EagleShen

There are lots of approaches and perspectives on fasting, i'd say have a chat to your teacher first (assuming this is possible), many systems and lineages, and IMO any well rounded system, will have an approach to diet and fasting. Follow that, if your teacher doesn't know see if you can find anything in the literature of lineage you're practising. Diet and fasting is about a lot more than just what you're eating or not eating. Agree with steam, you don't want to go fasting while doing hard training, but there's obviously something going on for you digestively that you need to pay attention to. If you haven't already you might want to look into seasonal eating, also slow cooked congees hit that nail on the head for me when i'm training a lot and my appetite is weak. May be worth seeing a chinese doc if you're feeling persists, an ongoing feeling of wanting to abstain from food could point to a digestive imbalance. I'd agree and disagree with Scotty. The critical thing with fasting is that if you just stop eating it harms your body, so to that extent i agree. But fasting can be incredibly beneficial if you consciously feed your Yin body while you stop feeding your Yang body, this is where the softer arts and mediation come in.

LOL. Curious way to respond to someone sharing an approach they've found really helpful in their own life matt007. Peace.

Interesting, i was thinking of posting a somewhat related post myself on yin and yang cultivation. The two physically present teachers i've had, both very traditional in their approach, emphasise what i'd call a 'yin' approach to cultivating energy (ie let it arise naturally rather than making it happen), and a more yang approach to cultivating the body. My old teacher, Prof Wong, in fact told students doing Mantak Chia's fusion stuff to stop it while they were studying with him. Love the commentary on Nei Kung, thank you. Any thoughts on where Dao Yin fits into this? I was under the impression that it was actually the term used for chi kung type practices before tai chi was developed and became popular. Have very little to back that up aside from a discussion with my chinese doctor.

There is a fine little parable (i think that's the right term) that comes to mind which could be a whole debate in itself i'm sure: Q: If there is a God who is omnicient and omnipotent, can God create something so heavy it/he/she/(some term that implies unity) cannot lift? A: Yes. It's called an ego. The point being, an ego can only lift itself, ref the words of HH the Dalai, and it's gotta be something that every cell of your being wants. I do think we create what we believe, but the big problem is casting this in an individualistic philosophy, which is what usually happens here in the West and the golden age of 'yes the universe wants you to have that sports car too' philosophy. There is also just some f*@cked up stuff that happens, we are not isolated bubbles, we impact each other, we are all each other at some level, and the totality of Self of some 6billion+ belief systems has some pretty contradictory and frankly quite insane beliefs (as well as sublime), and on some level they are all my/our beliefs. The measure of the person is how that person deals with the shifting tides of our marvellous collective sanity/insanity, and i actually think that's the more important component.

The I-Ching does some astounding stuff sometimes. My first 'oh my god' type experience with it was when i had it on a palm pilot i used to have many years ago. I was feeling very stuck in work and life and didn't know how to move forward in what i really wanted. So i asked it my question, and it gave me an answer that basically told me what i knew (but was too afraid to act on), so i asked it the same question again, hoping for a new pearl of wisdom that would offer a different way forward. I got the same hexagram. A bit freaked, i went about my day. The next day i had the impertinence to actually ask the same question again, and the reading i got basically told me to stop asking stupid questions and to get on with what i knew had to be done. I still feel humbled by this experience, and it was only a program on a palm pilot. I had a lot more respect after that, and did eventually do what i needed to do and haven't looked back. I'm a bit afraid/curious/excited by what would happen if i used yarrow sticks, i'll have to try it sometime. Oracles are doorways to our own deeper wisdom, and often what we need to hear we do already know.

Agree it's important to not make this stuff the focus of your efforts, and yes many books tend to exagerate, the perceptions are for most people most of the time quite subtle, but the more you pay attention to the subtle, the more obvious the subtle becomes. Perceive your own subtle/yin body first. It's also worth noting that people have different perceptive talents that will manifest depending on their primary mode of processing the world, usually either visual, aural, or kinaesthetic. Someone could see auras like other people see a chair, but may not 'hear voices, music' etc.. Our culture is very visual so we tend to fixate on visual elements. I'm a kinaesthetic person, so I experience other peoples subtle bodies as bodily/emotional perceptions, which has taken me a long time and a lot of cultivation to start to separate my own emotions from my physical experience of other peoples subtle bodies. I've not seen much about this sort of stuff so it was very confusing when i started cultivating, and still confuses me on a regular basis - still trying to understand it.

The problem we so often have with romantic love, and it's all over this thread, is attachment. Our culture equates love with attachment. Practice being unattached with love, yes even romantic love, and it can take you to the heart of the universe. Be in love with everything, fall in love everyday, fall in love for 10 seconds with a beautiful woman and then let her go, completely, fall in love with a beautiful sunset, and then let it go, fall in love with the breath coming in through your nostrils, then let it go, fall in love with an image of the goddess, then let it go, follow your desire and let it go. People make love out to be something different from everything else, it's not, the more cultivated women i know have taught me this perspective, and it's something i see in few men. If you can love without attachment, the feminine will embrace you. The Tantric tradition has a lot healthier attitude to love IMO (i don't mean the tantra=sex new age westernise crap), if you can connect in with some genuine devotional stuff this could be helpful. But just love, it's all there is, it's all you are.

Classic case of stage magic distraction. The water bottle was just using him as distraction so that people wouldn't notice the water bottle hitting and breaking the glass.

(wandering in and as usual full of thoughts...) I don't use the I-Ching (or any method commonly associated with divination) for divination, i use it to understand the situation i'm in and to deepen or shift my perspective on said situation. Trying to discern the future has never appealed to me, especially not when done by me, it takes a very highly cultivated consciousness to be able to discern between your own desires and whatever mind dimension you may tap into to elicit an answer - and getting a real prediction has rarely ever helped me, i've always wished i hadn't been told. IMO the I-Ching doesn't operate any differently than the rest of the universe, in that you primarily get what you expect and what you believe. The real magic comes in when you are willing to lay down your expectations and actually shift to a new paradigm - this would be part of the magic in a long reading with yarrow, you get into the process and ideally forget your expectations. I mostly find the I-Ching useful for understanding and dis-entangling the knotted threads of my own mind, it helps me understand me and my own motives better, and hence it usually gives me what i expect, but also exactly what i need to hear, just like any other teacher. But occasionally, when i'm really willing or have exhausted the loops within my own mind, it gives me a doorway into another way of understanding. Oh, and Nipon, i'm up for the experiment, i just got Sun over K'un, Observing - observing, one has washed the hands but not made the offering; there is sincerity, which is reverent, above is wind, below is earth, proceeding in accordance with proper timing. (Taoist I-Ching), i shall leave and fuller interpretation up to you as i'm a little short on time. Is this within your expectations?

Thanks Sean, Gives rise to some random musings, makes me think that to a certain extent our Lagrangian structures are our 'consensus reality'. Been a while since i've read a science article as i've had my head stuck in Taoism and Hermetics, but you can see the writers fundamental assumption of separation as plain as day. It makes me wonder what role consciousness plays in these structures, and perhaps it is actually consciousness that is the critical part of these structures.

Wow, I love this thread! You've gone right to the heart of the utensil marblehead, indeed between the perspectives put forth by you and apepch7 we must consider all utensils (and indeed cutlery drawers and in fact the entire kitchen) to be ultimately empty, for how else indeed can they have any value whatsoever?

Indeed books etc i are great for supplementing, but you really can't go past live as the core of your practice.

There are a number of natural vision books around, and even some optometrists, although they tend to be pricey. The first book i read is by Jacob Liberman, Take Off Your Glasses and See: A Mind/Body Approach to Expanding Your Eyesight and Insight , it's got a lot of really good stuff including some exercises that were/are being used in many chinese schools that use acupressure points. The schools using these exercises apparently have a far lower level of eye problems than the norm. Can get from Amazon etc.. The other one i've been recommended (sitting on the shelf currently) is by Janet Goodrich, natural vision improvement. . My experience with these is that my eyesight got noticeably better when i was working in a job that didn't involve computers, but the last 10 years have been very intensive on the computer side of things and my application to the practices has been lax. Still, at the end of the day when my eyes are weary, the chinese exercises freshen my eyes up in just a few minutes, and there is a noticeable improvement in my vision. And my prescription has remained stable for the last 10 years with only minimal practice. One of the most useful practices my Chinese doctor taught me was to get my knuckles and rub the side of my head from the temple over the ear and down to the back of the neck, it helps to release blockages in the supply of blood to the eyes, which most people wearing glasses will have - and this is a great practice for slowing/reversing the growth of cataracts too. There are also a few yoga schools that have natural vision improvement practices, i know of one ashram in southern india that has a week long retreat program specifically on this. Haven't done it myself, and don't actually know anyone who has, but can try to dig out the url if you're interested. Thanks for posting this, I will read the books again myself and get re-inspired!

(Eagleshen bows in gratitude at having his humble spoonist understanding acknowledged by such a courageous pioneer of the spoonist way) Perhaps we should ask, is the great unmanifest spoon still the unmanifest spoon if it has not divided into the 10,000 cutlery sets?

The biggest problem i've had with dual cultivation is the girl thinking that if you don't ejaculate you're not satisfied. It's a lot harder to not ejaculate if she wants you to as she creates an upward draw of energy, some chics just don't seem to get this at all. However, if you have a woman who is down with seminal retention, or at least open to the idea, in my experience they are curious/excited/impressed by ability to internal orgasm - basically it's a lot easier if they are working with you. Re the purpose, yes LDT and MCO cultivation, and a stabilisation of the energy body IMO. Also, it helps you to get over the ejaculation addiction, particularly if after 100 days you then ejaculate (especially if you've not drawn the chi from your sperm) you'll really notice the difference and you'll really want to keep your little swimmers inside.

A few arisings of thought this produces (and yes i think you are onto something Ninpo-me-this-ninjutsu-me-that): Isn't there a famous saying something like, 'before enlightenment, eat with spoon; after enlightenment, eat with spoon?'. Spoon medicine is called Gua Sha, and in fact many medicines are administered by a spoon. Is the caduceus, the traditional symbol for healing in the west, actually a spoon and not a staff with intertwined serpents? Consider the human spirit as a spoon, scooping the bowl it becomes filled with soup, submitting to the insatiable mouth of desire it becomes empty of soup, and then returns to the bowl again to be filled with more soup, 10,000 times does the spoon seek the soup, until the spoon has no more desire for the soup, enters into the hot water of purification and becomes pure desireless potential in the great cutlery drawer of the Tao.

LOL, brilliant, is this the philosophy that would emerge if all wisdom in the world disappeared except for the last few days of TTB discussions? I think the world would turn into a Kurt Vonnegut or Phillip K Dick novel at the point.

I'll get to it myself one day!

The diet restrictions are specifically for the time before ingesting and not so much a continuous lifestyle choice (so it depends on how regularly you take it), and i get the impression many committed Ayahuascero's have tested out the restrictions for themselves. The diet is basically no-gluten (ie most grains), vegetarian/vegan, no stimulants (eg coffee, sugar), no salt, and no peanuts or soy. And fasting for a good 6 hours beforehand as you'll be purging from both ends all going well. Peanuts and soy are the biggest one as far as i understand, as they actually inhibit the Ayahuasca. And no sexual activity. I think that's about it from memory.

Thanks heaps... "just buy the audio tapes..." LOL. Anyway, who actually has a tape player that works?

Hey Tao Bums, This is my first 'New Topic' so yay for me! So a couple of months ago i experienced what i can only describe as a kidney orgasm, ie an orgasm in my kidney region - it was one of the most subtle and powerful sexual experiences i've had, a yin orgasm of profound depth (i've been practising seminal retention and the cultivation of internal orgasms for a while now). A week or so later i ejaculated (which i tend to do once a month or so - after sipping as much Chi off as i can ), and when i do so i always ingest some of the seminal fluid. What was interesting is that the seminal fluids had an incredibly sweet taste unlike anything i've tasted before, and that sweetness, while not quite as intense as the first time, has continued. Has anyone come across any information they can point me to, or even just illuminate me, as to what has occurred in my body fluids? Intuitively i'm confident something really quite good has occurred, but i don't know exactly what! Thanks! (FYI I've not had a repeat of this particular orgasmic experience, but the 'technique' i was using was as little technique as possible, i simply let go of any desire to ejaculate and relaxed as much as possible, ie i didn't use any particular breathing or muscular control - aside from full body awareness and full, relaxed breathing)

I think you should embrace the sounding crazy, it's necessary sometimes, particularly on the verge of enlightenment i'd suspect. In fact if you'd just answered every question with a 'ROFL' or 'LOL' i'd be right with you. It seems that people have only asked you philosophical questions, when what you really wanted to be asked was questions about the past/future of the human race. It's that whole mention of enlightenment thing, people get very philosophical and immediately want to know things like why and how do i fix it. (which in essence is really something like because it is and it's not broken). So... some general and specific questions... Will humans be basically the same in 20, 200 and 2000 years or will we have evolved? And if so, what caused the evolution? Will the human race become interstellar travellers, and if so when, and what colour scheme are our vehicles? Will Taoism exist in the year 3032?

Curious post, not sure what to make of your fist comment re innocence. I guess i could only respond by saying that i've seen all too often how something sacred/potent/valuable is denigrated, devalued and effectively removed, on a cultural level, from our experience of ourselves. It really is an amazing liquid, it is the very essence of the seed of life. Re my background, i don't really see what it's got to do with it but my upbringing has been very western mainstream. I'm figuring you're curious as to why i do this as a part of my practice, it's got more to do with my interest in Tantra which has cultivated an immense sense of curiosity and reverence for all things about my being. There are some threads on TB that go into some seminal retention/ejaculation/consumption stuff, and lots of differing approaches to all of this. Seminal fluid is an incredibly potent substance, just as is the 'lubricant' of a woman, so why not ingest it if it's made it's way out of the body? Try it if you do ejaculate, it really does have a powerful effect internally if you're sensitive to that kind of thing and can overcome cultural programming.

Can give WuJi Gong a go (or Primordial Tai Chi as M.Winn calls it), can be done really slow and naturally, quite beautiful and profound, some similarities to ZZ i find.

By 'kidney orgasm' i mean the orgasmic/climax experience had a very definite location in my body, i felt an internal expansion or explosion of energy in my kidneys. You can have an orgasm in any organ of the body, i've experienced them localised in my heart or spine before this, as well as non-localised. Re eating, i don't find it nasty at all, a little intense and pungent when i first started doing it, but internally it feels really good, and since this experience it actually tastes really good. I suspect you could tell a lot about your internal health from it.