Iskote

At least some quanzhen taoists are vegetarian and they practice internal cultivation (jing qi shen). Also shaolin monks are vegetarian, and traditionally besides external martial arts they also practiced internal cultivation. It would seem the that being vegan is not a barrier to internal cultivation.

It's a picture from 1939 of a look-alike to Jay-Z. So some people are joking that Jay-Z may be an immortal or a vampire. For example: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/14/1939-jay-z-look-alike_n_3271610.html Jay-Z does appear to look a lot like the guy in the 1939 picture however.

I have visited a taoist temple (Hong Kong based) many times and participated in cermemonies and chanting, and I never saw anyone bowing to anyone else, whether to a taoist priest or anyone else, nor did I ever see anyone bring in fruit except in the case when it was time for the fruit on the alters to be changed, and one or more temple members would bring in the new fruit to replace the old fruit on the alters. Bowing was only done when people were offering incense at an alter or related. I am not saying that other temples wouldn't ever have such behavior as I have already mentioned that different temples may do things differently, or it may be specific to a certain regions. Just my own experience. At any rate, as long as a visitor is respectful you should be fine. In my experience taoists tend to be a lot more laid back and casual in general than you might find in some buddhist or other traditions.

Basher, it would depend on the temple whether they allow pictures inside the temple or not, but in any case it would always be a good idea to ask first if pictures inside the temple are ok.

Different branches and sects of taoism have different customs and traditions. As long as you show basic respect and manners when visting a taoist temple I don't think there will be any problem at all, especially for a temple located in the USA. I wouldn't worry too much about bowing or bringing fruit or anything like that when just dropping by for a visit. It is quite unlikely that there will be any such expectations from visitors. They will obviously know that most visitors will not likely be familiar with taoist customs in general, or their particular temple's customs and traditions. If you are concerned about it, you can ask whoever is at the temple to describe some of the temple customs and practices to you if you are interested. Believers typically have the option of offering up incense at one or more alters if they want to, and how exactly this is done may differ a bit from temple to temple, but it usually involves offering the incense in a certain way and some bowing, but you could just simply ask how to do it if you want to do so.

Actually, pretty well all genuine spiritual or cultivation systems including buddhism, taoism, and various religions and practices from all over the world all place strong emphasis on high morality and virtue. This however is often overlooked or deliberately ignored in modern times by many people, but it really is the foundation of most true spiritual and cultivation systems. Without a strong moral or ethical foundation, cultivation practices such as meditation, qigong, chanting, ceremonies, prayer, rituals, etc., become weak or distorted or empty. This missing foundation is the 'te' that is described in much detail in the tao te ching. People who do not first build a strong foundation of morality/virtue/te and who practice spiritual or cultivation practices either do not get much beyond health improvement, or they may even develop mental and emotional imbalances or health issues, and that sort of thing. You can see many of the so called spiritual and cultivation practices these days have become quite distorted, with emphasis on me, myself, and I, and many pretty much ignore the true and essential foundation of the original systems. Pointing this out seems to make little to no difference for the most part however. Many people seem very uninterested in such things these days. The ego and imagination rules supreme in these times. Me, myself, and I and the almighty dollar is the new 'cultivation' system. Meanwhile the Earth and all life upon it is under great stress and risk.

Fullset, from my point of view you are needlessly complicating things. It is you who has to make the decision of whether you want to continue doing harmful activities or not. The simple solution is obviously to stop the harmful activities. If you are having skin problems, see a doctor.

KenBrace, practicing what you want to practice (mo pai system) requires more than just a 'teacher'. It requires a teacher with mastery in the practice. This is because you need to learn from someone who not only knows the practice methods and how they are done, but you need the guidance of someone who has a deep understanding of what constitutes right practice and wrong practice and who also knows how to properly identify when a student is on the right track or the wrong track, and also knows how to correct any problems that might arise. You are warned. Anyway, to deal with the problem you have described, I would suggest you completely stop your sitting practice for the time being until the problem is resolved, and practice the following at least once a day, but once in the morning and once in the evening will be better. Practice the standing exercise shown in the following video starting at about the 3:30 time stamp in the video. You only need to practice this particular stance. You don't need to practice the other stances he shows in the other videos. Lam Kam Chuen - The Way of Energy - Day 1 If you haven't practiced this before, start off with just a few minutes or so at first, and build up your standing time slowly. When standing this way starts becoming a strain, stop for that session. Keep your body as relaxed as you can and keep your shoulders down and relaxed as well. Over time you will be able to stand longer and longer. If you can get to standing sessions up to about 20 minutes or more without any straining, then that should be long enough for a session. I believe you first need to correct some weakness or imbalances in your system before practicing sitting practice. Once you have your problem resolved you can start adding sitting practice if you really want and see how it goes, however see my warning above. You are going to want to find a system that is taught by a very experienced and knowledgeable teacher. You should probably do the standing practice for at least three months or more; as long it takes for your problem to be resolved. You should also probably keep doing the standing practice regardless of what other practices you might add later. You can move on to other standing stances once you have resolved your problem if you want. If you are willing to give this standing practice a try for your situation, please report back with your progress over the next few months so others can see how it helped you with your problem. It is not easy keeping at the standing practice every day, so it will take some real determination and commitment. Ideally you should only be doing the standing stance shown in the above video for at least several months. If you continue with the sitting or other practices during this period then this standing practice might not help you so much however, and obviously you will need to make an effort to avoid sexual stimulation during this practice period as well. So there are various factors that can determine results, so it is good to keep that in mind.

In my own meditation practice, I experience the lower dan tian as being in the area of the navel, but a bit lower than the navel (viewing the front of the body when a person is upright) and inside a ways. From what I have encountered from different references, various people place it in this general area but the exact location given can vary by an inch or two or so depending on the source. The following excerpt from "Opening the Dragon Gate" may shed some light on why this is: Excerpt from "Opening the Dragon Gate", Chapter 7, page 89. "Taoists regard Earth as a universe, and they regard the human body as a universe. Just as the Earth has longitudinal meridians and latitudinal parallels, the human body also has longitudinal meridians and latitudinal parallels. The question of "acupuncture points" on the Earth's meridians has already been raised; this is in itself a major breakthrough in the domain of theory. The Chinese theory and application of longitudinal meridians in the human body are known to the whole world, but the theory and practice of the latitudes of the human body has long been held secret by Taoists, completely unknown to the world. When we first visited Master Wang Liping, he told us about the existence of the latitudes of the human body. The phenomenon is sure to provoke the interest and attention of people all over the world., and inquiries into the mysteries of the human body should make a major advance. Earth has a central line, which is the equator; the human body also has a central line. Taoists divide the human body into three elixir-producing segments, which are the upper, middle, and lower elixir fields everyone talks about. People who do meditation exercises generally know the lower elixir field is in the lower abdomen, below the naval, but they cannot accurately determine the precise location. Taoist practitioners over the ages have also given many different explanations of this point. The conclusion at which Master Wang Liping has arrived through his own personal experience in training is that the exact location of the lower elixir field in the human body varies according to the geographical location of the individual. In Chinese people, it is between 1.2 and 1.5 inches below the navel; in people who live nearer to the equator, the lower elixir field is closer to the navel; while in people who live farther away from the equator, the lower elixir field is further from the navel. "

Many reflections but do not focus on them just a distraction

4bsolute, if you really want to have a postive impact on other people in this world and on our environment, then probably one of the best ways would be to volunteer with or join a charitable organization or something similar which does charity work and that sort of thing around the world. Just spending a lot of your time sitting and meditating or whatever, even for a whole lifetime, realistically will probably have much less real positive impact on others or our environment than if you get involved in activities like charity or similar. In East Asia there are many people who become monks/nuns/priests and spend much of their lives in meditation and prayer, etc., but most probably what really has the most wide and positive impact on others and the world around them is the actual charitable work or other activities which people may do directly to help other people out who are in need. Also, a person can spend a large portion of their lifetime in meditation or whatever and still not have changed much. In my opinion, the biggest portion of self cultivation for most of us by far is really working on our own faults and bad habits. In my opinion meditation is not a magic pill that transforms a person without a lot of effort first working on building a strong foundation by working on our personal faults and shortcomings. You don't have to become a monk or nun or whatever to work on improving your self or to help other people. Also you don't have to be directly involved with a charity to help other people out. It all can be done while living a normal life as well, but doing real work to improve our self and to help others is not always so easy. Everyone has to try to find something that works for them personally.

You don't really need to do anything special to practice meditation and self cultivation. Even within a city you can usually find a quieter area to live if you look around. When you have a steady job it gives you the freedom to be able to do things which you may not otherwise be able to do if you always have very limited funds. There is already a lot of potential even with one to three hours a day or so of daily meditation or other cultivation practices. A respected meditation teacher of mine insists that there is no reason that we can not both cultivate and live a normal life in society, with the one caveat being one has to maintain moderation. No matter where we go or what we do in this world there are always distractions and challenges of one sort or another. There is just no way of getting around that. Choose something that works for you.

feel free to enter some prefer to hide from it religion of doubt

glow in the dark[ness]! moon appears before my eyes gate to all wonders

From the subtle view all appears as if a dream Even this is false

Could I please get a personal practice area? Thanks!

My deeply indebted thanks!

I reached out to a fellow wanderer but he only sees shadows and colored lights and memories of another time he tries to walk in circles in a high walled narrow alleyway one day he will move on from there plenty of other varieties and tastes besides green -

Walking aimlessly I remain still a glimmer of light and then forgotten -

in the morning breeze we can contemplate the trees by bits and degrees

funny its called 'cheese' I can consume it with ease in the morning breeze

I was just reading through Scott Meredith's translation of Li Yaxuan's (Yang Chen Fu's student) "35 points on push hands", and Scott left out point # 20, saying it revealed too much of the central or key points, and Scott wanted to keep it to himself. What the heck??? He also omitted translating another section on the 'Song of Hand to Hand Combat' from the text. Anyway, here is just one of the many interesting points from this text: "26. Whether you are practicing the form or working on issuing energy, everything depends on total relaxation of your body. Otherwise you wont be able to move freely. Only with relaxation will the qi energy instantly follow your mind and intention, resulting in the partner or opponent being blasted out before he even realizes whats happening. You can imagine how light, quick and perfectly timed your action will be. This comes from total relaxation and softness, otherwise you wont get the skill. To be able to issue energy, you must first have listening energy and skill. This depends entirely on sensitivity in your hands, the foundation of which is your daily practice of the form. Without this foundation, you will have insufficient listening energy. Listening energy is a function of perceptual sensitivity, and issuing energy relies on dan tian cultivation, and the spine. Issuing energy depends on using your dan tian energy to muster the energy of your entire body. When you are not issuing energy, your body is insubstantial, but when you do issue energy you must be rooted and stably grounded. ..." And lots more interesting comments in this text...

I have decided to stay away from the term fajin as it seems to be a term that can mean different things to different people. I am currently learning from someone who has some pretty decent skill, and have some direct experience with this sort of thing of which I speak, so I am not just speaking theoretically here. I prefer not to discuss details of that too much however as it can really seem to set some people off. Some things just have to be experienced to be fully appreciated.

Hi zerostao. I don't know, but you may well need to have the 'grand circulation' (extra channels) very open before you can approach that kind of skill level. There is what looks like an interesting book out by a student of Benjamim Lo which looks like it may delve into some of the finer techniques of using qi in different ways in taiji, but I am not sure how much of what is in the book (I haven't read the book yet) is just the author's own ideas and views and how much of it was actually relayed to him by his teacher Ben Lo (student of Cheng Man Ching). The book is called "Juice", by Scott Meredith. Scott Meredith has some interesting translations of some taiji related docs on his website as well: http://www.zmq37.com/writings.html This includes some translations of writings on taiji push hands by Li Yaxuan, apparently a major student of Yang Chen Fu. Not to worry about ChiDragon disagreeing. I am not too interested in 'debating' such things as I know debates on those sort of topics usually go nowhere. I have been reading this forum off and on for years now. I was mainly just bringing it up for interest's sake. Not only are there different styles in taiji, but teachers within a given style may teach in different ways and have different emphasis. That was really the point I was getting at.