humbleone

Dr. Silvia Hartmann has developed a step by step approach to communicating with the [] despite the somewhat cheesy name of her book, I bought it and then spent some more for private tutoring. This was many moons ago, before Qigong. I should really re-visit her work...the relaxed states makes it work. http://silviahartmann.com/books-genius-symbols.php

Petaluma looks quite magical. during our last trip to California, many moons ago, we spent three days a few miles frmo petaluma in Point reyes. a different world from where we are in New York City. Curious as to what I was finding at 3AM in my left cheek, and then in the right shoulder, I did some research. Your practice steps appear straightforward, but the theory behind it is quite complex. I found this 'Waking Up' writeup on your website. http://www.zenmudra.com/zenmudra-waking-up.html "Although the placement of consciousness must be spontaneous for the two involuntary respiratory systems to coordinate naturally, it may well be that a pattern will develop in the placement of consciousness for a period of time. Gautama the Buddha referred to the development of such a pattern as "the sign of the concentration". Such a pattern unfolds of its own accord, and is never exactly the same twice. The key to accepting and relinquishing such a pattern is the feeling connected with its occurrence, and the knowledge that the pattern serves the cranial-sacral system's response to the necessity of breath." I am looking forward to experimenting with the waking up part, will report back in few days. all the best.

Hi Mark, so to give you an update. I am able to make your "waking up and falling asleep" practice work for me. Three nights of success. Last night was quite challenging, due a cold/cough I woke up at 1:45AM, after a cold remedy, using your practice went back to sleep. Then woke up again around 3:45AM, not wanting to disturb my wife with coughing(read fear of getting kicked out of the bedroom ). I went to another room, again using your practice was able to fall asleep and wake up around 6AM. So to take your practice a little further, the "waking up" part. Sorry I am not clear what you are saying there. I also looked up hypnogogic states which you mentioned in your original post. [what I call the practice of "Waking Up and Falling Asleep", which is concerned with the role of hypnogogic states in daily life] The issue that i am trying to fix during the working day is information overload, processing large volume of data. So the goal, the desired 'state' is to remain unemotional, unattached during the day working day, while processing large volumes of data and making a dozen of so important decisions. Qigong, meditation helps quite a bit, but not the sustained 'state' I am looking for, lasting hours at a time. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated, I am intrigued by your comment about role of hypnogogic states during the day. All the best.

Alert, be careful out there. leading republican candidate Rick Santorum is warnig us that America is being attacked by Satan. I fear for my life. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-3J7J0r-w0

great post. my issue is somewhat similiar, information overload. being subjected to voluminous amount of data at work. most of it unimportant. i think your idea of re-directing the senses is quite innovative. seeing by the ears. I tried a quick visualization. so the information flows from the computer screen directly into the ears this visualization actaully has a interesting effect. a lack of emotional involvement. a detachement sense of observation. may experiment with adding other senses, like skin etc to catch as you write 'subtleties in our environment.' good stuff, all the best.

Hi Mark, so I tried your practice last night. My ideal sleep time should be from 10PM-6AM I woke up at 4:30AM, after a quick drink of water. returned to bed and tried your practice. I hope I did it correctly, I was somewhat surprized that my mind moved around quite a bit. not fast, but in slow motion the awareness would shift, from left cheek to right side of torso etc. The end result was a light sleep state, but I was glued to the bed and then woke up exactly at 6AM, feeling refreshed like I had a complete 8 hours of sleep. If I am able to gain control over my sleep that would be very significant step for me indeed. Could you please provide some feedback if I did it correctly? All the best PS. I also checked out Tood Murphy. didn't realize that there is a subject - neurotheology! http://www.shaktitechnology.com/Video_sacred_body.htm

good example. so there is EVENT-->INTERNAL RESPONSE--->ACTION INTERNAL RESPONSE is highly dependent upon Values, past experiences, emotional state etc so the resulting ACTION, in the example above, one could 'sock him in face' or say something rude or funny or polite or just stay quite. I think this is where buddhist meditation of letting thoughts come and go without labels shines. The correct action imho would be to stay quite, a high level being would even help the person who cut you off unload the groceries. I have difficulty with this, I don't think this is 'Observing without judegment' but 'observing with X?'.

Thank you for the link to your article. could you please elaborate on what you mean by physical sense of location in space? so you mean this literally, i mean objects in the room etc. If you can please give an example. so my issue, is waking up around 3AM on most nights, then trouble falling asleep. "In my experience, the practice is the same, whether I am waking up or falling asleep: when I realize my physical sense of location in space, and realize it as it occurs from one moment to the next, then I wake up or fall asleep as appropriate."

good topic and discussion. could you please elaborate on your above statement? do you see a difference in 'observing without judgement' in work vs personal life. at work it seems there are outside rules imposed by the employer. we are all told to act 'professional' in personal life its all about past experiences, emotions, ego, past drama.

really good analysis and solution Gerard. much appreciated. Thanks will look into some of the remedies suggested. inspired by Trunk's Tea theard a while back, I now brew a thermos full of jasmine tea with some cardimon. have to try puerh tea soon. all the best

Speaking of the placebo effect. Well, just to share, my five year old daughter suffers from Psoriasis. She develops these small patches on her hands, arms and legs. I asked kempomaster, a student of YaMu, to do a healing. A distant healing at that, we are in New York, kempomaster somewhere in cow country midwest My daughter was not told of the healings. Her bedtime is 8PM on school days, the distant healing took place at 11PM during her sleep. Two days later, 90% of psoriasis was gone. A week later now, she is still free of psoriasis. All that was sent to kempomaster, was a photo of my daughter and a brief description. I actually have before and after pictures, they are just amazing to look at. I don't know what to make of all of this, its so outside my scope of understanding, but I am happy to take the positive results... http://daoisthealingenergies.com/

This is great information Gerard. A question for you please, I greatly suffer from the afternoon slump. So about 30 minutes after lunch I get totally drained of energy, can hardly stay awake. In terms of the five elements what is going on and what can be done to remedy this? Part of my practice is the five elements, should I focus on increasing one of the elements after lunch? Thank you

thank you for sharing. i find healing a complicated subject, I worry about transference of karma from the sick. if bad karma causes sickness, where does it go when you heal someone? YaMu(michael lomax) in his book gets into the issues of healing. I believe he advices a protective sheild to be used by the healer. regarding practice, he says in the book, one needs to practice for three hours a day in order to do healings.

amen about the smile and the middle road. during the dark days of my practice, having a smile made a lot of difference. the day would go better if I had a smile during the practice.

i find this subject confusing as well. so here is master chunyi lin showing his healing method. I believe he says that students can start doing the healings right away, after minimal practice. that this is a natural ability we all have. others say, that not only you can hurt the other person, but the healer if he/she doesn't have sufficient chi build up can hurt themselves? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD032QVYvKE&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD032QVYvKE&feature=related

After practising at home for about a year, starting to think about the benefits of group practice. a referral from Encephalon, led me to master C K Chu. So I singed up for his neigong worksshop this weekend. just curious if there are students here of CK Chu, or anyone else going to his Sunday workshop? http://www.chutaichi.com/ all the best

Its hard to top the kundalini yoga dance workout, but just wanted to mention that the documentary 'A ZEN LIFE' about D T Suzuki is now available via Netflix. I watched it last night. He had a hard early life, his father passed away when he was six. He grew up in extreme poverty, his mother was then too poor to send him to school, D T Suzuki taught himself English and then in his teenage years taught English at a middle school to earn money. His mother passed away when he was twenty. His brother died when ten. This adversity forced him towards Zen and we all benefied as a result. This little man, single handedly brought Zen to the West. Just amazing! http://www.azenlife-film.org/dvd.htm

hello, starting in March, I am interested in learning about Traditional Chinese medicine. So interested in learning about Yin/Yang, Qi, Five Elements, Meridians, Herbs. Essentially a condensed version of what is taught in the first year of TCM curriculum. I have been practicing Qigong for about a year, what is missing is a theoretical foundation. So anything you can teach me to strengthen my practice is much appreciated. Thanks.

How does one go about developing Taoist INTENT? From what I understand INTENT is very different from the traditional INTENTION. INTENT is devoid of emotion, anxiety and caring about the results. This 'non-caring' about the results I find very interesting. Any thoughts, refferal to books/articles is greatly appreciated. INTENT is widely used in Qigong healings. I am interested in using it for Goal achievement. A goal could be anything, from a perfect score on a college admissions test or weight loss 20 lbs/15 kg. One thought, while standing in Zhan Zhuang, use inner dissolving on the goal. So this would help dissolve the blocks that prevents one from achieving the goal. However not sure if this is same as INTENT? Thanks