RedKooga

Wearing anything that does not constrict blood flow and allows the skin to breath properly is a good thing. Also, if a material irritates the skin even slightly it interferes with Chi Kung in my experience. It's probably something to do with the blood flow to the skin being generally increased when practising. Materials that have a tendency to produce static electricity, UGH! Avoid those like anything. Not sure about the shoes thing. Bare feet on soft earth is always best but wearing something like large rubber soled trainers doesn't seem to be a problem imo, as long as they don't pinch and I can move my toes around. Not being 'advanced' you might want to take all that with a pinch of salt.

The image in the top right hand corner is 115x115. Is this the right dimension for submitted pics? Below is a possible image. I have the info about it somewhere (its very old) but I can't find it. I'm going to fix my scanner over the weekend so might post much better images from the hefty tomes on Taoist art I have at my flat. BTW I noticed that the top right image reloads everytime it is displayed instead of using the local browser cache. It could just be a Firefox thing.

Ginseng used to be my wonder herb. If I take it now it really screws me up and I don't know why. Instead I spend a small fortune on a various high strength antioxidants plus a sprinkling of personally helpful supplements. Interesting combination for men I found while at University: Take Ginseng, zinc supplement, Vit B complex and eat a lot of celery for about a week and the sex drive should go into turbo.

Ninjutsu is the real ultimate power

One of the few practices I kept up after cutting off my involvement with Ceremonial Magick groups was a solar adoration exercise often called (Liber) Resh. It was done four times a day, once at dawn, once at midday, once at sunset, and once at midnight. Each phase of the sun had a certain feel to it, and definitely charged me up. I realise now that its power came from being a gazing thing as well as being an invocation of the symbolic/inner sun, though I never looked directly at the sun (and still won't). After a while I came across the Salutation to the Sun yoga exercise and a Christian friend who'd seen me doing Resh gave me notes on a Christian prayer version of the solar adoration by way of saying 'we are one'. So, I decided to strip the exercise of its Thelemic specific symbolic gestures and just used gestures that felt for me personally more appropriate to the universal archetype of those phases of the sun. A couple of years later on I changed it so much it would now only make sense to myself! You can find the original Thelemic version on this Webpage. I thought I'd type out my old personalised version in case it was interesting to anyone or could spark some extra ideas for your own gazing. The way I've done it is if I was telling myself how to do it. At Dawn face eastwards to the sun and extend your arms in a T shape as if you are lifting up. Take on the image of the Egyptian God Ra and say, "Hail unto thee who art Ra in thy rising, even unto thee who art Ra in thy strength, who travellest over the heavens in thy bark at the uprising of the Sun. Hail unto thee from the abodes of night." Really imagine the strength of this God lifting the Sun up, and because you have taken on the image of this God, let that strength transfer onto you. This is the enormous effort that everything has when it is in infancy and has to overcome so many obstacles. Unify with that power. Absorb the Sun's energy and really gaze. Do whatever feels appropriate. When you've finished make a small bow. At midday face southwards to the sun and lift your arms and face to the sun in an euphoric gesture. Take on the image of the God Hathor and say, "Hail unto thee who art Ahathoor in thy triumphing, even unto thee who art Ahathoor in thy beauty, who travellest over the heaves in thy bark, at the mid-course of the Sun. Hail unto thee from the abodes of Morning." Fill yourself with the sense of solar magnificence at its peak, everything having been accomplished and the full potent beauty of Hathor all around. Take all that in, absorbing the Sun's energy, then finish with a small bow. At sunset face westwards to the sun and bring your hands together in the most common 'prayer' pose. Take on the image of the God Tum and say, "Hail unto thee who art Tum in thy setting, even unto thee who art Tum in thy joy, who travellest over the heavens in thy bark, at the down-going of the Sun. Hail unto thee from the abodes of Day." Invoke an ecstatic, rapturous, close to death feel. Burn brightly just before darkness, release, submit, let it all pour out. Kind of like the feeling you get when something of great effort that had paid off is now truly at its end over and the celebration has begun. Gaze, absorb, unify, then finish off. At midnight face northwards to the (now hidden) sun and bow as if dead, completely 'yin', or whatever seems appropriate. Take on the image of the God Khephra and say, "Hail unto thee who art Khephra in thy hiding, even unto thee who art Khephra in thy silence, who travellest over the heavens in thy bark, at the midnight hour of the sun. Hail unto thee from the abodes of evening." The silence and darkness are all consuming, yet although everything is veiled from view, the unknowable source of irrepressible lifeforce is present, it cannot be destroyed and will rise again in a new and unexpected form. Stay silent, stay still, be absorbed yourself in this state, then finish off with a small bow. Some basic depictions of the Gods mentioned in Resh can be found below: - Ra Hathor Tum Khephra

That's great Sean! With someone with CM background I feel right at home. Thanks for chatting btw Yoda that mono-no-aware feeling makes up my everyday emotional background and seems to be getting stronger as I get older. Definately connected with meditation for me. Incidentally I'm thinking of starting up a part-time webdesign business and calling it mono no aware webdesign. I just can't think what else to call it.

My blog at http://redkooga.blogspot.com/ has a few links to other blogs on it already but I want more Taoist/training orientated blogs if poss. Does anyone want me to link to theirs on Tao Bums? Also, if you have any links to Qi Gong blogs and the like I would be happy as a sand boy.

Those must be the immortal masters who are usually invisible even to Administrators/Moderators. Auspicious sign!

Cool article. Using the energy from the kind of sexual dynamics that happen everyday seems kind of instinctive (since everything is cultivation)

I do a lot of sexy girl gazing. Maybe it gives me more 'yin' chi (whatever that is) Yum

Awesome. Another blog to read. A Tai Chi student/teacher I knew for a while attended a weekend class where people were doing this. He thought it was wrong, like some kind of hysteria! In practice it turned out to have a similar effect as the expelling stagnant chi and 'rag doll' warm up exercises we were taught by our teacher if done lightly and could shake off minor chi blockages when done with more vigour. I like it, but I can hurt myself with a kind of whip lash action if I get too carried away.

All sounds very esoteric. That's cool but it's a big turn off for me. As I see it its necessary to have been practising for quite some time for the more esoteric stuff to serve as anything other than a wishy washy Star Wars fantasy. And, if you have been practising for quite some time then you will have found your own esoteric truths in the natural course of your practice. There are too many books sold that purport to reveal esoteric secrets and not enough people dealing with the everyday realities of practicing effectively in the west. Piss and moan, piss and moan, etc.

Sorry for the delay on this. Anyway, the meditation is basically to focus on an imagined shape and keep it held in the mind. Any simple shape will do. Blue square, red triangle, yellow circle, etc. Like in most meditation exercises when the mind wanders just bring it back. That also means keeping the shape stationary with the same dimensions, hue, and features. Because you focus the mind on an imaginary shape rather than your own breathing, body or some externally solid object like a candle it builds up the mind's ability to hold (often abstract) visual information and hence a great improvement to visual memory is possible. As you get better, based on your own judgement you can make the mental object of your focus more complex. Thats it! Thats all. When i say, "improvement to visual memory" it can be quite significant. For example, when I was using this meditation a great deal building up to my first year exams I was surprised to find that when the exams themselves came around I had a photographic memory. Not only could I recall the actual pages of my notes in their entirety that referred to the question in hand but also all the little details like smudges and coffee stains too! Just a further point. At that time having a fierce concentration was my principle aim. Instinctually I changed my diet so to avoid foods that seemed to 'dull' concentration. I wanted 'sharpness' and for some reason this mostly equated to avoiding diary products, anything too high in sugar, caffeine, etc. in favour of fish, salads, plenty of water, lalala. When I wasn't meditating I would often imagine a point on my forehead of infinite sharpness that projected out to anything I was looking at. It was like a walking meditation. This seemed to help too. I'm not suggesting you try those things as well, what I'm trying to get at is if you've really made your mind up to do a certain thing your instincts will suggest ways to go about things that will help you. None of that would ease the sleep problem of course, but, divide and conquer!

I should add too that before I went for my long retreat in the countryside I was Mr Hang Up. Emotional hang-ups, sexual hang-ups, religious hang-ups, you name it I had it. Life wasn't particularly pleasurable so to leave it all behind didn't seem so bad. After that several year long 'retreat' those hang-ups had for the most part mysteriously disappeared. I was so much more relaxed. It was a brave new world and I could really engage with everything, really get down and dirty with it all. That too saw many of my hang-ups slowly dissipate or simply become far clearer to me so that I could at least understand that its not so much a case of escaping or beating them into submission as it is of letting them go.

I've come across that email group several times before. It's very impressive. That post too, is very impressive. The technique he describes is very similar to the one I've gotten most out of. I recognise some of the stages though it seems I missed out on 'all-pervading light' and went to the state of general physical bliss followed by that 'bliss of physical compliancy' thing. I think I was also lucky in that all of it happened without me thinking of it as spiritual. I just thought it was some kind of pleasant side effect so carried on till I guess I got to passadhi and had a rather sweeping satori experience. A while after that I screwed up and didn't practice much for so long that it kind faded and I needed to start all over, doh! The trouble was I just didn't maintain the rather restrictive lifestyle that had been a boon to practice for the months and months I was committed to it. Easy when I was living by myself without anything but the open countryside as a distraction but then I moved to the city and my commitment wavered in favour of some probably long overdue sex, love, friendship, intellectual stimulation and partying. The commitment side of things is getting much easier as I get older though because I've pretty much exhausted the dark & splendid world of earthly pleasures, it gets real old too and takes more effort to maintain with far less back in return. Going for meditation ends up being a lot more bloody attractive instead hahah.

Regular exercise and fresh air yeppers. Also, having a definite routine can help. Always wake up at the same time regardless of whether you slept well for a while and your body learns the pattern pretty well. If you have trouble sleeping at the set time then go into meditative state. I've found it can considerably take the edge off missed sleep and in some cases even mostly replace it. Something to try might be these things called 'natural alarm clocks'. If you Google around I'm sure you'll find one. You set a time for sleeping and waking and they imitate the setting & rising sun in tune with that. A friend introduced me to them and waking up was a case of springing to my feet almost as soon as I opened my eyes. No promises though. I only got to borrow it from my friend because it didn't work for her. Heightened memory and sharp focus can be side effects of meditation practice. There is a particular exercise I know that can enhance those in particular but I don't know that they could be called a quick route. It takes some time and quite a lot of effort. If you want I could post that meditation exercise I found really helped those two plus the kind of mindset/attitude that worked with it if it sounds like something you might wanna try.

What's your take on sitting meditation? If you do practice a form of sitting meditation in addition to your Qi Gong exercises, what kind do you practice? Just curious

Yip yip! Awesome.

To get really grounded and 'empty minded' I think it's a good idea to go for an undisturbed extended meditation retreat, for at least a year, at some time in your life. I did this at 21 and although it was the most difficult thing I have ever attempted it cut through my neuroses and other assorted mental fracas with sublime skillful violence.

Another of Shou Lou. Not so good but wth.

I've not come across hollow happiness in any of the meditation or Yoga/Chi Kung groups I've frequented, though the idea sounds like someone scraping a steel fork across a ceramic plate! Its usually hollow politeness or tranquillity or superiority I encounter. Not always a reason to head for the door of course. If the members are willing to be honest with each other, why not try asking some open questions and relaying your impressions? On the other hand if it just feels like a waste of time then do what you have to. It always comes down to your own practice in the end.

Yoda raves are great but xtc is a little dubious. In my opinion something like a few hours of Chi Kung and Tai Chi Chu'an followed by a self-induced sensuous/ecstatic trance is a much better alternative to xtc for those who have the alternative. ... When I was about eighteen I had several close friends who practiced Golden Dawn style Magick. Often we'd hold ritual meetings before turning the temple into a dancefloor for a few hours then head on into town. Those evenings were always highly charged. :twisted: Just reminiscing.

Though it's common to say 'all roads lead to Rome' different practices produce different effects. If circumstances are permitting I think it's great if sitting meditation can be practiced alongside Qi Gong or something like Hatha Yoga. They compliment each other so well. Sean very interested in that White Skeleton exercise. Would love you to snail mail it to me or you could give me a link where I could purchase it myself.

The closest I've come to 'sacred dance' was going to a particular nightclub while at Uni. There was a room set aside for the serious dancers, very little in the way of drinking or flirting going on (though these people were darn sexy), and the decks were open. Regulating the breath in time with the music and chanting a mantra to myself if the music wasn't already supplying I'd completely bliss out. It was like some kind of primal dance therapy. By the end of the night I would have total endorphin/serotonin overload.