Creation

Oh boy, a fun thread! Okay, I'll see if I can give some people some smiles, laughs, or nostalgia at remembering things you haven't thought of in a while. I don't like top ten lists so I made a Taobum awards and gave titles to interesting long-time forum members / frequent posters. Naturally it contains some good-natured teasing, please don't take any of it personally . <drumroll> Sean: Granted the title Master Moderator. For every Taoist knows the Master moderates without moderating. Yoda: Granted the title The Linchpin. What would Thetaobums be without Yoda? When things get rough, he is always there to smooth things out by being his wonderful green self. Despite being at the center of all the gossip, he remained a really nice guy. And thus also granted the title Mr. Taobum. Taomeow: Granted the title The Mysterious Female for being the Queen of Tao knowledge. Stigweard: Granted the title The Saint for always reminding us of Virtue and then modeling it for us, especially in his most admirable abilities in conflict resolution, and his modeling of non-action by staying out of drama. Mantra68: Granted the titles The Long-Suffering for endlessly putting up with questions about and attacks on on his teacher and practice, and The Advertiser for getting huge numbers of people into Kunlun. mat black: Granted the title The Shooting Star, because he very rarely posts but when he does it is always SO AWESOME! Mak_Tin_Si: Granted the title The Postmaster for posting with a greater frequency than any other TaoBum by an enormous margin. Ron Jeremy: GRANTED DA TITLE EXPERT O DA SHAGGIN' FOR REASONS DAT SHOULD BE CUMPLETLEY OBVIOUS TO ALL TAOBUMS WHO BE NOT PUSSYS. Cat: Granted the title The Guy's Girl keeping up with this sausage fest in such a graceful way. Vajrasattva: Granted the title Jedi Master for sending healing energy over huge distances to people he has never met in person. These day he does it by posting pictures! Also granted the titles Smile Master for using smiles (and all caps) to such great effect, and Troll-Friend for endlessly replying to people that he shouldn't even give the time of day. dao zhen: Granted the title The Illuminator for being a Taobums Godsend: A Longmen initiate living on Wudang who came here to openly share his extraordinary knowledge of real Daoist Nei Dan. WOW! I count myself very fortunate to have read what you wrote. Lin Aiwei: Granted the title The Role Model for growing up in America, living in China and studying the Dharma and the Tao, and coming back and living in society while cultivating and helping others with their cultivation. SFJane: Granted the title The Inspiring One for going from such hellish beginnings to a very respectable level of cultivation. fatherpaul: Granted the title of Sorely Missed May your spirit soar In the heavens. Cameron: Granted the title Flip-Flopper for saying he is going to leave about a hundred times before he actually did. Or did he... drew hempel: Granted the title The One-Postured for being obsessed with full lotus. Also granted the title of Psychic Stud for having O at a D's with young females while sitting in full lotus at McDonalds. Winpro07: Granted the title The Frustator for having deleted so many of his posts before I got the chance to read them. YMWong: Granted the title The Insider for giving us a much-needed Chinese perspective on all the stuff that is being exported to the West as "Daoism". Pietro: Granted the title Geek in the Pink for simultaneously being the resident intellectual and having mad PUA skills. (For those who don't know it is a song by Jason Mraz.) mantis: Granted the title The Precocious for being the only teenager to have over 1000 posts. Witch: Granted the title The Daring for trying to duel Max Christensen. She also has tons of orgasms... Buddy: Granted the title The Skeptic for being in IMA longer than most anybody here and not believing in anything paranormal. seandenty: Granted the title That Guy for simultaneously acting like a total jerk and being extremely interesting. (Although he seems to be much nicer these days.) Ya Mu: Granted the title The Sage because he does not flaunt his enormous knowledge and experience, and because keeps quiet so many times when others with less knowledge and experience jump in. DarinHamel: Granted the title The Iron Willed for faithfully practicing alchemy from a book while staying completely celibate for 10 years. goldisheavy: Granted the title His Royal Majesty for being so much better than everyone else. We are like the dirt stuck to the bottom of his boots, or the dirt stuck to the bottom of that dirt. --- I left out quite a few people I wanted to put on the list because I ran out of creative juice. Mal, SYD, shontonga, Spectrum, Freeform, and phore to name a few. And so many of people mentioned herein are not done justice by the one aspect of their postings that I have chosen to award them for, but what can I do? Peace to all.

Freeform: Who is your source for the five animal frolics? Michael Winn? I'm not so sure. I imagine K arising will open the thrusting channel, but OTOH one can get chi flowing in the thrusting channel quite apart from a K arousal. Ramon: I don't think I am too qualified to advise you other that tell you I think a "back to basics" or "building the foundation" approach is a good idea. Really try to quiet the mind, connect to your physical, energetic and emotional bodies, then dissolve the negative and cultivate the positive. Whatever helps you do this and whatever is done with this intention is probably OK. So for example, inner smile, secret smile, five element (Chinese and Indian) practices, any kind of stillness meditation (focusing on feeling the body, feeling the breath, and the lower field are good, though a simple mantra is better for me if my mind is racing) done sitting or standing, relaxed and natural breath regulation. Bone breathing is something that stands out as something you might want to save for later. With awakened Kundalini, you will have to be extra careful about overdoing any of these practices. Learning to sink your energy from your head to your neck to your chest, etc. all the way down to your feet and from there into the earth would be a really great skill to have. Best regards, Tyler

YES YES YES! Do exactly this! It's important to have a foundation for more advanced chi circulation type stuff (if you're into that in the first place) and you should only do that stuff if you have a teacher anyway.

The way you describe is how how it's done in KAP, but in all the traditional Taoist sources I've seen it's the way I described. But what the definition of the macrocosmic orbit is is not what's important. The point is you need to get all 8 going. The order may differ from system to system, so you want to find a complete system and stick to it.

The macrocosmic orbit = full circulation through all 8 extrodinary vessels, which are the Ren and Du (mCO), belt, thrusting, and 4 routes going through the limbs.

Perhaps this could be of some use to you: B.K. Frantzis describes an experience in his book Relaxing into Your Being where he basically got to the core of his being and fully experienced pure consciousness, and consequently completely understood that all the content of his consciousness (emotional, mental, psychic, karmic, whatever) was not who he really was. When he saw his teacher (the Immortal Liu Hung Chieh) the next time, before he even said anything, Liu asked him to describe what was different about him. Frantzis described what had happened, and Liu told him that he had seen the root of his mind, and in so doing he had cut the root of the mind. Now, this conversation occurred in Chinese, and so I think given the context, it is likely that Frantzis was translating Shen to mind, so another translation could have been he cut the root of his spirit. Frantzis says something about this stage of meditative realization in The Great Stillness (the sequel to Relaxing into Your Being, the great stillness being the term he uses for the meditative state presently under consideration) that he doesn't really explain: that it allows the adept to reincarnate intact. He also says that it is not the end of the journey, but that it is like becoming one with yourself (instead of being fragmented, this is related to "reincarnating intact"), and the next step is to become one with the Tao. I don't really understand it (how could I?)...but I would recommend checking out both books.

"Only one who bursts with eagerness do I instruct; only one who bubbles with excitement, do I enlighten. If I hold up one corner and a man cannot come back to me with the other three, I do not continue the lesson." -Confucius Notice how Master Kong associates eagerness to learn with the willingness to do a good part of the work yourself. This is an important point.

I love that book. Anyone who has read the stories of modern Taoists but not the the older ones is missing out, IMHO. I have a pretty open mind about what may have actually happened, but when I read the part where Bodhidharma comes in to the brothel when the the prostitutes are dressing Liu up like a woman I though, "No friggin' way. They had to have made this part up for interfaith purposes." I liked Wong's Tales of the Taoist Immortals and Tales of the Dancing Dragon too, though they are of a slightly different genre and even more fantastical. I'm a bit of a sucker for good stories. I second this. I have heard rumors of embellishment and poor translation, but they might have come from Sean Denty (I can't recall...).

Hi Awake. I have issues with confidence around women as well, due to some scars from the past. Incidentally, I recently found out from some female friends that I give off the "disinterested vibe" , which I imagine is a self-protective thing. These things have to be worked through. All you pain, pleasure, attachment, and aversion has to be let go of on the spiritual path. The questions are how and when. By when I mean timing. There are going to be stages when it is better and worse to work on one issue or another. As for how: There are ways to do this. As for your first question, all intense experiences/feelings/situations can aid in your ability to remove attachments, if you let them. This comes from having a good foundation in meditation. If you don't have a good foundation, they will likely cause more attachments/aversions. As for your second question, that takes you into the bewildering realm of sexual meditation. There is no end of the garbage out there you can find claiming to be sexual meditation. I know B. K. Frantzis is versed in going "in (of your own will) to the feeling of your inner body (space)" through sexual practice. I don't know how much he is teaching it, but he just came out with an audio course "Chi Gung for the Sexes: Balancing Yin and Yang Relationships" http://www.amazon.com/Chi-Gung-Sexes-Balan...s/dp/1556438257 that deals with these issues. For the record, I haven't gotten in to this stuff yet. It's on my to-do list, but I don't think the timing is right and I don't think my foundation in meditation is strong enough.

Mjjbecker, YMWong, and Ken, Thank you all so much for the great info. It's so refreshing to get some straight talk about John Chang and the Mo Pai. Incidentally, next time someone points to John Chang as someone who is enlightened/immortal I can point them here. (Well maybe he is some type of immortal, but certainly not anything like "one with the Dao".)

Hi Mike. It is clear enough that DV made up the classification into the 6 paths of the Dao, and that he made up most if not all of the names he uses. But I have the impression that the stuff in Mo Pai and similar schools does not deal with cultivating the golden elixir or immortal embryo, things that seem to be common to all the alchemical schools of Daoism. Could it not be said that this is a different approach to the Dao, and thus perhaps deserving of it's own name? Or have I missed the essence, and am getting caught up on words? You seem like a good guy to ask about this, so anything you can share would be appreciated. Best regards, Tyler On a similar note, how much historical documentation is there of the kind of stuff done in mo pai? It really seems like it has been more underground than the alchemical and "religious" forms of Daoism. Perhaps it is all well known in the Orient but Westerners are only recently hearing about it. --- Since that issue is tangential to the main post, I'll give my (very inexperienced) view on the matter of the relationship between energetic practices and enlightenment. Not knowing what the highest enlightenment is, I am content to try to increase in wisdom and virtue, and consequently to work through all the egotistical tendencies and cravings that prevent me from being virtuous. Seeing as the body, chi, emotions, mind, and any other levels of being are all one interconnected whole, working with the body and chi provides a good foundation for and can assist in getting to the mental and spiritual levels, which I suppose is where the real work takes place. What does any of this have to do with liberation from samsara? How should I know?

Here is an article by B.K. Frantzis about Yi vs. Shen (which he translates intent vs. hear-mind). It appeared in 3 parts and can be found on his website: http://www.energyarts.com/Articles/Bruce-s...t-2-Intent.html http://www.energyarts.com/Articles/Bruce-s...bconscious.html http://www.energyarts.com/Articles/Bruce-s...-Your-Life.html I think it is pertinent so I have posted all three parts for the convenience of TTBs.

Hi Jess. I was hoping you would chime in on this . Yeah, that's me. Wasting time pretending I'm meditating, while extraordinary amounts of pain, rage, and frustration stay dormant deep inside. And then when I finally dig some up, I have no idea what to do with it, run away screaming (figuratively, thank God) and can't meditate for days. It really seems as though I won't get far without a teacher. This sounds really really great. And this year is the year to learn it, it would seem. The summer retreat looks awesome! $200+ per day is a bit out of my price range though, especially when multiplied by 1 or more weeks, and then accommodations, travel expenses, etc. OTOH, I have plenty of work to do on myself before I presume to ask any master for instruction . Patience, patience, patience.

About the controversy over the Sanskrit word ati: I believe the word mikaelz was thinking of is adi, which is Sanskrit for original or primordial. He was close, so give him a break .

In connecting with the earth, two things can happen: your energy sinks down into the earth and the earth's energy comes up into you. When I recommended grounding, I said "The downward flow of sinking your chi to the earth is really nice", the key words were "downward flow". Can you sink your chi downward into the earth? Or is it that when you do there is always more that shoots back up? Note that if the neck isn't open the energy can't sink down from the head. To open the neck, massage all around the place where the spine meets the skull and make sure your posture is right (head neither suspended above the body, not to the right, left, front, or back, and suspended as though there is a slight upward push from the bottoms of the ears.) I may not have kundalini awakened, but I sure have gotten some energy stuck in my head before . The first link was a description of someone elses experience, and yes he was practicing tantric yoga when he first started awakening his K. What I thought might help you was when he said The second link was instructions for the Secret Smile, since the first link mentioned it. Santiago (Vajrasattva) knows what he is talking about (he has been there and back), so you might want to PM if you ever want advice about dealing with kundalini. Best, Tyler

Two books that go into great detail about wuji standing are B.K. Frantzis' Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body and Jan Diepersloot's Warriors of Stillness. Frantzis goes into greater depth about breathing and has more practices and qigong theory, and Diepersloot's gets into more detail about the martial aspects of wuji (more precisely: how it relates to proper movement). I highly recommend them both. For a book covering several martially oriented zhan zhuang postures, try Lam Kam Chuen's Chi Kung: Way of Power. His Way of Energy is also very good, but is more of a qigong-for-everybody type of book. Btw, Zhan Zhuang = "standing like a post".

Could you describe how grounding practices make it worse? Which ones? Here is something you might find interesting: http://www.thetaobums.com/index.php?s=&amp...st&p=112758 It's someone's kundalini story (his started when he was 18) who is now the resident Tao Bums kundalini expert, though he doesn't post much. The thread was originally called "KAP Sucesses", KAP being Kundalini Awakening Process, which is a class he teaches. But the guy who stared it deleted all his posts . Also, check this out: http://www.thetaobums.com/Dr-Morrisand39s-...mbs--t9719.html It is the first meditation you learn in KAP.

For the record: I have also seen mai = vessel, with both jing = channel and jing = meridian. Mai = vessel seems to be the most consistent with the idea of mai being like lakes or resivoirs. It can be confusing at first, but context usually is sufficient to sort things out.

For my hundredth post, I would like to welcome you to thetaobums. It's great to have more people around here who have aroused kundalini, to counterbalance the people like me who just talk about it . But at 16...geez. Talk about growing up fast. I'm 19 like you and I don't think I'm ready. You mention how it brought up tremendous emotional pain very quickly. Yikes... I have quite a bit of emotional pain stored up that I don't really fancy dealing with all at once. OTOH, I suppose I would like to deal with it as quickly as possible . But enough about me. Have you tried any grounding practices? You said you can't do taiji because of bad knees, but could you do some standing in wuji posture? The downward flow of sinking your chi to the earth is really nice, and might be of great help to you. If you can't do standing, perhaps lying on the ground and intend the unclean or excessive energy to go from every part of your body into the earth with each exhale? Regards, Tyler

Darin Hamel mentions the tunnel phenomenon in these videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjElp1wdyPI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2vwRtGBRoc

Where did you hear about Hu Xuezhi? I only know of him because of Dao Zhen. He has studied quite a bit with Hu Xuezhi (so I gather from Revealing the Tao Te Ching) but I don't know what he is up to now. He hasn't posted in a while, even though he seems to check back here occasionally. If you are reading this Dao Zhen: I have very great appreciation for your contributions to this forum and I hope you are well. What in the world happened to eternalspringtours.com? I really would like to go on one, so I hope they are still doing the tours when I can get the money to go. But the site not existing does not bode well.

The thing to ask is "what is going through the channel(s)". This distinguishes one MCO practice from another, and it distinguishes Kundalini rising from the "opening" of any particular channel (kundalini is usually associated with the central channel, btw, not the governing vessel of the MCO). This is my present understanding of things. I'm probably not qualified to speak about what kundalini feels like since I haven't felt it, but the impression I get is that is WAAAAY beyond the energy level reached from a basic MCO type practice, like insane, fear for your life kind of energy (think freight train vs. motorcycle), and it has an "intelligent" or "creative" element that ordinary chi does not have.

I certainly don't think Verdesi is as enlightened or anywhere near it. And it bothers me that since it's only 6 months since he had this revelation and he is already telling people he can transmit enlightenment to them. But that wasn't my point. I try to learn from everything and everyone as best I can, including learning from other peoples mistakes. Of course, you can get whatever you want out of all this. "Cultivating virtue and wisdom" was my words, not David's. All he said was that all the yin-yang gong, etc. stuff didn't give him true fulfillment. I took this as a confirmation that I am on the right track not being a phenomena seeker but instead being "all about 'cultivating virtue and wisdom'", and I thought it might help other people if I pointed that out. But maybe I am just feeding my ego in thinking this. -Tyler

Friends in the Tao, To some extent I agree with Ken and Pietro that going around about Verdesi endlessly is foolish. Certainly there is enough out there to decide whether he is "for real" or not for yourself, and it's not on anyone to convince anyone else of their point of view. But I really think there are many good lessons to be learned from all this Verdesi business. That is why I continue to contribute to such discussions. Here is an example: If the stuff matt007 posted is authentic, then things have come full circle. Verdesi is (IMHO) the main proponent in this forum's history (through Sean Denty) for the view that all the phenomena like what is in your dan tien or what you can do with your chi is a sign of how spiritually developed you are. And now he says he was wrong to think that way. I think this is an important lesson. Phenomena seekers note well: someone who has spent almost half his life phenomena seeking and made major progress in that direction now says that is not where the Tao lies (my paraphrase, of course). Cultivating virtue, wisdom, and connection to the Tao/Divine was, is, and will remain far more important than making a solid ball of chi in your lower field or making electrical current come from your body. Regards, Tyler

Hi erdweir. This sounds like it may well have been contact with an "other" entity. I have felt presences and had sleep paralysis that was probably pre OBE (intense tingling in the spine, then body asleep but mind awake, can only control breathing and blinking and fingers and toes, crazy hallucinations, and more recently intense energy flow sensations) for many years, and I have never been sure how much is my own mind or "another". But there is one experience that stands out from these where I am sure I was visited by someone who gave me energy/spiritual help (I know who it was so I don't have to worry if it was an angel or a demon ). Your experience sounds the most similar to that experience of mine. Keep trying to connect with your higher self and ask for protection from any entities that does not mean you well. Also, Santi says the energy from the broadcast is programed to reach whoever tunes in at 11:00 their time. I keep forgetting to tune in but you reminded me! Hopefully I'll remember tonight. Regards, Tyler