Daeluin

It is amusing to me, how those with humility have little need to berate others, while those without seem to think everyone wants to be like them. And so the world turns.... I don't know any facts about ghost immortals. There seems to be a lot of wisdom in this thread. Immortals may be beyond the "gravity" of reincarnation/transmigration, but I believe there are ways for them to return to it. I've been told this by sources I trust, and have no reason to believe this cannot also apply to the dark end of the spectrum. However unlikely it may be for something to change, the only truly changeless is at the heart of dao. But don't take my word for it. As ever, fear is what invites darkness. I've heard spiritual masters answer these questions of fear of possession and such by simply advising that one not dwell on such things, instead choosing to spend that energy in being their true selves, and thus precluding the possibility of such things.

Hello and welcome to the forums, grassmountainsage! Your membership is approved and we're happy you found your way to us. Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of the Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, Daeluin and the TDB team

Hello and welcome to the forums, Peg! Your membership is approved and we're happy you found your way to us. Best wishes to your journey. Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of the Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, Daeluin and the TDB team

Hello and welcome to the forums, Alex! Your membership is approved and we're happy you found your way to us. Best of luck in simplifying your life. What is simple is powerful. Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of the Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, Daeluin and the TDB team

Hello and welcome to the forums, nonee! Your membership is approved and we're happy you found your way to us. Best wishes to your spiritual growth! Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of the Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, Daeluin and the TDB team

Hello ramblebee, and welcome to the forums, Your membership is approved and we're happy you found your way to us. Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of the Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, Daeluin and the TDB team

Hello nancybear, and welcome to the forums, Your membership is approved and we're happy you found your way to us. You may find more people will answer if you post in the "General Discussion" area (and with more details about the issues you are refering to), but perhaps some people will also answer your question here. In any case, I hope you find the answers you are looking for! Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of the Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, Daeluin and the TDB team

Hello Takeshiro, and welcome to the forums, Your membership is approved and we're happy you found your way to us. May you find what you need to find here, and share what others need to find. Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of the Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, Daeluin and the TDB team

Hello Samoobramba, and welcome to the forums, Your membership is approved and we're happy you found your way to us. There are many martial artists here, embodying many layers of that art. Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of the Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, Daeluin and the TDB team

Hello Papa Justify, and welcome to the forums, Your membership is approved and we're happy you found your way to us. Blessings to your search! Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of the Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, Daeluin and the TDB team

Oh I don't know anything. Was just making a guess that HGA might be related to shen gong, and that, while qi gong can work at any layer (jing, qi, shen), it "can easily" change things on layers we aren't accustomed to working on. For someone used to working on the shengong layer, if they started doing some exercise that moved jing around, and this hadn't been done before, it could also effect their shengong work. Of course this might help deepen the shengong work, but it could also change things in unexpected ways. Key words here are can, could, might. Again, I don't know anything, just offered a suggestion.

Personally, I feel hatred is being confused with anger here. Anger = Pressurized emotional force that is upset and needs to express or transform, but does not necessarily have a fixation and obsession over what caused it. Hatred = Anger that is focused on what easily becomes an obsession over some particular trigger, be it a person, ideology, situation, etc. In Chinese astrology, people with excess wood tend to have anger management issues. There is a energy that is easily aroused and yet is very difficult to channel without using force. It isn't because someone is a bad person, it is just difficult energy to channel. I have almost no wood and rarely have any anger issues, but I also have to work very hard to arouse energy for use. Of course only you know what is right for you. If I was in your shoes, I might see this as a karmic challenge, and recognize that I will continue to be put in situations where I feel as though I am forced to step in and make things right, even though others will view me as the bad guy - until I learn to accept that things will be OK if I don't step in, and that the real challenge is that I don't know how to hold myself back, and I don't know how to allow things to be out of my control. But I'm not in your shoes and I don't know what your karmic challenges really are, so it's just a wild guess based on what this situation reminds me of. The trouble with holding back the urge to act, is that this energy that is pent up within doesn't have its usual outlet. And it needs an outlet. It needs to transform somehow, and that can be through expression, but it doesn't need to be expression via controlling a situation, it can be physical exercise, it can be reshaped through qigong, it can be through mental application of work, anything that uses energy. The key is to channel it in a refined way, not in a forceful way, which is the main challenge. Great power needs great restraint. Honesty and sincerity never need to be compromised. But this is a complicated subject. Often telling a person what is true but they cannot access as truth, is just as effective as lying, and telling a person what might be more accessible (yet still true), may seem to them like you are holding back or redirecting, even though it is not lying. There is never a need to lie, but there is always a path of communication that - still using truth and sincerity - creates the most harmonious possible outcome. The more we are able to refine ourselves, the more refined choices can be made in our actions and our communications, without ever needing to complicate things by adding dishonesty or duplicity to the equation.

Hello and welcome to the forums, pennywhistle! Your membership is approved and we're happy you found your way to us. As more members read the "Daoist discussion" and "General Discussion" boards, you might find more responses to your questions by creating a thread in there. Please be advised, medical help should be sought by medical experts, not people on internet forums. Also, the classics on daoist internal alchemy almost all recommend studying with a master, as attempting advanced practices on one's own can cause issues like the ones you describe. That said, I wish you the best in finding answers to your questions. Please take the time to read the two posts pinned at the top of the Welcome page and take a look at the forum terms and rules. This covers all you need to know when getting started. For the first week you will be restricted to ten posts per day but after that you can post as much as you like. Also, until you’ve posted fifteen times in the forums, you’ll be a “Junior Bum” with somewhat restricted access and will be allowed only two private messages per day. Good luck in your pursuits and best wishes to you, Daeluin and the TDB team

In the middle, between and before attachment to the extremes of myriad polarizations and their inevitable vacillations, lies the path of harmony and peace. You seem to be looking only for one answer. What's the point? Everything is right or wrong from some perspective. All you need to do, should you want something to be true, is to shift your perspective enough to see it as right. I won't tell you you're wrong... there's no point. What does your heart tell you? Trouble is, when we look for our hearts, we often get caught up in the ego we've built to protect our hearts... and somehow that ego comes to hide the true shape of our hearts behind it, locked away. When we're able to uncover the heart again, that is where we find our answers. But please, don't take my word for it.

Who? Wikipedia has a whole page dedicated to the subject of hatred. I found this particularly interesting: Although it is fair to say that one single emotion exists in English, French (haine), and German (Hass), hate varies in the forms in which it is manifested. A certain relationless hatred is expressed in the French expression J'ai la haine, which has no equivalent in English. While for English-speakers, loving and hating invariably involve an object, or a person, and therefore, a relationship with something or someone, J'ai la haine (literally, I have hate) precludes the idea of an emotion directed at a person. This is a form of frustration, apathy and animosity which churns within the subject but establishes no relationship with the world, other than an aimless desire for destruction. The idea I am relating here is that even when hatred is directed at no person, it is inherently embodied in the desire for destruction, and thus violence. I am saying that when such a feeling occurs, I acknowledge it and move on - I do my best to avoid attaching to it, and if some of it remains within, I do my best to cleanse myself of it over time. Why? Because even if it never finds an external expression, and thus never acts to destroy something else, it remains a destructive force within. This destructive force within, even in its most passive form, is an attachment of energies that blocks and restricts the flow of healthy energetic circulation. It is encapsulated energies like this, which when we hold onto them for a while, develop into things like ulcers and cancers. Thus by holding onto things like hatred, we do violence to ourselves.

Adapt according to the time. Attachments only hinder progress. When hungry, eat. When tired, sleep. When the actions of another arouse emotion that says "I don't like being around this person," I simply change my environment and move on. I don't run, I neutralize it, even as I become aware that there is a better place for my presence. Justifying a reason to attach to hatred is like finding a reason to stay where I don't want to be. When I cannot change my physical environment, and another faces me with violence, I do my very best to remain calm, centered, and do not allow myself to escalate into a fight that I do not desire. This is equanimity. It takes two people to fight. Choosing to not fight when cornered builds character. Even when someone tells me what to say, demands I give answer - they cannot force me to do so, even if they hit me or call me names. The energy built up by traumatic situations can be powerful. Use it, yes - use it to become more deeply centered, use it to shape inner growth. Attaching to it can, over time, create powerful reactionary triggers, where one snaps and behaves in ways that others may come to hate, thus continuing the cycle rather than healing it. And remember - everyone is beautiful, and every action we develop hatred for was built upon a history we cannot understand. No mater how much we think we understand another from the outside in, it is fundamentally impossible for us to understand any other from the inside out. Thus, rather than making judgments about another - why they should be hated, how they should change - I find it best to count myself blessed that I did not have to walk in their shoes, and I remind myself to do what I can to make the world a better place, trying as best I can to avoid presuming I know what is right for others to do. Thus I try to become the change I'd like to see in the world.

A seer true, To spy on you For from heaven's eye, Thou cannot hide. The merchant you paid dear, To supply an army unsettled. The uncanny dream born into Seed in your strategician's mind. Fear not my friend, for your Cause is just - in time Dreams will converge to Unite those who trust.

Oh fear enclosing, now circling, now foreboding. The jaded lady at my side, Luck rules with grinning eye.

The emperor rules from above on his high hill, Yet the strings which tie him to the rule of those below, Easily hide from him the true workings of heaven above. As the heaven's spy, on the lofty hill-side, I happily fly kites with the jade woman Together we are quite free to flit and flow to parts unknown. Turning over my palm, and appearing in camps of Outlaws redeemed of late by emperors decree, Framed they are, yet their strings remain free. Troops march without feet, ever appearing as the mists receed, Confudling the arts of those outlaws bound by creed, Even as without intervention, they surely succeed, All those contrived perversions of Robber Zhi.

I'm a spy.

At first I had read this as trouble with allowing too much vulnerability... now I'm getting this as difficulty in opening/surrendering - at some level. Have you read the dao de jing? Whenever I do, I find it very ego-humbling, very helpful in surrendering to heavenly guidance. I definitely find the ego to be like this - the more I feed it, the more of a stranglehold it develops on me, and the more courage it takes to get up and do my cultivation work. But the cultivation work dissolves the ego, opens the energy pathways in the body-mind, and facilitates clearing of blockages and sealing of leaks. Clearly you are a wonderfully well-cultivated person, and I don't know what you need. I'll just say that qigong is fairly good at dissolving blockages that can interfere with integration - at many levels. I'd also advise caution, as qigong can easily work at the lower energetic layers, which can potentially disturb one's momentum and foundation of higher layers of energetics. I saw that your location is the Ozarks, and it seems like Michael Lomax runs the Ozarks Institute of Clinical Qigong. Michael is a member of these forums and is highly regarded here. If it isn't trouble, he might be worth speaking with.

Some things I've learned since reading this thread: Ta Chuan and (pinyin) Da Zhuan mean the "Great Treatise" or "Great Commentary" (zhuan), and this commentary is actually comprised of two commentaries in what are known as the Ten Wings. In particular these are wings 5 and 6, which are known as Xici Zhuan part 1 part 2, Xici Zhuan being "Commentary on the Appended Phrases", which were given the name "Great Commentary" to denote their importance. The above helped me to realize where the Da Zhuan translation can be found in Richard John Lynn's excellent book / translation of Wang Bi's commentary on the YiJing. I believe Wilhelm is still the only one to translate the entirety of the Ten Wings. One might also find some valuable threads discussing the "Ta Chuan" over on the online clarity I Ching forums. There is one where a member was going to discuss Jin Jing Fang's commentary on the Da Zhuan, which makes me interested in this commentary... alas this doesn't appear to be translated and this discussion took place on Second Life. And another where someone typed out the entire Wilhelm Da Zhuan translation and members commented on it along the way.... that was 31 pages long... and now can't seem to find the link.

Again and again it all comes back to balance. When yang balances with yin, either within or without, there is no need for destruction to occur. It is when yang faces overwhelming yin, or yin faces overwhelming yang, that it seems one puts up a wall to prevent the transformation from one to the other to occur, and in thus breaking the cycle, attaches to one or the other out of fear. Yet as long as one is able to maintain proper balance of the cycling yin and yang within, one can adapt to sharing what is within appropriately with what is in one's environment without becoming afraid of becoming lost in the exchange - because the internal cycling is so much more central and powerful, that when healthy and cultivated, it is difficult for anything to disrupt it. The problem is likely that many of us have had this natural cycling damaged early in our lives, and repairing what measures its momentum in years and decades is not easily done, though it might be.

Ah, yes. I said the Major developed no key, but I was mistaken. He does seem to have had something to fear, that was much bigger than himself. Yet he also was able to find the boundary from which he could love this "realm of yin" without becoming so soft to lose himself in it. I agree about finding the Major as very yang, very rigid. I feel that perhaps he used this fear to maintain guard over his strength. And in protecting himself from becoming soft, he also likely prevented many meaningful exchanges. I feel the western realm in general is very afraid of death by transformation. Perhaps validly so when faced with that which might so easily wipe away one's existence. And yet this is to deny the potential transformation has for one to be reborn cleansed and even more awake, aware, and whole than one had previously been.

From a different perspective, I ponder on the idea of a key and a lock. The key is yang and the lock is yin, hidden within. I can't open the door without the key. Often I am pulled more toward those who dress to show their external bodily shape. So I wonder if, for someone with my low level of discernment, their yang is catching my yang and showing me the key to how their yang flows into their yin, so my yang can follow along. Those who dress without showing the shape of their body seem more mysterious to me. This also is true of men who show their bodily shapes, I am much more aware of the projection of their external presence. So many layers. In a way, to tie this into the OP, I have the experience of being strongly drawn out of myself, and an experience of the results not being very beneficial. And so when I sense myself being drawn from my center, I am afraid of it. My above post explains how I've come to respond to this without fear and control, but with acceptance AND greater centering. And I wonder how it must feel to be isolated in a realm so vastly different - where your yang (mental structuring) has no sense or ability to shape itself into a key that fits into the yin that surrounds in every direction. Perhaps wilhelm was able to create a new key, and yet that still remained completely incomparable to the other key, to the western realm. For the Major, perhaps there was no development of a key, and thus the fear of exceeding one's measure and being dragged to the other side.