doc benway

Inner cultivation is indeed rare among the Chinese and yet to those lucky enough to have access to a teacher and a path it is the heart and soul of Daoism. The religious rituals are also important and valuable but nothing is more important than personal, inner transformation. It's quite similar in Buddhism. The majority of lay people have no access to methods of transformation and can only access through religious ritual and prayer, and that is fine for them. True understanding, for the practitioner, can only come through practice, not intellectual understanding or prayer. My teacher, and his before, discourage study and reading. They felt that any time spent studying was wasted time that could have been devoted to practice. You're welcome to your perspective, but it is just that, your perspective. Mine is different and equally valid. Inner cultivation has nothing to do with materialism when practiced properly.

Guess again

All of the translations are pointing to the same idea. Our lives are filled with change. As we become more empty and still we can approach a direct experience of that which does not change. That which does not change is without beginning or end, without boundary, and without bias; it is the eternal, that which "will never pass away." That is the essence of immortality and it is our fundamental essence.

I was visiting my brother in Florida last week and went with him to take his son to a piano lesson. The teacher knows I'm a guitarist and asked if I'd look at some old guitars she had laying around that belong to her son-in-law. They were looking to get rid of them. One was an old Martin guitar... small body, decent shape, sounds amazing. I did a little research and learned that it was made in 1920! Excellent condition considering it will soon be 100. I made an offer and brought a 1920 Martin 0-18 home with me... By far it has the best tone of any guitar I've played or owned. It needs a little work (maybe more than a little) but considering what I paid it will be a bargain either way. Very excited to see where it takes my playing.

To offer pleasure or offspring to one's partner.

For my teacher, neidan is the heart and soul of Daoism. Everything else is window dressing.

What Apech said The purpose is to transform ourselves, to wake up, to experience life from a deeper and broader perspective. Yes, I practice Yes, it is worth it. The benefits are potentially priceless. There are many types of people who need different things to grow. There are many ways to tackle a challenge. Hence there are many schools and sects. I am no authority on what's out there but I will offer that there is no substitute to developing a personal relationship with a "one who has gone before." Reading philosophy is one thing. Neidan is another.

That's a good practice.

Dis-identification with the thinker, the thoughts, the feelings. Identification with something much deeper and wiser, the source of spontaneity and creativity. To some degree mind will always engage while we live. It is more a matter of determining the limits of mind, in the tradition I follow it is a distinction between mind and its essence or nature. A classic analogy is like differentiation between waves and the ocean. Many traditions discuss it in terms of dual and non-dual experience. It is experiential in nature so if you don't have the time or interest in practice, better to ignore the 'idea. The 'idea' isn't worth much.

No need to change anything, you asked about the belly - i offered a direction to go. Take it or leave it. Attention to thoughts and feelings is generally not meditation. The thoughts and feelings arise endlessly, they come and go. Engaging with them, dwelling on them, limiting them in any way, is distraction from meditation. It's what we already know so very well. There is more, if you are interested in a broader perspective. If you are happy with thoughts and feelings, wonderful. No need to worry about opening the belly, heart, throat, crown, etc... Enjoy what works for you.

For some, yes For others, there may be other paths that are supportive Bring your attention to your belly. Let it rest there. When ever your attention wakes up to noticing it has deviated, come back to the belly and rest there. Feel what your belly feels like from the inside. Just rest there. Start with short practices and increase duration over time. Feel how the belly is just as important and interesting and legitimate as all the thoughts that come and go. You can use the breath to bring you back, or not... Practice, notice when you disconnect, refocus, continue... Bring awareness of how it reacts in any situation, any time of the day, and connect there, as often as possible. Use that awareness of the center of your gravity in martial training and qigong... Feel it as an umbilical connection to here and now.

Does Nature respect laws? My impression is that "laws" of Nature are simply consistencies in our limited sphere of observation. Such is opinion of a mind that has yet to experience anything other than identifying with its contents. Meaning and cognitive content do not define existence or experience, they are simply intellectual reflection and communication stimulated by experience. Clearly there is and will always be thinking. It has great value. And it has limits. Those who never go beyond thought will never know how much richness and possibility they are missing.

When I think about what the internal martial arts have in common, the answer for me is standing meditation. It's the source of power in xingyiquan - santishi. The principles of zhan zhuang are also at play in circle walking in baguazhang. While the legs are stepping, the upper body and core engagement are analogous to that in standing practice.

I've never studied so I don't want to try and describe it but have pushed hands with some students of yiquan and I've also seen some masters demonstrate. Their ability to issue power is impressive. There is similarity to other internal arts but the emphasis is on zhan zhuang. This results in very astute listening skills as well as spontaneity and unpredictability. This page has a nice description - http://gufengtaichi.org/news-and-articles/yiquan-power-mind/. As with any internal martial art, it's my opinion that there is no substitute for a credible teacher. In terms of video and online teaching, you'll have to investigate, I haven't studied the art and can't recommend any particular resources. It does sound like something you would find appealing based on your early posts.

Are you familiar with yiquan? Sort of an amalgam of zhan zhuang and xingyiquan. If your interest runs into the deeper energetic and spiritual side, it might be something worth exploring a bit.

I've pushed hands with a few self-taught tai chi anarchists... Never encountered one with any skill. No doubt you can get lots of benefit from experimenting and improvising but it's unlikely you'll develop any martial skill, if that's what you're after. For that you need to learn power generation, listening, sticking, following, timing, and other skills that require expert guidance and lots of practice with multiple partners. You need to feel someone who knows what they are doing to get a sense of how to apply the methods. At the end of the day it's all about what you want to get out of it. I wish you the best of luck whichever path you take. Taiji is an amazing art and is worthy of deep commitment and investment.

If you want to learn Chen Taijiquan (or any style for that matter), I highly recommend a teacher. Subtle changes in posture, movement, intention, and so on can make a world of difference. If you want to learn what you can without a teacher, I would recommend reading the books by Chen Zhenglei. They are the most clear, detailed, and authoritative that I've come across. These two should get you started: Chen's Taichi for Health and Wellness Chen's Taichi Old Frame One and Two Along with reading the books, watch videos of Chen Zhenglei and Chen Xiaowang. There are other great masters to watch but those two have a lot of online videos and are very reliable. Their form is what Chen's style should look like. Many tournament competitors sacrifice martial sensibility for aesthetics. All that said, without a credible teacher your progress will be quite limited.

http://www.dichotomytests.com/results.html?id=0&m=-52.5&e=-122.5&i=45&h=-95&n=-50&r=-22.5&s=20

Another fan!? Well met! Are you a fan of Nagisa Oshima? Gohatto?

I highly recommend the album Si Ji (Four Seasons) played by Xuefei Yang. It includes some traditional and some contemporary pieces for classical guitar. My favorite tracks are the traditional Yi Dance; Si Ji, written by French guitarist Thierry Rougier; and a series of pieces inspired by consulting the I Ching by Italian guitarist Carlo Domeniconi.

It’s Ryunosuke Tsukue, played by Tatsuya Nakadai, from the film Sword of Doom. Great samurai flick by Kihachi Okimoto. It’s based on a famous and popular Japanese serial from the early 20th century titled Daibosatsu Toge. Great story about an itinerant and unbeatable ronin. Okimoto planned a trilogy of films but died after the first so the ending is a bit unsatisfying for many.

Jung’s observation puts me in mind of an insightful quote from Dag Hammarskjöld: “God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.” Spirituality for me means discovering who I am and allowing myself to manifest in the most spontaneous and authentic way possible.

Great suggestions here. Standing meditation is a million dollar secret. Basic standing post posture is all that is needed, IME, and can be a door to awakening and a deep inner journey. All of the more complicated postures will naturally arise over time, as will spontaneous movement and qigong. It is a very slow and gentle method and requires patience and dedication.

Here is a free version of Neiye - http://www.indiana.edu/~p374/Inner_Enterprise.pdf without any discussion. The Roth version is well worth it for the context and discussion.

Some personal opinions, not meant to be definitive or authoritative... If you feel something, anything, it can be expressed and understood in terms of Qi. Qi "feels" like everything. It's not simply a warm and tingly feeling you get when you close your eyes and put your fingertips together. That's a parlor trick. It is, along with other methods, a way to begin to connect awareness to the body and environment but that's really all that is happening when we "feel" Qi. Qi is much more foundational than any particular feeling. It is something we cultivate and connect to in a deep and comprehensive way in Daoist neigong and neijia. Qi is a word which denotes the fundamental and pervasive animating force or energy pervasive in all life, including the "life" of larger systems such as our Earth, our solar system, even the universe. It has infinite variations and applications but is always seems related to movement, flow, relationship, and connection. In living with the concept for decades in neigong, qigong, and neijia, I've found it to be referring in a way to the relationship between awareness and manifestation on a very personal level - a description of mind-body connection of sorts. This is more a personal interpretation than a classic or widely accepted definition. There have been two characters historically used to designate Qi - 炁 is a character only found in old Daoist manuscripts to denote Qi and is mostly seen in Daoist talismans and magical writings. According to my teacher it is specifically used to denote the most subtle and profound meaning of Qi, eg. the life force that animates all living systems, and may be extracted from air, for example, which is a grosser and less refined form of Qi. 氣 is the more widely used character which as a more comprehensive meaning related to air, energy, and so forth. In terms of understanding and feeling Qi, I suggest it is firmly rooted in you perspective and expectations. Rather than look for Qi as something separate or distinct, I find it best to look at it as a fundamental quality of every experience, be it physical, emotional, psychological, etc... In particular, the quality of movement, connection, interaction, animation, and vitality that is inherent in every experience. If you like to read I highly recommend the Neiye which dates from around 350 BCE, the oldest manuscript describing the cultivation of Qi. It's available in an English translation by Harold Roth as Original Tao: Inward Training and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism.