Trunk

I "felt the power" for a long time, but it just wouldn't integrate , self-acupressure really opened up my standing practices. ~~ moderator's note ~~ Deleted healerman88's duplicate post, above. ~~ mod squad out ~~~

Wow. This is too interesting not to post. Lawrence Wilkerson was Chief of Staff to Colin Powell during the Bush administration and has since been speaking frankly and openly.. for quite a long time. Just always very intelligent and well informed. Here he talks with TheRealNews.com.

part 4

~ TaoBums Moderation Team Note ~ re: ~jK~'s remark. Personal attack. 2 week suspension from TTBs enforced. Offending text edited out. - Trunk ~ Mod Squad out ~

Nice shots Joeblast, I haven't been in that kind of nature in a while.

part 3

In my personal practice I don't feel~resonate with any of the associations of soham that you mention above (some of which Mark mentions as well). The only way I have connected with it in my own experience is when the whole central channel resonates with the syllables (sometimes emphasizing one then the other, sometimes both simultaneously). But, as I mentioned previously, it isn't an experience that I can often reach directly: I have to go by some intermediary steps that Mark does not talk about (or talks about in another way) but that I've discovered through my own route. Agreed. Sometimes when he is talking about soham he is also doing it and that gives me a boost to get to the place where I can experience it also. p.s. 3bob, thank you for the nataraj.

I feel out-of-place trying to clarify exactly "what MG teaches" in this instance. I can comment on what I've felt/gotten from what he's said + my own resulting experience - but I don't know whether that really matches up w/ what he thinks/says/teaches . Anyway, what I find is that my most clear unforced experiences of SoHam are when it is resonating with the entire central channel at once. The syllable "so" is resonant with incoming energy (from all directions) and "ham" with expanding (similarly), along the whole central channel. MG talks about this somewhere in some talk. However, for me to get there, I find that I need to spend some time resonating individual chakras first (which I do w/ om mani peme hung) before I can get the whole thing to work as one. That's my own work (haven't heard M talk about it before). Exactly all the steps that MG presents w/ SoHam I couldn't recite off the top of my head. Just commenting on the distillation of my experience. I don't recall him talking about it exactly in either of the ways you mentioned it, but it might be in there somewhere. Hope this helps. Any details of your experience, I'd be curious to hear. - Trunk p.s. I've always considered & experienced the spoken methods that M teaches to be secondary to the transmission relationship (which would be talked about in terms of Guru & Lineage in traditional terminology). Yeah, he teaches methods, but whatever method works for you - in that school - is fine. The inner transmissions are where most of it happens. Maybe stating the obvious, and not to discount the effecacy of clear view + skillful method.

part 2

kick-ass

You're feeling qi, and taking some initial steps on learning how to guide it, simple as that! Basic principle: harmonious and balanced vertical integration. Not too high, not too low. Well blended.

Thank you, a pleasure to read.

Best writings I've read on the sort of topics this thread is hovering around are by Wendell Berry. Any of his books of essays (I don't care for his novels much). It's all interwoven: endless greed at the top, laziness at the bottom. Obviously, the part that we have direct power over is what we do. Live simply, close to the land, energy efficient, etc. - Trunk

Here's an interview (pdf link, ~6mb) w/ Mark extracted from an old Hard Light group publication called "The Mirror". Thought I'd just tack it on to this old thread. This is the best printed Mark Griffin interview that I've seen that goes over Mark's study with Muktananda, Mark's transition into nirvakalpa samadhi, the function of Guru and Lineage, and the formative stages of the Hard Light school. A good read for introducing who Mark is. - Trunk

Congrat's! I was reading in the other thread on the premise, and think it's a good idea and needed. Part of the strength and difficulty of TTBs is that it is so broad (any broader and it wouldn't have any definition at all ). There is plenty of opportunity for more narrowly defined forums. Best wishes!

You might enjoy kimchi, if you've not already included it. Very healthy, used as side dish to most meals by Koreans. p.s. I've enjoyed kimchi at a Korean soup restaurant for a long time. When I recently bought my first tub of it for home, I craved & woofed down several tubs in the course of several days! Then things evened out and I have it just once-in-a-while.

Your post somehow reminds me of Rumi poetry, not sure how or which ones but an indication of "good territory" I think. love

This SunDo pdf (link) from the SunDo website was recently referred to me. (Thanks! to "balance.") The elements<~>postures correspondences strike me as somewhat doubtful (just my personal impression), but the postures are displayed (through which you do SunDo's LTT breathing, pictured below) and there is some good general information in the article.

Here's an mp3 digital audio of Mark talking about current water filter needs & activities during the April 17th, 2010 intensive. (Also of Lee giving updates.) Monsoon season is coming up which floods the wells near the river, which pollutes the wells. So there's a big push to get out a bunch of water filters out right now, before monsoon season. Donation page: http://www.tmaseva.org/donations

I also find that's a problem with posts I totally agree with and really like. I feel silly just posting, "I agree" Mark's branch of the Siddha lineage has roots in Ganeshpuri, India. Hard Light has connected to those roots by building Fire Mountain Retreat Center there and by starting a charitable organization, Third Millennium Awakening (TMA) Seva to assist the area. ("Seva" means "selfless service".) Some years ago HL made a needs-assessment trip to see what was most needed, met with community representatives and looked around. The people are very poor and the needs are at the most basic levels: malnutrition and diseases from lack of clean water are major problems. So TMA's main ongoing project (per my current understanding) is to provide biosand water filters free of charge. These are basically simple concrete containers filled with sand and gravel that filter water and make it drinkable. (I'm not clear on exactly how it works, links at end of post.) They basically last forever and require almost no maintanence. So, a donation of $25 buys a biosand water filter for a local family and provides them with unlimited drinkable water indefinitely. I give on an automatic monthly basis. There is currently a grant through an anonymous source that will match contributions, so your $ goes twice as far. http://hardlight.org/tma.html http://www.tmaseva.org/biosand-water http://firemountainretreat.blogspot.com/2009/12/bio-sand-water-filters-are-improving_8605.html'>http://firemountainretreat.blogspot.com/2009/12/bio-sand-water-filters-are-improving_8605.html http://www.causes.com/causes/275051 http://firemountainretreat.blogspot.com/ Donation page: http://www.tmaseva.org/donations - Trunk p.s. If any of you want to pull quotes from the above links and post'm, that'd be cool. (also curious from any reference re: the how of biosand water filters)

That's a success story! Thanks for sharing the way on the Way. - Trunk

~~~ TheTaoBums Moderation Team ~~~ Thanks for the reports on the offending post (blatant profanity used as personal attack). The "report" button works. The post was deleted and the user was put on suspension. - Trunk ~~~ Mod Squad out ~~~

imo, There is no clear responsible treatment of the subject in english. (I assume that there is in Chinese, though even in historical China this has been a controversial topic.) A foundational treatment of jing gong would have to include: 1) Healing - That is, the medicine. What can go wrong and how to remedy. (Most people don't know even the basics of what can go wrong, so they don't even know if they're headed in the totally wrong direction.) 2) Healthy Normal - Practices for basic normal healthy sexuality. 3) Advanced - Advanced esoteric principles and practice. We're just not there yet. This doesn't exist. My (free) site, alchemicaltaoism.com, has some broad treatment of various aspects and is sort of an accumulation of insights from the e-community. Some valuable insights. But still: we're not there yet. If you're one of those that must engage in this topic (it's unavoidable for some) then learn from where you can, and be wary. - Trunk

In short: yes. Though MOM is the worst, Chia's books on sexuality and iron shirt are also quite bad. Injury rates are predictably too high (though certainly not everyone gets injured). Of course, opinions vary, and this is sometimes a heated topic of debate. There are undeniably plenty who arrive in the e-communities w/ similar patterns of injury after reading & experimenting w/ Chia's works.

Um, "The Multi-Orgasmic Man" has been repeatedly recognized as perhaps one of the worst irresponsible presentations of esoteric sexuality. You'd do yourself a favor by throwing it away and considering as highly suspect anything you've 'learned' by it. I know I mentioned this earlier in the thread, but again here's a link to Michael Winn's comments re: dangers of external locking using the "million $ point".