松永道

I see "Backwater" is perhaps an inappropriately charged word but this is the historical view that China and India held towards Tibet. Into the 6th and 7th century Tibet had yet to develop a written language. It still used primitive agriculture techniques and had relatively poor medical knowledge. It's was (and still is) a hard life, limited population, and allows less time for other pursuits above surviving. Compare this to China's and India's huge developed civilizations at the time. I'm not saying "uncivilized" is bad, only that little cultures are heavily influenced by big cultures, rarely the other way around. Though any exchange will influence both cultures in some way. Pre-language Bon was a local oral tradition. How can you date an oral tradition? Every culture on earth had/has an oral tradition. And you may as well say every oral tradition dates back to the dawn of man. Oral traditions are living things, always changing, interacting, and diverging. Only writing has the power to carve culture dead into a stone tablet.

Can someone start a topic on scanning? What it is, how to learn, etc. Apparently I've been doing it to people without intending or being away of it for some time. At an NQA conference one of the presenters called me out on it. "You just scanned me." "I just what?" I don't want to be doing this to just anyone and everyone if its so invasive. I figure the best way would be to learn how and thereby learn how not to.

Unfortunately there were 20+ casualties as far north as Xi'an, my city. The earth rocked quite a bit up here, buildings cracked, but nothing came crashing down. The people who died, died of fright, height, or both. Some elderly from shock. Some workers fell. Others on a high floor jumped out the window. ...

Even if Seamm Jasani is a real system and not simply invented by the author and only expert in the western world, this is still a silly conclusion. Tibet has always been the backwater boarder between India and China. Thats not to say there haven't been wonderful cultivators in Tibet but that Tibet's cultivation systems owe greatly to China and India and not the other way around. Besides, shamanic dancing was the origin of it all. And as far as I know that's an activity that stretches back into history as long as homosapien.

That was the sunshine of my morning! I haven't made up my mind on this whole thing... should it become convenient perhaps I'll pursue Chinese sources to see what people have to say over here about Master Wang's Italian Tudi.

To interact with masters you don't need to be fluent. But to really learn you do. Not to mention you absolutely can't work as a competent anthropologist without knowing the language! Wow. That's inexcusable. Thanks for the investigative reporting Gamuret.

Seriously??

If this is indeed true then accorded to his own belief system he's piling on more karma to overcome.

I'm not justifying David here but charging a "finder's fee" is a pretty standard business practice. What would be unethical is if he didn't tell his masters that he was charging these people to meet them. If his masters were ok with it, I don't see the problem, not in business terms anyway. The argument that he didn't work for it is absurd. There are many ways to make money, not all of them involve getting a 9 to 5 job. He learned Chinese, built these connections, and presumably practices many hours of qigong a day (which is harder than a majority of jobs out there). So, he's selling his experience just like anyone else. That's the way our economy works for better or worse And now on a more whimsical note, the character Jing (精) or essence is composed of Mi (米) rice and Qing (青) green. The traditional character for Qi (气) is air or steam over Mi (米) rice. In neidan (内丹) practice you transform Jing (精) to Qi (气), then Qi (气) to Shen (神). In David's practice, you'll be eating rice (米) for a while after transforming your hard earned greenbacks (青) into Qi. So same thing right!

I know that Liping teaches a pretty large seminar every summer, this last summer was down in Hainan. He teaches a lot of things but I suppose you could say the main thing he teaches is neidan cultivation from the Longmen Pai lineage. No idea if he's officially recognized, however he is held in high regard by many Chinese cultivators. There are of course higher level folks out there, hidden away, but Wang Liping has chosen to make himself accessible, relatively speaking. From my understanding he lives pretty simply. You can find a picture on the internet, he looks like a normal guy. By the way, I'm not one of David's students and never plan to pay for study with him. There are other routes. Though paying for it perhaps requires less luck.

Sean, You have nothing to gain from posting on your teacher David and Wang Liping. You have your proof. So who do you need to prove it to, right? I study Longmen Pai neigong (along with Chinese medicine and Taijiquan) here in China with one of Master Wang's students. I haven't met the man himself, but from his students' actions and words I believe he is a quality cultivator with real ability. I hope to meet him someday. Indeed it will come down to yuanfen (缘分), or affinity as you say. In the mean time, I enjoy hearing about your experiences, it helps me develop a larger picture for my study. Be well.

I would categorize knowledge like this: 1. What you've received second hand. Knowledge you've heard, read, etc 2. What you've thought about. Knowledge you've incorporated into a logical framework for understanding. The type you can "say in your own words", critically analyze, dissect, and synthesize. 3. What you've experienced. Knowledge you know personally through first hand experience. Even the knowledge of our world's wisdom traditions (not just Taoism and Buddhism but also Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and countless other smaller traditions), even this great knowledge is empty words. At this, the first level, meaning doesn't even come into play. It's just following, regurgitating. Brainless. Don't mistakenly believe Christianity and Islam own exclusive rights to blind fundamentalist idiocy.

Gongfu or Doufu? Just watched it. And unlike chou doufu (smelly tofu) which stinks from far away but tastes great, this movie stnks if you try to ingest it. Some cool qigong special effects but overall a real stinker.

Hey what's your idea on the pulsating adam's apple? I've taken your advice on making full-lotus a habitual activity (my teacher seconded your idea). However, I do not sit in lotus for upwards of an hour after eating, I feel the impeded blood flow may not be a good thing for distributing nourishment. No "O's at a D" yet but the bliss energy is building.

Yang Jwing-Ming's "Embryonic Breathing" is pretty great. I can't speak of the man's cultivation practice, he certainly differs from the Dragon Gate party line on some issues. However, he's a genuine scholar and has dug up a number of texts on the subject of normal and reverse abdominal breathing. Best of all he includes the original Chinese, his translation, and then his interpretation. The original Chinese characters is the real gem, a hard find in English books. I'm not sure he discusses the output of power as such. But if you practice, you will realize the direct connection between sitting reverse-breathing practice and martial power. It's obvious why this practice is the foundation of internal martial arts. "吸气过脐下，呼气不出心"

Admittedly I've got limited access. Aside from WIE, what I've found on the internet, and what I read of his before I moved to China, I haven't read much. And I haven't had the chance to read a single book of his in it's entirety. I'm open though. Like I said, my impression is he is a real smart guy. And perhaps I've unfairly lumped him with Andrew Cohen & Co. If you can recommend anything that's strait Wilber please don't hesitate. Nothing at all wrong with a great intellect.. as long as you're in control of it. A strong and focused mind that can be turned on and off at will is an aim of my spiritual practice.

Ken Wilber is very intelligent. And I mean that in the worst possible way. Har har. Remember the sage is simple. That said, I respect the man as an philosopher and academic. But these are aspects of a developed 5th and 6th chakra; enlightenment blossoms from the 7th. Weaving evolution and spirituality into an integrated philosophy is a great idea. Evolution is a natural pattern. As above, so below. However, he, Andrew Cohen, Peter Ragnar, and that whole cadre of enlightenment entrepreneurs just... well... don't seem entirely suited to answer "What is Enlightenment?" (the name of their publication). Though they are all very clever.

If you have proof, you have nothing to prove. If there is an absolute reality, we, limited things, can't know it. So we have subjective reality, formed by personal experience, ordered by logic. Necessarily everyone's a little different. Some people are very different. The difference is in experience. Skepticism is honest. Belief cheats the believer.

In my opinion belief doesn't need to enter the equation. Experience verifies. Until then be an open-minded skeptic. It's important to make hypotheses about the world but don't deceive yourself. If you don't know, you don't know. There's nothing more dangerous and insane than a believer without proof. That goes for deniers too. Dogma doesn't spare the skeptics. You can't prove non-existence. Any intelligent person knows science is a theory. As St. Augustine said, "Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature." Don't have faith in a fantasy, remain open-minded to a possibility.

Darin, No worries. You're on your way to where you should be going. Failure is the mother of success. So what went wrong? I don't know. I don't know you. I'll give my impression though. You've studied from a book and known the course of things from the get go. From my humble and limited experience this is a dangerous starting place. If you know what's coming an eager mind can manufacture the phenomenon. This is where having a teacher is priceless, you don't know the path, you discover it, and your teacher guides you along. I don't know if this is your situation, maybe you do, ask yourself honestly: could these achievements have been in your mind? In any case, you must have developed incredible will, a quiet mind, an one-pointed concentration. You can't be far off. Back on the horse then!

Huangshan and Huashan are two different mountains. 黄山 = Yellow Mountain 华山 = Flower Mountain

My way wasn't fast, but I was unable to do half lotus when I started meditating. I simply sat cross legged for increasing amounts of time. Then as soon as I could half lotus I cut that time in half and sat in half lotus. Then as my time increased in half lotus, my hips opened enough to get into full lotus. For me the whole process took about a year of daily (1-2x) meditation. Meditating though the pain is an important part of the process. But you need to understand the difference between karmic pain and body wrecking pain. If you are relaxed and the pain starts up, that's karmic pain. If you are breaking your knee to try and wedge yourself into full lotus, that's body wrecking pain. Sit cross-legged and half lotus with proper posture for at least an hour to burn through enough karmic pain to get into lotus.

I've always done my lotus meditation on a flat but cushioned surface. It is more difficult than on a 2-3" cushion, but I always assumed this is part of the process to obtain correct posture. It seems as my meditation position gongfu improves I can sit lower without discomfort. However, my meditation to this point has been focused on awareness, burning stagnant qi/karma, cessation of discriminating thoughts, and building the lower dantian, not so much on trance-states, OBE or other more spiritually engaged activities. Perhaps a 2-3" cushion would be helpful for going deeper. Or maybe sitting flat will ultimately open the body more. I don't know. Perhaps regulating an engaged core is one of the peculiarities of Daoist meditative gongfu with it's great emphasis on building a strong lower dantian. But I'll give sitting 2-3" up a shot next time, maybe there's something to it.

I think it's important to stress when your cultivation reaches this point. To drastically reduce how much you eat before you're ready will just make you thin, weak, and disturb your mind. I made this mistake before I was ready and though it gave me quick progress in some aspects it may have done more harm in the long run. First establish your Jing. Then transform Jing to Qi. That means achieving good shape and proper nutrition. After you do so your body will let you know when the time is right. What I've done is listen to the body's appetite, not the mouth. The mouth eats for pleasure, stimulation, addiction, but the body eats for nutrition. Before and when you're eating feel the body and you wont eat too much, too little, or improperly. The body knows just what it needs. satyagraha, how long under Max's system did it take for your skull to transform? In Buddhist, Daoist, Zen practice this is pretty high level. That is, when the skull transforms the yang spirit can leave the body. This is not your average OBE (yin spirit travel) but rather a form a spirit travel that you can use to manifest a real physical projection. I'm told the process is very painful and the result of many years of dedicated practice. It happens after the kundalini rises up and basically pushes out the top of our head. If this is indeed the same transformation I'm very interested to hear more.