Green Tiger

I was not aware of that. I'm not looking for new practices, just trying to clarify terms. When researching these topics I feel like a lot of chinese words get thrown at me and I'm lacking the language context to have a firm grasp of what the author is talking about. In this case, I was starting to get the impression that shen gong was (as PFL said) a sort of mental yoga. If, as you say, s-m is a sort of shen gong (and PFL seems to corroborate this when he says the work of shen gong is "to focus on the EMPTINESS") then I think I was mistaken. Thanks for the response, lady! How is your shen gong going these days?

No kidding? I wonder what about quiscent qigong causes shock and wildly erratic blood pressure? Thanks for the quick and interesting response!

How long did you stay with these monks? It sounds like you had good experiences while meditating with them, yeah? I was also reminded of Bohi Dharma (Da Mo) when I read this. I definitely prefer to have a practice that invigorates my body and clears my mind, but maybe that's a desire that these Buddhists would not cling to. *shrug* Do they desire not to desire? As I understand chi cultivation, it shouldn't take much more than relaxation and proper alignment for them to at least build a noticable amount of qi in their bodies over that much time. It is very surprising they claim not to have noticed anything. A wise woman once told me that everyone's path is different. I don't know what sort of path these folks are on, but if they were all haggard and unhealthy, I don't think it's a path I want to travel. I love hearing about these methods those. Thanks for sharing your experience! That might be 3 cents. Keep the change.

Losing your virginity is sort of like learning Tai Chi: If you start off training with someone who is as clueless as you are, you're gonna have a bad time.

It sounds like the beginning practices in this new book may be similar to some beginining practices described in previous books. For example, from Chinese Medical Qigong Therapy, pages 323-324: In the first stage, the anus is contracted with slight muscle control, and the energy is directed into different energy centers along the Microcosmic Orbit. When first beginning, inhale and expand the abdomen while imagining that the anus is connected to the navel and is pulling up towards it. On the exhalation, contract the abdomen and draw the energy from the navel back down towards the anus. Next, inhale and create a connection between the anus and the Mingmen. On the exhalation, draw the energy from the Mingmen back down towards the anus. It is important to synchronize the drawing up of the anus towards the navel and Mingrnen area with the expansion and contraction of inhalation and exhalation. This will facilitate a sacral-cranial rhythm throughout the body. In the next stage of training, the constriction of the anus is used to lead the energy up the Governing Vessel in the Microcosmic Orbit. Upon inhalation, draw the mind's intention from the navel towards the anus and then down to the tip of the spine (the coccyx), allowing the Qi to flow up the spinal column towards the Mingmen, past the Shendao to the base of the skull. Upon exhalation, roll the eyes back into the head and use the intention to meet the energy at the base of the skull. Next, lead the energy over the Baihui at the top of the head and down the Conception Vessel and back down to the naval. At the third stage, imagine twisting the energy of the anal sphincter, spiraling the Qi up the center of the body, to connect with the Baihui area at the top of the head. Close the anal muscle gently, inhale and imagine the energy vibrating and spiraling in a counterclockwise direction up the body's TaijiPole. This connects the Lower, Middle, and Upper Dantians through the TaijiPole. Upon exhalation, lead the vibrating Qi down the TaijiPole in a clockwise spiral ending within the Lower Dantian area. Continue this meditation until the entire body pulses with the rhythm of the Taiji Pole.

Good post. I also find the opposite is true, though--rather than drag yourself into the shower, you could just not shower at all. Take it to the extreme. See how long you can go without showering. By the time you do finally break down and jump in, you might find that your aversion to showers (and whatever chakra blockage is associated with that) has dissolved.

Indeed. I have the original Chinese Medical Qigong Therapy he wrote back in 2000, as well as Vol. 1&2 of his Internal Martial arts books. I remember hearing him say in an interview that he planned to put everything he knew in his books so he could just come back and read them when he reincarnated. I would be interested in doing a shared purchase of the book. I think I know a way we could share it effectively. PM me if you're interested. GT

AND he shoots fireballs from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his arse. . .

Can anyone independently verify that you are, indeed, a student of this John Chang? Frankly, with all of the fraud that has occurred surrounding the Mo Pai system, I can't read any statement of claim that someone knows the system or John Chang without rolling my eyes. Same goes for you, buddy. I don't really get the fixation on this system, aside from the challenge factor. Sure, its remote, exotic, and exclusive, but so are a lot of resorts and if I can't afford or get into the Four Seasons on Lanaii, I can always go to the Hilton Hawaiian Village on Oahu. The food is better there, anyway. Are you guys really all charged up about lighting newspapers on fire?

Rusty is a yoga instructor in San Francisco. Here is his platform: Denationalize Vatican City. Replace all cardinals with nuns. Bring complete equality to all women and men, including gay, bisexual and transgendered, setting a new world standard. Sanction and perform same-sex marriage. Ordain women to any post that any man is entitled. Eventually there will be no sexual division in the clergy. Each order will be co-ed and open to male, female and transgendered members. Clergy may marry should they wish to, or commit to celibacy or chastity at their own discretion. No bonus points either way. Clergy in all orders, male and female, will no longer dress differently than non-clergy. No more ring-kissing or feet washing. We will sell all luxury holdings (including art collections, etc) and invest in medical research to cure cancer and other diseases. Open clinics/hospitals, schools, and combat hunger and homelessness. All secret Vatican documents will be opened and reviewed by an unbiased committee. Any evidence of current or past wrongdoings will be revealed to the appropriate legal offices. Prosecute all sexual offenders currently protected in the clergy and those who have acted to protect and hide them from the law. We will offer the appropriate therapy for their recovery. Strip any questionable beatifications, including the present process of JP2. Churches will be humble safe-havens for prayer and worship and will never turn anyone away. Churches will go green and will steer the world in ways to combat the climate crisis. Compassion towards the planet will heal our earthly home. The Bible will be evaluated by a team of diverse scholars in order to present the most authentic original texts. Sermons of love, hope, and tolerance will replace any fear-based messages. No one will be threatened with going to Hell. Never, ever again. No more dogmas and no more excommunications. We will be very liberal about how each person interprets basic doctrines. Once I've accomplished these duties, I will relinquish the papacy to whomever the nuns choose, hopefully within one week so I can get back to my real job. rustywells.com Original article

Shaking is a way to release tension and trauma. Most animals do it naturally after a stressful encounter (with a predator, for instance). Humans seem to be out of touch with this instinctual reaction to stress. From Peter Levine, traumahealing.com

Care to share details? I don't think I've ever had a near death experience, per se, but there have been many times (both on drugs and off) when I have been concerned that I was going to die. I've also felt a very sad feeling of detachment from everything in some of those moments which I interpret as a kind of loneliness, but my suspicion is that that feeling is illusory and ego-centric. When I'm in deep meditation I feel like I sort of dissolve into everything and the idea of being alone or lonely is just impossible. The best thing to do is not to resist, though, in any situation. Stare into the abyss and let it stare back into you.

The God that can be called God, is not God.

I'm not sure what, if any, significance this has but I've been reading a very interesting book called Juice: Radical Taiji Energetics. The guy who wrote it seems to have some knowledge but also says some very off-the-wall things. In the section where he discusses the dan tien he tells an anecdote about a master who was asked about the dan tien. The master supposedly said, "The dan tien is full of shit." Which is, quite literally, true.

This horse was dead like . . . 10 pages ago. Still being flogged.

V, The information you have been presenting in this thread was previously presented in an essay titled "Christianity Uncovered" by (on second thought, I'll omit the author's name since, I'm assuming, it must be you). I couldn't find any indication that it was reviewed, praised, or condemned by any religious studies scholars, but the information has appeared verbatim here and on a number of other forums. I really enjoyed your article. Particularly the information about your personal journey and impetus behind your search for salvation. I question some of your research and would like to see your sources cited, but it seems obvious you have spent some time researching this subject. Although, I think you did most of it with a chip on your shoulder. It seems that you 'hope' to discredit a religion that you don't like. And haven't liked since childhood. Christianity is certainly not the lowest denominator of the world's ills. And that statement is also indicative of a prejudice that goes back to your childhood. Some very interesting points. In your historical account you neglected to mention that Jesus (aka Yeshua Ben Stada, Yeshua the Notzri, although these terms seem to be somewhat disputed) was baptized by John the Baptist. That account, which appears, in some form or other, in all four of the canonical gospels is one of the few events concerning Jesus about which there is little dispute of its historical truth. Hence, its inclusion in the gospels is not a fabrication. It must be part of the 5% of genuine information you allow, yes? After reading through your authoritative assertions that you can know or perhaps 'gnow' if someone (historical figures included) are enlightened or not, you must be an enlightened sage in addition to a religious studies major, no? I found a newspaper clipping about this gathering of Biblical scholars that took place in Sonoma, California. Unfortunately it did not mention how they came to their conclusions. It appeared to me that they simply took a vote, which means it is simply stated their opinions. There were not that many of them either. 40 or so, I think, and there was some dissension. If you have a more thorough account of what took place there, I would be interested in reading it. Also interesting to note, the Jesuit Rev. Edward Beutner was removed from service in 2002 for allegations of sexual abuse. I am not an expert on the subject of Flavius Josephus and his writings, but I remember learning (in one of those college courses on Christianity you recommended) that Christians interpolated a physical description of Jesus into his writings. I thought it seemed then that there were other references that were determined to be genuine. I'll have to defer to Wikipedia for that information: It seems that Josephus does corroborate some of the information from the gospels. I'm very interested in what you have to say about the foundations of Christianity and the Gnostic thought and mythology that influenced it. I agree that the collected saying of Jesus known as the Gospel of Thomas seems to have many examples of Gnostic thought. And, it is important to note that that book is also probably one of, if not THE earliest recording of the teachings of Jesus. It's not surprising that it would appear as a collection of sayings. The sayings of Jesus were probably transmitted orally in the first few years after his death and for the written recordings to evolve from there first as a collection of sayings is predictable. The narrative accounts came after, and were probably less accurate. I see now that you state that 95% of CHRISTIANITY is a fabrication, not the gospels. I'm sorry for my confusion. I still think your number is arbitrary, but I don't find it as outrageous when directed at the religion as a whole. I find a lot of profound wisdom in the gospels (both canonical and apocryphal) that I suspect originated with Jesus and I find it very hard to believe that most the teachings credited to him were fabricated by later authors. I couldn't find any information on how the gathering of Biblical scholars you refer to came to the conclusion that only one word from the sermon on the mount was genuinely from Jesus. This seems like something that would be near impossible to verify with any certainty. I would like to see the source. Even if it were true that only 1% of the sermon on the mount was genuine, I don't think you can make the conclusion that the whole religion is based on fabricated lies. By their fruits shall you know them. Obviously, corruption and evil has been perpetrated in the name of Jesus, but I attribute that to people misusing Jesus and twisting his teachings and also using the teachings of the Jewish prophets who came before him as though they were equal with his. I agree that he probably did not intend to create the sort of cult that grew after his death and he would be appalled to discover what a mess has been made in his name.

Wow! This discussion got REALLY interesting since I've last looked. I haven't been able to read it all thoroughly yet, but I would really like to know how you came to the 95% fabrication factoid. I agree that is is naive to think that 100% of the collected writings about Jesus and the things he said were actually accurate and said by him, but 95% fabricated? Com'n. I also think that a study of Jesus's teachings can be conducted via sound bytes. I would be interested to go through sound bytes to compare and examine. By their fruits shall you know them. You can surely recognize Wisdom and Truth when you see/hear it, right? Whoever said/wrote things like "And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back." (Luke 6:34-35) That person had some wisdom. Enlightened? Jury's still out. Whoever said/wrote things like: "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21). That person may have been close to enlightenment (which is a loaded word, I know, but you get the idea). There are some pretty profound teachings attributed to Jesus, especially for the time and place. Do you think each author just made it up him/her self? Doesn't it seem likely that they originated with some unique (possibly enlightened) individual, or small group of individuals whose teachings were just poorly recorded? I think calling it 95% fabrication is pretty exaggerated. I have no idea what the actual percent of fabrication might be, but I suspect it is much lower.

My thoughts exactly. I'm a big fan of Jesus, but Christianity choked out the gospel right from the beginning. Alan Watts says it best: And so the Christians said: Okay, okay, Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God but let it stop right there ... nobody else. So what happened was is that Jesus was pedestalized ... he was put in a position that was safely upstairs so that his troublesome experience of cosmic consciousness would not come and cause other people to be a nuisance. And those who have had this experience and expressed it during those times when the Church had political power were almost invariably persecuted. Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake, John Scotus was excommunicated, [sic] Meister Eckhardt's theses were condemned and so on and so on. A few mystics got away with it because they used cautious language. But you see what happens ... if you pedestalize Jesus, you strangle the gospel at birth and it has been the tradition of both the Catholic Church and in Protestantism to pass off what I will call an emasculated gospel. Gospel means good news and I cannot for the life of me think what is the good news of the gospel as ordinarily handed down. Because look here .. here is the revelation of God in Christ ... in Jesus ... and we are supposed to follow his life and example without having the unqiue advantage of being the boss' son. Now there is a much more subtle Christinity of the theologians, the mystics and the philosophers but it's not what gets preached from the pulpit, grant you. But the message of Billy Graham is approximately what I have given you and of all .. what I will call fundamentalist ... forms of Catholicism and Protestantism. What would the real gospel be? ... the real good news is not simply that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of God but that he was a powerful son of God who came to open everybody's eyes to the fact that you are too.

I used to think it was a product of the 'wild west' mentality we have in places like Texas where people still believe that cold steel is the answer to all of life's problems. Then I read some statistics about gun violence being mostly gang violence and decided that it was still a culture thing, only thug culture rather than cowboy culture. Now we've got wackjobs coming out of the woodwork, spraying innocent people due to some sick twisted desire for fame or maybe it's a disconnect they have with humanity or sanity or whatever makes people think that mass murder is a good way to go out. So I started to think that it was a mental illness thing, rather than a thug thing or a cowboy thing. But more and more, I'm starting to feel like it's an American thing. It's hard to tell, since almost 100% of the people I know are Americans and most of them seem pretty nonchalant about killing. I talk to my friends and most of them think that guns are necessary. Guns aren't the problem--they are the solution! We need more guns to kill all these bad bad people. We need an armed populace so that criminals are scared. Guns are the primary tool for personal protection. Mace is for pussies. Nunchucks? Really? What, do you think you're a ninja turtle or something? That makes me think of that kid down in Florida who got shot by a neighborhood watch patrolman. Mace or a tazer would have been a much more reasonable response there. When a gun is the only tool in your toolbox, every problem looks like a nail. Then there is the general sentiment about the military. We love our military. God Bless our service men and women. They protect our freedoms! They are all that stands between us and total, worldwide chaos. Our Military invades third-world countries who haven't attacked us or even threatened us and we don't really get all that excited about it. Sure a few hippies will protest, but that's just what hippies do. We seem to have redefined national defense to mean, "Kill anyone who doesn't seem to like us very much if we can get away with it." And usually, we can get away with it. We massacre a wedding party in Pakistan and all we have to do is make a formal apology, send the family a little monetary gift, and we wash our hands of it. "Here's some money, sorry we murdered your family. It was in the name of American freedom!" I really don't like it when people are murdered in my name. I feel I am a minority among my peers though. It doesn't seem to bother many people, or they are just too fascinated by some new app or sporting event to notice. So . . . I guess, aside from venting a bit, I'm curious what other people (particularly people in other countries) think about gun violence. Is there something about American culture that makes us less sensitive to this kind of thing, or are all my friends just sociopaths?

Sorry for the offense. If it eases your mind at all, I'm feeling more optimistic about the situation today! Why? Because the Tao tends toward balance, so the radicals will never win. HAPPY FRIDAY!!!

I thought I saw somewhere that we spend over 600 billion a year on defense. This does not seem to reflect that. :\ Oh, that's just quarter 1 . . . So we spend over twice as much on health and human services and social security administration than we do on defense? I'm suddenly more proud to be an American.

I feel I should also clarify that when I said that 'most people I know seem pretty nonchalant about killing' I should have said "several people I have talked to about the statements made by these individuals were sympathetic and seemed to consider large scale bloodshed to be par for the course with humanity. That surprised me. I thought most people would agree that world peace was not only desirable, but possible. I thought more people would find views that favor violence to be radical, but I have not been finding that to be the case."

The common person, maybe. I should hope there is nothing 'common' about the people to whom I am referring. They do not want peace. They want a civil war. They make daily public statements about how a civil war is inevitable, because (they think) a wide-scale gun seizure is just over the horizon. These are the same people who have been stocking up on firearms for years because they thought some sort of infrastructure meltdown was coming in 2012. That didn't happen, so now they're turning their focus to the next likely cause of infrastructure meltdown: civil war over gun rights. I agree that "all's good." I think the government is doing a pretty damn good job, considering what they've got to work with. I could see how they could have done a lot worse. What I don't understand is why some people (and I am really only referring to about ten people I know, mostly through Facebook, I should hope this is not more widespread but I suspect it is not isolated to these individuals) want to clang the alarm bell and a call to arms. I seriously think they want a war in their own backyard.

Southern Iowa. I suppose, if asked, "Do you like or abhor killing?" most of the people I have in mind would say that they abhor it. However, they would be very quick to point out the circumstances under which they would gun someone down without batting an eye. A home invasion, for instance, or (the current favorite scenario) a US Military-enforced seizure of firearms. It is not so much the indifference to killing, but actually the idealized killing fantasy that makes me feel uneasy. It's like these people have bought all these guns and would just love an excuse to use them on someone. The impetus for my post was mostly a reaction to the sentiment I've heard a lot lately that, "If the government wants my guns they'll have to pry them from my cold dead hands." I think the government is smart enough to realize that they would start a civil war if they tried to seize firearms. I don't think some citizens are smart enough to realize that stockpiling firearms is (at best) pointless and (at worst) dangerous. In their minds, I think they consider it a very prudent and practical thing to do. Like they actually expect a civil war or social chaos to erupt at any second. It's just unsettling to me that so many people I know seem enchanted by the idea of gun battle. I can't figure out why. Then again, I'm enchanted by the idea of kung fu battle so . . . maybe they've watched a lot of war movies. Played a lot of FPS video games. I don't know. Maybe guns just aren't my thing and I'm trying to relate to these people who seem so passionate about them. Additionally, when I've asked them how they feel about atrocities committed by our military, in our name, they have all asserted that these were unfortunate side-effects of a war for the greater good and, ultimately, acceptable. I feel pretty passionate about not putting our military in those sorts of circumstances and somehow feel I value human life more than some that I've spoke to. Or perhaps it is just that I value all human life equally and don't consider middle easterners to be 'second-rate humans' or whatever the trending derogatory nomenclature might be. If I look around the internet, it is easy to find web sites condemning the actions of the American military. Do these people live in Switzerland? I feel like no one around me would ever agree that anything the American military does could ever be wrong. Are we brainwashed? What gives? Then I turn the eye of scrutiny upon myself and ask, "What is it about me that makes me think differently?" I think it has a lot to do with the boxer revolution in China and the movie The Last Samurai. Oh, and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Guns seem so uncivilized.

Fear not, Joe! If my Facebook feed is to be believed, pretty soon a small army of high school dropouts armed with AR-15s is going to overthrow Obama and set right all that's wrong with America! *edit* Subject-verb agreement.