forestofclarity

Do you know his background? Seems like he has a lot of overlap with Master Liao's teaching. I don't think he was at the Chicago school, though. I did it a little when I was with the school, but not since. I'm not entirely comfortable with it, TBH. Nathan Brine says that Liping goes the other direction, increasing shen -> increase qi -> increase jing.

I'm not sure about that either. Zhiyi used to prescribe meditation for health issues, and some Theravada Buddhists do as well. However, my main area of experience is Tibetan Buddhism. There are physical signs related to specific practices, and there are healing, long life practices, and other practices as well. What these signs are are kept hidden, mainly to prevent people from forming wrong ideas. They don't work like other practices, however. Many online Daoists (and Buddhists) seem to have missed that lesson, despite claiming high levels of enlightenment.

I have never encountered this outside of Master Liao’s school except for possibly White Crane. Is this set out in classic sources or oral tradition only?

I would suggest this is not the case. You laid out some Daoist results, here are some of the more public Buddhist ones: decline in suffering, decline in craving/aversion, decline in feeling numb, decline in ego reactivity, increase in compassion, increase in loving kindness, increase in equanimity, increase in joy. A lot of this has been and continues to be confirmed in growing scientific and research literature, so it is certainly not speculation. Brain experts have informed me that the brain changes due to meditation practice and often permanent, surviving even degenerative brain diseases, prompting more and more to attend and learn meditation practices. So this idea that the mind and body are separate doesn't make sense to me. One might argue as to whether the body is condensed mind or the mind is subtle matter, but they are quite connected.

There are many problems with books, but I will list three based on personal experience: 1) books are often written as summaries of a more extensive oral teachings; 2) due to spatial limitations, something always gets left out; but more importantly 3) the difference between a true experience and a false one are extremely difficult to distinguish, as set forth in nearly every spiritual tradition in the world, along with numerous myths and fairy tales. There are times when everything one has read, experienced, one's intuition, signs, etc. seems to clearly point in one direction, but the teacher, who has actually been there, says "Not quite." At this point, many people will reject the teacher, and go down the wrong path. I think generally, most people, especially modern people, underestimate the power of the delusion and just how deep the conditioning goes.

Theravada has Tantric paths, like the borān kammaṭṭhāna. You can see the influence in modern Thai Theravada as well.

I’d say the practices are self secret at their core. A lot of folks guard certain energy practices, but these are supporting and not primary in my opinion. But some people need the esoteric link. The truth reveals itself to whom it will.

I completely understand why you wouldn't, but I wish that weren't the case, FWIW. It seems to me what we cultivate, expands.

In reference to your earlier request for specific feedback, do you think your posts in recent days (in this thread even) aligns with this insight, or is there room for improvement?

You can say that from one POV. From another, one might say that one's karma and dharma is unfolding as it should. We can let the egoic functions interfere with it, prolonging the unfolding in an attempt to rush it, improve it, modify it, obtain some end, etc. which will generally lead to unnecessary suffering or we can allow the unfolding to occur as it does in our personal mind stream (usually we do some of each). The egoic functions insist everything happen in a limited, specific way. Reality does what it does.

That's been my suspicion as well. I'll have to give the paper a proper read at some point.

I meant specifically from Adam. I've had experiences with others, especially the Waysun Liao school, although in the short few years I was there I didn't learn any of it (or even leverage). I've met Dwai in real life some decades ago and I think he is telling the truth about his own experiences. Having said that, I generally only speak to what I've experienced directly (and typically verified with a living teacher). I've had some good experiences with Rasmus as well, and also Damo's stuff. But there's only so many hours in the day. I made a gamble a long time ago to put my eggs basically in one basket. I generally agree with your assessments. A clean connection to the essence of mind + some proper relaxed concentration on the right spot --> natural development of subtle body. We experience things differently. No issues there. Not from the Daoist angle. My main practices are Buddhist, I'm more on again, off again with Daoist stuff. However, there are many works (Cleary's SOTGF, the DDJ, Ge Gulong's Inner Alchemy) that are right on point IME. Care to elaborate?

Interesting fundraising point--- it's been said that people generally give more when dana is requested. However, I've heard that more places are going to set fees. Some have said it is because of the younger generation, but I think Buddhism is spanning out past the middle class.

Doesn't the Heshang commentary fit the bill?

It’s absolutely ridiculous to call someone a troglodyte for requesting Dana on a website to support themselves as a dharma teacher. Maybe worthwhile to examine why you find this so triggering.

Sounds like something to pay attention to.

And how does it turn out when you follow it? Sure. I would also suggest that there is another form of knowing and development that is available as well at a certain point (timing is crucial here too, I suppose!).

Beyond the courser conditioning there is deeper conditioning (the 7th and 8th consciousness) that usually fool people into thinking they are acting from their deeper nature when they are acting from their deeper conditioning. Which is why in my limited view we have people claiming to be fully enlightened even though an unenlightened schmuck like me can still clearly see their various egoic processes and reactions click-clacking along on full display. Even further, presuming true intention emerges, on the return the various layers of mind will still want to muddle with it. I'd speculate this is why people may want to rely on external signs--- a fully synched person wouldn't need them. Even so, one would have to have the discrimination to prevent the acquired minds from meddling with the interpretations. Which would bring us back to the holographic view.

So this whole post provides examples of how people act from their acquired mental habits. If the guy is legit (which I can't assess based on a few seconds of a video or checking out how he teaches, whether he primes and conditions his students to respond a certain way, etc.), then his actions would not be coming from such a limited mental space.

I don't see the synching (presuming we're referring to the same thing, I never know with you TT) arising if the acquired minds/egos are running the show, which would necessitate some level of inner work, IMO.

Not saying whether I agree or disagree, but it did make me laugh out loud. Several times.

And yet...

Adam does it to himself in my opinion. Personally, I haven't seen any of his demonstrations that couldn't be explained in terms of alignment and leverage. He is very skilled in this regard, but this is not necessarily a true "qi" type demonstration, but he allows people to think it is. Which is not to say that there isn't more, I just haven't personally experienced it. But I doubt the infamy is bad for him. For every X critics, Y people will check him out to learn for themselves. Even worse is that for every 1 person who has some mastery, there are probably 999 BS artists out there. The signal to noise ratio is outrageous and would not be tolerated in any other field. My own view is that the subtle body will unfold on its own if "we" stop interfering with it. The basic mechanism appears to be quite simple, but a lot of complicated techniques have evolved (possibly in an effort to mimic this spontaneous process). One larger issue in modern Daoist practice is one often increases the qi in the system without necessarily thinning the samskaras/acquired mind, skipping over what I see as a very necessary step. Increasing the total energy in this case amplifies what is already there, for better and worse. I woudl further suggest that as one progresses, obstacles both internal and external will generally increase, requiring more and more skill. And I also think we generally underestimate how deep the delusion runs--- a sense of self impacts how we sensorily process the world, and reducing this impacts how everything is experienced. It is impossible to even write basic English sentences without invoking the false "I" in some way. And I would also suggest this runs on a spectrum--- it is not an all or nothing, which makes it even more subtle. Just some opinions. Vaguely--- are you talking about how the brain maps the body?

No more than what I see here, in spiritual communities, or even within my own mind. But they are not, as far as I know, spiritual practitioners. But cynicism can be turned into an agent of the path, as with certain forms of Buddhism. In this case, maybe they are not cynical enough (i.e. questioning their own beliefs about materialism, for instance). I don't think that is true, at least not in my experience and the experience of people I've interacted with (unless one counts suggestion, which I do not). For some, perhaps, depending on one's karmic propensities--- recall about universalizing one's personal experience. I think it is better to let the potential unfold rather than try to cultivate some specific end from a limited POV. But even if I could fajin energy at a distance or electric qi some one, I doubt I would do it at this stage.

Personally, I don't blame them. I tend to be skeptical and usually my skepticism is not disappointed. Also, there tends to be a lot of fraud, gullibility, truth stretching, money grabbing, etc. which is fairly rampant in this realm (a lot of demos, for example, seem to purposely confuse the use of leverage with the use of internal power). If I hadn't experienced it myself, in an impromptu situations, I wouldn't have believed it either.