Trunk

Yeah, that, what Thad & Sean said. It's a real hallmark to see a topic thread started after 6 months of practice. (Stopped me in my tracks with the "Restless after 3 days of Practice A, wondering which practice to do for the rest of week?" discussion thread that I was going to start. )

I was commenting within the context of all natural Chinese herbs. "Natural" does not equal "safe". It's a strong yang tonic. And I'm not discounting that there's some fun there. I don't think you understood my previous post, and I suggest you re-read it. No disrespect meant.

Let's face it: most men's problem is not that they can't get excited (yang deficiency), its that they have trouble stabalizing calm (storing yin). Because they can't stay calm, they do too much and deplete themselves. The long term result is that yin becomes exhausted (they burn out) and yang collapses. The solution is not to add more fire (yang), but to restore yin. Adding yang tonics to this, regularly & over the long term, is seriously detrimental: just burns you out more thoroughly, more quickly. The trick is not to spark all your charge just before sex, its about learning to steady, cool, and restore in the times between sexual romps. Your acupuncturist is giving you a yang tonic; if you decide to use, use sparingly. (And, obviously, I'm just talking about an average situation; I have no idea about you specifically.)

I have a fig tree in my front yard, and it's baring now. I bought it last year, planted, and it started sproutin' figs right away. - and branches, too! During the growing season it just goes nuts! I cut it way back for the winter, just to like a trunk with some scragglely branches - and here it is again this year - BAM! : a ton of branches and more figs than I can eat, literally. I have to eat one nearly every time I pass through my front door, and I still have to employ neighbors to, "hey!, help me eat figs". It's fun.

Go to the bottom of the section page, and change the criteria from "last 30 days" to "all" and then click the "go" button.

Yup, pilates is very Taoist. We've been sharing information here for some years now, so it has come up before. Cyber-discussion has been pretty progressive that way. The website that I maintain, AlchemicalTaoism.com, is a community collection of some of our 'greatest hits'. Pilates has been in the "Establishing the Abdomen" section for some time.

Not to discount dilettantism as a real obstacle .. but my observation is that there are also students who have been in a system for some considerable years, and find effective complementary information & methods in other system/s. Two ways that I've been observing: Heaven & earth through the connective tissue, centering in the marrow (with the spine as a special segment of marrow). Also, integrating the Big Light through the endocrine system, nerve plexuses, energetic centers, and centering in thebindus (along the central channel). There are specialized skillsets of cultivation, and different traditions (and different teachers) have their strong suits. (And, sometimes even within their strong suits they only offer part of the picture. Often the best you can get from a system is part of the path, no disrespect nor ingratitude meant.) Also, the configurations of individuals varies considerably. Often it's legitamately needed for a student to apply several different modalities over the course of time. The people who are really into this sort of thing are in it for "the duration" (whatever that is). I've found that its taken me five years or so to get an introduction to an approach, though I don't think that there is ever a "completing" an authentic system. Personally, I don't think that hatha yoga was especially suited to my body. A psychotherapuetic model was useful for a while, but had to eventually give way to bigger stuff. Meditation took, but after a certain point I needed more rooting, and some Taoist practices have clued me in to ways in which rooting relates to the connective tissue. Scott Sonnon's work has given me new leverage on accessing the connective tissue, so it is pretty directly complementing some avenues that I explored through Taoism. Though I'm a far way from getting any of that all the way through my body. I haven't stablized things to a satisfactory degree, yet. Far enough into it so that I think I have some direction, and sometimes feel well put together, other times really stumbling. A good case could be made (and has been) that I'm a poor student, or a difficult one, or both. A teacher that I sat with, once said to us that "you're all in way over your heads", and that's the way it feels to me. .. if the mark of a good student is that s/he is Realized, then we are mostly bad students, or it's just a long difficult road, or both. Trunk

I wanted to bring up the topic of "constantly sexually rev'd" as a result of retention of aroused jing. Specifically in contrast of turning the light around.. or (to put it briefly), bringing attention deeply and steadily inward in a way that results in (or at least moves towards) non-dual consciousness. Seems to me that "constantly sexually rev'd" is basically the opposite of the process of "turning the light around", and so can be a formidable trouble area. Observations, ideas, solutions?

Laughing Taoist?

2nd that!: nice avatar, name. What is "Yan Xin"? Welcome!

Citizenship Papers by Wendell Berry We live in an imperialist economy.

Like "rev'd up", like when you are in idle and pressing the gas pedal on a car. Constantly excited, turned on.

Too mysterious: it doesn't fulfill the advertising function of "hey, I gave $, you should too".

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I've only been doing the mantra a little while, but I'm really happy with it. It seems to do kan & li (balance water and fire) automatically, and integrates sound with the process... and the sounds seem to tap into deep resonance with the centers. I haven't encountered any other mantra that's done all that - I was kind of surprised, like, "hey! that's doing kan & li" and very similar to what the more advanced Tibetan practices (Six Yogas of Naropa) are after as well. The sounds are very supportive of that process.

You're correct in that it is usually spelled "om mani padme hum"; however, here is a quote from the link that I posted before: They also have a sound file at that site. I've experimented with it some. I like the softer transition of "peme", and the "hung" resonates more directly with my lower centers. Trunk

I've found that om mani peme hung works me up~to~down nicely.

Yikes! Good work!

I think that its important that this site not be a drain on Sean's resources. Sure, he might hold up for a while, but this sort of thing eventually wears. I think that it should be a goal to not cost Sean any money ($0), and perhaps even make enough to take he & Lezlie out to dinner once in a while. (I doubt that it'll ever actually make $$$, but hey, that'd be cool.) And maintanence-wise, there should be assistants so that he can take administrative vacations. Otherwise, eventually he'll burn out on it (as much as he loves us all & digs this & everything). All, imo. So, I figure that the "sponsor" thing should be big enough to get noticed - but not like a billboard or anything. Hey Sean, should a person be able to click the "sponsor" button below a person's avatar/name, and go to a "sign me up for payin' $" page? Seems like that'd be handy. Trunk

Religions arise in all cultures, times, places. For any one religion to claim origination of .. its just silly. Its like if different countries each described - in their own way - that basically "things fall down", and each of them then thinks that they own gravity. For all that's authentic about lineage and real knowledge that's available in the subtle cultural layers.. it still has to have built-in transcendence of itself, or its trapped. Especially the way things are changing now.

Two things: 1. There is a copy of intu-flow as part of the Tao Bums library; I think Yoda owns it. PM Yoda, and he can put you next on the list to receive the dvd's - so you can try it out without cost to you. 2. Intu-flow is not about straining, its basically moderate joint rotations designed to create circulation through the connective tissue. I find it to be soothing and nourishing.

I don't view this topic as so much about prostate orgasm, as one of keeping all of the sexual glands & pipes healthy, which has a lot to do with resolving bound-up male residual sexual tension. All of the external stuff is easy to get to, and obvious. But most of the sexual fluids are actually produced by the internal glands (seminal vesicals, prostate, cowper's glands less so - but is part of the stack). So, I see it mainly as a topic of massage for health, and "prostate orgasm" (aneros) has been such a big hit because most of the guys that've tried retention have way too much tension bound up in the prostate and the aneros & prostate orgasm allowed us to release that tension. (Even though we don't talk about it much publicly, too embarrassing. ) For me, I occasionally go through a massage routine in the shower. I massage the vas deferens, epidydimus, and testicles manually, and the internal glands using a crystal wand. I think that if I had that little routine from the beginning, it would've saved me a huge amount of trouble from stagnant jing over the years. And, yes, I think that getting hung up on a prostate orgasm can become an obsessive side path. I think that's pretty clear if you check out the aneros forum (also some good info there, btw). But it could be an occasional healthy part of a larger picture of jing cultivation. Trunk

Well, I live in L.A., and we've been having a heat wave the last several weeks, so I've done something I've never done before: Get a pitcher (or two) and fill it with ice, dump the ice in a sink, fill the sink with water, let it chill for a while. Then I stick my head in the sink, and just keep it there for a while. So much heat in the body rises to the head, and there's so much blood circulation through the head. At first this is bracing, then I feel the ice-water cool my blood, and the blood pump from-the-outter-to-the-inner; it really helps cool me down. Its been just brutally hot, here, non-stop; soak-head-in-ice-water 's been a good emergency cool down.

Welcome aboard, Turtle! Good choice for a name, - "Slow & steady wins the race."

Hey Doc, It boils down to keeping your center, or losing it. If your centers are aligned, and you're gradually learning to resolve your energies into the higher vibes within your deep centers, then energy is going inward and resolving into the Big Nameless. If you're reaching out and attaching to stuff, then energy is going out and causing confused entanglements. cheers, Trunk p.s. Welcome aboard! --- edit --- There's a couple of posts I made some time back on this topic of forward and reverse, here are the links: #1, #2. Its a fundamental topic.