idquest

People tend to forget of how entrenched the electricity has become in our life. I consider sewage and water supply as most important. If anybody has seen footages from the sleeping areas of major cities with prolonged outages like 2-3 days, the first thing to notice is lines to the portable toilets and water distributors. So perhaps plumbing would be one of the sought for profession.

Depends on your goals and priorities. Taiji can deliver. I'd measure the performance against your needs. If you need martial applications - one thing. If you need qi development - another approach and set of requirements. The answer you received from the instructor is not so bad IMO.

Thank you YMWong for posting this.

I'm not sure I agree. Of course it's the best to ask a teacher. But often a master is so far ahead of a student that another fellow student could easier understand a problem or relate to it. A master might have resolved the issues like 30 years ago and all the novice problems could be just theoretical stuff for the master. I think exchange with fellow student can be useful. This is why we are here.

This is so NOT taoist (or at least how I understand taoism)

IME breathing serves two functions: massaging/stimulating internal organs/glands and facilitating concentration to calm down monkey mind. In each specific technique different patterns and phasis of breathing would perform different functions. One can discuss a specific technique rather than sweeping 'inhale' across all techniques. The later just doesn't make sense for me.

I wouldn't practice something like K&L just from the book. At best it would be waste of time. Worse - one can damage themselves. Books for this level of practice contain 10-20% of information. There is no way you can figure out remaining info yourself. Practices at this level work with different glands directly. One should remember that.

I always thought that after one comes out of trans they don't actually remember anything. So they have some experience while in trans and that experience could have some effect on their body/mind, but no memory about the actual experience exists. I understand Chunyi Li means something different: an attempt to diminish activity of the 'monkey mind'. So is Bruce's system about trans or about 'sitting in oblivion'?

Occam Razor works just fine. It doesn't mean you are supposed to discard some alternatives though. It means that one shouldn't put too much weight on the low-probability alternatives. So I try keeping my mind open but using the razor as a choice-making tool.

I agree with Ralis and disagree with Taomew's moderation. I don't see how and when Ralis made any personal insulting attacks. His arguments are / have been directed to the ideas, not persons.

Agree. If humans can't understand dogs and cats that are closest living creatures to humans how one can imagine understanding an alien?

Very true to both points. As fo meditating with / in the presence of a high level master - it is just mind-blowing experience. I can only imagine what qi-field can be generated when several high-level practitioners get together. So gathering of long-time students should be something...

By my observation, people usually go military for two main reasons: - Money - No necessity of making decisions in day-to-day life Either reason is perfectly valid though as people are different.

Can't help but cite a paragraph from this article: "How to Lower Your Cholesterol Naturally... 2. Reduce, with the plan of eliminating, grains and sugars in your daily diet. It is especially important to eliminate dangerous sugars such as fructose. If your HDL/Cholesterol ratio is abnormal and needs to be improved it would also serve you well to virtually eliminate fruits from your diet, as that it also a source of fructose. Once your cholesterol improves you can gradually reintroduce it to levels that don't raise your cholesterol. " Fruit are bad, bad, bad...

An accessible authentic teacher is a more important factor than a type of a practice. Make sure that a teacher teaches the system that he/she practices him/herself. Sometimes people have some achievemnts but wanting to make some side cash they get certified and start teaching a system they don't really practice themselves. Studying under such an instructor would be a waste of time at best.

Can you provide any reference to that? I have some medical ear condition that results in bad reaction when I eat somewhat more sweet than I should. I wanna say my ears don't distinguish between sugars and fructose, no difference at all. My conclusion is that fructose is bad for a body to the same degree as sugars. Especially new selectioned types of fruit that were designed to accumulate much more fructose than their wild cousins.

Blasto, Do you consider fruit as food with sugar or not? When I moved to North America in 2002 I was astounded how much sugar is added in literally all food. When I realized that they add sugar even in beer I stopped drinking it: it is like drinking some sugary syrup in fact. Of course if somebody has been drinking sugary beer all their life it is difficult to notice.

We need both wholeness and detailed complexity as MH has said. Look at the Sun. It is white and warm - this is wholeness. But at the same time its irradiation is the full spectrum from invisible gamma - ultraviolet - to blue/green/red - and then again to invisible infrared. This is detailed complexity. There is a notion (including this board) that people don't need detail as long as they can grasp wholeness. In my veiw this is false. The level of ability to understand detail is what distinguish human from animals, plants and bacteria. The ability to absorb the full gamut of detail is what can shift Tao to self-realization.

I just add Garam Masala to all dishes I want to be spiced. Good for meat, fish, prawns, veges - universal that is. This is a basic Indian melange with a cinnamon base and a bunch of some others spices, not hot. You should be able to find it in any store that carries Indian stuff.

I understand both Kundalini and dissolving heart-mind are high level processes; and both are somewhat sought for. At the same time they are quite different in manifestation; or at least this is how I understand them. Do they relate to each other at all in any way?

I fully support Mal's decision to suspend RW. The intent of his comment was to insult a board member, not to make a discussion or clarify points.

I was told that in the advanced levels the light circulates the route of MCO. In the beginning stages students don't have any light yet; so the goal on that stage is to train body awareness and automatic response. In his Qigong Empowerment Shou Yu Liang mentions that true MCO occurs spontaneously in the sleep at night; other times we try to reproduce conditions for MCO to the lesser or greater degree of success. Another thing, more advanced meditations produce energy that should not get stuck just for safety. FOr this reason any routes should be available to absorb excess energy. This is why even 'level one' MCO is useful along with other routes.

Is there any difference between reversed breathing and testicles breating? With the reversed breathing testicles lift up when hui-yin cavity is up. You have to lift hui-yin cavity to do proper reversed breathing. And when hui-yin is up, the testicles will be up as well. I understand this is why some people call it testicles breathing. Am I wrong?

The problem with the not-fossil energy is not technology but finance: the subsidized gasoline and oil are way cheaper than any other alternative sources of energy. The solution - to stop subsidizing of gas / oil which effectively raises prices - is suicidal for the North America politicians. G. Campbel in BC, Canada is one of very few who was brave enough to introduce carbon tax in BC, pretty moderate one. And now he is not even considered for the next election...