Creation

Be careful, because there is a lot of Chinese propaganda out there, trying to demonize Tibet to justify the Chinese occupation. On the other hand, Tibet was essentially a Medieval society pre-occupation. The social structures were eerily similar to Medieval Europe, right up into the 20th century. Now if anyone gets upset by me saying that, I wonder, is that because of the modern idea that that the Medieval period in Europe was a backwards Dark Age and the Catholic Church the most corrupt and wicked institution of all time? Westerners have such a tendency to crap on their own heritage, and only remember the bad stuff. And as an antitheses to this, Westerners interested in Buddhism have a tendency to only see the good in Buddhism. In this very thread, look at everyone trying to say, "Oh but it's not as bad as Catholicism." Like that is anything but propagating the culture meme that the Catholic Church is awful. Gelugpas persecuted "heretics", there was pederasty in monestaries, priests and monks were wealthy while peasants were poor, all just like in Medieval Catholicism. But like HandsInTime said, that's just people! The force of culture is very strong. Spiritual teachings, whether those of Christ or Buddha or anyone else, necessarily mix with politics, economics, and all sorts of human frailties embedded both within individual psyches and cultures. There are necessarily certain ills that are looked over until it comes to a head and a major revolution or reformation happens. That pattern is repeated throughout history. That's just how it works. And I don't blame it on "Organized Religions" as a category either because religion, to me, is a basic organizing principle in human culture that just is, like politics and economics. So do excuse the Dalai Lama if his agenda is not what you think it should be. And don't be to quick to try to go on a crusade to change something that is not even part of your culture. That's my advice anyway, not that anyone asked for it.

I was moved when I saw the current Kalu Rinpoche admit to being sexually abused in the monastery. You could tell that he had a lot of unprocessed emotion around the issue. I thought to myself, "Here is a guy who has had all these responsibilities thrust upon him, and there is probably nothing in his monastic training or personal milieu that would enable him to work through his issues." Perhaps change could happen if more "big names" "came out" about the issue. Anyway, sexual abuse of women also happens in Buddhism, especially if the abuser thinks they can get away with it by calling it "Tantra". On the other hand, as far as Westerners coming along and passing judgement about what should or shouldn't be done goes, well, I think that as a culture we have all this baggage in the criteria we use to judge and the assumptions we make about sexual relationships. I see a lot of self-righteousness, and demonizing of things that are not themselves the real issue.

I pointed out in a previous thread that Stillness-Movement was related to Longmen Pai, and Wu Liu pai is an offshoot of Longmen Pai, but from all I've read there can be tremendous variance in methods related in name. For example, what I've read on Shen Laoshi's blog about Wang Liping's Ling Bao methods does not seem very similar to the Wu Liu methods in say, Taoist Yoga or Hu Xuezhi's site. Scotty also seemed to notice the dissimilarity. To use a metaphor, even if two people are driving the same place, their cars can be very different, and even if the cars look the same they can have very different engines. The latter meaning surface level similarities does not mean the same type of underlying "energetic technology" is being used, which may very well be the case with the similarities you see between Stillness Movement and Jiuyangshengong. In fact I suspect that is the case, because a lot of methods can seem simple and induce spontaneous movement. What is happening under the hood can be very very different.

From "A Light Warrior's Guide to High Level Energy Healing" book, p. 80: White Cloud Temple being the main temple of Long Men sect, as you probably know.

If I recall correctly, it is said that Grandmaster Hu Yaozhen was an adept at both martial and medical qigong, and Taoist and Buddhist spiritual qigong, and synthesized all this knowledge in creating Jing Dong Gong. Moreover, he was a White Cloud temple initiate, so presumably the Taoist spiritual qigong he knew came from Long Men Pai. Though in such a synthesis, you would only keep what you thought was relevant from each.

I figured it was something like that . Thanks for clarifying. But it stands that Kunlun+red phoenix is the method for GDB, and I maintain that that is not Dan Dao. Max is quite the synthesist. If you read some of the stuff on Hu Xuezhi's site, you will notice an uncanny similarity to "Taoist Yoga", though he does not explicitly say it is Wu-Liu pai. I am convinced it comes from the same sect. Also, there is someone in Russia teaching Wu-Liu alchemy. One of the students of this school posted here briefly, can't remember his name though.

Right, what I have been calling alchemy in this thread is "Dan Dao", "Way of the elixir", that traces back to Ancestors Zhong and Lu. There are Chinese (i.e. those dating to before Ancestor Lu), Indian (e.g. Kriya Yoga), and Tibetan (e.g. Dzogchen) methods which do not follow the Dan Dao model but are, generally speaking, alchemical, and lead to light body/immortal body type attainments. I also am quite convinced that there are many different types of light body attainments, for example rainbow body is a completely different thing than the egress of the immortal fetus. Now, I respect your path and I know that you have read and practiced widely. But really, Kunlun (spontaneous + red phoenix) does not even seem remotely similar to the Wu-Liu alchemy described in Taoist Yoga. No hoarding of jing in the lower dan tian, gathering of the alchemical agents into the lower dan tian, plunging the spirit into the lower dan tian (does kunlun even use the lower dan at all?) all to create an elixir which as it continues to be refined eventually egresses as the immortal child... Gold dragon body seems quite different than the egress of the immortal fetus of the Dan Dao, much more like rainbow body, what with the body dissolving into light and all. I really wonder what similarity you see is?

Actually, it was the other half of my statement that is what I think distinguishes MCO in alchemy and qigong: the creation of the elixir in the lower field. So as far as the MCO goes, it is a question of what is it that is circulating. There are methods of cultivating the lower field that eventually lead to automatic circulation of the MCO that I don't think count as alchemy. Think "low level" vs. "high level". The dan is something very special that I will not claim to understand. But I will say that I don't think the idea that it is a ball of qi does it justice. How could that lead to enlightenment/immortality?

LOL, I thought that was implicit in my response. Anyway, MCO is NOT an alchemical process unless it starts on it's own after creating elixir in the lower field. If MCO is practced with mental intention, it is qigong. Don't be fooled by the marketing hype. Mantak Chia's material is qigong, not alchemy. Not to mention those masters who are publicly teaching Wu Liu Pai alchemy methods... As questionable as the exclusivity claim is, equally questionable to me is the claim that Kunlun at all resembles Wu Liu Pai alchemy. From everything I've heard they are extremely different, like apples and oranges.

Hi Dreamlight Fugitive. First of all, welcome to the forum. Second, welcome to the world of trying to cultivate from books and the internet in a location where nobody around you knows or cares to know about energetic cultivation. There are an enormous variety of systems out there each with their own methods and progressions, even though they use the same basic framework of channels, dan tians, jing/qi/shen, etc (And that's just the Chinese systems. Indian and Tibetan systems use a completely different framework). Some systems more similar than different, some are more different than similar. And they have different focuses: health, longevity, martial ability, and spiritual development are some examples. And the same systems might have different levels which have different focuses. As a wise person once said to me, welcome to the mindfuck. Many of your questions arise because Mantak Chia's teaching and the method described in Taoist Yoga are completely different systems. Many here read Taoist Yoga and draw knowledge and inspiration from it, but no one I know of uses it for their main practice. And there are a handful of ex-Healing Tao practitioners here, but I can count the number of current Healing Tao practitioners on here on one hand, and they don't post much. In other words, the answers you are getting are not necessarily from the perspective of the systems you are asking about. Maybe that will help you make sense of the answers you get.

I have looked through both, and it seems to me that Kundalini Tantra is like extracting the essence of The Systematic Course. Right, but Satyanada puts some stuff in print that Sivananda never did. For example, Sivananda's version of Kriya Yoga.

Down to earth description of an immortal body? What would really provide some understanding on the matter would be a sufficiently "out there" understanding of the ordinary body. Because spirits coming down to Earth is anything but down to earth, whether they do so in mortal or immortal bodies.

That is one possible means of reconciliation. Another might be that the descriptions in the Bardo Thodol are talking about the lower soul vs. the stuff in Newton's book is talking about the higher soul. I sure don't know the details.

In my conceptualization of things, this is what happens when a persons' causal body (shen) and/or astral body (chi) are strongly manifesting through their physical body (jing). Which level(s) are coming through result in distinctly different feelings of "juice". So, generally speaking, to get it you need to either cultivate those more subtle aspects of your being, or cultivate your physical body's ability to channel them onto this level of reality, or better yet, both.

Specifically, the Bardo of transmigration, since Tibetans consider all states to be a type of Bardo. Speaking of which, what really strikes me is just how much this material contradicts the Tibetan Bardo teachings. In that view, the journey from one form to another is mostly unconscious and driven by primal desires, and takes a couple of months max. The idea of spending time in a spiritual place for a while before consciously choosing your rebirth is completely antithetical to this. When a westerner mentioned reports of seeing long dead relatives in NDEs to the Dalai Lama, he said that it must have been their imagination because their dead relatives would have already found new bodies. That makes you wonder about some things...

I have read Clyman and Liao's books and seen some of their videos. I practice Clyman's stickman when I want a strong sense of personal space or to get my body's energy flowing (if I feel like I am in a relatively energetically clean environment). One thing I want to emphasize is I am not rating anybody. I am not trying to convince you "Liao's stuff is better than Clyman's, you should stop practicing what you are practicing." I am just saying that Clyman's neigong and Liao's neigong are different, even thought Clyman's is derived from Liao's. Well if that's how you are defining yuan chi, your posts make a lot more sense. Alright then, there is no reason for me to continue this discussion.

Not to speak for mjjbecker, but Stillness Movement does this, and from what I have heard about Mo Pai and Longmen Pai methods, they also do something like this. And for the record, I am not a "Temple style Tao Gong" practitioner. I do practice Stillness Movement though.

Right. Clyman doesn't even talk about yuan chi, so when practicing his methods, why even bring in that concept? Because of what you read in Liao's books right? So what does Liao say is the defining characteristic of yuan chi? How do you cultivate it and how do you know if you have experienced it? At any rate, I don't think the defining characteristic of Yuan Chi is that it creates really powerful sensations. I think you are mixing up different systems again. Buddhist tantra has very specific methods to transmute and purify negative energy. They don't create the fire using negative energy, the fire that they create is used to purify the negative energy. This is a valid system, and indeed it is completely different from what Liao does. Clyman's system does not address this in the first place. As for the practices that transmute the body into light, that is WAY beyond pushing and pulling energy around. How did you get yuan chi out of Tummo practice? Again, just what do you think this "yuan chi" stuff even is?

Dorian, In Clyman's system you suck energy in. You don't suck in from the Tao or anything like that, you just suck it in from your surroundings. No consideration is given to the quality or purity of this energy. That is the huge difference that I can see between Clyman and Liao's system. Liao's stuff about purifying your energy and connecting to the "One Chi" of the Tao are simply not in Clyman's system. And with condensing, in Clyman's system you just suck whatever in and condenses it all in movement of intention, whereas in Liao's system you first work to connect to a more pure form of energy and bring it into your body, and then condense that. Needless to say, I find your claim that Clyman's form of condensing breathing is the "indoor" method in the Temple Style to be groundless. It seems much more likely to me that it was his own modification of Liao's system, based on his idea of how neigong should be practiced. If you want to practice his version, I wish you well in your endeavor, but I think it would be totally wrong to equate his stuff with Liao's methods, or think that Clyman's stuff has anything to do with the "One Chi" that Liao refers to.

Hi Leviticus. I think it's good that you don't want to just do what someone says, because a lot of the stuff out there isn't that great, but at the end of the day a lot of good teachers (especially if they are "old school") will want you to just practice instead of talking about it. So there is a trust issue. There are plenty of good books to read for the theory part, thought that has a way of getting people more confused it their teacher does it different than the author of the book they read. Anyway, different teachers have different emphases. For what reason do you want to get serious about energy cultivation? Here are some teachers I like, all of whom are Westerners, so no language barrier, but who did study the traditional stuff: 1. If you are interested in the Indian traditions, and are a. hardcore interested "enlightenment" or "liberation", the quicker the better: Mark Griffin b. interested in yogic physical culture, diet, sexuality, etc. along with the work towards liberation: Tao Semko 2. If you are more interested in Chinese traditions, and are a. interested in energy healing or shamanism: Michael Lomax b. interested in marital arts or emotional and physical health practices: Bruce Kumar Frantzis

Hence the name. "jing gong" = still qigong "dong gong" = moving qigong "Jing Dong Gong" = both simultaneously I remembered last year when this was posted: I thought that all they guys who were interested in Mo Pai would be on the next flight to Missouri when they read this. I don't think that happened though. I've never read Magus of Java, but I get the feeling that Michael doesn't have the same mystique as John Chang. Or rather, he has a different type of mystique.

There is an important distinction between these. A teacher of the dharma helps sentient beings eliminate the causes of the negative mind states you mention. Sick qi arises as a result of these (and other) things. Elimination of both is important, because sick qi in turn creates more suffering and unsavory mind states, and on the other hand without eliminating the cause you will just accumulate more.

As a child I had many of tornado dreams, despite never having seen a tornado in real life. None for the past few years that I recall, but in the last few months I had two where I witnessed giant meteors crasing into the Earth. Since that is so much more severe, I voted for "recently" and "end of the world". I personally interpreted those dreams in terms of my own psyche and life situation. In the first I found myself in the sky halfway across the world looking down and seeing the tsunamis as tiny ripples on the ocean thinking "that doesn't look so bad from up here". In the second, there were robots from a space ship trying to teach get us to activate these machines to prevent the meteor strikes. We couldn't, and I was caught in the shock wave from the second strike. I was taken severely wounded (I could see the bones in my arm because the flesh had disintegrated) to the ship, where I found out that the ship was humans from the future trying to find a way to avert the disaster. When they realized they couldn't, they intentionally quickened the strikes by sending the robots (the machines attracted the meteors rather than preventing them) and took us to the ship as sacrifices in their experiment to reset time so they could try to prevent the disaster again. And they had done it countless times before. I refused to participate, and sat in the cabin of the ship waiting for the experiment to start. Which seems to me to be a very elaborate metaphor for my own mental processes. Also a potentially awesome science fiction movie.

Well, in both the Pali Suttas and the Yoga Sutras, cultivation of karuna appears in a set of of four attitudes, the others being metta/maitri (lovingkindness), mudita (sympathetic joy), and uppekha/upeksha (equanimity). As I see it these form a set, only together do they cover all the bases of relating to oneself and others in a positive, virtuous way. Which makes them wonderful to cultivate, but they do no in themselves bring liberation. They are nevertheless recommended for those seeking liberation because they purify the mind of defilements and generate merit. But in some sense they are secondary to cultivation of prajna and/or samadhi. But in Mahayana, karuna is singled out of this list to be equated with equal importance as the cultivation of wisdom in the pursuit of liberation. It is said that the perfect wisdom of a bodhisattva is inseparable from his or her perfect compassion. I must admit that I do not understand this teaching. Like I said, to me karuna makes most sense along with the other three brahmaviharas, as a virtue to cultivate. Actually, I have some ideas on the matter but I am not sure if I want to talk about them in this venue.

Thanks for the info dwai. But speaking of nuances, I get the impression that the meaning implied by karuna to a Mahayanist is quite different than to a practitioner of another dharmic tradition, even Theravada. Sort of like in the English language there are scientific terms with very technical meanings that someone who is a native English speaker wouldn't necessarily know the nuances of, but a scientist speaking another language might do perfectly fine with the technical concept because of his training, without knowing the subtleties of the etymology of the English word.