Astral Monk

one of my favorite books of all time; the path of the seeker leads to a life of service! 8)

surely theres merit in listening to it even once! 8)

thursday: morning SFQ, really continuing to work on the pore breathing. In the evening I worked on Tristar cloud hands. Like most taiji cloud hands, it features a side to side shift and rotation, but incorporating the mudra hand position creates the opportunity for a bagua style outward arching push with the bottom edgw of the palm. fri: a rest! aside from some slide stepping, no formal practice tonight. it is now the holidays. Happy Solistice! 8) 23

Tues featured morn SFQ and some MCO in the evening. Today morn practice finishing on SFQ10000 hands. Some free bagua stepping this after noon. Wet pavement makes for easy mud stepping! 8) 22

Taboos are culturally conditioned. They should change as cultures evolve. Some traditional practices are well-defined--so much so that their form had reached its apex and ought to be performed, followed, expressed, or otherwise practiced as is. The embody a niche of human experience. The Buddha-realization is always the same in all times and spaces. How to know? Practicality--if the practice is effective in achieving its aim why would one seek innovation? 8)

Just wanted to highlight this!

Skillfull Grace, a book dealing with meditation practices based on visualization of Tara, om Tare Tutare Ture Svaha! Three Pillars Of Zen, Kapleau, which is actually transcriptions of talks by his master, but really looks at the reality of zazen practice, the heart of traditional zen training. On deck is Biso's Bagua Circle Walking Neigong which connects typical 8 palms with meridians. Also going to review again Thich Nhat Han's translation and commentary on the Heart Sutra, after having half a realization recently how form and emptyness are one. 8)

Consider the relationships of each trigram and the elements they represent. When placed in opposition in hexagrams there is a dynamic. Fire under water...water over fire...fire rises, water sinks, fire under water is a reflection of bubbling, boiling, of one thing moving up through the other, of a passing between. Water under fire is a separation, a natural movement--that which sinks, sinks, and that which rises, rises. In Spring Forest Qigong we do a standing pose called 'formation of yin and yang' (hands held in front of body, right hand (yang) at upper chest, left hand (yin) at lower dantien) which can be represented by the hexagram for fire above, water below. This is a natural separation, in the case of the body, is means sinking down into the lower body while extending upwards towards the crown--the spine stretches and aligns. If you reverse this, with left hand on top and right hand at lower dantien, the energy will flow differently--water is lifted up and washes downward, while fire bubbles up from below, clashing in the middle and promoting energy exchange. In the end it's all symbolism to try to express the natural movement of energy in the world. Really, what does a solid line have to do with anything? A broken line? Ones and zeros. Can the world be reduced to ones and zeros in sequence? 8)

His work has, is, and will be inspiring to countless beings. Everything is empty because everything is full of everything else. We are all with him. 8)

fri squeezed in usual morn practice SFQ fundamentals; Sunday MCO meditation, adding the healing sounds ohm and muah as per SFQ, which was great..a nice added dimension; today morning practice Sfq level 1active exercises..a good way to start monday! 8) 20

well this cant be deleted oops

very, very close...so close that I'm light years away..! 8)

today was almost replica of yesterday, but with more pore breathing and six words chant during the course of the day. I started MCO but fell asleep, lol, oops. 8) 17

mostly the same as yesterday--morning qigong, evening Tristar post with the addition of gasho palm (prayer position). A bit of crossovr from SFQ and othr sources. 8) 16

morning sfq today--moving yin-yang, breathing of the universe; this eve a few rounds of the first Tristar taiji form, which i hadnt done start to finish for a while--felt great; followed with some sfq 10000 hands to focus the energy or bettr yet to distribute; about an hour all together; lol felt bad for sleeping in monday and missing my morning practice window will do some MCO meditation b4 bed 8) 15

I was reading Kapleau's Three Pillars of Zen recently and felt that there was a lot of overlap in the aims of practice between zazen and qigong. Qigong helps us in many ways, not the least of which is physical well-being. Zen practice takes the most direct route to shatter the mind's attachments. More generally, though there is overlap, I wonder if the ends are the same? Zen aims (inasmuchas 'aim' or 'ends' can be spoken of in zen) at the same liberation as Buddha; is the aim of Taoism liberation from samsara or perfect integration and harmony with it..?

counts for something! Every Second Qigong! 8)

no real practice yestrday, just play with Tristar post; today MCO meditation. Any SFQ'rs doing the MCO/Small universe try doing it with the healing chant? If you follow the audio you follow Chunyi's ennunciations, breathing in when he says 'ohm' or 'muah'; but, if you do it yourself, you, of course, have to breath out on the sound and breath in in the silence. Breath in the empyness? So the breathing is adjusted; just wondering what experience ppl have with that. There is power in the healing sound..right up and down the torso. 8) 14

Todsy, morn practice, breathing of the universe; some bagua stepping duting the day; a litle body dolphining this eve 8) 13

today some light exploration of Tristar post and Sfq cloud hands with continuing focus on pore breathing 8) 12

Tuesday and today--morning practice SFQ, evening play with Tristar standing post, variations. +11 In the morning i'm working on the body breathing, with the SFQ breathing of the universe exercise, following that with Chunyi's cloud hands and 10000 hands. In Shouyu Liang's book 'Qigong Empowerment' it says that we open our pores when we exhale, and close them when we inhale. In SFQ a prime visualisation is to release excess energy (from blockages) as steam or smoke, as Sebastian suggested. This we do on exhaling. Liang said that when we achieve this, it will feel like when the sun hits your face on a winter day. Cool. Also, Chunyi's cloud hands exercise, which goes out to the front (rather than side to side as conventional taiji cloud hands) pairs well with the Tristar standing post--mid to deep sit with legs, knees, ankles, and feet together. I'm going to explore this. 8)

ah ok, np, yes i try this with breathing of the universe thnx

i've been adding chanting to my practice...something master lin recommends..he is fond of 6 words chant...it is easy to add 'om mani pad me hum' to the usual SFQ exercises, especially the level 2 forms like '10 000 hands'; i like the Tara mantras too..green or white! eventually i will try the full Tara meditation; it sounds similar to SFQs sun or moon meditation today minimal Tristar standing post, 10min; impressed with the practices postd--keep it up!!

hey, how do you accomplish pore breathing? any special techniques or visualization? 8)