Harmonious Emptiness

don't miss the Nei Ye. best to find translators and then find their translations. Cleary, Predagio, and Komjathy seem to be the busiest. For Dao De Jing, the Star translation is very good. I would say Lin Yutang is the most accurate. You might enjoy some of my translation commentaries in the Personal Practice Section.

To each their own, but I think you might benefit well from silk reeling practice, which is a, usually stationary, repetition of various Tai Chi movements which helps to internalize the feel of Tai Chi movement. It also allows you to practice for long periods of time without getting stuck on sequences. As a percussionist, I'm all about internalizing a movement so that it jumps out when called for. I think the more you do silk reeling correctly, the easier the form practices will be internalized. You're probably getting this from the class already, but thought I'd mention that. Best of luck on your recovery!

I think the fact that everything was on one side would tip eventually.. Light and dark are mutually co-existing. It's an impossible scenario, beyond the obvious impossibility of it.... I stand by my original answer..

If everybody on earth was suddenly enlightened, they would suddenly become aware of other universal entities that are not enlightened and there would always always be work to be done. The nature of Enlightenment is sort of dualistic to begin with - Enlightenment and non-Enlightenment. Without the other side there is no Enlightenment, so how could all things be suddenly Enlightened without a Samsara to be Enlightened from? The two differences will always exist, so what good would it do? The other side will always creep back and dominate to make everything realize where they are in comparison. That's just the nature of Universal Balance. Can we escape this? Sure, but what's the difference between all people and all animals, and all entities? I think if everyone was suddenly enlightened they would realize that there are even more beings needing to be enlightened than they previously thought, realizing that their drastic measure made little difference on the greater perspective, and that they would have been just as far along walking their own Way and letting things evolve from beyond insignificant spheres of control.

So, I've been asked to teach a group of about 12 people some basic tai chi to help them cope with stress, temper, and fatigue troubles. I didn't suggest that I could or anything of the sort, but the person who asked me knows that I practice a bit of tai chi and chi gong and that I enjoy it and so figured I would be able to show some basic stuff. I agreed to show some of the very basics that I practice, which would be Chen style silk reeling with a few warm up exercises, thinking "well, if it can help them, which I believe it could, then sure; so long as they know I'm neither a teacher nor by any means advanced." So, what do you all think? Should I be praying to the tai chi gods for forgiveness? or is this acceptable? It would of course be unpaid.

Okay, so for those interested, I asked Michael Winn if it would be a concern for me teach this form and he said it's "absolutely not a problem." Nice! btw, if you haven't read it yet, I suggest checking out his free book "Inner Smile" which you can download at http://www.healingtaousa.com/innersmile.html Thanks for sharing your perspectives and experiences everybody, they have all been helpful!

If you ask me, getting emotional gratification from helping others is about as good as it gets. It means that you like doing this, right?

Hi Heath Thanks for your thoughtful response. "if 'I' can get out of the way, the Way happens." Yes! It's amazing how our "I" can get in the way of our enjoyment and benefit of life. It seems there is a fair bit of interest in creating a regular group, again without me having suggested it. I`m going to contact the person who developed this style and ask if there is any concern in me leading an informal practice group. I`m not too worried about insurance and litigation, but it's good to know it's at least affordable. Looks like a fun group you've got going over in Warwickshire. I may have some more specific questions for you in the future if things develop. All the best,

Well, the class was this morning, and went far better than I anticipated. I decided to just show the Five Treasure's qigong from the nqa website which has served me very well for the last few years, and they LOVED it! It's funny because about 3 weeks before I was asked to do this, I had actually sent a letter to the nqa asking what sort of permission I could get to teach this form as a community service.. no idea that I would be asked to teach it. They never got back to me so I figured it was a bit too much for the nqa to just give me a nod of permission like that. Well, without their permission, they're not responsible at least. Out of the 12 people there, there were only 2 who seemed not so interested, but still said they felt very relaxed and good. The other comments were almost astonishingly positive. I mentioned to google "Five Treasures qi gong, nqa" and they can purchase a video for $10 from nqa.org. Either way, we can add another 12 true believers!

Hi Snowmonki, Thanks for the re-inforced forewarning. I will add "smoothing the chi" closing, which I should have thought of earlier. If someone is still feeling odd I know a few grounding techniques they can try at least. We have about an hour. The first three there are warm-ups so shouldn't take too long. The 5th point is all different names for the same move, btw. hydrogen, thanks for the support . However, we're mostly going to be doing chi gong, which I rarely ever do with music on.

I think I can respond to the last three responses in noting that I'll just be showing them *shake the tree *arm swing + weight shift and light meridian slap *breathing from stomach by putting hands on chest and stomach (with suggesition to let other areas fill up from there) + posture *opening tai chi movement with shoulder roll and breathing *ocean wave breathing(Five Treasures)/breathing of the universe(Spring Forest Qi Gong)/dantien breathing *tai chi walking meditation with dantien breathing I don't think this would be too intense, and would essentially provide a basic loosen up, dantien grounding, and time reset/presence in movement. It's likely only going to be one meeting, so I figure these are pretty easy to remember and practice on one's own. Also, I've only learned chi gong and tai chi from videos (albeit scouring the internet almost daily for more perspectives on the foundations), so I'm trying to make sure it's well known that I don't have a ton of answers, and that even if I do know or practice styles and forms, I don't have permission to teach them. I'll offer some websites if their interested. Wu Ming Jen, yes I agree having a group to do this with can be very beneficial for all there, however, as mentioned, my "video training".. reminds me of this link I saw today though! Slow Movement with Awareness: Better than Exercise?

Okay, cool. Thanks for the feedback and support everybody!

Great advice Thanks for the response.

I should add to what I said before, that there are some higher level chi gongs and things like that which I think it likely rather unwise to attempt while under the influence of marijuana or entheogens if you don't want to a.) go crazy, or b.) have chi equivalents of "brain freeze" (what you get from eating ice cream too fast) and potential downsides to that edit for b parenthesis =

making clear the way skipping along, right or wrong night will turn to day

First off, I would like to make the disclaimer that I am not perfect, nor a model of will power and unconditional love. I realize my user name might be a bit misleading in this way, but I try not to overly restrain myself in some responses to ensure this misconception is not intentionally propagated. Moving forward, I wanted to share this website and perhaps offer some discussion about the dangers and damage to ourselves of passive aggressiveness. I realized that I’ve often used passive aggressiveness as a means to avoid confrontation, thinking this to be the more “spiritual” action, but it really doesn’t help anybody, including myself. In fact, I think a large part of the reason I spend time on this website may be an evasive strategy to avoid confronting certain things in life, such as talking about things to avoid actually doing these or other things. I have quite a bit of behavioural habits to overcome from my early teens on up, in this regard and others. Making excuses for myself, judging other people’s struggles to avoid confronting my own.. this is all evasive behaviour which will take some time to learn how to manage effectively and assertively. Sometimes it seems like passive-aggressiveness is “Wu-Wei” so it’s perfectly cool and intelligent and spiritual. But I’m starting to see that this rationale is just more passive-aggressive tendencies to avoid confronting the fact that I’m being passive-aggressive. The value in Wu-Wei here, I think, is in it being assertive rather than aggressive. “Spirituality” should not just be an evasion strategy, nor should talking about it be (… time to wrap this up ) Anyhow, I think it would be of benefit to everybody to consider the self-damaging effects of passive aggressive activity. I found this website to be very effective at pointing out and showing ways to confront these activities. I’m sure some people will see themselves in a number of the descriptions. ed. note: added link for "assertive vs. aggressive" edited again to fix link destinations

Some good and helpful info here on distinguishing the Freudian term from Buddhist term. Something to consider too though, is that when people use "ego" in translations, they are likely taking the use from the same place Freud took it, and that is its Greek meaning which is simply "I." It's this base of meaning that the French word for selfish, "égoïste," contains, and I'm suspecting that that "égoïste" came before Freud's use of the word "ego" as there is no other French term for this adjective (if you find one, please let me know..). So we could also extract the word "ego" from it's Freudian ramifications and use it as it existed before it was superimposed upon with Freud's likely inspired by Buddhist and Daoist theories, though most people will still think we are referring to a Freudian term, rather than the term that has existed since before being redefined by Freud.

Seated chi gong On-back tai chi therapy Taiji on-chair for health

I'm much in agreement with this. I think a large part of it also has to do with racist notions that all other cultures couldn't possibly have been scientific and practical and that all their science and discovery was a bunch of "heathen superstition" resulting from their "lack of evolution" and "primal worldviews." Seems to me that when these notions are washed away, we will see many more similarities, likely to the embarassement of the Western super-ego finding out they were 100s or 1000s of years behind, which may further delay these realizations.

What's helped me quite a bit (and I learned from an excellent RMT) is to grab a door-frame about waist high with one hand facing away from the body and lean back to stretch the sides and lower back, then do the same for the other side. This balances the tension in the lower back muscles so that one is not pulling you out of alignment. Use caution though. Don't over stretch and injure yourself instead.

If done with awareness, Samatha clears the water I`d say, making the impurities more obvious and easily scooped away.

It's not my reality that determines your reality.. the answer to this question is, imo, what would indicate to someone if drugs make practice impossible or not. I would imagine some cannot and some can -- it's just a question to ask one's self. No assumptions made. Agreed, and it could be said that the less we are aware of ourselves, the more we become a part of everything, the more we experience the truth of our dependent origination and transcend our "ego." On the other side, there is a point when we are not aware of the fact that we are simply trying to amass a self/ego and so then this awareness is needed. Philosophy is confusing though, and sometimes more so than clarifying, so I'd best stop there. I think "under the influence" is a pretty apt term, since "plant friends" like cannabis are very influential. When they are present, you can not not be influenced by them. Being aware of how they influence you, though, might have it's benefits. But like you said, the highs are paid for by the lows, so one needs to know what they can afford to gamble and lose, or they'll be broke and stuck in the desert with no idea how to get back home! Also, imo, given the medicinal uses of weed throughout history, I'd be surprised if there weren't a number of times that its down-sides were accounted for and accepted. To each one's own, and wisdom for all...

I think it's good that someone has managed to serve the needs of people with the benefits of Tai Chi, as many could benefit from them who wouldn't normally approach it due to it being too "mystical" or just having no understanding of how these slow movements could be worth doing. I'm actually all for bridging the gap into ancient wisdom even if it takes a bit of cheeze wiz to make the brussle sprouts go down. The reason being that there will likely be some people who will eventually seek further and find the true treasures of these traditions. The 60's and 70's were much like this for spirituality and the watered down appetizer of New Age brought many people to find the true traditions, of which I likely never would have heard of if not for the cultural acceptance that took place the way it had to. On the other hand, I agree that this guy should do a bit more research before he makes claims as he does. He could do a much better job. Even I spotted the knee over the toes thing, and the disconnect from his core to externals, and I'm barely a beginner, if that. I really wouldn't worry about Tai Chi disappearing as a result of this type of thing. Some people will be satisfied with the cheeze wiz and stick with it, while others will get a taste for cheeze and this, imo, is good for the survival of the masters' secrets. Maybe he'll read this thread and come out with a second edition next year, "now with 5% more real cheeze!"

Can you be aware of the present moment? the arising, experiencing, passing, and non-existence, of the inner origin of thoughts when under the influence? It sort of gives you something to be aware of, though could make someone dependent on that or focused on that instead of being self aware, being more aware of the substance present instead of the present's presence.. or seeking out to the drug for stimulation instead of the present.

Not sure, but it's a great question to ask one's self! [p.s. - assuming you meant exhalation of exaltation..]