Encephalon

http://www.amazon.com/Five-Elements-Six-Conditions-Psychology/dp/1556435932/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273075014&sr=1-1#noop I have placed a hold on this book at my local library. I would be grateful to hear any thoughtful reviews of this work. It looks like it delves deeply into the emotional components of the MCO. Thanks in advance.

Greetings - One needn't be too concerned in the beginning with a formal commitment to a specific practice. Both Buddhism and you(!) are such vast subjects that they deserve their own organic approach. Buddhism can be studied as a means to a spiritual path and as an academic subject, and the two modes can never be truly separated. If meditation instruction is what you seek, "Meditation for Beginners" by Jack Kornfield is terrific. "The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology," by the same author digs into the dynamics of the practice, and is generally regarded as a masterpiece for scholars and beginners alike. "Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness: Walking the Buddha's Path" by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana is another amazingly approachable work for beginners eager to begin the journey of mindful navigation. "Money Sex War Karma" by David Loy offers a valuable peak into Buddhist social theory. And "Buddhism Without Beliefs" by Stephen Batchelor is an introduction to what the Buddha taught before his agnostic teachings started appearing in various metaphysical trappings as the centuries wore on. I hope this helps.

http://www.dianaleafechristian.org/ Diana is the author of "Creating a Life Together," a primer on launching the endeavor. She is the founder of a thriving community called Earthaven - http://www.earthaven.org/ www.ic.org is THE site for listing intentional communities and ecovillages throughout the world. Best of luck.

I would have to agree with previous sentiments; get very clear about your intentions and seek out competent instruction. If time/money/geography are limiting factors, you could do well by purchasing the Spring Forest Qigong Level 1 package for $41, and still have relatively convenient access to SFQ practitioners who can offer instruction.

www.ic.org is the international listing of Intentional Communities.

Okay. From one Pavel-Head to another, between deadlifts and kettlebell swings, here goes. Certain physiological changes will have occured by the time you can "run your energy," many of them supported by your physical routine already. If your strength hasn't outpaced your flexibility, if you can hang loose and not tighten up, you will have the capacity for deep levels of relaxation, the kind that will allow you to slip from "fight or flight" response (sympathetic Nervous Sys.) into "rest and digest" mode(parasympathetic NS). Along with proper breathing techniques and deeply oxygenate your bloodstream, the entire hormonal chemistry of your body switches into deep-healing mode. Your nervous system, the intersection of body and mind, gets freakishly efficient at transmitting information between the two. By learning to run your energy at will, you seize the reigns of your own healing process, with all the psychological and spiritual implications that entails. So, you probably have heard about how millions of devoted yogis in India and elsewhere lament that practice of harnessing the power of yoga for improved sports performance. Likewise, it would be kind of a drag if Taoism got reduced to a hip new training methodology. Nevertheless, in our pursuit of body/mind union, there are huge advantages in working through the body to the mind. Just my own spin. For the record, I subscribe to Pavel's strength theories, and am convinced that strength training can build up mind/muscle connection more quickly than other forms of training. Then it's a relatively short and pleasant trip to mind/body connection, and I'm pretty sure it's because of the strong muscles to relax most easily. Pavel's "Relax Into Stretch" is pretty darn handy, too, btw.

NONCONFORMITY The world is dazzling, I alone am dull. Others strive for achievement, I follow a lonely path. Followers of Tao are nonconformists. The conventional label our behavior erratic, antisocial, irresponsible, inexplicable, outrageous, and sometimes scandalous. We hear other voices, respond to inner urgings. We have no interest in the social norm; we only care about following Tao. It does not matter if no one can understand us, for we are nurtured by something most people do not sense. Awakening to this inner urge, and distinguishing spiritual impulses from the merely instinctual, is one of the crucial goals of self-cultivation. We all have many voices, personalities, ambitions, and tendencies within ourselves. The ability to distinguish between them, and the ability to silence all the voices save for Tao's, is imperative if one is to reach this state of being. Once one is in touch with the true Tao, there are no doubts, and the murmuring of others cannot have any effect. One is as comforted as a child at its mother's breast. The more one walks in Tao, the more one is interested in self-perfection. All that matters is constant cultivation to be with Tao. This is a lonely path. There are others who follow Tao, but it is not always possible to meet them. That is why it takes someone both sensitive enough to hear the call and strong enough to walk the solitary path.

I'm looking for a volunteer to take over these daily quotations. It's a cut and paste job from the website below. Any takers? http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/vortex/401/library/365/365date.htm

BEAUTY Lavender roses. Incarnate fragrance, Priestly hue of dawn, Spirit unfolding. Even on the road to hell, flowers can make you smile. They are fragile, ephemeral, uncompromising. No one can alter their nature. True, you can easily destroy them, but you will not gain anything; you cannot force them to submit to your will. Flowers arouse in us an instinct to protect them, to appreciate them, and to shelter them. This world is too ugly, too violent. There should be something delicate to care about. To do so is to be lifted above the brute and to go toward the refined. When we offer flowers on our altar, we are offering a high gift. Money is too vulgar, food too pedestrian. Only flowers are unsullied. By offering them, we offer purity. The tenderness of flowers arouses mercy, compassion, and understanding. If that beauty is delicate, so much the better. Life itself is fleeting. We should take the time to appreciate beauty in the midst of temporality.

I was lucky enough to be in Drum and bugle corps as teenager. We had a boatload of instruction by some pretty cool brass musicians who were totally into diphragmatic control and intercostal, bullet-proof strength and flexibility. I'm really interested in seeing what different breathing patterns are out there. If there's a Spring Forest person who can talk the delicate subject of comparative breathing patterns and trumpet playing, please chime in. Jazz band nerd

I have no knowledge of his meditation technique. There are a number of free resources for meditation instruction if that is what you wish you supplement your internal alchemy/nei kung practice with. Zen centers can be found in almost any metro area and they usually offer free meditation instruction.

INTERACTION We make life real By the thoughts we project. The panorama of the objective world is meaningless until we interact with it. For example, if there is a rock that we pass day after day but we do not notice, then that rock has no significance for us. If we decide to make that rock a votive object and pray to it for decades, then that rock becomes quite important. To an outsider who does not subscribe to the rock's assigned meaning, it will continue to be just a rock. In all cases, the rock was just a rock. It was only human interaction that created its meaning. It is a mistake to assume that the meaning we give to something is as concrete and tangible as the object itself. We should not confuse the two. For example, our house may be precious to us, but our sense of preciousness has nothing to do with the building -- it comes from the values and memories we associate with it. If we lose our house, we must remember that it is the feeling we have for it, not just the building itself, that determines our loss. If all perception of reality is subjective, some schools of thought suggest that we should therefore see everything as unreal. By contrast, followers of Tao maintain that we must still interact with the world. If we do not take initiative and work with this phenomena of projecting meaning and receiving its echoes, we fall into a state of dormancy, and the world will not exist for us at all. As long as we remember that meanings we attribute to objects are subjective, we will avoid mistakes.

I completely concur. The benefits are difficult to quantify for me because they express themselves in personal experience. But if we view the method as a means of targeting the nervous system, we can get some sense of it. The nervous system is the intersection of body and mind, and when it begins to perform with heightened sensitivity, it becomes more efficient at sending information back and forth between body and mind. You can let your imagination run wild and assess what that might mean for your own particular constitution, but with what I've learned from alchemists in here and from my own experience, our natural gifts take an ascendent path and our character flaws begin to wane. So, a musician may discover that it's easier to vocalize a jazz improvisation solo or detect the chord progression of a song. An artist may discover a new level of mastery with whatever medium they are employing. I am almost ready to say that it is the best formula for increasing one's creativity, but it's too early for me to make such a bold claim. I also attribute power of chi flow to resolve deep levels of stress, physical and emotional, which jacks up your immune system beyond a level that most people have not experienced. So there's my spin. Nei kung to unleash the creative genius inside of you.

That's the genius and beauty of this system. You can spend the rest of your life refining these techniques without ever needing to change anything. I've been at it for 2.5 years now and I'm a totally different person. I've heard of secret postures, mudras, and breathing techniques that are allegedly superior to other systems, but I often find them in this system already. What's your Embrace Horse duration? www.neikungla.com has some great theoretical material behind the practice.

DEATH Death is The opposite Of time. We give death metaphors. We cloak it in meaning and make up stories about what will happen to us, but we don't really know. When a person dies, we cannot see beyond the corpse. We speculate on reincarnation or talk in terms of eternity. But death is opaque to us, a mystery. In its realm, time ceases to have meaning. All laws of physics become irrelevant. Death is the opposite of time. What dies? Is anything actually destroyed? Certainly not the body, which falls into its constituent parts of water and chemicals. That is mere transformation, not destruction. What of the mind? Does it cease to function, or does it make a transition to another existence? We don't know for sure, and few can come up with anything conclusive. What dies? Nothing of the person dies in the sense that the constituent parts are totally blasted from all existence. What dies is merely the identity, the identification of a collection of parts that we called a person. Each one of us is a role, like some shaman wearing layers of robes with innumerable fetishes of meaning. Only the clothes and decoration fall. What dies is only our human meaning. There is still someone naked underneath. Once we understand who that someone is, death no longer bothers us. Nor does time.

KNOWLEDGE Life is Beauty, Terror, Knowledge. A crucial part of following Tao is seeking knowledge. All the efforts of self-cultivation are meant to make us a fit vehicle for that search. Sometimes what we learn is not pleasant. With learning, we glimpse life as it really is, and that is difficult to bear. That is why spiritual progress is slow : not because no one will tell us the secrets, but because we ourselves must overcome sentiment and fear before we can grasp it. There is an underbelly of terror to all life. It is suffering, it is hurt. Deep within all of us are intense fears that have left few of us whole. Life's terrors haunt us, attack us, leave ugly cuts. To buffer ourselves, we dwell on beauty, we collect things, we fall in love, we desperately try to make something lasting in our lives. We take beauty as the only worthwhile thing in this existence, but it cannot veil cursing, violence, randomness, and injustice. Only knowledge removes this fear. If we were shown the whole truth, we could not stand it. Both lovely and horrible details make us human, and when knowledge threatens to show us our follies, we may realize that we are not yet ready to leave them behind. Then the veil closes again, and we sit meditating before it, trying to prepare ourselves for the moment when we dare to part the curtain completely.

I would encourage you to get very clear about the difference between chi kung and nei kung, and jump right in with nei kung first. www.neikungla.com and www.chutaichi.com Nei kung is about using your mind to control chi flow, and although that sounds mysterious and advanced, it can be acquired easily with steady and consistent practice. The following posture is the most important for everyone. All the proper breathing techniques will fall into place once this static posture becomes more refined. Good luck. http://www.amazon.com/Book-Nei-Kung-C-Chu/dp/0961658606/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266419655&sr=1-1

IMPERMANENCE Tidal windstorm Splits trees and rock, Yet cannot last a day. So much less, man's work. When a storm hits, an entire ocean of wind and rain is spent upon the land. Leaves are turned inside out, branches are torn, and even hard granite is worn away. But such gales seldom last and entire day. In spite of the tremendous amount of force that is released, the storm cannot last. If heaven's works cannot last a day, human works must be even less lasting. Governments barely survive from year to year, the rules of society are constantly being challenged, the family erodes, personal relationships decay, and one's career topples. Even the monuments of the world are now being destroyed by air pollution and neglect. Nothing lasts. It is simple fact that no event set in motion by human beings lasts forever. All our efforts are temporary. They borrow from preexisting forces, ride the current of natural events, and disappear according to the dictates of the situation. It is best to realize the transitory nature of things and work with it. Understanding the world's ephemeral nature can be the biggest advantage of all.

All three are extremely important, of course. Which ability did you have to work harder to cultivate? What came naturally? How would you characterize your own progress with respect to these three abilities as your meridians/gates opened up? Karma Koupons for thoughtful replies.

ORGANIZATION Pattern and creativity Are the two poles of action. It is wise to plan each day. By setting goals for oneself and organizing activities to be accomplished, one can be sure that each day will be full and never wasted. Followers of Tao use patterns when planning. They observe the ways of nature, perceive the invisible lines of destiny. They imagine a pattern for their entire lives, and in this way, they ensure overall success. Each day, they match interim patterns against their master goals, and so navigate life with sureness and grace. It is precisely this ability to discern and manipulate patterns unknown to the ordinary person that makes the follower of Tao so formidable. When unpredictable things happen, those who follow Tao are also skilled at improvisation. If circumstances deny them, they change immediately. To avoid confusion, they still discern the patterns of the situation and create new ones, much like a chess player at the board. The spontaneous creation of new patterns is their ultimate art.

CIRCULATION Spirituality begins in the loins, Ascends up the back, And returns to the navel. Spirituality is not just mental activity. It is also an expression of energy. The source of this energy is physical, rooted in the basic chemistry of the body. Self-cultivation refines this energy for spiritual attainment. Enlightenment, for a follower of Tao, is therefore a psycho-physical achievement : It is a state of being rather than mere intellectual understanding. Once the energy is awakened through special exercises and meditations, the follower of Tao knows how to draw this energy upward. The force begins from the genitals and rises up the spine. On its way, it nourishes the kidneys, nerves, and blood vessels. When it passes the base of the skull, the nervous system and the lower parts of the brain are stimulated. Reaching the crown, this river of energy opens the entire subconscious potential of a human being. Descending downward, it nourishes the eyes, the senses, the vital organs. Cascading toward the navel, it returns us to our original state of purity. From there, it returns to the loins again, ready to be drawn into another circuit. Just as all existence operates on a continuum between gross physical matter and the most subtle levels of consciousness, so too does the follower of Tao utilize all parts of body, mind, and spirit for spiritual devotion.

Kate - I think you're contributing to the subject just by asking good questions. I did not take the time to get specific with my terms, which is something I complain endlessly about when performed by others! The term "visualization" is in dire need of an adequate and specific definition. Lot's to chew on. Please chime in. And then I'd like to find out what its proper role and usefulness can be in internal alchemy, if we haven't touched on it already.

STRETCHING When young, things are soft. When old, things are brittle. Stretching -- both literally and metaphorically -- is a necessary part of life. Physically, a good program of stretching emphasizes all parts of the body. You loosen the joints and tendons first, so that subsequent movements will not hurt. Then methodically stretch the body, beginning with the larger muscle groups such as the legs and back, and proceed to finer and smaller parts like the fingers. Coordinate stretching with breathing; use long and gentle stretches rather than bouncing ones. When you stretch in one direction, always be sure to stretch in the opposite direction as well. If you follow this procedure, your flexibility will undoubtedly increase. Metaphorical stretching leads to expansion and flexibility in personal growth. A young plant is tender and pliant. An older is stiff, woody, and vulnerable to breaking. Softness is thus equated with life, hardness with death. The more flexible you are, the greater your mental and physical health.

How many of you are parents, or know parents, who run their energy,i.e., MCO, kundalini, chakras, sushumna, etc., while holding their young children? It would seem that specific pathways and precautions have been standardized some where, yes? What about pre-natal? Future father.

I'm honored that you would consider me. I regret that I will be pinned down to the west coast until May or June. Hope you make it out to LA some time! Regards, B