Harmonious Emptiness

Keep your joints loose and open keep a meditators posture w/ relaxed shoulders when the joints are open you can actually practice qi gong all the time in a way (see The Way of Qi Gong, Ken Cohen). it's not that there should be no tension, just no unnatural tension edit: also, while sitting put your attention on the dantien and notice how you will automatically breath from it. When you're walking around, if you do the same thing, it might balance your movements/make them more fluid. This is a tai chi method as well and it can help to feel centered and grounded amidst the hubbub.

By ego dust, I mean that it is dust-- it lands on the mirror and it gets blown away.. it is not part of the mirror; though if you want to say that it is because it's on the mirror, ok, but really it's just sitting on there until it gets blown away and one realizes that it is in fact not part of the mirror. What is the mirror? The mirror is the Truth of what is real and what is not.

Welcome Salochin! Enjoy the not-doing while doing too

It seems to me that Taoism is a bit more flexible on thoughts coming or going than some which are more strict about it, but that overall the thoughts should disappear so that your concentration and awareness is in the right place. I've noticed that I have to eliminate thoughts from my consciousness when playing music as well or it feels like I'm loosing my grip on the reigns. I didn't put 2+2 together until recently realizing "Hey! I've been doing this all along!"

Not sure how an atheist would go about doing this, but when I lay down and have all these energies in me, I thank The Creator for everything I have. My bed, my food, people in my life, positive energy, physical and mental health.. these are all reasons that I have so much energy that I can't fall asleep, but to not be grateful for all of them is definitely misperception. Eventually I go to sleep with a big smile on my face, once waking up to my girlfriend asking me "why do you sleep with a smile on your face?" , but now she knows why.. You could do walking meditation or Eight Section Brocade between sessions of sitting; that is, if you don't want to fall asleep. If you've never done walking meditation formally, just walk around your room and turn around/trace everything in the perimeter with your steps which makes the trail longer and stretches your heels and ankles. This is mostly to bring circulation back into the legs and maybe to give the back a rest. Do it for 2 to 10 minutes or whatever feels right. Also keep your left palm against the dantian and the right hand over the left. This is part of Dogen's/Japanese Zen methods.

They are all mentioned in different forms of Buddhism, but the way they are spoken of in the way they should be approached tends to differ between Tibetan/Mahayana and Zen/Chan. The actual definitions of #3 can also differ between schools/traditions.

er, c'mon Mal. A new Buddhist Discussion Forum and your first post is of a Taoist text, lol? edit.. oh, ok, 'cause you want the Buddhist view. my bad...

Here is a walking qi gong exercise. It's part of a series, but I think it is good on its own as well. Also probably a good practice for Tai Chi students to feel more rooted in their stepping. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bhk03Wc3Is&feature=player_embedded

If you want to practice The Way, 8fold path, meditation in action, right vocation/action/attention/concentration/meditation: an electrician is one of the best opportunities. You can be generous in your work and in what you do with the extra $$$$ No matter what you do, it's how you live/do it..

This is probably the most important advice to this situation, imo... not trying to do MCO meditations without having a really solid ability to sit in nothingness and clarity, allowing things to arise without losing calm centered focus and awareness. MCO is basically a Taoist practice, so to do it you really need to start with basic Taoist meditation which involves sitting sitting in nothingness and clarity and letting things arise without getting drawn away by them too much. So work on the basics first. Them MCO might even arise naturally after awhile, which is the way it normally should by writings like Secret of the Golden Flower. Just be aware of what the chi wants to do\does on it's own and you'll get more out of the meditation right now. Don't force it. Use and appreciate what it gives you instead...

I like the question here of "what does it mean to be a Taoist?" The answer to this that seems to come from the people I would trust to have it tends to be that "you need to be initiated by a master to really call yourself a Taoist." But that doesn't mean, to me, that you have to be initiated to learn about Taoism and apply it to the way you go about things. There are also plenty of lay-people who go to Taoist temples to get blessings and celebrate the new year and such. I'm not sure if they concern themselves with a religious affiliation title or not. I think in the western world especially there is a legal type of labelling which might label many non-initiated people as Taoists as well. Personally, my interests are broader than any one or two particular traditions so I'm not too worried about not being a Taoist or anything else as they would all be incomplete and inaccurate descriptions at this point. However, learning from Taoism teaches me many things that are valuable to my life, one of the most important being that there is always so much more; that simplicity is so complex that complexity is just a narrow, feeble, description. Keeping an open mind, capable of a deeper receptivity beyond conscious knowing, is practicing Taoism as much as it's being human.. pretty much the same things some would say.. edit: some other necessities that should not be left out: Taking the bitters with the sweet; working towards a better yet simpler self; becoming great by accepting smallness; finding freedom by walking the straight and narrow road; following patterns while following our nature

I have heard of this practice, and the people that do it do it for detoxing, so they only do so after they have removed just about everything they could from the urine that they use. Thus, this is BS because the morning urine is the most full of the shit they clean out before ingesting it..

Thanks for the link; I like what I'm reading there.. That is essentially what I'm doing from the start of the meditation, and then I move more towards the rest. I aim for a state where the focus on energies dissolves thoughts without effort, but sometimes I'll whip down the odd thought if it's getting in the way of that attention. I didn't even read much about it at first but knew from reading Chuang Tzu and others that they would favour "going with the flow" over any imposed structures like "no thinking at all, ever" though thoughts can be a bit, well, superfluous, and so it's useful to be able to just accept or reject them in order to feel what's happening. This quote from your link pretty much describes my experience exactly : Zuowang likely inspired Chan Buddhist sitting in emptiness, which can feel a bit cold, too mental or impersonal for some Westerners. Yet Daoist zuowang differs from Chan methods and their Japanese Zen Buddhist offspring in that attaining absolute emptiness is not the goal. In zuowang the emphasis is more on process, on cultivating spontaneity and openness to ever-changing currents of the qi-field. The dissolving of the heart-mind is achieved by allowing each thought, feeling or sensation to manifest without resistance, and then surrender it to the larger flow of the qi-field to be creatively transformed. Eventually an unperturbed yet engaged state of mind is achieved. So zuowang ultimately shifts from release of the negative to a positive embrace of spontaneity and wu wei. Robinet astutely points out in her preface to Kohns translation of the Zuowang lun that the process goes beyond qigong, which grants only longevity. Zuowang is a method of salvation, and as such is actually preparatory for higher alchemy practice. Zuowang is a double dissolving, first of the contents of the heart-mind and then of the minds method of dissolving itself." - Michael Winn, Daoist Methods of Dissolving the Heart-Mind.

I'm wondering how this goes.. I mean smallish excerpts can be used legally for educational purposes, which is generally when they're used here. Is that not allowed, or is it just that really long excerpts that are not allowed? I mean we can quote, no? What about you tube videos?

This happens to me on occasion as well. My take on it comes from an interview with a Shaolin master who said that after qi gong one of the most important things is to stand afterwards and be like (I forget the the exact name right now, but something like) "leaves and branches swaying in the wind" swaying back and forth with the chi flow, side to side, where ever the chi moves you. He said that not doing this loses a large percentage of the accumulated qi from the practice, I guess because it has to settle naturally. I'm just speculating, but I think stillness-movement qi gong works with this too, just basing that on the videos I've seen of it. So, my advice would be to go with it as it's probably chi that has been activated and so it's moving around and physically moving your body with it (chi tends to move in spirals according to some internal martial arts practitioners). Buddhist meditation would say to pass it over, but Taoists also practice sitting forms of Chi Gong so you can go with these feelings to nourish the organs and open energy channels and things when you've gotten to the point that it's still moving but not necessarily taking your torso with it! but if the body wants to move with it right now to adapt to the circulation, then it probably knows what it's talkin' about, lol. I wouldn't try to move intentionally, but let the chi do it's thangalang until it's ready to settle back home..lol. Or not. Whatever you want to do...lol.

Thanks for your response Taomeow if it's not too much trouble, would you mind posting the names of these texts? I'm only aware of 2 or 3.

Thanks iamtheare beautiful post

My understanding is that the word alchemy and chemistry both came from the word Khemet which used to be the name of Egypt, meaning "The Black Land." Seeing as they were the first to teach internal alchemy and predated Arabic chemistry, I think this makes sense. The rest of this "golden dawn" business is a ridiculous hoax at best, if not just bad scatalogical humour....

Place acts, feels, wind blows Refreshing breeze. Organs smmmmmillllle Freshly watered plants

There is a good crossover Egyptian quote that speaks to that: "the wise know and act in the rhythm of their time" This doesn't mean to jump every time society says so, but to be in rhythm. I forget which Afrocentric poet said: "we're not ON time, we're IN time." Another saying for African drummers "mistakes, falling out of time, can be forgiven, but not listening cannot." You can do all kinds of things without causing a musical train wreck as long as you're listening properly to the rhythm.

Could you say a bit more about this? Where did you learn this? What else do you know about the real manuals (maybe the sect, or who reads them, their names, anything else)? thanks.

Assuming you mean "one with the Tao" I think it needs to be said that there is more than one type of being "one with the Tao." There is the more ordinary kind, as written about by Chuang Tzu, when you have shed your social conditioning and live from your center. The other type is the more esoteric type which requires initiation, and fasting without food or water for weeks while in meditation the entire time. I'd say a normal person can get to the first type, but normal people need to eat and drink and walk around, so, I'd say it's a pretty obvious no for the second type..

Was recently reading Way of the Bodhisattva (Santideva, 7th century) for the second or third time, which says this about bodhichitta: "As though they pass through perils guarded by a hero, Even those weighed down with dreadful wickedness Will instantly be freed through having bodhichitta[sic]. Why do those who fear their sins not have recourse to it? Just as by the fire that will destroy the world, Great sins are surely and at once consumed by it. Its benefits are thus unbounded As the Wise and Loving Lord explained to Sudhana Bodhichitta, the awakened mind, Is known in brief to have two aspects: First, aspiring, bodhichitta in intention Then active bodhichitta, practical engagement. ... From bodhichitta in intention Great results arise for those still turning in the wheel of life; Yet merit does not rise from it in ceaseless streams As is the case with active bodhichitta." So, "the awakened mind" was the translation [edit. by Padmakara Translation Group].. The connection between the inherent patience of a Bodhisattva (always turning the other cheek in order to free from suffering) and bodhichitta is perhaps another discussion (as to whether no-self and heart-mind are always a part of this patience, and whether this in total would be bodhichitta [which seems to be sort of the ultimate "goal" of Buddhists].. I only have the question...)

place acts, feels, wind blows. (Silence behind Atmosphere.......) the leaves down the street