Sahaj Nath

yeah, ME! it's not as clear as you may think. i have abilities currently, and i use them daily. and i help others awaken to some of their own on a regular basis. for me they are an end in and of themselves. they help me to understand what is possible for humanity in terms of evolution, and what boundaries are self-imposed that we can transcend or transgress. and it is through my abilities that i serve those around me and earn my living. i have fun exploring how deep the rabbit hole goes in terms of what we are capable. i'm more focused on healing and empathic resonance than anything else, but that's not the whole of it. the difference is that i also know what abilities are NOT. glad you responded, bother. you can spend your whole lifetime doing ANYTHING and never in a billion lifetimes achieve liberation. that's what so many people here don't seem to get. at the risk/hope of being branded a heretic on this forum, liberation is NOT about following any mechanical protocol. without quality of self to really bring to the table, without being truly open and AVAILABLE to the ever-present, the best you or anyone else can hope for is that your exercises will make you more 'prone' to maybe one day trip over liberation at some point, and then hope like hell that it sticks! i don't even know what 'being a good person' means, but you're way off the mark if you attribute the same value to meditation. real meditation is a disposition, not an activity. and some people spend years meditating without ever meditating. if you were to cultivate the quality of the disposition that IS meditation, you might save yourself a lifetime of hassle. i've pressed you in this area before, and you've never really engaged me on it. once on IM we chatted a little bit, and it was the first and only time that you acknowledged the strong possibility that your ideas about this whole thing may be off, and that the very realm that you are so eager to escape forever is none other than YOURSELF! that it is ALL you, as am i, who writes these words to you. if you're serious about your goal being the only thing that really matters to you, then why do you waste SO much time with SO much other shit! robert bruce is NOT going to help you awaken. neither is mopaistudent. neither is robert peng. and neither is any other program, or book, or workshop, if YOU are not available. and if you can't let go of what you think you've already got figured out, you CAN'T be available. you've shared some of your abilities with me. so where are you in terms of achieving liberation, according to your mile markers? abilities ARE indeed markers, but not of absolute liberation. they are more accurately looked at as markers of one branch of human evolution. and that's great, exciting, fun, whatever. go for it, i say. but just be honest with yourself about what it is you're going for. otherwise, you shut the door on what you seek the most. if you're serious, there is more to be understood. there is more homework that you can do. and the pursuit and acquisition of more and better techniques is not where your goal is best served. enjoy your pursuits, brother. i just don't want to see you waste a lifetime believing all this is something it's not. this is all in love and good-spirit. i don't mean this as an assault on you or anyone else. do what thou wilt, but know thyself.

yeah, i'd have to say that you're a *little* biased! LOL! it's all good, man. GrandTrinity didn't *trash* Master Wu, at least not when he and i talked privately. he actually loved the shamanic tiger form. he was just more impressed with Grandmaster Zhang, whom he considered to be a true sorcerer and downright dangerous! he was young, so he didn't always say things the right way, like when he said he felt duped by Master Wu because what Grandmaster Zhang showed him was older, simpler, and (he thought) more powerful. but that's not slander. if i remember correctly, he even apologized for that comment. in fact, didn't he apologize to you? this is GM Zhang: http://www.qigongmaster.com/ he's the one i wrote about being an ass-clown in the other thread. i don't think GrandTrinity was making it up. i had conversations with the kid. he was young, but that's not a crime, and what he stated was what he was told by GM Zhang. now, that having been said, it still could have been BS politics on the part of GM Zhang, and i'm totally open to that. as i wrote in the other thread, my transaction with the guy left me thinking he was an ass-clown. you should ask Master Wu if he studied with him. better yet, i'll write him tonight and ask him myself. i respect your position. i have no personal dispute with your perspective. i'm just not quite so taken with Master Wu. maybe that will change over time as i remain in contact with him. but whatevs.

well, that was based on GrandTrinity who used to hang out on the forum. he studied with Grandmaster Zhang for a little while and said that Zhang told him that the 8- or 10-move lao hu gong that he still teaches is the original, and Master Wu, who studied under him for a time, developed it into the 'shamanic' tiger gong, whereas before it was just tiger gong. i'm not trying to be misleading or disparaging in any way here; that's how i remember it. so when i add to that understanding the words of Master Wu himself that in ancient times shamans were considered sages, and sages were shamans (which i read to mean "to be a sage is to be a shaman"), and the fact that the school is the mt. Emei SAGE school, then it's reasonable for him to rename it shamanic even if the form did not originate with ancient shamans. LAO does mean 'respected, old' but isn't 'tiger' ALWAYS pronounced lao hu? i feel as if he's playing on the multiplicity of meanings, which is fine, but Zhang's lao hu gong doesn't claim the shamanic part, even though technically it could, being that lao can be morphed into 'sage' rather easily. but the renovation of the form by Master Wu gives him all the license he needs, i guess, being that his form does have more of a raw, primal flavor to it. i was wrong to conflate being shamanic with being ancient. 'shamanic' does not necessitate that the form is ancient, and my original statement assumed that it did. but i totally agree that the form is legitimately shamanic in nature. that's what i love about it. that's also what i enjoy about five animal frolics, which i have to offer as a juxtaposition: there's an argument to be made that it could be called "the shamanic five animals system" and it would gain a lot more attention from people here in the west. such a renaming would be easily justifiable, but would only serve to make the form more marketable to certain folks. if i'm wrong about the Grandmaster Zhang connection, go ahead and set me straight.

agreed. abandon the assumption that you need to "do" something about whatever arises that you weren't expecting. let it unfold as it does, without your mitigating the unfolding. the way i see it, if you can't do that, it's not meditation. it may be something right that's occurring rather than something wrong. go into it with the wisdom of 'complete ignorance.' beginner's mind.

um... okay. first, i wasn't irate. i didn't lose any sleep over it, but i wanted to use strong wording in the post to get the point across. but either way, it was, hands-down, my worst on-line buying experience. i didn't share the 2 crass email responses i'd received from him because i didn't feel it necessary, but i think it was the right thing to do to warn people about this guy's business practice. it took, literally, MONTHS to get it resolved, and i had to file a claim in order to do it. it wasn't about the money, but rather the bad faith in which he acted. as for what i wanted to achieve, i think that's pretty self-evident. and let us not forget that it was just a couple of weeks ago that some guy was here selling poor quality bootleg copies of yan xin on cassette tape for $50. the only reason we know that they were poor quality bootleg copies is because someone outed him. and good for them. but whatevs. i would ask you what you wanted to achieve by stating your disappointment, but it would serve no purpose. if you were disappointed it was because you thought i was something i'm not, in which case, i'm happy to disappoint. i don't need the baggage of living up to the idealized expectations of others. i'm not a one-dimensional saint. and i don't plan on becoming one any time soon. i am quite sure that i will disappoint you again sometime. "beautiful and grotesque" --Ani DiFranco

it's one form. if it was a series of forms a.) i doubt 24 of them would fit on one disc and b.) it would certainly cost a lot more. what do you mean by 'is it a complete system?' it does what any good qigong set should do for you, plus there are subtleties of body mechanics that you don't find in other sets. if you don't already have a strong foundation in something like taiji or bagua or white crane or something, you're not likely to pick up the subtleties from watching the video. i think the video is extremely well-done and very easy to learn from, but i pick up this sort of thing rather quickly. i think it's one of the most enjoyable to watch, the music is great, the studio lighting and design is great, master wu is graceful, and the beauty of the form, if done well, is stunning. hmm... i think i get what you're asking now about the 'complete system' thing, and you can correct me if i'm off: in my opinion, calling it "shamanic" is a bit of a marketing touch. by his own analysis, 'shaman' is really just another word for 'sage.' mt. emmei sage school. the truly shamanic quality comes in when you embrace a free-spirited sensibility with the practice after you've mastered the movements as taught. once you can do them correctly, like any good form, it begins to reveal new things to you and you evolve with it. it's just one practice of the mt emmei sage school, so i wouldn't call it "complete" in THAT sense, but it does every thing a good qigong set should do, AND THEN SOME, so it could be looked at as more than complete. also, 'shamanic tiger' is master wu's innovation. it's not an ancient, original form. so for those of you who still hold to the belief that "older = better" this might not be what you're looking for. but as i've already said, it's one of my favorites. i'm not sharing this DVD. sorry. it is WELL worth the price, and i think anyone interested really should buy it. the book is mediocre and the description of the movements in the book is identical to the commentary on the video. i enjoyed the book, but it was more a forensic anthropological survey (ambitious and good, but not great) than it was a book on the form or the school. hope this helps.

what you say is more or less true about the current state of MMA, but you're not taking into account its origins. the UFC was created in the early-to-mid-90's to answer, once and for all, what style was the most powerful. it was winner-take-all. street fighters as well as traditional masters battling it out. in the beginning it was pure style against pure style, with the occasional bum thrown in there. it was a mirror-image of the underground scene, of which i was a part at the time. what exists today as MMA is really the distillation of that process of determining which schools had the goods and which schools didn't. and fa jing didn't keep any of those guys from getting knocked the hell out, or getting the fight/courage knocked out of them when they actually took a hit. (too much time shadow boxing.) in 1973, five shaolin masters went to fight in the rings of bangkok to prove the superiority of their style. all of them had fa jing. all of them had iron shirt & iron palm. and all of them got knocked out in the first round. throughout the remainder of the 70s, many more masters from shaolin and other schools went to thailand and lost except for one guy. he was pummeled through all three rounds, but he didn't get knocked out, so to honor him they called it a draw. perhaps the biggest problem was that the chinese weren't used to taking a hit in a fight. all of their training had been in controlled circumstances with no real surprises or dangers. a master of a fighting style who has never had his nose bloodied in a fight isn't gonna look or act very masterful when the moment of truth comes. the muay thai fighters proved what bruce lee knew to be true about the old traditional styles. the weakness of any discipline is its dogma.

if i recall correctly, VcraigP is a current student of Master Wu. i use to practice the form every day. i really liked it. it's beautiful.

as i said, the VHS was useless. the quality was REALLY THAT BAD. the audio was virtually non-existent. the picture quality wasn't much better. i didn't attempt to sit through the entire video of him talking next to a chalk board i could hardly see, while he's sitting cross-legged on a stack of gym mats. i didn't need the practice other than to learn some new theory, but i didn't care what he had to say after that. i have plenty of toys in my life. he can keep his.

as master yoda might say... sweet balm to my soul, taomeow is.

bro, you've been threatening to leave this forum since you arrived here. it's the disturbance within you that's reflected in your attitude, your quickness to take offense, and yes, even your writing style. i hope that in serving others you will find healing for yourself.

no, the one i got is this one: <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value=" name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src=" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> 16 years of yoga? personally, i would be seeking out the deeper levels of yoga practice if you have that much experience. as far as spiritual qigong goes, i know a couple of guys in your area, but they don't openly teach. i can drop them a line, but they will want to know more about you before they even have tea with you. i'll be doing a workshop in your area in the coming months, and i'd be happy to meet with you for tea! so... am i reading you correctly that you are looking for the deeper spiritual aspects of qigong and not just a series of moving exercises?

hey, thanks for the plug! it was awesome finally getting to meet you. you're a beautiful guy, and i definitely look forward to you teaching me some guitar skills in the future. maybe one day i'll be THIS good! <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value=" name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src=" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

old product hit the market. like at least 10 years old! we've talked about it before, only it was under a different name, i think. it's had at least 2 or 3 different incarnations. chi power plus was the original one. i used to see ads for it in Kung Fu magazine in the 90's. a friend of mine purchased it back then, and we watched the DVD together. i have a copy of it, and i'm pretty sure one of my old back-up drives has all of their other stuff. while i'm sure some people will buy it anyway because there's nothing more seductive than the acquisition of super powers, i would hope that the adults on this forum will steer clear. it's ridiculous. they have a handful of practices that are good, but nothing special. and they have many more practices that are inferior to many others and are not well understood by the presenters. it's a really pathetic program, IMO. a 90-day trial is NOT enough time to start seeing the results that they promise, but most people won't go through the hassle of sending it back. and then there are those people who will blame themselves for not achieving the results because they don't practice it everyday, so they will keep the program because they want to believe that it will give them these magically delicious abilities as soon as they get more disciplined. i'm glad i didn't have to pay for it, that's all i can say. i would have been pissed. on the other hand, if you're someone who thinks that Wan Qi over at YogaMeditation is the real deal, then this program might be for you. it's certainly cheaper.

i have a dragon gate qigong dvd, but i wouldn't recommend it to a beginner. not because it's complicated, but because it's kind of a weak dvd. poor production quality, and the master's form is not very impressive. what's your background, and what are you looking for out of your practice? i honestly don't think the dvd is worth the price, but it's the only dragon gate qigong video i've ever found.

i spoke nothing of concepts or what "direction" they were pointing. clearly my experience was NOT the same as hers. (i mean, did you read any of MY kunlun thread? yikes. ) but that wasn't at all the point. it's that place from which she speaks where i find resonance within my OWN voice. helps me to understand more of what i would not allow to be possible. and btw, i don't practice kunlun.

i still very much remember the sounds and voices around me as i sat there smiling, eyes closed, debating myself about the implications of total surrender. i just didn't want to give in if there was a chance that i would later discover that it was all a lie. i remember holding back, trying to examine the experience as an intellectual event that i could control and ease myself into. i remember wanting it to take me over, to prove itself to me that it was real. i remember being in the way when i wanted to control it so as not to look like the others; and i remember being in the way when i wanted it to consume me. like it did the others. your voice helps me to understand my own experience. thank you.

if you just happen to be bad at spelling and grammar, i'm sure that's fine with most people. but it communicates something else when your poor spelling and grammar are a result of you either being in so much of a rush that you can't be bothered, or if it's because you just don't see any point in taking care in 'the little things.' such an attitude can rightfully make a would-be friend think twice about sharing valuable material with you. i've gone out of my way to reach out to you, so i hope that you can receive what i'm communicating without taking offense, as i think i've proven that i'm not your enemy here. but there's far more being shared in communication than "well, you get the gist." anyone who cares to be a healer should care to TAKE CARE in what they do, including the little things. believe it or not, it can make more of a difference than you might have thought. nothing is separate. everything counts.

congrats. i'll be happy to share a few things with you. i'll send you a PM later.

This whole thread makes me happy!

thanks, bro! the power of that session was a lot more than just the shaking part, but yeah it's always pretty cool to practice with someone for the first time. especially someone with your natural openness. i swear it's a killer combo of exercises! i don't know anything that works faster and is still safe. next week's gonna kick ass!

well, well, well... looks like you've been holding out on me! if you could bring me a disk this weekend, i'd love to try one that ramps down to the earth frequency and keeps me there for a while. i'll try to get you the specs this evening. good stuff.

fair question. how about, 'not enough to start a religious cult.' which seems like something he could totally do if he wanted to. some people feel a need to cling to him, but to his credit, he doesn't demand that they cling. there's an argument to be made that he takes advantage of his position of authority, but only playfully if at all. i think the lion's share of the fault is in the seekers who want a messiah.

well let me just say this: in the past, i have fallen in love for far less.

nope. i'm not saying that at all. not sure how you got that from my post. what i'm saying is that *I* needed to learn the lesson that i learned from it, and it doesn't matter whether or not the lesson was intended by anyone else. we put too much emphasis on the messenger, but it's the *message* that matters, and it is *WE* who must be fit to receive it. even a nonsensical phrase graffitied on the wall can be a profound teacher, if you're able to receive it. and max is certainly more than that. i hope this doesn't come across as negative because that's not my intent at all. but i think what you're expressing here is the short-sightedness of some of our belief structures. a trickster-type, who is fully aware and wholly accepting of their want to play games with people's heads and even take advantage a little bit, can still transmit a pure vibration that is unencumbered by fear, or malice, or pride, or lust, or any of those things, what's more, NONE of those so-called "negative" traits necessarily prevent a life-changing transmission. even car wrecks can rattle people into greater awareness. in fact, they DO! and quite often! this is good news i think, because it means, again, that there are no gatekeepers to awakening. not even the saints were saints, but they could still be god-sends in the lives of others. but ultimately, i think the universe is a big place, and our moral quibbles don't even show up on the radar. i would go so far as to say that the very reason why morality and righteous living is made so important from day 1 is to bind the ego to service because Big Mind doesn't care one way or another. the killer and the killed are one and the same. so if you didn't learn to cherish morality prior to enlightenment, it's not likely that you'll give a shit afterward. anywho, that's my take on it. FWIW