Sloppy Zhang

If you want to know the ins and outs of the sith, go to the Star Wars wiki (it's called wookieepedia or something, google search should turn it up right quick). The whole reason the "rule of two" was initiated was because the sith had declined. A large number of "sith lords" and "sith apprentices" meant it turned into politics, in fighting, and overall distracting people from the path (that of gaining true power!!!) So pretty much one of the sith lords, after all the other sith died out, set it up so one sith would have ALL the power, and would teach an apprentice. That apprentice would later get ALL the power, and would kill the sith master. Then that apprentice would become the ONE sith lord, and get another apprentice. The other factor in this was to keep the sith hidden, as the Jedi thought all the sith had died out (the star wars wiki explains why, as there was a huge battle on the sith base planet, and this force bomb went off, that killed everyone, even jedi, who could use the force, but a couple sith were off world at the time or something) Now, a few downsides. If one of the sith apprentices killed the master before gaining a full transmission of sith awesomeness, you have a lot of sith awesomeness that was lost. Palpatine killed his master (the one who was immortal, references him in episode III) while the master was asleep. Sure, Palpatine became the "new sith lord", but the immortality secrets of his master were lost (he was immortal but still needed to sleep). Also, a lot of apprentices had apprentices of their own on the side. Palpatine, for example, began training Darth Maul long before he had killed off his own master. Heck, Palpatine had tons of apprentices off on the side, he just wanted pawns to use. Later on, when the Sith ruled the Galaxy through the empire, they used tons of force sensitive people as secret agents and assassins. Sure, they weren't "officially" Sith, but they were using the force and Sith powers and all that good stuff. (a lot of this stuff is in the comics and the expanded universe, not from the movies, so yeah.... I know it because I've spent a lot of time on the Star Wars wiki ) SO how this all ties in to cultivation.... hmm well, some teachers only teach one or two students and pass the lineage on. For some schools that's gone on for a long time, and still does, with others its changing. For better or for worse, who knows. In a world where information has become a lot more open, schools like that are.... still unique, and opinions on that method of transfer differ. So... yeah, don't now about "hidden meaning" in terms of numerology or anything, if that's what you were getting at with the hidden meaning question.

I don't like the negative attitude you take to negative posts. You need to watch yourself

Interesting thoughts. I don't know if we can say that the way society is is suicidal...... instead I think that society as many people view it, that life how many people want to live it, is not sustainable or practical in most ways of looking at it. I was in a philosophical discussion the other day about the pursuit of happiness, and that the pursuit of happiness, as a pursuit, is never going to ever bring you happiness because.... you are always pursuing it. Man's reach is beyond his grasp, or something like that. We always look to the NEXT thing, once we get to that thing, we don't even see it because we are constantly looking at the NEXT thing, and on and on and on until.... until you really can't take it anymore, and most people think it's something wrong with them or that they aren't good enough or they look around and think about how they "should" be living and all that and.... it's just a mess. Anyway, just some thoughts I guess, it's interesting to think about. But I do think more and more people are evaluating things differently at a younger and younger age. What's REALLY important? Especially in the current economic environment, you know, what do you really have, what can you really do, what's REALLY worth it? All things people are starting to think about differently.

Well there's a book by Mark Chen about the first frame of Chen style taijiquan here There are a lot of videos on youtube of various masters like Chen Xiaowang performing that form (there are some moves that will be a little different, but overall it's pretty much the same form) if you want to see a more visual representation. If you don't want to learn the whole first frame, Chen Xiaowang made a more compact form of 38 steps to introduce the style to new people at seminars, kind of like a crash course, and the book for that is here Again, vids on youtube are out there for you to see it. Yang Jwing Ming has a book on the 24 and 48 postures of tai chi with a DVD. He has a book/DVD on what he says is "classical yang style", but that form kind of went through a bit of modification from Yang's teacher before being passed on, so it's really not exactly what was originally learned from the Yang family... not to mention his stuff can get pretty pricey. There are two books for Yang Style Tai chi, The Essence and Applications of Yang Style Tai Chi as well as Mastering Yang Style Tai Chi that teach the "final" revision of the popularly accepted Yang Tai Chi form. There are also some books here and there about Yang Tai Chi sword, but I haven't read any of those. Maybe a few out there about Chen style sword, but I don't have any of those either. For Chen style, there seem to be a lot of things out there about the New Frame, Old Fram, Small frame, and weapons, but again, I haven't read any of those. Apparently there's a translation of Chen Xin's work (Chen Xin compiled all the Chen style knowledge into a book a long time ago), but the only copy of that I've seen is several hundred dollars Don't know about many resources for the other style. Oh, wait, Sun Lutang I think wrote three books, one on Xingyi, one on Bagua, and one on Tai Chi, so those might be worth checking out as well.

I think self knowledge is important, and I don't know about a lot of other systems, but a lot of stuff that I've read from various methods mentions stuff about reflecting on yourself, your actions, what you should improve, and all that good stuff. It's about finding weak areas and then fixing them, I guess. Now how successfully I may or may not execute that practice..... is different but I am aware of it and I do try, and I find it's just as important. Cultivation is all about cultivating yourself, right? In all possible ways, right? You can build up all the energy you want, but if you're just a jerk....... so yeah

Don't know if this is directly related, but B.K. Frantzis in "Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body" talks about how when you relax your body, you allow your organs to relax and move a little bit within your body. If you move while in this relaxed state, your organs get jostled around and it gives sort of a mini-massage, which actually strengthens the organs over time. He says that a lot of times most people keep pretty tense in their body, and their organs don't move, so they don't get a lot of contact, so they don't really get that therapeutic effect. He also points out how animals, like dogs and horses if you watch as they walk, have their bellies sway a little bit from side to side because it's relaxed, which gives the organs that massage. Dunno about that last part, since I don't have a dog or a horse right now.... but it may go a bit into explaining the whole jogging/bouncing exercise stuff.

Yeah pretty much. I'm a freshman in college right now... bleh. Look around, and totally see "too many dollars but not enough sense...." (sounds like "cents", right, right? hehehe..... yeah) People get certificates saying they learn how to do stuff, but are nearly incapable of independent, rational, and common sense thought. Then you've got people talking about the prestigious institution of higher education, and how they are the leaders of tomorrow....... Yeah.... tomorrow doesn't look too good Some of the smartest people I know are the people who learn outside the structured education system.... just how it works. There are people within the education system that are brilliant, creative and independent thinkers too, but they are few and far between when compared to the majority of people here....

I didn't think you said anything that offensive... then again... your posts were kind of long... and there was a lot of context about the situation that I just didn't know, so I try not to get too involved in things I don't have the full story on... so I try to stick to what I know

And then you got in the middle of two people working something out and you presented your views in an arrogant and condescending way. Now I'm involved between you and them and I'm presenting my views in an arrogant and condescending way so now... um.... As a forum I think it goes without saying that people are allowed to post their opinions, and that conversations like these are out there for the world to see, and naturally people are going to respond and again it goes without saying that the posts mostly reflect personal opinion. In my humble opinion it's totally okay to voice your opinion and respond to things, it's part of being in a forum, but then to turn around and start judging peoples' opinions and stuff.... I dunno, it doesn't make sense given that it's a forum anyway

Sheesh guys, all I said was that the claim can be misleading suddenly it's evolved to "false advertising", what is it going to evolve into next? "scam artistry"? Let's all breathe and take a step back The advertisement says come to one workshop, get the transmission, then cultivate. So if someone goes to one workshop, gets the transmission, cultivates.... but then stuff gets messed up, and asked for help, the response is, "a diligent student would have made the effort to....." So then what's the definition of diligent? Someone who goes to more than one seminar? According to what standard? Because, you know, the advertising says "one seminar", so if you are saying a diligent student would come to more than one, well, that means everyone who comes to one seminar is not a diligent student! Even though "all you need is one seminar". Furthermore, I don't like how people say, "would have made the effort to...." followed by "show up to another seminar" or "meet people in person" yadda yadda. I don't know about you guys, but times are tight. Not everyone has the money to go gallivanting across the country from Arizona to NJ to Colorado to wherever to get their questions answered or to get more face time. Maybe they show their diligence by self practice, because, you know, they showed up to the one seminar and got the one transmission which, according to all the official pages, is all you need. Then when you seek other avenues for support because you don't have the time or money to go skipping across the country, people are like, "well a more diligent student would have made the effort to seek help in person at a seminar." That's insulting, I mean, really. I don't know Gloria's situation, but for me, I'm a college student, money is tight, I gotta work hard to keep it together as it is. If I drop hundreds of bucks to pay for a seminar + travel to a seminar, that may very well be the one seminar I can attend for a LONG time. And if I have a problem, and ask for help, you know how it would feel to be told, "well a more diligent student would have made an effort to come to more seminars and ask questions in person like they should"? It would suck and I'd be pretty pissed off. But I guess Gloria is a much better person than me so we'll leave it there If you're going to be telling people that, then seriously, you should take down the "one seminar" claim. Read those last couple paragraphs a few times before responding, and really try to put yourself in their situation. Cultivation is important, yes, but sometimes you can't always drop everything else and dedicate yourself to cultivation. As much as many of us would like to do that, you just can't. So who's the more diligent student? The one who faithfully attends any and all seminars or the person who gives up the seminars and practices alone so they can keep life going for others? Really. [edit] And again guys, I'm not blasting Kunlun or the practice and whatnot. It's not about whether the practice works or not, there are plenty of people that can attest to it. It's just being represented in a horrible way (speaking as someone who got interested in it, went to the website, then came here and read all the past conversations and found the info here presents it in a totally different light than the website). You've got one source saying one thing, then you've got other people going, "oh well REALLY you need to be doing this INSTEAD" when the vast majority of people probably only have access to that first source (unless there's a link to the tao bums on the kunlun website so they can see all this discussion ) If one seminar just isn't gonna cut it for most people, why is that claim even up there??????

Hey, you could always just stick with energy and time saving strategies (no more heating related bills). And even if you DON'T live on the extreme of good or bad, you can still make some money by putting it to practical, everyday uses. So, I mean, if someone REALLY had pyrokinesis, they wouldn't need to go around on stage and camera putting on pyro shows. Plenty of ways to make (or just save) money and live a comfortable life without having to get in the spotlight.

You could: -Eat at a fancy restaurant, start freaking out, raise your temperature, then claim food poisoning and sue -Never have to worry about using a microwave when eating microwaved food (complain about the health if you like but if you're in a hurry you can't complain) -Melt your way into bank vaults and walk out with thousands in cold hard cash -If you jump into a pool and the water is freezing you can heat it up to an appropriate temperature. You can also do this with cold showers, heck, you can live in a cold place and never use the heater, saving untold amounts in heating bills -Use your superpowers to save people.... like if they were trapped under an avalanche you could get them out a lot faster than digging, and you can help to heat them up to save them from frostbite See there's tons of stuff you can do, maybe you should give it another try

Which is exactly why somewhere in the advertisements it should say, "follow up classes recommended to learn move about the system." Because right now it says "one seminar is all you need." Obviously when you join some school or something, they don't tell you, "you need to come as often as possible to learn all the details" in part because it's understood, and in part because... well.... they don't make claims like, "show up for one seminar and that's all you need!" But Kunlun does make that "one seminar" claim. So someone should either make some follow up statement, or they need to take down that original claim. Heck, I've heard more about Kunlun by reading all of your and Mantra86's posts than I have by reading the website. Again, the picture your posts paint and the picture the advertisements claim are totally different. Why not just be up front in the first place? Don't worry about it

Well here's what you said: And, you know... this is exactly the type of thing about the marketing I brought up in the "I Practice Kunlun" thread. The marketing says you should come ONCE, receive the transmission, and then diligent, serious practice cultivating that transmission, that seed, is all you need. That's what it says everywhere you look at Kunlun marketing, book summaries, seminar summaries, etc etc. Then someone comes in saying that the one time seminar + diligent practice turned up problems, and you respond with that quoted phrase.... which, I hope you can imagine, can be rather insulting especially when you followed the directions as you were told up front (one transmission + diligent practice) It's not necessarily that the practice is wrong. The problem is that the marketing is mis-representing that practice. If the practice requires one to come to several workshops/classes to learn balancing techniques between Kunlun and Red Phoenix or whatever, then the advertisements NEED TO SAY "follow up attendance is recommended to learn other balancing techniques." If the advertising doesn't say that, it misrepresents the system and you have issues like this. Again, it's not a judgment about the system of Kunlun or whether it works, it's about the outside claims being made about it that misrepresent the practice.

I think that sayings such as, "a good student would...." shouldn't be thrown around. How do you define a good student? Someone who shows up to class every day and pays the dues? Someone who shows up to one class a week but practices 5-6 hours a day at home when he gets back from work? Just too many variables and variations amongst "good students" to systematically say how a "good student" would act. Plus you just end up offending someone.

Huh, neat. So how about he goes into an industrial sized freezer and cook me a steak well done

So I've been reading up on lucid dreams, and aside from just having fun and messing around in the realm of dreams where you can do anything, there are people who use those spirit dreams as a platform for meeting some kind of spirit guide, higher self, maybe they just meditate, whatever. I was wondering if anyone here has had any experiences with lucid dreaming that they'd like to share, if you used them to boost your own practice, views on doing that, etc.

that's a good point. I just saw a listing a couple weeks ago about how much money American Idol rejects got. William Heung has gotten millions of dollars from his terrible remakes of songs so... I guess he turned out okay.

Hey now, I said I wasn't gonna make any decisions about the practice! I even said I might end up revisiting it and doing it again someday. In fact, every time a Kunlun thread pops up I think about it again, but I'm exploring other avenues first, you know. I just think that's it's important to be able to express yourself, and your teachings, clearly. Or, in some cases, you should be able to express another person clearly. If you give people the impression that someone has been travelling to the deserted mountains of China since they were six, when in reality he's had teachers living in Hawaii.... you know, it makes me suspicious. I don't have anything against where people live. I don't have anything against what race they are, they don't gotta be some Chinese dude living in the mountains. If it's a white guy in Hawaii that's fine. Even if it's the student of a Mao Shan grandmaster in Hawaii, that's cool with me.... but you could have just said so. But instead you go and say, "masters from around the world and teachings from deep in the mountains and monasteries far away from society." You know the images that kind of message is designed to evoke within pepole, and it's misleading.... quite a bit so (even with some of the far out places and people that Max has met), and the fact that you chose some fantastic, though slightly misleading image over... well... reality.... that's unsettling. Why not just tell people how it is, instead of being vague about it and trying to sound grandiose? It's not the true story I have a problem with.... it's the fact that you weren't up front with it to begin with. Makes me wonder and makes me check out other avenues before Kunlun. If it takes me a little extra time, oh well, I don't really care. Just one of those things I guess. [edit] Here's an example using a movie. I saw the trailer for V for Vandetta, saw some cool fight sequences and some explosions. The trailer was like, "from the writers of the Matrix." I was like, awesome, this will have good fight scenes. I watch the movie... the ONLY fight scenes were the ones from the trailer, then there was nearly two hours in the middle of the movie of social and political commentary.... I'm not saying the commentary was bad, or that the questions they asked were unworthy.... but I was expecting an action movie. I told my friends before they saw it that if they were expecting an action movie like the Matrix, they weren't going to get it. They loved the movie. But I will forever be disappointed by the movie. Why? Because the marketing sold me an image and then didn't deliver on that image. If they had told me that it was a social/political commentary with action thrown in the background, that would have been cool and I would have been happy with the movie, my friends and family who saw it with that image certainly liked it. But I thought it was going to be an action movie........ You don't have to lie or be vague about it. Just tell me what the system is and what I can expect to get. If you sell me on all this mystic far out stuff and have the image in my head of some guy trekking out in the middle of the desert when he's 6 years old, but then I found out he met his teacher in some modern military base or in a school in Hawaii....... I'm not saying the teachings are bad, I'm not saying the teachers are less worthy because of where they live, I'm saying that you sold me on something that wasn't the truth. Just tell me the truth, and if you don't... it makes me look at you suspiciously

Well I doubt that anybody starts out going, "I want to become a power hungry bastard and use my powers to evilly control peoples' minds!" (well I'm sure SOME people do... but few probably ever make it that far). I'm sure everyone has their good intentions. But as the saying goes, "the path to hell is paved with good intentions." I agree it makes for fascinating discussions though

I mean, that's one of the things that put me off of Kunlun, to be honest. Like I said in a previous post, I've been on the receiving end of fraudulent martial artists, so I do some background research. I've read all the way through pretty much every Kunlun debate thread on here just trying to get the info. More and more "facts" about kunlun come out, like in Cameron's posts, and I think it was someone else, Mantra86 maybe that was another person on the Kunlun side. All of their posts were very informative.... but they painted a picture of Kunlun and Max that was TOTALLY different than what the advertising on the website had painted. I went back and re-read the website stuff. No, it never actually said that Max studied in CHINA when he was 6 years old... though I (and obviously many others) had walked away with that impression and it needed to be corrected. There's nothing wrong with the Kunlun picture that is painted on these forums posts, it was very cool, inclusive, and seemed like a really good system to get into... but honestly, why did the marketing have to conflict so much with that? It made me uneasy, and I went somewhere else and now am practicing other things. Maybe down the road I will come back to Kunlun, or maybe down the road I'll reach a spot that I could have gotten with Kunlun or with something else, who knows? Good enough for me Glad I could be the source of some amusement Well of course that's true, but people might not even want to stick around and find out what they are if they aren't sure if they can even trust you to begin with since they seem to find different information everywhere they go.

By work I meant if it takes several people to introduce new facts to finish a story, the marketing doesn't do a good job. Good marketing presents what the product is in an aesthetically appealing way, but it also gives a factual account of the information. Part of the challenge of marketing is how can you market your product in an interesting way without resorting to using misdirection on the customer or leaving out certain details to make your story more "snazzy". If you have to resort to such methods.... that's not a very good job of marketing, and slightly dishonest. When I want to be entertained, I'll listen to a story teller. But when I want to find out how to use a new application on my computer, I don't want to hear about the genius minds that forged the program deep in the sacred mountain of fire, imbuing the program with the forces of the five elements and harmonizing the cosmic forces of yin and yang, I want to hear the facts, step by step, cut, dried, and USEFUL, for how to run my program. And if I'm interested in buying the program, as much as I think it's cool that it is perfectly yin/yang balanced and can harmonize peacefully with the five elements and energizes my chi channels, it's also good to know how it will integrate with the programs I already have. Let's not assume that just because someone writes a computer manual that they are a boring person. If you are hoping to be entertained by a computer manual, you will be disappointed.... but that's not because the manual was boring. If your computer was broken and you couldn't get any work done but you found a solution in the manual, I'm sure you'd be overjoyed. So..... yeah. Here's an example of what I meant: on the website it mentions stuff like Max studied with a Chinese master from the age of six. I was like, wow, okay, that's really cool. But then I saw he wasn't Chinese, so I was like, "well.... was he half Chinese? I mean was he in China? How does a six year old meet a Chinese grandmaster in China?" Someone on THIS forum actually had those same questions. It took someone ELSE to come in and say, "oh, well see the master had fled China and met Max elsewhere...." and all that good stuff (but even then I've still heard some varying details). No, it's not the marketing job to give all the details, but it IS the marketing's job to inform people and not give the wrong impressions. Unfortunately, the impression a lot of people get is somehow a six year old white kid tracked down a Chinese grandmaster and started cultivation! There's nothing wrong with saying, "the young Max met a master who had sense fled from China" or something like that. It's not that hard, but the fact that it's not being done sends up red flags. And if Kunlun is truly as great as everyone is saying, then I'll say it again, it's being unnecessarily held back by poor marketing and poor communication. No, you don't have to make it so cut and dry that it's just a list of dates and events, but you do have to accurately present your stuff, at least if you want people to trust you enough to see what it's all about.

If it truly is a case of the marketing turning people off, rather than the practice, then might I suggest a radical change in marketing? Going around saying, "secrets of the ancient masters that no one will receive even with a lifetime of practice... all held by one westerner!" and "secrets of the ancient kunlun mountains, taught to him by secret masters deep in the heart of.... hawaii" only serve to... hm... I dunno, caution people. I'm experienced enough to know you can't really judge something unless you experience it, which is why I'm not making a judgment about the Kunlun practice. However, I've experienced the marketing. My interest was piqued in Kunlun and I read the website. It looked cool. Then I did some more research on the background (I was roped in my karate McDojo's when I was younger... so now I check up on people) and frankly I was shocked by the amount of clarification needed on certain topics, topics that shouldn't require so much clarification. That shocked me, and served as a warning sign. I was more than ready to get the Kunlun level 1 book, but then hearing conflicting info, retelling stuff, different stories all over the place, then finally one big master story with all these different things it just... I dunno, it seemed like too much work for something so simple. And I guarantee you that other people who go through that much work (and reading) to get a story that is STILL shaky are going to be less interested in checking the system out. A good system shouldn't be crippled by confusing marketing.

Interesting thoughts everyone, thanks! I kind of figured that much, but "surrender" doesn't sit well with me, too many negative connotations. I'm fine with "letting go".... it's just the word choice that I wasn't really drawn to. Then again, maybe I'm spiritually paranoid! I don't want to surrender myself to someone so I can become their spiritual zombie tree robot! (that's a joke! I don't want to mistakenly add more fuel to this fiery debate that's gone on for... a long time!)