dwai

Often we can tell if we are receptive enough, if someone is speaking from ego or from a "higher" place. The words of such individuals does something to us. Then it is the "Tadekam is talking to the tadekam". But I also noticed the it can generate strong feelings of ego resistance. It is because the local mind/ego doesn't like to be overridden (subconsciously). When I started with my Master, I would find myself reacting to him with ego for no apparent reason. I'd be like "What...he doesn't recognize how great I am, with my all 13 years of Taiji practices and spiritual knowledge?!!?? " But I was detached enough by then to recognize that it was the ego, and nothing more That imprinting (of tadekam to tadekam) is very subtle and will result in reactions on the recipients' end.

Ego is a matter of misidentification, is it not? If one ascribes actions and doership to the body-mind, then that is ego. If one ascribes actions to "That one without a second", then is it still ego? I used to think the way you present this predicament too. However, I don't think one can do a lot of what happens in light work without relinquishing doership at the body-mind level.

Contemplate on this “who am I?” in your heart center. Listen for an answer. When you get nothing back you are on the right track. ask the question again. Now see where the question arose from. Stay with the feeling. everytime a thought arises, ask “who was having this thought?” The answer comes back “I was”. Ask “who am I?” And repeat the process above. Start doing this for 5-10 mins a day at first, and then slowly extend it until you are doing this all the time. all your chakras will open and kundalini will rise on its own.

However, that divine grace often can and does work through apparent individuals

When you mean “little contact training” I’m assuming you mean push hands. That is only one aspect of the training. Also push hands is supposed to be done with progressively higher pressure and speed with the objective of maintaining same level of sung and ting as all speeds and pressure. It is then combined with striking and turned into free form San shou as well. Reason we don’t see much of this is most people don’t reach the levels of maturity in practice. I used to see my first teacher getting frustrated with the number of people that drop out after 1 week (let aside one month) of training. My own training changed after I decided to take private and semi-private lessons with him. Luckily for me there were three of us who were serious about taiji and practiced together in various permutations and combinations for the first 13 years of my taiji training.

I suspect that the general interpretation is literal (from reading the wikipedia article). So if you do punya (or meritorious actions and accrue good fruits of that karma), then if you want, you can mentally transfer them to others (deceased relatives or all sentient beings). The condition being that the sentient beings must rejoice in your actions and recognize them as being meritorious actions, etc. The article is indicating that it is similar to the ritualistic offerings done on behalf of ancestors or all sentient beings in Hindu dharma (via yajnas and homas). However, it is perhaps unknown to the authors of this article that in Hindu dharma, the external rituals always should go hand in hand with internal rituals. So if you are creating a fire externally, you will be creating a fire internally. What you offer in terms of sense objects externally (incense for smell, mantra for sound, food for tongue, light for eyes, other materials like clothes for the tactile senses, you are doing to your internal senses as well internally. It is a process of sacrificially offering internally, what is offered externally. This accrues "good karma". Then it is a matter of doing it on behalf of ancestors or some other specific purpose. So it is entirely possible to do away with the external or internal ritualistic parts if one has a strong enough of intent to offer up the fruits of one's good karma to select few or many or all beings (as the case might be).

Taiji is a power generation system. Once we have the power, any structure can effectively be used to deliver it. So it's not a bad thing to learn hard MA imho. However, for taiji's power to work, we HAVE to drop our attachment to the Hard MA and what we think we know. Learning taiji is very hard because of that, especially if one has hard MA background. My student is a multi-black-belt external MA (Karate, Kali, etc) and also does bagua and xinyi (not entirely internal). He picks up the energetics quite well but is unwilling to let go of what he knows (he calls it 25 years of violence practice) to let the taiji power work. Its a choice. In order to use taiji in practice, we have to really know that taiji works and the way it works is totally counter to what people know as being effective. Taiji's real power is empty, mysterious and yielding. It is of course possible to (and in reality does happen) have mixture of li and jin with different ratios until we let go of li entirely. I think I'll borrow that. I used to think that physical/strength training is pointless for taiji. And it is. But one needs to maintain physical fitness in order to operate. For that some (not obsessive or excessive) body-weight and full body strength training I'm finding is very useful, especially as we age (i'm approaching my mid-forties now). I've been ambivalent about it and stopped and started strength training (push ups, sit ups, squats, etc) many times. In the past I found it used to affect my ability to sense my qi. However, now I find that i still am able to maintain similar level of sensitivity and listening skill but also maintain a strength training practice. Body-weight, and indian mace swinging (10-20 lbs only).

For me, healing is much faster for sure The Buddha had a reason for using the term “tathagata”. He said resistance is prolonging of the malaise and acceptance of the situation (whatever it might be) as is, is wise. Don’t ask me for quotes, I’m sure you Buddhists will know the specific sutta (iinm this is when Buddha explains to Anand what tathagata means).

They will only find emptiness...because we’re the dao’s Bum 😜

I’ve worked with him a few times. Very empty and expansive. 🙇🏻

Ducking out of the way is reaction. Perfectly okay. One that is driven by fear of bodily harm. Walking with a helmet on is akin to shielding in this case. Sorry was being tongue-in-cheek... I get the point being made. Perhaps I should try and rephrase from fear to apprehension or risk aversion even?

Why does anyone shield oneself from something? For protection, right? So is that not driven by a feeling of being unprotected? Or in other words, fear? Imho it is perfectly okay and normal to be afraid.

Yes but it turns out the mantra literally says the same thing as my realization Earlier, reacting out of fear, I wielded it with “violence”. Maybe it was appropriate for me back then, but the realization that dawned during the incident I mentioned made nonduality move from theory to practice for me.

some of it was my misunderstanding. Some people have made it clear that they are NOT afraid, or traumatized etc. My apologies if I’ve hurt your feelings 🤗

In the past I’ve faced a few such “demons”. Somehow I knew that I could “vanquish” these demons with a particular mantra I was given. But one day, when nine such beings came at me, I remembered that they are not separate from me. In the middle of vaporizing them I stopped, and embraced one that was approaching me. There was such joy, such a release that I felt a part of my personality that was afraid melted away. It is strange that we don’t walk the talk. If someone walks the talk of nonduality, then there can no longer be me and you. There can no longer be protection or shields. Let’s start at the spiritual realm and bring it into the physical realm as well. If we can’t even do it in the spiritual realm how do we live it in the physical world whose separateness we cannot seem to get over ?

The Dropping of doership and not doing is not an all or nothing phenomenon imho. We drop doership in various ways. Some all at once, others little at a time. Along with that also arises not-doing spontaneously. Indeed it is is very valuable to have a practice but, if we look at what our daily experiences are - when are we not aware of the contents of our mind? When are we not already aware? The problem is with identification. When I ask “who is doing the practice of being mindful?”, does it not beg the question when are not aware of the contents of our mind? When we are “not being mindful”, are we not aware of the contents of our mind then? The “doer” in this case is not who thinks he/she is practicing at all. That is just a habit. The awareness is always aware.

Who's practicing the mindfulness?

I find that if we drop the identity of doer, not doing is easy. If there is a doer, then doing is natural and not-doing is unnatural.

Haha isn't it true! Not doing should be so easy, but it is so hard

I don't quite understand this. Please elaborate?

Beautifully articulated. Not meaning to argue, but I am genuinely curious. what is it that one has? Who is it that has or does not have something? My experience is that more we try to hold on to something, more it binds us in a prison. As soon as we let go of the desire to hold on, we are free to grow and learn more. And strange thing is, what we let go the desire to hold on to, stays with us more gracefully.

How can you not embody your chi, mind or humanity as long as we are embodied (have bodies)?

It would be interesting to find out more about what you mean by the section I've bolded.

But what goes around? Is it an actual malaise, or is it more a bringing to the surface of latent mentation issues one already has within?