Cheshire Cat

I've been asked this question a few years ago, but today I'll reply differently. Even if for you followers/disciples Gurunath appears to be the best thing ever, this fact doesn't mean that other may have the same degree of interest. If I were to personally test every single guru that mother India regurgitates in the West, I would make it a full time-job. Especially for the fact that legitimately those gurus want to be paid with good cash. I don't see a Guru just because I'm dubious of him, but when I see a teacher it's because I'm interested in something that came from him. For example, this video gives me the strong impression that the tradition is plainly made-up.

Is there a "perfect" job by genuine human standard in the modern world? It seems the perfect job would be not working at all and having plenty of time to cultivate the Dao.

We all have heard about Mopai and the astounding feats of John Chang so -at this point- I would like to know what's the opinion of the traditional daoist schools on this matter. I've heard that some say Mo-Pai is a side-track and not real neidan.

I know that you're performing a spiritual duty by defending the Parampara, but when it's done in this way it looks like fanaticism. He appears to be a man with a beautiful beard that claims he's channeling an immortal master in the Himalaya. As with all people that practice channeling, there are those who believe them and those who don't. Based on personal impressions that stand on tiny details like when Lahiri Mahasaya said that if breath retention is done correctly, it causes hair-loss... I'm dubious of the kriya affair from the very beginning. But that's just me. I never found a well written critic of Gurunath, but only people who say that he's the real deal. Then those people show a little tendency of criticizing everything else, but this is how the spiritual world goes on: praise and critics from 500 B.C.

I'm interested in everything you can say about that.

Is 立禅 (Zhan zhuang) the basic of your method?

The book Taoist Yoga contains a variety of instructions and teachings arranged in chapters which lay out a sequence of training methods. I used to think that what's not in my experience was wrong, but the world is a mystery and we cannot definitely be supreme judges. There are many things in Taoist yoga which I personally consider to be incorrect and -not rarely- harmful, but today I think it's wiser not to hurry in discarding things. This is an open question: Why don't you try to introduce some basic methods of your system so that people can rely on something more than mere claims to understand?

All this stuff about lights can be found in the book Taoist Yoga (Charles Luk)

Some years ago it was cute to read comments of people pretending to know everything about meditation. But today, I start to think that those people are precisely the ones who end up in leading lots of people ...

I firstly heard this idea from Bill Bodri and Master Nan Huai Chin and I totally agreed. But today I'm not sure. 1) why only the daoists noticed such a bizarre energy movement? 2) why do professional zen meditators often get some sort of Qi-illness that can only be cured by pushing the energy down with the mind? 3) In my experience, the energy only tends to go upward when the mind get emptiness and the body is forgotten. MCO is a specific daoist exercise which is supposed to be done with precise breathing patterns and by swallowing saliva.

I've read claims that theravada Buddhism was recently re-tailored to suit western expectations. Also, Mircea Eliade wrote about a pre-theravada tantric period in Sri Lanka. The Visuddhimagga itself was written to contrast the strong tantric ideas that were present. It seems that nowadays you can't really find something more authentic than tantrism, but still the reconstructed orthodoxy of theravada has such a good format that makes it very practical and appealing to westerners.

@thelerner I vote for esoteric/occult

There are some who largely doubt the existence of such an energetic circuitry which has no parallel in western and indian systems. Also, the fact that the earliest sources about the mco practice comes from an infamous period of chinese spirituality in which wannabe-alchemists created a hundred recipes of poisonous elixirs and questionably effective meditational and physical exercises, does not help. Personally, I worked on the front channel many many yeas, but never succeeded in establishing a downward flow. Actually, energy used to go up to the head using the front-channel area, thus causing a few problems with digestion. Even if I meditate on the physical navel, I feel energy moving toward the solar plexus (and not downward): and it was not just about "sensations", but they used to appear signs on the skin. I don't feel authoritative enough to say that the front-channel doesn't exist, rather I suggest to explore the daoist practice of swallowing saliva to see if it helps.

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My personal opinion: Do you wear glasses? If not, I would suggest to stop all energy practices (aka cultivating tactile sensations in different parts of the body) and to meditate with the eyes open, back support (avoid stimulation of Du-Mai) and to forget your body entirely. Meditate on something conceptual and forget breath & body as much as you can.

Most of the time they get an elegant "pot-belly". It seems to be something quite traditional in internal kungfu, am I correct?

It doesn't work

Have you read the work of Carlos Castaneda? I think that the idea is to overcome the parts of your personality that prevents you from living fully (self-pity, fear of loss, desire to be exalted, etc...). As for "Acceptance of Death and Dying", I think it's more like "I know that it's so, therefore I have nothing to lose and whatever happens it's no big deal. I can take more risks".

Here everyone can see that generally we cannot universally agree on what vipassana really is. It's so because the original historical method is forgotten. A good idea would be to try the different approaches and see. There are evidence of the existence of different schools even in the early years of Buddhist development that debated about the degree of importance of vipassana. There were -for example- (as there are) those who say that it's better to stick to samatha and one would get complete enlightenment by that. Samatha is a kind of trance, a shifting of consciousness, the way to reach non-ordinary existence and trascendence. It's the method that can produce longevity and siddhis . I personally believe that vipassana is born out of the Buddha's precise need to escape suffering in the most definitive way, not only in meditation, and abandoning the idea of continuous meditation ( that cannot be done). That can be achieved only by developing the ability of being detached from normal experience, detached from ordinary life by training ordinary consciousness: it's not about noting super-fast every single shade of each sensation ( that would lead to a jhanic state , IMHO). It's not about changing the methods of discerning reality or deliberately alter the speed of the chains of thoughts. It's not to escape from thinking by focusing on tactile sensations in the body. Vipassana ( in my personal understanding) is the training of the mind to understand and experience impermanence/no-SELF/suffering in ordinary life. It's a method to turn a specific train of reflexive thinking into an automatic functioning of the mind.

I would say that it depends on what you mean by "letting go". In truth, none really knows for sure what vipassana really was at the time of the Buddha: it's technically a "reconstructed method"... and many people invented (or rediscovered) various forms of meditation inspired by the buddhist sutras, and they called them "vipassana". Many different methods, but a single name. What I personally consider to be the most "authentic" is the one which relies on the three (already mentioned) marks of reality to achieve that "letting go": as long as you apply the consistent understanding of impermanence/no-self/suffering to each thought, that is vipassana. In the "secret of the golden flower" (which is a daoist treatise), you may find a reference on "how to handle spontaneously arising thoughts" according to chinese buddhism. And this method is precisely to rely on thoughts to prove to yourself that...there's no self (actually, you try to trace the origin of the specific thought). This is also vipassana in my opinion. Vipassana is not about being without thoughts: even if you find yourself in a realm of no-thoughts, the method of vipassana would be to consciously produce the mental question "who's experiencing this stillness?" / "Is this thing permanent?" / "Will this pleasure last forever?" and to proceed from there in your investigations.

In terms of experiences and results, what would you consider to be a spiritual development? The transference of consciousness to a spiritual body?

Basically, it partially depends on the precise technique which your Buddhist school labels as Vipassana (body scan, noting, etc...). At some point of your practice, you're told to consider impermanence/no-self/suffering and apply those concepts to the objects of your meditation. The development of insight isn't automatic: it's born out of a reflexive thinking on the transient nature of human experience, a deep understanding on the theory of no-self and the ability to consider the secret dolorific side of the pleasurable experiences. In the end, insight turns into wisdom. And wisdom is a very strong sense of detachment from everything. Detachment is the only palliative available to suspend desire and achieve Nirvana, the end of suffering.

In term of actual practice, what would you suggest to reverse short-sightedness exorcist?