sean

Great job Lozen! This guy is amazing. I've been following his stuff closely for over a year and it's really helped me with my handstands.

hheheh... I've been listening to the Advaita Show lately. Sailor Bob cracks me up. And that guy Cameron is a riot. Fun show. http://advaita.thepodcastnetwork.com/

Yes, this What Is, is what I meant by good in the highest sense. It's not a dualistic good that is conditional or relative to an egoic sense of good and bad, and yet still there is a sense in which It can be said to be good and not bad. The modern mind seems to enjoy creating an intellectual postmodernism out of the wisdom traditions, and yet this is just another subtle mind game that has nothing to do with reality. There are no fixed perceptual positions, and this is so inconceivable to the mind, that it instantly snatches "there are no fixed perceptual positions" and turns it into a fixed perceptual position. Until this is seen through and we just smile knowingly all the way through our bizarre new attempts at grasping. Sean

Well, in an ultimate sense everything that happens "should" simply because it is happening and inseparable from Tao which is "good" and "right" in the highest sense. And also this universal "okness" would naturally include our various grumblings and strivings to tip the universe in the direction we prefer, since these thoughts and strivings are also inseparable expressions of Tao. In other words, it's all good even when it's really really so truly bad involvement in trying to make things change arises.

I'm really getting into this Taoist astrology class that I am taking with Liu Ming. This last class we learned about the Celestial Stems and Earthly Branches, both of which make up your outer character. Next class we will learn about the 12 houses. There is a great free resource for calculating your Chinese astrological chart. Here is the procedure. 1) Have your year, month, day and time of birth handy 2) Go to TzuWei.com, right click and save the personal edition of this free astrology software, and install it. 3) Go to this daylight savings calculator and type in the year you were born to verify if it fell on daylight savings or standard time. 4) Go to world time zones and determine how much you have to subtract from your time of birth to get the Greenwich Mean Time (this is where knowing if you were born during daylight savings or not is relevant). 5) Fire up the Zi Wei Chart Builder software, plug in your information and hit build chart. Boom. What used to take hours has been calculated instantly. Here is my chart: Oh ... unfortunately I don't know the exact time I was born yet (I ordered a copy of my birth certificate to find out, but it hasn't arrived yet). But I do know that it was between 1am and 4am, so I did several charts between this range and there are only two parts (not including the 12 houses) that vary. March 22, 1976 - between 1am - 4am Year: Fire Dragon (Bing Chen) Month: Metal Rabbit (Xin Mao) Day: Water Rooster (Guei Yu) Hour: Water Ox (Guei Chou) or Wood Tiger (depending on actual time) Inner Element: Wood or Earth (depending on actual time) Constellation: Swallow Elements: Wood/3 or 4 Fire/1 Earth/3 or 2 Metal/3 Water/2 So what's your chart look like? Sean

I am interested. Sean

Oh, just upload it etherically to the Tao Bums astral plane.

Perceiving to perceive.

From the perspective of our minds, Enlightenment is just another goal. It's something to achieve. Somewhere to get. And mind wants to know, what is it? Where is it? The sages say it's pure bliss. It's true wisdom. It's immortality. It's imperturbable happiness. Alright then, sign me up! How do I get there? Mind can't wait. It demands answers! So the teacher writes us a prescription. Do xyz practices and eventually you will find what you are looking for. But the mind is shocked to be told that what we are looking for is Reality just exactly as it is right now in this moment. Things are already as they should be. You are perfect as you are, you just don't realize it. Huh? You mean we need to get to a place we're already at? What's the point? And how is that even possible? I believe the confusion is largely one of context. Within "Oneness" is Everything. So naturally Everything is going to include pockets of experience of separateness, mortality and imperfection, ie: human egos. Suffering is part of our human habit of focusing on this foreground of ego-induced separateness to the exclusion of Being that contains and also Is. The parodox of seeking union with Tao is that this human-ego-pocket can only be thought to have any sort of volition or control over it's destiny within a very limited context that breaks down when perceived from a higher level. Normally we think, or at least hope, our decisions and actions are the cause of results we want. We decide we want a glass of milk so we maneuver our body to get up, get out a glass, open the refrigerator, grab the milk and pour it. Voila. We are in charge. Yet these actions we took, and even the decision to take them can just as easily be considered a result of a previous cause that our ego did not initiate or have anything to do with. Any phenomenon that arises, including "me deciding to get a glass of milk" or even "me deciding to meditate" can be perceived, from an absolute view, as being caused by something previous to our decision. Sounds like dreaded determinism. And so I think there is a strong tendency to fear and therefore avoid this view. We would rather perceive ourselves as somehow having control over and of being the prime mover of all of our actions. And we do have some control. We do have some free will. In the same way that a thermostat can be said to have some control over the temperature in a room. The thermostat really does control the temperature. But only within a specific context. From a larger view the thermostat merely triggers a process that is then mostly out of it's control. The thermostat doesn't heat the water itself, or pump it through the pipes in the room. And the thermostat can't fix pipes that break, or close open windows letting heat escape, or repair broken water heaters. From an even larger view the poor thermostat can't even twist it's own dial. In this sense even it's primary function relies on the higher power of human hands. I believe, in much the same way, the big big picture of our human destiny in a single lifetime is primarily out of control, at the mercy of chaos, causation, karma, God. This is scary to our mind because our mind is a "self"-referential thermostat. It's job is to control. I believe one the reasons why spiritual teachers seem to have such trouble laying out clear steps to take toward awakening is because, from the perspective of Awakening itself, the steps taken are not even fundamentally ours to take. "I", within the larger context, is a neurological story, a complex alchemical reaction arising and passing in each moment along with the rest of the phenomenal world. The teachers and practices that speak to our heart and that we "choose" to dedicate to are as much fruits as they are seeds. Through a mysterious combination of apparent self-determination, time and grace our limited selves are lead into alignment with greater Truth. Self becomes transparent to what is. Meanwhile, along the way, stay humble and enjoy your self. Sean.

Lin, thank you for the information on shengong. I've only ever heard the term shengong used in reference to the "pan gu shengong" form. If you have a chance, could you speak more on what this term means to you? I tend to be more drawn to spontaneous forms that emerge from silence and emptiness, in contrast to learning intricate forms previously developed by masters. It's very funny you should ask this, because I believe this was my first lesson into the wisdom of literal silence. There is a post in that thread where I talk about having to discontinue discussing these experiments. I found that my self-conscious thinking began subtly guiding the process toward experiences I thought would interest readers more and avoiding experiences I thought would embarrass me to write about. So I saw the whole purity of allowing whatever to arise as having become contaminated by ego, since I knew I was going to share it. I felt this gave me new insight into why certain teachings are secret. I thought, perhaps there are delicate processes at higher levels of cultivation that would be disrupted were they to be spoken about freely. Sean

Thank you for your thoughts. I like this view, the "path of subtraction" ... in fact I had copied a line from something you wrote on a Yahoo Group last month and added it to my Taoist quotes: "Attaining Dao is not achieved by understanding...it is achieved by loss. And in that one isn't really attaining anything. Just revealing." Sean

Welcome. Great introduction. Living in the Bay Area myself, I've considered studying the Pan Gu Shengong as well. I'd like to hear more of your thoughts on this form sometime if you get a chance. How would you compare it to the other approaches you've been exposed to. Thanks, Sean

Welcome. I hope you stick around and chat with us.

Welcome Pythagoras!

Welcome Xeno. Could you describe a CCO for me? I'm very curious to hear a rich description of this phenomenon from someone who has experienced it. Also, how often do you experience CCO's and can you bring them on at will? Thanks, Sean

Welcome. I'm glad you joined. I've been reading your Shen Yi Zhi Dao and finding that it naturally draws me into deep meditation. It's beautifully written. Sean

Great thread! I loved that book Visual Magick. I'm drawn to reread it now and explore some of these experiences more deeply. Like freeform mentioned, last year I was playing with I guess what you could call a freestyle shamanistic approach to the five animals. I wrote out the details of four of my experiences in the following posts if anyone is interested: Personal totems appear and encourage spontaneous alchemy Monkey rips off my flesh and tells me what's up A direct conversation with four of my animals Monkey leads some spontaneous alchemy and gives me advice on anger Peter Falk and voice were also doing similar work in their journals around the same time. Sean

Is this a clip of you tortugo? See that is a little too active for what I am getting at. We're talking about eating a few dozen hot dogs (or tofu dogs, whatever) ... skip the ab work, get a good relaxed belly hangin', you know, one that is starting to pull up your t-shirt a little ... cultivating some gut-pride here. Sean

Cool discussion. One of the ways I like to think of The Tao Bums name is the idea that the Tao itself bums. The Tao, expressing itself in 10,000 ways, naturally is sometimes is a human just chilling out, taking a break from all the very serious business of pursuing the Tao (which is already itself expressing itself as a seeker) ... takes a load off, cracks a beer, maybe gets a barbeque going, fires up the wi-fi laptop and logs into thetaobums.com to shoot the shit with the rest of the gang. Sean

Todd on the forum here has rekindled my interest in shaking qigong, or in this case more accurately bouncing qigong. I really got a lot out of Winn's spontaneous "shaking the tree" practice found on one of his CKF videos but never did it routinely. Also, I realize in retrospect I was imposing a preference for flailing about wildly in all directions and I had a sort of strange hidden desire to suddenly tap into some kind of latent genius dynamic twisting, twirling, leaping qigong form buried in my nervous system. When that wouldn't happen in 5 minutes I got bored. heh. But the way Todd taught me is a lot more like a simple meditation. Basically you just bounce vertically up and down and pay attention. That's it. Sometimes I am still drawn to throw in a little twisting or undulating, but the core practice is just the bounce. It's great because you can do it for as little or as long as you want. I'm just going to tack on a few minutes of bouncing before my AYP meditations. I did a little more research today and found a cool variation. The Tantric Tailbone Piledrive! Check it out: Via Umaa Tantra [...F]irst place your mind in your tailbone, and try to "feel" from those nerves. Then... For skeletal shaking, do *not* swing the tailbone forward and backward, which increases fluidity, not solidity (those pelvic tilts or "tucks"are a totally different exercise, used to open up the sacrum). Instead, the knees joints do not move horizontally as they bend. They stay in the same place. To get the right feeling and motion, stand and place your toes and knees up against a wall in front of you, and raise and lower your butt a few inches, keeping the knees touching the wall as you bend them. Now bring yourself off the wall and move the same way during the exercise. Think of your spine like a heavy pile driver, going deep into the earth as you accelerate your tailbone downwards a few inches, stopping suddenly while keeping the body loose and relaxed, so that it feels like your bone marrow keeps traveling downward through the bones for an instant. Breathe deeply and naturally throughout, and recover upwards with minimal acceleration after each downward drop. The spine stays perpendicular to the ground at all times (no "forward-backward "humping" motion). ... I'm also inspired to finally pick up Jan Fries book, Seidways: Shaking Swaying Serpent Mysteries which details the practice of shamanic convulsive trances as a powerful tool for self-transformation. (I really enjoyed his other book Visual Magick.) Sean

Yogani is scheduled to be interviewed on a one hour radio show Sunday, November 12th, at 8pm eastern time, USA. The interview will be webcast live from this link: http://1360wsai.com/pages/streaming.html The radio station is 1360AM WSAI in Cincinnati, Ohio. The show is called: "Yoga -- The Other Ninety-Eight Percent." Unfortunately there are some international restrictions to the webcast, but I believe Yogani intends to make the stream available on his website as soon as he can. More information is available in the AYP thread for this announcement. Sean

Yoda, I was thinking the same thing! sunshine, I am not at any level to really answer that. I think system bridging is still new and not an exact science. Maybe within the typical layout of a Taoist alchemical practice opening the back channel first presents a problem that is missing, for any number of reasons, when the same thing occurs within a Yogic practice. (?) Also, it's possible that AYP addresses this problem, as Yogani says, through the various bandhas. There is some uniqueness to the fact that the AYP back channel skips the crown and goes from the jade pillow to the third eye and back down again. Perhaps the problem with premature opening of the back channel is simply premature crown opening and between skipping the crown at first, and also bringing the energy back down again, this problem is avoided. (?) Also, with sambhavi, the practice of holding the eyes focused on the third eye, and siddhasana, the practice of sitting with your heel on your perineum, it seems like AYP is creating locks and vacuums that facilitate generous movement and integration of any upward and downward energies. (?) At this point in my practice I feel it's the upward / downward movement that is key and not necessarily the details of which channel you are tracing. Whether you work exclusively with the core channel, the front or back channels, the entire microcosmic orbit, even the belt channels or the now internationally recognized microcosmic pendulum ... as long as there is an up and down movement, that is what is crucial IMHO. Sean