Sunya

thank you Lin what are your thoughts on acupuncture?

Santiago are you talking about complete fasting for 30 days? or liquid fast? or eat only after sundown? 30 days of even a liquid fast sounds intense!

nei gong is something like taijiquan?

Joshu the book "The Way of Energy" by Master Lam Kam Chuen is excellent for standing exercises, best performed under a tree. check it out on amazon, get it used: cheap. as for the rest of your concerns, i'm not extremely knowledgeable. i don't know much.... and this isn't just a humble thing but i can point you in the right direction. i feel that the Inner Smile meditation will really help you. when you meditate, keep a slight smile on your face, remember a time when you were really happy and feel that emotion spreading down into your body, feel that emotion. the energies you are feeling seem to be negative, but can be transformed into positive by intent, keep positive. Glenn Morris says the inner smile is the most important meditation, you might want to check out his book Path Notes of an American Ninja Master where he describes the inner smile and other great techniques for not getting burned by energy over load (chi sickness), and if you like it, his 2nd book Shadow Strategies is excellent too. though he gets into a lot of 'phenomena' stuff (not very zen) his Qi Gong advice is solid, the book is biographical so is really interesting to read. he unfortunately left the physical form recently, but his student Santiago posts here (username Vajrasattva) and i'm sure will be willing to help you out with any issues you're having. he knows the deal. I hope this helps.. stick around and keep us updated. this is a nice little community of bums Mikael

welcome Joshu, you aren't in Nanjing China right now are you? there is someone named joshu living next door to me. is that you?! that woudl be weird! but cool, no doubt.

China is fun, interesting. Nanjing is a very nice city, not congested at all and very clean. the food is excellent here and so is the vibe, the atmosphere. though its been rainy and cold as hell for the past couple weeks, i hear March is the best time when the flowers bloom. i'm looking forward to that. as soon as it gets warmer I will take up tai chi lessons in the park i think I will go to the hospital soon and just say I am low on energy and let the doctor evaluate me. do TCM doctors know about cultivation? should I say i want to supplement my qi gong practice?

no-thing has inherent existence. this is the typical Buddhist response,, it points to no object existing independent of its surroundings, everything is interdependent, and constantly changing. every 'thing' in the universe is also compounded, made up of other 'things', which are equally interdependent. so emptiness points to reality being composed of interdependent, compounded, fluxing forms. all of these forms are empty of true existence, it is the dualistic mind that creates distinction, separation. emptiness is a philosophy that points you beyond the mind, towards the illogical non-dualistic nature of reality. something the mind can not understand until duality is eradicated. until the emptiness of mind is realized, that there truly is no perceiver, no doer, no subject. when the ideas of subject and object are gone, what is left? emptiness. but to describe what is left in language is difficult since words are dualistic to practice emptiness i think is to give up selfish dualistic notions such as fear, anger, hatred, jealousy...compassion and unconditional love are actions that are selfless, that reflect the empty nature. to no longer grasp and cling to the physical form (body) and its pleasures, to no longer attach to fantasies of what could be, to practice emptiness is to practice freedom

it's like bump but better, the thread was on the 2nd page and i wanted to bring it back to the top to incite more replies

bang for the buck? AYP is free, all the info is on the site. KAP will cost you 200$ per level or maybe more, not sure. but you do get personal guidance and the teachers send out energy which may help you. KAP also has a lot more practices than AYP, i'm not sure how one would integrate all of them

the only way I can see AYP being flawed is if too much energy gets caught up in the head, but maybe the bhandas [locks] are meant to prevent that? not sure. i did AYP for a while, just the spinal breathing not the advanced exercises, and had no issues. but it is my opinion that the Chinese practices, compared to the Hindu ones, are generally more safe and grounded. KAP seems to mix the two systems and seems to work quite well for those who have tried.

boomp

thanks! this guy def had the big E

in my opinion to do Qi Gong strictly for health reasons is a waste, death will come to us all, impermanence is the nature of life and reality.

this is the problem when comparing spiritual paths and equating goals, using words like 'enlightenment' when they have different meanings. everything of Bardon and Western Magick is still in the Desire realm, be careful in comparing that to Nan Huai-Chin. the whole framework of Buddhism is completely different, but I could be wrong, thats just what it seems like from my superficial understanding of Bardon, isn't it all about just communing with spirits, elementals, gaining astral super powers, how does that aid one towards the goal? and how is this more effective than the Zen approach of ignoring all phenomena? if there is 'always more to learn', i gotta ask.. who is it that is learning? isn't this a subtle grasping for identity?

you are talking about step 10 in Initiation to Hermetics? Step X ~ Magic Mental Training Page 136 1. Elevation of the spirit to higher levels Step X ~ Magic Psychic Training Page 140 1. Conscious communication with the personal God 2. Communication with deities &c. Step X ~ Magic Physical Training Page 144 1. Several methods for acquiring magic faculties what does that have to do with enlightenment?

what is your definition of enlightenment?

Path Notes by Glenn Morris i was already heavily into spirituality but reading this book made it accessible and gave me the motivation that i could actually attain it

yes, i agree.. and that makes sense to me. there was this one video on youtube, i'll try to find it if anyone is interested, but basically Wilber was asked about the role of the Guru in todays spiritual traditions and he responded that it definitely has benefit but that whole subservience comes from feudalistic societies and today that just wouldn't work because its like stepping backwards. we are at a stage of movement from mythic to rational to post-rational and that whole movement involves building a healthy ego, making decisions, learning from mistakes, complete dependence and obedience to an authority figure just doesn't fit in, but that doesn't mean teachers should be disregarded naturalwire, can you point to some proof of that statement? who has obtained enlightenment from Bardon's system? how do you prove enlightenment? and how do you test the worth of a system if you don't have role models of people who "made it" ? this dude, Daniel Ingram, who claims enlightenment from the Buddhist path, talks about that,, how there needs to be more people who act as role models, because the end goal is so hazy. we have all these paths that seem to work, but not enough examples of success. in the Buddhist tradition particularly there seems to be people who have made it (but who knows) but rarely do they ever come out and say it, it seems almost taboo to admit that you finally made it on the path that you so earnestly and diligently followed. I find that so silly, especially since you can act as inspiration for those seeking what you have gained.

how can some Zen masters not believe in rebirth when the whole point of Buddhism is to end cyclical samsaric existence? if there is no rebirth then shooting yourself in the head is the best way to end suffering.. about no-self, whats taught in tibetan buddhism is that there is a very subtle nature of the mind that arises and ceases from moment to moment, a clear light formless mindstream that is sometimes synonymously used with 'buddha-nature' or 'buddha-mind', this aspect of mind is completely clear and cannot be found, measured, or touched because it is form-less, an example i read in What makes you not a Buddhist is that the true nature of mind is like a wine glass and ego/karma are finger prints and smudges on that class. this is more of a philosophically graspable method to point to the same teaching as the original teachings of Buddha, i believe.

hi guys. i just finished updating my web album, added some photos from Varanasi and Bodh Gaya. i spent a total of 5 months in India, most of it studying in Bangalore but also did some traveling on my own. i took mostly video which I'm going to try to put together into a movie, along with what i'll capture in China where i'm going next. I have some cool photos of temples, cities, people, scenery. whatever I found interesting I captured.. http://picasaweb.google.com/mixolyd/ do comment! constructive is ok, i'm a complete amateur

hihi, i'm going off to China to study soon, in a couple days. and i want to connect with Taoism, even though Confucianism is a huge part of Chinese culture, i don't really care about it. and have recently been drawn to the simpleness of Taoism. i don't have time to order books, but i already have a couple Wen-Tzu by Lao Tzu, Secret of the Golden Flower trans: Thomas Cleary, Taoism: The Road to Immortality by John Blofeld this books i've yet to digest. are they enough to get to the essence of taoism, (intellectually of course) are there better books? is there websites you guys can recommend with stories, writings, whatever. Taoism related? Tao Te Ching can be found online quite easily.. and i'm looking for some writings by Chaung Tzu

woah

my cousin has a degree in Finance/Economics and works in New York City, he looks at the Baltic Dry Index everyday so he is pretty informed, I sent him the video. he says the creator of the video is misinformed about Economics/Trade. here is the convo: mik: he's basing his whole argument on the assumption that the BDI index can be used to forecast the next 12 months of food availablity Stanny: no that's absurd Stanny: there wil never be a shortage of food.. the only thing that can happen is price of food will go up Stanny: but here's the thing Stanny: the reason there's not a lot of shipping is b/c there WAS a lot of shipping.. we have a lot of products.. and no one is buying Stanny: so there's no need to ship b/c we have too much supply Stanny: once supply starts to run out, shipping will invarioably increase Stanny: look at clothing stores Stanny: they're all going out of business Stanny: millions of clothing no one is buying, even at deep discounts. There's no need for JC Penny to order more clothes from china --- they can't even sell the clothes they have in stores currenlty Stanny: look at the chart in the beginning of the video Stanny: it's at about the same level as it is currently Stanny: beginning of the chart is 2001 Stanny: it's teh same level as it is right now Stanny: was there a food shortage in 2002? or 2003? I trust my cousin on this sort of issue. the creator of the video means well, but is misinformed.

PM me if you ever want advice about going there. where to go, how to go about it, etc

"Psychedelic experience is only a glimpse of genuine mystical insight, but a glimpse which can be matured and deepened by the various ways of meditation in which drugs are no longer necessary or useful. If you get the message, hang up the phone. For psychedelic drugs are simply instruments, like microscopes, telescopes, and telephones. The biologist does not sit with eye permanently glued to the microscope, he goes away and works on what he has seen..." -- Alan Watts, (Joyous Cosmology Prologue, 2nd ed. 1970).