Cameron

doh!

And hit me up if you ever return to Phx you Tao freak!

Ok so maybe this is a stupid thread. Still doesn't change the fact excessively loud people should consider why they need to be so damn loud though.

Care to ellaborate what exactly you mean by "Getting punished for this" ? Time for tea..

Another Aussie, welcome! I have a goal to visit the motherland(Australia) for a few months after I get my MBA in a couple years(hopefully). get some fish'n chips in Sydney harbor and then drive into the outback! Or the Great Barrier Reef if I get real adventurous. G'day!

Yes, that is a nice goal. And I will try my best to remember what you have said next time I want to violently hurt people(kidding). My Mom is a fellow Aussie like yourself and she is one of the most loving people I know. but that is just her naturual personality. My natural personality is probably to be an a-hol but cultivation methods have helped me become a more loving person Have you checked out Fusion? You basically neutralize negative qi/emotions and then turn it back into unconditional love or what Winn(and I) prefer to call unconditional acceptance. anyway, I think all these practices are oriented in that direction at a higher level. Most strongly would be in the greatest kan and li(Atleast from what I understand) Where you basically learn to merge your heart with the Sun and get to this divine love stage. Or primordial qigong also for that matter has the same goal I think in a movement form. This is a deep question no doubt about it. Something I have thought about ALOT.

Also.. In his book Honoring the Medicine Ken Cohen has this great story about how his teacher tested him by sending all this negative energy at him and Cohen responded by sending love back. So I definetly agree this is probably the higher level to be on. He basically says if you send more negative chi in response to the negative chi attacking you you actually make the sorceror or whoever stronger. So, from this perspective, you should actully love everyone even your enemies . Didn't Jesus talk about this? No, I am not at that level but defiently a nice goal to have.

Love is nice .but I am not down with that love everyone unconditionally crap. I am a warrior and if you cross me I will cross you back. Obviously if we were all on the vibration no problem it's all good but the reality is there are quite a few unloving, fucked up people in this world. You have to be balanced about love like everything else. in my opinion the ancient Taoists saw the value in love but didnt' push the whole you have to love everyone silly vibe. They were more realistic and pragmatic. But if you are really at that level props!

I think the Great White has to be the hands down scariest creature on the Earth. A prehistoric killing machine! Of course, I did see a video once of a Killer Whale owning(as in ripping to pieces) a Great White but when I think of a KW I think of Shamu..more huggable than scary. What is more scary than GWS? Could you imagine being in the ocean and having one of those things swim near you? And the GWS's from prehitoric times(Megalodon?) was like 10 times bigger! There was a 100 ft long GWS swimming in the oceans millions of years ago! Damn, this planet has had some wild shit.

I am impatiently waiting for the time when we could all just virtual meet in our living rooms and talk to holograms of eachother created by lasers or something. Honestly that technology can't be that far off.

Or Proffesor Xavier... http://x700.putfile.com/videos/c7-24618444246.wmv

I was wondering from thos pics of your place whether you lived in a loft or something. I was actually going to ask you about this. But a converted Cookie warehouse! How did you find this gem?

To continue where I left off... I did 3 Winn workshops in Asheveille. In the first workshop which covered qigong fundamentals I learned some neat practices but the main thing I remember is hearing about a practice Winn wasn't teaching that weekend . I was having dinner with Winn and two ladies at a restaurant in Asheville and Winn all of a sudden mentioned a practice called " Primordial qigong" and that he would begin teaching this practice soon. What struck me was not so much what he said but how he said it. Whatever it was, this primordial qigong thing seemed like Winn though it was pretty heavy duty and worth learning. The next two workshops were Fusion 123. The beginning stages of taoist alchemy . I got to learn about how the body or personaility is not made up of one soul but many. These shen are like a soul team that manages your life collectively. This looking at your self and spiritual practice as a teamwork and getting these different aspects of your consciousness together through the practices sounded very cool. it also made alot of sense from seeing how people often behave differently in different situations or have different aspects of there personality come out. After I returned from the last Fusion class Eric Yudelove had released his long awaited book " Taoist Yoga and Sexual Enegy". This book covered many of the practices I was learning about and then some. Fusion, Standing meditation, bone marrow breathing, along with a host of sexual alchemy formulas. In one of my last emails with Eric he said this book was his masterpiece and it would be very smart for me to do the program. I think for whatever reason I was a little biased towards Eric for his online behavior but have since realaized I was maybe being immature . Here is a guy married for decades to woman he called the "Litle Fox' that had just died. He actually had dedicated his book to her. Obviously this kind of thing must have been hard and it was just bad timing he had to live this tragedy online and share his pain with others. Perhaps in retrosepct it was a blessing. I still never completed Eric's program but am thinking of getting around to it one of these days. For the last few years I have been basically returning to my roots. Zen and the original qigong stuff I learned from Ken Cohen book and tapes. I think Cohen is a solid teacher and got to meet him last year. He doesn't teach any of the exotic sexual alchemy formulas the Eric and Winn teach but his stuff is based on practices that have had a lot of benifit in terms of improving peoples health, increasing qi etc. I have also gotten into Ron Teeguarden's Dragonherbs and doing his 100 days program. I think Chinese tonic herbs and especially Teeguardens products are great. I am leaving out alot but that is basically how I got into this stuff, what has attracted me so far and where I am at.

Seagal is definetly one of the giant characters around. He is actually a recognized Tulka, or reincarneted Tibetan Buddhist Master, by some high Tibetan Rinpoche. You could probably do a web search on it . In any case, alot of people into martial arts diss him but the reality is if not for that interview or him being such a loud proponent of Buddhism and Zen and Aikido I may have never even checked any of this stuff out. Of course it hard to say something like that who knows. everyone has there little story like that. Michael Winn picked up a book about Kundalini Yoga in a bookstore one day, Ken Cohen accidently picked up a book on Chinese language one day. I just accidently read a local papers interview with Seagal and he said Zen and Mysticism were the main thigns he studied. I figured if they would help me become a badass what the hell

My grandfather is friends with this guy who is a billionaire..literally one of the 4 richest men in Iran..I got to have dinner with him and saw him operate for a day in NY years ago. Anyway, this guy was short, like 5' 2" and totally inconspicuous. Normal clothes, normal speech(in Farsi) absolutly nothing special or out of the ordinary about him. The only thing that stuck out at all about him was that he was playing or perhaps praying with his prayer beads ALL DAY LONG. Any time I would see him, if he was not engaged in a conversation or a meal he was constantly focused on his beads and having them play through his fingers over and over and over. I was told this guy is worth like 8 billion so must be something to those beads. Then again My little sister does her Catholic Rosary every night and is a moderatly paid artist in NYC so not saying prayer beads guaranantee tremendous wealth or anything

Winn has spoken about this. He mentioned in a class that an older woman who got a organ donated(I forgot which one) from a teenager(dead) . Afterwards she all of a sudden started lsitening ro rock music and eating alot of fast food or something. Whether this implies the shen of the teenager went into the woman or perhaps the organ itself had developed certain tastes over time I don't know. Suffice to say having the organs that were inside your body in someone elses body is not a casual matter. Though my guess is those who put little worth in this life(Christians for example) would say it is the thing to do. I may actually be one I can't remember. Don't you decide this when your getting you liscence renewed?

Matt Furey has come out with a new product. He is calling it " China's secret long life excercises". I was the first on the old HT forum to get into Furey. His original book, combat conditioning, remains one of the best things you can check out. I also have gotten alot out of his Magnetic Mind Power and even the Gama Fitness course. this new course would obviously atleast sound interesting to us taoists. Furey claims to teach three secret acupressure excercises that have never been taught and will add decades to your life. If this is all true, obviously the $200+ price tag for 3 DVD's is not all that bad. However, I remember Rosinke coming here awhile ago and saying the $400 Furey Taoist sex course was the biggest pile of shit he had ever bought. Anyway, the website if you want to check it out it.. http://www.chineseculturesecrets.com/long_life.html I will probably wait until someone on dragondoor buys it and gives it a review but maybe the daring Master Yoda will go for it.

What charities do you guys give to? I appreciate Sean putting up the link to Red Cross, from what I have heard it one of the best to give to. Any other causes TTB's feel strongly about giving to? Why? Also, how much do you think is appropriate to give? Rosinke told me to pick a charity you care about and give 10% of your income to it without fail. I have heard of the very wealthy raising lots of money for people with fundraisers and this sounds like something very good to me. I am not very wealthy but people that I know who are seem to make this a natural part of there life. Giving back to the community. Thoughts?

That's right! Who needs charities! World domination is where it is at! COBRA!!!

My dad just got back from Iran. I would like to visit at some point but my mom is Australian so if I am going to visit any of the families homelands it would be the outback!

Pay no mind to Master Yoda!! He was a hippie!! A Goddamn tree huggin' acid trippin' fun lovin' Georgia hippie!! Implement the changes Sean! We need CONTROL!! seriously whatever the consensus it's all good

Ok I feel I should also mention something Eric Yudelove told me years ago. For better or for worse, Yudelove is a guy who has been doing these practices his whole life and I think knew a thing or two before he dropped off the face of the Earth. When we used to communicate back in the day I was a stupid, immature 23 year old kid and he was going through alot of personal stuff. It would be interesting if Eric dropped back in one of these days(maybe Sean could invite him?). In any case, he told me that it is crucial in the sexual energy practices to connect the sexual energy with smiling energy. Whenever you work with sexual energy always add the inner smile to it and these two techniques should go hand in hand. So the way it would go the sexual energy comes up and you add the smile to it and smile golden sun energy into the testicles, smile, and circulate the smiling sexual energy through the orbit. I can't say I have gotten there yet but then all the HT beginning practices would merge into on practice. Obviously healing sounds could be done afterwards or even during solo/dual sex. I am thinking of doing Eric's Taoist Yoga and Sexual Energy program again. I never finished it just practiced some of turning the yin yang water wheels and bone marrow breathing that were very nice.

BTW, I didn't realize it until I got into BJJ that Furey is pretty much distained by real fighters or martial artists. I think when his original combat conditioning came out there was alot of buzz and now you have all kinds of trainers developing body weight programs. One Jiu Jitsu guy referrs to Furey as a " Snake oil salesman". The reality is the combat conditioning program is basically one part of the physical culture of the Indian Wrestlers. It is the foundation of there conditioning program but they do tons of other stuff along with it. But those simple body weight excercises are great and should be viewed as ancient excercises practiced by many people and not assocciated just with one man(Furey). Lately, it seems he is really focusing on the Chinese stuff, the sex course and now this. He had a falling out with the guy that taught him combat conditioning years ago and this man(Karl Gotch) has called Furey a liar. I still respect Furey for what he has done in bringing a great program combat conditoning to the masses but for whatever reasong more than few poeple seem to dislike him. Pavel Tsatsouline and the dragondoor crew, on the other hand, seem to be pretty well respected.

Awesome thread..one of the best ever..good job tackling big issues guys. The way I currently see it(may be completely wrong so discard view at your liesure ) I was having a discussion with a cowoker today about diet and excercises role in getting in shape. I went over all the different theories for myself. How the raw foodists say you need to fast and cut out all junk food and purify the body and go through all this shit, the high protien people say basically the same thing but with a completely opposite diet. You have all kinds of diets..which in this case I would like to make the far reaching comparison to sexual energy techniques, to basically accomplish the goal of losing weight. So I was going over this and came to the theory that for me this is a useless approach. For me it is really about being active and developing the overall lifestyle of being active(more excercise, being outdoors more, martial arts) that sets the tone for my life and gives my body the necissary training. After that, and I will make the far reaching comparision of excercise to qigong and meditation, the diet thing would fall into place naturally. It would not be something I would need to force but would be the natural progression from all my physical activeness and training. So, going along these lines, I would say that for me, retention is definetly not the goal but rather the natural progression of my qigong lifestlye. Once the energy gets really refined(and I would not say I am at the point yet) and so much bliss and qi is flowing, you would probably do retention(or maybe not like some others say) naturally. Just like after a couple hard hours of Jiu Jitsu or some combat conditioning I am not thinking to gorge myself on donuts but to have some healthy food. Anyway, this is my current take, focus on training and creating the overall lifestlye and the other stuff will fall into place . If it hasn't fallen into place it's not so much the failing of the sexual energy technique but the overall meditation or qigong practice.

I always knew Sean was old school but he has really represented with the Voltron reference. Those things were worth more than gold when I was a little bastard. Now you know and knowing is half the battle!(Will Sean spot this reference?)