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Spectrum, I will repay the mistake of playing a part in dragging the topic off-track, by commenting a bit on the subject of ancient illustrations. My take on it is that a picture like that could mean a whole system of practice. It is because of what I learned from studying various sources of ancient texts. It was like this, in plain terms: The X family's great secret and ability was connected with mastering this point, or that cavity... after which they would give you a hint on it, just to make you wonder and ask for more. I guess that was all that the written tradition could say about it, if you wanted more, you had to be "from the family". So here we don't have some point or cavity, or valley, but the whole landscape. That could mean only a very detailed knowledge. Little

oh don't worry, i'll give you a BIG FAT REST

hey man, THAT was a joke this time the joke was on you, we take turn from time to time, isn't that funny so where's the quarrel? listen, I know you think you and your chief are the big brothers of taoism, but not everybody belives that you and DS are really something, you know? do you think that we make all this effort just to delude ourselves? don't you think this is one of the first things we would think about regarding practice and progress? do you think that only you guys found out about how and what to measure? really, you have a poor oppinion on all the rest of us. and a disproportionate one about you and your chief. Forgive that, please, tonight I have a wiked sense of humor. I don't know you, but from what I've read about your history, I wonder how long will this Long Men Pai fever will last. I'm saying half joking, half serious. I hope you truely found something to hold on to, develop, and start building what sages call wisdom. We all need it, me too. Maybe you will go even that far to understand that there are a lot of smart people in the world, even besides you, your teacher and your group. Spectrum, that is cheap philosophy But am sure you're a great guy

Mantra, I know you don't need anything else, I've read this all over... , forgive me, how many pages already on Kunlun and related? (I think this is how I try to say diversity would really be appreciated right now, from my part at least, no offence anyone) I only intruded in this thread, you are right, but is because I personally don't like it when people make negative general assumptions about practices that work at least for all the people I know that are involved with this practice. I don't like positive general assumptions on practices that work, either. We just need to adapt, don't we? We just need to find our way, that is why we are here, aren't we? Please, by all means, tell about your personal experience, but don't make it a general rule. There is no one that I know practicing Sexual Kung Fu, that has ever complained of such and such. What am I to think of this? All of them are happy and all of them keep "growing". VCraigP, since you are studying for so long, I think you are entitled to make oppinions on the matter. Thank you for them, I will keep them in my mind, they'll make my enthusiasm tempered and balanced. I just wish you could understand that maybe, if something went wrong, even if someone studied for so much time, maybe something wasn't very well understood... It's humanly possible, think about it... Xenolith, I also appreciate your posts, they are great.

i keep hearing the same story, so i guess i should give the same answers 1. sexual practices taught by Mantak Chia are fine, my experience given, also the taoist practice group i collaborate with - so please, for honesty's sake, stop making general assumptions. there are a lot of people that found them helpful, and even more than that. 2. there are always two factors involved: the practice and the practicioners. if the results aren't good, one of them is to blame. don't always blame the practice, as you might have missed something. man isn't the measure of all things, and, with all due respect, neither your intelligence. 3. the best thing is first to check if you are compatible with the practice, and if you are, try first to REALLY understand what you are doing. after that, there will be no need to blame anyone and anything. i know i'm practically a nobody on this forum, but please remember that firstly we bow to common sense. Little

ditto, great Taomeow bd2, the whole ideea of Taoism is gaining with less or even no effort, that is non-action, working intellingent and wise, not hard... we should not take up eastern arts using western mind Xin and Yi are different

interesting and wise words, you all. this is what i seek indeed. Todd, i like how your teacher does things, it reminds me of the way one of my main teachers thinks and acts. he can show a lot, but chooses not to, he can give a lot of knowledge, but chooses to cultivate and share wisdom and health. this is, for me, the real deal. not fancy powers, especially if they go together with immature attitude. i'm not judging anyone, as i think, with little exceptions, that somehow all of us will come to this someday. there is something special about the tao, that makes it look not so special. but it has the gift of moving the world. when we feel this, there is no doubt left. it's so subtle. thank you for your words too, Lin. somehow they reminded me of someone who said to me one day: "in a seeker's journey, one will have to reach a point where he has to choose. the choise is between power and wisdom. you will surely get there too, everyone does." he said he is pretty sure of what i would choose - but i'm not i mean i wasn't because there was still a little piece missing. Lin's message cleared it up for me. Todd, who is your teacher?

CC has nothing to do with tensegrity? personal qualities? you may be right but think about it, it may be the other way around. we may have been attributing qualities that have nothing to do with the real person. dont you think this is how our mind works? we make saints out of people that are supposed to meet our spiritual demands. a lot of spiritual figures have the same stories. they started out human and finished as demigods, gods or sons of gods. their personal history - the irony of it - was erased and replaced with mithology. it's not a deffinitive oppinion

i think there was a completely different experience - living near and seeing CC in action, instead of just reading the books and putting the pieces alltogether, the way you would like them to look. you should take a peak at "Enigma of a Sorcerer", a tribute made by some of the inner circle members of CC completely disastruous to whatever you thought you knew about CC one more thing take this with lemon and salt, cause it's damn cheesy ...the horror...

if you judge things from the practical side, you may come with a different view

Hello, as yourself, I found rather unexpected principles inside it. I wonder if Wu Cheng-en was a practicioner. His story is that he was born a poor man and he died a poor man. Nevertheless, he seem to have been a brilliant mind. I was referring to the movie: Journey to the West, or The monkey king... I heard of them, but I didnt get to watch them, so...

Way to go, Xeno Boo SeanDenty PS: Boys, it can only mean one of two things - either you weren't, say, compatible with the HT practice, - or you didn't get to go one inch deep into it... I can't overrule the third possibility, that HT practice is, as Denty calls it "pop Daoism". But my practice and experience can. Also, I have a lot of friends that share the same spectacular results. Do you know what is the best feedback on the reality of some practice? (for me) (This goes with what Pietro asked about how to differentiate illusion from truth regarding practices) You have to look at how the life of the practicioner is changing, when is touched by the gentle presence of the chi flow. There are so many miracles I witnessed regarding this, that makes yin yang gong look like a kindergarden game Grow up Sean Denty Love (of course) Little1 PPS: Remember that even David Shen admitted that Chia is a man that knows his craft, and a good teacher too. Want me to quote it on the taobums?

I didn't belive in astrology when I was a little younger When we grow a little older, we start seeing things repeating in our lifes. Sometimes we see them repeating in cycles. Simply, when we are younger, our awareness and our experience is too shallow to see this. Then we turn to the Chinese sense of time. They see it in a cyclical fashion. And, start it from there... you can get to Taomeow's conclusions... As Lin stated, we are not free, there is no free will. When we are young, we have huge amounts of life force, and it seems we are on top of the world. As we get a little older, we move a little slower, and, wow... we start to notice more things... Maybe this is a valid definition of awareness... you notice more. Thank you

* bows in wonder *

hagar, i like how you think. please remember that the most important asset of taoism is their specificity. they give the recopy, and if you're lucky you can learn what was the principle behind it, so you can make your own recopy. i like the resemblance of alchemy to cooking. dont you? and you seem to already know what are the other forms of storing energy, so i dont need to enlighten no one. the organs, the cells, the bones and the energy body. what i was concerned regarding my first message on this thread was the importance of the so called sexual practice during the foundation training - a term i borrowed from someone else, but i think it's quite universal. also, i like it we need enough "sexual glue" to stick the prenatal to the postnatal chi. also, the quality and the quantity of these three ingredients may vary, according to: relationship with the environment and ancestors; nutrition; sexual activity - the quality and the quantity of these can and should be indicators of the specific blend one can gather as the Original Force. my take is that the first 100 days are the minimum of days necesarry for someone to balance the diet, the environment and the sexual activity, so that the Dan can be gathered. many people have different formulas for this Dan, but i think the greatest thing ever is that nature does it by itself, if we allow it. basically, practice could mean a means for us to get closer to how natually these thing occur to and within us. cheers

keep it commin' - ya gotta luv this stuff

hagar, i forgot to say, that there are five types of energy storing. if you choose to save up energy mainly inside your organs, what you say is true, emotional outbursts drain a lot. fortunatelly, we have four other alternatives. that being said, even since i hadnt any knowledge on taoist sexual cultivation, i thought much about how to mix up the spirit life and sexual life. we as people are different. hence the five types of energy storing, depending on which is the strong or the weak point in you. the 100 days period is related to moon time, or lunar time. it is not a number in itself, it has much to do with biological time. maybe someone else can tell us more about it

no, it is part of it. if you want to go thru the foundation practice, you need that. the first step is learning not to dissipate. the major way, for a man, is sex. so why do you say it is not foundation? what you say about emotions has been already said, countless times. no wonder women feel that men dump their negative energies on them while having sex. it's quite true. and what you say is correct too. if a man learns how to transform the negative energies first, the compulsive need to "burst" into ejaculation slowly dissapears. winn teaches that since decades... that's why he talks about learning the fusion practices before the sexual practices. but the foundation of alchemy is jing. that's it... the emotional energy is transformed sexual energy. so... edit: by sex i dont mean only the sexual act. it is much more than this. maybe you didnt agree because i didnt specify this before

there are other forms of taoism that insist on saying one should never approach sexual practices unless one has "stabilized the shen" - what a laugh it's like saying, you should not built the foundation until you have built the roof. so you have to built the roof on thin air if you dont have a proper understanding of the sexual energy, the Tan cannot be created. the Tan is the fusing of the pre-natal and the post-natal energy. the sexual energy is the mediator of this union. so that is why you need at least a celibacy practice to go thru it. there is much to say on the topic, and i usually try to squeeze in some common sense on it from time to time. just so you and we all know, at least the basic and preparatory conditions for the higher practices, can all be created inside oneself simply by living a clean and balanced life, not too much, not too little, but try to work clean. you'd be amazed to see how much "acheivement" have people that follow this simple natural law, instinctively. people have asked me, if i am content with what i do, what do i look for in here, or in simmilar places. i think the most honest answer, which i already given, is that when two different perspectives come together, if the conditions are right, a third new perspective may arise. this is not a easy matter, nor is it an easy thing to get, even these days, when it seems more and more information is out there.

ah, well

interesting views, i never heard these ones. they may really be genuine, or a result of some "useful misunderstanding" first of, non-ejaculatory orgasm doesnt end with the sperm going into the bladder, unless you are not practicing it correctly. the correct statement would be "non-ejaculatory orgasm MAY end with sperm going into the bladder, IF you dont take enough time to learn it right" - different, huh ? second sexual energy that has an adress, that is the technical definition of awakened sexual energy. usually, the adress is an outside stimullus. taoists belive that it is more difficult to change the adress of the energy, it is easier to work with it when it doesnt have an object, or adress. third you may confuse working with "fire type" and "water type" sexual energy", with some other doctrinal and moralistic issues. you need to know what can you do with "fire" and what can you do with "water". not only that, but until you learn to work with the "water", you have to keep the energy full and functional. if not, it'll dry up. that is the case of most celibate and monk-like practicioners. it's not a rule of the thumb, there are some exceptions, but that usually happens. fourth harry, you should know better when you try to ask a monk about wordly affairs. fifth if you want to know about the Great Dao, the first thing is, they dont judge things MORALLY, the eventual rules they abide by are purely PRACTICAL. "useful misunderstanding" = an incorrect theory that may still yeald some good result

Thank you Lino, I incidentally passed by, as I heard rumors on other forums about the Lama and wanted to know if they "sweatted off" here... I like any attempt to clarification that doesn't bang into un-translatable and self-sufficient terms. In my world, if you put it simple enough that a 6 year old could understand, then is obvious you know your stuff. If not, I'm still searching. I'm a re-searcher, you know, the most exciting hobby I could have had. Thank you, but the explanation is something I already deal with. And is not very "advanced" either. I was asking the simple question: Where is he, and the rest, going with Kun Lun practice. How do they define their goals, beginning, medium and higher.. It's kind of fuzzy, as fuzzy as the "origin" of the teachings. I still dont say anything about the guy, he might really be a real McCoy, and a pleasant company, I'm sure. But from the "signals" out here, there is nothing... how can I put it... substantial about it. Yes, it makes you feel good, and probably more healthy. What next. Just bliss? What next?? Little1 quick edit: I still hope I'm wrong

for me meditation is like taking a long desired break. i empty the mind into the lower abdomen, until it is filled to the brim. then, i sense that the energy from the lower abdomen starts to rise, and i feel how it starts to nourish the brain. then it comes together in a natural circuit, as a microcosmic orbit. by now, it happens almost as soon as i sink myself in the lower abdomen. there are days when i spend a lot on work and stress, and i need more time to fill the battery. but the time spent filling the battery is one of the most pleasant ones i enjoy. i cannot wait to do it. sometimes i do it in the subway train, sometimes in the bus... whenever i find the time. i try to keep the "blissful" state as long as i can. is like starting an engine, and then giving it some impulse. most of the day i try to keep my body strong and elastic, and all the joints open and flexible, also the kua. another great pleasure is moving myself in the tai chi dance. there are other practices, but these are essential for me, at this time. i expect the practice will evolve by itself in a natural way, and more wonders will open up. Little

no, that's not funny, that's not even the zip code of funny is semantics, like someone else mentioned above

i agree too this seems to be the general way things work but i think this is no news to them for me, if powers are to show something, they sure show much dedication and hard work i think that is the basis of any acheivement - their favorite word - but i dont think this is enough i want to share something with you, that i found out recently: the practices begin to REALLY work when you receive something from the HEAVENS you cant receive THAT - whatever that is - simply by practicing. it's like this: the magus seems to be right on something. the mo pai is god given. but not the way we may think about that at first. listen, it is not the man that decides who's allotment it is. it is the will of the heavens. you have to convince not a man, but the heavens. and you cant make that happening if you play the know-it-all. you really have to help others. not forcibly, but this has to be in your blood. i know most of us, here on the taobums, are. so, we should work hard, work well, and wait for our allotment