surfingbudda

Theres a possiblity that a workshop will occur in Los Angeles as I am in the process of trying to plan one. If it does happen it will most likely occur this summer

Jeff bridges is one of my favorite actors, he was really good in the movie Starman, and he was the best character in True Grit

Heres a video of a qigong master,( my first qigong teacher actually), in the video he heals people and does a lightness technique you may be interested in My link Hes in Los Angeles where I'm from, if you would like to learn from him I can give you his information

Hi ChiChi, I was just recently in the same place you are now. A burning desire and willingness to begin my spiritual path and create a daily practice, the only problem is which practice to choose as there are SO MANY different paths, one of them being qigong which has SO MANY varieties within it that the whole process of choosing just the right one becomes incredibly mind boggling . Like you, I wanted to find a less mainstream, more authentic hand me down true qigong which wouldn't feel like I'm wasting my time with. I went through several different interests, but none of them seemed quite for me, until it hit me, what I was searching for was right in front of my nose the whole time here on Taobums. I have rencently joined Taobums, which has been an amazing discovery for me because this site is filled with so many knowledgeable and friendly people, but particularly Ya Mu on this forum stuck out at me as incredibly knowledgeable and seemingly everything that he wrote, I agreed with which was neat. Then I discovered that Ya Mu was actually Michael Lomax, a semi off the chart qigong master. I had actually first discovered Michael Lomax about a year ago browsing amazon for qigong books, one of the books that really stood out at me as special and different from the rest I had been looking at was Michael Lomax's book A Light Warrior's Guide To High Level Energy Healing, also its great reviews showed that other people had really found it to be special also. Even though I really had that feeling inside of me that said I should buy it, I ended up not purchasing it. However this coincidence of refinding Michael Lomax really felt like the universe was pushing me in his direction, so without a second thought I purchased his book, so far his book has changed my perception on life more than any other book. Since then I now know almost without a doubt that his teachings are the path for me. If authentic teaching is what you want I think you'll have a hard time finding someone better qualified than Michael whose learned from some pretty amazing individuals, another way you know your getting truly authentic teachings is because his practice can only be learned via going to one of his workshops where he will he'll teach and give you the high level energy transmission that allows you to practice; a DVD can only get you so far, pretty much only with hands on training with someone who can transmit high level energy will you ever reach higher levels. So thats my story on how I found the perfect practice for me. Everyone is different so what resonates with me might not some other people, everyone is on different stages of the path. If your path is anyway like mine I may have just saved you a lot of time searching . In any event there are many rivers out there that lead to the same ocean, the only thing is finding which one gets you there the safest and most effectively. Good luck and may you find your chosen path, which ever feels the most true in your heart is the one you should pick. BTW I live in California also, Los Angeles to be specific, and I am currently currently attempting to plan a Michael Lomax workshop which will hopefully occur this summer. So if you do resonate with his teachings then you probably won't have to travel quite as far as a remote mountain in China to get your training started.

I liked how Jeff Bridges was a Zen master

I am still confused as to what exactly Kundalini is? Is awakening kundalini like unleashing your spiritual potential onto yourself in a very short amount of time rather than following the safer way of practicing moderate qigong and meditation to gradually become spiritually aware? I would WAY rather go about spirituality using the moderate method so how can one stay clear of awakening a kundalini? Is it possible to avoid it or if it is meant to happen then it just will? Are there things to avoid doing if Kundalini is wished to be avoided. From my understanding Kundalini is not at all necessary for true spiritual development, however I am sure many would argue me on that point.

heres a nice little article taking about how the most important aspect of Aikido is relaxing, even if you have no interest in aikido I think you may still find the article enjoyable and of value to your daily life My link

How do you guys feel about reiki? Could it be considered a type of qigong, or medical qigong? Has anyone here ever practiced it or has had treatments, what is your interpretation of it? How does it compare with the healing efficiency of medical qigong or other practices? Just curious I know alot of people are reiki practitioners out there, to me it just seems like watered down medical qigong which can be easily learned over a weekend. I mean I had a shiatsu massage with a guy who told me he was a level 3 reiki master and uses it in his massages, well it was a nice relaxing massage but I don't think I even felt any healing energy from it or really benefited from the reiki massage in the long run. Just my interpretation, I'm interested in finding out what other people here think about it.

Oh I see where your getting at. Ya we learned that Hindu was a term coined by the british which simply means east of Indu river, so everyone east of the Indu river became Hindus. Hinduism is an interesting language that is filled with variation, contradiction and is never practiced the same way in two different places.

Thank you very much Hundun. I was actually considering taking an upcoming course in Reiki, however after reading Lin's posts I am gonna stay away from it. I was curious as to the dangers of Reiki and now I definitely will stick to qigong. Even though the class is Usui Reiki Ryoho which is "supposedly" as true to the original teachings of Dr.Usui as possible, I just don't want to mess with it.

I actually just took a whole course in college about the religious history of India, and my professor(a Phd) taught us that Hinduism is indeed the oldest religion still being practiced and that Buddha did indeed appear much after the creation of Hinduism. The Buddha's radical ideas of equality was one of the reasons why many people left Hinduism to become Buddhis and escape the caste system.AlwaysOn, I am always open to new information and possibly wikipedia as well as my Indian teacher is very wrong, I would be curious as to where you get your information from.

Hi Samuel, I'm bout to start a meditation practice also! I've become very drawn to zen meditation, zazen practice. You could check it out if you want. Just pick the meditation that feels most right to you and thats the one that you should do. Best Luck to your practice

I think with every action comes an equal reaction so if a villain is out doing evil deeds then the evil deeds will come back at him in some way or another, and if not in this life time then it will catch up with him eventually. I think it is best to just let the universe take care of it and not worry about revenge or retribution. My mom knew someone who was sexually abused by her boyfriend and she used her intent and energy to will bad things to happen to him; soon after he got into a serious car accident, but within the next several months her teeth and hair started to all fall out and she started to get serious health problems because her act of revenge was an evil act in itself. I think just have faith in the universe that everything happens for a reason and its ways can very subtle so just sit back and go with the flow. One of the only martial arts that I agree with is Aikido because its philosophy is to stop the conflict through peaceful means by not injuring the attacker and allowing them to return to harmony with the universe; violence will only bring more violence, I believe only through peace can violence be vanquished. Well thats my two cents

hey non, I'm trying to find this thread by Lin Aiwei but I can't seem to find it, do you think you could post a link for it? If anyone on else has found this I would be very interested in reading it. Thankyou, Ben

I think I can safely say that watching this one hour video has been the best best use my time that I have spent in while. I hope anyone who watches this will get as much out of it as I did. After seeing this I really want to read Dr.Bruce Lipton's Book The Biology of Belief now. Heres the video My link Enjoy

Amen!

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Its a shame that most americans, and people for that matter can't be more open to the possibility of new ideas. I think all religions have something to offer, but as a whole they are all pretty much just a means to control the masses. I still don't get how people from religions which at their core are supposed to be very peaceful and loving like Christianity and Islam can agree to go to war and kill other people. Its sad that christianity has become coined with being patriotic and political, I highly doubt the real Jesus would be too happy with the way things have turned out. I bet if we were able to put Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, ect. in a room together they would get along quite fine and agree that their philosophies weren't all that different, its because true spiritual knowledge comes from looking inside and at the core of all of us we all come from the same source. I think if a religion doesn't teach one to respect all forms of life and teach one to become a loving and compassionate being, then the religion is useless in my book.

Merry Christmas

The jingui I saw makes your body hard. One of the practitioners told he to hit him in the chest where he had trained and it felt like hitting a rock, even though he was an old man with a big belly and said he never did any chest exercises. The teacher at the class seemed solid like a boulder. If thats the results you want then Jingui is probably great for you, however I want more of an internal practice to generate energy at a safe and efficient manner.

Everything happens for a reason, but I think that the world would be in a much better place right now if Al Gore would have been elected President, he won the election but wasn't elected, what a pity

Hi Does anyone here know anything about this taoist practice of Wild Goose Qigong? Right now i am deciding between this and bruce frantzis's water lineage qigong. Dayan Qigong seems very interesting though and just wondering if anyone has any experience with it on this forum.

Endless sea of white Radiating forever Pure light never fades

The first thing they did directly after the interesting warm up was the air sucking. There was no movement qigong of any kind, the sole practice was hitting themselves. It did seem like the people doing it knew what they were doing and had been doing it for some time, the teacher was only there to give input. There was no defined qigong form, only the the physical hitting, thats why I thought it was such a strange qigong. I had expected an actual qigong movement and maybe at certain points in development there would be some physical stimulation. I was asked to leave at the end of the class because the teacher was going to lead them through some kind of closing meditation, this probably was their closing. I asked the teacher what the higher level practice was and he did say it was more internal than the previous levels, he said more meditation. I would never even consider though pursuing this style of qigong, just my opinion though, I am sure some people can benefit from this practice. If you did do jingui along with another form, I would make sure to ask your teacher if jingui would be compatible with the otehr form you would do because I think some hard forms don't mix to well with the softer ones, but I really don't know

You might be interested in hearing my experience with Jingui golden shield qigong. Well I was recently interested in jingui golden shield and went to watch a local class practice to see if it was for me. Well when I got there I met the teacher and he seemed just solid like a boulder and was very nice, when I shook his hand I could feel a powerful energy, but it also felt raw and kinda unstable. Before the actual practice began, I was allowed to participate in the warm up exercise which involved throwing small bean bags at each other to warm up and develop coordination. It was actually fun, but was weird was that after we stopped, I noticed my heart was beating very hard and fast and almost beating in an abnormal rhythm. At first I just set this aside as normal from having just done a cardio excerise, however this weird abnormal heart beat lasted way longer than it should have and my heart probably didn't even begin to start calming down for about five minutes. The practice began with people sucking in air as hard as they could through their mouth, which was probably an effort to force chi into their system. I guess the practice itself took me by surprise because I wasn't expecting the entire practice to be people hitting themselves as hard as they physically could in different locations to stimulate chi development. Let me also say that the entire time I was watching this, I felt very uncomfortable and had a lot of anxiety, (feelings of anxiety like this are very rare for me, as most the time I am a very calm centered person). This experience reminded me of how Bruce Frantzis describes hard qigongs, he says in his book Opening the Energy Gates that hard qigong can be very powerful and very addicting and very hard on the body to handle. Franztis says his experience with hard qigong made him psychotic for power and eventually he had to make himself stop practicing as it was causing harm to himself and others. Frantzis compared hard qigong to cocain in that it is very powerful and addicting, but eventually the body can't handle it anymore. When I was asking one of the practitioners about how they liked the practice, I actually remember them saying they love it and the power this practice gives becomes very addicting so your constantly trying to hit yourself harder to give that sense of chi power. One more thing that turned me off from this practice was talking to the teacher, I asked him how he got into Jingui qigong, and he said that he saw a demonstration of it and instantly knew that this was what higher human development was; I asked him what the demonstration was and he said it was someone bouncing bricks off their ribs. Hearing this I thought, wow I think there is so much more to higher human potential then the ability to bouce bricks off one's chest . I tend to have a pretty good intuition and things pretty much always work out for the best when I listen to it, and that day my intuition was going OFF the charts saying, Ben this is NOT for you do not do this, there are way better ways to practice qigong. Actually even after the class, it took me quite a while before that crazy anxiety feeling, (which the only time I ever felt this was at this class), finally passed. In any event I personally would HIGHLY discourage anyone from practicing this form of qigong. However maybe this is exactly what some people are looking for in qigong, if so I would recommend someone find a very good teacher who can help them practice this as safely as possible, as if done incorrectly I believe these hard qigongs can really do harm to the body. I think I read somewhere that someone actually punctured a lung practicing a form of hard qigong. Well good luck to everyone's practice, if anyone is interested in what I am going to practice, I have found what I am looking for in Michael Lomax's stillness-movement practice, the complete opposite of a forced method and in my opinion an infinitely more effective qigong. Having done the Gift of the Tao DVD, I am very impressed and it is easily the best movement based qigong I have ever done. Peace and Luck to everyone