alect

I feel like I know tulku for some reason.

Abandon control man. Seriously, shit will drive you CRAZY. The best way to regulate Qi flow is to do some MCO every once and awhile and keep your gates clean and open.

Keep in mind that the body needs some of the specialized functions your body performs in sleep. Advanced practitioners can be said to mimic these in meditation; but that takes about the same amount of time it takes to sleep. So why not just sleep? But since you have insomnia that makes sense. Just lay on your back and do body scanning maybe. Try to be completely still. I just completed my first 8 hour meditation this weekend laying down and managing to still my breathing so much that I was taking a breath once maybe every two minutes.

I am 19 years old. This has been a very difficult period for me. If you've viewed my other posts, you'd see that spiritually it has been trying, energetically difficult, socially awkward, and karmically bizarre. My mind has a tendency to race, I have difficulty relaxing around people, and I feel unsure about my future at times. Though I have great trust it will all be ok no matter what, I'm frustrated. I find myself striving for the Tao. Striving to relax. If I just don't try at all, I end up tensing up and losing any ground I made inside of myself. I want to go with the flow, but whenever I do, I get excited. When I have clarity, it sometimes scares me and I feel afraid unless I'm alone and in seclusion. It's obvious on an intellectual level just by reading this back that I have obviously created this pattern for myself, in many ways. But there are other insights I've gained from my meditation that show me it's part of my nature from childhood. Eh, I don't know. Basically, I'll get in loops. Sometimes I'm obsessed with my body, and it drives me crazy. Sometimes my mind is like an obnoxiously loud radio station. I get overwhelmingly emotional at work sometimes and have to find a place shed a few tears or throw a few punches. Do I just ride it out? I get worried that there might be something wrong with me, with the mind racing and some of the mania (as I've described in other topics.) I enjoy doing Qi Gong and meditating and doing spiritual practice. In fact, I do really well. I have great sensations and experiences in all of them. I find that when I try to carry those feelings and parts of myself into the world with me, they will abandon me or I will scare them away. Overall, I'm asking for some words of solace or encouragement from older Bums. Is there such thing as too little ego? Should I strive for more? Is there such thing as a middle ground? Am I fool for asking these questions on a forum? Thanks!

I do these things sometime . It's very fun but I find that it costs me a lot of energy and I usually feel drained and somewhat kooky afterwards. I will meditate for a little bit, or sometimes pray my way there. Sometimes I even get times like this in my dreams. The best thing is what I can most properly describe as a karmic or spiritual force that comes to wrap me in its love and warmth. It's almost like a entity that communicates with me outside of words or even physical language. I can call about it at times, but I'm pretty sure it spends some sort of reserve spiritual energy so I have to save it for when I really need it.

As I replied to manitou, I have done quite a bit of mediation that, at times, has actually led me to that "dream-like existence," you have described. That's a feeling that comes and goes for me and it can be alarming, but I assume it requires great practice to reach a stage where you are always inside of that space; even so, would one want to be? I can't say I know what being one with the Tao means, though I'm sure one who practices so extensively must be quite auspicious. I simply want to ease my suffering and avoid becoming permanently damaged and scarred as much as some of the people I have seen in the world. But that attitude in itself is somewhat judgmental and negative. I guess it depends on what you want. Which leads me to be grateful for your advice regarding, "wu-wei towards others." I have tendency to want people to accept me in the ways I accept them. I really like people, and love them for who they are much of the time, though I do face resentment and other unkind feelings at times. I find positive people, whether they are relaxed or tense, happy or sad tend to be best for me. As long as they make a point to be positive and try their best to be kind. Thank you for the post

I actually have meditated everyday for quite some time. At least for thirty minutes but I've started going into 4 hour cycles. Sitting, laying, and standing meditation, several different kinds.

This was very comforting and sensical advice. Even today after praying on self acceptance and asking myself more questions I feel quite good. Also a little frustrated.

I actually looked up some zhan zhuang today and did some. It felt really quite good and taught me how to stand more naturally. I also can get away with doing some of it at work when standing behind the counter.

A lot of this has been nice to read. I will reply to some now. Thanks everyone.

How does one move and remain still at the same time? I find it difficult to move gracefully at times. I want to learn how to be relaxed and still moving. I understand that there is some tension required to, you know, move. Any advice, visualizations, practices, etc? EDIT: Also, what are effective centering techniques?

My head feels like a damned battery. I can feel absurd amounts of energy up there. It's like a sun. I have great difficulties moving this down, it's beginning to really be obnoxious, and gets in the way of enjoying my life. I feel nervous, and like I can't function. It's almost as though it's causing me to float above the earth. I tell my mind to shut up, quiet, whatever, and I can do that. It's quite pleasant. But I now know for a fact that it's not just mental and I really do have a lot of energy up there. It's been this way ever since I had a hallucinogenic experience. I've been able to ground but it just keeps refilling, through the top of my head. I've spent hours a day exercising; this helps to keep me up with the speed of my brain, but overall I end up right back where I was. My body is having a hard time dealing with the energy. I have a hard time doing Qi Gong because I get ridiculous spasms that make it hard to even finish executing a move. Fully relaxing is almost like inviting a seizure, without the fear and paranoia, just the convulsions. I quit smoking marijuana for awhile and when I came back to it, it made me realize just how fast I'm moving. Sometimes I don't even know how manage to do it. Every once and awhile it's magnificent; I feel like I'm flying and everything is so clear and beautiful. Other times I feel wretched, like I'm twisting into myself. I enjoy the tingling sensations in my brain and the fuzziness and all the pleasant sensations in my body, but I get so tired of how powerful it feels in my mind and just how uncomfortable it makes me and other people. Should I just let myself have a big ol spaz fest and maybe it'll even out? Acupuncture? A shaman? Some other symptoms I have are moments of communication with spirits and animals, usually brief, sometimes vivid dreams, the ability to exit my body and travel the space I'm in; I also get moments where extremely dark energy comes and holds me down to the bed/ground and I get feelings of terror. Eventually I'll find myself standing in the middle of the woods or what looks like some sort of ancient brick road and I'm looking at the stars and there's a big ol' winged beast in front of me that looks like a gargoyle. This has happened quite a few times. I see energy, looks like heat waves or shimmery fields around people and inside of people. And perhaps one of the strangest things is sometimes pictures or things like that take on the quality of what I'm feeling. Pictures of people will smile or frown or look scared when I look at them sometimes. I find this to be the strangest of all, and something that I'm probably just projecting. I know that if I went to a psychiatrist or therapist for all this they would probably diagnose me as schizophrenic. I don't want noneadat. However a lot of these things go away when I spend a lot of time on the computer/away from nature. Hm..

Again you have all helped very much. I have tried many of these techniques. On many levels it was also an emotional thing and attachment to something that is difficult to describe.

Thank you all! I will try the joints technique and look into Tai Chi. Also, practicing Qi gong and martial arts as slowly as possible helps. What are good centering techniques?

Relax and have fun. There's a point where I'd agree with you. You'd to live alone in the mountains to do that. To reach "true emptiness." To become enlightened, a pure being lacking in desire. Many humans are born without the capacity to reach a that place. Most of us just struggle to be comfortable in our skins in the first place. Many people who strive for such power go through immense amounts self-imposed suck to gain an inch of ground. Simply put; transcendence of suffering and desire by charging straight into them. If it were true that Godly feats were possible to the majority of us through dedication and personal practice, the whole world would be full of messiahs. I doubt that we as a species hold enough karmic power or weight to even be able to sustain that kind of amount of universal truth. We are not Gods. In fact, some Taoists in the ancient days were sad to admit their insights that we may be even lower in the "natural/empty/truth scale" than the animals of the earth. In my opinion, based on frequent observance and rumination: humans are communal creatures. We like being active. We are, by nature industrious. We have minds that are separate from the ordinary, based on what we can see. We talk, walk, make things. So tell me, are you Enlightened? Really, all you do need is love. You've got to love yourself. It's not even about the power. It's about just trying to be content. Not transcending or descending anything. I think, for the layman, the more you give up on placing an affectation to you who truly are, or defying your "Essential nature" the insights you strive for will suddenly appear in beautiful, simple form. Striving for enlightenment, in a lot ways, can be a way of trying to shape the world to the way you want to see it. But you are one bit of nothing. You will only be empty when you can accept that you are full; full of shit.

Thank you guys, I took many of your suggestions and they have helped in ways.

I don't know if your activities have a lot to do with the actual crown chakra "opening" In truth, your crown chakra is always a little bit open; it is one of the most vital points energetically and physiologically to help keeping your balance. do you have pleasant sensations in your head? if you wave your hand above your scalp do you feel anything? The area on your scalp actually is a cone shaped field that, if thrown out of balance, can give people motion sickness, poor balance, and even vertigo. I've experienced it Are you sure you're just not running from something? Sounds like you might just be stressed and trying to deal with your problems by being a "human doing" Keep up practice.. Don't exercise too much though. You might end up with an "energy deficit."

I honestly think that it is incredibly difficult to practice Tao and Buddhism at the same time though I'm sure it's been done. In the old days, Taoists and Buddhists actually had a little bit of beef. There's some pokes and Buddhism in some translations of the Tao Te Ching.

I don't know.

Sit in the dark and you can let in the light I wear my sunglasses at night.

Sometimes I imagine dark energy in my body. Feels good.

Sounds intense. It is common, at least so far as I have seen, experienced and heard, for these sensations to arise from meditation. Often times, beginning practioners will arise from their states and describe feelings of dissociation; "I couldn't recognize people, and I didn't know who I was, where I was... etc." Meditation, in my opinion, while it can be transcendental and expose truth--- is primarily a primitive function in place to rest and heal at a faster pace than when either asleep or awake in between the time of hunting and gathering. We were/are plains creatures after-all. We are not the only animals to "meditate." Perhaps intent will indeed expose to you truths. This is something called "invocation." You say, "I am grateful," during a meditation, and you will be grateful. You say, "show me a truth about 'bla bla bla,'" and it will be shown, (or not.) The truth and these feelings of serenity are nice. But ultimately, as you experienced, they will always be poisoned by something my teacher calls, "the social mind." The software we are born with. The cultural boundaries that exist only within our minds that seem only possible to escape when living in absolute seclusion. This would be difficult, because we are communal creatures. People make us happy as much as they disturb our inner peace. Perhaps you should try doing more than just meditation. There's Qi Gong. You could learn a lot from many forms of Qi Gong if you don't practice already. Or you could invent your own, honestly, a lot of it is simply power of imagination and will. I would strongly recommend you resist, however. You have taken a path of acceptance, but it might be useful for you to fight a little bit. Exercise or do Kung Fu, or just flex all of your muscles and scream every once and awhile. There's no one way to reach enlightenment, because enlightenment is different than what new age culture paints it to be. There is no milestone or sure point at which you are enlightened; this too will fade. There is only clarity, happiness, love, and suffering. Maybe I mean I don't fuckin' know, I haven't meditated for 3-6 hours a day before. Just trying to help.

I am detecting massive amounts of spiritual arrogance in this thread

My name is Alec, I am from Northern Arizona in the beautiful ponderosa forest, and I've been loosely practicing martial arts for 9 years. My instructor began introducing me to Taoist practices (what he calls "4 Ascendant Spheres,") through monthly lectures a couple years after I started learning Qi Gong at the same school. I've come to this forum to.. Discuss with fellow practitioners!