rex

Horses for courses Michael . Jnana Yoga (intellectual analysis and discrimination) is seen as valid as any other yoga - hatha, raja bhakti, karma etc - and can be practiced in conjunction with any of these.

These are tricky ones Doc. This exposition on view and application might be helpful: What is Awareness?. Thanks Freeform, your approach seems useful when, as Doc says, the 'impurities' arise and it's already too late.

First off Doc, sorry if the rest of this post is going too much off topic. By way of a quick re-orienation the unconditional love is inherent in the spontaneity and naturalness of the presence of awareness. Freeform, I see what you mean by meditation being passive and respect your appliance of science approach too. If only someone could come up with an enlightenment pill that isn't temporary! Not that I'm knocking a biochemical neurological approach; there are energy practices whose effects are enhanced with herbs. It's excellent that different folks using different methods end up in the same or similar place though I think its useful to identify methods, their level of application and distinguish what they're designed to address. In the tradition I practice in mediation is divided into two broad paths, each informing the other: the path of liberation (formless awareness types of practice) and the path of means (energetic practices). These can be combined in one practice session. In these paths problematic emotions can be delt with in a number of ways: avoided/circumvented, transformed or embraced. Each way is related to the level of insight and wisdom of the practitioner. Your approach Freeform seems to have something to offer here by way of integrating meditation experiences into daily life. Broadly speaking what are the main influences?

Hi Doc, I think the difficulty that we all face is extending the presence of awareness that is experienced in meditation into the post meditation sessions. It's so easy to get swept away by automatic preconscious responses. I suppose the trick is to maintain the recognition of the purer awareness and come from that space in all activities. The qualities of this purer awareness are often described in quite numinous terms like 'openness', 'spontaneity', 'authenticity', 'clarity' and 'naturalness' whose presence is usually directly and inversely proportionate to the qualities of the conditioned karmic self e.g. schemes, agendas, wanting etc. Often, so I have been told by experienced meditators, the energy behind our normal everyday risings, anger, desire and so on are just subtle twists of the spontaneous expression of the purer awareness appropriated by the karmic self. For the most part I constantly fail to recognise this. On one occasion I did manage to let violent anger rise and just be without directing it. After about ten minutes it transformed into an energized sense of clarity that stayed with me for about three hours. Never have been able to repeat this. Suppose my karmic self has invested too much expectation and hope in a repeat experience. Things may be different if I ditch the hope and expectation and try to just be natural and spontaneous and trust. As William Blake said 'He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity's sun rise.' Rex

Ok this is perhaps the deluded thoughts of a householder who thinks that spirituality and passion are compatible. Passion, informed by love, in some way serves a positive life enhancing and transcendent, yet immanent purpose (shit that sounds like orthodox Catholicism!) Asceticism is fine for monastics and other worthy renunciates but without passion there would be no society, culture or human race. Love is complex and multi-facetted. Ideally it should be integrated fully with all aspects of our being: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. Passion on any of these levels is fine as long as it operates for the benefit of self and other and is informed, where appropriate, by love operating through the other levels. If the application of passion doesn't bring benefit and leaves one feeling isolated or a further step removed from a sense of connection with the transcendent than all the dispassion and advice of the asian monks is appropriate. I guess I'm saying passion is an impulse that can be harnessed so western hedonism and eastern dispassion both have their place. What's the point of having a cake if you can't eat it? Rex P.S. Sean this liberator bedroom gear ad is going to attract the attention of my works's firewall people.

This site is worth a poke around: http://www.whitecraneinstitute.com/en/home.htm For training purposes and placing of the attention, the LTT is three finger widths below the navel, right in the centre of the lower abdomen.

Can't comment on the pic but in the e-mail correspondences I've had with him he's always been responsive and approachable. I've heard nothing bad about him and he seems quite well connected. Haven't had the good fortune to train with him in person though his instructional material compares favourably with the live instruction I've had. Here's an except from a PM I sent to another taobum reviewing his "Developing Power in the Three Dan Tien" series: As promised here's a summary of the contents of first series of Alex's films on the power of the three dan tien which concentrates on the lower tan tien and how to use it to express and issue power in the body. I don't think this very bare summary does this series any justice but here goes: Volume 1-1 (c 40 mins) Intro on the three dan tien as fields of power. Lower dan tien centre of raw physical strength and will power. Middle dan tien (solar plexus) centre of intutition and emotion. Upper dan tien (in centre of forehead) as source of focus and concentration. An exercise called the Spinal wave is given to connect the three dan tien for whole body power and some training methods are given for releasing force through pushes etc. There's also exercises for regaining balance. Volume 1-2 (c 40 mins) Lower dan tien rotation as source for all physical movement. Exercises in releasing tension in the body (including some simple qigong) and squatting and springing. Twisting and turning as methods to increase power in movements. Single palm change is covered in some depth as a core exercise in putting everything together i.e. training lower tan tien and learning how movements translate power into the arms and legs. Volume 2-1 (c 35 mins) Using the lower tan tien in the five fists of Hsing Yi (couldn't get the name of the art he said but the names correlated to the five fists of Hsing Yi). How to apply, using the five fists, five variations of force in clear directions. Volume 2-2 (c 30 mins) Continuing with the various finer points of using the lower dan tien for whole body power using the five fists and some explanation of five organs and their relationship with the five fists. Combining the lower dan tien with twisting power was also covered. Volume 3-1 (c 40 mins) Stone ball exercises to train the ligaments and tendons as opposed to just the muscles. Tai Chi/bagua movements with heavy objects. Volume 3-2 ( c 3 mins!) Lying on the ground and placing the stone ball on the lower abdomen and breathing into the lower tan tien.

Not Tai Chi but Alex Kozma's instruction films are worth a look: Bagua & Xingyiquan

I liked Hagar's citing of essence and life. Cultivating essence would attempt to develop some sort of wisdom into the nature of the mind. Cultivated to a high degree this wisdom would develop a non-stick mind that wouldn't grasp at experience with attraction or aversion. No grasping then no negative emotions stored in the organs and no need for practices like the healing sounds and fusion since these practices deal only with the symptoms and not the root cause of these negative emotions. This might be an orthodox Buddhist view. This orthodox view doesn't invalidate practices like the healing sounds and fusion. The image of a glass of muddy water is often used to describe the process of letting the mind settle. Don't stir the water, leave it as it is and the mud settles to the bottom and the water becomes clear. Fine but the mud is still there and when the water is stirred the dirt will rise again. Practices of cultivating life will remove the mud. This seems to be the Healing Tao approach. I'm not sure if its the religious Daoist approach as it combines both cultivating essence and life. Orthodox Buddhism and religious Daoism have the same goal. Daoism appears to have more pragmatic approaches. I think there are schools in both Buddhism and Daoism that emphasise cultivating essence; elements in Daoism that emphasise cultivating life; and elements in Daoism and Buddhism that emphasise the cultivation of both essence and life. Now here's the rub: does cultivating essence only automatically cultivate life and does cultivating life only automatically cultivate essence? These questions lie behind most of monumental soap opera discussions over on the HT board.

I think he's talking about the need to have a grounded spirituality that engages with life. Rex

Closely related to this is wargasm. The connection with sex and power with these is no accident. I think someone can be a warrior and a soldier at the same time - there's loads of accounts of soldiers who've questioned dodgey commands or done the right thing. But then again there's of accounts of what occupying armies have done throughout history. Whoremonger and wargasm are very apt. It's good to be aware of our fragility. It helps develop awareness of others and compassion by relating to qualities held in common. From a Buddhist pov enlightenment is not an accident. It's all mapped out in the Lam-Rim, stages on the path to enlightenment. In our present condition having no control over anything is a result of our karmic vision and being in our dimension. At least we can try to have control over our reactions. There's one teaching that tries to get people from being overly dominated by hope and fear - one of the methods is to ask troublesome spirits to give you hassle!

Just a bunch of rhetorical questions and ideas really, though comments welcome: Isn't being a warrior about defending boundaries (at various levels) and also living by some value system designed to protect something greater than themselves? Values stop them throwing their weight around and abusing their power (hopefully). Is there a qualitative difference between a warrior, a soldier and a mercenary? Can someone be more than one of these at the same time? There's also another sense of being a warrior where you don't have to be anything overtly martial or macho. It more about conduct and attitude in the face of challenge and adversity. In this respect I think of mothers in war zones who constantly rebuild the hearth fire after each bombing raid. Now that's courage and tenacity. As Hemmingway said 'Life, you loose. The only thing that counts is how you conduct yourself while you're being destroyed'.

Right on! There's a great mystery in sex.

Comrades! Instead of training to decadent western music why not train to some pure wholesome music from the Steppes? For example: http://muroma.murom.ru/music/izbr/muroma01.mp3. The whole album is worth trawling through here. For those taobum comrades who are inclined to less strenuous pursuits and who know that if you're healthly you don't need to exercise and if you're not, its bad for you, a wealth of interesting music can be found here. The Eastern Orthodox/Byzantium/Coptic section may inspire even the dullest of minds to prayer. Enjoy!

Found this video of a guy prancing around. The moves have some nifty looking applications. Anyone know who he is? Martial Video (Later edit) Also episodes from UK TV series exploring martial art secrets: Mind, Body & Kick Ass Moves: Episode One Mind, Body & Kick Ass Moves: Episode Three Mind, Body & Kick Ass Moves: Episode Four

I thought the frivolity attempted to by-pass peoples' initial skepticism by trying to inform and entertain. There were some incredible moments. Like when Chris Crudelli demonstrated his dramatic self-healing ability by completely recovering overnight from second degree burns on his feet from fire walking - much to the surprise of the hospital staff who told him that he would take months to heal and required skin grafts. There were also some eye wincing moments. Like the scene with a sadhu destroying his erectile tissue by twisting his John Thomas up with a stick - ouch! For those of you who maybe curious what a sadhu looks like here's a picture:

Got it in one! This certainly gives the 'prancing' added gravitas. The Mind, Body and Kick Ass moves episodes have some interesting sections: * A master alternating and balancing hard qigong feats with softer pursuits like painting while standing on raw eggs without breaking them. * Taoist spirit possession enabling non-martial artists to do impressive things * The use of stones inserted under the skin for protection in the Phillipines * Demonstration and explanation of martial arts tricks

Free biorhythm calculators available from here: http://www.whitestranger.com/biorhythms_for_free.htm Natural Biorhythms 3.00 does the comparisons. Alison Hannigan and I can get in on though Sarah Michelle Gellar would spurn me. Good drinking buddies for me are Liam Gallagher and Jimi Hendrix.

Got no theories or comments but can quote someone else's view cited in The Secret of Everlasting Life: "The idea of everlasting life has nothing to do with hankering after life. The truth is that actually there is no death. How can there be no death? Because actually there is one single energy, one all-encompassing motivating force which lies at the root of all life's activity, not two. The Great Void which is the common ground of all life is there already, with life continously being born within it. So what need is there for life and death? It is because our desire for things assumes undue importance that we go astray and begin separation of life and death. If we view them from this space of quiet and tranquility we can see there has never been any life or any death. Evidently there is only this one single energy flowing and circulating about." From the Preface to Can Tong Qi Shuliu, 1564

Bryn Orr produced a guide to iron body qigong called Bronze Warriors. He seems to have disappeared off the net now. It may be worth emailing him. Hi email can be found in this message: http://www.healingtaousa.com/cgi-bin/tpost.pl?smessage=617

There's a detailed explanation of the phases of the moon orbiting the figure in The Secret of Everlasting Life: First Translation of the Ancient Chinese Text of Immortality. Out of print now (I think) but available here and here. These moon phases are also depicted in a Fusion of the Five Elements poster.

Various microcosmic diagrams with different comments: Orbit 1 Orbit 2 Orbit 3

Nicely put. On the Internal Chi Breathing tape Michael Winn mentions that people tend to be very front orientated and ignore the back. I get synestysia with taste and smells. A former girlfriend used to associate colours and shapes with music. This 'sensing' can also extend to an awareness of the affect of other practices. Best, Rex

I've had momemts when energy is sensed from within the middle and back of the skull and this informaton is then relayed simultaneously to the back of the eyes. The difference being is usually I look and sense with front of the eyes. Doesn't make strict anatomical sense I know.