idquest

Think like this. If he is a true deep master, his replies will reflect his level. You'll be able to fathom his responses if you have proper experience matching his level. The fact you are seeking advise from TTB suggests you don't have such experience, hence you won't understand his responses anyway. But by asking him 'mental' questions you could put a barrier between yourself and him. I wouldn't ask him anything and just give it a try for a couple of months.

People don't want to die from violence. People (well, majority) are OK when dying from old age.

Statistics indeed shows divide between old and young; but in my view this is superficial analysis. I'm judging based on my personal experience living in British Columbia, Canada. Statistically, majority of the population is still Caucasian white, but if you go to streets and look who actually actively participates in economic life - they are immigrants by vast majority. I believe the same is true for the UK as well. If you run across a school class grade 4-5 in a local park - 90% are children of visible immigrants and possibly 2-3 children will be Caucasians. What this means for our analysis? It was not young who voted Remain - they were second generation of immigrants who voted to Remain. Whether this is good or not - I don't know. But what I do know is that mass immigration does change country's culture to the better or to the worse.

When you do deep abdominal breathing, your diaphragm is supposed to move like a cylinder piston. If you experience pain doing this, this is an indication that something is wrong in your abdominal cavity. Most likely this is just your internal tendons that tie internal organs to your connective tissue become overstretched; but it could also be something more serious. I'd suggest you find a good yoga instructor and unfreeze whatever is frozen inside you. Might take a while, like several years.

Why all this noise? Can't understand. OK, some bureaucrats and even fewer politicians will lose their jobs and that's about it. So what? As for political noise - this is business as usual. Further disintegration of the Euro-union? Come on...

You forget to mention flush toilets as fledgling contraption to delude people from using proper squat posture for elimination purposes. Modern hygiene is an inalienable part of modern medicine as well as serious advances in treatment of serious diseases. And modern technology gives a lot to allow for exchange of ideas between intelligent people. It is simply your choice what to listen to.

Why not attend one of his retreats? He is available, just do some search...

What I heard was that loose bowel movements could continue for a couple of weeks but after that they should normalize. If not - this could be an indication of an underlying issue. Can you refer me to a youtube you are using (if any)? I've seen Mark Rasmus's and Adam Mizner's versions. As much as I liked Adam's version the music is so depressing there that I can't watch it.

In your own words you used more accurate term 'feel' instead of 'see' as seeing with your eyes. You don't necessarily 'see' any of three dan tians, you more likely are going to 'feel' them with all or some of your 5 senses. Usually the lower DT comes first.

Andrew Nugent-Head tells an interesting story about his teacher, Dr. Xie, who was a highly accomplished master. While visiting the USA for the first time, Dr. Xie had a luxury of having a proper bathtub in a hotel room. After some time, Andrew heard some splash noise from the bathroom and decided to check on Dr. Xie if he was OK. It turned out Dr. Xie decided to check if he could breath with his skin while submerging his nose into the water - purely daoist scientific approach to a problem. He could not, and he stated the fact that the embrioinic breathing is not about breathing via the skin. I'd invite everybody who claims they can breath without nose and mouth to reproduce that experiment and see for themselves.

So what would be the difference between trance and deep meditation that does not engage the mind? Because when we engage the mind, this is 'to do' meditation that is good in the beginning but is not a desirable state. We aim at a state in the meditation where we don't engage the mind, pre-heaven. How do we know this is indeed the pre-heaven state rather than trance?

I'd say it comes down to difference between monkey mind and the heart mind. If a desire comes from your monkey mind, it is perhaps not the one you'd want to follow. With your example of lifting weight - if you want this to develop six pack, then perhaps it is not a true desire. But if you want to do this because you feel that this will help keep your body healthy - this is different.

Before people eat, sleep, and work (using your terminology) they have to make decisions as to how specifically they will eat, work, and sleep (what kind of mattress to sleep on for example). The problem arises when the decision they are going to make are influenced by some external ideas. If we use concept of maya, it will be easy to see that vast majority of people chase maya rather than just live as you describe in you OP. If they chase maya, they don't live Dao.

Just a minor point to clarify that the main source of protein for per-hystoric humans were insects and worms rather than large animals. Even today roasted locust is a major delicacy in some cultures including orthodox Israelis.

In any sport you train to win; and you don't train to get healthy. That is your priority is different. You could train MA with a partner for health though if your goal of training with a partner is to polish your 'listening' skills rather than defeat your partner.

You could start with stretching legs and unfreezing the tissue around pelvis. When you reach a certain point in stretching, your tissue around upper legs and pelvis will become fluid and with that you could get connection with earth. THis is where grounding starts...

Continuing line with frogs and Dao... My take is that frogs have the same relation to Dao as scrambled eggs have to the eggs being sat on by a hen. Once you have scrambled the eggs, you've done fission and this is an irreversible process. Or could it be reversed? Because what neidan people say about attaining the Dao could mean that at least to some extent the process could be reversed - is this right?

How much tax does UK have to remit to centralized EU bodies? There was a reference to UK-USA and USA civil war. If I remember correctly, in both cases the underlining issue was tax payable to a superior. Of course the wrap up was all that ethics and morals...

Waysun Liao says that Dao is a live entity... W. Liao is a highly respected practitioner.

Socialism/communism generally awards a mediocre and lazy part of population; and it punishes entrepreneurs spirit and innovation. Capitalist model as represented by USA and to large extent by Western Europe, encourages entrepreneurship and innovation and doesn't care too much about mediocre and lazy. Generally, of course. Everything is going to change with coming robots overtaking the economy. The estimates are that up to 50% of office workers will be replaced by robots in coming 10 years (I am witnessing this in my workplace myself). With this, the majority of western population will be reduced to minimum wage bracket. This will change the economic and social reality dramatically.

Out of curiosity, how different is the taste of dried tea leaves as compared to freshly picked and immediately after that brewed leaves? Not that I anticipate trying the fresh leaves any time in soon...

When you add different foods to your diet, you increase diversity of your microbiota in your intestines. The role of microbiota and its diversity is still not fully understood but growing volume of study suggests that diverse intestine micro flora contributes to better immune response, stable emotions, and overall health.

What is your diet? How much meat do you eat?

If somebody wanted to ruin their knees, they would turn/twist them. This is actually what quite a number of 'retail' taiji do - they don't explain safety of the knee, ankle, and lower back - people take taiji classes and hurt themselves. People are different, but I'd say that for a majority of middle aged and older, turning from the waist is pretty advanced technique. As a minimum, muscles of the back and psoases should roll over freely. That is I agree that at a good level taiji will require waist turning, and somebody in their 20th could perhaps do this without second thought, but older folks should be very careful not to injure themselves. Good theory explanation of all this in BKF's 'Opening Energy Gates' book.

Have you been to Jerusalem? The Temple Mount is quite something. Also, IME someone has to 'grow into' the area to tune into its spirit.