now, what this guy did here goes against EVERYTHING women and feminism have taught as as men: And yet it WORKED...because it goes along with human NATURE. Nature is sexist. It created us different with different class strengths and weaknesses. We are not androgynous by birth and gender is not merely a social construct. Humans need to get over it and embrace our TRUE natures. Men need to be strong enough for women to withstand all their shyt-tests. 'What you can't say no to has power over you.' So if a man never says no to a woman - he's showing that she has power over him - which is a turn-off to both. This seems common sense but in our feminist counter-culture, the obvious truth has been made taboo and replaced by groupthink falsehood. Truth is, "feminism" has become a sugar-coated pseudonym for misandry, female supremacy, anti-femininity, closet masculinism, penis envy, lesbianism & androgyny. And very often, the projection of personal issues and the scapegoating for one's personal problems onto men. Although I also wonder why there seem to be so many MRA/PUAs in here? Are we seeking a lost masculinity in an ancient art? Or has masculinism simply become so widespread everywhere lately?

They say a person's lifeforce and longevity is determined by the amount of their prenatal qi... Well, is your prenatal qi basically the amount of your dad's qi/jing that was shot into your mom's egg at your conception (in addition to your mom's jing in her egg, I suppose)? If so, then someone who has cultivated more qi/jing...or perhaps had kids when younger with more of both...should create more prenatal qi in their child, correct? Not to mention, I've also heard that meridian blockages can be passed down as well, so someone with clearer meridians should create kids with clearer meridians, too. End result being that the offspring of qigong masters should have greater health and longer longevity, right? Has anyone noticed if this is true or not? I've only known of a few kids like this...but they were indeed very healthy and/or seemed very large (taller than average) and virile at least.

Also, millions of women are on the Pill and all that estrogen dumps back into our water supply - affecting all of us. Not to mention, some get pregnant while spottily taking the Pill, which would directly feminize a male fetus in the womb. Anyhow, some GREAT points in there! And in related news...

There's something to be said for the pseudo-familial vs cash-based disciplehood - where you can gain information while developing strong human relationships at the same time. Ha ha, so are there quite a few PUAs and MRAs in dis hizzouse? I have actually been studying the feminization and disempowerment of American men over the past generation quite a bit lately and it can indeed be maddening when you realize its enormous extent and impact. And it needs to be reversed for the sake of men as well as the health of this country. But that's a whole 'nother topic here that deserves its own thread. Although perhaps a relevant question here is how to deal with your anger honestly without suppressing it? "John Chang" said your emotions are really important. So, how do we reduce the amount of "negative" emotions we feel? Try to prevent them or vent them out? Anyhow, I guess I don't really know if you guys think straightening the spine is important or not, but I do at this point so it doesn't really matter either way to me at the moment.

I agree. Extraordinary results require extraordinary effort... Levitating and walking through walls are truly extraordinary and amazing! But so are the efforts required to reach that. I mean, I find the ability to give up the paper/puzzy-chase and dedicate your whole life to the pursuit of one otherworldy goal - amazing. Or to sit in meditation for 30 days. Or, just to meditate for 8 hrs/day for 10 years! Or just to go 4 months without jizzing? Honestly, these are not "paranormal" or physically impossible, but perhaps not THAT much less amazing and almost "superhuman" in terms of real life difficulty. Anyhow, I will say that for me, vidiami's re-cap did do some good for verification purposes. I am not following the same method by far but am apparently striving for the same very basic foundational goals. Or maybe that's a gross misinterpretation, but again as I am not following that method anyways it doesn't matter. Just saying, the "karma" here may not be all as entirely bad as you might fear... I think mature people here take everything with a grain of salt and are their own judge, as Buddha advised. This includes technical advice, gossip, etc etc. If anyone blindly accepts everything they read on the net with zero critical thinking - hey I have a bridge in Brooklyn...

Good points everyone...yes, it may be very likely that the highest master is well-secluded and unknown to us. And I dunno about Chia - he talks a lot, but "words don't prove words, WORKS prove words." So, what has he actually achieved that has proven any of what he preaches? Is he in extraordinary health? Can he do some qi tricks or heal? I don't know, but the way that I saw him ramble on in one video - it didn't seem like he had much of detailed substance to say? And I've certainly met qigong-type people who seemed far more accomplished and advanced in person. But that Nasrudin character is hilarious!

Actually, speech and knowledge isn't free in the West either - it gets copyrighted and must be paid for. It's really probably technically more free in China...but only to those deemed worthy of receiving it (based upon ming, yuan fen, 德, etc.). So, I can respect conditional terms that were initially agreed to. Anyhow, the upsides of having a guru are all obvious...expert guidance, safety, etc. etc. But the downsides are that you don't OWN your information - they do. And so you can't simply do with it what you want. You are borrowing, not owning. The great thing about self-discovery is that you OWN your whole experience. You can talk about it as freely as you wish or don't wish. You can charge for it or dole it out for free. To whoever you want. And you don't have to worry about describing it wrongly, because you are the judge. YOU know what you are trying to say. And you can explore and deviate more from it at will. Real intellectual freedom. Not to mention, I find that when I self-discover things I often fill in some blanks that were missing from the orthodox dogma. A great example of this is Bob Cooley's resistance stretching where he discovered that contracting (not relaxing) the muscle being stretched made all the difference in the world! And this was really key to making yoga work - yet I've never heard it being taught in yoga. There's a real subtle difference between following the Tao and following a finger pointing at the Tao. And yet it is one of those key differences that separates entire paradigms. Ideally, I would like to rely primarily upon self-discovery but using advanced masters to periodically keep me on track and their teachings as verification for what I have already accomplished. I don't think I do well with paint-by-numbers methods. But there's an optimum balance there somewhere.

Ah, well however it happened, that's the same end result I was guessing. Not a fun process, but we all learn best the hard way... Want to be taught empathy? Be made weak. Want to be taught compassion? Be made persecuted. Want to be taught less egoness? Have your life fall apart. I learned these lessons early in life myself, lol.

Points well taken. But here is where we also reach the limitations of language. "Happiness" - as it is commonly understood to unenlightened masses (including myself) - would be a fleeting type coming from some type of personal fulfillment in life. Some sort of emotional high on the rollercoaster of life. A peak that cannot be sustained as it is like a frequency wave - if it were flatlined it wouldn't be a wave anymore. The transcendent feeling gained from enlightenment is obviously something a little different and not experienced by most - so how can we really call it the same word? Well, for general purposes, we can... But if you really want to get technical and make subtle (but key) distinctions, it's probably not quite the same thing. At least I wouldn't just assume so...having not gotten there yet myself. It goes back to mastering your paradigm by refining the dogma, or transcending your paradigm by questioning your assumptions. Where even the smallest re-assumption can create a whole paradigm shift. I mean, when people thought the Earth was flat, they probably didn't notice the almost imperceptibly slight curvature to the horizon. But that slight curvature made all the difference in "the world," didn't it? Therefore, we must remember to acknowledge the limits to the precision of our language and thus dogma and original intent. I am not saying you are wrong or right - simply that I personally don't know right now due to limits in linguistic precision and my own lack of enlightenment.

Well, I can't say a few idiots might not do that - but I simply took vidiami's impression for what it was - his own personal impression. Nothing more, nothing less. And, certainly not a "definitive teaching of David Shen." Nor do I feel like I have a "workable practice" from his brief outline. And let's be honest - this site is far from mainstream and I rarely see over 5 people logged in at a time. The number of regular posters here seems to be about a dozen at most - with most in at least their 30s (and assumedly more mature, then).

Right, that thought crossed my mind too... What their mood, emotions and strength of orgasm was at time of conception. Or perhaps weather or time of day, too? Perhaps these could all influence the child's qi? I guess ideally you might want 2 people deeply in "love" having really passionate sex and within a feng shui-correct time/place, lol. Hmm, I wonder...

Uh, but the whole profession of illusionists is to keep you from seeing their tricks! And honestly, it's not that hard to fool the eyes...especially under HIGHLY-CONTROLLED settings, set-ups and viewing angles. Which are the only conditions these magicians operate in. I don't know about that particular trick, but most of Chris Angel's tricks have been performed by other magicians. In fact, most of them all perform the same old basic tricks, just with different variations. The art is not in the trick itself, but in the presentation. Sort of like WWF.

Certainly, I didn't say Taoism skipped anything. And I agree that chasing happiness is clinging to the paradigm, not transcending it. But did Buddha really want us to all be happy, peaceful or what, though? Without reading his actual quotes, original texts or intent, I can't really comment further on this. To me, happiness just seems more of an ego-based rollercoaster emotion. Whereas peace seems to be an intellectual state based upon knowing how everything is somehow fair, just and with reason. But a lot of this is fuzzy semantics, so mileage may vary...

Very interesting and welcome! Soooo, was whatever you had to give up essentially your personal power in this world? I don't expect you to answer that, but you just got the shrink in me irresistably curious... Anyhow, glad to hear you're doing ok now, cheers!

Actually, I believe the point of Buddhism (enlightenment, per se) is transcending the paradigm. Happiness and suffering as we know it are a duality. You cannot have one without the other. So, if you want to escape one, you must escape both. This requires transcending this whole paradigm itself. As long as you are stubbornly stuck in that base paradigm (duality), you will seek ego-based happiness and avoid suffering. But perhaps in the next one, you might seek understanding and peace-of-mind instead. Whereby happiness and suffering then lose their meaning. After all, if you really understand why things are, what is there to be happy or miserable about? It is as Cameron alluded to in post #43... Small advancements are made by refining and mastering your paradigm. But big advancements require transcending your paradigm. We see this in all arts, sciences and every level of life. When people thought the Earth was flat, I'm sure they had these same debates about whether expeditions would fall off the edges or not. Lots of conflict - and conflicts that could never be solved until that paradigm itself was transcended. And once it was, those false conflicts instantly disappeared. Ah..."enlightenment!"

So, what determines the amount of prenatal qi you get born with, then? If it is not based upon the amount of qi or jing your parents have - then what? Or if it is based upon their jing - but they can't really augment it - then that same amount of prenatal qi stays constant down through every generation? And this question has probably been answered here many times - but what exactly is the difference between jing & qi, then? I have also heard that jing transmutes to qi transmutes to shen - which would imply that jing can't be augmented since it's a base energy?

Hello and WB! Well, could you give us a brief review of what you learned (don't have to go into details) and what level you feel you are at now? Basically, how do you think the practices you were taught have actually helped you thus far?

True, but did "John Chang" freely teach Kosta Danaos and his other students?And what about Wang Liping and his disciples? Does he charge them tuition? I think traditionally in the East, the student "paid" more with strong loyalty and personal friendship, respect and even subservience. These were very much hand-picked, "familial" friendships like father & son that a pricetag simply couldn't be placed on. Which weeded out insincere or unworthy students and kept the "classes" very small...but also helped keep the transmissions undiluted and in good hands. This is why "respect" is so much more important with Eastern disciplehood. Because they often have literally nothing else to gain from you and are doing YOU a huge favor. So, if you learn the "Western" "rebellious teenager" way as if you were paying a tuition, but aren't - then you are sort of "ripping them off." Which is why I think some of these masters get annoyed with Western students over time - because they are trying to have their cake and eat it too. This is due to their background in the commercialized West, where money is substituted for a direct personal relationship and teachings get doled out on a cost schedule. Without the personal relationship, I think some humanistic connection is lost here that often leads to quality-control problems and dilution - but it also does allow access to a wider audience who otherwise might be too far removed to form any relationship at all. It's also a bit more practical in our heavily-industrialized "workshop/gym" culture where most people don't have time for regular devoted practice. So, both methods have their trade-off's. And also the real distinction may be more Old World vs New World, rather than East vs West. But, the point here is that in this cultural translation, this disciplehood is spanning a culture clash and different contexts. Personally, I don't know how David arrived at $7500 but I do think it is only realistic to charge at least some base amount, at least. In our Western context, I hardly think he needs to spring for some student's fee just to "prove" it to us. If he were to go that route, he might as well invite James Randi instead and make a million dollars in return. The question here is more how much, than if any at all. Now, if he wants to knock off $500 for someone here, great. But if not, that's fine too. I think as market forces take effect and this knowledge spreads and gets diluted, the price will also come down in the future anyways (although you may be paying less for less too).

Wow, very interesting and informative response, thanks! So, the central channel I presume runs along the spinal column? If so, might the sacral navel chackra be the same as the mingmen pt on the MO there? Might the chackras be gates to the dantiens...which might be more like reservoirs? So, connected, but not the same thing? (Sorry if these questions sound stupid, btw.) And why are you prejudiced against the Indian yogic system? Think they're not theoretically sound, too fiery or had a bad experience?

Is that a yes or a no? If no, what exactly is the difference between the lower dantien and the sacral navel chakra?

What's a "pole star?" Anyhow, many of us know where it's supposedly at...but as to WHAT exactly it is? I'm personally rather vague on it... Another possibility to throw out there is that I heard according to "John Chang," it's physically the original cell that formed when your dad's sperm fertilized your mom's egg and contains all your prenatal qi.

I totally agree. Most of these guys have the fa, but not the gong. Heck, I don't think acupuncturists are even required to practice qigong in their schools here. Well, if you have no clear-flowing qi or jing, how the heck are you going to heal anybody else? You got no juice. It's just like 95% of Taijiquan players who can't make it work because they lack any gong. All they are doing is going through the slow-motions, but with no internal juice to power them. If these guys haven't self-cultivated for a period with some form of "qigong" as a core practice, it's like waving a garden hose over your flower bed with no water!