松永道

Good call. I also think you can't begin real neigong practice until you can empty your mind for at least two hours (usually this turns into three or four hours of sitting because because you have to get in and get out properly), until then stray thoughts consume and scatter qi. Interestingly enough, I've learned a lot about letting go through first using force. For example we can examine this natural phenomenon: flex a muscle very tightly, then let it relax. Now, unless you got a cramp, the muscle is now more relaxed than before you flexed it. If your muscle was very tight to begin with, flexing will produce less net force than if the muscle body were completely relaxed. It is this natural pattern that allows Ming Gong to benefit Xin Gong and Xin Gong to benefit Ming Gong. Practice of changing between the extremes makes each fuller. I Ching, right on. My name is Song Yongdao by the way, I have it on my name tag below there. Nice to meet you.

How does an energy practice not work with mind? The energy body is part of the whole body. I think it's an artificial distinction. To build energy or build muscle, is there really such a difference? I exercise physically to run farther, to move faster, to jump higher, to hit harder. I exercise energetically to live longer, to increase immune function, to expand my senses. Is building strong muscles more natural than building strong meridians? I've read in some hunter gatherer societies seeing auras is completely commonplace. It's the fault of energy-hog minds that we don't. But we can. Is it unnatural to practice that which will return you to a natural state? It's an honest question. Bodri is basically saying don't force it. Good advice. However it depends on the individual. Some people should force it to get started. Hell, meditation itself is a forced practice. I've noticed my forced practice of Taiji has greatly benefited my unforced spontaneous qigong. Life is an interplay of forced and unforced. Doggedly avoid either one and you will stagnate. I understand your question by my answer is paradoxically both. Bodri's right and wrong. Identifying with a lineage can be helpful at one point and harmful the next. How paradoxical is enlightenment? To live to transcend life. There is no inherent conflict between enlightenment and energetic practice, they can mutually benefit or mutually hinder one another. It depends on you. P.S. As the story goes Bodhidharma taught muscle tendon changing, a Ming Gong practice.

From my understanding, Daoist cultivation is divided into two main categories: Xin Gong and Ming Gong. Xin Gong (心功) leads to the enlightenment of the heart/mind/Shen. Ming Gong (命功) leads to longevity, power, etc. So from my perspective it seems Buddhism emphasizes Xin Gong and Daoism emphasizes Ming Gong, however any complete path must include both. Xin Gong will make you a better person (really, see the movie "Doing Time, Doing Vipassana" a documentary on Buddhist meditation really reforming criminals) and ultimately it's the Yin of Xin Gong that will allow you to transcend attachment and reach enlightenment. Ming Gong will make you strong and healthy, but there are plenty of bad-hearted folks out there who have, do, and will continue to use it wrongly. I agree with Bodri, but only in part. Xin Gong is very important but to emphasize only Xin Gong is to fall into the same trap that Chinese Buddhists did before the arrival of Bodhidharma. A weak body, poor Jing, can severely hamper meditation. Bodri is wrong that meditation alone will build the body. Yin, yang, yin, yang, it's a cycle. Very yang soil is the perfect home for a yin seed and vice versa. This is the dual practice of Xin Gong and Ming Gong. Can you climb the stairs of a ten story building without passing through an odd numbered floor? Either practice will plateau without the other. This is why we have yoga, taiji, etc, it's all yang used to develop yin. Ming used to develop Xin. I'll tell ya, I don't see any great accomplishment in "detaching" from something you can't have. I call that giving up. Money, power, the energetic abilities, if you can acquire and then transcend these things, now that's an accomplishment. Doctor's develop their minds for a specific function, athletes develop their bodies for a specific function, Ming Gong and energy practices are no different. The more thoroughly you can participate in life, the more you have to transcend. (Master Nan, by the way, is regarded as a scholar in China but not an enlightened master. He may deliberately downplay this or he may not be the celestial master Bodri claims. Or maybe the monks I talked to just didn't like him very much.)

Of course I would like to hear your take on leakage, the more information the merrier. My notion is make the info available and let the individual sort out what works. Better yet, get a good teacher to help. And no, I don't live in Dalian, maybe someday as I like the Chinese Northeast, but Xi'an is my home for now. I haven't met WLP, and aside from David's people I don't know how many foreigners have studied with him. And honestly I don't know what to make of the whole David thing. I do know WLP basically just charged overhead at his seminar in Hainan this last summer. I also know he's far from rich. That said, I would love to get one of David's students on the line and get some details. I think we share a similar skepticism of what we haven't experienced personally. And wow there are a lot of stories over here that are pretty hard to swallow. Things like blind faith never really worked for me. I need the experience. So I'll believe it when I see it. But in the mean time, I have a great deal of trust and respect for my teacher, I can also see for myself that he has manifested real ability, so when he vouches for a guy that means a lot to me. Are you really going to make me ferret out the info on your teacher just to sate my unenlightened curiosity?

Wang Liping is the main lineage transmitter for Longmen Pai. This is the daoism Lu Dongbin pioneered and many sincere cultivators gave their lives to test and perfect. That's not to say it's the only branch of daoism, there are plenty, but it is a big branch. So why not share the information? I'd rather not see a sincere student like mantis screw himself into a hole it will take years to dig out of. So what's this market you refer to? I don't see Wang Liping turning a profit. My teacher doesn't charge me and his teachers didn't charge him. Big market huh? He's not exactly prostheletizing. I'd like to understand you Proc, it's hard to do through words, but perhaps you could give us an introduction. I recall you have studied Chen style taijiquan. What else? Translated books? Here's an opportunity, please, liberate the Tao Bum market from the vicious grip of that dastardly WLP! Who is your esteemed teacher? What is his core of expertise?

Hey Adam, what's your verdict on "Insider's Guide"? Coincidentally I was just having a conversation with a Daoist the other day and mentioned Nan Huaijin, Bodri's master. Apparently he's well regarded as a scholar over here but not regarded as a meditation master. Of course, he may downplay that aspect as China is still a bit weary of "masters".

In vipassana meditation, the Buddha's meditation which is all about awareness of things as they are, they tell you to explore the tension in depth. To feel ever nuance of its texture and develop a very clear sensory image of whats going on. By bringing awareness to it, you change it, and so you also try to sense it completely as possible in its changing state. A moving image. If you can stay concentrated, clear, and unattached you will get to the root and resolve the issue. The problem is, if you get attached to getting rid of it, that's a form of resistance that just ends of feeding it or tension in another area of the body. So they recommend moving on every five minutes or so. Feel other parts of your body. The nice flowing areas. Explore through the whole sensory field and then return to give the tension another round. Sometimes getting deep into it is the right medicine and sometimes, as Ian suggests, you got to go elsewhere. Don't you love yin and yang? The answer is always both!

He works as a Chinese Medicine doctor. His teachings are from Longmen Pai (龙门派). Aside from Wang Li Ping (王力平) I'm not sure his teachers names would mean much to you. If you'd like to learn more and your Chinese is up to snuff, check out 《钟吕传道集注译-灵宝毕法注译》 this book is by Shen Zhigang (沈志刚）, one of Master Wang's senior students. It does a pretty good job of explaining the Longmen Pai system, though you'd still certainly need a teacher to practice it. I don't claim any mastery of the system. I'm simply relating that yesterday we had a discussion about building Jing. I mentioned what I know about building Jing to be eating well, practicing gongfu that builds the body, living on a natural routine, and not ejaculating. For the "not ejaculating" part he let me know that I still didn't really understand Jing. I said in America many people practiced retention for their neigong. He shook his head and basically said, that practice doesn't start until much later. Of course you don't want to over do ejaculation, but you also don't want to under do it. For a practitioner my age, 26, it's unnatural until I reach a specific level of cultivation. And even then, it's a practice you undertake for a period of time to achieve something. This is the practice of the Dao. It's about being natural and about changing. There are no static rules that you follow through the whole course of cultivation. Any universal imperative will lead to ruin. The Taijitu is all about motion. From a state of yin you practice yang. But if you continue to practice just yang yang yang, you will stagnate. From a state of yang you practice yin. This keeps the taiji of your cultivation in motion.

I asked my teacher today about retention. He said it's crazy to start too soon, too young, or without an accompanying practice that is designed to be used with it. Retention is not part of neigong's foundation. It is used for specific cultivation and for old men! The more time I spend in China, the more I'm realizing some of the notions I learned in the states are bent waaay out of proportion. Before I came I would hear the way a masters lived and then say, AH! OK! So that's the rule to live by! And it's just crazy. There are no absolute rules. You practice different things at different stages. You can't rush this stuff. Fast is slow, slow is fast. It takes a whole lot longer to clean up a mess than it does to make it. Ditto Re-tension.

There's a tradition of "emotional healers" up in Harbin that have mapped out the entire body emotionally. I have a professor working on the translation now, sadly I don't have the books (they are pretty hard to come by) so I can't give any insight. However, I agree with everyone else, tuning in is the way to go. Pain in the body is a cry out to you. Most people try to muffle pain through exercise, television, even meditation to focus the mind on something else. And these approaches to give temporary relief. But the enlightened approach is to face it head on and find out why your body is crying. Mind/ego, the bully it can be, is certainly the culprit, but you've got to ask the body which of the mind's many false constructs is responsible. Despite myself I make this sound like an intellectual thing. It certainly isn't. When you tune in and eventually reconcile your tension you may or may not find out what you were doing wrong. But if you do get that insight, by all means, please share. Good luck.

Those who know don't speak, those who speak don't know. That said, I'm clearly part of the second category. Even the Buddha didn't describe enlightenment, he described the path to enlightenment. Enlightenment, non-duality, union, these are necessarily beyond words. Why? Words define, separate, and then you're back to duality. On muddy water: there's a lot of talk in Buddhism and Daoism about attaining a state of mindless attention. Mind being ego chatter and attention being consciousness. In vipassana meditation (the meditation Buddha developed) the mind chatter stops and you, the observer, strive to increase awareness. To be aware of every small detail in the entire field of awareness. To observe with ever increasing clarity. This is mindless, but not muddy. It is completely different than "dead sitting", letting the mind turn to mush, or going on ego fantasy escapades. Muddy mush or pretty pictures, both consume the light of awareness. Enlightenment is awareness of and connection to everything without attachment to anything. I'd choose enlightenment any day of the week precisely because everyone will be there.

This is probably jumping the gun a bit, but where will the Europe workshops take place?

As you run, you become like him. This is a view of hunting I've never encountered before. It's very respectful, beautiful even. I can't remember the last time I admired the flesh I ate. Not that there's much to admire in lumbering cow or caged chicken. Still with admiration comes gratitude and I'm even short on that. Beautiful story. It's a lifestyle fast disappearing. I wonder how we could live with so much dignity.

意 (yi) is not kidney energy. The Huangdi Neijing describes Yi and the spirit of the spleen. The character, interestingly enough, is 音(Yin) which means sound over 心(Xin) which means heart or mind. Yi is the noise of the mind, or in western terms Ego. Yi, the spirit of the spleen, is stored in the kidneys by the 志(Zhi) which means both will and memory. This is what I believe the Daodejing refers to as watching the myriad of things arise, fall, and return to their origin. The pictures and sounds of the ego, when not given the attention of 神(Shen) consciousness, will all rise, fall, and return to their origin in the mingmen/kidneys/lower dantian (these aren't the same but they are all connected). When the Yi is has settled, so goes the need to eat (remember Yi is the spirit energy of the spleen) and also so goes the obstacle it created between the Jing and Shen. Then let the summer of love begin! You're right on with the Taijitu.

My teacher has never asked for money, though I have given it. When I started studying with him I was embarrassed by this imbalance I perceived in our relationship so I asked, "what can I do to repay you?" He said the best payment would be to study well and master what I learn. This is the compensation for a real teacher. Now he works as a doctor and is not having financial troubles so that eliminates the "overhead." It makes perfect sense that a teacher must charge for this. But I'm still not sure what to think of turning teaching into a livelihood. In the past, full time teachers were supported by their students as a family would support their elders, however this was still a different paradigm. Students weren't buying the teaching, they were supporting their teacher. And they gave generously within their means, the rich gave more and the poor gave less. I'm not sure what to think of capitalist cultivation. It all seems so impersonal.

Mute issue, kids don't really wear diapers in China. Here in Xi'an kids all wear split pants that open up in the crotch. That way they can take a squat whenever. My respect to the army of street sweepers.

So you live in Beijing now? Awesome. I'm out in Xi'an. I started internal martial arts through the other way: meditation. I first loved meditation, then qigong, and only here in China is my Taiji becoming Taijiquan. I'm realizing that you can learn a lot about yourself through learning how to fight. "With great power comes great responsibility!" I'm in the minority who develops power to develop responsibility. The power, I sincerely hope I never use to hurt anyone. But as my teacher once said you need to know how to hurt someone before you can learn how not to. Drop me a line if you come out to the older, better capital of China!

Awesome, I can't get to the wiki due to the great firewall here in China, but your pinyin showed me the way. 南怀瑾 Nan Huai-jin in simplified Chinese. Thanks!

On the earthly level for health, power, vigor, and otherwise feeling good. On the human level for defense, strategy, and confidence. In combat and conversation, learning to not confront force head on, when to yield, neutralize, redirect, or push. My teacher also applies these principles in his medical practice. On the heavenly level for enlightenment. I'm not sure that gongfu alone would lead to enlightenment but it complements neigong and meditation.

Please let me know what you think afterwards. Also, does anyone know the Chinese characters for Bordri's master Nan-hua Ching? I assume the pinyin is Qing Nanhua or Jing Nanhua. I'd like to check out one of his books.

Do studies of physics, biology, and psychology count as a spiritual system? I don't consider myself a Daoist, Buddhist or member on any religion at all. Yet, I see great philosophies underpinning every one of them. And Daoist philosophy strikes me as particularly scientific. Like St. Augustine said, "Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature." It's an interesting thing in the West, that science has become a religion in some of the worst ways. The tell us what's real, what isn't, and people start listening to popular science over their own personal experience. Like priests are regular folk's link to God, scientists are regular folk's link to the universe. More dangerous still are the rigid, dogmatic views many 'experts' harbor. It seems they've confused theory for fact. The new clergy in lab jackets. I can't speak for other generations, but the rise of religious fundamentalism in the States drove a lot of us to atheism (which is equally close minded) or agnosticism. Any system that can give a little more insight, Buddhist, Daoist, Yogic, Sufi, is a good draw for hopeful agnostics. After that, it seems a matter of personality finding which one works best for you.

I was awake. Then I fell asleep. Woke up again and stayed in bed for a while. Now I'm out of bed but still daydreaming. How do you account for all us ~26 year olds Syn? Post college existential crisis gone chronic?

Has anyone read his "Insider's Guide to the World's Best and Worst Spiritual Paths and Practices"? He doesn't seem to have a very good opinion of qigong. That seeking anything is antithetical to enlightenment practice. I've asked myself the same question. Still my conclusion, for now, is get in excellent physical shape, then on to serious enlightenment practice.

I don't know about Daoism, but South Dakota is potentially the best place to find Native American wisdom traditions. Just an idea. Going to China isn't as hard as you might think. I know a guy with only a high school diploma who teaches English at an elementary school here. Some Chinese colleges are also looking to become more international and love taking foreign applicants. Though, once you get here finding a good teacher still isn't easy. The parks are full of so-so teachers. You can shell out a lot of money to Wudang or Shaolin but odds are slim you'll ever learn any real neigong that way. There's another poster at Dao Bums, 林道彧, who I believe has lived in the monasteries, that's not an easy option though. Then there are the adepts who live in the city, and it's hard to find them them unless they want to find you. In either case, 18 means you should have a long life to go. No need for worries or rushing. Fast is slow, slow is fast. You can still lay a foundation in the mean time. Foundational exercises are simple but will take you right to the end. Sit and follow the breath. Practice wuwei standing. Until you master the basics, the basics are all a master would teach you anyway.