dwai

I do. They are different...they are however fingers pointing to the same moon...so to speak. I dont have anything against buddhists either...i admire and repect a lot of them. However the sectarianism passing off at buddhism here at times is unpalatable. Its better to discuss vedanta, astika darshanas here and leave the buddhism forum for those who want to discuss buddhism. Attempts to promote a healthy environment for buddhist, taoist snd hindu thoughts to co-exist amidst a mutually respectful forum seems to have failed here on ttb in face of massive egos and hard-nosed opinions being passed off as gospel truth... Anyhow i wont go into that any more...it should suffice for me to state that i respect and admire the buddha and nagarjuna.

Buddhism's decline in India is directly a result of Islamic invasions and the fact that there were "power centers" of Buddhism at that time. There were entire universities and monasteries wiped out during Islamic invasions (the early waves). Hinduism did not suffer the same plight because there were no power centers to attack... Long story and background needed. What shankara did was not direct cause of Buddhism's decline. What he did was responsible for re-ascendancy of Sanatana dharma...

Why do you even bother to come and try to elicit responses? I know you do it because you want to feel important. But why is "defeating these Hindus" so important? Is that part of your Buddhist mission? To arrogantly go forth and convert the Hindus? Why don't you focus on your own development first? Both spiritual and intellectual... You do have a sharp brain...but right now it is too befuddled with the drivel you have been fed in your education to actually help your viveka awaken. Once it does, you will realize how erroneous your ways were. I had a similar revelation around 20 years back...

Don't you know it all... Good luck

You won't be able to. When you see clyman doing long power or short power demos they are with Taiji press or push forms. Ask him if he can do long, short, cold power application without some form of the 8 energies? The 8 energies are ward off, roll back, press, push, split, roll pull, elbow and shoulder. If you can't compress the Taiji ball you can't apply these powers effectively. The powers are expressed in how you send the energy (compressed) out. why do you think fa jing is taught as an advanced Taiji application? Because without the structure you can't apply the powers. The actual form might be (and in most advanced Taiji folks is) very small...condensed in size and frame. But it is there nonetheless... Also those who have spent time and hours in Taiji practice have also developed the dedication and mentality to able to wield this power responsibly. They wouldn't want to knock out a horse or a bull with it! It looks like the little vibrations you have going seem to have already gone to your head... Ask yourself what is the motivation behind your wanting to learn about jing? Martial application? Then you don't have the foundation to apply it. Healing? You haven't learnt to feel the patient's blockages...what can you do with jing then...blast the patient and hope your "treatment" will work? Become a badass? There is a chance that you might become one but to what end? Show off with your friends and in bars? Spiritual work? Then jing is not necessary for it. You can work on meditation and connecting with dao (or whatever you want to call it) by simply practicing qi gong and Taiji or yoga or meditation. They all work...

With a real physical teacher. Learning to do condensing breathing without Taiji is like installing a 1000 HP engine without a body. It won't take you anywhere. If you think you can apply fa Jing without learning how to apply one of the 8 energies you might be in for a surprise when you actually try to do it.

I mean learning to condense without good Taiji foundation is not good. Master Liao has designed his material for a certain reason. If his formal students lean condensing in 4th page or 5th page (so technically after 2-3 years of practice) there is a reason for it. I don't think it is to "milk" the student of money, it is a safeguard against health issues and letting things take their own course - a daoist approach .

Son...first grow up and then we can discuss!

One has to learn to crawl before learning to walk...

Doesn't mean it is accurate.

You are comparing Gary clyman with Master Liao?!?

Whose definition of what constitutes history and what constitutes prehistory should I go by? The same idiots who concocted crap in the name of indology or traditional Indian narrative?

IVC is not different from the Rg Vedic culture. The Indus Valley Civilization should be rightly called the Saraswati-Indus civilization. There were several fallacious assumptions made regd IVC. 1) That the Rg Veda was composed around 1500 BCE. This was a result of philologists like Max Muller who were also devout christians and therefore believed in the biblical date of the world being created around 4000 BCE. Thereby, ascribing 1500 BCE as the date for Rg Veda. 2) when the IVC sites were first excavated, it was found that these date before 1500 BCE, so based on the first assumption that Rg Veda was composed around 1500 BCE (which was at that time considered to be a "scientific" fact), it was assumed that IVC had nothing to do with the IVC. 3) There was evidence of the IVC sites being abandoned starting around 1900 BCE through 1500 BCE and later. This was construed as evidence (along with flighty and fanciful correlation of obscure passages from the Rg Veda) that wandering tribal savages from Central Asia had "invaded" the IVC and destroyed it...thereby giving birth to the erroneous Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT). 4) recent marine excavations by various Govt. research organizations in India have discovered ruins of the ancient city of Dwaraka in the Gulf of Cambay, whose dates correlate with narratives in the Mahabharata (regarding the location of Krishna's city Dwaraka and it's sinking into the sea). 5) The IVC script (admittedly a hot item of debate and arguments in the scientific circles that do work on it) has been translated as being proto-vedic Sanskrit (albeit there is a lot of what you will find in Invading the Sacred happening in this field too, including mudslinging and character assassinations by stalwarts of Western Academia like Michael Witzel, et al). 6) Traditional narratives in India (Itihaasa, puranas and the actual data within the Vedic texts) do not support the western-imposed timelines and theories like Aryan Invasion or Aryan Migration theory. 7) The biggest problem with Indology is that it started as an extension of Western Imperialism and unfortunately fallacious material that was confabulated in the 19th century by dubious "scholars" is still central to this field of study.

Yes we often practice with eyes closed...sensing flow and movement.

The taiji aphorism "when your opponent moves, you must move sooner; when your opponent stops you must already be there" - my teacher tells us about practising with master liao and how master liao would tell him that he was too early or too late in moving before my teacher actually started moving...ie only mind intent was formed. Imho, that is the listening power taiji people should strive for...to know your opponents intention without physical movement, without the other telegraphing their movements. In our two person practice, we try to be very soft and slow...trying to go by energy flow...and follow it. We feel when we have been uprooted by the other (or by ourselves) and refine...sometimes follow through, sometimes stop. Sometimes we get carried away and our teacher reminds us to not be in conflict. Getting over the fact that only energy is flowing and not two individuals are pushing hands is the hardest part...

Thanks for sharing. Feng zhiqiang was bruce frantzis' chen taiji teacher right?

You will learn with time...there are geopolitical motivations behind keeping dates skewed...the status quo isn't always right

That depends on the definition of pre-history. I don't buy that 3100 bce is prehistory. 100,000 bce might be.

Your favored David Gordon white is also mentioned here. I was personally involved with invading the sacred and put their website up for them. I am indebted to these individuals for their work (some whom I had the good fortune to interact with - rajiv Malhotra, antonio de Nicholas primarily but had a couple of phone conversations with Krishnan as well). These are not some rabble rousing riffraff who can be brushed aside as blood-thirsty savage right wing Hindus..they are eminent scholars and professionals.

Very nice Bob. Jai Bhole Nath!

I have read one book by Dr. Yang and I'm not very impressed. There is a lot of theory but not much of practical value. I prefer Master Liao's book "The Tai Chi Classics" for practical advice on both theory as well esoterica in Tai Chi practice, BK Frantzis' books "Opening the Energy Gates and the two-volume series on Outer and inner dissolving" for working with channels etc. But this is my personal opinion. If you ask me nothing can replace a good teacher, asking questions and getting answers from someone who has already walked the path.

Some of us have experienced this as not so mechanical. If your explanation of Taiji works for you them good for you. If what my teacher and his teacher explains to us works for us then so be it. For eg a lot of what we have been taught as part of temple style tai chi is very congruent with what Cheng man Ching and his students taught...and they do cover things beyond sung, alignment etc. btw I am not associated with Gary clyman but am a student of one of master Liao's senior student... Instead of asking for fa Jing demos perhaps you should switch your focus to pushing hands with these individuals. The way I see it fa jing is nothing mystical, it is just not biomechanical. It is directly related to being able to condense one's chi and those who can do it can fa jing. Is it a combination of alignment and energetics? Sure it is. If your structure isn't correct you cannot flow your chi. If chi doesn't flow there can be no "drawing of the bow". If the bow can't be drawn there can be no release of the arrow... So doing a press without even trying to fa Jing we can feel each other's energy... It takes listening ability (ting jing) to feel it at a subtle level. This translates to real everyday life too. One gets sensitive to sensing energy flow in all human interactions... This is not mumbo jumbo .. It is just not in the domain of "double blind studies". Why is there a need to prove or disprove inner elements of Taiji with modern science? Science cannot even explain chi ... Starting at that point we are reduced to a mechanistic and deterministic model of existence and reality even though our experiences show us that there are non-deterministic and quantum phenomena that affect us everyday...we need to know how to listen...that's all. Push hands with someone from a style that you consider "fake" Taiji and see what you think. If their Taiji is good then that speak through push hands. If it is not good you should be able to have your way with them and it is proven that you are better so perhaps your approach is better too. You or one of your friends could go meet master Liao is Chicago and request his help in experiencing what his students teach and perhaps help clear up what is stuff vs what is fluff. In temple style there is no one else who comes close to master Liao's skill... If you approach it from the perspective of an empty cup you might learn something of value. My two cents worth...being one of those "scientific" individuals who know better than to pigeon-hole everything in terms of modern science...

Tony It's best if you start with a medium frame and as you start getting more sung you will drop into lower stance/larger frame. Progression in Taichi practice is medium to large to small frame. It might be counter productive to go to low stance at the start (I you've been doing this for a long time and you are already sung then it's okay). My two cents worth... Best Dwai

In the various single forms, we feel the energy flowing. For example in the Push form, we feel a wave rising from the ground up while one wave sinks down to the dan tien. It is simultaneous. The wave from the ground climbs up the legs, the back, splitting at the middle of the back and flows through the arms, into the fingers and palm and out. Each form of tai chi has either one of the 8 energies (ie ward-off, roll-back, etc) or a combination of these thereof. And yes, my teacher's explanation of doing single form practice is that we break down the flow into it's basic framework and get it going first. Then we weave separate forms into one flowing long form. The true test is whether we can continue energy flow in the transitions between the single forms.

While this might be "new and exciting" to you, I've had the misfortune of encountering your ilk since the past decade and half... It's not entirely that I'm not interested in debating you, it's more that I don't enjoy debates and arguments/counter-arguments any longer. I have over the past 7-8 years compiled a vast list of material related to this and many other topics on my website http://www.medhajournal.com (by various authors of high intellectual and academic pedigree). Feel free to peruse the site at your leisure...