idquest

I understand chanting is one of the tools for keeping focus on the abdomen and emptying mind. Also, Trunk in his website puts good ideas about trigramms to be a kind of catalysts. Overall, I liked that practice with bagua-trigramms as described by M. Chia.

Well, I don't remember exactly where I read it, it was either Tao of Health Longevity and Immortality, or Nourishing the Essence of Life, but she put it quite strongly against experimenting with the immortality portion of cultivation. First, once started, it would be very difficult to drop out (probably that means that quitting would be to the major expense to a practitioner). Secondly, mistakes could be easily made with harsh consequenses including ultimate ones. I was really surprised when I read that longevity (not immortality) practices include use of refined chi obtained through equivalent of Lesser Kan and Li formula. But again, I'm not at all qualified and can be way off the true understanding of what she meant. That's why I was interested in your take on a longevity limits in the Chia's system. Peace, idq

Inner Smile can be a pretty advanced practice, depending on how you do it. Sometimes I even have a feeling that all practices in the system are just manifestations of just one practice which could be Inner Smile. They just address different angles/facets of the same basic meditation. I'm not sure I would like to "blind" experiment with higher practices. Eva Wong puts it quite seriously about dangers for those who start that stage of cultivation.

Thank you L1 for putting this in such a way. It makes sense and resonates with me. I understand Eva Wong goes along about the same distinction with regard to dao for longevity and immortal dao. She points out that practices up to Lesser Kan Li are designated for longevity, with higher practices - for spiritual development. Would you support that distinction for M. Chia system? That is, where would you put a border line in Chia's system: with 6 sounds/Iron Shirt/MCO or higher, closer to Kan/Li practice?

Has anybody confirmed that independently? We are in a hard science turf here. Experimental physics has a simple and straightforward concept of an independent confirmation for such kind of claims.

It is amazing how such a thorough system of selecting president candidates produces such a poor choice and the ultimate result.

Do those Vortexijahs have paqua (eight trigramms) as their base? This is what Mantak Chia started to teach some time ago.

What do you mean by muddy?

The idea of using caves for cultivating is confusing for me. Hard rock formations are opaque for any kind of electromagnetic energy. Anybody who tried to use a cell phone in concrete cellars knows that. Many people say that the nature of chi is of electromagnetic kind. Kunlun school by Mantra says that their energy is magnetic one. None of them can penetrate rock of a cave. Caves were natural habitat for ancient humans. All major archeologic discoveries related to last about 50,000 years were made in caves. Probably, living in caves is easier, but cultivating?

From Telegraph.co.uk: Sperm cells have been created from a female human embryo in a remarkable breakthrough that suggests it may be possible for lesbian couples to have their own biological children. British scientists who had already coaxed male bone marrow cells to develop into primitive sperm cells have now repeated the feat with female embryonic stem cells. The University of Newcastle team that has achieved the feat is now applying for permission to turn the bone marrow of a woman into sperm which, if successful, would make the method more practical than with embryonic cells. It raises the possibility of lesbian couples one day having children who share both their genes as sperm created from the bone marrow of one woman could be used to fertilise an egg from her partner. Men and women differ because of what are called sex chromosomes. Both have an X chromosome. But only men possess a Y chromosome that carries several genes thought to be essential to make sperm, so there has been scepticism that female stem cells could ever be used to make sperm. Full article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtm...scisperm131.xml

Drew, Under consciousness in the above quote, does your teacher mean just awareness, or awareness combined with some mental effort? I mean analytical/discerning mental effort? By this question I mean, would a totally uneducated person achieve the same results as an educated one? Thanks.

Trunk, Have you noticed any influence of Kunlun on a central (core) channel? I'm asking as you have devoted a good chunk of your web-site to the importance of the core channel.

Hi all, I hope my topic title doesn't look too arrogant, these are actual words that our autoinsurance company puts on the automobile licence plates here in BC, Canada. I do like it here in Vancouver, though. I started studying Tao just recently; so I'm afraid I have more questions than thoughts I could contribute to the crowd at Taobums. I am a male, middle age, follow Mantak Chia right now. Thanks, idquest.