oat1239

Oh Ok, sorry Mal. I thought I had made it clear that this book was by an advanced practitioner of a traditional Taoist cultivation sect from Lao Shan, and the PDF is an English translation of his Chinese book. I should have made it clearer. The author is a real person. He is not a figment of someone's imagination. The author is writing from his many years of training and extensive personal experience with this Lao Shan sect. Different in some ways than some other Taoist teachings that people may be more familiar with in the West. A very interesting read indeed. Here is a picture of Wu Dao Zhenzi (his Taoist name) from the cover of one of his Chinese books:

Aye. This book certainly goes into that in quite some detail. The author also had the ability to see spirits of people who just died and follow to see what happens to them, and the authjor describes several such cases in the book, so the book is very interesting from that perspective as well. Some people might find this book quite controversial but the author seems very genuine to me, and seems to really want to clarify a lot of misconceptions about Taoism that both modern Chinese and Westerners have. He did visit the USA once several years ago and taught some workshops before disappearing again. Probably went into seclusion again to continue his cultivation. Not sure if he has ever resurfaced in recent years.

Taoism has a wide and varied history. In general many Taoists do include forms of prayer in their practices. Zhengyi Taoists do not stick pins in dolls, at least not for the purposes of intending to cause harm. Taoists in general certainly do not stick pins in dolls for the purposes of causing harm. There are some groups that may have some similarity to Taoism that may practice black magic type rituals and may even call themselves Taoists, but they are more like what we call cults, just as there are various weird religious cults in the West that may or may not have any real ties to Christianity or other major religions. As for the cult aspect of Taoism there are practices that have arisen that might include things such as black magic and other weird things. For example I have seen videos of one group of so called Taoists that have a member of the group allow themself to be possesed by a spirit of some sort and while possessed they use sharp objects to cut their tongue and then split the blood onto talismans that they are creating in this ritual. This is a far cry from more main stream Taoist practices however. I have also heard of practices that have arisen in Buddhism such as where many people seem to be more concerned with getting certain famous Buddhist monks to make amulets and charms for them that are supposed to have certain powers then they are concerned with spiritual matters. Is it mainstream or is it cult practices? It depends on who you are asking it seems. So, just as there are a wide variety of groups and even cults that might be considered Christian or related to Christianity in some way, the same seems to be the case in Taoism and Buddhism. You can't really draw any conclusions about a whole religion based just on the practices of specific groups within it, if you see what I mean. The Shambala Guide To Taoism contains a good overview of the history of Taoism. Later addition: As for how religious Taoists pray, the most common way I have seen is for the person to go to a temple and kneel in front of an altar for certain specific Deities and make their prayer and then burn a stick of incense and place it in the incense pot on the altar. The smoke rising from the incense is supposed to signify sending the prayer up to heaven. It seems Taoist temples are trying to keep up with the times in this regard and make their practices more modern and environmentally friendly. Some larger temples burn so much incense that the constant smoke from all the incense sticks can potentially cause health problems for some people, and the smoke itself may be annoying to others who live near by. This Taoist temple in Kowloon has decided to go high tech to address this: http://technoccult.net/archives/2011/02/15/electronic-taoist-deities-now-accepting-prayers-in-hong-kong/ On a more serious note there is a very interesting book written by a modern day Taoist from Lao Shan I believe that describes many of the views and practices of his particular sect of Taoism from Lao Shan. It is a very interesting read since this book, translated into English as a PDF downloadable E-Book, describes forms of Taoist practices and the author's personal experiences that many in the West are probably not familiar with. The practices described seem quite different than what many people may be familiar with in regards to Taoism. Some people might even find it quite eye opening. Keep in mind that there are many different groups within Taoism so what is described in this book might not necessarily apply to other groups within Taoism: Dao and De: Life and Afterlife Well worth the read in my opinion.

No worries. I have also crossed that river some time ago.

Hello Baguakid. I wouldn't think that your standing practice is more yin, but more likely it is a more balanced practice overall, therefore it is a more nourishing and health promoting practice. Deep and gentle natural breathing with awareness kept on dantian while holding a proper standing or sitting meditation posture (or moving posture) creates not only a special 'alignment' but a mutually supporting and controlling arrangement between heaven, fire, earth, and water. This relates to the cardinal gua in the pre-heaven (Fuxi) arrangement of the bagua diagram. The theory goes that not only do these aspects need to all be present in our practice (for cultivation), but they need to be arranged (oriented) correctly as well. When this is done correctly we are supposed to be able to reverse from the 'way of earth' to the 'way of heaven'. All theory aside, nourishing and promoting is good, drying and withering is not so good. By the way my alias is oat1239 with an 'o'. oat1239 represents the way of earth. When reversed, it represents the way of heaven: 9 -> 3 -> 2 -> 1 -> tao.

Breath (air) feeds and fans fire, which causes fire to increase. The body relates to earth. Breathing too strongly or intensely may produce too much fire internally which has a burning or drying effect on the body (strong fire scorches earth). Do you breath differently in your standing practice than you do in your other practice?

Yes, Amazon has a Kindle reader app for Mac computers as well.

I would guess any issues whether they manifest physically or mentally could potentially be tough to address if they are quite deep seated, so conceivably seeing progress for deep seated problems of any sort could potentially take a lot more time and effort. If the practice is at least doing some good and not making anything worse then it might be worth keeping at it.

Right, my understanding of this practice is it is more about drawing this energy in to pass through you rather than trying to store it.

Hello Jetsun. Interesting about the different levels of consciousness and where health problems are rooted. I have heard a somewhat similar explanation in regards to the source of health problems being rooted in deeper levels of consciousness from a qigong teacher from a taoist tradition as well. Have you had qigong healings from the CFQ traditiona nd if so, did you experience any notable results?

Hello Ya Mu. I understand completely what you are saying but the fact is Hu Yaozhen also taught a form of traditional taoist internal cultivation qigong (not medical or martial qigong) to Feng Zhiqiang which Feng Zhiqiang has continued to teach and which does include the practice of directing bad or stagnant qi into the ground. Other respected Taoist lineages such as the dragon gate lineage and some wudang traditions also seem to have similar practices from what I have seen. This is just an observation on my part. I am not arguiing that it is not better to transform sick qi than to direct it into the earth, because I really don't know either way, but I am just trying to view it all in a broader context based on what I have observed elsewhere. Various taoist traditions also have qigong practices that draw energy from the earth or from trees and mountains and valleys and such. Does this hurt the earth or trees as well? I don't know the answer to this either, but I know it is taught in at least some taoist cultivation traditions. For example, different types of trees are supposed to have energy that helps specifically with specific organs in the body and drawing in this energy can help heal the associated organs. At any rate, no worries here. This wouldn't be the first time over the years that I have encountered such apparent contradictions from different teachers and it likely won't be the last. Contradictions and different approaches and points of view seem to be as plentiful as there are different traditions and teachers, sometimes even amongst different teachers from the same tradition. That is just another observation on my part. I allow that at least some of the contradictions could very well be because of major shortcomings in my understanding and perception. Ya Mu, the medical qigong that you teach sounds very interesting to me and I may try to make it out to one of your workshops if I can manage it. Have to ses how the scheduling pans out. Thanks very much for the info and comments from your perspective.

Hey, just wanted to add that Amazon has a free downloadable Kindle book reader application for Windows PC's that allows regular Windows PC users to purchase and read kindle books from Amazon, in case anyone out there wasn't aware of this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=sa_menu_karl3/191-2364475-4792423?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771

I think there are no doubt many different systems with different approaches and goals, and not all systems may be perfect (if any of them really are), so different practitioners of different systems would probably do well to keep an open mind and be open to learning from practitioners of other systems, if the practices or goals are at all similar. Buddhism and taoism certainly is not mainly about qi cultivation and qi projection and healing others overall, although certainly some specific traditions may have such practices, but from what I can personally gather many other traditions within taoism and buddhism may have quite different focuses altogether, so trying to compare 'higher level' and 'lower level' based on 'energy vibration' or on very specific techniques such as qi projection or clinical healing ability doesn't seem practical to me in the larger context. The practitioner whose main goal and focus is 'no mind' or 'transforming the void into tao' or achieving 'spiritual immortality' in heaven or the buddha pure land may not have ever specifically practiced qi cultivation or qi projection for healing purposes, but in their particular cultivation system they may have achieved a 'high level' none the less. Regarding the sending of bad qi into the ground thing, I believe Feng Zhiqiang's 'Hunyuan qigong', which I understand Feng Zhiqiang says he learned from Hu Yaozhen, contains a movement called 'jian qi xi zang', which means 'lower the energy and flush organs', which uses the idea of collecting outside energy to the head and directing it down through the body and in the process flushing out the bad or stagnant qi to the earth through the feet. If Feng Zhiqiang is teaching this as Hu Yaozhen taught the movement, then it would seem that Hu Yaozhen didn't have a problem with flushing bad qi to the earth for the purposes of personal qigong cultivation anyway, and Feng Zhiqiang doesn't seem to have a problem with it. I recall reading that Hu Yaozhen stated that he developed his Stillness and Movement qigong specifically for use for clinical qigong healing, so maybe there is a reason this is done differently when exchanging energy directly with others for healing purposes? Maybe just 'shaking off' bad qi in a healing qi projection scenario is not a reliable way to prevent the bad qi from re-affecting the healer or re-affecting the patient so extra measures are taken to deal with the bad qi in this context? I am not trying to be contrary here at all but just trying to see how this all fits into the bigger picture and trying to make more sense out of it all. I have seen other forms of Taoist promordial qigong that also have this practice of directing bad or stagnant qi into the ground while taking in external qi. Taoist 'primordial qigong' is generally considered to be a higher level qigong cultivation practice amongst those taoist traditions that practice it from what I can gather. Like others here, I personally wouldn't rule out that part of the natural functioning of the Earth is to absorb and transform energy, just as it is with all other living things, and maybe with inanimate things as well. Of course any system can be overloaded through misuse or imbalance. If humans are living very unhealthy lifestyles now and with the population growing immensely, we may well be producing in various ways much more 'bad energy' than heaven and earth can deal with and still maintain a balanced equilibrium. I actually think we are passed the tipping point already and the resulting climate change and all the other changes and natural disasters that go along with it certainly seem to be on the increase. The overall prognosis certainly doesn't look too good from where I stand at the moment. Practicing qigong may become an essential skill for basic survival at some point in our future.

Here is some more info on the topic of energy exchange when doing qigong healing on others: Excerpt from: Chinese Qigong - Outgoing-qi Therapy Written by Bi Yongsheng Section Three The Discharge of Turbid Qi Su Wen - Yi Pian Ci Fa Lun (Plain Questions The Unpublished Issue on Acupuncture) states: "To enter the room of an infectious case, one should firstly imagine, that the green qi comes out from the liver, flows leftwards toward the east and turns to wood, then imagine that the white qi comes out from the lung, flows rightwards to the west and becomes metal, then imagine that the red qi comes out from the heart, flows upwards to the south and becomes fire, then imagine that the black qi comes out from the kidney, flows downwards towards the north and becomes water, and lastly imagine that the yellow qi comes out from the spleen, gathers in the centre and becomes earth. When the protection of the body with the Five Elements is done, one can imagine that there is a sparkling light like the Big Dipper above his head. Then one can enter the room of the patient, safe and protected". This is a method adopted in Nei Jing (Canon of Internal Medicine) of application of will to guiding qi of the five zang-organs (solid organs), making qi substantial and leading gi back to its origin to prevent invasion by pathogenic qi . During emission of qi, the filthy (pathogenic) qi from the patient is easy to, by chance of qi emission, enter the body of the therapist and interfere with his qi circulation. This pathogenic message may also be transmitted into the body of normal people or other patients. However, those who have not practised Qigong and whose qi circulation is not yet so smooth, the points not open and the exchanges of qi in and outside the body not good, are not prone to the interference of this message because they have a natural "barrier", or they are not sensitive to the message because the degree of sensitivity of their mentality (perceptive ability) is poor; while those who are experienced in Qigong can percieve and differentiate all kinds of qi message because of their strong perceptive ability. So whenever the pathogenic turbid qi enters their body, they may sense it. When the turbid qi enters the body, it will interfere with the normal qi circulation, causing disorders in part of or the whole qi circulatory system. In mild cases, qi may stagnate in a certain part (e.g., shoulder, arm, chest, back), causing tingling pain, cold, contraction, heaviness, soreness and distention; and stuffiness in the chest; or may interfere with the mental activity causing dizziness, headache, heaviness in the head, vexation and restlessness. In severe cases, the victim may for some time have all the symptoms the patient has yet positive signs can not be detected on physical examination. Vigilance should be aroused in those who develop the symptoms of the patient after they perceive the turbid qi. It is very important for a doctor who treats patients with outgoing-qi to possess the ability to prevent and expel the turbid qi so that it can rarely or can not at all disturb his qi activities. Damage of qi activities is often seen in those who treat patients with outgoing qi after they have gained some qigong knowledge with no experience, even in those who are veteran in Qigong-practice, and the interference of turbid qi is often an important factor of the damage. When a therapist perceives the interference by turbid qi, he must expel it with proper hand manipulations and readjust his own qi activities. If the dirty qi invades into his fingers, or into a certain channel or certain points, he should guide qi by will to the points, the channel and the fingers and then relax locally and quiver the hands to discharge the turbid qi while exhaling. The therapist should be able to stop the turbid qi before it reaches Dazhui (Du 14) at the back, Tianzhu (Ren 22) and Quepen (St 12) in the front and Fengfu (Du 16) and Fengchi (G B 20) in the superior. The proper way is to expel it when it has just reached the fingers, wrists, elbows and at most the shoulders. If the therapist is not able enough to expel the turbid qi at the right time because he is not skilled or his internal qi is not substantial, the turbid qi may enter his body by way of finger to wrist and then elbow, or from Baihui (Du 20), Tanzhong (Ren 17), Fengchi (G B 20), Yintang (Extra 1) and Yongquan (K 1) and cause adverse reactions. At this time, the therapist should not persist in emission of qi but should close it with normal procedures and expel the turbid qi by turning the wrist, rubbing the hands and face and moving the shoulders until he feels no discomfort. If the turbid qi can not yet be discharged, he should practise Qigong exercises to regulate his qi activities first and then he may succeed in expelling turbid qi.

Interesting. Thanks for the reply.

So, if you don't mind commenting, I am wondering if the qigong practiced by Hu Yaozhen's daughter, Hu Yuexian, in the above videos is similar to the Stillness Movement Qigong that you teach?

Here are a couple of video's of Hu Yaozhen's daughter, Hu Yuexian, doing her stilneess and movement qigong: Is this similar to the Stillness Movement qigong being taught by YaMu?

I don't know if those ever got published. Yes, it is the same Hua Tou's five animal frolics that are popular, although different teachers teach different variations of these exercises. Here are some pictures of Hu Yaozhen practicing the Hua Tou five frolics:

Yes, understood. Thanks.

Thanks for the feedback. The Chinese name for the organization includes the full 太極拳 in the name. It was just shortened to tai chi in the English name for whatever reason, maybe because that was thought to be a somewhat more recognizable term to the general public at the time, but I don't know the exact reasoning for that. Unfortunately Moy Lin Shin passed away in 1998 so there is no longer any opportunity to push hands with him. Hoping the tournament goes well this weekend...

There can be many different ways to deal with different situations. One man's challenge is another man's foolishness. I personally try to avoid acting foolishly if I can at all help it. Some people work hard to try to alleviate some of these misunderstandings but there are always those who don't want to listen or who think they know better. It is an uphill battle... You obviouisly never had the opportunity to push hands with Mr. Moy. BTW, you seem to view the term 'tai chi' negatively, or at least it seems you would like to try to give it a negative connotation, but to most people I converse with 'tai chi' in this context is just used as an abbreviation for 'tai chi chuan' (or 'taijiquan'). I have said a lot more on this subject than I intended so I will bow out. All anyone can do is speak from their own experience and understanding. Sometimes we may be right and sometimes we may be wrong. We all have our own perspectives and views and to me that is a good thing. By exchanging our views and ideas we can maybe help each other grow a little bit. I wish the best to everyone.

Hello TzuJanLi. I personally believe this relates to what Mr. Moy's main purpose was when he emigrated to the West. My understanding is his intention was always to bring tai chi and various taoist practices and taoist philosophy to as many people as he could in the West. This was back in 1970 when a lot of people in the West were still not very familiar at all with such things. In order to reach as many people as he could, Mr Moy would allow and encourage students, some who may have only studied with him for a fairly short time, to begin teaching so as to help spread what he was teaching. This practice has brought some criticism from some people because they see people teaching the taoist tai chi style that aren't very advanced at tai chi, but Mr. Moy's main goal was to reach as many people as he could so he allowed this and compensated for this by requiring instructors to attend regular instructor's workshops to help these instructors keep advancing and to help keep them from getting too far off track. Mr. Moy would also regularly travel around to the various affiliated clubs which began branching out to give corrections and to give fuirther instruction. It was because of Mr. Moy mainly wanting to focus on spreading the health benefits and personal development aspects of tai chi and various taoist practices and philosophy and also the view that competitiveness was somewhat counter to the philosophy he was teaching, the idea of entering competitions never really came up. In later years when I had moved away and I was no longer attending this organization I heard mention that taking part in competitions was made against the rules of the organization. I don't know if this is really the case but it is certainly true that it was not something that ever came up anyway when I was a member of the organization. Mostly it was widely understood that the purpose of this organization was to emphasize the health and personal development aspects of tai chi and other practices taught in the organization and most members were attracted to this organization for that reason and were generally not interested in competitions and the like anyway. For many people it is just a form of healthy exercise and interesting philosophy and a good way to meet and socialize with like minded people. It is really not all that complicated. It is maybe a group with a somewhat different focus than some tai chi or martial arts clubs and which has appealed to lots of every day type people in many different countries. The reality is there are lots of people out there who are more interested in health enhancement and living a healthy lifestyle and who are not too overly concerned at all with things like competitions or who can knock down the most opponents in the shortest amount of time. It's a big world and it is always in a state of flux. Things change. Times change. Perspectives change. People's needs and interests change. It's all good. There are lots of other groups that people can join if their interests lie elsewhere. At least this is how I personally see it all anyway.

Regarding the self defense side of taoist tai chi, I think I have made it clear that anyone who had the opportunity to actually push hands with Mr. Moy Lin Shin would understand that his form contains no hindrance to the self defence aspects of tai chi. It is all a matter of what is being focused on and the level of attainment in my experience. To judge this style of tai chi based on people who have obviously not yet attained a very high level is rather silly. One could just as easily pick out students of other styles of tai chi who are not very advanced yet and use that to criticize the styles they are practicing but that makes little sense. Let's face it, few people of any style of tai chi aattain a really high level unless we are talking about places such as Chen village in CHina and such where many people grow up practicing tai chi fairly intensely from the time they are small children. Here is something I found interesting regarding the many variations in form of various Yang style tai chi masters. A few years ago I was looking at tai chi videos on youtube and comparing the different form and stances and postures and way of moving of different Yang style masters and was surprised to see how much variation there really was, even though many of the forms in the videos I was looking at were apparently derived from the Yang Chen Fu form of Yang Tai Chi. I could see that some of the forms and stances and way of moving were quite a bit different than the taoist tai chi style of Mr. Moy, but when I came across a video of Fu Zhongwen (1903-1994 - student of Yang Chen Fu) doing his Yang Tai Chi form I could see that, aside from some fairly minor differences, Fu Zhongwen's tai chi form was fairly close overall to the form taught by Mr. Moy. Mr. Moy had changed or simplified some of the movements a bit, but the form was quite close overall. The main differences I could see were what I mentioned earlier in this thread. Mr. Moy had added more of an extension of the spine and more pronounced turning of the waist to the movements and he always kept the back foot at 45 degrees in the bow stance (this I believe is done this way to facilitate the spiral rotation of the spine that Moy included in his style), and Mr. Moy had added more stretching for reasons I have mentioned previously. Other than that the movements in the form and stance and way of moving in the form seems pretty close. I have posted a link previously in this thread to a video of Mr. Moy demonstrating his tai chi form. For those who might be interested, here is the video of Fu Zhongwen's Yang style form. Enjoy...

No worries friend. We all have our own biases and we all no doubt have lots to learn. Just wanted to post some of my own personal impressions and views on this particular style of tai chi from my own past experience for anyone who might be interested, as I personally have had good results with this style of tai chi. Everyone is of course welcome to their own views and to draw their own conclusions.