Jonah

Thanks Ian and Taoist81, Appreciate your feedback! I have read much of alchemicaltaoism and it is an awesome site. I have learned an amazing amount from it. The tingling is not painful in any way but it is fairly consistent and persistent. Physiologically it is annoying, but I believe the bigger issue is psychological. The Deer Exercise (PC muscle exercises), Healing Love, Dr. Lin's method, the aneros, the crystal wand, and Jack Johnston's Male Multiple Orgasm method have all dramatically increased sexual pleasure beyond standard ejaculation. My orgasms are much more whole body in nature. For that I am glad. However, a good chunk of the new pleasure comes from the entire perineum, prostate and anus area and I hate to say it but this brings up a lot of internal homophobia. It does feel good but I also feel a bit strange about using the aneros and the crystal wand. I feel like these tools are subtly rewiring my sexuality so that I may now need prostate stimulation to clear up any sexual stagnation. Now possibly needing to have something shoved up my butt to feel sexually satisfied really weirds me out, and is not a position I want to be in. So that's it in a nutshell, no pun intended. I am looking for ways to move the sexual energy out of my prostate and anus so that I can enjoy the above practices at my leisure, not because I feel that they are the only tools that will get the job done. Hope that makes sense. Thanks, Jonah

The Independent June 4, 2007 Women can be as violent as men, says Lessing By Thair Shaikh Doris Lessing, the novelist and feminist icon, said that women could be warmongers and as violent as men, in a speech yesterday. Speaking at the Hay on Wye Festival, Lessing, 87, said that although history suggested women were peaceful, some of the worst crimes had been committed by females. "There is a lot of sentimentality about women. We like to think that women are kind and motherly and are not going to go to war. But it's not true, is it? "History suggests women are peace loving and law abiding - on the contrary some of the worst crimes have been committed by women," she said. Promoting her latest novel, The Cleft, Lessing was asked by a woman in the audience how men could be stopped from constantly taking the world to war. "Well, I never noticed that women who get to be Prime Ministers are particularly peaceful!" she said, in what appeared to be a thinly veiled reference to Margaret Thatcher, the former Tory PM who was leader during the Falklands War. Her latest book is about a mythical society free of males in which a member suddenly gives birth to a male. As an author who has been strongly identified with feminism, her remarks are likely to offend many of her fellow female writers. However, Lessing has attacked feminists before - in a speech at the Edinburgh book festival in 2001, she defended men against what she called the "unthinking and automatic rubbishing" by feminists. Lessing was born in Persia (now Iran) and was brought up in what was then Southern Rhodesia. She came to Britain in 1949 and became a feminist figurehead with her classics The Grass is Singing, a story set in colonial Africa, and The Golden Notebook, about a female writer's descent into madness. She went on to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times. In April she was nominated for the international version of the Booker Prize for fiction. And in 2001, she won the David Cohen literature prize for her lifetime's achievement.

Sorry babe, technology is making you redundant as well. Scientists are well on their way to creating artificial wombs, making you and your "mother power" completely irrelevent, and allowing men to bypass you and your evil ways with a smile on their face. http://www.popsci.com/popsci/futurebody/dc...ecbccdrcrd.html Technology can be a bitch, huh? Literally!

Interesting article from a couple of years ago. While some of you I know will not agree with the entire article, I do think the main point he makes is hardly controversial: in today's media culture, men are bad, & women are good. Any discussion of women's bad behaviors or their dark side is still fairly taboo in this culture. Women are almost always seen as victims if anything bad goes wrong. And, of course, men are almost always the oppressors. The problems in this world are never seen as co-created by both men and women. Only the men are to blame. Why is this? Are women incapable of making a difference in the world? Or is it that they can only do good, and never bad? Are Women Feminizing Men? By Matthew Fitzgerald On a Saturday evening in July 1995, a man named Rich Zubaty (author of Surviving the Feminization of America and founder of MENTOR, an organization advocating healthy masculinity) staged an impromptu rally in Harvard Square to protest the swelling tide of anti-male propaganda and the shaming of men in the media. Calling it "Take Back the Penis," Zubaty thought the rally would register only a minor blip on the sociological radar screen. But amid strident female shouts of "Lorena Bobbitt for Surgeon General," scores of frustrated men began to flock to his banner, all intent on demonstrating their intrinsic belief that "It's O.K. to be a man." That was over 10 years ago. Have guys like Zubaty ushered in a decade of change? Not really. The average guy is still P-whipped by our culture, emasculated by the media, forced to cater to women, and pressured to act in a "politically correct" manner. TV, movies and advertisements increasingly portray men as simple-minded buffoons and as pawns to female "strength" and "competence." At least books other than Zubaty's have appeared in the meantime -- The War Against Boys by Christina Hoff Summers, No More Mr. Nice Guy! by psychologist Dr. Robert Glover and Being a Man in a Woman's World by Dennis Neder -- all arguing that contemporary men are being robbed of their essential masculinity. But unfortunately, far more influential are movies like Mel Gibson's cotton candy pander-fest What Women Want , in which macho ad exec Nick Marshall (Gibson) loses a promotion to a female coworker because he doesn't understand that "It's a woman's world out there," and he only can redeem himself by learning to think like a female. So the problem remains. As women continue to usurp positions of power and influence, as our culture exponentially coddles and panders to the female gender, as "equal rights" come to mean a kick in the balls, our society has learned to deify women and demonize men. The message is clear: women are good, men are bad. And what men need, the females trumpet, is to be more like women -- to be thoroughly feminized. Any typical television sitcom tells the sad story. On Everybody Loves Raymond , the perpetually henpecked Ray Barone is expected to endure his wife Debra's bitchiness, lack of sexual desire and anti-male barbs as she castigates every aspect of his behavior. When he wants to take off for a couple of hours to play golf, he's "not taking care of his family" (the symbolism of her denying him golf -- his putter and balls -- should be obvious); when he wants to relax in front of the TV after a hard day on the job, he "never talks to her or shares his feelings;" and when he wants sex, he's "constantly mauling her." As every aspect of Ray's masculine nature is demeaned and belittled, he is portrayed as inferior to Debra, while she is lionized as a superior human being. If he does try to stand up for his male rights, she berates him mercilessly, usually threatening to withhold sex until he backs down and rolls over. No mention is ever made that he works all day to pay for her mortgage, car, clothing, food, insurance, and entertainment, while she spends her afternoons at home trying to learn how to cook meatballs, the most important ingredient of which, according to her mother-in-law Marie, is "love." Notice that no one points out that someone has to sweat and toil to pay for this "love." In essence, Ray is humiliated and punished because he acts like a man and not like the "perfect" Debra, a woman. His response? He apologizes -- Debra's right, he's wrong. He should be more sensitive, romantic and sharing of his feelings. He might just as well cut off his testicles and hand them over to her on a plate. Men who act like women The problem is that we are turning into a nation of Rays. The standard held up to us is entirely female. This can be easily witnessed in the rise of the "metrosexual," the straight man so feminized that, like a woman, he is obsessed with his appearance, daubs on makeup and opts for cosmetic surgery. Today, men are supposed to have "relationship skills," and they are expected to be capable of achieving "greater intimacy" and to openly express their emotions. They are supposed to be "soul mates" and to "communicate" like girlfriends, not act like testosterone-charged lovers. But at the same time, today's woman has still not shed her typical female hypocrisy; as usual, she still wants it both ways. When there's hard work to be done or bills to be paid, that's when she wants us to act like "real men." The result? A generation of guys totally bewildered, confused and disoriented. Let's face it: A man's needs are pretty minimal. All he really asks for is regular sex and a cold one. But instead, what he gets are allegations that he's "too aggressive" and trumped-up charges of "sexual harassment" for what is simply a natural appreciation of the opposite sex. If he wants to keep his job or go on a date, he's forced to endure a gut load of female bullying. The role of feminism It's tempting to blame the whole mess on the so-called "feminism" that has cut the heart out of Western culture. But mainstream "feminism" is a self-serving movement that grants societal license to female greed. The real culprit here is sex. As always, women -- shrewd and manipulating as they are -- know full well that most guys will do just about anything to get laid. So, as females feel their oats with their newfound power, they do what comes naturally to them: They use it for sexual blackmail. If guys want access to our bodies, they say, they're going to have to dance to our feminizing tunes. It's completely lost on today's woman that females are too emotionally immature, greedy and self-indulgent to do anything but abuse and misuse this power, and they can't see that their short-term selfish thinking really equates to shooting themselves in the foot. The truth is, men are supposed to be men and women are supposed to be women. Mother Nature has made us this way through five million years of evolution. And it's not nice to fool Mother Nature. Time to take it back So what can we do about it? It's time to take our territory back. Take back the penis. This is why Rich Zubaty's rally touched such a raw nerve. Men certainly didn't ask to have their territory redefined. But redefined it has been, right under our noses. Now it's time -- before it's really too late -- to stand up to women, to let them know that we're not going to take it anymore. As Zubaty writes: "Our job is not to get along with the Goddess. Our job is to f**k the Goddess." Amen.

I've heard excellent things about the Basque Country from friends who have visited there. Sounds like an amazing place. You say the Basque Country is a matriarchal society. I'm curioius to know what makes this so. Do husbands change their last names to that of their wives? In regards to family, does the eldest daughter automatically receive family inheritance of the estate? Are women the majority of the elected leaders and business owners within the community? I ask these questions because most modern-day sociologists and anthropologists now agree that historically there never has actually been a strictly matriarchal society. They call matriarchy "a hypothetical social system." It doesn't exist. Mothers and grandmothers are respected in most cultures around the world. (They have a saying here, "As American as baseball, Mom, and apple pie.") And most religions around the world have very strong female aspects -- the Madonna in Christianity, Kuan Yin in Buddhism, and Kali/Parvati in Hinduism. The diety of wisdom and warfare among the ancient greeks was a woman warrior, Athena. However, the fact that such cultures do honor the female does not make them matriarchies.

Timeless wisdom from one of our modern day sages:

No. That's not true. The number one cause of death throughout history has been infectious diseases. The plague, influenza, yellow fever, malaria, typhoid, etc. Historically, death through war and violence has been very low on the list of ways to die. In fact, even with all the wars going on around the world recently, according to a report by the World Health Organization in 2002, death by physical violence - both homicide and war combined - now accounts for less than 1% of all deaths worldwide annually. Less than 1%. War is truly hell, and is an absolutely horrendous event. Best to avoid if at all possible. But the fact is, it's been part of the human condition as long as recorded history and beyond. Even our closest relatives, chimpanzees, battle one another all the time. And the female chimps are just as violent as the males. http://www.inthenews.co.uk/news/science/sc...036;1085551.htm War isn't going away anytime soon. Despite the bloodshed, societies have become stronger, wealthier, healthier, and more technologically advanced because of warfare and military advances. A good chunk of the technology that we use for modern living - gas powered engines, planes, helicopters, computers, compact discs, headphones, GPS systems, cell phones, etc. were all initially developed for military purposes. Bottom line, people are living like the kings and queens of yesteryear thanks to the science, know-how, and technology developed by primarily by men and for use in warfare. Thank God we have had some peace for a while to enjoy all this cool stuff!

I would second that. I can understand, it is tempting to be a revisionist and look back and judge our ancestors. But the fact is, only up until the last 150-200 years, humans lived a very very difficult life of backbreaking work, with both men and women doing their absolute best to keep their families alive and pass something on to the next generation. Without adequate forms of birth control available most women not too long ago lived a life of siring 10-12 children, half of which would most likely die before age 5. Go into your local graveyard and take a look at the really old graves, you'll find nearly half of them are children! My grandparents were pretty smart cookies, and they made the best choices they could. And I have faith that so did their grandparents, and the grandparents before them. And so on. Given the incredibly difficult situations of the past I know that our ancestors made the choices that worked best, ones that kept the most people alive. Survival of the family and the group was paramount, and individuals took a backseat in many circumstances. The difference between now and then is staggering. We can now slowly unloosen the structures we have created over thousands of years and try new things. Some new things have worked, some haven't, and some are still experiments in process. As our environment became less harsh, we needed to work less, and we actually had something called "leisure time," both men and women had the opportunities to try things they had never been able to do. And this freedom really only kicked in for the masses in the past 100 years or so. We are standing on the shoulders of great men and women throughout the ages who struggled together to bring us to where we are now. And throughout all of recorded history, all around the world, all of our great achievements have been under the patriarchy. Now excuse me, I must go back into the den and smoke my tobacco pipe...

Let's take a look at what our friends at Wikipedia have to say about the patriarchy: Patriarchy describes the structuring of society on the basis of family units, in which fathers have primary responsibility for the welfare of their families. In some cultures, slaves were included as part of such households. The word patriarchy is often used, by extension, to refer to the expectation that men also take primary responsibility for the welfare of the community as a whole, and hence fulfil the duties of public office. The feminine form of patriarchy is matriarchy, but there are no known examples of matriarchies from any point in history. Encyclopia Britannica says it is a "hypothetical social system." The Britannica article goes on to note, "The view of matriarchy as constituting a stage of cultural development is now generally discredited. Furthermore, the consensus among modern anthropologists and sociologists is that a strictly matriarchal society never existed." Margaret Mead (a famous anthropologist) said, "All the claims so glibly made about societies ruled by women are nonsense. We have no reason to believe that they ever existed. ... men everywhere have been in charge of running the show. ... men have been the leaders in public affairs and the final authorities at home." Hmmm, looks like we were both wrong. There is no other option. Everywhere you look, every country you visit, every workplace you enter, it's the patriarchy! Oh the horror, the horror!!! ;-)

Patriarchy and matriarchy are just fancy words for the rule of the father and the rule of the mother. They are complementary forces just like yin and yang, male and female, and night and day. You certainly can't have one without the other, as they are completely synergistic and harmonious. To say that the rule of the father and the yang principle is harmful to humanity and that we would be better off without it, really doesn't even make any sense. And it goes completely against the symbolism of taoism, the swirling union of yin and yang. It would be like stating that heat is harmful to humanity and we should stick with the cold or that night is superior to the day. How can we get rid of just one force? (Also, when I hear someone talk about the "problems of the patriarchy" (and no offense to those who have) I generally think, oh boy, this person has some psychological issues with their own father that they should take a look at. In regards to women, The Onion had a great spoof on this last year: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/48978 ) Anyhow, Mom and Dad got together and created you. Mom birthed you and gave you nourishment through her breasts when you were a baby. We all love our mothers. But do we love our fathers as well? Moms are easy, warm and accepting. But Dads are a bit more difficult, as they represent boundaries and discipline. They push you. And lately it's been easy to shrug him off as too much work. It appears as if the attitude today towards fathers is just give us your sperm, pay the bills, and shut up. Mom provides comfort but if you want to stand on your two feet you need that push from Dad. We all have free will of course and if you want to keep on sucking on her breast long into adulthood that's your choice. But trust me, you'll get fat and lazy. In fact, a recent scientific has just proved this very point: the more strict and authoritarian your father is, the less likely you are to become fat and obese. http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/firm-d...7788466104.html Hmmm, I wonder why there is such an epidemic now of obesity in this country? ;-)

Having let a lot of silence into my soul over the years, I can say my gender has indeed blossomed. And what I find is that it is an animal. An animal that drives me with wild passion to strongly slam my girlfriend up against the wall, and push deeply against her body. She may struggle, she may giggle, or moan. But that's all surface, for when I reach behind her and grab hold of her hair, pulling her head back and exposing her neck, she surrenders to me completely. I love this. And so does she. We eventually strip ourselves of our masks, our conventions, and our clothes, and become completely naked, both physically and psychologically, so that we may both express our truest selves to one another. I am yang, and she is yin. It all makes sense in the bedroom, this dance of light and dark, hot and cold, power and yielding. When these two polarities combine, everything is created. (Including babies if we aren't careful.) The question then becomes, how far do we take this primordial dance of polarities that works so well between the sexes and apply it to our everyday behavior?

Thanks for that Sean, that was one of the funniest, and coolest, things I've seen in a long time! I'm going to have to check out more of his stuff, appreciate you giving us the heads up.

Some more food for thought - te as your present-moment karmic bank-account... From wikipedia: Translating te into English is problematic and controversial. Arthur Waley believed that te was better translated "power" than "virtue", and explained with a "bank of fortune" metaphor. "It is usually translated 'virtue', and this often seems to work quite well; though where the word occurs in early, pre-moralistic texts such a translation is in reality quite false. But if we study the usage of the word carefully we find that te can be bad as well as good. What is a 'bad virtue'? Clearly 'virtue' is not a satisfactory equivalent. Indeed on examining the history of the word we find that it means something much more like the Indian karma, save that the fruits of te are generally manifested here and now; whereas karma is bound up with a theory of transmigration, and its effects are usually not seen in this life, but in a subsequent incarnation. Te is anything that happens to one or that one does of a kind indicating that, as a consequence, one is going to meet with good or bad luck. It means, so to speak, the stock of credit (or the deficit) that at any given moment a man has at the bank of fortune. Such a stock is of course built up partly by the correct carrying out of ritual; but primarily by securing favourable omens; for unless the omens are favourable, no rite can be carried out at all. "(1958:31) Based on the cognate relation between te and zhi "to plant", Waley further noted the early Chinese regarded planting seeds as a te, hence it "means a latent power, a 'virtue' inherent in something."

"So saying this, why exactly are you stepping on this path? Is it because you want to grow as a human being or you want to become a part of a circus?" Good posting Smile. You hit the nail on the head. I do not doubt that there are individuals that have extraordinary skills that without training we would call supernatural. (And I do get pissed when they use outright deception to fake it.) The real issue is exactly why are you persuing these superhuman skills to begin with? Is it a search for power? Do you feel you will be a better person once you have such skills? Will you be more complete in a way that you are not right now? If you want to cure cancer with these skills, are you actively working right now to do what you can with your current skill level to help alleviate the pain of cancer patients? If you want to alleviate illness with these skills, are you right now helping those who are ill with the best of your abilities? Are you actively persuing right action and good deeds at the moment that will only be increased thanks to your newfound skills? I'm all for the pursuit of happiness, and I myself feel good about acquiring new skills and talents. There's nothing wrong thatm and it feels great. But as Smile pointed out, supernatural skills don't necessarily equal spiritual development. Electric eels can naturally shock people. Bears have no problem whatsoever hibernating all winter. And bears also can suck honey up with their penises straight out of a swarming beehive. Alright I made that last one up. Point is, if a human performs these same skills, does that make them much more spiritually evolved than us? No doubt they definitely have more skill than us at that particular activity, but to what end?

I agree with the recent postings, money is the way of the world, and we all need to charge for our services. Nothing wrong with that at all. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and if you can deliver the goods, people will be willing to pay. Most of the time, it is assumed that the more you pay for something, the better the quality it is. But sometimes you can also get ripped off. The marketing was good, the sales pitch won you over, and so you give over your hard-earned money to get something you think is worth it. It's a gamble, and sometimes you get your moneys worth, sometimes you don't. Caveat emptor -- "Let the buyer beware." This term has been around since the Roman times. There's always been honest merchants and dishonest ones, genuine teachers and snake-oil salesmen. There are charismatic individuals who are well-intentioned and give you what you pay for, and there are others who will sell ice to eskimos, and make a handsome profit getting away with it. We have lemon laws for cars and resources like Consumer Reports to determine what really is a good product and what is just marketing hype. We have tools like US News & World Report to rate universities, and students can rate their own professors online at http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ . We can go to rottentomatoes to see what a majority of critics think of a certain movie. Etc, etc. But spiritual teachers? There's no independent neutral rating system. The information you get is either through marketing info or testimonials from folks who have tried the teachings and are pleased with them. And the ones who aren't pleased, you may hear from time to time on boards like this. Not much to go on. The chi kung "master" in the video who admitted that his chi powers of moving bricks and glasses was just an "art performance" show, what kind of bullshit is that? Who would want to study under someone who would show off skills that they don't even have. It would be like going to a guitar teacher after hearing him play a bunch of Hendrix songs flawlessly and then finding out that he was just faking it with pre-recorded music. I'm not from the show-me state, but I do think it is wise to do your research and and indeed have some serious skepticism when it comes to extraordinary claims and seductive promises of eventual supernatural powers. Caveat emptor.

More definitive proof of chi power caught on film. This high-level master has the ability to walk through walls, levitate, and has taken the powers of healing water way beyond anyone else mentioned so far. His water has the ability not only to reverse aging, and heal a multitude of diseases, but it actually can bring near-dead things back to life. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtG6t6LcNAU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8qX0ZhzJBU http://www.exposay.com/david-copperfield-c...f-youth/v/3735/ (He also has supernatural abilities to date super-models despite having a cheesy appearance and mannerisms. Another indication of embodied Buddhahood.)

Witch, as much as Eric's first book "100 Days to Better Health, Good Sex and Long Life," has been invaluable to my own practice, I think his second book on sexual energy may not be as useful as actually talking one on one with another female who has experience and knowledge of sexual energetics and can help you out. Two women I know personally who have such experience are within the Healing Tao, and are both top-notch instructors. I think contacting them and seeing if they could help you manage your energy flow would be really beneficial. Karin Sorvik http://www.healingtaousa.com/cgi-bin/prod_list.pl?rteach=16 email - [email protected] Marie Favorito http://www.bostonhealingtao.com/rts/index.asp?siteid=1159 email - [email protected] Good luck! Jonah

Trunk, that's good shit! Excellent ideas you've been experimenting with, definitely going to try it out. I'm going to the sporting goods store tonight to get one of those balls. 1001 uses. Not only for the front channel, but I now can totally brush up on my dodgeball skills...

We need more studies like this: ( Original article -- http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/04.18/09-tummo.html ) Meditation changes temperatures: Mind controls body in extreme experiments By William J. Cromie Gazette Staff In a monastery in northern India, thinly clad Tibetan monks sat quietly in a room where the temperature was a chilly 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Using a yoga technique known as g Tum-mo, they entered a state of deep meditation. Other monks soaked 3-by-6-foot sheets in cold water (49 degrees) and placed them over the meditators' shoulders. For untrained people, such frigid wrappings would produce uncontrolled shivering. If body temperatures continue to drop under these conditions, death can result. But it was not long before steam began rising from the sheets. As a result of body heat produced by the monks during meditation, the sheets dried in about an hour. Attendants removed the sheets, then covered the meditators with a second chilled, wet wrapping. Each monk was required to dry three sheets over a period of several hours. Why would anyone do this? Herbert Benson, who has been studying g Tum-mo for 20 years, answers that "Buddhists feel the reality we live in is not the ultimate one. There's another reality we can tap into that's unaffected by our emotions, by our everyday world. Buddhists believe this state of mind can be achieved by doing good for others and by meditation. The heat they generate during the process is just a by-product of g Tum-mo meditation." Benson is an associate professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School and president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He firmly believes that studying advanced forms of meditation "can uncover capacities that will help us to better treat stress-related illnesses." Benson developed the "relaxation response," which he describes as "a physiological state opposite to stress." It is characterized by decreases in metabolism, breathing rate, heart rate, and blood pressure. He and others have amassed evidence that it can help those suffering from illnesses caused or exacerbated by stress. Benson and colleagues use it to treat anxiety, mild and moderate depression, high blood pressure, heartbeat irregularities, excessive anger, insomnia, and even infertility. His team also uses this type of simple meditation to calm those who have been traumatized by the deaths of others, or by diagnoses of cancer or other painful, life-threatening illnesses. "More than 60 percent of visits to physicians in the United States are due to stress-related problems, most of which are poorly treated by drugs, surgery, or other medical procedures," Benson maintains. The Mind/Body Medical Institute is now training people to use the relaxation response to help people working at Ground Zero in New York City, where two airplanes toppled the World Trade Center Towers last Sept. 11. Facilities have been set up at nearby St. Paul's Chapel to aid people still working on clearing wreckage and bodies. Anyone else who feels stressed by those terrible events can also obtain help at the chapel. "We are training the trainers who work there," Benson says. The relaxation response involves repeating a word, sound, phrase, or short prayer while disregarding intrusive thoughts. "If such an easy-to-master practice can bring about the remarkable changes we observe," Benson notes. "I want to investigate what advanced forms of meditation can do to help the mind control physical processes once thought to be uncontrollable." Breathtaking results Some Westerners practice g Tum-mo, but it often takes years to reach states like those achieved by Buddhist monks. In trying to find groups he could study, Benson met Westerners who claimed to have mastered such advanced techniques, but who were, in his words, "fraudulent." Benson decided that he needed to locate a religious setting, where advanced mediation is traditionally practiced. His opportunity came in 1979 when the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibet, visited Harvard University. "His Holiness agreed to help me," recalls Benson. That visit was the beginning of a long friendship and several expeditions to northern India where many Tibetan monks live in exile. During visits to remote monasteries in the 1980s, Benson and his team studied monks living in the Himalayan Mountains who could, by g Tum-mo meditation, raise the temperatures of their fingers and toes by as much as 17 degrees. It has yet to be determined how the monks are able to generate such heat. The researchers also made measurements on practitioners of other forms of advanced meditation in Sikkim, India. They were astonished to find that these monks could lower their metabolism by 64 percent. "It was an astounding, breathtaking [no pun intended] result," Benson exclaims. To put that decrease in perspective, metabolism, or oxygen consumption, drops only 10-15 percent in sleep and about 17 percent during simple meditation. Benson believes that such a capability could be useful for space travel. Travelers might use meditation to ease stress and oxygen consumption on long flights to other planets. In 1985, the meditation team made a video of monks drying cold, wet sheets with body heat. They also documented monks spending a winter night on a rocky ledge 15,000 feet high in the Himalayas. The sleep-out took place in February on the night of the winter full moon when temperatures reached zero degrees F. Wearing only woolen or cotton shawls, the monks promptly fell asleep on the rocky ledge, They did not huddle together and the video shows no evidence of shivering. They slept until dawn then walked back to their monastery. Overcoming obstacles Working in isolated monasteries in the foothills of the Himalayas proved extremely difficult. Some religious leaders keep their meditative procedures a closely guarded secret. Medical measuring devices require electrical power and wall outlets are not always available. In addition, trying to meditate while strangers attempt to measure your rectal temperature is not something most monks are happy to do. To avoid these problems, Instructor in Psychology Sara Lazar, a Benson colleague, used functional magnetic resonance imaging to scan the brains of meditators at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. The subjects were males, aged 22-45, who had practiced a form of advanced mediation called Kundalini daily for at least four years. In these experiments, the obstacles of cold and isolation were replaced by the difficulties of trying to meditate in a cramped, noisy machine. However, the results, published in the May 15, 2000, issue of the journal NeuroReport, turned out to be significant. "Lazar found a marked decrease in blood flow to the entire brain," Benson explains. "At the same time, certain areas of the brain became more active, specifically those that control attention and autonomic functions like blood pressure and metabolism. In short, she showed the value of using this method to record changes in the brain's activity during meditation." The biggest obstruction in further studies, whether in India or Boston, has always been money. Research proceeded slowly and intermittently until February 2001, when Benson's team received a $1.25 million grant from Loel Guinness, via the beer magnate's Kalpa Foundation, established to study extraordinary human capacities. The funds enabled researchers to bring three monks experienced in g Tum-mo to a Guinness estate in Normandy, France, last July. The monks then practiced for 100 days to reach their full meditative capacity. An eye infection sidelined one of the monks, but the other two proved able to dry frigid, wet sheets while wearing sensors that recorded changes in heat production and metabolism. Although the team obtained valuable data, Benson concludes that "the room was not cold enough to do the tests properly." His team will try again this coming winter with six monks. They will start practice in late summer and should be ready during the coldest part of winter. Benson feels sure these attempts to understand advanced mediation will lead to better treatments for stress-related illnesses. "My hope," he says, "is that self-care will stand equal with medical drugs, surgery, and other therapies that are now used to alleviate mental and physical suffering. Along with nutrition and exercise, mind/body approaches can be part of self-care practices that could save millions of dollars annually in medical costs." Meditation... Here the heart/May give a useful lesson to the head. - Cowper

Hand position generally palms down on legs. Sitting in chair or on the floor cross-legged.

Corey, All the recommendations above have been solid, any of them will give you a good start. Find someone local you can study with on a weekly/monthly basis. In the beginning you need contact with a human being, not books or videos. That being said, I would agree with Grand Trinity, and that a weeklong Chi Kung Fundamentals retreat at Michael Winn's Tao Mountain is definitely an excellent way to get some energetic foundation work in. God knows we all have had our issues with the Healing Tao, myself included, but the foundation work that Michael Winn is now teaching, I believe is very solid and safe. He will give you some real energetic insights that you can then apply to any other practice you will eventually move on to. Practice only the foundations for several years, there is no rush. Take your time. People want things quickly, but the reality is that any skill requires consistent practice. You will being doing foundation work for the rest of your life, there's no way around it. No supremely enlightened teacher is going to open your third-eye permanently with the flick of their finger, and give you the ability to skip years of foundation practice. You will advance only when you are ready. Healing Tao Fundamentals will give you a good energetic foundation. Healing Sounds, Inner Smile Meditation, The Microcosmic Orbit(Chi Kung and Meditation), Internal Chi Breathing, and Primordial Chi Kung are really treasures within the system. Very good foundation work, very useful. (The higher level meditations are too much to take on in the beginning, I would say they are better left until you're older. Keep it simple.) Definitely use Alchemicaltaoism.com as a good template for getting more out of the system. Keith Franzen has done an amazing job making it very user friendly and accessible to all. Body structure and martial arts you will have to find outside the Healing Tao. Practicing with a good internal martial artist (Tai Chi, Hsing I, Bagua) would be another good first step. Supplemental physical education materials that are excellent and well recommended are Lam Kam-Chuen's "The Way of Energy" and Scott Sonnon's Intu-Flow system. Basic knowledge of yoga stretches are also an excellent idea. Last but not least, don't get upset and expect everything to come from one system or teacher. Taoism is as vast as the universe itself, and every teacher you come across will have some amazing strengths as well as some very glaring weaknesses. We're all human, and even enlightened masters take a shit once a day. Bottom line, the higher you put your teacher on a pedestal the greater they will fall. Best of luck! Jonah

I hear ya brother. Again, I want to say that B.K. Frantzis's techniques are still excellent and I use many of them to this day, but not as a stand alone system anymore. I personally found that I needed other yang practices to balance them out. And hey, I'm all for bragging Starjumper. I've got to say it's really hard to be humble when you're as great as I am... lol Talk to you later.

Yeah, I agree, Chia's stuff was definitely over the top. "By my command" he would order the water to change. I thought it was a pretty funny presentation myself and I certainly didn't take it seriously at the time. But his principles were sound. The idea that water can hold frequencies is ancient and nothing new. Holy water in the Catholic church tradition, the magical reverence for Ganges water by Hindus, and water cleansing methods in shamanism are just several examples of many where water has been charged by priests or holy men and transformed into something more than a just nice cool drink. The David Shen news is good news in that it is prompting scientists to test these things. But I'm quite confident that you and I have the same ability to create such water, as does anyone else who has the inspiration. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely cool stuff, but certainly not something that requires super extraordinary skill, we all can do it. Water is a really awesome medium. Anyhow, that's all. Have to get back to my bottle of Eckhart Tolle water now. This stuff rocks! ;-) Bottoms up, Jonah

Glad to hear this information is finally getting out there. It's pretty cool stuff, hard to believe at first. Chia was doing this pretty hardcore back in the 1990s but I thought it was bullshit back then. Then a few years ago I came across the work of Dr. Masura Emoto, a Japanese researcher, who has done a lot of research on this and written several books on it, one of them topping the New York Times bestseller list. https://www.hado.net/ You don't need any special skills to do this, anyone can change the molecular structure of the water by putting it in a container and writing your intentions on the container or simply holding it with your intention. Emoto's research shows that after a few hours the molecular structure of a bottle with a label that says bliss looks dramatically different than one that says hate. Same goes with music. Put some water in a bottle and play Mozart in front of it for a few hours. The water tastes great. Same goes for Led Zeppelin. Although that tastes more like beer for some reason... lol Actually have had some amazing results playing Eckhart Tolle recordings in front of bottles of water for an entire night. That water is some of the best I've ever tasted. Super sweet.