forestofclarity

Let me preface by saying that I've been practicing some Wim Hof methods for the past month and I love them. I lost about 8 pounds and my energy levels are up. Having said that, I don't think his methods are similar to Tummo. Note that I am citing from Kathleen McDonald, who learned Tummo from traditional sources. Compare: Tummo-Lite Kathleen McDonald Wim Hof-Lite I think that Wim's method leverages bodily anatomy, whereas Tummo is more meditative. Accordingly, I actually think Wim's method is more accessible.

Except the Wim Hof method doesn't use vase breathing, not even close.

Wim Hof doesn't really do tummo. His techniques, as far as I can tell, come from his personal experiences with the cold. He has developed it to a freakish ability, but he has also trained people to become immune to viruses following his technique in a very short period of time.

It's an interesting list. I listened to Peter Kreeft's philosophy of religion class where he goes through the pros and cons of each argument. I find that the pro-God arguments tend to appeal to concepts of the higher good: truth, love, beauty. Anti-God arguments tend to appeal to pain, suffering, and other negatives. Ed Feser addresses some of your objections. I think the arguments are sound philosophically in that I think one could accept these arguments as a basis for a faith that is not inconsistent with reason. In fact, William Lane Craig has made something of a career demolishing prominent atheists in debate--- although that seems to have more to do with his skill in debating than anything else. http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/07/so-you-think-you-understand.html I'm not necessarily advocating one side or the other personally, just pointing out the situation is often a bit more complex than it can seem.

When people say they know there is no god, I'm curious as to what they mean by God, because usually it is a dumbed-down, straw man God -- typically a superhero type of God. Here are 20 arguments for the existence of God, created by philosophers throughout the centuries. http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm

From what I know about reverse breathing, it is intended to increase one's power. In my research, I've come across Western scientists who say that reverse breathing simulated how we are in states of anxiety. This makes sense because when we are feeling anxious, then we might be drawing in more energy to deal with our issue. Western research has also confirmed the absolutely calming and healing effects of belly breathing. So while belly breathing tends to calm and center, reverse breathing increases energy. However, energy destabilizes. In Buddhist teachings, energy is related to the element of air or wind. Air or wind blows things away, and the stronger the wind, the more destructive is can be. Personally, I think it is this destabilizing increase of energy that causes many of the psychological problems in these teachings. I think that's why so much time and emphasis is spent in both Buddhist and Taoist teachings developing a proper container that can hold these energies by rooting, centering, and grounding. Without a proper foundation, one can only go so high. Just some of my thoughts on the matter.

I might want to make sure its not a hernia or some other issue.

I'm not a qigong expert or teacher, but I feel like posting this. I've been taught from a number of teachers that standing is more of a gathering/increasing qi exercise. Nearly every teacher I've had did standing at the end of practice, which typically started with relaxing, then movement of some sort, then standing at the end. What I've noticed is that learning to relax and flow with gross movements makes it easier to relax in standing. When I first started to stand, I had nothing but tension. One of my early qigong instructors deeply impressed on me that qigong is about flow. Flow can be inhibited by a number of things. On a physical level, this can be muscular tension. On an emotional level, there are desires. One a mental level, these can be thoughts. All of these represent a contraction of one kind or another. One mistake I made for many years was trying to force the sensations with some sort of mental, emotional, or even physical tension. I thought I was helping the techniques to work, but as it turns out, I was stopping them FROM working by creating tension. But now imagine you have these tensions, then try to up the voltage with standing. This would only intensity the contractions. So in an effort to get it to work, one might then further increase the tension. Looking back, if I could have my earlier self do one technique to help with qigong, it would probably be laying down and relaxing completely.

Is ZZ all you're doing? I've usually seen it taught as part of a bigger package.

Practicing with Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche I went to see Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche this weekend. This isn't something I would typically do. When I heard he was coming to my state, I thought "Oh well." When I heard he was coming within a few minutes of me, and giving a retreat by donation, I took notice and decided to surrender. I had attended a transmission from him before, but I didn't think it was for me. The first day, I thought there's so many practices, there's no way I will even be able to do one. Why am I even here? Then he said, while looking at me (or at least in my general direction), "The only practice you really need to do is Ati Guru yoga." Even though I had the transmission for this, but I didn't really know how to do it. The instructions I had gotten were so complex and hard to follow. At the retreat, they happened to have the Guru Yoga books which explained it quite well. It turns out it was far simpler than I anticipated. Not only that, but doing the practice with the teacher was amazing. Guess what the key ingredient is? That's right. Surrender. The last day, I got in the long line to have a few moments with ChNN himself. While in line, I noticed that some people had these white scarves that ChNN was putting around their neck and giving a blessing. "Wouldn't it be nice to have one of those?" I thought. I looked around, but you had to BYOS--- bring your own scarf. Not a minute went by when someone standing ahead of me pulled a white scarf out of her bag and said, "Would you like one of these? I brought extras." Of course, of course.

Once we start to divide the world up into us vs them, normals vs monsters, good vs evil, and so on, there is no end to conflict.

The first thing I would do is cut the defense budget and feed the world. In 2008, evidently that would only be about 30 billion. http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2008/1000853/index.html I would come down hard on fossil fuels. We would decentralize from cities to local communities. I would institute a mid-day siesta. I would require mandatory body - awareness training to children in school.

Hmm, that's an interesting viewpoint. Do you reject centering on the LDT? This is the one universal method I have been taught across traditions. I find that centering helps me remain grounded and present. In my mind, our qi starts out fairly disturbed and scattered. Most people are so distracted that they seem unaware that they even have bodies unless they're sick. Concentration practices or qigong with forms is a way to re-introduce the energy body to a more spontaneous state. In the TTC Chapter 38, Laozi describes the degeneration of the Tao to virtue to kindness to justice to ritual. One might think that this also presents a ladder to return to the Tao: ritual, to justice, to kindness, to virtue, to Tao. Someone at the low end of the ladder might even reject ritual, and claim they are already spontaneous. Spontaneous methods appear to me to be about learning to flow. But without first being collected, what is there to flow? What do you think?

The Two Parts of Surrender As a Buddhist, I learned a lot about the first part of surrender. The first part is letting go. When something arises, it will also pass. I've found that it will often pass more quickly if you let it go. This is often a part of the methods of monks and those who renounce the world. Form is emptiness. But I've also come to realize the second part of surrender. The second part is allowing things to come. Once we let go, it is easier for other things to manifest. One of the issues with clinging is that it kills. When we hold one to one thing, something else cannot arise. But by letting go, things end. Yet in the ending, there is arising. I've seen this a part of the methods of householders and those who live in the world. Emptiness is form.

I haven't read Chia in years, but I can say that I doubt he means a strong, tense concentration. I remember a lot of focus on relaxing. There is an old Taoist story about the farmer who planted seeds, and impatient with his progress, tried to help them grow by pulling on them. Of course, it didn't work, and he ruined his harvest. I've been meditating a very long time and have to learn the hard way that strong, tense concentration isn't healthy. If you bring that type of tension to the LDT, I think you're going to have a lot of problems. I see my energy body like a flower. You can't make flowers bloom. But with water and sunshine, they will bloom naturally. Rather, what I've seen most effective in my own practice is light concentration. Attention in some ways is itself like a light. You don't need to do anything to it intensity wise. You just need to pick where it goes. For example, think of a cat. You can do it instantly, without effort. The same goes with concentration. When the attention wanders off, just bring it back. It will wander off quite a bit, but over time it will wander less.

I don't think I did. In fact, I was careful not to. Mixing up ontology with epistemology happens when people say "we cannot know what is outside of consciousness, therefore nothing exists apart from consciousness." My point here is that there may be unknowns outside of consciousness. But the body, as we perceive it, does not generate consciousness. It is a perception OF consciousness. Naive realists believe the world exists as we see it, forgetting that how the world appears depends on the one looking at it. Indeed, what is perceived by the body is only a small sliver of a greater whole. For example, looking at the body, we see a limited range of light. The perception of the body changes with conditions, such as whether it is day or night, whether it is seen by someone with color blindness, whether the seer is sick and so on. In addition, even pointing to a body separates it from its context: time, space, the earth, the universe, etc. You can remove the perception of your body --- sight, sounds, touch etc. But consciousness remains. However, if you remove consciousness, there is no perception of the body. Accordingly, the perception of the body depends on consciousness. A lot of people mistake this point for idealism, but it isn't--- in fact, this is how many people categorize Yogacara. The position is that everything we see is consciousness, so saying that what we see creates, generates, or is necessary for consciousness is an error.

I've noticed I've often had a caveat on surrender. I'm often willing to surrender some, but not all. A good example is when I took the Buddhist precepts. I would take the precepts, BUT. I had to take them from a monk. That I respected. In a formal ceremony. I set conditions. In that case, even when the conditions were fulfilled in a spectacular fashion, I had resistance. Why do I need to take precepts? Why do I need to commit formally? In more recent times, it has been: what about kids? What about family? What about a comfortable life style? Heck, what about warm showers? So here's where the resistance sets in. The mind has a million reasons to NOT do something.

The two most described methods I've come across are spontaneous qigong and standing practice.

I would argue it is the other way around. In consciousness studies, there is the "methodological problem." The methodological problem is that the study of consciousness is done in the light of consciousness. There is no way to study consciousness apart from consciousness. The body, as we perceive it, is an object of consciousness. There may be an unknown outside of consciousness that generates the perception of the body and also consciousness, but it is unknown. Because the body is an object of consciousness, saying that it generates consciousness is like seeing a projector in a movie and saying that the projector creates the movie. Of course it doesn't. Now there may be a projector outside of the movie creating the movie and the projector, but at this point, I don't think that's verifiable.

1. What is your definition of nibbana? Is it a state of eternal non-consciousness? If so, what's the point? 2. If there is a gap in consciousness and it is discontinuous, what notices the gap? 3. Is there rebirth after death? If not, then what's the point of practice? 4. What is your position on pure awareness in the Advaitic sense? 5. Have you had a brain scan or EEG done? If not, why not? If so, how does your brain compare with other, normal brains? If not, why not? 6. What is your thought on non-duality? 7. Many people accuse you of teaching the extreme of nihilism. Are you aware of these criticisms, and if so, how do you response? 8. Have you corresponded with mainstream Theravada teachers? If so, what do they think of your teachings? How do you respond to their criticisms? 9. How does one tell the difference between an arhat and someone who simply claims to be an arhat?

There's more to non-duality that Shankara. For instance, there is Shavism, Tantra, and Buddhism. There are strong historical roots of lay meditators in these traditions, who were neither Brahmins nor monks.

I don't think it's the type of qigong, so much as what we bring to qigong. For many years, I tried to make things happen in qigong and meditation. It took me a long time just sitting to realize that it is often the doing that gets in the way. So the question from my point of view isn't how do I develop qigong, but how do I get out of the way so that qigong can manifest.

Belly breathing.

It sort of reminds me of circle breathing in qigong empowerment. However, that goes from huiyin, to mingmen, to guanyuan.

I think there is a lot of confusion these days between acting naturally and acting according to one's personal desires. Looking at the Tao Te Ching, Laozi tells us that ethics arise when the natural way is lost. In a sense, one can see that following the ethical principles laid down by the sages as a way to recover what we've lost. One the natural state is recovered, ethics are not necessary. But only once the natural state is recovered. If one has trained in awareness, then one knows that our actions impact not only others, but ourselves. And not just in a vague way. There are specific physical and mental changes that occur when one acts ethically. Other physical and mental change occur when one does not act ethically. Typically what I've seen is that ethical behavior opens one up to the world and positive energies. It leads to increased relaxation, physical well being, knowledge, and connection. Unethical behavior tends to foster ignorance, tightening, closing off, numbing.