Encephalon

I have all the respect in the world for Freeman Dyson, and have to admit that computer models are beyond my realm of expertise. I can make sense out of photographs that show glaciers disappearing and and sea ice retreating, and I have friends who spend their professional lives in the Arctic quantifying the northerly march of different flora and fauna. But enough about this. How doth your lower dantien gurgle?

How do you account for why so many of the world's author/practitioners are so consistent and yet so horribly deceived regarding the MCO? I'm not a fan of Chia, but Deng Ming-Dao, Bruce Frantzis, Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming, Waysun Liao, Chunyi Lin, Dan Reid - those are just the authors I've read - are all these folks deceived? Bruce Frantzis writes in great detail about the different advantages of building your energy with chi with chi kung physical movements and developing your capacity to move it with mind alone (nei kung). So does Dr. Yang KM. The practices go hand in hand. The consistent point made by all is that you need both if you plan on aging gracefully without becoming a hollowed out shell. I'm a personal trainer, which is an irrelevent point, but insofar as strength training and vitality goes, I'm completely with you. Although I am obliged to say that I've only studied nei kung as taught by Master Chu and there is no mention of MCO in this system either. None. But I credit my nei kung with a very non-wimpy MCO that pretty much took off on its own when I discovered the MCO and started to investigate it.

When I go in search of truth, I usually bring my Bug-Out Bag. I keep $200 cash, an extra battery for my cell phone, a decent first-aid kit with a small bottle of tea tree oil, a $30 monocular, space blanket, tube tent, multitool, a three day supply of Mainstay Emergency rations, a Remington 870 with both shot and slugs, my Baretta sidearm with three extra clips, and a copy of "The Art of Peace" by Morihei Ueshiba.

I can manipulate energy in my feet now, can throb individual digits at will, and have managed a mild current down the outside of the legs, up the inside. Any precautions/advice? Also taking schizandra and horsetail.

a little anatomy goes a long way. and

Sound advice there, SZ. I would concur with everything, especially about how your personal shit comes up with these practices. After all they are body/Mind disciplines. And starting with "Opening the Energy Gates of the Body" is really good advice. I wish I would purchased this one first; it would have kept me from overheating in typical westerner style.

Sorry - your last sentence left me in the dust. All I was suggesting is that people who find comfort in the idea of a permanent self should thoroughly investigate for themselves why they find that notion comfortable and examine why the notion of a non-existent self is now ready for burial. We are responsible for our own ideas, are we not?

I can understand the effort to rationalize the eternal existence of an independent self. I can even understand the effort by those people who participate in this forum, as there are a number of westerners who find it difficult to let go of the idea of a permanent identity even though they genuinely seek the wisdom the east has to offer. I would only invite everyone so inclined to examine this attachment and see what comes up. I believe there is only one reason we cling to this notion, but I won't spoil the fun now.

http://www.losangelesmeditation.com/index.php I owe some debt of gratitude to the TM movement for at least getting me started on a meditation practice. I actually spent six months at their campus out in Fairfield, Iowa trying to get some wisdom, but had to bail; it was hands down the most dysfunctional community I've ever been in. Now that the Maharishi has died and the $2,500 price he charged for a mantra and TM instruction has fallen out of favor, some in the movement are updating their image, kinda like Kentucky Fried Chicken goes KFC. Friends, don't fall for it.

I wasn't suggesting that we grow the military, rather that we draft our personnel and keep voluntary enlistment. (Some would argue that we already have economic conscription in place, but that's another subject.) I wasn't defending Rangel either, just one of his ideas, the argument being that the ranks become less ideological and the population takes a greater interest in the nations warfighting choices. I was in USAF when the Soviets went into Afghanistan, prompting Carter to resurrect Selective Service registration. And then we watched their ten year campaign bleed their empire dry, just as it's doing to our empire. As for term limits, I never swallowed the argument. They were always about skirting meaningful campaign finance reform and making sure that lobbyists had more expertise and influence than elected officials. This next campaign season is going to be positively steeped in cash now that the Supreme Court says that corporations can make unlimited campaign contributions. I think I'm a little too old to be reading policy briefs from the Heritage Foundation. I realize there's a certain amount of inbreeding in most ideological institutions, even ones not promulgating a corporate agenda, but ideas are usually more powerful when shared with a broader audience. IMHO (which is rarely humble, as you know).

Whoops. Correction - as someone already told me, the Wind Path is only a reverse directed circuit between the lower and middle dantien. Sorry for any confusion.

this is the same clarification I was asking for when I posted my question about the Wind Path, what Dr. Yang Jwing-Ming refers to as running the MCO in reverse. He said the literature was limited but that it could be useful for keeping excessive fire energy at bay, especially if you live in a hot climate. I believe there is consensus in here amongst the more accomplished practitioners that patiently observing the direction of your energy's intent is recommended over any sustained forcing. Reverse MCO is natural for me and ever since I gave into it it's become much more stable, even in the narrow corridors. I do wish there was more formal literature on the subject though, because I do like roadmaps! "The Root of Chinese Chi Kung" pp. 80,96.

Alas, I would have to agree, but I'm afraid the American populace is just too worn down to get passionately involved in anything anymore. Michael Moore pointed this out in "Sicko" with a comparison between the French and the Americans; in France, the government is afraid of the people. In America it is the reverse. I think Charlie Rangel is right; we should reinstate the draft. When people are forced to get blown up in Iraq and Afghanistan in order to defend our consumer lifestyle, people will take to the streets again. But as long as there are numerous distractions, amusements, and meaningless newsbites, most people will sit like frogs in water about to boil. The anesthetic effect of consumerism is just too strong for some.

I don't think Stig's post warranted the kind of belligerent reaction it received. There's something to be said for picking your battles, and unleashing aggressive energy over a petition was overkill and felt like a Krav Maga student who aches for a confrontation and settles for beating up someone's grandmother. Neither was there any point in going off on the petitioners themselves. I don't consume their books or ideas - although I occasionally read Chopra's columns - but they could very well be doing positive things with their lives that we don't know about. This is not the first time in this forum I've seen aggressive ignorance coming from this direction.

nevermind

If we weren't still hooked on meat and the thrill of personal automobility, we could probably create a fairly healthy alternative. What oil-dependent product or service would you be willing to forego in order to live in a world without oil-driven strife?

I've tried to understand the belligerence and lack of charity that is often experessed in this forum, both by me and others. We do indeed betray the teachings when we express our views in uncharitable ways. I regularly conclude that it is the anonymity of online forums that give us the freedom to express comments in ways we would not if we were all sitting in someone's living room. Unfortunately, I can only see this pattern getting worse, both in this forum and in the world at large, as we wrestle with global challenges and how to face them. As I see it, the Big Conversation that is just beginning to take place is, who will survive the 21st century, and who will be sacrificed? How are the remaining resources going to be distributed? I wish I could join the ranks of my more optimistic brethren who see technological innovation as the means of escaping the bounds of the earth's carrying capacity. I'm not ruling this out, but I just don't see human beings acquiring the collective maturity to pull this off. I believe a truly Darwinian Age is dawning, although the message of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" - the remake - is still plausible; that in the moments of our greatest crisis, people find the power and wisdom to act in concert for the betterment of the world.

Did you read Wilber's "Boomeritis?" I loved it, sort of imagined it being a novelized account of his AQAL/Spiral Dynamics model, or fictional account of his "Theory of Everything." If my IT is still current, I believe he said that it takes five years to climb up through each tier, so maybe we're right on schedule?

I agree with Joe (a first!) that it boils down to economics; inexpensively extractable oil yields the most power per penny you can find, at least in up front costs. If you factor in the costs of all the subsidies that keep oil artificially low, including the costs of maintaining a navy to keep the shipping lanes open, road building, not to mention all the diseconomies, i.e., the externalized costs of environmental degradation, health-related air pollution, problems associated with suburban auto-dependency, then we find that we're actually paying as much as European countries for a gallon of gas, just not at-the-pump. We could have gotten a jump on this problem decades ago. I remember when Carter put solar panels on the White House as a gesture of our desire to wean off of foreign oil. Reagan came in, called it "socialist nonsense," and had them removed to a warehouse in DC, increased subsidies for oil, reduced them for alternative fuels. I'm done wrestling with solutions. Here in the San Fernando Valley, the land use model most exported throughout the world, we are entirely fossil-fuel dependent. You absolutely have to have a car, and when it's 85 in downtowm LA, it's 105 here. The only long term solution, barring some extraordinarily early arrival of cold fusion, is to rebuild city centers and harvest The Valley for recycled construction materials. Also, I don't resent people taking it upon themselves to bring attention to this problem. Some of those people are a little too New Agey for my taste, but I needn't be offended by or resentful of their good intentions, unless my ego is feeling needy at the moment.

I think it was well established that the best way to control population was combating poverty. We teased a lot of these issues out after WWII and composed the UN Charter of Human Rights, but never truly took them seriously as we were too busy carving the planet into spheres of influence. Now with half the world's population living on no more than $2/day, the window of opportunity has been slammed shut. The financial costs of basic housing, water, food, medical care and primary education were a pittance compared to the fortunes that transformed the world, but we never truly evolved beyond a Darwinian state. And the irony is that we may have to exercise cruel Darwinism in order to maintain the species. Crazy, man.