humbleone

very interesting, this opens up a whole new world to me. As a firey person, I have been craving water for a long time! I appreciate your reply. all the best. Chinese Taoist Meditation: The Water Meditations of Lao Tzu As water wears away rock, so the Water-Meditations of Lao Tzu wear away obstacles to our spiritual growth, leading us gently inward to the core of our being. This unique meditation tradition from the Tao Te Ching uses the energies of body, heart and mind, to resolve difficulties and attain a clear and relaxed spirituality.

A slight departure from chinese tea. I like drinking Moroccan tea, always served in a thick glass. sweet green tea served with mint or sage. It is something about drinking tea in a glass, looking at the colors I find heart warming

As someone new to Taoism I find it quite confusing and fragmented. Thank you for your recommendation, Eva Wong's book. Just added to my christmass reading list. It appears to sell(used paperback version) on Amazon for 3 cents! Yeas ago I read Thomas Cleary 'The Art of War'. Made popular by the moive Wall Street, on Gordon Gekkos reading list . I didn't realize that Thomas Cleary has done numerous other translations. Many Taoist books in particular. http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=thomas+cleary+books&tag=googhydr-20&index=stripbooks&hvadid=7172384707&ref=pd_sl_cwoggh9da_b#/ref=sr_pg_2?rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Athomas+cleary+books&page=2&keywords=thomas+cleary+books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322481835

From a layperson who is still finding his way, here is my list. (great idea cameron) Ram Dass - I credit him for opening the world of spirituality to me, back in the 1980's. harvard professor turned indian mystic. Shunryu Suzuki-roshi - Zen mind, Beginners mind sufi Aziz sahib - a sufi in stealth. Will never show his great spiritual power/entities in public falun gong, Li Hongzhi- powerful complete system. I shared an office for 5 years with one of his disciples. My first initiation into the Daoist world Sifu Jenny Lamb - this woman can turn a chair into a cat. A powerful no nonsense teacher Max Christensen - my next project! eternally grateful to him for making kunlun public Tao Bums website - frankly all of you have done much to further my journey, thanks! All the best.

CBS 60 minutes show did a two part segment on Steve jobs after his death. worth watching This is a quote from his new authorized biography, "He was, he believed, "enlightened", a luminary to be ranked with Gandhi or Einstein." http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7385688n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox despite his obvious genius, not sure why he had so much anger and hostility in him towards others. In his personal life he was downright mean and nasty.

Great thread. Thank you for sharing Cameron. A beginners prospective: I started learning Kunlun from Max's book about 10 months ago. Then attended a one day workshop by Max's student. Followed by the DVD by sifu Jenny Lamb. I am extermely sensitive, so I have come to terms that I can (some may find this amusing) practice kunlun only 4 minutes a day! Then i spend another 3-4 minutes in closing. This seems to be enough for me. Even this brief snippet of kunlun every day seems to bring about interesting effect. I have not seen the dark side of kunlun. I agree with the poster who said kunlun seems to bring up and release whatever negativity is stored up within the practitioner. If anyone is interested in learning kunlun, sifu jenny lamb's DVD is really excellent. She calls it Spontaneous Adjustment Qigong. btw she is also available for private consultation online via skype, so one need not travel. I have found the 'precautions' that Max talks about in the book very helpful. Don't do kunlun and then fall asleep. take a break from it and have a restive period. proper posture, the smile, stool without a back. sheep skin. all good...

Thanks for the headsup on the horseboy documentary. a very moving story. the boy and the shamans aside, the most remarkable character in the movie I thought was the boys father. a great display of unconditional love for his son. really awesome to watch. I believe the family has gone on now to start a center in TX that caters to autistics and animal healing. btw. the movie also available on Netflix

Good topic and great replies. I think Allan Watts who i can listen to all day, offers in this case dangerous advice. If one is married with children things change. I like many others have a dual life. I hold a silly job in corporate america that pays well, but my real passion in life has never earned me a dime. hard choices. I think spirituality is where we find balance and peace.

Hello, Is anyone here familiar with The akashic records, and methods to access them? Thanks. "The akashic records (akasha is a Sanskrit word meaning "sky", "space" or "aether") is a term used in theosophy (and Anthroposophy) to describe a compendium of mystical knowledge encoded in a non-physical plane of existence. These records are described as containing all knowledge of human experience and the history of the cosmos. They are metaphorically described as a library; other analogies commonly found in discourse on the subject include a "universal supercomputer" and the "Mind of God". People who describe the records assert that they are constantly updated automatically and that they can be accessed through astral projection[1] or when someone is placed under deep hypnosis."

youtube and meditation in the hills of bandu republic aside. When I google "access akashic records". The links that show up seems to be in two categories. 1) hypnosis 2) prayer (new age types). Just wondering if the taoist and the buddhist have anything to say on this subject? Here is what one hypnosis exercise is like: Access the Akashic Records Exercise by Dr. Bruce Goldberg 1. Use any of the previous self-hypnosis or other exercises to relax and apply white light protection. Lie down or sit in an easy chair, and when you are relaxed turn your attention inward and center it on the area of the third eye. See it glow with a golden white radiance and feel it pulsate with energy. As you do this, your realization of the sounds, colors, and temperature in the room around you should gradually fade, and as they do so the subtle psychic stirring will become more noticeable. 2. At first, this may be only an impression of inner light or of brilliantly illuminated geometrical figures, or of stars shooting by in ordered procession, or some other visual appearance which will probably be meaningless. Or your first impression may be of sound, as I have previously described. 3. Focus your mind, not on the Akashic records themselves, but on a specific historical event for your initial trails. For example, I suggest you study first the discovery of radium by Marie Curie or the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. 4. Your next step is to go to that historical event and ask yourself: "What happed that afternoon?" If you have properly prepared yourself, you will find yourself drifting into a scenario-like dream. 5. In the earlier stages or your development you will not get clearly defined contacts that you can recognize as such, so don't expect them. Accept the dream-like sequence that passes before your consciousness as you sit in reverie. Remember what you observe and write it down as soon as possible thereafter. 6. During these practice sessions your should "feel" this connection between your waking consciousness and the Akasha. When this has been accomplished and you can recall and incident from the past as simply as you can look up an account in the encyclopedia, you are then ready to move on to next step. 7. The next step is to repeat the previous steps, omitting the preparation phase consisting of reading about the historical event. 8. Next, check your data with specialty books written about that event in detail, not merely an encyclopedia summary. 9. After successful completion of this step, move on to your own future. Begin with a short range, say one week to a month. Log all of your observations into a journal and occasionally verify the accuracy of your prophecies. 10. With a proven track record, you are now ready to venture much further ahead in time in your current life. Try five years, ten years, fifty years, and so on. 11. You may move several hundred years into the future and explore future lives. My book Past Lives--Future Lives (1988) and Soul Healing (1996) describe nearly twenty such cases as far forward as the thirty-eighth century! 12. Lastly, tap into the general Akasha and allow your consciousness to tune into future world events, inventions, lifestyle changes, and so on.

Just organising my thoughts. So the point of CT and Creativity is to find a solution to a problem. The problems can be of many different types, hard science like the one Einstein/Newton worked on. Still others shall we say are human issues, communications related. for example what is the best way to get Gaddafi of Libya to step down. Someone in a post mentioned metaphysics. I don't know how many saw the movie Seven years in Tibet. There was a story told, when the Dali Lama is trapped in Lhasa by the Chinease forces in 1952. They consulted an 'Oracle'. The Oracle goes in a trance and comes up with a counter-intutive solution. The solution was for Dali Lama to go right through, in-between the ranks of the chinease forces...and that worked, dali lama made his escape to India. CT - logic Creativity - non grasping nature of mind, right brain activity. Metaphysical solution Sharing my experience, interestingly Taoist/qigong type cultivation for me seems to enhance all three. CT, Creativity for sure. From what little I have practiced cultivation, I have seen a tremendous increase in all three. The solutions to small everyday problems seem to come at a rapid fire pace, too quick for CT/logical mind to work them out. but I am able to explain the solution in CT/logical terms. This is all very interesting, work in progress...

Great thread, and really good informative posts. Thanks. This is a subject I have looked into quite a bit. imo Analytical thinking and creativity are mutually exclusive. The two have to be developed and nurtured independently. It is like mixing fire and water. analytical thinkiing water will extinguish the creative fire. One has nothing to do with the other.

Not sure which method/path advocates no thought, or forces cessation of thought. Could you please elaborate?

The Kite Runner http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419887/ Winters Bone http://www.wintersbonemovie.com/ both emotionally charged movies.

Thank you all for your kind replies. Very useful information, frankly much of it is beyond my understanding. Interesting comments about anchoring, pavlov conditioning. I think at my basic level, this is what is probably happening. What is working for me is intention + mudra. Without the intention the mudra seems less effective. I did order couple of books from Amazon. Thanks.

Thank you all for your replies. I tried some basic mudras in the last few days with interesting results. The effect seems immediate. From what i have read, the hand is a micro-cosom representing the five elements. There is a energy center in the palm. Thus the 'healing hands'. Apparently Buddha was very familiar with these properties. Alas much of the knowledge has been lost. I have read conflicting accounts, the subject seems very complex.Thanks.

I am enjoying reading this thread. Sun Tzu - The Art of War, a book I read eons ago. A good reminder to re-read it. This is by David Li, a scholar of Sun Wu's writings. When one reads the 13 chapters, one must be struck by the theme as expressed by Sun Tzu. The theme is not war but, rather, on its avoidance; the focus is not on winning by waging a war, but on winning by not engaging in a war. To that extent, Sun Wu was greatly influenced by Li Er (popularly known as Lao Tzu, Confucius's senior by some 20 years), who wrote Dao De Jing, and who expressed exactly this view in DDJ. True, many chapters beyond the first chapter in Sun Tzu's work do deal with various aspects of preparing for, and winning, a war, a defensive war. This is also the view expressed in DDJ -- fight a defensive war if one is forced to; when forced to fight, fight to win, but do not rejoice after winning; treat winning a war as undertaking a funeral.

I have heard that Sun Tzu - The Art of War, is required reading at the US Military academy West Point. Sadly many Hedge fund managers and Wall street executives are also very found of the book. In the movie Wall Street, Bud Fox says, Sun-tzu: If your enemy is superior, evade him. If angry, irritate him. If equally matched, fight, and if not split and reevaluate. Gordon Gecko says, I don't throw darts at a board. I bet on sure things. Read Sun-tzu, The Art of War. Every battle is won before it is ever fought. There are also intellectuals that argue that Chess was invested by General Han Xin to illustrate the teachings of Sun Tzu.

Hello, This problem has been haunting my meditation practice for the past 20 years. Whenever I meditate I have a great experience. However the next day and day after, my anxeity and agitation goes up dramatically. rapid heart beat, sweaty palms etc. If I continue to meditate, the problem gets worse and worse forcing me to stop. So I stop and go in hibernation for a few months, at times for few years. This anxeity/agitation increase also happens if I do hypnosis, simple muscle relaxation techniques. So it happens with anything I do to quiten myself. basic zen meditation etc. I was recently given some great advice, and that is to spend time on closing. Bring the energy down to the lower dan tien. This helped quite a bit. Cut the symptoms down by 50%. I am pleased to say I am now doing daily practice for 1/2 hr. but the symptoms do show up and at times very strong. I would be grateful if any one has advice on how to fix this dreaded issue. Thanks very much.

great post Markern. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. I am going to follow-up on all the points listed and report back. I think what startled me couple of months ago was a serious road rage episode while driving. All of this with my wife and young children in the car. Since then I have taken upon myself to fix this issue. All the best.

I checked out the site you listed www.neikungla.com. It lead me to this http://www.chutaichi.com/chu.shtml I actually live in NYC. I am going to visit this place and try to meet with grand master C K Chu. Will report back. Thanks very much. You have been of great help blasto.

Blasto, I sent Taomeow a message. Hopefully she will reply. Thank you for the referral. I have looked into this problem I have with meditation quite a bit. Have been to many Zen monastaries in the USA, have been told to just work through the issue. Problems/stress after meditation is quite common, I checked out this thread(see below). It has some interesting information about chemical changes in the brain after meditation. Which is understandable. but there must be a way to fix this issue. http://www.openbuddha.com/2002/09/06/the-dangers-of-mediation/ All the best. PS. Regarding TM, Amazon.com has a few books, most appear to be their marketing material. There is one however written by a critic of TM which i may get. TM organization protects their techniques like they are the NSA.

I found out about Kunlun and Max recently. Took a kunlun workshop conducted by a facilitator trained by max. Then via this great website taobums found out about Jenny lamb. Got her DVD - spontaneous healing qigong, which is same as kunlun. After being stagnant for many years, my daily practice is thriving. I may do a private consultation with Jenny Lamb. I think Max's Kunlun, has done more than anyone around to bring in new people into the Taoist fold. At the workshop I met people who if it was not for Kunlun, they would have never been exposed to serious spirituality. I thank Max everyday for writing the book and making Kunlun public. All the best.

I thank everyone for their comments. I am in the process of checking out all the suggestions offered. taobums has opened up a new world for me that I didn't know existed. Unfortunatly for a lay person like myself who starts to seek alternative forms of spirituality. Zen buddhism, Yoga, Indian based meditation (yogananda, transcedental meditation etc) is what we all look at first. Taoism is well camouflaged. I think most find their way to Taoism through their interest in martial arts. New agers I believe have done a disservice to Taoism to keep it hidden from most. they cheapened the chi. I have looked at Zen buddhism for a long time. Attended weekend residential retreats etc. Certainly among the educated elite, Zen and other forms of buddhism, vipassana meditation etc has taken hold. I must say after having looked at both, zen buddhism is a slow train to enlightment. Taoist have a leg up on most practices. All the best.