Encephalon

What are the primary concepts? Not a rhetorical question. I respect your thoughtfulness. I am zeroing in on my own concise definition of what those primary concepts are and how to define them. But, you first...

What do you mean, "slowly"? We did this pretty fast, don't you think? My fault on this one. My apologies, but Archaic already got what he was asking for, and the advice is sound. Actually, he's poised for remarkable progress if he's already working out. As a personal trainer who had the luxury of working out all friggin' day, my mind/muscle connection made my Taoist meditation considerably more producttive than a sedentary person. It's all about waking up the nervous system, in the final analysis.

I don't concern myself with political speculation. I know there are centers of power, and thanks to people like Chomsky, I can successfully avoid being bamboozled about mythical power structures. My masters thesis was in geography, a Buddhist deconstruction of globalization, but I think I'm more of an aspiring global ecologist than a geographer. To be grossly reductionist, I just see the fact that fossil fuels have allowed us to grow enough food for 7 billion people (even though half of them live on less than $2/day), on a planet with a carrying capacity of perhaps 2 billion. I find basic ecological principles to have far more explanatory power than political philosophy. Ecology is also why I'm attracted to Taoism and Buddhism - interdependency and the web of life. I subscribe to James Lovelock's prediction - 500 million people will live to see the 22nd century. Most will starve to death or be incinerated in the resource wars to come, the oldest story of humankind. The point I'm trying to make is that we needn't appeal to conspiratorial notions. We're fucking up the biosphere's carrying capacity in such obvious ways that we needn't compose horror stories out of thin air. My kids will be studying nei kung and riding horses in Whitehorse, Yukon Territories, if all goes well.

Music has always been the most powerful trigger for me, but emotionally intense scenes in movies are very effective also. I mentioned "The Mist," but that scene in "District 9," where the lead is forced to kill the alien was such a grief-inducing moment that I could barely keep myself together. That's when I first began to consciously cultivate this experience, by reliving the scene in my head. Grief moves energy. Big time. Interestingly enough, the Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy wrote a book in 1983 called "Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age," a primer on how to process your grief without losing your mind, which is exactly what can happen to someone dealing with more than they can handle. Thanks, Drew. These are valuable insights you have shared. I'm indebted.

What's with the Milton Friedman noise? Has the financial meltdown of 2009 not figured in your assessment of his ideas? Just about everyone else is dancing on his grave, for chrissakes.

I sure would like to think so, but since I posted this, I have my doubts, although I have continued to practice the deliberate induction of goosebumps, and it shoots up my spine to the top of my crown. I can't do this more than once a minute, but I have acquired voluntary control of the reaction. It's far more overwhelming than it's ever been, and I chock it up to 2 years of steady Embrace Horse and nei kung. Wouldn't it be awesome if we could heal our grief and instigate chi flow at the same time by triggering deeply felt emotional responses at will?

Yes indeed. I've posted more than once my overheating. I got hooked on how powerful the energy felt. Now, if I feel I need to warm things up, I take Master Co's advice and only breathe this way three times before the Little Orbit. But if I am out and about, doing something mundane, I breath this way just to refresh and let go of stress. Otherwise, like you say, long, slow, smooth, continuous.

By what criteria are you categorizing Alex Jones, Noam Chomsky, and David Icke together? One is considered to be one of the most influential intellectuals of the 20th century. The other two are illiterate conspiracy theorists caught in their own tractor beams of New Age buffoonery. Enlighten me, if you please.

Yer right. thanx. It teaches everything on the subject of self-mastery!! May I humbly request that we all crack open a book now and then before submitting questions? Not that it's a hassle to answer honest questions, but that you open yourself up to erroneous info (the Net is known for misinformation here and there). "Scholar/Warrior" by Deng Ming-Dao is a great start. http://www.amazon.com/Scholar-Warrior-Intr...e/dp/0062502328

I think meditation is best performed within a cave... with Megan Fox.

Forgive me for repeating this ad nauseum, but Deng Ming-Dao says that learning "should progress from simplicity to complexity, and then reverse back to simplicity." What this means to me is that we should honor our curiosity for what it is, an impulse of the spirit, study enough to avoid delusion, but return to a state of simplicity. For a modern learned person, I see no way around formal studies, but simplifying your mental universe becomes essential in the final analysis. A solid grasp of anatomy and ecology prepares you for this end, IMHO.

I am only practicing the Little Orbit these days, allowing the energy to go where it will, not forcing anything. About 3 weeks ago I felt some blockages beginning to open up in the front channel, or, between the heart and throat chakras. The energy stayed there and throbbed between these two points for about five minutes, and it continues to a lesser degree today. Since this event, I have been able to sing and nail notes with far more precision. I'm not a singer, but my musical background included trumpet and piano playing in college, and I'm learning guitar now. I've always had the ability to "hear" fairly sophisticated musical passages in my head - John Mclaughlin, Zappa, Billy Childs, Chick Corea, Weather Report - but I can nail solos even more, and have improved my ability to detect chord progressions and bass lines with remarkable ease. I don't believe that merely learning a new instrument can account for this. I think my throat chakra has been blocked off from a lifetime of suppressed messages and now that it's open, music is flowing even more. It may be related to the fact that I'm getting married December 12 and my fiance and I are getting ferociously honest with each other before the big event. That being said, I'd love to hear what other musicians have to say about the way their internal alchemy affects their musical lives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1QO3nNs25E...feature=related If you were a brass player and jazz band nerd as a kid in the 70s you listened to Maynard Ferguson. He spent some time in India studying music and breathing exercises. He was a well-respected musician throughout the 50s and 60s and then he started playing the worst pop music you could imagine, like "Star Trek" and "Gonna Fly Now," but as kids we ate that shit up because his upper register was off the charts. You gotta admit, his band attracted the hottest jazz musicians of the day, and they were one seriously f**king tight band. It's all in the breathing, music or chi.

Well, one good joke deserves another. Zazen is chan meditation, and "Taoist Chan meditation" is a meaningless term, given that chan is the product of Taoism and Buddhism, referred to as "zen" by the Japanese.

You put me in a state of ahh....

Yep, I have the "Intermingle" setting on my Cuisinart also.

I never jest, and stop calling me Shirley.

Coltrane did indeed say that he wanted to become a saint. While that may sound pretentious, I believe his sentiment was about having his identity becoming completely absorbed by his artform. He succeeded, hands down.

Have you ever heard Billy Childs? He's a pianist/composer who uses a lot of whole tone scales and progressions that seem to fall just within range of musical comprehension. But when the progressions resolve, your ear says, "oh yes, of course." He's used Scott Henderson on a number of projects, who is also a musical genius of the same order. Can you imagine what these guys could do if they practiced nei kung? Fusion was my musical babyfood back in the 70s. I barely tolerate listening to anything less stimulating. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY4TVWXrOhI

totally with you on the focus/rehearsal mode. I tried to squeeze in a minor in music as an undergrad, but the theory classes killed me, so I scrapped them for performance classes and just had fun. Thye were some of my favorite moments in college. What surprised me was how bright the music majors were compared to my geography brethren; vastly more "in tune" with everything, on average; genuine autodidacts. When I moved down to this shithole we call Los Angeles for grad school, I stopped practicing. My musical life ended, and a piece of me went with it (hard to practice trumpet in an apt. complex, or pack a piano in a backpack.) Buying a guitar with my tax return has been one of the healthiest things I've ever done for my soul.

My other half/soon-to-be-wife says walking, sex, and fresh pineapple cores are allegedly helpful for inducing labor. Prenatal yoga ranks high as well. Reasonable ETAs for new kids is anywhere from 38 to 42 weeks gestation, so yer good to go. Best wishes from both of us!!