Maddie

You mean the Joe Rogan that announces for the UFC? Do you know him? Back in Alaska when I was first getting into qigong I was also doing some hard core MMA training. I always used to wonder why there weren't any guys in the UFC who had cultivated qi to a high degree as in internal martial arts. I used to think how cool it would be to see one of those guys in the octagon looking all unassuming and then throwing down with the qi lol. Most of the other guys would just snicker when I spoke about qi, and I was thinking "but this is martial arts, aren't you guys supposed to be into this stuff?" lol. Of course when I would do some qigong before training and then kick butt during sparring they never attributed it to the qigong haha. Well a few years down the road and having a little more cultivation under my belt and I think I get it now lol. You cultivate a bit and being a UFC champion just does not seem all that important anymore . But still I do admire the discipline and dedication those guys have to train and use it as inspiration to do what I do.

Haha yea I had that experience as well. When I first left Alaska to go to TCM school I was staying with my mom a few months waiting for school to start. I had a little part time job to make enough money to eat and such but other than that I figured all that free time was a good opportunity to meditate and do qigong. Well after a while my mom said to me "why do you meditate and do qigong all the time, you need to get out and live real life" lol. So to humor her I would go some where often a book store and read a qigong book haha. She just could not understand why I wanted to do "nothing" all the time lol. So this past break between semesters I was happy to have my own place and have my roommate out most the time so that I could meditate as much as my heart desired with out anyone telling me what I should be doing instead lol. That reminded me, something interesting I did notice while staying with my mother was she would experience some of the same things as me as I was doing qigong. I was working on my Kidney's one afternoon while she was at work. When she got back home she was acting all paranoid and scared for no reason haha. It was even less fun if I had been working on my Liver that day.

I was reading one of Bruce Frantzis' books a while back (I don't remember which one) but in his book he mentions that the reason that your karma can change when you cultivate is because as you change your energy vibration what you then radiate out into the universe is a different frequency and thus draws different (usually better if you cultivate correctly) things to you. He said that karma was your qi patterns with in your that were created based upon the actions of your consciousness, and it was their transmission out that brought the results of that karma back to you.

Yes both the Liver and Heart channels have branches that go to the eyes. In TCM we are told that the best way to diagnose a patients spirit is by the state of their eyes. In clinical experience I've noticed a few different types of eye patterns which I'm still working to develop my recognition sensitivity. From personal experience I've noticed people who have had some kind of severe trauma in their life tend to have this glassed over look to their eyes, but it only seems like some other students pick up on this. I've asked others students if they saw this and they didn't know what I was talking about, but these tend to be the students who have no interest in personal cultivation. I've noticed patients who are manic, angry, or disturbed have this glowing quality to their eyes. You see this sometimes in photographs of Adolf Hitler, with those funky glowing eyes. I was treating this service man for PTSD and he had very penetrating eyes and I knew that he had killed someone in the war zone just from the look in his eyes. I remember reading a diary of a Japanese solider in WWII who said that the veterans had more "evil" eyes then the raw recruits. Personally I believe that the spirit (shen) of the heart represents our conscious mind, as the heart is called the house of the mind and the seat of consciousness. I think the Liver's hun ethereal soul is our subconscious mind, which makes sense as it is the part of us that survives death, and Buddhism says our Chitta (subconscious mind) is what goes on after death and is reincarnated. This would explain why we don't have conscious memories of our past lives. The part of us that remembers (shen) is extinguished upon death (the smoke goes out) and is re-light by our ethereal hun soul (subconscious). So the only memories we have of past lives are subconscious ones so the Liver's hun soul would be where our tendencies come from. When our hun gives rise to our new shen it is fresh and new and only has memories of our current life. This would go along with the 5 element cycle of creation where liver wood generates heart fire.

Ajahn Brahm was saying something about seeing your Nimita or some kind of internal light once you reach a certain stage of Samantha.

Yea its for this reason that I am now doing totally Samantha now because when I was trying to do Vipassana as well I had this sneaking feeling that what I thought was Vipassana was probably not, and that rather it was more of my mind wondering. Another clue is that I'm finding pure Samantha very challenging and that in doing it I am becoming aware of how much and strongly my mind protests it haha. It seems to not like having its "entertainment aka various wandering thoughts" taken away from it. Yet the more I do it the more I'm finding it to be calming. So I figure I'll do Samantha until I get to a jhana or samadi or something like that and then I'll have the focus needed to really do Vipassana, or at least that is the hope.

Yes TCM (excluding some qigong) is all about wai dan. It's meant to be accessible to the average lay person BUT can also be useful to the cultivator as well. I've already used several herbs to help along my cultivation in the past as well as acupuncture. Though I'm sort of at a point now that most of the time those don't so as much for me now as they used to.

You mentioned the monk you spoke to was Chinese. That is another place I have pondered going to for meditation purposes, as I am in TCM school and know a lot of Chinese people. What do you know of monasteries there?

Is there an advantage or disadvantage to this approach?

Ha ha that's funny cause I just finished a meditation session and I was trying to use more carrot rather than stick. What I mean is when I began I again felt my concentration not liking being brought back to the here and now. So I was trying to change my emphasis on not so much making my attention come to the present but telling myself how nice and pleasant it could be to enjoy being present. I think it helped cause it was not quite as difficult this time even though I kept having to bring my attention back repeatedly but there was a greater relaxedness (grammar?) about it. One thing I have noticed lately though is that it seems like the duration I am able to meditate is less than before though my focus on the now is greater. What seems to happen now is that about around the hour mark I start to feel pressure in my head, my ears clog up, my heart starts to beat hard and my lungs constrict and I start to feel funny. So an hour at a time (though I do several sessions a day) seems to be my cap at the moment, and I'm not sure why that is. *Seeker. I went to your profile and read your bio. It seems that we have a lot of similarities as I also chant the Zhunti mantra, and see qi cultivation as an auxiliary practice to my main practices on the enlightenment path. :-)

The way you describe it does seem to be how it feels in a way.

Interesting. I seem to have experienced some of those things listed both the pleasant and unpleasant. On a brighter note though as I was walking home from clinic this evening I really enjoyed how beautiful the trees and sky and wind all were with a certain stillness that is rather uncommon. Yea I sort of figured that the mantra was meant to be dropped later down the road, but for the time being it sure helps a lot, especially using "be" and "here" cause it keeps reminding me to be present and helps me to bring my mind back to the here and now on pretty much every breath cause that's how quickly my mind wants to wonder lol... sheesh. So it goes inhald "be" and exhale "here" over and over.

Hmmm I wonder if I were to go there after I graduate if I would be able to put my TCM skills to use? I wonder if you can sort of split up what you do there, as in have part of your time go to meditation and part of it going to help people there in some manner. Seems like both would be mutually beneficial as in you cultivate and get good karma.

So then I'd assume a westerner wanting to go to Burma to study in a monastery like they do in Thailand would be out of the question then. What effect has the regime had on Buddhism there?

So I'm wondering if there are any good relief or charitable organizations that help people and/or monasteries in Burma?

Hmmm that's a different version than I heard but it is interesting to ponder in that it supposes the possibility of someone having already been reborn while another part of them remains to be a ghost. interesting.

I googled this article from the Seattle Times about some common herbs that grow in the NW. http://seattletimes.com/html/pacificnw/2009328305_pacificplife14.html As far as which to use for cultivation is a bit more tricky as the specific goal is required and the person's specific diagnosis and constitution.

I saw this post during a study break from my herbs book haha. I was glad to see a post like this cause herbs are one of the best ways to apply Tao to our lives. They pertain to the various elements, and yin and yang. They enter various channels and meridians and have various qualities of qi. Granted out of all the subjects at school this is probably one of the most difficult due to the large amount to memorize and the Chinese names, but they are so effective. Following Tao is following nature and what better way to follow nature than to use it in the form of herbs.

According to Taoist thought the only part of us to survive death is our etheral soul (hun) that resides in the liver. One of my text books described it as the flame at the tip of a cigarette, and the spirit (shen) as the smoke that arose from the flame. The tobacco was the jing and the ash was the po or the corporeal soul. So when we die its like the last stub of the cigarette is used to light a new cigarette thus the hun soul is passed from the old cigarette (body) to the new cigarette (body). The Po soul dies,(ashes go to the ground) and a new spirit (shen) arises from the flame of the hun soul.

We were actually discussing this in class today. Most of the women were horrified.

Thanks that helps lol. Yea in the talks I listen to of Ajahn Brahm he mentions relaxation as being key as well, so I am trying to keep that in mind. Yea up until this point I had not so consistently brought my attention continually back to the present and nothing else. Its hard lol. But I keep reminding myself that its worth it for those reasons you listed. Aside from it being difficult, does that fact that I feel kind of sad go along with it? I guess what I mean is that I did not realize how much my mind loves to be some other place until just now. I was a history major after all haha. And now with me bringing my mind to the here and now in meditation its as though I almost feel a sense of loss. weird.

Actually if you look at the very first post in this thread where he is explaining the contents of the book its mentioned. Also I was watching one of Ajahn Brahm's talks last night where he mentioned that as well. But the main point I'm interested in isn't the mantra part, but the issue of staying totally present the whole time. It was like when I really did this my mind wanted to go berserk.

wow. Go with in, let it go, relax

I actually had an experience like this a couple weeks ago. I was doing mindfuless meditation and noticed this hard knot in my solar plexus area. I just kept awareness on it for a good long while and simply observed it and gradually it began to disolove.

Who then makes the distinction as to when its ok to eradicate someone with out consequence? At what point is it ok, and at what point is it not ok, and how does one distinguish this point?