dwai

Marblehead was a gentleman. As many have noted, he was a voice of calm and reason amidst massive battles that often raged here when I first started. He and I always noted that we usually agreed with each other on most subjects, so there was never any reason to argue. I often find myself thinking of him...sometimes wistfully but always fondly.

Well thanks to you, I now know what the word Priapism means 😬🙏🏾🤪😝 However, the fact of the matter is, that there is an entire thread of attention (at a distance) being showered on drew (A at a D). May he find balance and sanity in this lifetime 🙏🏾

More I explore Xing and Ming, more I realize how deep he was!

Shhhh....you’ll attract The pineal flexing immor(t)al being! 🤪

It’s not a good idea to be beholden to any physical technique. There are plenty of people I know who are high level practitioners who don’t sit on the floor. Internal work is working with your consciousness. After the beginning stages, it can and must happen irrespective of how we contort (or not) our bodies... this might shed more light on what I mean — https://www.medhajournal.com/whats-more-important-techniques-or-meditation/

Sitting on a flat chair with no arm rest and a straight back is also an option. If someone can’t sit on the floor due to physical issues, a chair is perfectly good.

He says it is “vashikaran tantra”. vashikaran means “to enchant” or “to entrap”. Bad juju. Stay away from that crap and be a better person so you may have a loving relationship with your loved one.

I've visited Amma twice so far and each time has been an absolutely amazing experience. The meeting space is vibrating with very high frequency and pure energy (sattvic). Last time I was there was in July, when she visited Chicago. I took my wife with me. Already having visited her before, I had an inkling of what was going to happen. But as we sat there, the energy and stillness took over me, and I entered into a very deep state of meditation. We had reached the venue late, so had received tokens which placed us at the back of an already massive queue...and we'd end up receiving hugs from Amma around 2 am. Around 11:30 pm, my wife (who was sick at that time, started feeling more sick by then) and I decided to slowly leave, as it was becoming progressively harder for her to stay. Just as we decided to leave, one of Amma's followers came up to us and asked my wife "you look like you could do with a hug right now". And then she gave us tokens that got us on stage right away, and receive hugs and we were back home by 12:15 am. This is my small "Amma miracle" story Amma is a very powerful and highly evolved spiritual being. But everyone has their own karma to deal with. Those that malign her in thi way are perhaps also driven to do so as a result of their karmic entanglement. Even they are going to be benefited from their contact (no matter how negative their minds might be) with her. Sometimes such powerful beings trigger very negative responses from people with lot of impurities in their mind. The presence of such beings will begin cleaning these individuals, and their response is essentially that of the ego feeling threatened by the process. I normally don't comment on Drew's posts (and i know posting this comment might trigger a diatribe against me again) - but then again, I have him back on my ignore list (only active TDB member who is on that list today)...

Can you share some examples of schools that teach the "full method"?

Marblehead used to often write about Xing and Ming. Always confused me too I wrote that from practical experience. It is the spiritual heart in the center of the chest. This is where the mind rises out of. Prof Google tells me that Xing comes from the combination of Xin and Sheng. Yes. I guess it does...but most people don't go beyond physicality even. Clarity of the mind/stillness of mind. That leads to Self-realization via Xing gong. That should indeed be the way. But as Taomeow said, in the modern world.... I agree. I think root of Qi is Shen. Shen is awareness, Qi is its activity.

Explicitly doing MCO is not a good idea. Better to do it with a moving form. explicitly doing MCO is called the “direct method” and it has the risk of overloading and even skipping blockages. Doing via a moving form is called “indirect method” and it is gentler and more effective. I know people don’t like the simple answers. Our complicated minds like complicated things to do - visualize 9 pearls, geometric patterns, move the pearl here, there and everywhere. However in most cases this like giving a bigger and juicier banana to a monkey. The more you feed the monkey bigger better stuff, the more it craves, more epic are its tantrums. Simple is best. Doesn’t get better than wuji or a simple form like upward and downward in taijiquan.

Anger is a low frequency energy and it brings your vibrational frequency down. If you are exposed to an angry environment, it will take a lot out of you (drain you). At a certain point, one can get to a point where these negative energies cannot even penetrate your field. For that one has to become 'solid' in terms of their energy field. The best defense from low frequency emotions like anger, hatred, jealousy etc are to raise your own energetic frequency and develop a massive energetic field and mental range.

Taijiquan is a form of qigong. You might find people wax eloquent about how qigong is different from taijiquan but I don’t subscribe to that perspective. As you noted, taijiquan is more easily accessible and it’s easy enough to learn the yang or Wu style forms. The real fun starts after you’ve learnt the form, and start working on single form practice - like isolating a particular part of the long form, sort of like how one would focus on specific drills in the gym (only using the gym analogy as an example). That’s when the serious neigong (inner work) starts in taijiquan. Your energy is then amped, refined and converted to spirit and emptiness. since you mention Sydney, I happen to know a good taiji guy in Sydney (not sure about suburb/neighborhood etc) - Dr. John Fung - https://practicaldentistry.com.au/dr-john-fung/ he’s a FB friend of mine and a good taiji person. Might be worth a shot checking him out good luck 👍🏾

Try and find a good yang or Wu style taijiquan teacher in your area and practice diligently everyday. Taijiquan will help regulate your energy, teach you to relax and release tensions. Also after you’ve learnt the form, it transforms into moving meditation.

If you don't pay them attention, they will stop bothering you. Just quietly continue your spiritual practice. These things happen from time to time as channels unblock. Often times, we become more aware of things that are always there when our minds become more silent. It can be baffling how much we tend to just block out from our regular attention (sort of like we can block out a constant background sound, for instance). From your OP it wasn't clear what kind of spiritual practice you have. Perhaps getting some insight into that will help us understand your situation a bit more

All phenomena are a creation of your own mind. Find out the truth about the source of your mind and become free from such phenomena. These muscle spasms - are they painful or just surprise you when they happen? If they are painful and come with cramping you might have a potassium deficiency. If they’re not, just relax when they happen and see whether they subside. The worst thing we can do under any circumstance is to resist what is happening. Resistance increases suffering. Stop resisting and relax when faced with such phenomena. wrt owls hooting...why is that a bad thing? Owls are beautiful and magical birds - enjoy their nocturnal sounds. Don’t be afraid - nothing can hurt you if you are rooted in your own being.

Do you see how when you flip a switch in your home the TV or a light bulb comes on? What makes it happen is a type of energy called electricity which flows through the TV or the metal filament/coil in the light bulb to make that happen. Qi is the energy that makes the human body function. If there is no qi, human body is dead. If there is qi, you have a living being. This is also true for all things we call "living".

I didn't use the word "Faith" disparagingly...I think you know that The faith that is used here is a result of diligent cultivation - the more we let go and let things be, the more powerful it becomes. It is like our 'knowing' that the sun will rise in the morning, even if we can't see it sometimes due to it being obscured by clouds etc...

Beautiful! There is an element of "faith" at play here...in terms of wu wei. When we are contented with things are the way they are, in the present moment, a deep knowing arises - to just let it be, as it is. The right action arises from non-action...no desire to make things be this way or that...what is best for the situation arises spontaneously. It is possible for everyone of us to be that way, but it is very hard to do it. Like my master tells me -- Letting go is easy. The hard part is to maintain that "letting go" in all situations - what must come, arrives, what must go, departs.

Among the list of awakened people I have seen, a large proportion seem to be internal martial artists. Maybe because that is the sphere of influence I spent most of my time in. There is something inherent in the internal arts and the martial ethos that makes it easier for an individual to focus and become single-pointed. There is a need to be present in face of bodily harm where the thinking mind needs to disappear so appropriate and spontaneous action arises. The concept of “no mind” with proper guidance can help cultivate the spiritual mind (like my master constantly points us to). Yes it is possible for martial artists to get caught up in the ego story. Many do. But it is also easy enough to transcend that identity because we clearly see the relativity of levels of mastery. We, on occasion, get to cross hands with people who can literally end our lives in a blink of an eye. Then, if we are sincere and honest with ourselves, will see that our ideas on “how good we really are” fly out of the proverbial window. A genuine humility sets in. The text books of the warriors are the practice of forms and meditations we undertake, controlled violence the laboratory and getting “out of our own way” the result. And purification of the consciousness is continuous. It is ironic and paradoxical and unless one has trained this way, one cannot comprehend it.

I’d written this many years back under the pen name Rudra. Ran into it today and find it still relevant. https://www.medhajournal.com/inspired-by-ishmael-some-thoughts/

That is a great way to describe it!

The problem with your approach is that you appear to be talking down to people, right from the outset of your thread. Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but that’s how your posts come across. if you want genuine discourse, don’t start with a challenge. Rather, approach the discussion more amicably. Most of us have been members on the board for extended periods of time. So we sort of know each other and have a gauge of where one is coming from. You being a newcomer seemed to try to “stir the proverbial pot”. Therefore, changing what could have been a genuine discourse into a sort of challenge/confrontation BTW I said refer to Advaita Vedanta and Kashmir shaivism for clarification on a perspective I proposed. These are not books, though there are books on these traditions I can recommend if you are interested in finding out more about them. The reason why I recommend them is because the nondual teachings therein are direct, whereas they are hidden in the Daoist traditions.

The "sensations" are the effect of the mind trying to apply a label on the actual experience, which has no parallels in the world of five senses. That's why I say, the sensations registered by the mind varies from person to person. What is consistent is the sense of flow and filling internally, and field effect externally. Read Advaita Vedanta or Kashmir Shaivism for starters. It is a directly verifiable, phenomenological fact. The entire "brain" makes consciousness paradigm is a fallacious one in my experience.