Walker

I see. Perhaps this is all really just one great misunderstanding, and perhaps most of the fault for that is mine. Ok, let's get back to square one, then. I will ask a very simple and straightforward question. If you can give me a simple and straightforward answer, why, we can be finished here! I will then take leave of this thread and cease addressing you here. The question: Are you and members of your forum members of the Mopai lineage that John Chang of Indonesia belongs to?

I see. Perhaps this is all really just one great misunderstanding, and perhaps most of the fault for that is mine. Ok, let's get back to square one, then. I will ask a very simple and straightforward question. If you can give me a simple and straightforward answer, why, we can be finished here! I will then take leave of this thread and cease addressing you here. The question: Are you and members of your forum members of the Mopai lineage that John Chang of Indonesia belongs to?

Here is something I wish for you to contemplate for more than five minutes before you hit that "Submit Reply" button your itchy little finger so desperately wishes to feel. You and your friends take the content of The Magus of Java very, very seriously. You trust that what it describes is accurate and can therefore be a guide for your neigong practices. In The Magus of Java, Kosta Danaos describes instances of what are called 天譴/tianqian in Chinese: "heavenly punishments" or "heavenly rebukes." In the books, those punishments are doled out for those who violate the rules of the lineage. Even though I read the book more than a dozen years ago I still remember one instance very clearly, when Danaos describes how he was driving along a mountain road in Greece, divulging a Mopai secret to the passenger in his car. Inexplicably (unless you believe that tianqian is real), a rain cloud followed Danaos' car, and Danaos' car alone, on the road, dumping rain on him while everywhere else remained a clear, sunny day. Do you remember this vignette from the book? Danaos seemed to take the warnings about tianqian very seriously henceforth. John Chang, I am told (by somebody who, yes, met him face-to-face in Indonesia, and he is not a person who has ever been mentioned here), also takes tianqian very seriously. Do you remember the video somewhere or other where he pushed a chopstick through a table, and a splinter flew up and hit a woman near the eye, causing her to bleed a little bit? I am told that Chang was visited by an ancestor in his lineage and ordered to never, ever again make such demonstration, because he had violated a rule against harming the innocent using his neigong. From what I heard, Chang, fearing further tianqian, refused to ever do that trick again. If you claim to wholeheartedly believe in Mopai teachings, then you have no choice but to accept that this lineage is watched over by a coterie of vigilant, strict, and potentially dangerous spirits who are wont to mete out punishments for violations of their lineage's ancient codes of conduct. With that in mind, there are at least two very grave problems that you, as a fake, lying, non-member of the Mopai would be wise to take into account. Rather than spell them out for you, I will present them as questions. Hopefully other members of your little club who lurk here will also see them and give them a little thought tonight before bedtime. If there really are spirits connected to the real Mopai who watch over their lineage from beyond the grave, are they going to be happy about little imposters running around pretending to be Mopai teachers, disseminating Mopai teachings far and wide, and encouraging people to train whilst having no real connection to the lineage and, equally importantly, zero ability to seek out help from elders if/when anything goes wrong in the neigong practice? Is it not possible that some kind of tianqian awaits YOU, MegaMind, either later in this life, or after your spirit has left your dead body? Kosta Danaos was not able to stop that rain cloud. Will you have the power to stop what rebuke may await you? If you understood the teachings on karma regularly referred to by the cognoscenti in the Asian cultivation world, you would know that teachers can be punished harshly for the mistakes committed by those they've taught, those taught by those they've taught, and so forth. Do you not worry about whether or not your willy-nilly spreading of teachings from John Chang--a living, breathing man who has not inducted you into the Mopai and who has never given you permission to teach anything from his lineage--on the internet and wherever else you do your thing? Do you not realize that if you fuck up and harm somebody, even by accident, by handing out neigong teachings to the wrong person or being unable to heal a person who has been harmed by these teachings, John Chang or other people involved in this chain of karma may suffer as a result? Do you have no sense of responsibility or compassion? You feel that sting right now? That's pride, fucking with you. That's you wanting to copy-and-paste the same old crap you've been copying and pasting for days, MegaMind. Pride. Fucking with you. Well, I can't stop you from doing your little copy-paste ritual. Nobody in this thread can stop you. Sean evidently ain't going to stop you. Kosta Danaos and Jim McMillan aren't gonna stop you. John Chang ain't here to stop you. But that doesn't mean there's never going to be a consequence for the little lying games you're playing. And that doesn't mean those consequences won't be very, very ugly. There are reasons some of us take lineage seriously. There are many reasons you would be wise to do so, too. Grow the fuck up, boy.

That. Has. Nothing. To. Do. With. Being. Formally. Inducted. Into. A. Lineage. What. So. Ever. Here is something I wish for you to contemplate for more than five minutes before you hit that "Submit Reply" button your itchy little finger so desperately wishes to feel. You and your friends take the content of The Magus of Java very, very seriously. You trust that what it describes is accurate and can therefore be a guide for your neigong practices. In The Magus of Java, Kosta Danaos describes instances of what are called 天譴/tianqian in Chinese: "heavenly punishments" or "heavenly rebukes." In the books, those punishments are doled out for those who violate the rules of the lineage. Even though I read the book more than a dozen years ago I still remember one instance very clearly, when Danaos describes how he was driving along a mountain road in Greece, divulging a Mopai secret to the passenger in his car. Inexplicably (unless you believe that tianqian is real), a rain cloud followed Danaos' car, and Danaos' car alone, on the road, dumping rain on him while everywhere else remained a clear, sunny day. Do you remember this vignette from the book? Danaos seemed to take the warnings about tianqian very seriously henceforth. John Chang, I am told (by somebody who, yes, met him face-to-face in Indonesia, and he is not a person who has ever been mentioned here), also takes tianqian very seriously. Do you remember the video somewhere or other where he pushed a chopstick through a table, and a splinter flew up and hit a woman near the eye, causing her to bleed a little bit? I am told that Chang was visited by an ancestor in his lineage and ordered to never, ever again make such demonstration, because he had violated a rule against harming the innocent using his neigong. From what I heard, Chang, fearing further tianqian, refused to ever do that trick again. If you claim to wholeheartedly believe in Mopai teachings, then you have no choice but to accept that this lineage is watched over by a coterie of vigilant, strict, and potentially dangerous spirits who are wont to mete out punishments for violations of their lineage's ancient codes of conduct. With that in mind, there are at least two very grave problems that you, as a fake, lying, non-member of the Mopai would be wise to take into account. Rather than spell them out for you, I will present them as questions. Hopefully other members of your little club who lurk here will also see them and give them a little thought tonight before bedtime. If there really are spirits connected to the real Mopai who watch over their lineage from beyond the grave, are they going to be happy about little imposters running around pretending to be Mopai teachers, disseminating Mopai teachings far and wide, and encouraging people to train whilst having no real connection to the lineage and, equally importantly, zero ability to seek out help from elders if/when anything goes wrong in the neigong practice? Is it not possible that some kind of tianqian awaits YOU, MegaMind, either later in this life, or after your spirit has left your dead body? Kosta Danaos was not able to stop that rain cloud. Will you have the power to stop what rebuke may await you? If you understood the teachings on karma regularly referred to by the cognoscenti in the Asian cultivation world, you would know that teachers can be punished harshly for the mistakes committed by those they've taught, those taught by those they've taught, and so forth. Do you not worry about whether or not your willy-nilly spreading of teachings from John Chang--a living, breathing man who has not inducted you into the Mopai and who has never given you permission to teach anything from his lineage--on the internet and wherever else you do your thing? Do you not realize that if you fuck up and harm somebody, even by accident, by handing out neigong teachings to the wrong person or being unable to heal a person who has been harmed by these teachings, John Chang or other people involved in this chain of karma may suffer as a result? Do you have no sense of responsibility or compassion? You feel that sting right now? That's pride, fucking with you. That's you wanting to copy-and-paste the same old crap you've been copying and pasting for days, MegaMind. Pride. Fucking with you. Well, I can't stop you from doing your little copy-paste ritual. Nobody in this thread can stop you. Sean evidently ain't going to stop you. Kosta Danaos and Jim McMillan aren't gonna stop you. John Chang ain't here to stop you. But that doesn't mean there's never going to be a consequence for the little lying games you're playing. And that doesn't mean those consequences won't be very, very ugly. There are reasons some of us take lineage seriously. There are many reasons you would be wise to do so, too. Grow the fuck up, boy.

Right, and you are in the latter half of that sentence. If I learned how to play basketball by watching videos of Michael Jordan (entirely possible), that would not make me a Chicago Bull. That would just make me a guy who does is own thing, inspired by Michael Jordan. You guys have learned how to do whatever it is you do from videos, books, and a few dudes who knew John Chang, or dudes who knew dudes who knew John Chang. That does not mean you were ever formerly inducted into any lineage whatsoever, just as me learning how to slam dunk by watching MJ slam dunk DOES NOT MEAN ANYBODY INVITED ME TO JOIN THE CHICAGO-FUCKING BULLS. If the above logic cannot sink through your head, You are just being willfully obtuse.

They're some thick-skulled motherfuckers, I'll give them that. Did Jim McMillions teach them to train Shaolin Iron Head technique by banging their heads into brick walls 500 times a day? Or do they just do that for fun?

But you cannot answer the question "are you or aren't you a member of the Mopai?" An honest man would say "yes" or "no." A straightforward liar might say "yes." A liar who hides behind pathetic Merriam-Webster sophistry copies and pastes a bunch of crap. Seriously, I have no problem with what you do, except for claiming to be in a lineage that you are not in. All you have to do is man up and say "we practice a bit of stuff we learned from guys who met John Chang, we're not in the Mopai," and I predict 50% of the people contributing to this thread will say "very good then" and walk away. Or you can keep slam dunking with your dictionary games. Whatever.

Falling off my bike into a gravel pit would be better than this quarrel. What? Actually, like Earl Grey said pages ago, I don't care whatsoever what @MegaMind and his friends practice (or eat at Arby's, tbh). The problem is that he is pretending to be a member of a lineage that he is simply not a part of. In order to further the lie that he and his friends are part of the Mopai, MegaMind resorts to the most pathetic and lame of sophistry. No matter how much they pretend, no matter how many PDFs, videos, notebooks, and interesting practice experiences they have, this does not mean they are part of the lineage. In all honesty, if MegaMind and his buddies came on here and said, "We have some videos and books from Jim McMillan, we have the Magus of Java, we study with some guys who studied with Jim and Kostas, we do our best and experiment with training, and we've had XYZ results," not only would I not make fun of them, I would actually respect them. I might not think it's a good idea to fuck around with 2/72 of a neigong school's training methods without having any access to teachers or masters in that lineage, but at least they would be being honest, and that's always respectable. However, instead of admitting what they're really doing, they persistently and obsessively claim to be a part of a lineage that has disowned them, will not help them if/when trouble arises, and certainly will not help any students they create by spreading these teachings around. This is dishonest and irresponsible. No amount of common sense, logic, or conscience seems to get through to guys like MegaMind. Humor, mockery, argumentation, and insults fail, too... But I say... If the guy wants to stick around here peddling his lies, then satire away. At least we get a few laughs while he continues his Nopai/Chicago Bulls cosplay fantasy. High five!

You forgot Herr Doctor MegaMind, PhD of Tutoring, Chicago Bull #69, Mohist Master, Orderer of the Wrong Fucking Sandwich at Arby's!

I like video too! For instance, metaphorically speaking, here's John Chang: Then, metaphorically speaking, here we have the Western No Pai: Finally we have a video metaphor for how the Western No Pai view themselves: Video can teach us so much! (Plagiarized from Nungali )

This disparity is mind-blowing! https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/05/britain-annual-carbon-emissions-overtake-africa-two-weeks-oxfam

See, @MegaMind is a professor! We should really all be more respectful. From now on can we please all call him Herr Doctor Professor MegaMind, Chicago Bull #69, Mohist Master? Btw, I cannot tell if there is any difference between the following four pictures. They all show the exact same thing, right?

Wait, wait wait... How did you figure out this was me??? Fuck. Well, my cover's blown, now everybody knows how handsome I am. I guess now I have to fess up, in addition to being a Chicago Bull, I am also a card-carrying member of the NMo Pai. As such it is my official duty, given to me by Mo-Tzu himself, to point out the following: Jim was the top western student, going further than many Indonesian students. John did allow him to film him during exams, and when providing instruction. We preserve what Jim brought back to us from John, without alteration. Many in our group were students of Jim, others of Kosta. Our favorite restaurant is Arby's, and our favorite sandwich at Arby's is the Smokehouse Brisket (pictured) Except for @MegaMind who think's he's soooooo special and always orders the Buffalo Chicken Slider (pictured) like he was some kind of fucking individualist or something We pretty much all agree that Taylor Swift is pretty hot Since we're at it, I'd also like to point out a great deal! THE OFFICIAL CHICAGO BULLS FAN CLUB Click here for more information and to sign up now! (.pdf format) Become a member of the Official Chicago Bulls Fan Club for only $25.00! Bonus! Receive 2 tickets to a selected Bulls home game during the 2002-03 season. See the form for details. Membership Information: As a member you'll receive: Fan Club T-shirt Bumper Stickers 2 Fan Club Newsletters Bulls Greatest Hits CD Mini Poster Send a Gift: Send a Chicago Bulls Fan Club membership as a gift for birthdays, good grades, holidays or for any occasion. We'll enclose a Gift Card with your name and message on it! See the order form for details. Sign me up! $25.00 (includes shipping and handling): Click here for a Fan Club form (.pdf format) Any questions? Call 312.455.4000 and ask for the Fan Club Coordinator.

That cat definitely knows the deal 😂

The other day I think I figured out the secret to the remaining 5th page! I think we may seem to have "disagreed" because we were both using the word open to refer to two different Chinese words that can both translate as open. I was writing about "通/tong," which also can connote "connect(ed)," "unobstructed," "deobstruct(ed)," "deobstruent," "linked," and plenty of other English words. In this context (and many others) in medicine and yangsheng arts, I meant basically "really healthy," i.e., a mingmen region that is as flexible as it should be, with proper qi-blood nourishment and flow. I think you were writing about "開/kai" from the duo of “開合/kai-he," often translated as "opening and closing." In the realm of martial arts usage of this part of the body, everything you said makes sense, and indeed it would be bad to sit with one's back "open" for exactly the reasons you detailed. On the other hand, having a back that is open in the sense of 通/tong is, I am pretty certain most of us would agree, always a good thing. Again, this statement makes perfect sense from the standpoint of 開合/kai-he. Having a closed (合/he), settled lower back is definitely more conducive to good stillness practice than an open (開/kai) one. What I think is really interesting about this is that, if a practitioner's mingmen region is not yet 通/tong, then is this person forces him/herself into the full-lotus posture, s/he may inevitably cheat by 開/kai'ing the lumbar. In this way, although these two concepts are quite different, we can see how they overlap.

Pffffffft, like you even need to ask! The first things that come to my mind would be: No Pai 4 Lyfe!!!!!!!!!

Please do not mock us. Me and @MegaMind will use our No Pai B-Ball horse stance to get swift revenge.

Aight, I feel bad about ignoring the OP. There were lots of fascinating ancient Chinese contributions to the topic of a good night's sleep, pillows being no exception for sure. My favorite is these ceramic Song dynasty "child pillows." Scholars debated for awhile whether they were actually meant for sleeping and I guess the conclusion is they were. It's hard to imagine a pleasant night's sleep on one, but then again I learned to love hard beds in China and even a hard wood floor with nothing on top of it thanks to an Ethiopian-American roommate. If those guys Taomeow shared pictures of can snooze on those wooden pillows, I'm sure ceramic boy pillow could be gotten used to... Might even be downright pleasant once you get the knack of it.

Meh. She's overrated. Ever notice how she never touched on the big important issues like flat earth, shape-shifting repterrhoids, and the potentially testicle-shrinking chemical compounds in Gendao's Mountain Dew? Didn't think so. She was probably one of them. Civil rights movement? Don't get me started. Total colonialist psi-op.

There was good info shared in this version of this perennial topic last summer. Good luck.

Dr. J is not actually a medical doctor, but he was an amazing basketball player. @MegaMind is an incredible maths tutor, and also a valued member of the Chicago Bulls! He may only be capable of making a lay-up 2/72 of the time, but as soon as he pays for the next free PDF file, he will know how to make a lay-up 2.5/72 of the time! If he didn't pass the tests, why would NikeTown have allowed him to buy those Air Jordan's he's wearing? They don't sell those to just anybody, only to Bulls and Luv-a-Bulls! What is "debunk?" is that related to "slam dunk?" 'Cause slam dunking is all me and @MegaMind do! Right, #69? High five! Hmm, I have no rebuttal for that one. Let me pass it to my teammate... @MegaMind... Alley-oop! Well it's at least Asian and comes from some weird philosophical tradition whose books none of us even bothers to pretend to have read, so... BOOOM-SHAKA-LAKA, I'm pretty sure that's a 3 point shot from full court at the buzzer for me and @MegaMind... High five!

Oh, goodness gracious me, there have been plenty of laffs in this place of late, but I have not ever once giggled aloud from this website the way I did today. Rosa Parks? Ah? Ah? Ah? Ahahahahahahaha, you have got to be kidding me, amazing! I'm just gonna wander off into the sunset today shaking my head and chuckling to myself. I do suspect I will have a very good sleep having just had that very good laugh.

Maybe time traveling colonialists from the future filled their time machines with pillows to pollute ancient history?