Eric23

Would you please elaborate on the "solo path"? Sincere thanks.

I don't meet any of the basic qualifications. However, I'd like to know why you're so down on body hair?

Have a great birthday Sean!!

Came across this great website while surfing one day. http://www.egreenway.com/taichichuan/wuji.htm The book I read to get me started was Allan Watts Quiet the Mind. A collection of talks he gave on radio, that was edited for print by his son. Gets into a number of spiritual issues but not chi. Never the less I found it a great little practical book.

They say if you do something every day for 3 weeks it becomes a habit. I had been very haphazard about my yoga and stretching. My back and other muscles were letting me know. Made a commitment to do my routine (15 minutes or so) every morning for 3 weeks. Later on I added meditation. Three weeks turned into a hundred days of yoga and meditation. So on and so on.

I'm somewhat new to the Tao myself. Trees are of interest to Taoists. The imagery of taking root, establishing roots is common. A unique form of Taoist meditation is standing, and often refered to as "standing like a tree". Lao Tzu uses the tree metaphoricly throughout the TeChing as well.

The Universe

Not necessarily Taoist, but for sure Buddhist with a Tibetian twist; Norman Dubie. Particularly his later work. Spirit Tablets at Goa Lake knocked my socks off.

I've done this at the end of my yoga routine for years now. Sit w/ knees to chest, wrap arms around legs and roll back and forth. Take it nice and slow. Can feel my back popping etc. I learned early on that the best results are when your back mucscles are loose, hence saving it for last. Been doing it on a carpeted floor at home with good results, on the road in hotel rooms I've found some floors without the amount of padding at home and it's not as good. I also avoid this if there is something tweeked in my back, and wait until the pain goes down.

I'm getting hooked on Chai. Started out with the sweetened w/ milk, then just started drinking it straight. Tazo makes a chai in bags with a nice aroma and taste. For loose tea, Republic of Tea makes a good chai and others. For some reason, I never liked coffe and have been drinking tea for years.

A real newbie question here. Starting real slow with the Eight Sections of Brochade. I've been doing 6 reps of the Pressing the Heavens for several days now. I'd like to add the Shooting the Arrow soon, and obviously the entire form in it's time. Do I repeat each element 6 times or do the form 6 times? After reading the One Move thread, it seemed like a good idea to get comfortable with each element as I learn the form. Also, there's lots of stuff going on around here so the KISS methodology is applicable at this point in my life. Thanks.

Now that I've learned the second element, I'm doing 3 reps. Working on learning #3 now. I thought I'd read somewhere that reps are done in muliples of 3 because the TTC has 81 chapters which is the square of 9 which is the square of 3.

Thanks to all of you for the response.

Thank you for the admonition. I haven't ignored your post. It's taken several re-readings and meditative thought to sink in. Thanks again

From what I've read, one should only stop the flow of urine to locate and recognize the pc muscle. There is a chance of damaging the uretha and not allowing the bladder to completely empty if you continually interupt urination. My personal experience is that breathing has as much to do with delaying ejacualtion as anything. As for finding sexual techniques and advice, use the search function of this web site. There's lots of wisdom and experience among the Taobums, but it will take some searching.

I never realized how many strange noises reside in our building! It was very profound. I think eliminating one sensory system from the overall equation is the key. I've only done it sitting. One of these days soon I want to see how it goes standing.

As an aside... I've had the opportunity to try darkness meditation. Sitting in a totally dark room with the eyes open. Very interesting. It's comforting to know that I'm not alone in the "trying not to try" department.

Taoist Yoga and Sexual Energy. Thanks for passing on your experiences with zhan zhuang. Found it very helpful.

Really just starting out. Made a point to sit for the first 100 days. Since then it has been nearly every day. Started out sitting with various breathing and focusing technics. Experimented with humming OMMM, found that very interesting. In the end it seemed like I was forcing too much and not letting things settle on their own, so it was back to just staring at the wall. Picked up Yudelove's book about a month ago and discovered the standing methods. It's only been a few days now, but standing with my hands at my side seems very intense (in a good way). Like starting any new journey, the first weeks were filled with new discoveries and wonders. It's settled in now with days where it seems like I'm merely putting in my time. Fortunately there are many more days where my body and mind get a good rest.

I don't know if it's a secret or not. In my younger days I ran long distances. Through all the training runs I learned that endurance is as much a state of mind as the physical side. Putting the miles in every day, listening to your body. There were times where you had to just put one foot in front of the other, and repeat. To meet your goals, ie finish a marathon, required an extended commitment, perserverance and some tolerance to pain. To me it seems there are parallels to a spiritual practice. You put your time in; some days are a struggle just to get through the routine, but you know that it's still valuable because your maintaining. Other days it all comes together.

Great site! Thanks Yoda

You didn't mention what profession you are looking at. With that in mind, there are some fields, law for instance where a degree from an Ivy League school or Stanford will get you in a much higher bracket right away and set you up with a network that will pay dividends for the rest of your professional life. If that is the path you are trying to acheive, then the school will make a difference. However, there are many fields where a state university will be more than sufficient. I found that at the university level (state in my case), you will get out of it what you put in. For the most part you should have learned how to learn and the faculity is there to get you pointed in the right direction and answer questions. State universities are filled with wonderful professors doing top rate research. You will find them most helpful when you reach the junior and senior level classes. I taught an evening course in my profession at the local state university for 5 years. Based on the students in my class, my advise for the rest of your high school time would be to really buckle down on the basic core courses. Learn to write, get the math skills down. Now, what I've learned in the 25 years or so in the real work world is that once you get into your career, advancement will depend more on your "people" skills more than anything else. Competence and technical knowledge in your field will get you started, but those who can manage, motivate and sell make the big bucks. Best of luck and welcome to TTB, this is where the really fun and interesting part of life is.

Welcome. I too read and am now re-reading The Watercourse Way. For whatever reason, Alan Watts has always helped this western mind understand the nuts and bolts.

For years I had been avoiding retention. Health issues related to several prostate infections and the simple fact that I really enjoy ejactulating kept me on that path. At the same time I have been told by several experts in the field that there are levels of orgasmic pleasures that cannot be discovered without retention. Part of this journey that I'm on is to find new and deeper places within me, particularly in the area of orgasm. Therefore retention is on the menu for me, however I'm following the recommended "venting" schedule ie. 2-3 weeks and using the big draw and massage to keep the energy from getting stale. I try and keep my yoga/meditation time seperate from my solo cultivation time. Meditation has lead me to some very important places that have nothing or everything to do with orgasmic pleasure. I probably havn't answered your question, not that I'm qualified, but you seem to be interested in sex and retention could take you to new sexual frontiers.

Being a newbie, my plan is to continue on the basics. Right now my morning ritual is comprised of a set of a half dozen or so yoga postures, PC muscle toning based on vajroli, a root block, sitting meditation and reading a chapter of the Tao Te Ching. So far from the info gathered from the bums here, I've re-aligned my yoga postures after checking out the link to the Yin Yoga site a month or so back. I'm really happy with the flow of the postures. I'm just coming up to 100 days of meditating. Most of my info and imput on meditating has come from sources other than taobums (tribe.net mostly). Settling into a sitting posture. The addition of a mantra or sound has started to manifest itself in my thoughts. So far the OM sound has surfaced during my meditation. This really changed my breathing pattern and showed me that there are still deeper places in me to be discovered. I don't read much here about the Tao Te Ching, but I find the words resonating with me more each day. In the evenings or whenever the mood is right, I solo cultivate and am becoming familiar with the MCO. From all the accounts on here I haven't experienced a full fledged chi orgasm, but am feeling the energy moving around. In the meantime the journey is the destination, and all of the associated pleasureable sensations are delicious I just ordered Yudelove's book in hopes of getting deeper into the MCO, healing sounds and the inner smile. Do want to thank all of the tao bums; going through the archived posts and lurking have been very helpful. Any ideas or comments on my practice are welcome.