zen-bear

Hi Junbao, My answers below in bold. (good comments and questions, btw) Terry Dunn Your description of the effects of the FP energization is very apropos. I like "clean" as in "purified." I would also add as effects: being "connected", "light yet grounded." Regards, Sifu Terry

Junbao, My answers to your questions are below in bold. best, Sifu Terry Dunn

Thanks Si-hing Garry, That comment means a lot to me. Best Always, Terry

Bill, You're welcome. There's no harm in doing the Short 31 before doing the Flying Phoenix, if the TTP is already a well established practice. As a matter of fact, that's the structure of my Wed. evening qigong class: More than the Short 31, followed by the FP. But we take a break in between the two practices. My answers to your questions are in bold below: Best, Terry

Hello Nic and Craig, Actually, my basic advice in previous posts is to not learn another Qigong system or method while learning the Flying Phoenix system. But it's quite alright to learn a martial art, especially a Chinese holistic martial art, while learning the FP Qigong. FP will complement with correct body mechanics and supplement with energy (albeit healing energy for recovery) any martial art system that's based on natural movement. This "compatibility" applies only to the FP system because it is so very safe, self-contained, and complementary to not just other martial arts but to all kinds of sports and athletic activity. In contrast, because of the nature of its alchemy, Tao Tan Pai Nei-Gung has to be trained at the exclusion of everything else until it is completed. As i wrote in a previous post, I started learning the FP system after about 20 years of practice of Tao Tan Pai, and GM Doo Wai told me that it was OK to "mix" the energies because he was very familiar with Master Share Lew and his TTP art. Hope this helps. Terry Dunn

No, the martial qigong arts of the White Tiger Kung-Fu system are totally different and stand apart from the FP Qigong as separate practices.

go ahead. I'll try my best to answer your questions. Terry Dunn

Hi Metal Dog, Thank you for complimenting me and Sifu Garry. Sharing our experience and good levels of knowledge of the Flying Phoenix Qigong system is easy--and fortunate for everyone (in all honesty)--because besides being sanctioned by our teacher to do so, Flying Phoenix is a purely medical, healing qigong system where there's no danger of a profane-malevolent spirit running off with yogic secrets and doing harm and violence to others--which is the reason for the Chinese tradition of secrecy in the martial and yogic arts. The other internal martial systems in GM Doo Wai's White Tiger system, however, are a different matter. Those can only be taught in person, master-to-student, as Sifu Garry Hearfield and I were trained. And even if someone was so fanatically driven as to try to figure out from the FP breath control methods and movement patterns how to create a martial (destructive) qigong method, by the time such a person had accomplished it, he would have penetrated the FP channel so deeply that he would become quite enlightened. As Master Gin Foon Mark, a terrific So. Praying Mantis master in St. Paul, Minnesota, said in a documentary film about him that I saw in the 70's, "If you can teach yourself Dim Muk, you don't need it." lol:) !!! Hence, it's a pleasure for me to be able to share good levels of FP knowledge--ranging from most basic pointers to pretty advanced principles--with the Taobums audience on this thread. ***Very, very well put, Metal Dog: "Important in identifying and avoiding erroneous and ineffective methods or the tendency to over-intellectualize information at the expense of actual achievement. It can be an overwhelming task for the western mind to attempt comprehension of such things and many practices remain hidden to the public...many times for good reasons." Erroneous and ineffective methods exist because Qigong is a secret art and always will be a secret art, and there will always be fast-buck artists trying to exploit whatever fragments they can get their hands on or even whatever crap that they make up. This trend started in the late 70's because pedestrian pamplets with line drawings published by the tens of millions in mainland China (designed to pacify the masses) got translated by western "entrepeneurs" into books and some were even transformed into videos. Besides this crass commercialization, deluded non-initiates who didn't stay in class long enough with their masters contributed to the pile of books and videos teaching pieces of qigong systems or very basic or inferior qigong methods. Thus we have floating around and clogging the channels of learning: all this rudimentary information that only goes so far as to create a "slight tingle" in the fingers, or produces no results at all. Because GM Doo Wai's internal arts are authentic, complete systems that produce results...that is why Sifu Garry and I decided to participate in this blog. Because Qigong is a secret, oral tradition and its methods are hidden, it indeed is not just an overwhelming task--by an impossible task--for the western individual (and eastern, for that matter) to learn a complete Qigong art without becoming formally initiated in the tradition carrying it. As Share Lew's late senior student, John Davidson, put it, "The truth is never caught in class." For example, you've been long-frustrated in your pursuit of info on Master Share K. Lew's Tao Tan Pai system because he enforces a strict taboo on the publication of teachings of any levels of his art. And for good reason: the Tao Tan Pai art, by comparison to Flying Phoenix, does not have practices--even basic ones-- that can be learned from in a book or video and safely practiced without the presence of a supervising master. As I mentioned in previous posting, Sifu Lew long ago disallowed all his students--including myself--from publishing any Tao Tan Pai material on distributable media. (I came closest in 1991--but Master Lew changed his mind about allowing me to publish a video and manual on the TTP Basic 31 Exercises.) The TTP tradition has existed since the Tang Dynasty, and if it continues, it will do so as a private, oral tradition. Or it might just die (like other systems have through the ages)--in terms of failing to produce another generation of Taoist priests with the same mastery as Share Lew in TTP kung-fu, nei-gung, healing, and Taoist magic. That happens to be the trend that I've observed since 1994 and my observation has not changed. In concurrence with this observation is Bill Helm, director of the Taoist Sanctuary of San Diego (that was originally built around Master Lew) for the past 20 years (and my former classmate in TTP and senior school brother under Tai Chi master Abraham Liu.) But no big deal: as the TTP art may die in America or vanish from humanity (--as I don't know who else teaches it elsewhere in the world), so may a new equivalent art be created by the intuitive genius of a true avatar--on the order of a Lu Tung Pin--in the future. Sacred knowledge like Tao Tan Pai ultimately comes and goes at the Will of the Universal Power. This, btw, is exactly the same theme expressed at the end John Boorman's film version of the Arthurian legend, "Excaliber": "When someone is able to wield Excaliber, the sword will arise again." Although most might see the Arthurian legend as nothing by mythology, its ending lesson for Percival is relevant here: Don't fret or mourn over the fact that TTP may not be handed down intact to the next generation. But I'm glad you found this discussion thread from pursuing info on Master Lew's Tao Tan Pai system. I have not seen Master Lew in many, many years. The last time I saw him around 1992, he authorized me to teach his system. I go through cycles of teaching it; presently, I happen to teach the Basic 31 alongside the FP Qigong in my weekly Qigong class. What 6 basic standing and basic 6 seated exercises have you been practicing? They are probably elements of the Basic 31. With regards to your comment, "identifying and avoiding...(the) tendency to over-intellectualize information at the expense of actual achievement": That indeed is what a teacher is supposed to do for the student. The hazardous tendency you mention is very prevalent among beginning students of Tai Chi and Qigong. It just comes with the turf. Both Tai Chi and Aikido attract students who are often enamored with the philosophical underpinnings of those arts and lead with their heads (i.e., their beliefs about--and identification with the Taoist or Zen philosophy) at the expense of achieving the physical and integrative goals of those arts. But that ego-centric obstruction and all delusions are ultimately dissolved by thorough martial training under any authentic master. But when it comes to students pursuing Qigong information that's detached from a martial tradition, that tendency to over-intellectualize is about five-times worse than in the Tai Chi arena. Thanks for relating your early experience with Master Andrew Chung. Not only is his kung-fu obviously powerful, when I found his 6H/8M Form on Youtube, I saw that it is almost an exact choreographic hybrid of the first 6H/8M Form I learned in the early 1980's from Master York Why Loo, and the more recent Form I learned (am still learning) from Master Chan Ching Kai in New York. Master Chung's Liu He Ba Fa is one of the best that I found on media that I found inspiring to my own practice. Regards, Terry Dunn

Thanks for quoting GM Doo Wai's explanation of the breath percentages, Sifu Garry. Sihing Terry

WTM, Good that you're getting nice energizing effects within first 2 weeks of practicing just the warm-up meditations. But adhere to the discipline of stopping each and every meditation you do with the 3 deep breathes at the end. If you go back into the mediation immediately afterwards, you will degrade and eventually nullify the de-hypnotizing and normalizing function of the 3 terminal breathes, which is an essential safeguard in the FP practice and all the internal systems of the Bak Fu Pai system. Right, Sifu Garry Hearfield? Once you have the FP system thoroughly learned and established, you can enter the FP meditation space / energy channel at will with just holding a posture or by just thinking (not even doing) of of the breath-control sequences. But until you have the system established, you should observe the discipline of starting and ending every FP exercise with 3 deep breathes. To use Carlos Castaneda's or Wu Wei Wu's Kung-fu concept of "not-doing": before you can "not-do" and you must do, do, do, do, do, do, do, and do! Sifu Terry Dunn

Hi Junbao, Two sessions of 40 to 45 minutes a day of the FP Meditations is an excellent schedule. And great that you've memorized the exercises including the breath control sequence...that is the essential requirement of practicing this system. Congrats on getting started the correct way. The standing and seated meditations that you chose to do within in one session are fine. However, at some point, rotate into your practice "Monk Gazing At Moon" and "Monk Holding Peach" as well. MGAM is an essential FP exercise and the only basic FP exercise done with eyes open. It needs to be done extensively to anchor the practice. Hint: "Monk Holding Peach" is important yogically because of the (Tai Chi) adage, "Within the curve, seek the straight"--which is most commonly used in a martial context, but is applicable here." Best, Sifu Terry Dunn

Hello Christoph, Glad to hear you got good results from the Flying Phoenix Qigong. But be very careful how you adapt the meditations. In general, I advise NOT to make any changes to the exercises until you have mastered the complete system. They are more than 600 years old and need to be practiced in orthodox fashion for best results. Besides, by practicing the other FP meditations and the complete system, you will thoroughly address your shoulder issues. But if you must modify, closely gauge the effects of that exercise. Reason: You will find out with more practice that anytime you move your upper limbs, that movement will move and churn the energy in your body mass at the same level (relative to the ground)--something not intended by the creator of this FP system for that seated Warm-up Exercise #3 (on Vol. 2). Regards, Sifu Terry Dunn

Hi Metal Dog, Good that you're finding useful info on this thread. It's easy to be forthcoming with info because the Flying Phoenix system speaks for itself. The deep yogic benefits from its practice are profoundly relaxing, rejuvenating, spiritually cleansing and empowering. Terry Dunn

Hi Lloyd, Glad to hear you are feeling lots of energy manifesting through practice of "Monk Gazing At Moon". That is a most fundamental sign of progress. What "little hand movements" do you mean?. I assume you mean those in the seated warm-up that holds "monk Gazing At moon" and then stsrts subtly tweaking the forearms and palms, burning the palms away from the body towards front and then inward to face each other again?(Because in the standing Monk Gazing at Moon meditation, there are no little hand movements.) If that's the one you mean, you hold the MBM posture for at least 3 minutes. Then start the subtle palm-turning movements. Yes, listen to your intuition. Once properly learned, the FP system can be richly adapted to suit your particular health needs just by following your intuition. As long as you do the breath-control sequences correctly and have good postures and fine, relaxed, super-slow movement, you will reap great and profound benefits from the Flying Phoenix Qigong system. Best, Terry Dunn

Pablo, You're welcome. With you ability to hold ZZ for 45 minutes or more, your system will take to "Monk Gazing At Moon" like a kid to cotton candy. Good form is good form, whether it's from Tai Chi or a northern internal system or from a southern internal system like Bak Mei or Bak Fu Pai, or so. Praying Mantis. But keep up your ZZ practice for your martial development. The FP Qigong system is purely a healing qigong system. Enjoy. Terry Dunn

My Tai Chi for Health videos were released on VHS cassettes in 1990 and the went on DVD format around 2000. the current Chi Kung For Health DVDs came out in 2003. My distributor at that time 2000-2005 or so, didn't tie-in or cross-reference the two series on their packaging, so most people didn't know the tie-in from the very popular Tai Chi for Health titles. Also presently, I'm not using a national distributor for my DVD's but a few regional ones,amazon.com, and my website. So none of my titles are out there in the major brick-and-mortar stores and chains. But I'm working on getting them out there once again. Glad you found the CKFH series just the same. Now that Siefried and Roy have retired, if you get some big cats and tame them with the FP Qigong energy, you can take Vegas by storm. Terry Dunn P.S. Thanks for submitting your review to Amazon!

WTM, The FP standing meditations (all exercises in the FP System) are very complementary to Tai Chi Chuan training because they induce total relaxation and condition good form that is directly applicable to Tai Chi and kung-fu. But again, FP Qigong, is an effective and fast-acting medical qigong practice that cultivates a purely healing energy. Thus there is value in practicing Zhan Zhuang separately to improve your Tai Chi Chuan--simply because of the different mental focus in ZZ on conditioning the jing, which is released through the sinews). Within GM Doo Wai's the Bak Fu Pai tradition, the advanced White Tiger and Bak Mei kung-fu forms are practiced as martial qigong (e.g., as seen in Sifu Garry Hearfield's level), and Flying Phoenix is practiced separately as healing qigong. One has to keep martial qigong training and healing qigong training distinctly separate until both are mastered. Then--and only then--will the appropriate energy be spontaneously mustered and issued/applied according to any situation. Otherwise, as I related in a post some months ago, intermediate and even advanced students can have accidental "misfires" of martial energy when they intends to apply healing energy, and vice versa...resulting in energy accidents and embarassing failures akin to the problems treated by Goethe's poem, "the Sorceror's Apprentice", that inspired the Disney cartoon 200 yrs later. Terry Dunn

Hi Pablo, Question: what style of Tai chi do you practice: Chen style? Flying Phoenix Qigong is compatible with your practices of Hunyuan Qigong and Zhan Zhuang as long as you make it a separate practice temporally. Your described daily schedule makes a nice separation of these practices. I visited the Hunyuan Qigong website that features the demo footage of Feng Zhi Qiang. Hunyuan is a complete and authentic tradition of qigong that is integral to Chen Tai Chi Chuan (according to the writings). If you stick solely with the Hunyuan tradition, you have the potential to attain complete mastery of the creative life force for both health and martial aart. FP Qigong, as you will find out, is a different system of Qigong, with a different alchemic method (formula) for cultivating its uniquely tangible healing form of energy. I can see where some of the movement so inward circling movements in Hunyuan might approximate the first movement of Bending the Bows. that will only make Bending the Bows easier to memorize and more natural to do. Just do Bending the Bows and all the FP meditions as slowly as possible--at the speed of a shifting sand-dune, with relaxed, "natal" diaphragmatic breathing. Keep it simple. If you know reverse breathing, your body is already conditioned to conduct more energy, but it is absolutely not necessary to apply reverse breathing when you're doing the FP qigong. The Flying Phoenix Healing energy is very finely induced. It arises very naturally and spontaneously--just from the breath-control sequence at the start in combination with the posture and movements,if any. As Sifi Garry Hearfield hinted at in response I think to another's post, the "Monk Gazing At Moon" and other meditations in the FP system incorporates Zhan Zhuang and effects correct alignment and dissolution of all tensions leading to total relaxation. When I teach Yang Tai Chi, I have students hold wu-chi positions for extended periods of time. Up to 20 minutes, applying the same principles of zhan zhuang--and not just in shoulder-width post position. We hold wu-chi in cat stance, bow-stance, crane stance, cross-over horse, kneeling and sitting on heels, and sitting on heels with torso tilted back 45 degrees. All this is a separate practice that facilitates better (and faster) results from FP Qigong. Enjoy. Terry Dunn

Tao Wizard, I have a big favor to ask of you and all other practitioners out there who are using the Chi Kung For Health DVD series to practice the Flying Phoenix system: When you have a moment, please go to www.amazon.com and submit a review/critique of the DVD program for any of the volumes 1 thru 5, and 7 in the CKFH series. Amazon had listed my titles for years and had compiled a nice set of reviews for each one ever since they came out on VHS in 1994, but when I re-listed my titles through a program called Amazon Advantage about 9 months ago, in putting up the new listings, they removed all the past reviews. When I called about that problem, they said there was nothing that could be done to restore them. Now each title has no reviews, so first-time visitors to the site don't get any idea of how fast and how well the FP system works. You would all being a kind public service--and spreading the FP Yoga--if you could post an honest critique of the DVD's on Amazon. Here are the links for the different Volumes of Chi KUng for Health: THANKS VERY MUCH TO ALL IN ADVANCE! Terry Dunn Volume One: http://www.amazon.com/Chi-Kung-Health-One-Meditations/dp/B003B825IS/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1281278948&sr=8-5 Volume Two: http://www.amazon.com/Chi-Kung-Health-Two-Meditations/dp/B0001VGAH0/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1281278948&sr=8-9 Volume Three: http://www.amazon.com/Chi-Kung-Health-Three-Intermediate/dp/B0001VHRWW/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1281278948&sr=8-4 Volume Four: http://www.amazon.com/Chi-Kung-Health-Four-Celestial/product-reviews/B003B8ND20/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1 Volume Five: http://www.amazon.com/Chi-Kung-Health-Five-Meditations/product-reviews/B001AQZ2VU/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1 Thanks again, everyone.

Cats can meditate with you. Cats being around you while practicing the FP system are no problem. They are very energy-sensitive, spiritual animals, and naturally swing by to catch a contact high when you doing an FP meditation that particularly suits your system. Plus they are not massive enough to harm your energy should they bump into you (unless you own an ocelot or some really big cat!). All the Flying Phoenix and Monk Serves Wine meditations work profoundly; but each one works to varying degrees from person to person because everyone's different in mind, body, their ability to focus eyes, mind, movement and breath, the amount of karma hey have yet to burn, and spiritual awareness. enjoy

Hi Tao Wizard, Great to hear that you got fast results from starting the Flying Phoenix practice. Yes, sound deep sleep as long as the body naturally needs is one of the nice basic benefits from the FP meditations, especially several of the seated Monk Seves Wine exercises. After I taught one of the advanced FP seated med's last Wednesday in my evening class (with 7 repetitions), I had planned to do a lot of work afterwards...but after dinner, I fell asleep for 10 hours. All for the better. Be careful that you get the breath control sequences correct at the start. If you make a mistake or drift, take 3 deep breathes to come out and start again. If you were too tired to get through the correct breath sequence after many tries, you did the right thing in going to sleep. Yes, as Sifu Hearfield reminded you, be extra careful to end any FP practice with 3 deep breathes. You don't want to be walking around in a highly sensitized, somnambulist state but having the FP cultivation going on in your body without you knowing it. Best, Terry Dunn

Hi Harry, I'll answer your last question first: Easy: ones' left brain kicks in (call it "normal waking consciousness"--if there is such a thing), the samadhic trance subsides, and you get on with mundane activities. Being in the samadhic state and experiencing union within form and the dissolution of the ego doesn't mean one divorces oneself from or abandon's one's free will. There is still the deeper You that does all the doing--or all the "not-doing" (if one is a warrior spirit as described by Castaneda). Samadhic trance gives one the momentary glimpse of the true Self. Some people want to to maintain that state of consciousness for as long as possible and to be in it constantly. I don't happen to make it an object of ambition. I like mundane life. The samadhic state just comes and goes during any meditative state for me. And not all the time. But most often when I'm doing healing-energy work. I don't know how other people experience it, although I can recognize that attained state in students, and have read accounts of samadhi and celebrations of it in the yogic literature of many cultures. From my experience, I can only speak of samadhi as a by-product of the Tao Tan Pai practices. Over years of practice, both "normal" mundane consciousness and supramundane consciousness (what Castaneda calls "seeing") is well-conditioned due to the precision, power and repetitiveness of the neigung exercises. One has to be mentally cognizant and focussed to practice the neigung exercises, which can be dangerous at the advanced levels if one screws up their practice. So when one slips into the samadhic state facilitated by the TTP neigung, just out of sheer mental conditioning, one has all kinds of mundane anchors--e.g., that allow one to come out of it and take a shower between the 8th and 9th sections of one of the exercises. "Dancing on the verge of philosophy and experience" is fine and ecstatically wonderful so long as one's philosophy is semantically correct--i.e., the map fits the territory. And one has a healthy , integrated, unpolluted instrument to do the dancing. The straightforward mind is the Pure Land. -- Hui Neng I think it was Art Janov, the classically-trained analyst who brilliantly developed Primal Therapy in the 70's (and who greatly accelerated the karma-burning of clients like John Lennon and Ingmar Bergman,the two musicians in "Tears For Fears" and thousands of others) who said like a TRUE TAOIST: "Philosophy is the end of Feeling, and Feeling is the end of Philosophy." Also profoundly expressed by Robert Plant in Led Zeppelin's classic, "Stairway to Heaven": "..and it used to make me wonder." Always good to hear your philosophical probings. Terry Dunn

This came in from Nic Chi on a more recently-started FP discussion thread: I'd like to share this bit of experience on breathing and also get sifu Terry's opinion. Doing my practice very early morning, I start somewhere between 5:30 to 5:45 and practice for 45-50 minutes. After the warm-up I calibrate my breath for a minute or two. I increasingly take fuller breaths (in a relaxed manner) until I get to a point where I start by breathing into lower ab, then mid ab and then back and chest. I feel my rib cage expanding and a good feeling of the full breath. I normally start with monk gazing and do monk holding peach (found this sequence to be easier on the legs) then first sitting med on DVD #2 and bending the bows. Breathing is slow, deep and full. Good feeling. Here is the interesting bit, for the past few practices I noticed that on monk holding peach my whole upper body gets stiff and just can't take a nice relaxed full breaths. This morning after I noticed this again I stopped and moved on. Breathing was better on the rest of the meds. Nic Hi Nic, The stiffness in the whole upper body that you experienced is just something to work through. Somaticized stress/corporeal tension is sometimes fixed to a particular part of the body, but will sometimes move from place to place as one practices a Qigong system. With the FP system, eventually, the tension will all get "cornered" and dissipated by the practice. So just locate and chase down the tension and let the FP energy dissipate it--with conscious mental focus, if you care to (not mandatory). Just doing the FP Practice will melt it over time. Rest assured there is nothing in the Flying Phoenix Celestial Healing Chi Meditation system that creates or adds tension to the body. Remember what divine source it comes from -- per Sifu Garry Hearfield's and my identical recall of GM Doo Wai's oral history. Since I started teaching it in 1995, everyone so far without exception reports feeling reduced tension and greater facility with the FP energy after 6 months of regular practice. Enjoy your practice. Sifu Terry Dunn

P.S. Hi Lloyd, many days later, I realize that I didn't respond to your account of seeing flashes of light and color in meditation. Lots of practitioners have reported all shorts of light shows while doing meditation with eyes closed and the FP Qigong in particular. I have one long-term student in los Angeles who sees lights and when her eyes are open, sees human energy fields in vivid colors. I myself don't see in colors, but in varying textures of transparent, colorless layers. Indian, Tibetan and Chinese (and other traditions) other yogic literature have some treatment of colorful lights and dramatic dream-like visions while in meditation. Here is link to one Indian analysis/categorization of "visions" with a little blurb about lights at the bottom of page. http://www.scribd.com/doc/2678894/Visions-in-Meditation (sorry, this is the only thing I found and it's not great.) I personally don't lend any weight or validity to this cookbook-type of analysis--it's the same rote and blind ascribing-assignation of "meaning" to dreams that crumby dream books do all the time. Every human psyche and consciousness is unique and utilizes various symbols according to language,culture and spiritual predilection (also diet, level of war, street crime, hours in front of a TV and drug-ingestion). And like rendering a holistic cure in Chinese medicine to a patient, where the healer develops the cure/remedy ON THE PERSON IN REAL TIME WHEN HE/SHE'S IN FRONT OF HIM, so the analysis or clarification of a vision is done with the person in front of you so you can see and read his entire karma, energy system, psychological processes, etc. Having done many-many years in guided meditation, dreamwork, hypnotherapy (using hypnotic regressions (as both subject and operator), and worked in holistic counseling a good deal, I believe in "analyzing" or giving meaning to a person's vision by letting their subconscious knowledge of the meaning rise to consciousness. Unless it's a spiritual visitation from an entity (and that does happen--such as the Buddhistic images that another contributor to this thread reported when he first started practicing FP), the "vision" comes from one's own mind. Therefore you know the meaning at a certain level. Or there may be no meaning at all to a vision or light show--abstract, bizarre, nonsensical visions and "venting dreams" happen all the time (on a daily basis); it's the mind doing "house-cleaning." Anyway, got carried away there a bit. but one thing for sure, FP qigong facilitates deep, deep states of mind-body relaxation, altered states of consciousness--normally Higher States of Consciousness (or HSC as coined by Daniel Goleman)-- and is a great stirrer-upper of your subconscious and unconscious Mind. Regards, Terry

Hi Harry, good luck with your move and new job situation. Answer to your question: "In the samadhic state, is there any I-feeling or I-identity?" No of course not, you knucklehead. Are you trying to test me for admission to the "dumbest meditators cult in the world" with this as its logo: ???!!! Not only is there no "I-feeling" or "I-identity" there is no "I" period! Please take no offense, Harry, I'm just answering with gusto. Are you German, by the way, since I know you're writing from Germany? Or an ex-pat? Just curious, because you questions about the philosophical implications of FP Meditation training is very German-like in its precision. German is a superior language to discuss western philosophy, but as you've discovered already in pasts postings, it runs you into problems in trying to map and discuss eastern yogic philosophies. At any rate, i will share my earliest experiences of samadhi with you and other tao bums: First time was totally unexpected. it was my senior year in college and I had just gotten back from summer break. I had been doing So. Shaolin Kung-fu for just 3 years and Tao Tan Pai Kung Fu for one year and had just learned how to meditate from my Master Share K. Lew's classes conducted by his sr. student at the time, John Davidson. I sat down at on the floor at the foot of my bed and just did quiet sitting (half-lotus, hands below tan-tien in what we call "earth meditation position"). Suddenly a surge of energy shot up my spine and kind of exploded through the top of my brain and skull and "I" left my body most blissfully. My consciousness was very startled because it was the first time it had left the body (other than in dreamstate), but otherwise, the experience was total bliss. And there i was, out of my body, floating around the top of my dorm room at silliman college on the 4th floor above the Grove Street archway. Looking back down at my own body that was seated. That experience wasn't actually samadhic, but an out-of-body yogic experience that I later surmised was a nice prelude to samadhi. About 3 years later, after I graduated from college, I was doing Tao Tan Pai Basic Neigung exercises religiously along with the TTP Kung fu forms (tiger, dragon, monkey, snake, crane)--the Basic 31 execises, Shen Exercise, 9 Flowers, Six Stars, and the Five Dragons. One day, while practicing the third "flower"(or part) of a neigung exercise known as "The Nine Flowers" in front of a mirror in the hallway of my parents home in the San Fernando Valley (which dates it at around 1978), the image of myself in the mirror turned "film negative" and then slowly disappeared and the mirror remained blank and totally void throughout the rest of the practice --until I stopped to take a shower between the 8th and the 9th Meditation, as prescribed in the 9 Flowers since the Tang Dynasty. Since then,I slip in and out of the samadhic state while practicing almost any type of Qigong--TTP or GM Doo Wai's BFP internal arts. But one sure-fire method to access the samadhic state for me has always been the TTP Nine Flowers. It not only facilitates samadhi, but it also empowers one to see entities on many planes of existence. Best, Terry Dunn P.S. Harry, the best words I have to describe the samadhic state were first uttered by Sergeant Schultz of the TV series, "Hogan's Heroes": "I see nothing, nothing...I hear nothing... nothing... COLONEL HOGAN!!!!!!!