sean

GI JOE! PS - You gotta watch those clips on the above link.

I like the animals in my sign, the Aries Ram and the Fire Dragon (Jesus, could I have more Fire in my sign?). I did some trancework years ago to find my power animal and it was a penguin, just kidding, it was a black leopard which really are beautiful animals.

Nice concept Yoda. Maybe a way to reconcile the two views is to believe that sometimes even god's need other god's help in certain areas. Like maybe a great poet god is starving somewhere and needs a goat to eat and I am the goat god and buy him one. And then maybe one day we will all join forces and connect together to form one big Super God like in Voltron to battle a collective Super God from another planet.

I think I am inadvertantly going to reveal a book addiction via this thread. I couldn't resist, I picked up Come To Your Senses at a bookstore this weekend. I didn't mean to buy it. It's just that I picked it up and started reading it and I was in a crappy mood but within a few pages and trying out the meditation it recommended it put me in a much better state. I've been playing around with the very simple techniques and flipping through it more. I'll let you know if it's worth picking up. Uhhh.... and so yeah, I also ordered Out In the Open: The Complete Male Pelvis (came highly recommended by a very knowledgeable friend) to facilitate a deeper understanding/healing of the whole LTT region plus bring my aneros meditations to the next level. Also I forgot about The Conscious Heart that Lezlie and I are reading together because she keeps it in her bag. We read it to each other when driving around or waiting for a film to start or wherever. Fantastic book wether you are in a consistent sexual relationship with a partner or not. Our lives are based on relationships. Why not integrate them into our path. PS - Hagar, thanks for the run down on the "Inner Teachings" and "Understanding Reality" texts. I think you are right. I feel like a newborn child in the realm of alchemy and much of the cryptic advanced poetry goes way over my head. Sean.

Other charities I bookmarked in my research today: Heifer International Buddhist Peace Fellowship Doctors Without Borders Humana People to People That first link is cool as hell. You can just straight up buy an animal for someone from a catalog. Sean.

I was doing more research on charities this morning and found these articles I found helpful: http://www.smartmoney.com/mag/index.cfm?story=charitychart http://www.smartmoney.com/theagenda/index....0031111-charity Great post by the way neimad. I think there is a lot of merit to what you are doing -- which I see as seeking out and seriously weighing many alternative worldviews. Stepping in their frame and looking at the world through them. Stepping out and looking at the world through another. It's Robert Anton Wilson's main spiritual practice. I used to be as aggressive as you with it years ago but I think at some point I decided it's all so completely relative that it's just about finding what works; what works for keeping you sane and on a path toward your goals and what works in retaining your ability to communicate effectively with others. In my case this has led to beliefs more simple and boring than spectacular, but again just my case. Sean.

Forgot about some other books. I do this thing where I have books in different places so I can pick something up to read almost wherever I am. Book at work, book or two by my bed, books near my training, books near computer, book in the bathroom. Two more: The Easy Way to Stop Smoking Interesting book to decondition what the author feels is behind smoking addiction; a form of brainwash. The cool thing is he says you can't quit until you are done the book so I am reading like a half page a day. Initiation into Hermetics Great book. Very complementary to Taoist practices and it's nice to see a Western perspective. I've been flipping through this one and playing with the practices I come across for awhile now.

I've been paying close attention to my LTT area lately. All of the sensations there. Temperature, pleasure/pain, muscle tension (particularly in the abdomen, psoas, and sphincter). Doing Sedona Method style "allowing and releasing" and it's opening up my LTT in new ways. Finding new and sometimes surprising layers of release around every corner. This is really probably common sense, but putting it into consistent practice the last week has been making a big difference for me.

I bookmarked this thread over on dragondoor for inspiration on rainy days. I liked this response in particular. Sean.

I think the idea behind this theory Leo is talking about is not so much that it's bad for you to exert to the point of endorphin release, it's just that you need to be prepared for the beta-endorphin receptors downregulating in response to the flood of endorphins. This downregulation can even be experienced as a "crash" if the beta-endorphin "spike" was pronounced enough. It's often felt a few days later as just a really crappy day. I notice this effect all the time in my training. In fact whenever I am having a really crappy day, I think about what I did 3-5 days previously. And more than likely I did some really prolonged, heavy training within that time and rode out the rest of the day in endorphin bliss. Also, I disagree with the idea that the endorphins are being released to reduce pain so that you can die in peace, that is not good Darwin. More likely is that these strong pain killers helped us push through more pain and therefore survive more endangering situations than our ancient, less-successful, non-beta endorphin having ancestors whose genes were not passed on because they were too whiny to get laid. Good thread for more on this subject: http://www.circularstrengthmag.com/forum/v...opic.php?t=1716 Sean

Sorry for delayed reply, been busy today. Heard to give a recommendation, really. I'll just give a brief review of my favorites: David Swenson's Short Forms This is the man to see for traditional Asthanga. Vinyasa (flow) is based on Ashtanga forms, just ashtanga is more traditional and vinyasa is more experimental/playful w/ sequence. This is a good set. There is a 15 minute, 30 minute and half hour set on here if I remember correctly and he shows you easy/intermediate/advanced variations. The book is cool to have too. Yoga Shakti by Shiva Rea The most beautiful Yoga DVD I've ever seen. Has many interesting forms I've never seen anywhere else before. Lot's of creativity here. Beautiful music, menus, navigation, cinematography, instructor, everything. There are solar and lunar flows on here, so it taps into some Sun Moon alchemy. (Most Yoga is just very solar IMO). You can turn instruction off and just have music which is a great feature. Also has an amazing feature where you can take any of the 30 flows / meditations and build your own customized flow of as many or as few pieces in any order you want. Sets a new watermark. The Pleasure of Strength by Ana Forrest Ana Forrest is amazing and she breaks down the subtleties of each pose in extraordinary detail. It's also very very challenging (for me) and, as the title suggests, places a good deal of emphasis on strength over just passive flexibility. I haven't watched this one enough yet to review much more than that. Prasara by Scott Sonnon The first DVD is basically an interview with Scott where he talks about Prasara and gets into the details of the breath scale. The practice DVD itself is basically just clips of Scott doing the 5 flows. It's shot well although in some ways I feel they put it looking nice over quality of instruction as there are a few times there are sexy transitions or zoom ins that make it harder to see what Scott is actually doing. On top of that there is zero instruction which was disappointing. You'll want to be proficient at the advanced level of Warrior Wellness and at least have run through the Body Flow tapes and done most of the exercises a few times. You'll also want to have a DVD player that do slow motion because you really have to deconstruct the flows on your own. Which is maybe a good thing in the end, that you have to use your head and really pay attention and break the flows down and figure them out because that is a good ability to have. I just wish I believed this was done intentionally. But when all is said and done, the flows themselves are very very cool. And when the TV is off and I am standing on my mats thinking about what I want to mess around with that day, invariably it's Scott's flows because they are just so damn fun once you get them. Whereas I rarely rarely will do traditional Yoga flows without a video or instructor prompting me because they just frankly bore the hell out of me. Hope that helps ... gotta run to work now. Sean.

Neimad, couple questions ... What would you say your experience level with Yoga is? Also, do you have any experience with Warrior Wellness or Body Flow?

Sorry Neimad. I just couldn't resist kidding around with you. You make some good points in your post. I do think it's important to keep an open mind which is why I generally avoid conspiracy theories because, in my experience, they are usually presenting a very closed view of things with little or specious evidence. Your point about how I can practice things that would seem strange to others and then simultaneously be skeptical of other elements of counter-culture is related to what I believe is one of the bigger dangers of getting involved with fringe practices. I'm not suggesting this is your case, but I think what can happen is that "fringe" becomes your identity. "I am involved with behavior/practices that the 'mainstream' doesn't understand and/or rejects. Therefore I am fringe and must reject back. Everything I do must be different and counter-culture." I see this all the time especially with younger practioners of magick. For some reason I'd thought Eastern systems were more immune to this sort of immaturity (it's memes are more antiviral IMO) but since coming into this community I've seen similar thinking (not so much on this board). Believe me though, I am not sitting on my couch watching Fox News and soaking in the Bill O'Reilly But I also don't frequent David Icke's website. Actually I'm not all that political. Don't really have the temperament for it, or the interest I guess. But when I have time I do try to read up on current events from as many honest viewpoints as I can. An example of one source of alternative news I read frequently and find credible is Z Magazine. In any case, I was just playing around. I don't claim to know what the Red Cross really is. I barely trust my own senses about things in my direct experience. My intuition, though, tells me that the Red Cross is probably like any other large organization. Filled with individual human beings of various intentions. It just so happens they are one of the largest organizations in the business of "helping people" and (IMO) are therefore also likely under the most public scrutiny to at least pretend that's what they are doing. And in their massive public pretending they will probably end up (perhaps accidentally) helping the most people. For instance, I have a friend that just left for New Orleans with the Red Cross and I can guarantee you he will help people and possibly save lives and he wouldn't have been able to do it without Red Cross. Anyway, what charity would you recommend over Red Cross. Maybe I'll make a banner for it. Cheers! Sean.

OH MY GOD! Look what else I learned from that site!!! THE ANUNNAKI REMNANTS ARE STILL ON EARTH!!! What are we going to do!?! How could I have ignored credible sources of news like "Conspiracy Planet" for so long!!???! Sean.

Great follow up points Spyrelx and Yoda. It's been a fun debate. It's helped me bring a lot more focus to my thoughts and feelings on retention. The latest angle I've been pondering, as I've somewhat alluded to, is the magickal value of ejaculation. The Taoist alchemical paths focus mostly on internal development, not on creating external change. "Sex magick" theory, summarized/butchered into my own words, says that any intention you are holding at the point of climax will, basically, manifest an astral child aimed at carrying out this intention. Creepy I know, but magickians tend to anthropomorphize everything so it's no different than saying the spiritual energy exploding out of you at orgasm doesn't just vanish into thin air, it resonates into the universe with a frequency. And if you consciously tune that frequency with a purpose, it will vibrate the world around you in support of your intentions. I think this is what Guy is doing. He is infusing his every orgasm with so much open heart Samadhi love ... for his wife, his life and himself that he just continually manifests high energy, health and bliss despite the "Jing loss" which in this case isn't loss at all, it's investment. So Yoda, apparently this topic has got us both in hot pursuit of more resources for the non-ejaculatory orgasm, heartgasm, valley orgasm, etc. Great finds with the luckymojo site and the Gurdjieff quotes. It lead to a good page I found (first in the list below). Thelerner, thanks for the book reference. I see this book every time I go to Good Vibrations but haven't picked it up yet. You found it useful? Here are some pages I've found in no particular order. Nothing to write home about really, but the first two I found informative. In fact the technique described in the second one, from the unlikely "How to Make Love to a Woman", is the only technique I've ever gotten to work to have a pleasurable non-ejaculatory orgasm. I'll have to pursue that technique more seriously now ... http://www.luckymojo.com/tknorthaustin.html http://sosuave.net/forum/showthread.php?threadid=16674 http://www.joanelloyd.com/fbmalorg.htm http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4676076/ http://www.multiorgasmic.com/home.html http://www.tantra-sex.com/EjaculationMastery.html http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=glance&s=books http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...g=UTF8&v=glance http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=glance&s=books http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...g=UTF8&v=glance Sean.

Scott Sonnon just released a new 2 DVD set called Prasara ... A synergistic physical practice which at first glance can appear to incorporate aspects of yoga, martial arts, acrobatics, break-dance & gymnastics. Looks very promising, I'm definitely going to grab this on pay day. Check out the trailer and you can check out more details and order it here. [Yes this is an affiliate link, don't shoot! Trust me, I will only endorse and affiliate with products I genuinely believe have value.] Sean.

But couldn't someone think of lifting weights the same way? "How in the world could you possibly expect to spend an hour throwing weights around, tearing the muscle fibers apart in your whole body, and expect to become stronger and have more energy? Are you crazy? Those muscle fibers have to repair themselves!! That is a biochemical healing process that takes energy. This is suicide. I used to lift weights when I was in my 20's but then I had a few disturbing failures and so I've concluded that lifting weights is wrong. Now all I do is bodyweight exercises as recommended to me by ancient master teachings that say weight lifting is bad for you (who also had thousands of other superstitions I have to admit are ridiculous) but they are so much fun and they don't burn me out the same way as weights." Come to think of it, don't many Eastern Masters have opinions about hard training, like weight lifting, leading to jing loss? Yoda, I will write my will out beforehand. Actually I think I am starting to chicken out on the experiment as I originally detailed it. Just thinking about it is making me tired. Heh. I think I'm in so deep as Devil's Advocate I got a little too fired up in the role and lost my way ... kind of like Laurence Fishburne in Deep Cover. I do want to test jing retention theory though, but I think I will fine tune my experiment first. I started thinking about the exercise analogy and how the experiment would be the equivalent of, let's say, heavily lifting weights for the same muscle groups every day. We are much more aware of the mechanism of healing from weight lifting. You take a day off from working those muscle groups, do active recovery movement, hot/cold therapy if neccessary, nutrition, etc., But if the ejaculation=exercise theory is true we clearly don't understand the mechanism for healing from this stretch to our system which is essential for the whole one step back, two steps forward process. Much more to ponder. And I actually have another idea to add to this experiment that is so eccentric I won't even mention it yet. Sean.

Haven't forgotten about you Trunk, just been busy. You can find some good Clubbell videos on the "Max's page" on this site for starters: http://www.clubbelltrainer.com/ Sean.

Ahhh.. interesting, thanks for the report Hagar, I'd never heard of this. Yes I've seen this exhale-suck-stomach-in move in various yoga tapes/books. Actually this latest Ana Forest DVD I picked up has this on it and it's pretty insane looking how far she can suck in her whole lower abdomen. Then she starts doing this rolling motion that borders on disturbing but I imagine it gives the internal organs below the ribs a nice massage.

GrandTrinity, I'll throw it in the Library when I'm done but that might not be for quite a while as I want to study it. Yoda, will do... I'll write up a detailed review of it in a week or two.

That whole thread is cool. Great thread you instigated over there man.

Hilarious post Yoda. Yeah, you'll probably want to step it down on a size and go slowwwww. It usually take me 10-15 minutes to open up to it going in. If you think about it, that's a long time. Also it's really really important that you are using a gel lube.

Ahhh... great clarification. Thanks for posting that. ... So I really want to keep jing=semen conservation theory out of the "unverifiable truths" category, which is where it goes if we dismiss examples of men who are able to frequently ejaculate into their old age without complaints of energy loss as simply them being born with ... uh, unverifiably large reserves. This should still be a testable theory. At the very least a man born with enormous reserves of Jing should still be capable of being given proper instruction in how to notice the subtle energetic regression that occurs following ejaculation. Also, that it's rare to find men over 30 who have not noticed the post-ejaculation energy drain phenomenon and/or who cannot perform after ejaculating does not mean jing=semen conservation theory is true. Other things could follow this fact. I would bet it's probably statistically true that men over 30 have significantly less sex (or masturbation), and therefore also statistically, less orgasms than men under 30. So this could just as easily support Guy Johnson's ejaculation=exercise theory. Another consideration is that the quality of sex probably declines for many men. Decreasing comfort level in the body, more carried stiffness, pain, trauma. Lack of exercise, poor nutrition. Sex itself losing it's novelty. Same position, same partner. Increased emotional baggage. Barely bringing any consciousness to sex. Maybe these factors create the psychological and emotional context in which ejaculation becomes a drain. Doesn't Winn talk about this context-as-vital concept when he says that if you do dual cultivation correctly you can actually ejaculate with very little jing loss because you've already extracted the jing from the semen and converted it to Chi? Other possibilities: What if perceived energy-drain is a result of the bliss of orgasm being in such disparity to our ordinary miserableness we experience a "coming down" effect and blame the bliss? Or what if orgasm has positive physiological virtues but that, like a raw food diet, can lead to short-term detox effects that would dissipate if we rode them out instead of misdiagnosing the problem as the orgasm itself? Or perhaps orgasm just starts to exceed our often increasingly shrinking "pleasure threshold" as adults. So we create psychosomatic symptoms around it to allow us to withdrawal from heights of pleasure we have difficulty tolerating. I also want to run with the exercise analogy for a minute. Let's say you rarely ever run. Let's also say that day in and day out you see advertisements for how running is,basically, the entire point of life. It's the hottest, taboo topic in your country. Every other song is about it. You think about running all the time. The morality of running is frequently discussed. The largest religious sect in your country believes running, especially running for just the sheer pleasure of running, is a sin. Also, whenever you run, your performance is being evaluated. Now go for a run for the first time in three months in this context. Maybe you will have a fantastic run and come home energized and proud. You'll probably be sore for a few days afterwards though. And what about when your run isn't stellar? You are out of shape and you huff and puff. You cross the finish line with a whimper and trudge home. You are tired and worn out and also sore and a bit depressed for the next three days. Couldn't you eventually draw similar conclusions about running? "Only walk, never get to the endorphin high", or something ... I dunno, my analogy is kind of falling apart at the end here but I think you get my point. I think my point is that there are a ton of social, psychological and emotional factors influencing our experience of sex so it's difficult to say what is really the cause of what. I'm really thinking about trying a completely insane experiment in a few weeks. Meditate / chi kung / yoga my way into a nice samadhi-buzz and then either have sex or self-stimulate for at least 30 minutes leading up to ejaculation every single day, twice a day for two weeks. I'll keep a detailed journal on what happens. I already know what happens when I have sex every day for this long without ejaculating, so in the interest of Taoist science I will be the guinea pig that puts jing and longevity on the line. The Devil's Advocate, Sean.

Thanks for the report. I think I fixed it. Please let me know if you have any more problems. Sean.