Trunk

Probably one of the healthiest funnest things. Me and a couple friends were talking about this offline some while back. There's all sorts of really detailed articulation of internal belly musculature.

I made a major revision to the "about" page at alchemicaltaoism.com (link). Worth posting the update to the community as general announcement, for lots of reasons. To see it, go to the site, and click on "About" in the left-hand column. (For comparison, here's the original about page (link).) sincerely, Trunk p.s. btw, I wrote this revision several weeks ago, considerably before the kunlun seminar. Unrelated to events there. It's just that I go through an editorial process with the help of a friend, plus considering wording on my own for some time, before posting to the site. p.p.s. It is relavent to the Healing Love: Dangers section (link) which, ideally, would've been the first thing posted to the site. Simply didn't have enough knowledge at the time. "Community process of R&D."

Thank you.That helps. *whew!* That's a keeper! I'm hoping that starting with some really honest self-denegration will corner an entirely untapped market niche! Actually, I think I'm in really good company with people who've written texts that start with "I'm way out of my depth, hope this helps". The paragraph about myself I prefer this way, for many reasons. Agreed. Straight up. And you got the number right. A Kuan Yin article is all noted out, will address sound, also some dynamics of study with Guru, Lineage - more generally about Enlightened Cause. And it will be written in a way that the principles are clear across sectarian lines. Also Kuan Yin has broad appeal within all of the eastern religions, and across the gender lines. I won't comment on specific teachers. Thanks, and agreed. ~~~ I'll let the new "about" sit away for a while, and probably take a fresh look at it in a month or more - maybe make some fine tunings, partly based on comments here and on fresh perspective and energy. I think it's in the basic right direction though. After some days of not looking at it, you know what's most vivid in my mind? The pictures. I really like those pictures, and I think that they say so much about "state of the art". Memorable, fun, worth a thousand. It was important for me personally to make the new "about" a public statement. And I appreciate the feedback. Community is cool. love, Trunk We'll get there.

Concise is good. And that was a decent swing at it. I'm clearly going through some emotional stuff lately, and it shows up in my writing (duh). I've been singing a lot, which is a wonderful process. I gravitate towards deep, somber songs - and when I do it enough I end up crying (which is pretty rare for me). It's gotten to where I'm wearing sunglasses more than usual. A number of other parts of my process are converging to make this an emotionally transformative time for me, in a good way I think, but there is turbulence and I'm not buckling my seat-belt. Some of the best writing, I think, boils down very concisely. A short paragraph, three at the most. It takes a lot of work and time, often, to get to that point. Could be that I condense the "about" somewhere in the coming months.

On the other hand... Could be that I am presently too close to this to see the forest for the trees. I appreciate your honest feedback, and will also re-review this after a month or so - and see if my writing wasn't unnecesarily extreme.

I'm not worried about being blamed. It's that I'm certain people get deeply damaged (even with diligent work to the best of their discernment and discipline) by the sexual practices. Certain. It's just a fact that it's a dangerous area, even with the best of advice. Part of the purpose of the new "about" is to scare people off of the topic entirely. If someone is basically happy and healthy I think that they shouldn't mess with this stuff. It's only for people whose spiritual drive leaves them no other choice. I think of someone who is married with kids. A few years of working with the sexual practices and his health starts to weaken, deep emotional problems gradually creep in, gradual some degree of sexual dysfunction. Diminishes his ability to be as good as he can be at making a living, maintaining a happy marriage, taking care of his kids. And, once f'd up, it'll be nearly impossible to find effective help. That's part of it, but not the half of it. Here's what I wrote offline in response to your post, and in general about the topic: ~~~ While there is a personal statement in there, it's far from just a personal statement. As a modern culture, we're very used to things working conveniently. If something doesn't work, we get someone to fix it, or take it back for a refund, or simply never buy it in the first place. So-called "spiritual teachers" enter this modern market-place as entrepeneurs. Packaging and marketing. "All the tools you need to balance your energies in a weekend", "sexy, sexy, sexy". "These steps 1-2-3 and everything will be fine, safe, wonderful, spiritual, healthy, shiny". "We have it all worked out, and here it is". The modern market place, and those conversations within it, have twisted our view of spiritual work. If you read any autobiography (or reliable biography by someone who was there) of a someone who became spiritually accomplished it is as difficult and harrowing as it gets. Down-right messy, awful, grit. And those are stories of the highly gifted, the Victorious Ones. How much worse for us dumb schmucks? And, re: the sexual practices, that's up there as far as most difficult areas of spirituality. The fact is that it's dangerous. Lives (health, marraiges, sexuality, sanity, spiritual progress, emotions) get ruined around these practices. It's an inherently dangerous area, even with pretty good teachings. Honesty is powerful. The way forward is not to out-market someone, but to get real. The broad tone of the conversation needs to change. Also, ideally, the website shouldn't exist at all. There should be reliable doctors, reliable mid-level teachers connected to Authentic Lineage, and Authentic Teachers connected to same Lineage. But the culture is saturated with people posing as "teachers", that really should be beneath notice. And real teachers are extremely rare, hard to find, and hard to get to, study with. So there is this huge gap of anything remotely valuable, and I'm trying to fill one little spot of that gap ... but by truly respectable standards I shouldn't be doing anything at all, it's just that things are so awful that someone has to do something and the dynamics of cyber-community have produce this sorting out of knowledge on a student - to - student basis. We are scrappy, but still far from a really decent system. It's really that dire of a situation. ~~~ Read the references in the "Dangers" section carefully. What I have to say, what SeanDenty said here at TTBs, what David Shen Verdesi says on his site.

We had a phase some time back when all we were talking about was the prostate. You're not so far off as you think.

I had similar concern which, as I see it, is basically "resolution of energetics into emptiness/stillness/light" and later "emptiness and bliss conjoined". What I saw during the seminar is that some people would be processing their channels ~ tissues through shaking, sounds, etc., and that some would be processing personal stuff through laughing & crying etc., and that some people (with prior training I assume) would be focusing more on stillness through the practice. During the seminar, at least, there wasn't any instruction as to how that all mapped together; it was just "take the position and be with whatever happens". There's a sort of simple beauty to that - it disengages the intellect and allows for whatever is there, but there's also danger in that (lacking stillness instruction) people might just go 'round & 'round with personal processing and energetic variations for ever. I took the topic up with Max during private session. (DISCLAIMER: The following is major paraphrasing, and my recollection & understanding of what he said, not direct quotes.) Basically, we were on the same page re: accessing stillness via the deep-centers and the central channel. He had a clear understanding of it that generally jived with what I've been talking about for some time here (link: core vessel). And, it was clear that he was accomplished in it. The states were present as he talked about it, he ain't just whistlin' dixie. However, he's really into allowing students to process the stage that they're at. The centers gradually get activated, the crud gradually processes out, centers gradually mix and harmonize vertically with each other, the deep-centers gradually are realized and lined up, and plumbed to Depth. He's cautious against giving someone an intellectual map that forces them into a stage that is not where they're actually at, and indicated that such a contrived forced approach is counter-productive. So far so good. And that's a pretty darned good approach when you're trying to teach 60 people in a room at once. My finicky thoughts: It seems clear to me that the kunlun method does work effectively on some approaching stages. It's worth while for that, and for it's simplicity. What I don't know is if the kunlun practice, alone, actually naturally leads to that deep-center accomplishment. Maybe it does, but I don't as yet see how. But if one knew about the deep-centers and about what to do with the yi and energy there, and maybe had other practices that more directly went to the deep-centers, the kunlun could (at the least) definately play a strong supportive role towards that. I also don't know if his students are actually getting that part of the equation. The stillness basis, in understanding. Maybe Max gives them that instruction when the student needs it, when they naturally come to the cusp of that. It seems to help somehow, I don't know how or why. I find if I very gently "spread my toes" that it opens the sole of the foot a little more, and that helps. Especially in contrast to scrunching the toes or constricting the foot, which one might mistakenly do when raising the heel, and I think would be a hindrance. Raised, but relaxed and open. ~~~ One of my general thoughts on this thread is that people are being way too tough on Lama Max. And that it's part of the syndrome of being starved for the right information, repeatedly misled, injured, etc, and looking for the one source (teacher, system) that has ALL of it, everything, just per-fect-ly. The realistic, practical solution is that you can only hope to get part of what you need from any one teacher - and if they can give you some good part of what you need, then it's a good deal. The answer is a culture that has a variety of good resources, not in trying to demand an impossibly inhuman amount from one guy. It's a sort of unintentional cruelty towards a teacher, to expect and demand that much. One person just can't possibly say everything, from all the angles, nor be everything to everyone.

Thanks for the props, but I listed us faithfully, left to right:I'm the dweeby guy with the glasses.

Me, Max, SeanD, Cam after a nice lunch on Sunday.

Welcome, Yigili! I took Jim's intro workshop some years back, and got a lot out of it. All still-standing postures. Good LA resource! Trunk

I started taking clay (terramin) again yesterday. I'm on the super-slow approach: 1 tablet, once a week, and I ate rich yesterday. Spicy tomato liver and vegies blend in the morning, and more normal nourishing foods the rest of the day. I could feel my body really soaking it up.

I was also at the seminar. While I think that Lama Max certainly has unusual development, and that can be amazing and inspiring, the real take-home-practical gem of the presentation was the method, imo. It is so simple that you could learn it in 30 seconds. It's effective enough, I think, that most people get results quickly - whether or not they get transmission. While super-simple, it does a lot of the right stuff: mixes vitality and heart, engages the arms and legs, connects to earth. I think that average-anyone could get it from the book (link) and get a lot out of it. Re: the method, I think we have something similar to Sonnon's intuflow. People would get the intuflow dvd and react, "what?!?, it is so childishly simple: he's just rotating the joints" - but people would do it and get a lot out of it. Same with Lama Max's kunlun method, I think. At least that's how it looks up front; long term effects, we'll have to see. He picked a similar approach with the acupoints that he presented, btw. He presented 3 points (LI-4, St-36, PC-6) that have very broad application, that'd be good for almost anyone, and that anyone could learn in a couple of minutes and 'd be generally balanced and beneficial.

* Zoinks! *, Good tree stories! Another One of my martial arts brothers said something along the lines of, that it was a basic blunder, to think "there is an outside and an inside, and I know where that boundary is". Wendell Berry writes some great stuff (essays along the lines of nature, culture, community, economics and character) and again and again he observes how everything is complexly interdependent.

If you put that with a capital "A", I'd have to say (imho), "no". I think that Michael has worked very hard to improve the initial HT offerings, and he has. It is his role to evolve-mature-refine those teachings as much as he can during his generation. He also played a major role in the starting of the HT (wrote many, 7?, of the books). But when you say, "Authentic", there are rather unforgiving standards. There are a lot of factors that go into achieving those standards, and our culture just doesn't have broad supportive resources yet. It's still early in a multi-generational project of sufficiently rooting eastern wisdom in the west. Just the title of the western Buddhist magazine, "Tricycle", says a lot about that. It's a genuinely big task, that is much bigger than any one teacher or organization. Everyone does what they can, it adds up over time. It's hard to say what the nature and extent of their interaction was. He's told similar stories that, uh, "didn't check out" before. Every posted mention that I've ever seen re: Winn's primordial has been very positive.

It does open to a devotional feeling. I had a period some while back where I'd be in that position. Looking back, it was a time of increased energy for me, and devotional in a way that emphasized the center and front. Very pleasurable. The gates of the spine crimp a little - and it is somewhat disengaged. I found ... well, it was just the position my body went into.. and effectively helped me initially ride the new energy, but I found that after a while (weeks?, months?: I forget) I found that I needed to deliberately straighten and lengthen my neck in order to connect front & back, up & down, in a more integral way.

I'm pretty sure no one here has a full view I feel lucky when I can grab & see a piece of the schematic someone tore it up and threw it to the wind it does seem to me, however that there's the relative (individual) and the absolute and that how each person weaves that relationship is unique, and the same. that's the dragon and tiger of it ~~~ (that was the poetic version of "what do we know?" and "you have your own relationship to the Divine")

new acronym: afsc: average frustrated spiritual chump

My experience: no. The chicken liver is tasteless in that drink I mentioned. (Cow liver: yuck!) Really, really important to keep a buffer of yin (nourishment). My impression is that the channels dry out, and then close, maybe closed & sorta-stuck-closed if they're really dry. That's a bad situation. Need to stay ahead of it with a comfortable buffer of yin. ~ later ~ My suspicion, at this point, is that the clays are addressing jing and on into the 8 extra channels. That's why it's taken 2-3 weeks for red stinky pits to show up: it starts low, and then works up at the pace of the deep channels, slowly. If so, it's especially important to keep the organ layer totally nourished (8 extraordinaries are deeper than the 5 elements). I'm taking a strategy of going very light on the clays (infrequent, low doses) and very heavy on the nourishment (chicken liver, at least several days a week). Of course, all just suspicion at this point - curious and cautious to see how it plays out.

First: your new avatar is delightfully clever. You know, there are lots of different configurations and stages of the path. That you rebel is - at least partly - an affirmation your own unique set-up, how it is right now, and how that's groovin' with life around you. It's unique, duh. My shing-yi teacher would say, such & such exercise is a good thing "for you for now". That's part of the harmony path. I'd also say that it's worth while to know about the more unyielding aspects of the path, and artistically surf how all that comes together for you specifically.

From 'Wild Oats', a natural market here in the LA area. I had been blending chicken liver, but today I tried beef liver. Found out that beef liver tastes pretty bad , while I hadn't tasted the chicken liver at all - in the otherwise same blended recipe that I mentioned before. No more beef liver for me, chicken liver is all good.

Standard formula for MW talking about another: 1) I and/or someone close to me already studied with X (and have more of an inside scoop than you're likely to get) 2) I like X, wish X well, X has a good heart, etc. 3) all the while subtley undermining X's credibility through various comments about X's character, often masked as benevolent psychological insights. It all adds up to making MW seem in-the-know, insightful and benevolent towards X, and yet X gets discredited. Nifty. You could line up every post that MW ever made about an outside teaching source, or 'competitor', detractor, and they're all like that. It's beyond predictable: it's the same thing every time.

Light-blessings to Father Paul, who is undoubtedly laughing along in the bardo.

Yeah, I like that it's blended, raw - and yet I can't see nor taste the liver. I had heard about organ meats before, but I didn't have a handle on preparation. This fits the bill. Agreed. Hadn't realized that you had that going prior to clays. Group process really clarifies a lot. What kinds of "raw fats and oils" were/are you eating? * suspects a whole new topic that I don't know much about * For me, at least, the oils were certainly not enough to re-juice after the clays. Caution, Yoda. The crease of my pits are slightly red, slightly irritable. Though I've been off of the clays for some days now, my impression is that they triggered a deep deep detox of some sort, and I'm not going back to them until I feel that that is really over, plus some. I also feel somewhat more vulnerable to weather (I find myself wearing layers) and I think that it's more than just that we're headed into season change. The "spicy tomato liver frappe" (raw liver in a blended drink) really still activates the liver - which is the main detox organ, so I think that it's helping the detox to complete - but it is nourishing in a major way. I'm staying with that, every several days, for a while.

Thanks. I knew that this thread was rich with angles on 'shen theory', but it's been a tough topic for me to crack, and it took several tries at writing that post before I could say anything coherent (or anything at all, really). Impressive. This is the first time that anyone has spoke about relating to organ shen, where I get the sense that you have actually done it. Thank you for communicating, really helpful.