Harmonious Emptiness

not a bad idea stream of hikonschious writing rippling echoes malleable words can say all that needs to be said in seventeen beats

I would consider if maybe these "vampires" are perhaps just people at a lower "frequency" so speak, preoccupied with thoughts about self, fear, (and/or) anger.. If you let their "thought forms" influence you, you will not be at the place where you can experience "higher" energy, and the shift of consciousness, and ensuing energy space, was never a conscious will or desire.

I'd say if one gets from Bagua what they get from dancing, they'd surely benefit far more than from doing empty forms....

there also seems to be some promising evidence about "soursop" fruit/graviola fruit having strong cancer fighting agents as well: http://tipakan.com/the-cancer-killing-fruit-guayabano-or-sorsop http://www.hoaxorfact.com/Health/graviola-tree-10000-times-stronger-killer-of-cancer-than-chemo.html

Snowmonki, would you happen to know if "Wuji Taiji" is related to the "Wuji Chi Gong" as practiced by Master Duan?

Personally, I find certain moving exercises help to keep mindfulness in daily life, since you train the same way, versus sitting in to total stillness and then going outside. The latter can be a bit of a shock when your fully situated and not so flexible, whereas when you're used to moving with mindfulness, it's easier to maintain that. I've found it similar with mantra chanting (which I don't normally do) that saying the mantra while keeping a meditative mind helps to have a more enduring meditative mind since you are practicing keeping a meditative mind while speaking, which would normally require thoughts and ideas to be present in the mind. As a high level practitioner of just about anything can tell you, thoughts and ideas can get in the way of doing some things with full attention. edit: another thing, is that fatigue can often be the body's and mind's way of avoiding resistance and difficulty, while meditative movements teach how to evade problems while maintaining calm and alertness.

"Benevolence" comes from the french noun or adjective "benevole," meaning to volunteer for free. C'est bon! edit: yeah, yeah, they both came from Latin, but English words came from French (& German)

I'd just suggest meeting with a Chinese herbalist who can tell you everything wrong with you by checking your pulse points before you say anything to him about your state of health. He/She will prescribe some herbs and/or exercises. Most herb stores in any China-town have a herbalist on-site. He should check three points on your wrist if he's well trained. If his diagnosis is accurate, follow his advice. Herbs are comparatively very affordable to prescription medication, and much easier to take than feeling like shit all day every day right?

To reduce fire you want earth. Water just controls/directs fire a bit. Water is watery, flexible, adapting - this can be strong and/or weak, depending. Fire is joy/heart. Earth is calm/spleen. For earth, think of a mountain - stability. Too much earth and you can't move though, you get stuck and think too much, unable to act/react. Fire can burn up your wood/ambition, so reducing it with earth can help you act on your ambitions if you have enough water to adapt and follow opportunity - this ability to adapt is also connected with courage - the strong side of water/kidney. So you need balance in all of that, including metal/lungs, which give sensitivity to your environment. So, Earth...

I think, like the photo-reading thing suggested (which I figured it would), that you need to know what you're looking for so that you can filter out the rest. Then you need the discipline to do so. Also, as others have said here, being familiar with a vast number of subjects gives you greater perspective on the others and allows you to see developments that others do not. I can't remember the source now, but it was certainly Daoist, which stated that joy counters concentration. This, I have found, is true! Too much joy and you get ADHD, less joy and it's easier to concentrate. Of course, there should be time in one's week to have joy too, but one should be aware of its influence if they're trying to concentrate. Too many happy people around and work becomes very difficult, though anger and other emotions can also distract attention.

From my observation, I think the beauty of Bagua is when the player has such a strong stability in their stance while following the chi and just seems almost to blow around like a leaf, like their sitting stably in a throne that's being blown around in a tornado; balance of flexibility and strength working together without limiting either one.

a couple of great video-blogs by Tao Semko, related to this conversation:

Not that I'm an expert, but it doesn't sound like these two would interfere with each other. If the one method is focusing on the dantien, then it will probably just augment the qi availability and activity of White Skeleton Visualization. Most qi gong methods have a central part to them for building the dantien, so from the sounds of it, you'd probably just be adding to/increasing the foundational practice by doing extra dantien work. Maybe there's other opinions though, which I'd be interested to hear...

One thing I've noticed in the past was that the people who troll on the real teachers then try to make a huge fuss and scene when they get accused for trolling, even though a second before they were unjustly accusing someone else of being corrupt. For some reason, there seemed to be some fear of these people being offended and leaving even though they seemed to just come here for drama, and there's 10 more waiting to come on board. They would make a big noise and a few others enjoying the drama might come to their side, and they wouldn't get dealt with appropriately. I've made some effort to assume a responsibility of helping teachers with accusations levied against them by responding to the accusations for them. Hopefully, this way they don't have to waste their valuable time defending themselves against people who have nothing but time to accuse them and keep the issue going. However, maybe we should have a team of vigilante members or something who will step in when this stuff happens, so that knowledgeable members don't have spend all their time defending themselves. The mods can't really do this because they need to stay impartial. Not that there shouldn't be questions put to teachers, but when things just get outright baseless and unreasonable, it's usually pretty easy to turn the discussion around if someone is willing to step in for the teacher to keep the interactions on point. edit: I'm pretty sure this has worked in the past at least for some time when an experienced person ended up with their back against the wall due to now published accusations which they need to respond to. If they had to spend all their time responding to these accusations, they surely would have felt their time was better spent elsewhere.

I take you don't do any chi gong or tai chi?

never made that call said beware doll, thought they were all kidding you

I would add that the Dao De Jing definitely talks about meditation, finding stillness, returning to the root from which all things spring, and meditation in action being to stay connected to the One as an infant naturally does . Holding to simplicity is also a meditation in action, imho...

Glad to hear you've managed to incorporate the diet with success. Another recent one I've been hearing is real cinnamon from Sri Lanka (not Cassia from China which is what you will find just about everywhere) in reaction with natural sugars (like in smoothies). The real cinnamon is mostly just found in high quality spice stores, and is must softer in texture, colour, and taste. I chew on a small piece from time to time - tastes like sweet cinnamon hearts but natural almost chocolatey. There is always a grade on the real cinnamon, ranging from 00 to 0000 and I think 00000 is the highest. I bought two 00000 grade sticks in a plastic tube for $3 and keep in my bag to chew on a little piece from time to time. It's almost like a mild stimulant in a way too, the strong sweet spiciness...

On second thought, now that I take a look at the text, I see what Luk translates as (actually) "learned friends" is the frequent appearance of 善知識! at the start of paragraphs. As in: "善知識!道須通流.... 師示衆云：善知識!一行三昧者.... 善知識!定惠猶如何等？...."

Ha, Nice! I don't know of links. Found the book used for a steal before finding out it's worth (first print hardcover, 1962). There are 3 paperback editions available for $30 right now on Amazon which normally go for upwards of $100

Tough question, since so-called "philosophical Taoism" doesn't concern itself much with the majority of these. It's more monastic and mystical Daoism would. On the other hand.. The Chuang Tzu [Jing] and the Dao De Jing are as mystical as they are philosophical from a certain perspective. The texts that look at these things would be associated with the monastic and, what imo would best be called, the "mystical nomadic traditions." The Daoist perspective of re-incarnation would be explained as energetic, more than meritorious moral continuation, being an energetic source of reincarnation more than mind existence.

I noticed that a lot of paragraphs in Charles Luk's translation of The Platform Sutra start with "Learned Gentlemen, ..." as a way of addressing the audience. I'm not sure if this is because of FU appearing, however.

If you're interested, I'd be willing to help you with your English grammar. Your translations have value, and would be even better if the English grammar was a bit more, shall we say, orthodox. You're call though.. just puttin' that out there. We'd probably best do it by PM though.

usually oatmeal and pears with cinnamon, soy milk, and sometimes a few shakes of nutritional yeast for extra vitamins, including vitamin B12. I'll also sometimes put nutritional yeast in soy milk with cinnamon and a bit of raw sugar, or mix soy milk and pure pineapple juice for a sort of smoothie. mmmmm.

Welcome to the forum Gentle Wind. I've taken an interest in natural cures for all types of things, and Run From the Cure was very interesting. Another angle which would not interfere with that one would be vitamin B17. It sounds too easy, but I strongly recommend watching the documentary " " before making your mind up on it. It's quite amazing. To get vitamin B17, the most accessible sources seem to be cherry seeds (inside the pits), lentils, fava beans, and apple seeds, but there are many many sources if you do a search on it. Of course, if apple seeds were poison, so would be lentils and fava beans. There is a safe limit to everything though, as you'll see in the documentary.