dwai

This one is designed to inhale down from the crown point and exhale out through the hands...the feeling of yang vs yin is very remarkable in this....as are the transitions of yang to yin and yin to yang...but the right chanels are activated anyway...since as yang change to yin or yin to yang the corresponding ciruits are activated?

That is not applicable in the vyavaharik world. The I you are referring to is limited by the physical shell we wear...and is bound by the rules of the world it lives in. Lets not reject the relative while we have a relative existence...when we reach kaivalyam none of it will matter...but kaivalyam is not a destination we can reach by wishing way our everyday reality

yup...i would tend to agree. I know back when I used to practice outside the apartment where I lived, my neighbor's dog (a large labrador) would step out of the door and stand and watch me. Also, I've had occasions when I was practicing outside my house and deep in meditation and I saw a rabbit, squirrels standing around a certain invisible circle around me and staring. I have had a skunk walk right past me without spraying while I was standing and meditating...birds gathering around, etc. My teacher says that this happens a lot when you are really connected to Dao.

Actually its nothing like that at all. This is a standing practice and relies on moving a tai chi ball (energetic), compressing it, charging it up with high frequency light energy and draining the heavy, lower frequency energy into the earth. It uses some of the same forms as in prayer hands meditation but intent is different. To try it out, stand in preparation form and then mentally pull out a tai chi ball from your LDT and expand it (like to the size of an exercise ball or a largish beach ball). Then just sink the ball into the ground and then pull it out again, lift it to your MDT and compress it (as my teacher's note suggests) and then raise it up to above the crown point and expand it out again...first time connecting to earth energy, this time connecting to sky energy.

So you have no responsibility?

Er...there are underwter mountains too

that is a more pragmatic approach...and very daoist of you, if I may say so...

Even then you are making a "biased" value judgement. Because by choosing to not let something affect you, you are ascribing it a value. You are no longer neutral... Take this situation hypothetically -- You see a speeding car moving towards you. Would you "choose" to stay neutral or step out of the way realizing that being impacted by the speeding car would be undesirable for your well being?

It is easier to maintain neutrality if something is not affecting you. If it affects you positively, you automatically begin to like it. If it affects you negatively, you automatically begin to dislike it. That is the crux of evolution and survival. Take for example the early man. If he went off in the jungle and merely observed a tiger...odds are he would get mauled by it. Then, if he did survive, he would dislike or fear it. Similarly, if he ate honey he would like it. If he ate too much of it and got a stomach upset, maybe he would dislike it. If he didn't form a value judgement about the tiger (and tigers in general), very soon he would get killed and become tiger-feed. And as humans learn by transmission through the generations, the fact that tigers are dangerous and must be avoided become part of the education being transmitted down (to this day). If not, there would be no humans left in areas populated by tigers. Same is true for every phenomenon encountered by human beings...without a value judgement, without ascribing a weightage in terms of risk or benefit (towards survival), we would not exist today. So, the innate nature of humans is to be biased and is a legacy of evolution. It is easy to take a neutral stance when you are merely observing and not making value-judgements. You are right, it is very difficult for people to accept that... It's like in meditation...when your witness mind is observing thoughts, they must be neutral and unbiased. But that is the challenge of meditation, to allow the witness to stay neutral...

What's stopping you? So, stop being different and get enlightened already!

Are they really that irrelevant? Are all human beings living on this planet realized masters who see the unity of existence? I think not...so it's better to have a good understanding and healthy respect for each other's beliefs and practices. That is a pragmatic approach to have....till we all get "enlightened".

my intent was to type "if a so-called placebo heals, so what is the problem with that?" I have seen the prime target of placebo naysayrs, aka homeopathy do miraculous cures. In hands of an accomplished practitioner, it is often pure magic! I think the root of problems with science today is the cartesian divide. The mind and body are considered different. But if investigated through other lenses, the body and mind re one. The mind hold immense potential to heal...yi leads qi. Qi imbalance causes disease. By using yi to move qi, we can heal ourselves. But its hard for mot people to do without proper foundation...since the stupid crtesian chasm shows up all the time, fooling us into negating the mind with our mind.

Actually if you think about it carefully, you will see that the problem isn't because people think they are different. The problem arises from the anxiety that being different causes among people. This book highlights the pathologies that follow in wake of this anxiety. 1) try and make everything the "same"...giving rise to different efforts to that end -- philosophy that suggests "everything is same" or "make everything same by converting every other thing into that which is not". 2) Various means to make this "sameness" happen...(proselytizing, conflict, war -- the world has seen such happenings since history of human civilization -- crusades, world wars, terrorism, etc) Regarding "everything is same" topic. Please don't think that I'm disputing that most esoteric spiritual practices leads towards a similar goal (specifics vary but in general they are identical). What might vary are the details that are involved (and sometimes even those are superficial). However, that doesn't make all way "same". I remember in my Buddha-bum dialogs I faced vehement opposition when I suggested that Advaita Vedanta, Daoism and Buddhism all point to the same "moon". The reason for this opposition was because people conflated the direction and the methods. The methods might be radically different and these differences make for more learning (from each other) and refining. The direction...well what can be said about that? Each of these traditions attract people based on various conditions: * the cultural background into which these traditions are weaved in * the personal predilection of the individual * the karma (if one were to subscribe to that) of the invidual, etc * the state of being (a mind-oriented individual would prefer probably an intellectual pursuit, a physical-oriented individual would probably prefer an action-based pursuit, etc) * what is to say which is better or worse? It is a conditional reality and the conditions will define which is better or worse (for the individual). Perhaps better or worse are wrongly applied here...we should use optimal or sub-optimal. So you see, being different is as natural as the infinite things that exist in this universe. There are commonalities but the differences should not be subsumed by these. When people approach the subject from that perspective, naturally mutual respect arises...when people don't and conflate the means with the end, the problems arise.

I completely understand where you're coming from. My problem is not with thinkers but with the dogmatists. I have seen however that those who gave this approach tend to follow eastern traditions. There in lies the issue...when we approach something which has the foundation of thousands of years of implicit knowledge in its folds with the (often misguided) notion of reducing it down to its core, we end up destroying the implicit ecosystem that is part and parcel of its whole. What is the so-called secularization of these traditions in reality often is massive reductionism just for the sake of it (ie reduction).

Don't know about serious illness, but I have worked on people with pains etc and they all claim that they can feel something move out of their body and me being able to affect them without touching them physically and they get relief (sometimes temporary and sometimes permanent)... Placebo vs non-placebo...now that question is interesting. If something helps you heal, so what? Placebo is a term to explain something that doesn't have a known scientific explanation in context of healing. Any healing is always going to be a combination of the healer, patient and medicine. If the healer is sending a "message" via whatever form to the patient, the patient's consciousness is also working to accept that message (at whatever level) and working with the treatment and the healer.

For your computer issue, maybe this will help -- http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/288325-31-anti-static-wrist-guard I have pretty bad static issues too...but for me its primarily in winter. Also, the kind of clothes I'm wearing, how dry my skin is affects the intensity of this. And yeah, it's pretty painful. I tend to use some kind of lotion on my hands during winter (don't remember always)...also use softener when I dry my laundry to minimize static build up.

http://www.amazon.com/Vijnana-Bhairava%C3%82-Practice-Centring-Awareness/dp/8186569359

Aaron, thats exactly what the dharmic traditions do.

Agreed...common ground is very desirable. The common ground this book is calling for is "Mutual Respect". I respect your practices and you respect mine. Net result is win-win...but the implications of this mutual respect is what messes staunch abrahamics up...because it means that there would be no need to try and convert people from other religions, and there would be no exclusivity claims (since by respecting my tradition, you are agreeing that it too is a valid way to seek the divine. Your way might be best for you, but my way is best for me. There is no absolute "BEST").... In context of being able to learn a new system, if the approach is made from a place knowledge (ie knowing the implication of learning system A well), the learning is more fruitful and successful (avoids contradictions and confusion in the student). An analogy would be a student of Western medicine trying to understand TCM from a Western Medicine perspective. It won't make sense because TCM uses a different framework. While a mapping might be possible, it is not going to bridge the gap between the two ever. They are two completely different ways of looking at disease and treatment. If a student cannot empty his/her cup, the cup will overflow and all the tea will be wasted

Actually all this book is trying to do is show that the overwhelming need for uniformity (and conformity) in the Western system is incompatible with study of eastern traditions (especially esoterica). And each is fine in its own context. Taken out of context, we have confusion and contradictions. Is it? Have you read the book? In fact the book is trying to emphasize that we need to celebrate the differences (which are obvious) and not try to whitewash everything to look the same. It is also calling for mutual respect between various traditions of the world (as opposed to tolerance, which a superior concedes towards an inferior). It is trying to identify the differences between the dharmic and the abrahamic systems (and their approach to spirituality) and it would serve a western seeker well to be aware of these differences (and see if they can truly reconcile their internal beliefs (religious) with an externally implanted system like say Buddhism or Daoism or Vedanta (which aren't that religious)).. And the other thing it does is flips the field of anthropology in reverse direction (so instead of a western scientist studying a foreign culture via the lens of his framework (anthropology), a native is studying the west).

1-15 i find thr translation suspet. Hrday is the sanskrit word for heart and drshya means vision and svapna means dream. Dasrhanam is to see. So the translation is more accurantely, by focusing the consciousness on fhe heart...so on.

The Dao has no nature (in that it is not possible to ascribe human attributes to it), afaik. If there is creativity, it is a result of something else, not an intentional creation (like in God creates the universe because she is creative).

I was watching a chen style tai chi stake video recently where the master says "silently say aah, si, xu, chui" ie aah on exhale, si on inhale, xu on exhale and chui on inhale. I said it out loud ad noticed it was making me reverse breath. Also, what was doing is making my ldt rotate clockwise...thoughts?

My take on it is as follows (and it pertains to both daoist and hindu thought): The universe is a reslt of bubbling over of the infinite bowl of soup that Dao/brahman is. As bubbles arise, they form the infinite things that make this universe. As they collapse back into the soup they become the soup again. Some say that The cause of the bubbles is unknowable, it is just that it happens. Some others say that this is the bliss of that one rising over ( eg hindu tantra calls it spanda or vibrations) and then subsiding again. IIRC, the Toltecs considered that one the Giant Eagle, and we are made up of filaments of it's energy and that all sentient beings are "food" for the Giant Eagle. So things come into creation and dissolve back into the Eagle to provide it sustenance...

Did you even read the book? What are you afraid of?