Jetsun

I had those sorts of thoughts when I first started looking at Qigong masters, still do to a certain extent although I am less judgemental than I was, but Bruce Frantzis does write better than almost anyone else I have found when explaining some of the techniques he teaches, I heard that he could have gone to Harvard or somewhere like that when he was younger and I can believe that as he is a smart guy for sure, I know that doesn't indicate any sort of power or mastery but many writers who write about Qigong could learn a thing or two from the way he explains things. Personally I started with the work of Dr Yang Jwing Ming especially his 8 Brocade set, which I think is a good place to start and you can't go very wrong with it. I am not a fan of Mantak Chia because he has put a load of sexual practices out there which I think are dangerous and damaging for new inexperienced people to jump straight in to.

The irony is that a sinner who has recognised that all the evils of the world have the potential to grow within himself has more potential for compassion than the supposed "holy and pure" individual because they can relate to the suffering and have more potential for forgiveness as they cannot condemn to hell another person for something that also lives within themselves. So the sinner has more potential to be holy than the "pure" person, if such a pure person even exists.

I'm not so sure about that, the inner aspect of Taoism is alchemy which is a very complicated and confusing area of study. I'm not sure just reading Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu is enough to really significantly change your life, it hasn't been for me anyway, which is why so many hundreds of supposed Taoist techniques and practises have emerged to try to transform people, yet it is also unclear to me how many of these techniques if any of them are genuine methods of Taoist alchemy, even Tai Chi may not be Taoist in origin.

I have read some good things about that Shaman Ron, he started his work working only with donations when some of the healers in that area are charging hundreds of dollars for their work, so his intentions are good I think. The main advice I have learned if you do end up taking it is that if you do encounter any entities or spirits but are unsure of their intentions towards you you should ask them outright "are you my teacher?" either in your head or outloud and if they are they will say yes and if not they will leave you alone. Facing the rough times can be healing but if they get too rough or scary you can change the visions through your breath by breathing them away but I wouldn't expect many other spiritual or energetic practices you might have learned to be that useful.

Here is some stuff you may like immortal4life taken from Cracked.com The Giant Stone Balls of Costa Rica The Mystery: Costa Rica and a few surrounding areas are scattered with giant stone balls. They are smooth and perfectly spherical, or nearly so. Some of them are quite small, a few inches in diameter, but some of them are as large as eight feet in diameter weighing several tons. They have been chiseled to perfection by persons unknown, despite the fact that Costa Rica is still not scheduled to enter the Bronze Age until 2013. The are balls everywhere and serve no apparent purpose, like a swing club on Gentlemen's Night. Some of the balls have been blasted apart by locals hoping to find gold, coffee beans, or even babies. Some have been rolled around, but some are too heavy to move even with a bulldozer. Not that they have bulldozers in Costa Rica. Why Can't They Solve It? About the most useful information anyone has gotten is that there are not, under any circumstance, any quarries anywhere near the balls. This information is actually useless considering the balls are carved from volcanic rock. The Baghdad Batteries The Mystery: The Baghdad Batteries are a series of artifacts found in the area of Mesopotamia dating from the early centuries AD. This was the approximate time when Gozer the Gozarian was roaming the lands, morphing into whatever you thought of and then devouring you [source]. When archaeologists stumbled upon the batteries, they assumed they were just regular old clay pots for storage, but that theory quickly went out the window since they each contain a copper rod that shows evidence of acid corrosion. Now, in case you weren't the biggest nerd in school, this means that the pots probably contained a liquid that would interact with the copper and produce an electrical charge. If true, they predate the first known modern battery by hundreds of years. Why Can't They Solve It? Well, it's not like we keep digging up ancient camcorders over there. Some stone reliefs called the "Dendera light" depict what some believe to be electrical arc lights, which would require something like the Baghdad Batteries to power. Others believe that theory is incredibly retarded. More reasonable types say the batteries may have been used to electroplate items with gold. Others say medicine men could have used the batteries to shock people (giving the impression they had mystical powers or whatever). It doesn't help that the batteries are currently located in the Baghdad Museum, which means potential researchers have a sporting chance of being blown to shit on any given day. Voynich Manuscript The Mystery: The Voynich manuscript is an ancient book that has thwarted all attempts at deciphering its contents. And it's not like some idiot just scribbled a bunch of nonsense on paper and went, "Figure THIS out, f**k." It is actually an organized book with a consistent script, discernible organization and detailed illustrations. It appears to be a real language--just one that nobody has seen before. And it really does appear to mean something. But nobody knows what. [/img] There is not even a consensus on who wrote it, or even when it was written. And we sure as f**k don't know why. Why Can't They Solve It? Could you? Look at this shit: Don't even try. Expert military code-breakers, cryptographers, mathematicians, linguists, people who get paid to find and decipher patterns, have all been left unable to decipher a single word. As you can imagine, proposed solutions have been all over the board, from reasonable to completely clownshit. Some say it's an unbreakable code that requires a key to solve. Some say it's a hoax, and a damned fine one if we do say ourselves. Some say it's glossolalia, which is the fine art of speaking or writing something you don't understand but that is being channeled to you by God or aliens or whatever (note that the word was chosen specifically to make you sound retarded when saying it). The Antikythera Mechanism The Mystery: The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient, intricate machine found in a shipwreck near Greece that dates back to about 100 BC. The Antikythera mechanism contains gears and structures that were not found in devices again for 1000 years, and only then when the Muslims and Chinese were busy inventing shit while the Europeans were busy killing each other. Why Can't They Solve It? First, no one can agree on where the Antikythera mechanism was made or who designed it. Popular belief was that it was made by the Greeks due to its instructions all being in Greek (about a million of our tax dollars were probably spent arriving at that genius conclusion) but serious research published in serious places suggested the design came from Sicily. The mechanism, aside from placing you at serious risk for severing a finger, was supposedly used to figure out astronomical positions. The problem with that is that at the time this thing was made, no one had yet discovered laws of gravity or how heavenly bodies moved. In other words, the Antikythera mechanism appears to have functions that no one alive at that time would have understood, and no single mechanical purpose of that era (such as navigating ships) explains the crazy number of functions and settings this machine has. The Baigong Pipes The Mystery: In an area of China not known to ever contain people, let alone industry, there are three mysterious triangular openings on top of a mountain containing hundreds of ancient rusty iron pipes of unknown origin. Some of the pipes go deep into the mountain. Some of them go into a nearby salt water lake. There are more pipes in the lake, and more still running east-west along the lake shore. Some of the larger pipes are 40 cm in diameter, are of uniform size and are placed in what seems like purposeful patterns. So what's the big deal? Well, archaeologists have dated the pipes to a time when people were still trying to figure out how to cook meat without setting their back-hair on fire, let alone casting iron. Why Can't They Solve It? Oddly, the pipes are clean of debris despite being older than Zeus. This suggests that they were not simply shoved into the ground for the hell of it, but actually used for something. Oh, and did we mention the mountain is completely inhospitable to human life? As usual, a faction of nutjobs believes the Baigong Pipes to be an ancient astronomy lab or even spacecraft launching site left by extraterrestrials. This is possible, since the pipes contain a proportion of silica close to what occurs on Mars. Of course, the manhole cover outside your house does also, so take that with a grain of salt. Some say they are a hoax. We must politely remind those people that you can't wipe your ass in China without the government knowing, let alone set up a f**king iron forge and start burying pipes in the ground for the purpose of confusing passers-by.

Not that I know that much about it but at the moment the guy who explains Taoist alchemy the best for me is Liu I-Ming, he is worth looking up if you haven't already. He provides his own commentary on many classic texts demystifying much of it also he has his own book "Awakening to the Tao" which is good.

I thought I would have problems with puking and crapping everywhere too but infact it came as a bit of a relief when it happened, well after it happened anyway, it is a bit of a joke though that the Aya makes it really hard to walk and your legs all wobbly when you need to get to the toilet but you somehow can pull yourself together. I was told that the most people the place I was at had in a ceremony once was twenty five, I can't imagine the carnage of having that many people purging all at once There are a lot of great videos about it around but I would be careful not to fill your mind too much if you are thinking of trying it as as I watched loads of vids and read loads books about it before I went so I arrived with loads of expectations expecting to experience exorcisms and battles with dark spirits like they talk about in places like National Geographic, but I soon realised I had to let go of all that and focus on my personal experience. If you are thinking of trying it I would do it with a trusted Shaman, I understand a lot of people do it alone at home or with friends treating it like a drug rather than a sacrament but I personally would never go into those realms alone without the protection of a Shaman without the proper ritual and respect.

Yeah I have to agree, when I first came across his website I thought it was one of the most ridiculous sites I had ever seen, I think he has changed it now though to one less over the top focusing on the teaching rather than the teacher.

How do you seek power? Other than the things you do on the path anyway like embrace your vulnerability and fears and face death and harmonise you energy, what's the difference between that and one of a path of power? One who has overcome the self importance of the ego must gain power because they have very little to defend so you can't touch them You can make yourself physically powerful and intimidating but still be a scared kid on the emotional level

Many Tibetan monks try to become vegetarian but because of their constitution coming from a mountain people whose diet has consisted of a lot of meat through the ages it isn't good for their health, for example the Dalai Lama tried to become vegetarian when he was younger but his heath deteriorated so rapidly that his doctors told him to eat meat again.

As soon as you observe something impartially and withdraw your identification from it so you can see that it is not "I" then you are freed from it, it's energy which was frozen by identification is then liberated to harmonise with the Tao and return to your natural spirit, at least temporarily until you get sucked back into the hypnotism of life and become identified with it once more. Practice this enough and maybe it is possible to become free completely and become one of those masters who are said to be in the world but not of it.

I wouldn't underestimate the Dalai Lama, he says himself he has no great achievement or meditation progress but I feel he may just be being humble. If you examine his surface life he is 76 years old and still travels most of the year giving teachings and he never seems to be tired or irritable, he is always smiling and joking full of energy and you can see in his face he doesn't look as old as his years by a long shot. He recently had surgery and the doctor said he was never worried because when he examined his body he had the constitution of a man of his twenties. This doesn't prove him a potential Buddha but I know how much Taoists are impressed by longevity also when he talks about his succession he seems to be pretty certain of the age of his death so he has some foresight in this area. I met him when I knew little about Buddhism and was sceptical and closed off to the world in many ways and his bodhicitta was powerful enough to penetrate all of my defences and touch my heart in just a few moments, so personally I would certainly classify him as a bodhisattva and I fully understand why some people describe him as "lamp" in the world. This may sound sycophantic but it might even be that he is one of the most influential Buddhists that has ever lived as in the modern world with worldwide media and accessibility his teachings have touched more people than any other Buddhist master in history through skillfull means and he has probably given more empowerments and more importantly he practices what he preaches with his non violent approach. Just having a teacher who practices what they preach seems like a quite an achievement these days.

Reading this http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sogyal-rinpoche/khandro-tsering-chodron-in-memory-of-an-extraordinary-buddhist-master_b_968647.html inspired me to restart working on a practice of generating compassion, but I already posted that in the Buddhist section so for something new this is a clip of a film they are making about Joseph Campbell http://findingjoethemovie.com/index.php What is inspiring you suninmyeyes?

The Shaman is called Ron Wheelock in a documentary about ayahuasca. I'm not sure about the plastics and chemicals in the oceans I don't see a lot of good coming from that, but he said something about helping to relieve the pressure in the earth by removing a lot of the gas and minerals. It was an interesting perspective and made me think about how all those substances in the earth are forms of energy and for things to stay alive you need to constantly transform energy into different forms or it goes stagnant, like stagnant Qi in the body, so maybe we are helping the continued life of the planet by digging up and transforming a lot of its substances. Although it's not a common view with Shaman, the Kogi people say we are just irresponsibly destroying everything.

There is a Shaman I saw an interview with that says that he has learned that us humans taking all the minerals, gas and oil from the earth is exactly what the earth needs at this moment and if we stopped doing that then there would be a disaster, so in a sense we are doing what we should be doing. No doubt we are doing a lot of stuff we shouldn't be doing as well and we need to regain respect for the earth but maybe it's not as bad as some people make out.

I'm not sure I would put up with such a teacher I guess it depends on a lot of factors about whether I have faith in them or not, but there is no doubt that the crazy wisdom teachers have been influential. For example Chogyam Trungpa more or less laid the foundations for Buddhism in the West in many ways, he was the original teacher and inspiration behind people like Pema Chodron and Tenzin Palmo and many of those teachers who have books in all the local book shops and opened the eyes of many people to what Buddhism is about and yet he was an alcoholic womaniser. One of the main teachers I study G.I. Gurdjieff some would say taught in the crazy wisdom style and he would often host dinners where he would do a "toast to the idiots" where everyone around the table would have to toast to whatever type of idiot they got classified in, which may seem insulting but it is a meant as a humbling reminder that we are all idiots because nearly all of us do the exact opposite of what we need to do to be happy, so you can take the insult on the chin and laugh about your own idiocy along with everyone elses, or you can close up offended with your pride hurt. So I think it's possible that insults to the ego can be done in a skilful way.

It's worth considering that some of the crazy wisdom teachers are regarded as some of the best in history, in that approach they say that the job of the teacher is to insult you or rather insult your ego and press down on your beliefs without mercy. So if you have a belief that the teacher should be a clean perfect guru they might act outrageously in order to destroy that belief in you, they will play whatever role is necessary to teach even if it is against normal social conventions. One example is Drugpa Kunley of Bhutan who would teach by destroying peoples prudish attitudes around sex and fun and he was known to enjoy alcohol and many different women while teaching the Dharma through poetry and despite teaching that controversial way in a conservative county he is still considered a saint and worshiped today because his impact was so great and he led so many people towards enlightenment. So if you have too rigid a view of what the teacher should be then you may end up missing the teaching altogether.

In my town it seems to be the opposite meditation groups are springing up all over the place, a few churches are doing mindfulness courses too now.

Spiritual practice is best done from a place of strong healthy ego, don't listen to people who say that the ego is a completely bad thing, it is an utterly necessary stage of growth. If I could go back and give myself advice it would be to focus on integration not transmutation and self acceptance not transformation. A certain amount of selfishness is a good thing in the right way, most problems come from needs not being met so it is everyones interests for you to try to get them satisfied.

I think a lot of these concepts like Wu Wei and flow like water can't really be done by you as such rather they flow through you, if you are thinking that you "should" be going with the flow and relaxing then that "should" creates a split between the way you actually are and the way you want to be, which only results in more tension and stress. I think the only way to get into flow and Wu Wei is to accept where you are at in it's entirety and let go, but the paradox is that this is not something you can actively do as that doing will come from an ego wish for things to be different, so it can only be done by not doing. edit: I should also add that at your age your body and mind may still be going through a lot of natural changes which just need time to settle down

In my experience the Buddhist path is a lot more clear, which is why there have been so many realised masters in Buddhism and so many lineages with successions of enlightened teachers, while the Taoist masters and lineages seem scarce. John Blofeld says in all his extensive travels around China before the Mao era that nearly all of the masters he met which were regarded as enlightened were Buddhist and hardly any Taoist. I do like a lot of the simplicity in many of the principles on Taoism, for example you can as bring it all down to something as simple as "flow like water", yet because of the destruction and persecution of all things religious after the cultural revolution many of the practical teachings appear to be scattered and it is hard to determine which teachings and techniques are authentic or are invented recently and it appears like not that many genuine lineages survived. Perhaps there are more Taoist teachings and lineages which are in hiding which will emerge when China opens up a bit more, I hope so.

I haven't tried his system but he has interviewed just about every Qigong master around on his radio show http://www.blogtalkradio.com/qigongmasters

Yeah I agree, the taste I get from a lot of the discussions here is it is mostly head based realisations, maybe it has been realised in moments during self enquiry or meditation but nearly everyone has moments of clarity which are quickly forgotten, to really get the wisdom to penetrate deeply so you are not swept away by the hypnotism of life so you wake up and live the teachings with your entire being 24 hours a day it takes decades of dedicated practice.

Maybe it's not that bad, people would probably be better off if they swapped their Bibles and Qu'ran for the Tao Te Ching, but you still need a clear path to tread towards harmonisation, just reading a book isn't enough and Taoism isn't very clear, at least not to me.