Trunk

Segue back to Jung, who, for a long time, was making mandalas daily ... I've been re-watching HBO's West World, and diggin' it. The emergence of consciousness. Extraordinarily well written. And "the maze"? Can anyone say "mandala"? That's the one w/ all the mandalas!

My version of the "5 Minute University" is a fun way for friends to give mini-lectures to each other, "casual teaching": - each 'class' is ~ 5 minutes - and costs a nickel (or free) - *if* any notes are involved, fits on 1 page Maybe it's just silly... but, also, in normal friendly dialog, conversation is usually too free-flowing for any one person to really get to say a good chunk of stuff, to even give a mini-lecture. This is a way to shift the conversational format to monologue / lecture / instruction for a short period. To get agreement from the 'student' to mostly listen, to give permission to the 'teacher' to lecture / instruct. Most adults have something they've done deep research in, and this allows opportunity for friends to casually teach each other ... in whatever they know about. Anyone can do this, any topic they know about. In this case, qigong. (My 'university', lol, also offers guitar lessons.) If someone doesn't want the conversation, then they won't go along with the little game, won't pay you the nickel. It's a very low pressure fun way to opt in / out of these conversations, which are too often perceived as intrusive or offensive. It's also a fun way to be available for more 'classes' if a 'student' is interested. I'm working on a short "sphere series" of classes. #1 create and feel the sphere (that's enough for most people right away, just the surprise and newness of, "wow, I can feel it") #2 resonate the sphere of the hands with the core (all along the vertical, spending more time at blockages, refining expanding ~ condensing the centers along the way) #... (and more in the series, qi spheres are applied throughout many practices in the DGS bagua qigong system) As I mentioned before, there is enough to get the initial start w/ the sphere at 1m26s in the above video.

I know Sean led a qigong class at a local YMCA (or similar) some years back. It included joint rotations that could be done by elderly or those w/ mild injuries; I don't know what else was included. It seemed a healthy way to connect with others.

I will say that I've recently found some inspiration in Father Guido Sarducci ... and, more dubiously, the Dude.

... ok, so, cont'd from last post ... To connect with people who aren't seriously into it, you need a way to have them feel it immediately. Short answer: show them how to create n' feel a sphere (here at 1m26s, more extensively in the video for sale). It can be communicated and felt within a minute or two (literally). I've been pretty socially retarded in this process and 've only shown maybe 3 or 4 people. I have a friend who is not nearly as into it, and a lot less inhibited, and after I showed it to him he showed it to about 20 people. He said pretty much everyone felt it right away, and it felt good. So: feels good, is fun. I have more extensive thoughts about this. Maybe it's just my inhibition about sharing that manifesting as me making it more complex than it has to be... but I have a number of things I've been working on along this line and want to work it out more and play it out more before I share further. The above is a start, though. It's enough for someone to jump in, if they want to. cheers, Trunk p.s. My as-yet-to-be-realized venture of John Dao Productions is about addressing the theory gap: ability to communicate and share in a very generic way in common language, but that also has depth alignment with principle.

Really good question. For me (and I'm not saying this as advice, just how it's playing out in my life), I focused on practice and theory for decades, and basically had two sets of friends: 1. dharma friends, 2. secular friends. I basically didn't talk about dharma stuff at all with secular friends. (Though they knew I was into it.) It's pretty lonely. However, I didn't feel that I could communicate about internal life until I felt really well oriented in theory and practice. That took decades. Ok, so, then, that done, the prominent topic has become, "how do I communicate with others?". (... more later ...)

p.s. A note about learning finger-knitting style mudras for the first time: When I started learning them, they felt *completely* foreign. So much so that getting my fingers into the mudras was a little confusing and I forgot how to get back into the mudra pretty much immediately (like, as soon as my hands came apart, lol). So, my advice is that - if your learning process is anything like mine was - start by just learning *one* mudra. Hang out with it, enjoy it, become familiar, feel it. Then, if you dig it, come back for more. If you try and learn bunches in the first go, likely you'll just overwhelm yourself. Keep it in fun, managable doses. Finger-knitting mudras + Kwan Yin Magnetic Qigong (qi sphere work) has totally *dramatically* changed my experience of my hands for qigong, my own internal healing (including the core not just the limbs/hands), bagua and often in every-day situations. The inquisitive feeling of "something with my hands" that I felt when I was first introduced to meditation (mid 80's), decades later, these practices brought to fruition.

In general, I find find the "finger-knitting" style of mudras to be very effective for opening channels, both in the core and the limbs. This style of mudra I find to be effective right away ... as in, "immediately", as soon as I do them, while doing them, lol. And I find that friends usually experience results with these immediately (within 5-10 seconds of getting into the mudra). It's fun to learn one or two stand-alone mudras to share w/ friends that way. Which do I use regularly, remember? - The kuji-in are indespensible, imo. - There are several others that I know and enjoy (for instance the Mind Seal mudra in the yt video, and several other mudras that Sifu Matsuo teaches in his videos for sale). - That's enough for me, lol. The pdf I find over-whelming, but I might chip away at it for fun at some point.

Finger knitting mudras, lots of 'em, pdf file kuji-in mudras at wikipedia yt video

British spies were first to spot Trump team's links with Russia

Yeah, I know the Onion is a satire site. It's been pretty f'in' funny for many years. These threads could use more humor. And certainly there's points to be made: 1. Some sort of collusion along these lines described above is something that's gone through many people's minds. That's why the humor is relevant. That's why the Lawrence O'D video. "We all thought it." That, in itself, is a remarkable comment on the political environment right now. 2. Then whether it's true or not. I've no proof one way or the other. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised. I could also see DJT with various nefarious Rss connections, but still being a loose cannon in regards to those. Lots o' possibilities. One thing is for sure: these are wild times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyRbYdobqMI

EPA staffer leaves with a bang, blasting agency policies under Trump

This topic is for video, pictures, text that inspire, bring aesthetic rapture, and perhaps inform re: nature. This thread is not a place for fierce debate (especially, but not only, political debate is prohibited). And though I get that occasionally, minimally, a post of "devastation of nature" is inevitable... please, mostly not that. This thread is about enjoyment. p.s. If this thread already exists someplace else, please direct me there. (I know that there's already the cool pic & yt threads w/ some overlap.)

The dude in that video is Clint Watts:

Trump’s EPA moves to dismantle programs that protect kids from lead paint

Timothy David Snyder (born August 18, 1969) is an American historian, author, and academic specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, and the Holocaust. He is a professor at Yale University and is affiliated with the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and the College of Europe in Natolin, Warsaw, Poland. Snyder is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. (digital $3.99, paperback $5.42)

Excellent movie!

I wouldn't assume any benefit from phases 2, 3 because: - they haven't been presented yet and - they haven't been approved. ... to hold off evaluation for such thin-air stuff seems very naive to me.

Bernie Sanders, "There are people who gain from this legislation ... " (starts at 3m18s)