Encephalon

Amen.

My modest library includes Waysun Liao, Daniel Reid, Deng Ming-Dao, Chia, Wang Jwing Ming, Robert Bruce, but none of them delve too deeply into the emotional effects of energy practice. Does anyone know of any essays or theses on line that specifically address this issue? Frankly, the physical aspect of energy manipulation, as much fun and pleasant as it is, doesn't compare with how much better I feel emotionally since even four months ago.

Thanks Creation and Bindo for the links. no need to go beyond the truth of your own spirit I don't know what you mean by this. I certainly haven't transcended the point where learning from learning from external sources becomes superfluous. Shoot me if I do (or even act like it).

Thanks folks. Some pretty inspiring stuff posted here. Looks like we're heading toward a thread devoted to the intersection of internal alchemy and creativity. I'd be happy if we stuck with musicianship, but artists/poets/etc are welcome to chime in. I read "music and the Mind" by Anthony Storr years ago and may revisit it. "Music, the Brain and Ecstasy" by Robert Jourdain has been sitting on my bookshelf for 10 years gathering dust. "A Natural History of the Senses" by Diane Ackerman blew me away. On this learning curve of internal alchemy and music, I plot myself as an educated beginner in becoming familiar with the role of the nervous system. Thanks Drewhempel for posting your efforts. I'll check it out soon. And Steve F., I totally get the bass. I think it would be deeply satisfying in a physically grounding sort of way. do you remember Ralph Armstrong with Jean Luc Ponty back in the 80s? OMG!! GEEEZ, to respond to the wisdom of each of your posts would be to engage in the creative process itself so I will let it be...

Indeed. That's about as concise and accurate as one can get. It could also be that my particular experience had more to do with throat chakra work than actual chi kung, but I am unschooled in the subtle differences/similarities of the two practices.

Honestly, I did not commit to the chapters on emotions written by Chia in "Awaken Healing Light..." His style doesn't resonate well with me, but I'll revisit that section. I'm not trying to use books in lieu of personal instruction; I'm searching for any documents, published or unpublished, that examine the impact of chi kung on emotional health. Thanks for reminding me of Chia's points.

Impressive. Did you happen to see the PBS documentary by F. Garripolli on chi kung? There's a passage devoted to the Chinese chi kung masters who are also musicians. It's traditional Chinese music, of course, but I'd love to see where this goes for western musicians. http://www.wujiproductions.com/products/qi...cient-video.htm

My apologies. I should have been more specific. I was wondering if anyone knew of any definitive written works on the emotional effects of energy work. If this material hasn't been quantified or assembled then so be it. I'm not asking for feedback. I'm looking for reference material.

I opened my MCO on 9/25/09 after two years of nei kung practice, and some Gary Clyman Tidal Wave Chi Kung practices and fire breathing. I then proceeded to overheat myself, breaking out in seborrheic dermatitis all over my face, something I never experienced before. I took some herbs prescribed by an acupuncturist which did a marvelous job of cooling me off, but which also lessened the intensity of the energy flow. Robert Bruce says that you can expect a the intensity of the energy movement to lessen after the channels open up, and that seems consistent in my case. Now I just do the Little Orbit and let the energy go where it will. The symptoms of overheating were worth it, as my solar plexus chakra was deficient, i.e., I was a walking door mat. I feel ten times better than I did even 6 months ago, although I've heard that people drop dead early because they overheat their hearts in order to cultivate personal power. I think I'm more balanced now, certainly happier, possibly even less of a dickhead. Without wading into the "my practice is better than your practice" pissing contest, I will go out on a limb and make a bold declaration that nei kung practice is vastly more powerful than many other chi kung techniques. I know that sounds awfully pretentious but I mean no disparagement of other teachings, because they all have their place. Cheers. http://www.chutaichi.com/neikung.shtml

Since there seem to be several folks in here these days with some solid physical education I want to ask this question again. I was given an inversion table one year ago. I've used it almost daily and currently average about three 3-5 minute sessions per day. I feel like I have an extra couple millimeters between each vertebra (that's my subjective feeling, of course). My conventional stretching, nei kung, and 5 Tibetan Rites routine all seem more fluid. Who else has any experience with this device? It's definitely worth the modest expense.

Good point. I can't withstand total relaxation because my sciatic runs through my piriformas. My chiro says that's normal for 15% of the population, but it's inconvenient as hell. I have to squeeze my glutes together and then ease into the inversion.

I have indeed. Thanks for asking. It's all growing out of the bottom of my feet, however. My girlfriend doesn't dig it.

Really? Is that all? Why didn't you try something more ambitious, like creating new life forms, or whipping up a little cold fusion in the garage? It would seem that the only thing you managed to do in the ten days you've been a member is make a total ass out of yourself! It took me MUCH longer to do that!

I think a few of us are headed for a "Taoism = ecology = science = spirituality" type of thread. I'm still prepping, putting together a lit. review and boning up on systems theory and the dialogue between Asian thought and environmentalism. Joanna Macy, Fritjof Capra, and Donald Worster are my starting points. "As art and music were born of an ancient struggle for survival but have grwon beyond that purely utilitarina purpose, so morality evolves twoard something more than usefulness and expendiency. In its last and highest stage, it becomes a self-transcending sense of mercy sympathy, and kinship with all of animate existence, including the earth itself. When man has reached that capacity to feel for everything that moves and lives - for being in general, not just one's own family, nation, or even species - then he will have become truly civilized." Donald Worster - "Nature's Economy" I would venture that the will have become truly enlightened also.

I would concur. My guess is that Fritjof Capra's "The Web of Life" delves deeply and technically into this process from an ecological perspective. He's elaborating on the Santiago Theory of cognition. Mind is life - life is mind. The entire biosphere is one vast cognitive process. I'd like to start a thread with this but I feel obliged to read the book first in order to fully comprehend the process. Mention the Santiago Theory and watch people's eyes glaze over!

Damn good advice, Song. I was always morbidly intimidated by people bigger than me. Then I became a personal trainer in my 40s and started working in a gym, and guess what? I had a blast and ultimately felt entirely comfortable and confident with people I would've never associated with. When they started greeting me with a handshake I knew I had healed this wound.

MBZ, you've solicited very important information in TTB. In the course of a mere two responses you've gotten information that is completely inconsistent. It may be true, or it may not be. Are you in a position to evaluate the truthfulness of the advice one way or another? You're not alone. But my guess is, if you truly possess MCO ability, you have the means of ascertaining the answers to your questions from a more legitimate resource than the Net. Best of luck. Tread with care.

Even the most pious and spiritually advanced amongst us are allowed to invoke Occam's razor when things get confusing. It states that the simplest of two or more competing theories is preferable and that an explanation for unknown phenomena should first be attempted in terms of what is already known. Or, go for the simplest explanation, my friend. It's almost always the correct one. There was a time when I would have to cross the street in order to avoid oncoming pedestrians from seeing my wretched self. That was right before I quit drinking, back in 1982. We are all wounded, but we can use that experience to help heal others. Sensitivity is a gift (but only after it ceases to be a royal pain in the ass).

No, you're not. I think what we have here is a bone fide dingbat cursed with an extremely boring life. I pulled this stunt three days ago with a thread about my own alleged enlightenment and most folks saw through it fairly quickly. It's kind of sad that he commits so much intellectual energy to mental masturbation. As long as you don't find yourself amongst the ones who take him seriously, you'll be okay. Log off, Embrace Horse, drink green tea.

1+1= the end of this thread. Thanks for the laughs, folks!

Cool!! You're laying claim to omniscience without demonstrating the capacity to construct a complete sentence! Yeah, I'll bite. NOT!!

I think you're trying to express a basic assertion of the postmodern realization, which is the constructedness of our experience, our social institutions, or cognitive maps. I'm a postmodernist too, and I am precisely because it jives with buddhist psychology, modern psychology and quantum physics. But there is a bigger process going on that transcends our limited fqaculties but which we are also participating in with varying degrees of consciousness. Welcome to the Santiago Theory of cognition. "ONE OF THE MOST revolutionary aspects of the emerging systems theory of life is the new conception of mind, or cognition, it implies. This new conception was proposed by Gregory Bateson and elaborated more extensively by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela in a theory known as the Santiago theory of cognition.' The central insight of the Santiago theory is the identification of cognition, the process of knowing, with the process of life. Cognition, according to Maturana and Varela, is the activity involved in the self-generation and self-perpetuation of living systems. In other words, cognition is the very process of life. It is obvious that we are dealing here with a radical expansion of the concept of cognition and, implicitly, the concept of mind. In this new view, cognition involves the entire process of life - including perception, emotion, and behaviour - and does not necessarily require a brain and a nervous system. At the human level, however, cognition includes language, conceptual thought, and all the other attributes of human consciousness. The Santiago theory of cognition, in my view, is the first scientific theory that really overcomes the Cartesian division of mind and matter, and will thus have the most far-reaching implications. Mind and matter no longer appear to belong to two separate categories but are seen as representing two complementary aspects of the phenomenon of life - the process aspect and the structure aspect. At all levels of life, beginning with the simplest cell, mind and matter, process and structure are inseparably connected. Thus, for the first time, we have a scientific theory that unifies mind, matter and life. Let me illustrate the conceptual advance represented by this unified view with a question that has confused scientists and philosophers for over a hundred years: What is the relationship between the mind and the brain? Neuroscientists have known since the nineteenth century that brain structures and mental functions are intimately connected, but the exact relationship between mind and brain always remained a mystery. In the Santiago theory the relationship between mind and brain is simple and clear. Descartes' characterization of mind as the "thinking thing" (res cogitans) is finally abandoned. Mind is not a thing but a process - the process of cognition, which is identified with the process of life. The brain is a specific structure through which this process operates. The relationship between mind and brain, therefore, is one between process and structure. The brain, moreover, is by no means the only structure involved in the process of cognition. In the human organism, as in the organisms of all vertebrates, the immune system is increasingly being recognized as a network that is as complex and interconnected as the nervous system and serves equally important co-ordinating functions. Classical immunology sees the immune system as the body's defence system, outwardly directed and often described in terms of military metaphors - armies of white blood cells, generals, soldiers, etc. Recent discoveries by Francisco Varela and his colleagues at the University of Paris are seriously challenging this conception. In fact, some researchers now believe that the classical view with its military metaphors has been one of the main stumbling- blocks in our understanding of auto-immune diseases such as AIDS. Instead of being concentrated and interconnected through anatomical structures like the nervous system, the immune system is dispersed in the lymph fluid, permeating every single tissue. Its components - a class of cells called lymphocytes, popularly known as white blood cells - move around very rapidly and bind chemically to each other. The lymphocytes are an extremely diverse group of cells. Each type is distinguished by specific molecular markers, called "antibodies", sticking out from their surfaces. The human body contains billions of different types of white blood cell, with an enormous ability to bind chemically to any molecular profile in their environment. According to traditional immunology, the lymphocytes identify an intruding agent, the antibodies attach themselves to it and, by doing so, neutralize it. Recent research has shown that under normal conditions the antibodies circulating in the body bind to many (if not all) types of cell, including themselves. The entire system looks much more like a net- work, more like people talking to each other, than soldiers looking out for an enemy. Gradually, immunologists have been forced to shift their perception from an immune system to an immune network. This shift in perception presents a big problem for the classical view. If the immune system is a network whose components bind to each other, and if antibodies are meant to eliminate whatever they bind to, we should all be destroying ourselves. Obviously, we are not. The immune system seems to be able to distinguish between its own body's cells and foreign agents, between self and non-self. But since, in the classical view, for an antibody to recognize a foreign agent means binding to it chemically and thereby neutralizing it, it remains mysterious how the immune system can recognize its own cells. Varela and his colleagues argue that the immune system needs to be understood as an autonomous, cognitive network which is responsible for the body's "molecular identity". By interacting with one another and with the other body cells, the lymphocytes continually regulate the number of cells and their molecular profiles. Rather than merely reacting against foreign agents, the immune system serves the important function of regulating the organism's cellular and molecular repertoire. From the perspective of the Santiago theory, this regulatory function is part of the immune system s process of cognition. When foreign molecules enter the body, the resulting response is not their automatic destruction but regulation of their levels within the system's other cognitive activities. The response will vary and will depend upon the entire context of the network. When immunologists inject large amounts of a foreign agent into the body, as they do in standard animal experiments, the immune system reacts with the massive defensive response described in the classical theory. However, this is a highly contrived laboratory situation. In its natural surroundings, an animal does not receive large amounts of harmful substances. The small amounts that do enter its body are incorporated naturally into the ongoing regulatory activities of its immune network. With this understanding of the immune system as a cognitive, self-organizing and self-regulating network, the puzzle of the self/non-self distinction is easily resolved. The immune system simply does not and needs not distinguish between body cells and foreign agents, because both are subject to the same regulatory processes. However, when the invading foreign agents are so massive that they cannot be incorporated into the regulatory network, as for example in the case of infections, they will trigger specific mechanisms in the immune system that mount a defensive response. The field of "cognitive immunology" is still in its infancy, and the self-organizing properties of immune networks are by no means well understood. However, some of the scientists active in this growing field of research have already begun to speculate about exciting clinical applications to the treatment of auto-immune diseases. Future therapeutic strategies are likely to be based on the understanding that auto- immune diseases reflect a failure in the cognitive operation of the immune network and may involve various novel techniques designed to reinforce the network by boosting its connectivity. Such techniques, however will require a much deeper understanding of the rich dynamics of immune networks before they can be applied effectively. In the long run, the discoveries of cognitive immunology promise to be tremendously important for the whole field of health and healing. In Varela's opinion, a sophisticated psychosomatic ("mind-body") view of health will not develop until we understand the nervous system and the immune system as two interacting cognitive systems, two "brains" in continuous conversation." From http://www.combusem.com/CAPRA4.HTM Fritjof Capra is The Man.

Only people who falsely claim to be enlightened can make the claim to be above suffering. That's not what it's about. Nirvana, or what some define as perfect mental health, is still a very human state of existence where the capacity for compassion and empathy for others is unfathomable. As Ken Wilber says , "It (the suffering of others) hurts more, but bothers you less." That's very generous of you, Steve. And your wife. I'll put on my favorite John Maclaughlin album when she gets here. Ever heard "Follow your Heart?"

Ya know, when people ask me that, I just bend them over...