doc benway

I think any training in the orbit is a waste of time without a qualified teacher. Mixing practices out of a book is of no value and will most likely be counterproductive.

Hi Cam, My advice ( I know you didn't ask for it but I feel like I want to offer it...) a brief, intensive seminar on Daoist arts is a contradiction in terms and spirit and not worth your time or the uncomfortable feelings it can generate among friends if you must ask for help to attend it. These practices are based on very gradual progress over time with guidance of a mentor. I practice myself with a shifu. The microcosmic orbit is all you need for many years but it's worthless without consistent, guided practice over time. An intensive seminar in advanced Daoist practice is truly bullshit, IMHO, even to the advanced practicioner, and would make me question Master Chen's legitimacy - sorry to go there, but I think it needs to be said. Being shown advanced practice before a firm foundation in the very bascis (which takes several years of practice) is very counter-productive in this line of practice, I believe. And there is no such thing as an intensive seminar to learn the basics. It took my shifu months to teach me the most rudimentary basic practice. This practice is a very personal affair between teacher and student - no groups. It would be much better, if you're serious on this particular path, to find a local or regional Daoist teacher to study with. The $800 would be much better spent visiting this same teacher frequently over the period of a year than seeing a master once and possibly never again or maybe once every year or two. After a few years of practice you could probably make some progress with a teacher from a distance by email and occasional visits (some of my disciple bretheren do that) but not in the first stages. My apologies if I sound preachy or arrogant. These are just my views and they are offered in the spirit of friendship. Good luck whatever you decide and warm regards... _/\_ And PS, there is no advantage to this practice over what Smile suggests. If you can do that, you don't need 20 years of Daoist practice. I do it mostly because of the complimentary effect with my taijiquan training,

I don't believe you Saying what you said in your first post is never easy nor well received _/\_

I'm not looking for other names, it just is. For me, qi is more the process of interaction or experience between whatever it is that we call awareness/perception and whatever it is we call universe. In fact, I know there to be no real separation between the two but there is an apparent separation, an illusion of separation. Perhaps the existence or experience of this separation could be labeled qi? It's all a vain and futile attempt to use thought to capture reality through comparison and labeling. I don't know really but to me qi is much more process than substance...

Oh yeah... I would like that. My teacher just got a shipment of some A+++ Taiwan High Mountain Oolong - the good stuff. I've got about half a kilo of the stuff.

With all due respect, I didn't see it like that at all. To me it was a passionate, heartfelt plea for compassion and awareness.

Nicely said Mikaelz... I think it takes a direct experience of the connection you describe to really accept what you're saying. Most on the spiritual search strongly cling to it not realizing that it's the clinging to the search that prevents the experience of what they're trying to attain. The irony is perfect. The ego is searching for the fact that it doesn't exist but as long as the search continues so must the ilusion. Many authors point to this and many practices lead to this direction but there is no teacher like direct experience. Jeff Foster and Steven Harrison are also very good authors on the subject. Welcome back!

What a beautiful, chilling. and thrilling speech. She is right - each of us should examine our values and act based on them. Sadly, some of her hopes are not achievable. Our species has lost balance with nature through technology. That's a tough one to solve with technology, which is the only approach we seem to understand.

Good news Lin! Perhaps I'll get to meet you one day after all! That would be nice...

Imagination isn't the right word. No color. Energy is a word much too loaded with preconceived ideas, IMO. In Dao meditation, the begining practice does involve moving this awareness from point to point and some of these points correspond somewhat to chakras but not exactly. They are points in the system of qi flow developed in traditional Chinese medicine. I'm not saying that these are the points as determined by the Chinese system, just that the Chinese developed a system communicate and study what they were experiencing - there's a big difference, IMO - no system determines reality, just poorly attempts to communicate experience. The reason I used the word imagination is that when I first started to practice Taiji, I read Waysun Liao's book which described using the imagination to begin to experience the "feeling" of qi. This imagery stuck in my mind but it's much closer to intention and attention than to imagination.

A very good fighter once told me that the best way to learn to fight is to fight a lot with people trained in all styles with as few rules as possible. He was an amazing streetfighter with a little formal boxing training and a lot of guts and practice. He would pick fights at a local park for practice and always won.

PS - Since you're looking for a variety of opinions, I should mention also something I've discussed before on this forum. My experience and understanding of qi is different than most (even my shifu) people describe or ascribe to. I feel it to be present everywhere, always, and beyond our control to change it's presence, absence, concentration, and so forth. To me what is happening is not a process of increasing qi or moving qi but simply tuning my awareness to it and moving my awareness. As I said earlier, I look at what is going on as tuning a part of my brain/awareness to this sense of qi (whatever that means) and gaining progressively increasing control over that awareness. Qi doesn't increase, my awareness of it simply intensifies. I don't move qi, I move my awareness - sort of like a radio tuner (so so analogy at best)... Now if you want to call that quality of awareness "qi", then we're left with a semantic argument that is moot. Anyway - just my personal opinion derived through my practice.

I think it's as good a starting point as any to get your feet wet, provided you're learning from a teacher and not a book or video.

If the teacher in your area teaches multiple styles, my advice would be to discuss with them your background and aspirations and let them guide your education. I've seen excellent taiji practitioners from Chen, Yang, Wu, and other camps. The style is not as important as the teacher and student, IMO. Chen teaches more physical forms. Wu more meditative, Yang somewhere in the middle. The martial training in all three is a matter of becoming expert at applying the energies and postures in combat situations so they tend to converge.

If I recall from the books, I believe that CC referred to the entities as being inorganic organisms as opposed to micro-organisms (ie bacteria, viruses, and so on). That just occured to me... Not that it makes any difference, just thought I'd mention it.

Very good thread. Much has already been said and I'm coming to the party late but I'll add a few thoughts FWIW> The way I train is meant to teach the martial side of Taiji. Our training consists of form, standing, sitting, push hands, da lu, qinna, and most importantly the 13 basic postures drilled as fighting techniques with progressive contact. In addition we have a number of supplementary training techniques which include neigong, strength training (with and without auxillary equipment), agility training, sensitivity training, and so forth. Finally, those who really want to figure out how to make it work, will participate in the free fighting training with our external brothers and sisters, including (if desired) lei tai style full contact and shuai jiao. I spend a lot of time with fellow instructors drilling the basic techniques over and over, breaking down the forms to find individual techniques that we turn into drills, looking for various applications of each technique to drill repetetively, and so forth. I do this mostly due to my love of martial arts and training, not so much because I am interested in or intend to fight. I'd much rather walk or run away... I find that the way we train is not much different from the way I've trained in external styles in the past. The main difference being the qualities of the "blocking" and striking, meaning the sensitivity, yielding, and fajin. All that said - I don't think that the original question is phrased in a meaningful manner - no disrespect intended... Here's what I mean: Combat is not a style. When the shit hits the fan and the survival instinct kicks in, style is meaningless. No one limits their intent to survive to specific principles, techniques, or methods. THey do whatever and however it takes to get the job done. In the few real fights I've been in (and the more challenging competitions), style takes a back seat to survival. I'll grant you that my prior training will, in part, determine what I do and how I do it, but there's no way that I'm limiting what I do to training. Instinct comes out and it's anything goes. Biting, scratching, hair pulling, joint breaking, eye gouging, groin strikes, using anything at hand as a weapon, running away - anything goes in order to end the conflict as soon as possible with as little damage to myself as possible. Look at martial artists in tournaments and in street fights - how often do they look pretty and true to their style? Not often when they're really challenged to their limit. WHen the fight's easy, you can look as pretty as you choose. When it's real, that stuff doesn't matter. Also, how many fighters have trained solely in taiji? Not too many, I'd wager. I know one and he does pretty well when he spars with the external stylists but, to my knowledge, he's never been in real combat. So, to get back to the original question. I think my taiji training will make me a slightly better fighter than I would be without it due to my abilities to yield, neutralize, fajin, root, grapple, and be sensitive. And yet, depending on the situation, it's difficult to judge how much of that will come in to play.

Great news. To all those who helped create this site and intend to maintain it - Thank you!

I really like the idea of the entities being analogous to microorganisms, that has an interesting feel to it. I would differ on categorizing organisms, however. I look at all organisms as being both creative and destructive. Human beings are primarily destructive from the perspective of just about every organism on earth but other humans, I would imagine. Creatvie and destructive are relative terms. The cycle of creation and destruction pervades life. Within us are millions of cells that do little but destroy other cells, both native and invaders. Without them we'd be dead. From our perspective they're creative because they keep us alive, but from their target's perspective they're destructive. Other cells do little but create. Yet from the planet's perspective they are destructive because they are creating more humans, the single most destructive force on our planet.

I feel it! (This reminds me of silly video clip... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyWyk3PVAyw ) I call it qi, it doesn't really matter anyway. I don't see, hear, feel, smell, or taste it. To me it has a different character that is not one of the 5 senses. My shifu says that Dao meditation develops a part of the brain that perceives qi that is like a 6th sense. This is a good enough explanation for me. It seems more like imagination to me. After all, what is not created by our brain? Like Taomeow said, I feel it more when I pay attention!

My $.02 about Taijiquan - Taijiquan is first and foremost a martial art. It's origin is lost in history and it's earliest sources come from writings by Huang Zongxi(1610-1695). There's an excellent article about Taijiquan and Daoism by Douglas Wile in The Journal of Asian Martial Arts. First came the martial art, then came the philosophical interpretations and descriptions of the martial art, then came the standardization of the forms, then came the application to health and fitness. That's a general description of it's development that I think is pretty accurate. For me, taijiquan combined with Dao meditation has helped to develop a closer bond between body and mind. The slow practice of the forms allows an opportunity for the awareness to be very deeply connected to the movements. Over time the awareness controls the body with less and less delay. Also, the gradual development of optimal posture and timing helps to develop surprising power using very little excess energy or wasted movement. Taiji is good for bulding balance, timing, coordination, flexibility, strength, and mind/body coordination. It's primary purpose, however, is as a fighting art. Unfortunately, most teachers aren't well versed in the martial aspect of the art, that is, the martial training techniques. Most teachers teach the form and then make up applications based on the postures. Furthermore, I think it is extremely difficult and requires a lot of patience and dedication to really make it work in a combat setting. For most people, the health benefits are more important than the martial benefits anyway and the majority of the health benefits come directly from practicing the form. Finally, in my experience, to really get the maximum benefit from taiji practice, you should combine it with Dao meditation practice. The two go together like hand and glove. I hope that helps. Most definitely yes, but I'd hesitate to call it "visualization" actually. It's more like a different type of awareness, a 6th sense if you will. Some would call it visualization but I think the 'visual' image is actually a hinderance. It's more like imagination. In the begining you simply learn the physical movements of the form. Later comes the coordination of mind and body. This aspect is why Dao meditation is so important in achieving higher levels of skill in taiji.

This is not an easy concept but it will come to you if you give it some time, I think. Alan Watts, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Osho, and Anthony Dimello helped me to get this concept. Let's break it down and see what comes... "Apart, from us where is time and where is space?" Think about it - time is only meaningful in a relative sense - comparing now to then. This only is significant to the brain that works by comparing things. Same goes for space. Here is meaningless without there. Where are we right now? Define where 'here' is. It's impossible. It's all relative and only meaningful to the brain that is conditioned to compare. In reality, time and space are the products of thought. "If we are bodies, we are involved in time and space, but are we?" Are we our bodies? This is the value in the exercise of figuring out the question "who am I?" which was one of Ramana's primary methods for achieving awareness. Am I my body? If so, which part? If I lose a leg or both, am I not still I? "I" am still in existence until "I" die. What then? THis is worth investigating very deeply for yourself. This really can't be taught, only pointed at. "We are one and identical now, then, and forever, here, and everywhere." Here again is the non-separation. The unity of all. The Dao. The oneness of existence. I think we've already explored that. "Therefore we, timeless, and spaceless Being, alone are." The passages that preceed this one hopefully serve to show us that we are not our bodies. We are not something that is finite and can be quantified or localized. That is all an illusion. A useful and somewhat necesary illusion for survival, but an illusion nonetheless. Albert Einstein realized this through his study of math and physics (see my tag line). We are indescribable. We really have no absolute position in space and time. Our existence defies such simple definitions and descriptions... I hope that helps. Don't give up! It took me several years of studying several different authors and meditating to get a grip on some of these concepts. It doesn't come easy... PS Sorry I've been absent for a while but I'm recovering from an emergency appendectomy.... things are slowly getting better. It was quite an interesting and unexpected experience!

Thanks for clearing that up. I think "best" is a flawed concept... I currently practice Dao meditation regularly. It integrates well with my taiji. Many other profound benefits as well that go beyond taiji practice but "best"? There is no such thing as "best"...

Very well said... I see what you're driving at.

What are you looking for? What are the goals you wish to achieve through meditation? I think you have phrased the question wrong - in my view there is no such thing as a "most benificial and effective form of meditation." Your goals (or lack of goals) could help you determine the best path. Dao meditation is well suited to those who practice internal Chinese arts, provided you can find the right teacher...

Where did Santa go? How to transport tons of toys Without a worm-hole...