Astral Monk

There would be a cacophony of sound, colour, heat, and tingling, along with wave after wave of pleasure and terror. In seeing nothing, everything is seen. In hearing nothing, everything is heard. Until finally, finally, something transfixes itself. A brightness, a clearness, an acuteness. And then, it too fades away, leaving its shadow behind. Soon, the shadow becomes almost as bright as the brightness, as clear as the clearness. But it doesn't leave. It stays and remains fixed. Upon this rock suddenly, without warning, arises I. After intense interest in I its position becomes clear, its isolation inescapable. Fear washes over and over until another Bright, another Clear intrudes upon it. The gaze outward and the reflection inward upon the shadow affect a calmness for a moment as the process becomes the supreme focus. Eventually, I would recognize trees and mountains and streams and clouds and hand and foot and chest and head, but I would never know trees as trees, mountains as mountains, streams as streams, clouds as clouds, or the body as a body. Because, being the only I in existence, I have no language to express these intuitions abstractly. Thus I would know only I and world, and only dimly perceive their connections, lost as I would be in the immediacy of pure sensuality. 8) "A day called zero..will be such a busy day..!!"

Jesus was famously a healer through the laying on of hands, which is not unlike what modern medical qigong practitioners do today. He didn't pray to himself, for instance, to heal people, like modern Christians do. His was a direct approach, and his teaching suggested that his latter-day followers would do the same and greater. The gospels suggest everyone is a son or daughter of God, hence, on par with Jesus in that respect. if the modern "christian" got a look at a true believer from back in the day and saw how they lived, they'd be fair shocked and run away, I reckon. Meanwhile, from the account linked in the OP, I never knew that five animal sports was so powerful as all that!! That guy had results right away. Parents must have been good teachers? 8)

What's the point of 'true spirituality' then? Who needs it? Opening one's heart and cultivating kindness and universal compassion have at least tangible benefits for yourself and the universe at large. What is cutting the mind to ribbons good for?

Sounds like the Denver Airport mural... 8)

Everything...and nothing. 8)

'Lust' is nothing more than an intensity of desire. It is desire taken to the level of exclusive obsession--a powerful need to satisfy the desire, to continuously stimulate it and revel in it. It is not necessarily sexual, as one can lust for many things on many levels. Reducing the power of lust in one's life means reducing the power of desires in general, that is, putting desires into proper context within a balanced whole. In fact, this is really the aim of morality--to place actions in their proper contexts. There is a time to love, a time to lust, a time for joy, a time for anger. 8)

Hmm... And yet... Being repulsed by something is akin to having an aversion to it. An aversion is a dislike, repugnance, a pushing away from the thing. Clearly your practice is geared towards aversion of women. Sex is natural, sex is fun. Lust is just another energy. It has a powerful purpose. Getting rid of lust is not the answer. Putting it in proper balance in your life is. We in the west are inundated with sexual imagery, all presented with a background of repression, which is confusing. We have extremes of provocation in all forms of media. Thus we can easily become fixated and unbalanced. In reality nothing is really 'disgusting' or 'repulsive', so meditating on the gross fluids of the body is just reactionary--another type of attachment. One ought to see the sublime equanimity of shit and sunshine rather than use an 'ignorant' distaste of the one to condition ourselves to reject our love of the other. 8)

Any form of tai chi can be 'best' if it is practiced with the fundamental principles in mind. If these are absent, then you are not doing tai chi. With that in mind, let's have a look at some styles, starting with classical Yang style: Now compare to the Moy style tai chi, which is the same as the Daoist Tai Chi Society practices: Sun style: A modern variant, combining elements of the major existing schools and qigong principles, Tristar style: What is best will also depend on what you are looking for. For instance, that Moy style tai chi can provide a good stretch, but it may violate some of the basic tai chi principles in doing so. As an organisation, it also lacks any and all reference to internal alchemy, qigong, and martial applications. So if you're looking for those, you won't find them in that school. In contrast, the Tristar school seems to have a more internal focus, but the martial application (of the form itself) is dubious. In that case, it may be more of a qigong set. OTOH, all these things may be overcome by a good teacher who understands, can apply, and teach the deeper principles of tai chi. Some of those folks you may find in the park in the morning, not in a formal training hall! Generally, though, if you want the most out of tai chi, you need to find a school or teacher that can and will teach all sides and not just 'for health'. Otherwise doing a form without the substance is no better than any other kind of exercise. The forms themselves have no magic properties in the structure, so if you're just pantomiming the ultimate value is questionable. 8)

The trouble is that trees don't heal like animals do. An injury to a tree stays there forever and ever. It never 'heals' like a cut on our forearm does. What the tree does is compartmentalize the injury to try and prevent decay and further damage from spreading. For us it would be like cutting off the circulation to our arm so the cut doesn't spread to the rest of our body. So once you drive a nail into a tree, that hole will always be there and eventually it will be closed off to the rest of the functioning tree. Mind you, in reality, a small hole like that might not kill a tree, and if it does allow disease to spread, it may take years and years to do its work, depending on the tree's lifespan. Still, imagine a forest of these 'batteries' hooked up and there will be problems. 8)

Yes! This reminds me of the scene in Karate Kid Part II: Danielson: Hey can you break a log like that? Migai-sensei: Don know, never been attack by tree.

Sounds like a good idea. I've a bit of forest near my place where the ground is open around the trees...good for circle walking! Whenever I go for a walk I often take a route or two around as tree along the way But perhaps not long enough to gain a sensitivity for its energy. I do like the idea of having a nice tall, straight tree in the center of a circle for bagua. Or maybe one of those spiral cedars they sell at garden shops might be more appropriate. When I used to do taichi in the park surrounded by big old trees I would treat them as masters and gassho them in the four directions as respect after I was done. I felt that they had something to teach me. One interesting thing I found is that some pines had a very aggressive energy about them. It made me think that trees are just like other beings--some are peaceful, others are violent. Its a tree eat tree world!! 8)

Psychotropics are interesting in themselves, but just as easily as one can experience something seemingly profound one can be lead astray into nonsense. Are they 'teachers'? Probably more like tricksters--you'll learn something, but it might not be a 'truth'. Meanwhile, why limit it to psychotropics? All plants can aid us as we learn to harmonize with their affects. Every plant substance interacts with our bodies in a unique way, and it takes a keen and subtle awareness to perceive many of these interactions. Traditional herbs have as much to say about learning the way as magic mushrooms! 8)

Yall realize that pounding nails into trunks isn't good for trees? Try pounding a nail into your neighbor and see how he like it, lol. Any incursion into the tree will create a path for disease and decay. That may be an acceptable loss for producing 'renewable energy' perhaps. But maybe there's a less invasive way to feed of trees? 8)

Great resource. I liked how he answered the questions fairly directly. I'm thinking I shouldve hooked up to the Bagua mastery program when it started up! Maybe next year. 8)

Insofar as reincarnation runs contrary to church dogma, it was looked upon as heresy. They took great pains to eliminate folks like the Cathars, who believed in reincarnation, but saw it as a trap to be avoided at all costs. Perpetrating that trap were groups like the Catholics who, presumably, were ultimately run by the evil overlord of the world, and not by the absolute Most High God. So either Catholics stamped out such beliefs because they saw them as wrong or because they revealed the evil trap the church was perpetrating. 8)

Sure sure, my point was only that the many worlds interpretation is one of a number of possibilities. By itself it doesn't necessarily lend support to the concept of rebirth. That is still a separate issue, perhaps to do with the nature of consciousness as opposed to the nature and arrangement of phenomena. 8)

Marblehead is right...the many worlds theory is only a theory, not a fact. As far as it goes, it may answer some issues posed by quantum mechanics, but it also does so by increasing complexity. A many worlds theory is also popular in philosophy as a method of making sense of the concept of truth. Be that as it may, even if we suppose many worlds are real, we don't need to conclude that 'we' 'have' many bodies in many worlds. The concept of ownership and identity should be revised. That is, there is not necessarily anything binding all these 'versions' across multiple dimensions. They are not 'me' because only I and me, so to speak. OTOH, if we separate consciousness from the phenomenal world, and understand the mind/body as nothing more than a continuous part of the phenomenal world, we might see how consciousness could range over multiple dimensions and preserve the idea that 'here and now' is the only reality. We might imagine that all possible worlds exist as books in a library, where each book tells a story slightly different from the one beside it (one word different, one sentence, one paragraph...etc). All the content of the possible world is contained in the words of the story (the complete phenomenal manifold). This includes the definition and description of the protagonist--the 'you' or main character. 'You' don't exist except in and through a story in a book. Now, there is also a reader of the story--consciousness. This reader has a simple nature, to open a book and read, i.e. to illuminate a particular story. It is purely a narrator, and it only reads one story, opens one book, at a time. But it is free to open any book and start reading any story at any point. It is not constrained by the books or the stories and its nature has no connection to the main character it reads in the stories. In this analogy all possible worlds are books with stories, and they are all fixed, i.e. written, for all time. Nothing is added or taken away; the stories are complete. IOW, each possible world is deterministic, or static in all dimensions. Consciousness is the reader, which alone has freedom, as it is not ultimately constrained to any particular book or story. Consciousness can and does 'choose its own adventure' and can either read a story straight through cover to cover (i.e. live a life) or move through a series of books at key decision points (skip through possible worlds). In the latter sense, consciousness can carve a unique path through all possible worlds merely by 'reading' a page in an adjacent book. However, it does so seamlessly so everything appears continuous as if it was reading a single book. --- Further, using memory as evidence is not evidence of actual rebirth. That is, as in the above tale, we can't necessarily say that 'Cameron' is the 'same' Cameron as he claims he was in a previous life. All he has is the set of memories. It may be that he accessed these in some other way, e.g. by having access to the 'book' of old Cameron, and not necessarily by actually 'being there', by having been Cameron. So, many worlds theory is not necessarily a ground for the assertion of rebirth, nor is past-life memory necessarily grounds for asserting a continuity of a soul or person. 8)

White rice has basically no nutritional value. Its as good for you was white bread...which is not at all. One is better off looking for a brown rice or wild rice type. 8)

Perhaps this should be pinned! A nice resource for folks interested in reading TTB's insights on this topic. 8)

Can you get the same benefits from skipping rope? 8)

Well, chocolate improves moods anyway, so maybe that's not a really good test. If they used brussel sprouts there might be something to it. 8)

Great thread. Bagua practice is great for the spine--straightening, strengthening, and loosening with the spinning yet rooted movements. It's amazing how much of a workout you can get just by the walking alone. My girlfriend thinks its weird when I mud step through the supermarket, lol. I did some practice with Liang Shou-Yu's school and worked on some Emei Swimming Body Bagua taught by Helen Liang. I was especially interested in the bagua weapons forms, particularly the deer hooks. Those are great to practice with. Helps keep your focus on tightening your spin and keeping back straight. There's some good vids on youtube showcasing the use of Bagua Dao--using the super huge dao that is supposedly unique to bagua. Anybody done any advanced weapons practices with bagua? 8)

Not anymore you mean! But yeah, that google thing is mighty peculiar...

Greetings all, I've finally offically joined the forum after many years of lurking. Lots of great threads here. A wealth of reference for anyone exploring the spiritual dimension. My personal interests are in tai chi and other martial arts, chi kung, and bagua--both the martial art form and the concept of the eight balanced elements and their expression in the Yi Ching (and to a lesser extent feng shui and the relationship to the ecosystem). I'd like to learn more about kundalini too. My background is in philosophy with a hearty dose of readings in Buddhism (and religion in general). Look forward to gaining more insight, cheers, 8)