Sloppy Zhang

You saw that? whoops Nah, but seriously, wasn't me, and I didn't see it. Heard about it, though.

I practice the stuff that B.K. Frantzis has put out in his books "Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body", "Relaxing Into Your Being", "The Great Stillness", and "Dragon and Tiger Medical Qigong". All of them are GREAT. The instructions in those books are very detailed. Energy Gates and Dragon and Tiger are mostly method books, focusing on specific practices and principles that you should start incorporation. Relaxing Into Your Being and The Great Stillness are a two part book set that has mostly theory and background on Frantzis' tradition of Taoism, how it is similar/different from other methods, and more philosophical outlook, sprinkled with some practices. I have never practiced with an instructor or Frantzis himself. I have practiced exclusively from his published material. And I have to say that it is still a GREAT method, one of the best I have come across, and you can get some great results. The thing about his system is that it emphasizes naturalness of movement and flow, as well as feeling. Once you can truly feel your body, you don't need a teacher to tell you when you are doing something right/wrong- you will FEEL it AS it happens. When things start to go wrong, you can feel them sooner, identify them, and fix problems BEFORE they occur. On top of that, the stuff in his books build the foundation for the rest of his sytem as a whole, so if you want to progress further, that's where you want to start. And if you want to do other systems, the stuff he teaches is pretty universal, and you'll be able to apply what he teaches to whatever else you learn. The only downside is that, as far as the published material, it's really "low energy". Highly effective, but still low energy. He says that this is to prevent harm if practices are approached incorrectly. And as you very well know, his books have ample warning on all the things that can go wrong. However, I'll also say that the tools he gives you can allow you, if properly learned and applied, to take on a higher energy system. So if you can't make it to him (his seminars are pretty pricey!) to learn higher level stuff, but still feel ready to move on, after learning a bit, you might have the tools to start trying stuff on your own anyway. So, I'm all for practicing on your own from books, even without a teacher, as I'm also a college student with a busy schedule. Other people strongly disagree. Others say you won't have as good of an experience. I don't know about that. Since I started meditation and qigong, I haven't had an in-person teacher, and I feel like I've gotten along just fine. If all of this energy work is real, and a natural part of being human, then it should be self evident through consistent practice on your own with the proper methods. There are some awesome people on thetaobums, a lot of good questions have already been asked. You can make a lot of progress with just you and a few experienced friends

Depends on when you're having an OBE. If you are having it during your normal sleep schedule, and you wake up at the same time that you normally wake up, having to urinate or having a little morning wood is completely natural anyway, and wouldn't be an effect of having an OBE. There are a bit more serious explanations for having to pee, or at least having the sensation of having to pee, like having an enlarged prostate. And you should consult with a medical professional to determine if something like that is the case.

Well when I watched Star Wars as a kid, it really opened me up to the idea that there was "something more" in the universe. It's also good motivation to practice when I go back and watch it, or read/play stuff from the expanded universe. Avatar: The Last Airbender (tv series) also had a lot of cool stuff in it, from martial arts to meditation to energy work, which gives a lot of good motivation.

People in the old days used to think that priests in the church had some kind of secret power that let you get into heaven, and to know what God wanted you to do. What was their real secret? They could read. They could read what was in the Bible. They could read what other mystics and academics, both contemporary and ancient, were writing. The "secret" was that they were simply educated. But back then, being educated was a big deal. Not just "anyone" could do it. That there are people achieving things on their own tells me that it is possible. But there are people around this board saying that not just "anyone" can do it. Now the questions that then arise are: do they have something that others do not have, and is it exclusive to hermits, or is it, like literacy in old Europe, rare, but not because the talent itself was rare, but because of various social situations? So again (for me, anyway), that there are people doing it alone means that it can be done alone, whether you are a hermit or not. There may be some factor that happens concurrently with the hermit lifestyle, but is not specific to the hermit lifestyle. Of course, everyone can believe what they want, hm?

Question: Many of the practices you teach focus on letting go, increasing awareness and sensitivity, and feeling and working with various energies. What protective methods, if any, would you recommend to someone in situations in which feeling other energies could be harmful, or if there is an abundance of overtly negative energy?

Question: In books such as the Power of Internal Martial Arts, you relate your experiences from lots of different arts, some of them quite obscure, such as the purely Taoist tradition of Eight Drunken Immortals. Have you considered, or will you consider, teaching methods and styles such as those?

Looks neat, thanks for those links!

Thanks for your confidence!

"Opening the Energy Gates Of Your Body" by B.K. Frantzis.

I also think there is truth in jest Not a problem, I just gotta set myself up so I have 8 hours a day of meditation to do Worked with Bardon for a little under a year, precisely because he was teaching exactly what I wanted. But it didn't work out for me. So I stuck with it, thought it was something I just had to overcome and deal with. But it didn't work. As much as I want stuff, I'm not going to compromise myself to get it! "To thine own self be true". But I really like the taoist stuff, it really appealed to me and the practices that I do (mostly energy gates + taoist meditation that BKF teaches in his books, do dissolving for 1-2 hours a day, and do taoist meditation for about an hour a day), so I thought, "why don't I find a system of magic that corresponds to what appeals to me philosophically, what I see in my daily life, and what lines up with the practices I already do?" So, taoist magic

I am paying attention, you know! Just because I don't respond to everything said, doesn't mean I don't read everything said. In fact, most of the things I don't respond to are things I've "shut up and listening/reflecting" on! I don't. But I know a few people who do. And it's interesting comparing experiences. I also come across studies of psychedelics used in psychological experiments and whatnot. Interesting comparing those experiences to mine (translation: not a whole lot of difference). Which is why I am so intent (hehe) on having an objectively verifiable result to my practice, rather than just some shift in consciousness.... or perhaps better phrased, a shift in consciousness which has verifiable results in places outside my own head!

Perfect example of what I'm talking about! "You can't do it alone" and "you can do it alone" all in the same breath!

***SPOILER ALERT*** There's a scene in the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender in which Aang consults with his own past lives. As the avatar, he's reincarnated as all these people, but he can still commune with them. Technically, he's just communing with himself, as he's already lead those lives, but they are personified in (ancestor) spirits that he can converse with and ask for advice (they weren't, in the series, his familial ancestors, since each incarnation incarnates in different tribes of people, but they are ancestors in the sense that they came before him and he turns to them for guidance).

Thank you The more I study, the more I realize that I could have learned it all on my own. When taking into account all of the external factors involved, such as how I don't have enough time to devote full study to everything equally, that I have to cut corners because it's just not feasible to get everything done the way it's "supposed" to be done, and that some professors just plain suck at teaching, and are only here for research, there are only a handful of professors and only a handful of situations that I would say that one would actually need a teacher to teach you for you to learn. But in those situations, meeting someone in an interest group, such as, say, an internet forum, could clear up most of the problems. Yes, it is. Having a degree from a credible institution that is known to produce a certain level of performance is how people judge you on what you can do. Sure, someone who learned on their own could probably do a LOT better than someone else (I have a friend who does programming as a hobby, and he can do things that are being taught at graduate level classes). But when you go get a job, they ask, "well if you're so good, why didn't you major in it?" If you don't have the tag, then there's no standard to appraise you. So as stupid as it is, and even if you don't learn anything, the education system is part of how society replicates itself. It gives you varying labels which say much more about you than your level of education- it says that you have the ability to stay in an institute and jump through X number of hoops for Y amounts of time. It means that on a certain level, you can get along with your fellow human being, so accepting this person into your company/organization/whatever isn't going to be introducing unnecessary risk. I think it is stupid. But it's one of the goals of my parents to get me through college and, well, I gotta go along with it. And, you know, BKF does the same advertising. He talks about his teachers. Talks about where he got some stuff. Sure, every time you get in front of a new practice, you run into the risk that it's not for you, that it doesn't work, that it could hurt you, that you could get it wrong, that the guy is just making stuff up. Sometimes a person who doesn't have all the teachers has an equally as valid learning system. But we refer to lineages and teachers even here to judge how credible someone is likely (though not guaranteed) to be. I'd gain in some areas, lose in others. I'm sure you do but I do not have that teacher experience, and I've made great progress on my own, working through things on my own, and getting the occasional outside tip from like minded experienced people

I'm gonna say the same thing I've said all along about practice, especially those of the taoist variety that BKF has given out to the public: they are, ultimately, practices that get you inside and get you to feel things for yourself. This is a natural process, and this is emphasized a lot in Frantzis' writings, and is repeated by many masters in the taoist tradition (Taomeow's story of Wang Liping moving organs around comes to mind). I find that a lot of teachers saying, "oh you need a teacher to really learn the truth of this" is... well, kind of advertising. Maybe it's a product of modern society, in which you need to have to be a licensed medical professional in order to diagnose problems, and any non-licensed people need to put disclaimers. Maybe it's a message to prevent people from screwing themselves up. I don't know. What I CAN say is that I've seen more than a few people follow up the phrase, "you need a master to learn this" with "it's all inside yourself, it's all about feeling, it's natural but you forgot". Well if it's all natural, why do you need a teacher? If you are trying to be natural, and trying to move in ways to optimally feel energy and be healthy, well, a teacher can't "teach", so much as show you how to do stuff, and put you in an optimal position for getting to that place yourself- but you have to do it. I find this especially so with the stuff BKF has put out. His emphasis is on you increasing feeling and being natural. If you've REALLY got that down, then you don't have to have a teacher to tell you when you are doing something wrong- your BODY will be telling you when you are doing something wrong. The energy won't circulate. Things won't flow. I think what BKF puts out puts people in the best possible position to reach that state. But at the same time, he's gotta deal with the modern world, and peoples' inability to get to that point. Look at the video he put out recently: The emphasis is on the fundamentals. He really pushes in his writings an emphasis on the single palm change, how someone should get to know all the mechanics and see how everything is connected and related, and then once you've got that, applying the other changes is just a matter of being where you need to be. But reaching that point in and of itself is quite a challenge!

If magic and profound universal truth are the same, then they are the same. So then.... where are they? A lot of people running around saying they've got the universal truth, and they can teach you, and a lot of their students saying they got it, but not a lot of people running around practicing magic so....... And you know this how? Yes. Now how do the practices translate to magic? So then how do you take the power and intent from qigong and do magic with it? I'm doing all kinds of things with the stuff I get from thetaobums- which is why I keep coming back!

Yes, I have heard that as well, and completely agree. But I'm not looking for profound truths to the universe. I'm looking for ways to cultivate certain abilities. I'm not looking to open up an ethical/philosophical/hypothetical discussion on what will or will not change when one attains abilities. I'm just looking to attain them. I'm not disregarding the wisdom. I've read each post very carefully. HOWEVER, as I said above, this thread is not about philosophy. It's about actual practices that I can do. Giving me the theory behind what I'm supposed to do, how to view it, and all that is nice, but if you don't have a practice to embody that theory, well, it doesn't do much. Quick example with tai chi- people hear "oh yeah, yield, soft overcoming hard", but being armed with that philosophy alone won't make you a tai chi master, you have to know how to embody those principles in your practice, and you have to know what practice to do which embodies those principles. A lot of principles flying around, but comparatively few practices. Which is why I made the thread! I ask until I've got what I'm looking for. Here's an example: you've given a great outline of the theory behind magic. Now, how do you DO it? How do you go from meditating, knowing the quotes, doing qigong, etc, to doing magic? Feeding a starving person crumbs doesn't help much. Marijuana can change your consciousness whenever you want Exactly, because, as I said above, if I was, then I would not have this problem. The fact it didn't work means I wasn't doing it (right). Interesting bits.

Yes, I know To everyone: go back and re-read what I said.... carefully. I am looking for practical methods to get specific results. Advice on what to practice, and/or how to practice it, is greatly welcomed. Commentary on personal life, journey, what happens when/if you get them, etc etc is nice to hear, especially when it comes in the form of personal experience. However, I've heard lots of stories before, I've heard all the advice, and all that jazz. And that's not really why I made the thread. It's not that I'm not reading it or not reflecting on it. It's just that.... well, everywhere you turn is philosophizing. But not much on actual practice. And it's the actual practice that I'm looking to work with. Thank you for your help

Anime

There's a lot of stuff he puts in his books regarding certain things, such as the trajectory of where a practice will take you, when other practices are to be taken, and stuff like that. So, Sean, I'd recommend trying to get a hold of some of his books like "Relaxing Into Your Being" and "The Great Stillness", google books has some sections of them available for preview last time I checked, so try to get some areas that sound interesting and give a read. There's also a lot on his blog: http://www.taichimaster.com/ and website: http://www.energyarts.com/ when it comes to practice. I'm sure you'll do your research beforehand, Sean, but for others, there's a lot of stuff in those resources. It's a bit of a read, but no sense in asking questions that have already been answered in previous texts. That said, I'll try to come up with my own questions as well, but that's just some general info!

Perhaps you should look more closely at what he actually puts out there, because his strategy is, in fact, the opposite: introduce a few techniques that have the highest benefit, and get people to train those few techniques until they have really gotten a hang of the underlying concepts and principles. I agree that Frantzis' stuff is a bit overpriced. However, it'd be much more expensive, and much more time consuming to go gallivanting across Asia and heavily populated Asian areas in non-Asian countries trying to find a bagua teacher, with absolutely no way of knowing what you are going to get. Frantzis gives an accessible, yet still quality teachings, to people who otherwise would never be exposed to it. Frantzis, I think, is still very conscious about keeping the quality of what he teaches.

I'm actually working on some stuff now that I'd rather not discuss. Had interesting experiences, but they happen in a rather coincidental manner. Sometimes stuff happens which later corresponds to an observable reality which can also be interacted with by others. Sometimes it doesn't. The point is, I'm trying to rule out cognitive bias. It's easy to look back on stuff after the fact and say, "oh yeah, I was one with the Tao, yeah, I just 'knew' that that's where I needed to be, that's what I had to do, yadda yadda." I'm trying to say BEFOREHAND, "this is what I want to do, this is how I want it to work out, will it happen this way?" And it hasn't so far. So I'm interested in whatever methods/techniques/practices/whatever people have to bring about this stuff. For other stuff, yeah, feel more happy, empathetic, feel like I "get" people more. Lots of feeling (see my other thread) which is sometimes bad. More compassionate. I stopped being able to watch certain movies (like action films) I just get disgusted with the violence and stuff when I think about it going on in real life, so then I just leave. Overall, feeling pretty good in the "overall how are you feeling" sense. In the "what can I practically do about it" sense, well, I got nothing! The whole rhetoric about, "it's within you the whole time" is great, nice, so how do I GET to it? Surrender? That's nice. Been there. Done that. Got nothing. Oh, I guess because I didn't "do it right"? Of course! How could I have been so stupid obviously if I do it and don't get anything, I'm 1) doing it wrong 2) doing it out of desire 3) some other such thing The whole "you won't be fulfilled" and all that is also something I just don't get. I'm not a hard person to satisfy. Everyone goes on and on about how it won't fulfill you, and.... well, when I get something I want, I'm fulfilled. If I want to get some t-shirt, and I get it, I feel really really good about it. I don't go buy new t-shirts for a very long time (of course someone can/would/will argue that even if it's a great length of time it's impermanence, blah blah blah). The "if you want it, you push it away" thing also never really made sense to me (oh that's right, it doesn't have to make sense! ) Oh yeah, cup your hands to get water, yeah, makes sense, okay, how do you translate that into practice? I find it incredibly unfair to tell people, "you don't want money, you don't want power, it will leave you unfulfilled" and blah blah blah. How about you quit making decisions for other people? Again, I like you guys, and I hear what you're saying.... buuuuut..... how about I decide whether or not I'm satisfied when I get it? Because, well, I dunno about you guys, but life sucks IMHO, and powers and money and all that jazz would be really, really nice! And having it would not prevent you from doing good! Sure, liberation and escaping from cycles and wheels and stuff is good. In the long run, I want to do that (oh noes! "I want") Right now though, first things first! - da powerz!

William Mistele, a practitioner of Franz Bardon's methods, writes and makes a lot of videos these days focused on the ocean. He emphasizes that, from the Bardon perspective, Undines are emotional beings, who can easily connect to and sympathize with those in the world. All of the water in the world is connected- an undine can simultaneously feel every ocean, every river, every pond and lake, as well as anything that is in those bodies of water. So meditating on or with the energies of the water, you should be thinking about that unity of feeling. His site.

Karmic masochism? There are a lot of people into a lot of things out there. It's possible.