dwai

At the risk of sounding trite, i find the human propensity to over-complicate things incredible! Read the exchange between the individuals in the simplejack long post...so many words to explain a simple concept.and such hoops jumped through to stand apart as unique! DO is simply the concept and realization that every phenomenon (anything that has a beginning and an end) is dependent upon something else to rise...the other is usually consciousness.so the phenomena and the consciousness that interacts with and creates these phenomena are considered sva-bhava shunya or empty of self-nature. But then there is consciousness that is self-aware and stands in its own lightless light...it has no beginning or end...as time has no meaning for this consciousness...it thefore not devoid of self-nature and not dependently originated.

I was practising out on roof top in india over the past few days...eagles circling about. When i started, they started getting curious and started diving past me. So i started with a sword form with my makeshift bamboo cane firt. Noticed that it kept the eagles and crows away. I have had possums, raccoons and skunks walk past where i practice in the past without either of us othering the other...Sometimes rabbits, squirrels, stray cats, birds hang out and stare whilei practice...

So then, how come you think dependent origination is a fallacy? This might become interesting. I'll watch (for now). DO is not fallacy...the "clinging" to DO is.DO is simply the understanding that all phenomena are dependently co-rising. The eternal/absolute consciousness is not a phenomenon and therefore is outside the machinations of DO... The buddhists tried an elaborate mental circus of epic proportions to fit their misundersanding of anatta with the experiential reality that constantly bring us face to face with the eternal "Self"...

This is a sign of "growing up"...it is bound to happen if we are honest in our spiritual practice...go beyond syntax.

Recently started reading The Mystic Saga by Scott McElhaney....available on kindle store @ amazon. Nice space saga...

You reversed the seq,,,1 is for beginners,2 for intermediate & 3 for advanced...

When i first started learning, the focus was smooth,continuous breathing with inhaling while expanding and exhaling while contracting. Eg inhale while rising, exhale while sinking. Then my teacher said exhale while doing thing like ward off, press push, inhale while roll back etc. then he said inhale while doing entire single form, exhale while doing entire single form...so wardoff wasnt inhale and exhale but inhale and inhale then exhale and exhale or one continuous inhale or one coninuous exhale. Then he said forget about breathing....there is no rule for breathing during taichi...you should be able to wardoff diring inhale or exhale. The power issuance cannot depend on breath...otherwise combat cannot be possible. Hth

Raw egg butt side down is hard enough for me. My teacher has been trying to teach me nei ong (called dao gong in our sstem) but my stupid self finds it hard I learnt long ago to not push it...maybe in a few years i will get it...when im ready.

You preface your comments with "just my opinion" but deride those that differ from you. It shows lack of "softness"... My teacher's teacher refers to what he calls taichi calisthenics "not real tai chi but tai chi like" ...the practitioners havent really experienced jin and the real power of tai chi. So they formulate "theories" based on their inexperience and then one blind an starts leading another. Their tai chi has the shapes but no real power. To learn not to fight gravity is to find one's suspension and root. The weigh that sinks into the ground will rise back up again through the ground, feet and kua to give a floating feeling...when one begins to move, one must be light and limber. The light and limber comes from the suspension in the crown point and by not fighting to hold one's frame up aginst gravity. Then one is sung....otherwise he/she is not ung but fighting gravity.

You need to learn taiji chuan not taiji calisthenics

Zhan zhuang is to learn to not fight gravity. It is meant to teach how to suspend from the crown point and develop root. It helps make your energetic root strong and your crown point connection strong too. The opposites...light yang on the top, heavy yin in the bottom...balance..taiji. From here all activity spontaneously rises....all form candevelop from here and collapse into it.

Read Master Liao's book "The Tai Chi Classics" -- he talks about the hollow drum concept. It is a good sign...shows that your dan tien is developing well...imho.

Most folks dont enjoy real right brain music with odd time signatures, nonconventuonal scales, etc. popular music appeals to people because they fall tonally and rythmically in the left brin comfort zones...order, structure etc.

True. But it is explored methodically in hindu, buddhist and daoist context. Decoupling it from the safety net of these systems is detrimentall, imho and does the world a disservice. I feel that the discombobulated western way is why these kundalini psychoses emerge. I know people who have had perfectly normal awakenings as part of their practice without any of the scary side-effects. They did it by following guidelines set forth by the sages through the ages. To elaborate, the mind-body discord so prevalent in the west is what i mean by "discombobulated"...it is perfectly reaonable to expect a safe awakening by following the adhtanga path with certain pranayams. When i started with my teacher first, he had me purify my central channel with some physical kriyas, asanas to fortify the nAdis and then pranayam which immediately started raising the energy through the sushumna.,,slowly but steadily...no psychoses etc. it was mediration that caused inner demons to become unveiled.

Er..actually both are right. Emf is electromotive force. It is also used for electromagnetic field or em field.

Some people have ability to adapt and learn to fight...they are good fighters. That doesnt make them martial artists. Bruce learnt wing chun from ip man. He used that as the basis of jkd...he added fencing and wetern boxing strategies...so who taught him jkd...all the teachers of his vrious systems helped him get the knowledge to create his medley... But jkd is not an ima...there is no internal aspect to it. Cant compare with taiji...the principles are radically different imho.

More intellectual gymnastics. There is no such thing as substantial nonduality vs insubstantial nonduality. Nondual is nondual because it is not dual. There is no inherency of anything during nondual experience. Any inherency (whether it is of an exalted being-ness or an empty nonbeing-ness) is always after the fact. You cannot use the term "non-dual" if there subject-object duality. Then it is not "Non-Dual", it is "Dual" What you are calling the liberation from inherent view is in itself an inherent view (ie considering a view as not being a view) Now ain't that a Mind-#$%...

Sung is sung Taomeow had a very good description of sung in another post (I think in response to your post). I can't do better than that. Only thing I can tell you is if you think you are sung, you will realize you are not sung further down the line, after some more practice (of the right kind). Sung is (imho) an infinitely regressing state. More you become sung, more you realize how you are not being sung. So you try (while not trying too hard) to be more sung and get there and so on and so forth... I feel I'm sung when I'm playing with my friends. But when I push hands with my teacher, I realize I'm not sung. So I try to be more sung and everytime I become more sung, then I push hands with my teacher, who is more sung. My eyes see I'm pushing hands with him, but my body says he is not there. I feel like I'm falling into empty space. And then before I know it, I am off-balance and toppling over...the matter is how long I can last and what energy he is packing into it at the moment. He might be rolling in one direction but driving the energy in another. So my eyes see the hands moving in another direction, but my body and mind is confused because the energy is not flowing in that direction...

Or how Master Liao puts it "there is REAL Taiji and there is 'Taiji-like Taiji'". The two are not the same. I see what you say in my teacher's attitude to (a man who's been practicing for more than 3 decades now). My teacher says -- "If you think you know it, then you don't know it. When you think you don't know it, that's when you keep learning" or "Taiji is a school where you should always stay a student...the moment you stop being a student, you stop learning".

The asian guy seemed to be more relaxed than the other guy....that being said, i think chidragon thinks sung means wet noodle. Therein lies the root of hs misunderstanding, imho. I hate to be an armchair critic however, and ony way to really know (personally) is to play with them myself...

Its amusing to say the least, to observe the intellectual gymnastics being executed by nairmatmya-vadins

There is no "two" to dependently co-rise...in the nondual state. Dependent origination implies more than one thing rising together. Remember the one handed clap?

Okay...thanks. I posed my question to Lucky because we had many (somewhat heated) discussions on this subject around 3 years ago (iirc). I do notice that his locus standii has changed since then, so I'm reaching out to him out of curiosity. I think it's important to understand difference between what you consider Buddhism and what the Buddha actually taught. The eternal, unchanging essence that you refer to is an experiential fact. I think that the explanations rising from Buddhism to show it as contrary are intellectual contortions because in face of experience, they do fall apart quite nicely. A lot of these explanations have their roots in debates that raged in India thousands of years ago between proponents of the various schools of darshana (especially between the Keval advaitins of Shankaracharya-school and the Bauddhas) and actually are based in the world of logic (thus relative reality-based) more than experiential wisdom/knowledge (prajna). I am of the opinion that those who obsess about Anatta actually don't understand the implications of Anatta...and by that I don't mean any personal affront to anyone....it is just my experience and opinion.

Interesting. What have your experiences taught you since the buddhabum wars? Im asking in all sincerity...

I'd much rather be a good student K... May I also add that I've read somewhere that certain *plants* tend to cause inflammation in the body. That would result in pains in meridians too (and blockages that will cause energy to stagnate in certain ones -- like stomach, gall bladder). Why need to trigger things with plants...better to be patient and let nature take her course. Follow the Way and the way will reveal itself... (special note for Owledge)